US HISTORY II HELP!

Woodrow Wilson, from The New Freedom (1913)Eugene V. Debs, “The Outlook for Socialism in the United States” (1900)Herbert Croly, Progressive Democracy (1914)Theodore Roosevelt, from The New Nationalism (1910)

 

read articles and write a three page essay answering the questions below.

 

Compare these views on America and its desired future. Rate these authors by the radicalism expressed in these documents. What common themes do they share? Where are they significantly different? Which vision is the closest to the way America developed over the next several decades?

Eugene V. Debs, “The Outlook for Socialism in the United States”
(1900)

The sun of the passing century is setting upon scenes of extraordinary
activity in almost every part of our capitalistic old planet. Wars and rumors
of wars are of universal prevalence. In the Philippines our soldiers are
civilizing and Christianizing the natives in the latest and most approved
styles of the art, and at prices ($13 per month) which commend the blessing to
the prayerful consideration of the lowly and oppressed everywhere. . . .
The picture, lurid as a chamber of horrors, becomes complete in its
gruesome ghastliness when robed ministers of Christ solemnly declare that it
is all for the glory of God and the advancement of Christian
civilization.
. . .

The campaign this year will be unusually spectacular. The Republican Party
“points with pride” to the “prosperity” of the country, the beneficent results
of the “gold standard” and the “war record” of the administration. The
Democratic Party declares that “imperialism” is the “paramount” issue, and
that the country is certain to go to the “demnition bow-wows” if Democratic
officeholders are not elected instead of the Republicans. The Democratic
slogan is “The Republic vs. the Empire,” accompanied in a very minor key by 16
to 1 and “direct legislation where practical.”
Both these capitalist parties are fiercely opposed to trusts, though what
they propose to do with them is not of sufficient importance to require even a
hint in their platforms.
Needless is it for me to say to the thinking workingman that he has no
choice between these two capitalist parties, that they are both pledged to the
same system and that whether the one or the other succeeds, he will still
remain the wage-working slave he is today.
What but meaningless phrases are “imperialism,” “expansion,” “free silver,”
“gold standard,” etc., to the wage worker? The large capitalists represented
by Mr. McKinley and the small capitalists represented by Mr. Bryan are
interested in these “issues,” but they do not concern the working class.
What the workingmen of the country are profoundly interested in is the
private ownership of the means of production and distribution, the enslaving
and degrading wage system in which they toil for a pittance at the pleasure of
their masters and are bludgeoned, jailed or shot when they protest–this is
the central, controlling, vital issue of the hour, and neither of the old
party platforms has a word or even a hint about it.
As a rule, large capitalists are Republicans and small capitalists are
Democrats, but workingmen must remember that they are all capitalists, and
that the many small ones, like the fewer large ones, are all politically
supporting their class interests, and this is always and everywhere the
capitalist class.
Whether the means of production–that is to say, the land, mines,
factories, machinery, etc.–are owned by a few large Republican capitalists,
who organize a trust, or whether they be owned by a lot of small Democratic
capitalists, who are opposed to the trust, is all the same to the working
class. Let the capitalists, large and small, fight this out among
themselves.
The working class must get rid of the whole brood of masters and
exploiters, and put themselves in possession and control of the means of
production, that they may have steady employment without consulting a
capitalist employer, large or small, and that they may get the wealth their
labor produces, all of it, and enjoy with their families the fruits of their
industry in comfortable and happy homes, abundant and wholesome food, proper
clothing and all other things necessary to “life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness.” It is therefore a question not of “reform,” the mask of fraud, but
of revolution. The capitalist system must be overthrown, class rule abolished
and wage slavery supplanted by cooperative industry.
We hear it frequently urged that the Democratic Party is the “poor man’s
party,” “the friend of labor.” There is but one way to relieve poverty and to
free labor, and that is by making common property of the tools of labor. . .
.
What has the Democratic Party to say about the “property and educational
qualifications” in North Carolina and Louisiana, and the proposed general
disfranchisement of the Negro race in the Southern states?
The differences between the Republican and Democratic parties involve no
issue, no principle in which the working class has any interest. . . .
Between these parties socialists have no choice, no preference. They are
one in their opposition to socialism, that is to say, the emancipation of the
working class from wage slavery, and every workingman who has intelligence
enough to understand the interest of his class and the nature of the struggle
in which it is involved will once and for all time sever his relations with
them both; and recognizing the class struggle which is being waged between
producing workers and nonproducing capitalists, cast his lot with the
class-conscious, revolutionary Socialist Party, which is pledged to abolish
the capitalist system, class rule and wage slavery–a party which does not
compromise or fuse, but, preserving inviolate the principles which quickened
it into life and now give it vitality and force, moves forward with dauntless
determination to the goal of economic freedom.
The political trend is steadily toward socialism. The old parties are held
together only by the cohesive power of spoils, and in spite of this they are
steadily disintegrating. Again and again they have been tried with the same
results, and thousands upon thousands, awake to their duplicity, are deserting
them and turning toward socialism as the only refuge and security.
Republicans, Democrats, Populists, Prohibitionists, Single Taxers are having
their eyes opened to the true nature of the struggle and they are beginning
to
Come as the winds come, when
Forests are rended;
Come as the waves
come, when
Navies are stranded.

For a time the Populist Party had a mission, but it is practically ended.
The Democratic Party has “fused” it out of existence. The “middle-of-the-road”
element will be sorely disappointed when the votes are counted, and they will
probably never figure in another national campaign. Not many of them will go
back to the old parties. Many of them have already come to socialism, and the
rest are sure to follow.
There is no longer any room for a Populist Party, and progressive Populists
realize it, and hence the “strongholds” of Populism are becoming the “hotbeds”
of Socialism.
It is simply a question of capitalism or socialism, of despotism or
democracy, and they who are not wholly with us are wholly against
us.

Herbert Croly, Progressive Democracy (1914)

[W]hile fully admitting that the transition may not be as abrupt as it
seems, we have apparently been witnessing during the past year or two the end
of one epoch and the beginning of another. A movement of public opinion, which
believes itself to be and calls itself essentially progressive, has become the
dominant formative influence in American political life.
The best evidence of the power of progressivism is the effect which its
advent has had upon the prestige and the fortunes of political leaders of both
parties. For the first time attractions and repulsions born of the progressive
idea, are determining lines of political association. Until recently a man who
wished actively and effectively to participate in political life had to be
either a Democrat or a Republican; but now, although Republicanism and
Democracy are still powerful political forces, the standing of a politician is
determined quite as much by his relation to the progressive movement. The line
of cleavage between progressives and non-progressives is fully as important as
that between Democrats and Republicans. Political leaders, who have deserved
well of their own party but who have offended the progressives, are retiring
or are being retired from public life. Precisely what the outcome will be, no
one can predict with any confidence; but one result seems tolerably certain.
If the classification of the great majority of American voters into Democrats
and Republicans is to endure, the significance of both Democracy and
Republicanism is bound to be profoundly modified by the new loyalties and the
new enmities created by the aggressive progressive intruder. . . .
[T]he complexion, and to a certain extent even the features, of the
American political countenance have profoundly altered. Political leaders
still pride themselves upon their conservatism, but candid conservatives, in
case they come from any other part of the country but the South, often pay for
their candor by their early retirement. Conservatism has come to imply
reaction. Its substantial utility is almost as much undervalued as that of
radicalism formerly was. The whole group of prevailing political values has
changed. Proposals for the regulation of public utility companies, which would
then have been condemned as examples of administrative autocracy, are now
accepted without serious public controversy. Plans of social legislation,
which formerly would have been considered culpably “paternal,” and, if passed
at the solicitation of the labor unions, would have been declared
unconstitutional by the courts, are now considered to be a normal and
necessary exercise of the police power. Proposed alterations in our political
mechanism, which would then have been appraised as utterly extravagant and
extremely dangerous, are now being placed on the headlines of political
programs and are being incorporated in state constitutions. In certain
important respects the radicals of 1904 do not differ in their practical
proposals from the conservatives of 1914. . . .
Thus by almost imperceptible degrees reform became insurgent and insurgency
progressive. For the first time in four generations American conservatism was
confronted by a pervasive progressivism, which began by being dangerously
indignant and ended by being far more dangerously inquisitive. Just resentment
is useful and indispensable while it lasts; but it cannot last long. If it is
to persist, it must be transformed into a thoroughgoing curiosity which will
not rest until it has discovered what the abuses mean, how they best can be
remedied, and how intimately they are associated with temples and doctrines of
the traditional political creed. The conservatives themselves have provoked
this curiosity, and they must abide by its results.
Just here lies the difference between modern progressivism and the old
reform. The former is coming to be remorselessly inquisitive and
unscrupulously thorough. The latter never knew any need of being either
inquisitive or thorough. The early political reformers confined their
attention to local or to special abuses. Civil service reform furnishes a good
example of their methods and their purposes. The spoils system was a very
grave evil, which was a fair object of assault; but it could not be
successfully attacked and really uprooted merely by placing subordinate public
officials under the protection of civil service laws and boards. Such laws and
boards might do something to prevent politicians from appropriating the minor
offices; but as long as the major offices were the gifts of the political
machines, and as long as no attempt was made to perfect expert administrative
organization as a necessary instrument of democracy, the agitation for civil
service reform remained fundamentally sterile. It was sterile, because it was
negative and timid, and because its supporters were content with their early
successes and did not grow with the growing needs of their own agitation. In
an analogous way the movement towards municipal reform attained a sufficient
following in certain places to be embarrassing to local political bosses; but
as long as it was a non-partisan movement for “good government” its successes
were fugitive and sterile. It did not become really effective until it became
frankly partisan, and associated good municipal government with all sorts of
changes in economic and political organization which might well be obnoxious
to many excellent citizens. In these and other cases the early political
reformers were not sufficiently thorough. They failed to carry their analysis
of the prevailing evils far or deep enough, and in their choice of remedies
they never got beyond the illusions that moral exhortation, legal prohibitions
and independent voting constituted a sufficient cure for American political
abuses. . . .
All this disconnected political and economic agitation had, however, a
value of which the agitators themselves were not wholly conscious. Not only
was the attitude of national self-satisfaction being broken down in spots, but
the ineffectiveness of these local, spasmodic and restricted agitations had
its effect on public opinion and prepared the way for a synthesis of the
various phases of reform. When the wave of political “muck-raking” broke over
the country, it provided a common bond, which tied reformers together. This
bond consisted at first of the indignation which was aroused by the process of
exposure; but it did not remain for long merely a feeling. As soon as public
opinion began to realize that business exploitation had been allied with
political corruption, and that the reformers were confronted, not by
disconnected abuses, but by a perverted system, the inevitable and salutary
inference began to be drawn. Just as business exploitation was allied with
political corruption, so business reorganization must be allied with political
reorganization. The old system must be confronted and superseded by a new
system–the result of an alert social intelligence as well as an aroused
individual conscience.

The New Nationalism (1910)

Theodore Roosevelt, from The New Nationalism (1910)

Practical equality of opportunity for all citizens, when we achieve it,
will have two great results. First, every man will have a fair chance to make
of himself all that in him lies; to reach the highest point to which his
capacities, unassisted by special privilege of his own and unhampered by the
special privilege of others, can carry him, and to get for himself and his
family substantially what he has earned. Second, equality of opportunity means
that the commonwealth will get from every citizen the highest service of which
he is capable. No man who carries the burden of the special privileges of
another can give to the commonwealth that service to which it is fairly
entitled. . . .
Now, this means that our government, national and state, must be freed from
the sinister influence or control of special interests. Exactly as the special
interests of cotton and slavery threatened our political integrity before the
Civil War, so now the great special business interests too often control and
corrupt the men and methods of government for their own profit. We must drive
the special interests out of politics. That is one of our tasks today. . . .

The true friend of property, the true conservative, is he who insists that
property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth; who
insists that the creature of man’s making shall be the servant and not the
master of the man who made it. The citizens of the United States must
effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have themselves
called into being. . . .
It has become entirely clear that we must have government supervision of
the capitalization, not only of the public service corporations, including,
particularly, railways, but of all corporations doing an interstate business.
I do not wish to see the nation forced into the ownership of the railways if
it can possibly be avoided, and the only alternative is thoroughgoing and
effective regulation, which shall be based on a full knowledge of all the
facts, including a physical valuation of property. . . .
Combinations in industry are the result of an imperative economic law which
cannot be repealed by political legislation. The effort at prohibiting all
combination has substantially failed. The way out lies, not in attempting to
prevent such combinations, but in completely controlling them in the interest
of the public welfare.

The New Freedom (1913)

Woodrow Wilson, from The New Freedom (1913)

The doctrine that monopoly is inevitable and that the only course open to
the people of the United States is to submit to and regulate it found a
champion during the campaign of 1912 in the new party or branch of the
Republican Party, founded under the leadership of Mr. Roosevelt, with the
conspicuous aid,–I mention him with no satirical intention, but merely to set
the facts down accurately,–of Mr. George W. Perkins, organizer of the Steel
Trust and the Harvester Trust, and with the support of patriotic,
conscientious and high-minded men and women of the land. The fact that its
acceptance of monopoly was a feature of the new party platform from which the
attention of the generous and just was diverted by the charm of a social
program of great attractiveness to all concerned for the amelioration of the
lot of those who suffer wrong and privation, and the further fact that, even
so, the platform was repudiated by the majority of the nation, render it no
less necessary to reflect on the party in the country’s history. It may be
useful, in order to relieve of the minds of many from an error of no small
magnitude, to consider now, the heat of a presidential contest being past,
exactly what it was that Mr. Roosevelt proposed.
Mr. Roosevelt attached to his platform some very splendid suggestions as to
noble enterprises which we ought to undertake for the uplift of the human
race; . . . If you have read the trust plank in that platform as often as I
have read it, you have found it very long, but very tolerant. It did not
anywhere condemn monopoly, except in words; its essential meaning was that the
trusts have been bad and must be made to be good. You know that Mr. Roosevelt
long ago classified trusts for us as good and bad, and he said that he was
afraid only of the bad ones. Now he does not desire that there should be any
more of the bad ones, but proposes that they should all be made good by
discipline, directly applied by a commission of executive appointment. All he
explicitly complains of is lack of publicity and lack of fairness; not the
exercise of power, for throughout that plank the power of the great
corporations is accepted as the inevitable consequence of the modern
organization of industry. All that it is proposed to do is to take them under
control and deregulation.
The fundamental part of such a program is that the trusts shall be
recognized as a permanent part of our economic order, and that the government
shall try to make trusts the ministers, the instruments, through which the
life of this country shall be justly and happily developed on its industrial
side. . . .
Shall we try to get the grip of monopoly away from our lives, or shall we
not? Shall we withhold our hand and say monopoly is inevitable, that all we
can do is to regulate it? Shall we say that all we can do is to put government
in competition with monopoly and try its strength against it? Shall we admit
that the creature of our own hands is stronger than we are? We have been
dreading all along the time when the combined power of high finance would be
greater than the power of the government.