Although the temperance cause has been in progress for near twenty years, it is apparent to all that it is just now being crowned with a degree of success hitherto unparalleled.

The list of its friends is daily swelled by the additions of fifties, of hundreds, and of thousands. The cause itself seems suddenly transformed from a cold abstract theory to a living, breathing, active, and powerful chieftain, going forth 鈥渃onquering and to conquer.鈥�^[1] The citadels of his great adversary are daily being stormed and dismantled; his temple and his altars, where the rites of his idolatrous worship have long been performed, and where human sacrifices have long been wont to be made, are daily desecrated and deserted. The trump of the conqueror鈥檚 fame is sounding from hill to hill, from sea to sea, and from land to land, and calling millions to his standard at a blast.

For this new and splendid success, we heartily rejoice. That that success is so much greater now than heretofore, is doubtless owing to rational causes; and if we would have it continue, we shall do well to inquire what those causes are. The warfare heretofore waged against the demon of intemperance has, somehow or other, been erroneous. Either the champions engaged, or the tactics they adopted, have not been the most proper. These champions for the most part have been preachers, lawyers, and hired agents. Between these and the mass of mankind there is a want of approachability, if the term be admissible, partially at least, fatal to their success. They are supposed to have no sympathy of feeling or interest with those very persons whom it is their object to convince and persuade.

And again, it is so easy and so common to ascribe motives to men of these classes, other than those they profess to act upon. The preacher, it is said, advocates temperance because he is a fanatic, and desires a union of the church and state; the lawyer, from his pride and vanity of hearing himself speak; and the hired agent, for his salary. But when one, who has long been known as a victim of intemperance, bursts the fetters that have bound him, and appears before his neighbors 鈥渃lothed, and in his right mind,鈥�^[2] a redeemed specimen of long lost humanity, and stands up with tears of joy trembling in his eyes, to tell of the miseries once endured, now to be endured no more forever; of his once naked and starving children, now clad and fed comfortably; of a wife long weighed down with woe, weeping, and a broken heart, now restored to health, happiness, and renewed affection; and how easily it all is done, once it is resolved to be done; however simple his language, there is a logic, and an eloquence in it that few, with human feelings, can resist. They cannot say that he desires a union of church and state, for he is not a church member; they cannot say he is vain of hearing himself speak, for his whole demeanor shows he would gladly avoid speaking at all; they cannot say he speaks for pay, for he receives none, and asks for none. Nor can his sincerity in any way be doubted; or his sympathy for those he would persuade to imitate his example be denied.

In my judgment, it is to the battles of this new class of champions that our late success is greatly, perhaps chiefly, owing. But, had the old school champions themselves been of the most wise selecting, was their system of tactics the most judicious? It seems to me it was not. Too much denunciation against dram-sellers and dram-drinkers was indulged in. This, I think, was both impolitic and unjust. It was impolitic because it is not much in the nature of man to be driven to any thing; still less to be driven about that which is exclusively his own business; and least of all, where such driving is to be submitted to, at the expense of pecuniary interest, or burning appetite. When the dram-seller and drinker were incessantly told, not in the accents of entreaty and persuasion, diffidently addressed by erring man to an erring brother, but in the thundering tones of anathema and denunciation, with which the lordly Judge often groups together all the crimes of the felon鈥檚 life, and thrusts them in his face just ere he passes sentence of death upon him, that they were the authors of all the vice and misery and crime in the land; that they were the manufacturers and material of all the thieves and robbers and murderers that infested the earth; that their houses were the workshops of the devil; and that their persons should be shunned by all the good and virtuous, as moral pestilences鈥擨 say, when they were told all this, and in this way, it is not wonderful that they were slow, very slow, to acknowledge the truth of such denunciations, and to join the ranks of their denouncers in a hue and cry against themselves.

To have expected them to do otherwise than they did鈥攖o have expected them not to meet denunciation with denunciation, crimination with crimination, and anathema with anathema, was to expect a reversal of human nature, which is God鈥檚 decree, and never can be reversed. When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind, unassuming persuasion, should ever be adopted. It is an old and a true maxim 鈥渢hat a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.鈥� So with men. If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what he will, is the great high road to his reason, and which, when once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing his judgment of the justice of your cause, if indeed that cause really be a just one. On the contrary, assume to dictate to his judgment, or to command his action, or to mark him as one to be shunned and despised, and he will retreat within himself, close all the avenues to his head and his heart; and though your cause be naked truth itself, transformed to the heaviest lance, harder than steel, and sharper than steel can be made, and tho鈥� you throw it with more than Herculean force and precision, you shall no more be able to pierce him than to penetrate the hard shell of a tortoise with a rye straw.

Such is man, and so must he be understood by those who would lead him, even to his own best interest.

On this point, the Washingtonians greatly excel the temperance advocates of former times. Those whom they desire to convince and persuade are their old friends and companions. They know they are not demons, nor even the worst of men. They know that generally, they are kind, generous, and charitable, even beyond the example of their more staid and sober neighbors. They are practical philanthropists; and they glow with a generous and brotherly zeal that mere theorizers are incapable of feeling. Benevolence and charity possess their hearts entirely; and out of the abundance of their hearts, their tongues give utterance. 鈥淟ove through all their actions runs, and all their words are mild.鈥�^[3] In this spirit they speak and act, and in the same, they are heard and regarded. And when such is the temper of the advocate, and such of the audience, no good cause can be unsuccessful.

But I have said that denunciations against dram-sellers and dram-drinkers are unjust as well as impolitic. Let us see.

I have not inquired at what period of time the use of intoxicating drinks commenced; nor is it important to know.^[4] It is sufficient that to all of us who now inhabit the world, the practice of drinking them is just as old as the world itself鈥攖hat is, we have seen the one, just as long as we have seen the other. When all such of us, as have now reached the years of maturity, first opened our eyes upon the stage of existence, we found intoxicating liquor recognized by everybody, used by everybody, and repudiated by nobody. It commonly entered into the first draft of the infant and the last draft of the dying man. From the sideboard of the parson down to the ragged pocket of the houseless loafer, it was constantly found. Physicians prescribed it in this, that, and the other disease. Government provided it for soldiers and sailors; and to have a rolling or raising, a husking or hoe-down, anywhere about without it was positively insufferable.

So, too, it was everywhere a respectable article of manufacture and of merchandise. The making of it was regarded as an honorable livelihood; and he who could make most was the most enterprising and respectable. Large and small manufactories of it were everywhere erected, in which all the earthly goods of their owners were invested. Wagons drew it from town to town鈥攂oats bore it from clime to clime, and the winds wafted it from nation to nation; and merchants bought and sold it, by wholesale and retail, with precisely the same feelings on the part of the seller, buyer, and bystander as are felt at the selling and buying of flour, beef, bacon, or any other of the real necessaries of life. Universal public opinion not only tolerated but recognized and adopted its use.

It is true that even then, it was known and acknowledged, that many were greatly injured by it; but none seemed to think the injury arose from the use of a bad thing, but from the abuse of a very good thing. The victims of it were pitied and compassionated, just as now are the heirs of consumptions and other hereditary diseases. Their failing was treated as a misfortune, and not as a crime, or even as a disgrace.

If, then, what I have been saying be true, is it wonderful that some should think and act now as all thought and acted twenty years ago? And is it just to assail, contemn, or despise them, for doing so? The universal sense of mankind, on any subject, is an argument, or at least an influence not easily overcome. The success of the argument in favor of the existence of an over-ruling Providence, mainly depends upon that sense; and men ought not, in justice, to be denounced for yielding to it in any case, for giving it up slowly, especially where they are backed by interest, fixed habits, or burning appetites.

Another error, as it seems to me, into which the old reformers fell, was the position that all habitual drunkards were utterly incorrigible, and therefore, must be turned adrift, and damned without remedy, in order that the grace of temperance might abound to the temperate then, and to all mankind some hundred years thereafter. There is in this something so repugnant to humanity, so uncharitable, so cold-blooded and feelingless, that it never did, nor ever can enlist the enthusiasm of a popular cause. We could not love the man who taught it鈥攚e could not hear him with patience. The heart could not throw open its portals to it. The generous man could not adopt it. It could not mix with his blood. It looked so fiendishly selfish, so like throwing fathers and brothers overboard to lighten the boat for our security鈥攖hat the noble-minded shrank from the manifest meanness of the thing.

And besides this, the benefits of a reformation to be effected by such a system were too remote in point of time to warmly engage many in its behalf. Few can be induced to labor exclusively for posterity; and none will do it enthusiastically. Posterity has done nothing for us; and theorize on it as we may, practically we shall do very little for it, unless we are made to think, we are, at the same time, doing something for ourselves. What an ignorance of human nature does it exhibit, to ask or expect a whole community to rise up and labor for the temporal happiness of others, after themselves shall be consigned to the dust, a majority of which community take no pains whatever to secure their own eternal welfare, at a no greater distant day? Great distance, in either time or space, has wonderful power to lull and render quiescent the human mind. Pleasures to be enjoyed, or pains to be endured, after we shall be dead and gone, are but little regarded, even in our own cases, and much less in the cases of others.

Still, in addition to this, there is something so ludicrous in promises of good, or threats of evil, a great way off, as to render the whole subject with which they are connected easily turned into ridicule. 鈥淏etter lay down that spade you鈥檙e stealing, Paddy鈥攊f you don鈥檛 you鈥檒l pay for it at the day of judgment.鈥� 鈥淏y the powers, if ye鈥檒l credit me so long, I鈥檒l take another, jist.鈥�

By the Washingtonians, this system of consigning the habitual drunkard to hopeless ruin is repudiated. They adopt a more enlarged philanthropy. They go for present as well as future good. They labor for all now living, as well as all hereafter to live. They teach hope to all鈥攄espair to none. As applying to their cause, they deny the doctrine of unpardonable sin. As in Christianity it is taught, so in this they teach, that

While the lamp holds out to burn,
The vilest sinner may return.^[5]

And, what is a matter of most profound gratulation, they, by experiment upon experiment, and example upon example, prove the maxim to be no less true in the one case than in the other. On every hand we behold those who but yesterday were the chief of sinners, now the chief apostles of the cause. Drunken devils are cast out by ones, by sevens, and by legions; and their unfortunate victims, like the poor possessed, who was redeemed from his long and lonely wanderings in the tombs,^[6] are publishing to the ends of the earth, how great things have been done for them.

To these new champions, and this new system of tactics, our late success is mainly owing; and to them we must mainly look for the final consummation. The ball is now rolling gloriously on, and none are so able as they to increase its speed, and its bulk鈥攖o add to its momentum, and its magnitude. Even though unlearned in letters, for this task none are so well educated. To fit them for this work, they have been taught in the true school. They have been in that gulf, from which they would teach others the means of escape. They have passed that prison wall, which others have long declared impassable; and who that has not shall dare to weigh opinions with them, as to the mode of passing.

But if it be true, as I have insisted, that those who have suffered by intemperance personally, and have reformed, are the most powerful and efficient instruments to push the reformation to ultimate success, it does not follow that those who have not suffered, have no part left them to perform. Whether or not the world would be vastly benefitted by a total and final banishment from it of all intoxicating drinks, seems to me not now an open question. Three-fourths of mankind confess the affirmative with their tongues, and, I believe, all the rest acknowledge it in their hearts.

Ought any, then, to refuse their aid in doing what the good of the whole demands? Shall he who cannot do much, be for that reason excused if he do nothing? 鈥淏ut,鈥� says one, 鈥渨hat good can I do by signing the pledge? I never drink even without signing.鈥� This question has already been asked and answered more than millions of times. Let it be answered once more. For the man to suddenly, or in any other way, to break off from the use of drams, who has indulged in them for a long course of years, and until his appetite for them has become ten or a hundred-fold stronger, and more craving, than any natural appetite can be, requires a most powerful moral effort. In such an undertaking, he needs every moral support and influence that can possibly be brought to his aid and thrown around him. And not only so; but every moral prop should be taken from whatever argument might rise in his mind to lure him to his backsliding. When he casts his eyes around him, he should be able to see all that he respects, all that he admires, and all that [he?] loves, kindly and anxiously pointing him onward; and none beckoning him back, to his former miserable 鈥渨allowing in the mire.鈥�^[7]

But it is said by some, that men will think and act for themselves; that none will disuse spirits or anything else, merely because his neighbors do; and that moral influence is not that powerful engine contended for. Let us examine this. Let me ask the man who could maintain this position most stiffly, what compensation he will accept to go to church some Sunday and sit during the sermon with his wife鈥檚 bonnet upon his head? Not a trifle, I鈥檒l venture. And why not? There would be nothing irreligious in it: nothing immoral, nothing uncomfortable. Then why not? Is it not because there would be something egregiously unfashionable in it? Then it is the influence of fashion; and what is the influence of fashion, but the influence that other people鈥檚 actions have on our own actions, the strong inclination each of us feels to do as we see all our neighbors do? Nor is the influence of fashion confined to any particular thing or class of things. It is just as strong on one subject as another. Let us make it as unfashionable to withhold our names from the temperance cause as for husbands to wear their wives鈥� bonnets to church, and instances will be just as rare in the one case as the other.

鈥淏ut,鈥� say some, 鈥渨e are no drunkards; and we shall not acknowledge ourselves such by joining a reformed drunkard鈥檚 society, whatever our influence might be.鈥� Surely no Christian will adhere to this objection. If they believe, as they profess, that Omnipotence condescended to take on himself the form of sinful man, and, as such, to die an ignominious death for their sakes, surely they will not refuse submission to the infinitely lesser condescension, for the temporal, and perhaps eternal salvation, of a large, erring, and unfortunate class of their own fellow creatures. Nor is the condescension very great.

In my judgment, such of us as have never fallen victims, have been spared more from the absence of appetite than from any mental or moral superiority over those who have. Indeed, I believe, if we take habitual drunkards as a class, their heads and their hearts will bear an advantageous comparison with those of any other class. There seems ever to have been a proneness in the brilliant and warm-blooded to fall into this vice. The demon of intemperance ever seems to have delighted in sucking the blood of genius and of generosity. What one of us but can call to mind some dear relative, more promising in youth than all his fellows, who has fallen a sacrifice to his rapacity? He ever seems to have gone forth, like the Egyptian angel of death, commissioned to slay if not the first, the fairest born of every family. Shall he now be arrested in his desolating career? In that arrest, all can give aid that will; and who shall be excused that can, and will not? Far around as human breath has ever blown, he keeps our fathers, our brothers, our sons, and our friends prostrate in the chains of moral death. To all the living everywhere we cry, 鈥淐ome sound the moral resurrection trump, that these may rise and stand up, an exceeding great army鈥濃�斺�淐ome from the four winds, O breath! and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.鈥�^[8]

If the relative grandeur of revolutions shall be estimated by the great amount of human misery they alleviate, and the small amount they inflict, then indeed, will this be the grandest the world shall ever have seen. Of our political revolution of 鈥�76 we all are justly proud. It has given us a degree of political freedom far exceeding that of any other nation of the earth. In it the world has found a solution of the long mooted problem as to the capability of man to govern himself. In it was the germ which has vegetated, and still is to grow and expand into the universal liberty of mankind.

But with all these glorious results, past, present, and to come, it had its evils too. It breathed forth famine, swam in blood, and rode in fire; and long, long after, the orphan鈥檚 cry, and the widow鈥檚 wail, continued to break the sad silence that ensued. These were the price, the inevitable price, paid for the blessings it bought.

Turn now to the temperance revolution. In it, we shall find a stronger bondage broken; a viler slavery, manumitted; a greater tyrant deposed. In it, more of want supplied, more disease healed, more sorrow assuaged. By it no orphans starving, no widows weeping. By it, none wounded in feeling, none injured in interest. Even the dram-maker and dram-seller will have glided into other occupations so gradually, as never to have felt the change; and will stand ready to join all others in the universal song of gladness.

And what a noble ally this, to the cause of political freedom. With such an aid, its march cannot fail to be on and on, till every son of earth shall drink in rich fruition, the sorrow quenching drafts of perfect liberty. Happy day when, all appetites controlled, all passions subdued, all matter subjected, mind, all conquering mind, shall live and move the monarch of the world. Glorious consummation! Hail, fall of Fury! Reign of Reason, all hail!

And when the victory shall be complete鈥攚hen there shall be neither a slave nor a drunkard on the earth鈥攈ow proud the title of that land which may truly claim to be the birthplace and the cradle of both those revolutions, that shall have ended in that victory. How nobly distinguished that people who shall have planted, and nurtured to maturity, both the political and moral freedom of their species.

This is the one hundred and tenth anniversary of the birthday of Washington. We are met to celebrate this day. Washington is the mightiest name of earth鈥�long since mightiest in the cause of civil liberty; still mightiest in moral reformation. On that name a eulogy is expected. It cannot be. To add brightness to the sun, or glory to the name of Washington is alike impossible. Let none attempt it. In solemn awe pronounce the name, and in its naked deathless splendor, leave it shining on.

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鈥� [French conduct] evinces a disposition to separate the people of the United States from the government, to persuade them that they have different affections, principles, and interests from those of their fellow citizens whom they themselves have chosen to manage their common concerns, and thus to produce divisions fatal to our peace. Such attempts ought to be repelled with a decision which shall convince France and the world that we are not a degraded people, humiliated under a colonial spirit of fear and sense of inferiority, fitted to be the miserable instruments of foreign influence, and regardless of national honor, character, and interest.
I should have been happy to have thrown a veil over these transactions if it had been possible to conceal them; but they have passed on the great theater of the world, in the face of all Europe and America, and with such circumstances of publicity and solemnity that they cannot be disguised and will not soon be forgotten. They have inflicted a wound in the American breast. It is my sincere desire, however, that it may be healed. It is my sincere desire, and in this I presume I concur with you and with our constituents, to preserve peace and friendship with all nations; and believing that neither the honor nor the interest of the United States absolutely forbid the repetition of advances for securing these desirable objects with France, I shall institute a fresh attempt at negotiation, and shall not fail to promote and accelerate an accommodation on terms compatible with the rights, duties, interests, and honor of the nation. If we have committed errors, and these can be demonstrated, we shall be willing on conviction to redress them; and equal measures of justice we have a right to expect from France and every other nation. 鈥�
While we are endeavoring to adjust all our differences with France by amicable negotiation, the progress of the war in Europe, the depredations on our commerce, the personal injuries to our citizens, and the general complexion of affairs render it my indispensable duty to recommend to your consideration effectual measures of defense鈥�.
The naval establishment must occur to every man who considers the injuries committed on our commerce, the insults offered to our citizens, and the description of vessels by which these abuses have been practiced. As the sufferings of our mercantile and seafaring citizens cannot be ascribed to the omission of duties demandable, considering the neutral situation of our country, they are to be attributed to the hope of impunity arising from a supposed inability on our part to afford protection. To resist the consequences of such impressions on the minds of foreign nations and to guard against the degradation and servility which they must finally stamp on the American character is an important duty of government.
A naval power, next to the militia, is the natural defense of the United States. The experience of the last war would be sufficient to show that a moderate naval force, such as would be easily within the present abilities of the Union, would have been sufficient to have baffled many formidable transportations of troops from one state to another, which were then practiced. Our sea coasts, from their great extent, are more easily annoyed and more easily defended by a naval force than any other. With all the materials our country abounds; in skill our naval architects and navigators are equal to any, and commanders and seamen will not be wanting鈥�.
鈥� Although it is very true that we ought not to involve ourselves in the political system of Europe, but to keep ourselves always distinct and separate from it if we can, yet to effect this separation, early, punctual, and continual information of the current chain of events and of the political projects in contemplation is no less necessary than if we were directly concerned in them. It is necessary, in order to the discovery of the efforts made to draw us into the vortex, in season to make preparations against them. However we may consider ourselves, the maritime and commercial powers of the world will consider the United States of America as forming a weight in that balance of power in Europe which never can be forgotten or neglected. It would not only be against our interest, but it would be doing wrong to half of Europe, at least, if we should voluntarily throw ourselves into either scale. It is a natural policy for a nation that studies to be neutral to consult with other nations engaged in the same studies and pursuits. At the same time that measures might be pursued with this view, our treaties with Prussia and Sweden, one of which is expired and the other near expiring, might be renewed鈥�.
It is impossible to conceal from ourselves or the world what has been before observed, that endeavors have been employed to foster and establish a division between the government and people of the United States. To investigate the causes which have encouraged this attempt is not necessary; but to repel, by decided and united councils, insinuations so derogatory to the honor and aggressions so dangerous to the Constitution, union, and even independence of the nation is an indispensable duty.
It must not be permitted to be doubted whether the people of the United States will support the government established by their voluntary consent and appointed by their free choice, or whether, by surrendering themselves to the direction of foreign and domestic factions, in opposition to their own government, they will forfeit the honorable station they have hitherto maintained.
For myself, having never been indifferent to what concerned the interests of my country, devoted the best part of my life to obtain and support its independence, and constantly witnessed the patriotism, fidelity, and perseverance of my fellow citizens on the most trying occasions, it is not for me to hesitate or abandon a cause in which my heart has been so long engaged.
Convinced that the conduct of the government has been just and impartial to foreign nations, that those internal regulations which have been established by law for the preservation of peace are in their nature proper, and that they have been fairly executed, nothing will ever be done by me to impair the national engagements, to innovate upon principles which have been so deliberately and uprightly established, or to surrender in any manner the rights of the government. To enable me to maintain this declaration I rely, under God, with entire confidence on the firm and enlightened support of the national legislature and upon the virtue and patriotism of my fellow citizens.

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The organized populism of late-nineteenth-century America was predominantly an outgrowth of southern and midwestern agrarian movements during the 1870s and 1880s. Cooperative alliances emerged claiming to defend the interests of farmers in the face of railroad expansion, exploitative banking practices, and diminishing crop prices. Of key importance were groups such as the Farmers鈥� Alliance, the Agricultural Wheel, and the Grange. In the early 1890s, the Farmers鈥� Alliance and other groups reached out to northeastern labor to form the relatively short-lived Populist (or People鈥檚) Party. Among other things, the new party advocated the regulation and possible public ownership of the railroads, the abolition of national banking, the graduated income tax, reduced tariffs, abandoning the gold standard and embracing free silver, the initiative and referendum, the direct election of U.S. senators, and the eight-hour workday.

The Populist Party reached its zenith when it joined with the Democrats to nominate William Jennings Bryan for president in 1896. While the Democratic Party absorbed Jennings鈥� defeat and survived, the smaller Populist Party could not, especially when Bryan lost again in 1900. The Populist Party collapsed soon afterward. Various strands of the party were absorbed into other elements of the political landscape, among them an emerging movement we now call progressivism.

The American progressive movement lasted roughly from the early 1890s to the early 1920s, encompassing much more than the political party that sprang up around Theodore Roosevelt in 1912. Yet, as with many such 鈥渕ovements,鈥� it 聽is difficult to reduce progressivism to a single defining concept or motivation. Among turn-of-the century progressives we find a hodgepodge of political and intellectual strains. Under the tent of progressivism one could find the remnants of the populist agrarians, a variety of Christian social activists, temperance advocates and suffragists, labor and industrial reformers, and university Ph.D.s in philosophy and the new behavioral and social sciences, just to name a few. Nevertheless, we might see in the movement some common themes, perhaps the most significant of which resides in the name attached to it鈥斺�減rogressivism.鈥� It might seem obvious, but one key element uniting many of these reformers, politicians, and intellectuals was their shared embrace of the doctrine of Progress with a capital 鈥淧.鈥� The particular engine of that progress, be it the internal dynamics of history itself or some notion of biological or social evolution, varied among thinkers. We might say, however, that a progressive is someone who likely adheres to some notion that the human condition, and the human being, are improving, developing, or evolving over time. Through social, political, and economic reform, we not only participate in that progress but might help speed it along. As the 鈥渋sm鈥� in the name suggests, progressivism is an ideology of progress. Distinguished from philosophy, which contemplates truth for its own sake, ideology tends to investigate and employ ideas for the expressed purpose of practical, political action, be it preservation or change. Whatever particular concerns might separate the various elements of the progressive movement, they were united in their dedication to changing American life in the name of progress.

In general, the progressives sought to reinterpret the American political order by giving the people more direct power over legislation and elected politicians, and in turn, giving administrative experts in state and federal agencies more power to regulate social and economic life. Progressive political scientists such as Woodrow Wilson and Frank Goodnow distinguished politics from administration. Politics might determine the broad ends or purposes of government, but administration, they argued, deals with detailed policy and the particular, technical means by which we secure those ends. Many progressives argued that enlightened administration could be released from the restraints of elections, separation of powers, and checks and balances to help solve political and economic problems. This progressive vision was perhaps best realized a few years later in the form of Franklin Roosevelt鈥檚 New Deal. Political scientists sometimes refer to this as the rise of the 鈥渁dministrative state.鈥�

Key to the progressive project was the attempt to regulate certain sectors of the economy and redistribute wealth and private property in the name of 聽鈥渟ocial and industrial justice.鈥� But these policies, many progressives argued, would not be enacted as long as the political process was dominated by powerful special interests and as long as the Constitution presented supposedly antidemocratic obstacles to progressive reform (e.g., representation, a difficult method of constitutional amendment, federalism, separation of powers and checks and balances, and a cumbersome legislative process).

For many, the progressive project required an explicit, direct criticism of the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Progressive thinkers understood that the natural rights and social contract thinking that informed the Declaration of Independence provided the basis for a limited government constitutionalism that often seemed to frustrate contemporary progressive reform. They often claimed that these founding principles had been swept aside in the march of progressive history or by the evolutionary science of Darwinism. Educated men, they asserted, now knew that there were no transhistorical truths or natural rights that applied to all human beings everywhere and always. Liberty ought not to be seen as natural to man, but as a product of history, a convention, or a dispensation of government. Moreover, if human nature and political wisdom can be improved through historical and scientific progress, perhaps limitations on government were no longer necessary. These admittedly abstract ideas had very practical consequences for America鈥檚 political development.

This document volume deviates from more common 鈥渢extbook鈥� approaches to the study of populism and progressivism in American history, not only because it focuses on primary sources but because it takes ideas seriously. Indeed, the leaders in these movements asked Americans to think about the proper ends and means of American democracy. This is especially true of the progressive movement. Insofar as it is a reaction to the founding, any real understanding of progressivism requires that we place its ideas and institutions in conversation with those of the Founders. We must weigh, balance, and ultimately judge what among their opinions is most reasonable. Necessarily limited in its scope, the present volume can only contribute to part of that dialogue. The reader might begin to construct that dialogue, however, by pairing this volume with others in the Core Documents series, perhaps those on the American Founding and the Constitutional Convention.

I thank David Tucker for editorial advice and assistance. I am also grateful for the advice provided by two anonymous readers. In closing, I should also note that this volume is in part the result of a progressivism course I sometimes teach as a visiting faculty member in Ashland University鈥檚 MAHG program (Master of Arts in American History and Government). I wish to thank the students in those classes鈥攎ost of them teachers鈥攆or their conversation, insights, questions, and dedication to learning through primary source documents. I have also benefitted much from other faculty who have taught the course, among them Christopher Burkett, David Alvis, Ronald J. Pestritto, and William Atto. Pestritto and Atto鈥檚 excellent and frequently assigned reader on American progressivism originated in their iteration of the course. That volume should be required reading for anyone interested in the principles of American progressivism and is listed among the suggested readings in Appendix C.

Jason R. Jividen

Saint Vincent College

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The chief modern industrial problem is often stated to be the distribution of property. What is wanted is widely diffused property, and it is desired to bring about this wide diffusion without injustice, and without injury to the springs of economic activity.

Many proposals are brought forward which aim to produce a more general prosperity. Two of the best known are the single tax and socialism.^[1] These, however, apart from all other considerations, encounter the strongest obstacles to their introduction because they are so averse to powerful private interests. Wise social reform will always seek for the line of least resistance. It is granted that the end proposed by socialism and the single tax is desirable in so far as it contemplates a wide distribution of wealth; but before committing ourselves to any extreme doctrines it is well to ask, What can be done without radical change?鈥攊n other words, what can we accomplish in order to ameliorate the condition of the masses without departure from the fundamental principles of the existing social order? When we reflect upon it, we find that there are many things, and that these are quite sufficient to occupy the thoughts and energies of well-wishers of their kind for a long time to come. At the present time I feel inclined to classify the chief things required to bring about an improved condition of society in the United States under three heads, namely:

First鈥擡ducation in its broadest sense, including kindergartens, manual training, technical schools, colleges, and universities.

Second鈥擳he abolition of private monopoly, and the substitution therefor of public ownership and management of all those enterprises which are by nature monopolies, like railways, gas and electric-lighting businesses, telegraphs, telephones, etc.

Third鈥擜 reform of the laws of inheritance.

What can be done by a regulation of inheritance to change the distribution of property, and consequently of the opportunities and income which property yields? Once in a generation nearly all property changes owners, and that gives opportunity for bringing about the greatest changes within half a century. There is a perpetual flow of property from the dead to the living, and it is possible by means of law to exercise much influence over this current. When we attempt to bring about reform and improvement by a wise regulation of inheritance, we have a solid basis of experience to help us. One part of such legislation which naturally suggests itself is the taxation of the estates of decedents, and such estates are taxed to a greater or less extent in nearly all鈥攑erhaps in all鈥攇reat modern nations. We may mention England, Australia, New Zealand, and Switzerland as countries with particularly instructive experience in the taxation of inheritances. Pennsylvania, New York, and Maryland in the United States have experience which is valuable as far as it goes. Three of the countries named, Australia, New Zealand, and Switzerland, have taxation of inheritances, which amounts to a conscious attempt to influence the distribution of property.

Someone may interrupt at this point with the objection, 鈥淵ou are proposing measures which impair the rights of private property.鈥� The objection is not valid. The right of inheritance is one right, and the right of private property is another and a distinct right. He has made but little progress in the fundamental principles of jurisprudence who does not see how clearly separated are these two rights. The right of property means an exclusive right of control over a thing, but the right of inheritance means the transfer of this right in one manner or another. If there is no will, it means the right of someone to succeed to property, and this right is a product of positive law. If a will is made, the right of inheritance means not an exclusive right of control vested in a person, but the right of a person to say who shall exercise the right of property over things which were his while he was living, after he is dead, and, consequently, after he has lost all rights of property, because the dead have no proprietary rights whatever. Blackstone in his Commentaries on the Laws of England clearly discriminates between the rights of property and the rights which we lump together under the designation 鈥渋nheritance.鈥� He says:

Naturally speaking, the instant a man ceases to be, he ceases to have any dominion: else if he had a right to dispose of his acquisitions one moment beyond his life he would also have a right to direct their disposal for a million of ages after him, which would be highly absurd and inconvenient. All property must, therefore, cease upon death, considering men as absolute individuals unconnected with civil society. . . . Wills, therefore, and testaments, rights of inheritance and succession, are all of them creatures of the civil or municipal laws, and accordingly are in all respects regulated by them; every distinct country having distinct ceremonies and requisites to make a testament completely valid; neither does anything vary more than the right of inheritance under different national establishments.^[2]

Blackstone says it is an erroneous principle to suppose that 鈥渢he son has by nature a right to succeed to his father’s lands,鈥� or that the owner 鈥渋s by nature entitled to direct the succession of his property after his own decease.鈥�^[3]

The right of property in itself is not an unlimited one, but is limited and regulated to an increasing extent by all modern nations. . . . But when we come to the claim that my right of disposing of property by last will and testament is practically unlimited, it means not only my right to regulate the use of certain portions of the earth鈥檚 surface, or claims to certain portions of other valuable things in this earth, during my lifetime, but for all future time. There are those, indeed, who go so far as to hold that a man may establish certain regulations for the use of property after he is dead and gone, and that these regulations must be binding upon all future generations. Could any claim be more monstrous? It is in itself the extremest radicalism. We may say, in fact, that it is the furthest reach which radicalism has yet attained. . . .

When no will is made, the rule according to which property is divided among wife and children in this country is, perhaps, tolerably satisfactory; but suppose a man dies making no will, and has only collateral relatives: what should be their legal claim upon the estate? The modern laws which provide that even distant relatives may inherit the property of intestates are survivals of an earlier period, when large family groups lived together and formed a kind of a family partnership under the authority of the patriarch. When a man died under such circumstances, it was only natural that his property should pass to the family or the clan, itself but a larger family, for all were united together by the ties of interest and affection. There was a correspondence between rights and duties. But what is the case at the present time? The peculiar ties which bind together distant relatives are practically unworthy of consideration. Rights and duties ought to be coordinate, but distant relatives recognize no special duties toward one another, and do not think about their common relationship unless there is some property to be inherited from a distant rich relative, for whom they care nothing. In the absence of a will, there is positively no reason whatever why anyone should inherit from a third cousin. The family reason does not cover the case, because family feeling does not in our day extend so far, and, indeed, there is no reason why it should. . . .

All inheritances of every sort should be taxed, provided the share of an heir exceeds a certain amount. The state or the local political unit鈥攁s town or city鈥攎ust be recognized as a co-heir entitled to a share in all inheritances. A man is made what he is by family, by town, or the local political circle which surrounds him, and by the state in which he lives, and all have claims which ought to be recognized. Taxation of inheritance is the means whereby this claim of the state and town may secure recognition. It should, however, be borne in mind that it is a peculiar tax, and rests upon a different basis from the ordinary tax. The justification which appeals to me most strongly is that the political organisms are co-heirs. There are, however, many different standpoints from which the taxation of inheritances can be justified. Property which comes by inheritance is an income received without toil. It is for the one receiving it an unearned increment of property, and on this account may properly be taxed. The most satisfactory basis upon which property can rest is personal toil and exertion of some kind, and when property comes otherwise than as a return for social service, a special tax finds a good solid basis in justice.

It generally happens, perhaps universally, that a large property does not pay its fair share of taxes during the lifetime of its owner, and the tax upon estates when their owners die may be regarded鈥攊f it is not too large鈥攁s a payment of back taxes. It is notorious with us that personal property bears relatively a very small proportion of the burdens of government, and it has been proposed that the ordinary property tax on personal property should be abolished, and that in the place thereof there should be substituted a tax on all estates of decedents in so far as they consist of personal property. These, however, are grounds only for a limited tax, which in the case of personal property ought to be added to the regular inheritance tax, if personal property is otherwise exempted from taxation.

The taxation of inheritances should be graduated, the tax increasing as the relationship becomes more distant, and as the property becomes larger. This is in the line of the present development of taxation of inheritances. . . .

The use to be made of the funds acquired by the taxation of inheritances, and by establishing the co-heirship of town and state, must vary according to time and place. . . . In cases of cities, towns, and states weighed down with debt, the payment of bonds would be an excellent employment of the funds. In case taxes are extraordinarily high and are weighing down industry, the tax rate might be reduced. I think, however, that there are very few places in the United States where a properly developed tax system would not provide for all present expenditures of government without overburdening anyone. But there are great improvements which it is desirable to carry out, and these funds could be used to effect improvements which cost too much to be defrayed out of the ordinary taxation.

The states of the Union, and many of the towns, ought to go into forestry, purchasing large tracts of land, especially on mountains and along river courses, and covering these with trees. States and cities have allowed the ownership of valuable public works to slip away from them into the hands of private corporations. Waterworks, gasworks, streetcar lines, and the like might be purchased and operated at cost. All great cities require a larger number of parks, especially of small parks in the crowded sections. Sanitary measures may be mentioned, and some of these are expensive. They, however, lower the death rate and improve the health of the community. There are many cities which ought to buy slums and tear down the houses in them. The city of Manchester, England, bought quite a large tract of land in the center of the city, which was the worst slum region in it, and tore down all the houses. It then leased the land for a limited term of years, to be built up with houses according to plans and specifications laid down. The result has been a remarkable improvement in Manchester, and it is said that, when these leases fall in, Manchester will be one of the richest, if not the richest, municipal corporation in the world. London has recently decided to undertake a similar improvement, but it is stated that in the case of London this will involve great expense.

School funds ought to be increased until they become great enough, with the aid of current taxation, to provide the entire population with the best educational facilities of every sort, including manual training, kindergartens, public libraries, universities, industrial museums, art galleries, and the like. It would be especially desirable to improve the schools in the rural communities, establishing good high schools wherever the population is sufficient to furnish them with pupils. Good schools in the country districts would tend to keep people in the country, for now many leave the country and go to the cities purposely to educate their children. It is on every account desirable to make the country pleasanter and more attractive as a place of abode. Another fund may be suggested as suitable to be accumulated out of property inherited by the state and town, and that would be a highway fund, designed to help to improve the streets and roads of the state. The income of this fund could be distributed to towns and counties in such a manner as to encourage them in the improvement of roads and streets. It might be provided, for example, that for every two or three dollars expended by the local political unit one should be granted from the fund.

I believe the line of reform proposed in this article will stand every test which can be applied to it. It is, as already mentioned, a reform which meets with approval wherever tried, and with increasing approval the longer it is tried. It is a reform especially in keeping with democratic institutions, and it has succeeded best in democratic countries. So perfectly is it in keeping with true democracy that the purer, the more complete, and the more cultured the democratic countries have become in which this reform has been tried, the more they are inclined to move further along the same line. It is entirely compatible with the fundamental principles of the existing social order, and does not interfere with its normal and peaceful evolution. It antagonizes no other line of progress, but helps forward every other true reform. It provides ample public funds when accompanied by a rational system of taxation, and yet lays a burden heavy to be borne on no one.

We may examine this reform of the laws of inheritance with respect to the family, and we find that it tends to the development of the family as an institution far better than the existing laws in the United States. It recognizes the solidarity of the family. The husband is responsible to the wife and the wife to the husband, and both are responsible for the children they have brought into the world. It coordinates rights and duties. It may be stated, however, in this connection that duty should be extended among the various members of a family; in particular the reciprocal duties of parents and children should be sharpened and strengthened. The duty of support鈥攁nd adequate support in proportion to means鈥攕hould apply both to parents and to children, parents supporting the children in their youth, and children the parents in their old age. The various members of the family organism should be drawn together by an extension of duties. It may be questioned whether anyone should have the right to inherit from a person provided he may not under any circumstances be called upon to minister to his support. As Emerson and the other great thinkers have long been saying, it is time now to stop talking so much about rights, and to begin to emphasize duties.^[4]

If we look at this reform from the standpoint of society, we find that it stands every test to which it can be subjected. It diffuses property widely and results in a great number of families with an ample competence, and tends to prevent the growth of plutocracy. It is these families with a competence lifting them above a severe struggle for bare physical necessities that carry forward the world鈥檚 civilization. It is from these families that the great leaders of men come, and not from either of the two extremes of society, the very rich or the very poor, both of which extremes we wish to abolish. Excessive wealth discourages exertion, but a suitable reform of the laws of inheritance will remove from us many idle persons who consume annually immense quantities of wealth but contribute nothing to the support of the race; and who, leading idle lives, cultivate bad ideals and disseminate social poison. For the sake of the sons of the rich, as well as for the sake of the sons of the poor, we need a reform of the laws of inheritance.

A reform of the laws of inheritance of property will help us to approach that ideal condition in which the man who does not work shall not eat, and it will also tend to an equalization of opportunities so as to give all a fairer start in life, allowing each one to make such use of his opportunities as his capacity and diligence permit, and thus rendering inequalities, economic and social, less odious and injurious, more stimulating and helpful. This reform tends to make income a reward for service, thus realizing in a higher degree than at present the demands of justice. It must tend indirectly to discourage idleness and to encourage industry, and to repress that gambling, speculative spirit which desires something for nothing and wants to get a living without rendering an honest return of some kind.

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Assembled upon the 116th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the People’s Party of America, in their first national convention, invoking upon their action the blessing of Almighty God, put forth in the name and on behalf of the people of this country, the following preamble and declaration of principles:

Preamble

The conditions which surround us best justify our cooperation; we meet in the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political, and material ruin. Corruption dominates the ballot box, the legislatures, the Congress, and touches even the ermine of the bench.^[1] The people are demoralized; most of the states have been compelled to isolate the voters at the polling places to prevent universal intimidation and bribery. The newspapers are largely subsidized or muzzled, public opinion silenced, business prostrated, homes covered with mortgages, labor impoverished, and the land concentrating in the hands of capitalists. The urban workmen are denied the right to organize for self-protection; imported pauperized labor beats down their wages, a hireling standing army, unrecognized by our laws, is established to shoot them down, and they are rapidly degenerating into European conditions. The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few, unprecedented in the history of mankind; and the possessors of those, in turn, despise the Republic and endanger liberty. From the same prolific womb of governmental injustice, we breed the two great classes—tramps and millionaires.

The national power to create money is appropriated to enrich bondholders; a vast public debt payable in legal tender currency has been funded into gold-bearing bonds, thereby adding millions to the burdens of the people.

Silver, which has been accepted as coin since the dawn of history, has been demonetized to add to the purchasing power of gold by decreasing the value of all forms of property as well as human labor, and the supply of currency is purposely abridged to fatten usurers, bankrupt enterprise, and enslave industry. A vast conspiracy against mankind has been organized on two continents, and it is rapidly taking possession of the world. If not met and overthrown at once it forebodes terrible social convulsions, the destruction of civilization, or the establishment of an absolute despotism.

We have witnessed for more than a quarter of a century the struggles of the two great political parties for power and plunder, while grievous wrongs have been inflicted upon the suffering people. We charge that the controlling influences dominating both these parties have permitted the existing dreadful conditions to develop without serious effort to prevent or restrain them. Neither do they now promise us any substantial reform. They have agreed together to ignore, in the coming campaign, every issue but one. They propose to drown the outcries of a plundered people with the uproar of a sham battle over the tariff, so that capitalists, corporations, national banks, rings, trusts, watered stock, the demonetization of silver, and the oppressions of the usurers may all be lost sight of.^[2] They propose to sacrifice our homes, lives, and children on the altar of mammon; to destroy the multitude in order to secure corruption funds from the millionaires.^[3]

Assembled on the anniversary of the birthday of the nation, and filled with the spirit of the grand general and chief who established our independence, we seek to restore the government of the Republic to the hands of “the plain people,” with which class it originated. We assert our purposes to be identical with the purposes of the national Constitution; to form a more perfect union and establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.

We declare that this Republic can only endure as a free government while built upon the love of the whole people for each other and for the nation; that it cannot be pinned together by bayonets; that the civil war is over, and that every passion and resentment which grew out of it must die with it, and that we must be in fact, as we are in name, one united brotherhood of freemen.

Our country finds itself confronted by conditions for which there is no precedent in the history of the world; our annual agricultural productions amount to billions of dollars in value, which must, within a few weeks or months, be exchanged for billions of dollars’ worth of commodities consumed in their production; the existing currency supply is wholly inadequate to make this exchange; the results are falling prices, the formation of combines and rings, the impoverishment of the producing class. We pledge ourselves that if given power we will labor to correct these evils by wise and reasonable legislation, in accordance with the terms of our platform.

We believe that the power of government—in other words, of the people—should be expanded (as in the case of the postal service) as rapidly and as far as the good sense of an intelligent people and the teachings of experience shall justify, to the end that oppression, injustice, and poverty shall eventually cease in the land.

While our sympathies as a party of reform are naturally upon the side of every proposition which will tend to make men intelligent, virtuous, and temperate, we nevertheless regard these questions, important as they are, as secondary to the great issues now pressing for solution, and upon which not only our individual prosperity but the very existence of free institutions depend; and we ask all men to first help us to determine whether we are to have a republic to administer before we differ as to the conditions upon which it is to be administered, believing that the forces of reform this day organized will never cease to move forward until every wrong is remedied and equal rights and equal privileges securely established for all the men and women of this country.

Platform

We declare, therefore,

First—That the union of the labor forces of the United States this day consummated shall be permanent and perpetual; may its spirit enter into all hearts for the salvation of the Republic and the uplifting of mankind.

Second—Wealth belongs to him who creates it, and every dollar taken from industry without an equivalent is robbery. “If any will not work, neither shall he eat.”^[4] The interests of rural and civic labor are the same; their enemies are identical.

Third—We believe that the time has come when the railroad corporations will either own the people or the people must own the railroads, and should the government enter upon the work of owning and managing all railroads, we should favor an amendment to the Constitution by which all persons engaged in the government service shall be placed under a civil-service regulation of the most rigid character, so as to prevent the increase of the power of the national administration by the use of such additional government employees.

Finance—We demand a national currency, safe, sound, and flexible, issued by the general government only, a full legal tender for all debts, public and private, and that without the use of banking corporations, a just, equitable, and efficient means of distribution direct to the people, at a tax not to exceed 2 percent per annum, to be provided as set forth in the sub-treasury plan of the Farmers’ Alliance, or a better system; also by payments in discharge of its obligations for public improvements.

1. We demand free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1.
2. We demand that the amount of circulating medium be speedily increased to not less than $50 per capita.
3. We demand a graduated income tax.
4. We believe that the money of the country should be kept as much as possible in the hands of the people, and hence we demand that all state and national revenues shall be limited to the necessary expenses of the government, economically and honestly administered.
5. We demand that postal savings banks be established by the government for the safe deposit of the earnings of the people and to facilitate exchange.

Transportation—Transportation being a means of exchange and a public necessity, the government should own and operate the railroads in the interest of the people. The telegraph, telephone, like the post-office system, being a necessity for the transmission of news, should be owned and operated by the government in the interest of the people.

Land—The land, including all the natural sources of wealth, is the heritage of the people, and should not be monopolized for speculative purposes, and alien ownership of land should be prohibited. All land now held by railroads and other corporations in excess of their actual needs, and all lands now owned by aliens should be reclaimed by the government and held for actual settlers only.

Expression of Sentiments

Your Committee on Platform and Resolutions beg leave unanimously to report the following: Whereas, other questions have been presented for our consideration, we hereby submit the following, not as a part of the Platform of the People’s Party, but as resolutions expressive of the sentiment of this Convention.

1. RESOLVED, That we demand a free ballot and a fair count in all elections and pledge ourselves to secure it to every legal voter without federal intervention, through the adoption by the states of the unperverted Australian or secret ballot system.
2. RESOLVED, That the revenue derived from a graduated income tax should be applied to the reduction of the burden of taxation now levied upon the domestic industries of this country.
3. RESOLVED, That we pledge our support to fair and liberal pensions to ex-Union soldiers and sailors.
4. RESOLVED, That we condemn the fallacy of protecting American labor under the present system, which opens our ports to the pauper and criminal classes of the world and crowds out our wage-earners; and we denounce the present ineffective laws against contract labor, and demand the further restriction of undesirable emigration.
5. RESOLVED, That we cordially sympathize with the efforts of organized workingmen to shorten the hours of labor, and demand a rigid enforcement of the existing eight-hour law on government work, and ask that a penalty clause be added to the said law.
6. RESOLVED, That we regard the maintenance of a large standing army of mercenaries, known as the Pinkerton system, as a menace to our liberties, and we demand its abolition.^[5] . . .
7. RESOLVED, That we commend to the favorable consideration of the people and the reform press the legislative system known as the initiative and referendum.
8. RESOLVED, That we favor a constitutional provision limiting the office of president and vice president to one term, and providing for the election of senators of the United States by a direct vote of the people.
9. RESOLVED, That we oppose any subsidy or national aid to any private corporation for any purpose.
10. RESOLVED, That this convention sympathizes with the Knights of Labor and their righteous contest with the tyrannical combine of clothing manufacturers of Rochester, and declare it to be a duty of all who hate tyranny and oppression to refuse to purchase the goods made by the said manufacturers, or to patronize any merchants who sell such goods.^[6]

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