The Progressives--A Long Range Plan--Summation Of The Early Era

Have you heard Americans asking how did we get into this situation and when did it begin? Gas and home heating oil prices out of control with no end in sight. Food prices, that's food prices, going through the roof here in America. Minority groups running the country and yes, I am talking about environmental groups and government control freaks.

I believe a lot of what is going on today is happening because we took a wrong turn with the ascendancy of Theodore Roosevelt to the office of the presidency and moved into high gear under Woodrow Wilson. Principally what these two men did was initiate a centralized government program that has taken the power of government out of the hands of the American people and put it into the hands of the politicians who have now made politics a profession controlled by lawyers. We have returned to the era of the monarch.

One can readily make the case that a lot of things done by the early Progressives were certainly for good causes. Lives of the poor and down- trodden were supposedly improved. But we must ask at what cost? From the moment Teddy Roosevelt began ignoring the Constitution and broke up companies to purportedly save the little guy and his family, we were on that proverbial slippery slope. We are now at the point where our elected representatives are telling us what our rights are. Didn't we fight a war in 1776 to change that?

The second impact was the cost of the nationalization of our government. While Washington, DC remained a relatively quiet community during the early Progressive period everything changed with the Depression and World War II. Buildings were built. People were hired. We were on a crisis/war time footing and the enemy had to be defeated. We had to come together to defeat these two evils and in the process government size and cost grew and we haven't seen any sign of a return to the ideas and principles of our Founding Fathers primarily that we the people are in charge. It seems that we are willing to surrender to a collective form of government. "In God We Trust" will be replaced with "Can't We All Get Along" as stated by the drunken but noble Rodney King.

After Woodrow Wilson we enjoyed a decade of prosperity under Republicans. Unfortunately that bubble of the Roaring Twenties fell on hard times. It has been reported that Calvin Coolidge did not run for office in 1928 because he did not want to be there when things fell apart. Supposedly he was asked why didn't he say something and he responded, correctly, that no one would have listened to a president calling wolf. Herbert Hoover was elected and became the fall guy for the Great Depression that in turn would re-open the door for liberal Democrats with the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The Progressives--A Long Range Plan--Part 1

One of my major concerns and gripes about America and Americans was our inability to look into the future and make a plan for it. Other nations, most notably China, have been able to develop policies that seem to take into account what the world might be like decades out and maybe even longer. But I must admit that I have erred about this for the Progressives did develop a plan and it is being put into place.

The term Progressive Era conjures up in the mind of many people progress. Indeed progress was made. There are, however, two questions that must be asked. What type of progress was made and at what cost, if any, to the populace and our system of government as described in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

The Progressives came into being because of the turmoil in this country during the time period spanning 1890-1920. Unions were attempting to make headway on matters such as wages and benefits. Radical political elements were in place ranging from populists, to socialists and anarchists. Striking workers engaged in battles not only with management, they also rioted in the streets and fought the local and state police. The political elements wanted to overthrow the government and replace it with their own brand. Enter the Progressives.

To put it bluntly, the Progressives believed that the best way to solve the nation's problems was through centralization and government regulation. Regulate the big companies referred to as Trusts and if necessary force them to break into smaller entities. Keep in mind that the Constitution would have to be ignored and Teddy Roosevelt was willing to do just that.

Teddy was a piker when compared to Woodrow Wilson. At first glance Wilson looks like a meek, mild manner college president and indeed he was. He served as President of Princeton from 1902-1910. Wilson believed that since Congress was so cantankerous and all they did was write legislation nothing was really being accomplished. Wilson, therefore, recommended that we change our government to the parliamentary system with a concentration of power in the hands of the prime minister. That, we know, did not happen.

What did happen was World War I. It gave Wilson his opportunity to do what he believed was necessary, putting power into the hands of the government. War allows this to happen.

Wilson formed the War Industries B0ard or WIB. It was chaired by Bernard Baruch who was then charged with getting the business men to love and embrace the state. Jonah Goldberg in his book "Liberal Fascism" cites Grosvenor Clarkson the historian of the WIB,"'It was an industrial dictatorship without parallel---a dictatorship by force of necessity and common consent which step by step at last encompassed the Nation and united it into a coordinated and mobile whole.'" Now your initial reaction to that might be sure, the nation comes together to fight a the war and we cannot abide a lot of nonsense. You would be correct but what this did was teach the Progressives that war could be a good thing for their goals.

The First Progressive-Our Downfall Begins

Born on October 27, 1858, to a well to do family at 28 East 20th Street, New York City, Theodore Roosevelt at the age of 42, would go on to become the youngest president of the United State. He would also become the first Progressive President of this country.

Roosevelt was a frail child. His asthma was so bad that his father would take him outside and carry him up and down the block in front of their home until the attack was over. The senior Roosevelt would convert an area in their home into a gym for young Teddy. There Roosevelt would exercise lifting weights. He would grow in strength and he would become a member of the Harvard rowing team upon entering that institution. Along with great physical strength was his mental strength. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the honor society fraternity, and graduated magna cum laude in 1880.

Roosevelt would have an illustrious career. He would serve in the New York Assembly. He was a naturalist, historian, writer, explorer, author and cowboy. He would suffer an unbelievable tragedy with the death of his mother and wife who died on the same day in the same house. That would lead to his cowboy career in the American west and put him on the path to conservation of the nation's resources. Roosevelt, however, would also become the nation's first Progressive thus being responsible for initiating a policy of big government regulation.

Teddy became president because of the assassination of William McKinley. In 1898, McKinley took aim at the large, monopolistic companies being created in America. Carnegie, Rockefeller, Schwab and many other industrialists came under the scrutiny of the U.S. Industrial Commission of Trusts. Roosevelt would pick up on the businesses, now know as Trusts, and would set out to break them up and regulate them through the government. Indeed, Roosevelt gained quite a reputation as a "Trust Buster" breaking up 44 such industries during his time in office. Though not the biggest of the Trust Busters, that was a title won by William H. Taft with 90 Trust Bustings, Roosevelt put this nation on a path still taken by those who wish to return us to the day when the government told us what our rights were much like the King of England did prior to the Revolutionary War.

Roosevelt brought the presence of government regulation into the lives of countless Americans and American industries. Big Oil, Big Steel, Big Food, Big Drug, no one was safe from his scrutiny. He even proposed universal health care and national health insurance. Big brother and Big government had come on the scene.

As you go to the polls in this primary and general election season take a look at the beginning of the turn about for America. For the past almost 11 decades we, as a nation, have been regressing. We are losing out personal liberties while telling our government that we want health care to be a right. We can't figure out why college is so expensive while we tell our government that we want more grants and loans for college. We tell our government to give us more of the same failed policies like social security, medicare and Head Start. Khrushchev told us years ago that they would bury us. I believe that we are going to do the job for them and they will conquer us without a shot being fired only this time it will be the enemy within, those politicians who call themselves Progressive. The liberal chickens have come home to their roots.