Summary of Democracy and the World War
The astounding industrial progress that characterized the period following the Civil War bequeathed to the new generation many perplexing problems connected with the growth of trusts and railways,the accumulation of great fortunes,the increase of poverty in the industrial cities,the exhaustion of the free land,and the acquisition of dominions in distant seas.As long as there was an abundance of land in the West any able-bodied man with initiative and industry could become an independent farmer.People from the cities and immigrants from Europe had always before them that gateway to property and prosperity.When the land was all gone,American economic conditions inevitably became more like those of Europe.
Though the new economic questions had been vigorously debated in many circles before his day,it was President Roosevelt who first discussed them continuously from the White House.The natural resources of the country were being exhausted;he advocated their conservation.Huge fortunes were being made in business creating inequalities in opportunity;he favored reducing them by income and inheritance taxes.Industries were disturbed by strikes;he pressed arbitration upon capital and labor.The free land was gone;he declared that labor was in a less favorable position to bargain with capital and therefore should organize in unions for collective bargaining.There had been wrong-doing on the part of certain great trusts;those responsible should be punished.
The spirit of reform was abroad in the land.The spoils system was attacked.It was alleged that the political parties were dominated by "rings and bosses."The United States Senate was called "a millionaires'club."Poverty and misery were observed in the cities.State legislatures and city governments were accused of corruption.
In answer to the charges,remedies were proposed and adopted.Civil service reform was approved.The Australian ballot,popular election of Senators,the initiative,referendum,and recall,commission and city manager plans for cities,public regulation of railways,compensation for those injured in industries,minimum wages for women and children,pensions for widows,the control of housing in the cities-these and a hundred other reforms were adopted and tried out.The national watchword became:"America,Improve Thyself."
The spirit of reform broke into both political parties.It appeared in many statutes enacted by Congress under President Taft's leadership.It disrupted the Republicans temporarily in 1912when the Progressive party entered the field.It led the Democratic candidate in that year,Governor Wilson,to make a "progressive appeal"to the voters.It inspired a considerable program of national legislation under President Wilson's two administrations.
In the age of change,four important amendments to the federal constitution,the first in more than forty years,were adopted.The sixteenth empowered Congress to lay an income tax.The seventeenth assured popular election of Senators.The eighteenth made prohibition national.The nineteenth,following upon the adoption of woman suffrage in many states,enfranchised the women of the nation.
In the sphere of industry,equally great changes took place.The major portion of the nation's business passed into the hands of corporations.In all the leading industries of the country labor was organized into trade unions and federated in a national organization.The power of organized capital and organized labor loomed upon the horizon.Their struggles,their rights,and their place in the economy of the nation raised problems of the first magnitude.
