Talk Elections

Just to continue off of my previous threads on the Jacksonian Era (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=155055.0) and Gilded Age (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=155795.0):

The Progressive Era (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Era) here covers the period from the mid-1890s to the Great Depression.  It was a period of unrest that saw the rise of the labor union movement, the Muckrakers, women's suffrage, and a host of other movements and causes that sought to reform our society, our government, and our economy to make it more efficient and just.  It also saw the rise of the Fourth Party System (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Party_System).

McKinley.

Coolidge, but there's several good ones in there.

TR.

Teddy, followed by Wilson (who is pretty overrated by historians but is treated rather unfairly by internet libertarians)

TR.

Reasons:
Trust Busting.
Willing to negotiate with workers and unions.
Increased regulation of business in a time it was desperately needed.
First President I'm aware of to promote conservation. 
Improved the quality of food sold by making it illegal to have misleading labels. 
Good approach to foreign policy (speak softly and care a big stick). 
Also, got the ball rolling on healthcare by being the first President to talk about it as an issue. 

...Aside from the second one, and even that's questionable, every point on this list is misleading at best and propagandistic at worst.

Technically most of those were passed by Congress and signed by TR. His role was just using the bully pulpit to push through his own agenda.

TR, because he enacted a lot of great reforms in the meatpacking industry and other areas.  Like progressivism or not, and I believe that they may have gone too far, these were very necessary for the health and safety of the public.

Also, LOL@Coolidge votes. He was anything but libertarian, people.

He cut spending, reduced taxes, and paid off some of the national debt. That is more than enough to top the list in my book.

Calvin Coolidge, duh.

...as well as poisoning moonshine wells to kill Appalachians?

Link?

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2010/02/the_chemists_war.html

It appears he ordered a change in a denaturing formula to stop people from changing stolen industrial alcohol into drinkable stuff. Certainly not a great thing to do, but c'mon, poisoning the hillbillies is a bit much.

How in the hell can anyone with a brain vote for Harding, Coolidge, or Hoover? These are the men that got us into the Depression.

TR, not even close. Although Wilson was also very good.

Wasn't Coolidge a raving protectionist? Well, maybe not a raving one, but....

TR

TR, such an easy choice.

Harding or Coolidge were least objectionable of this group, although their nativism, protectionism, and prohibitionism leave room to be desired. Hoover was better in his post-Presidency efforts, but had the above problems plus laid the groundwork for massive government intervention in the economy.

TR the anti corporate power, progressive, strong America trust buster. Rest were average or bad (ie Wilson). TR was a great politician, great military leader, great diplomat, with good vision and a spine and he took steps on regulation, public health and safety, workers rights etc.

Wilson.

He did pretty much everything T.R. said that he was going to do.

Seriously, Wilson gets a bad rap because of things he did in WWI, but I assure you that FDR did, well, pretty much most of what Wilson did, and interned an entire race of human beings. And we all love FDR on the left. So I think Wilson gets a little too much sh**t, in some regard. Yes, we was a weasley racist bastard, but so was Theodore "Blood for the Blood God" Roosevelt. Wilson passed more good legislation than any president up to that point, and made the New Deal possible by setting up the foundations for it (income tax, federal reserve, co-operation between labor and government, proving that government intervention in the economy could work)

So, my final ranking is:

[1] Woodrow Wilson
[2] Theodore Roosevelt
[3] William Howard Taft
[4] William McKinley
[5] Herbert Hoover
[6] Calvin Coolidge
[7] Warren Harding

Harding is an odious slimeball and probably would be considered the worst President in American history were it not for Richard Nixon.

[1]Coolidge
[2]Harding
[3]Hoover

Wilson was horrible on civil liberties (via Mitchell Palmer the AG), he wasn't just racist, but segregationist and a klan violence enabler.. and the Fed turned out to not be so good.. plus he tricked America in WW1 and started a propaganda department, and arrested war dissenters.

Lastly, he started the drug war kinda too. Not a good guy to emulate at all.. he was bad historically, not just for the era

[1] Coolidge
[2] Harding
[3] Taft

TR and no one else is close

Wilson is at the top. Coolidge is at the bottom.

I only see three presidents as being part of the progressive era. TR, Taft and Wilson. McKinley was Guilded Age, Harding and Coolidge were Return to Normalicy and Hoover is part of the Depression Era. Thus the best would be Taft by a mile. Wilson was the worst.

The "Progressive Era" is typically measured by historians as being 1896-1932, an era that basically consisted of Republican domination of politics and a new type of political alignment--urban Republicans vs. agrarian Democrats.

Not really. The Progressive Era is typically considered the period between Teddy Roosevelt's ascension to the Presidency and the outbreak of WWI. The longest I've seen it is 1900 to 1920, but nothing I've seen includes the 1920s, which were decidedly not part of the same political era. The Progressive Era itself is just sort of a blip in the otherwise Long Gilded Age that starts in 1877 and ends in 1933.

Tell me these are part of the same party system:
()
()

Wikipedia on the 4th Party System:
"Dominant personalities included presidents William McKinley (R), Theodore Roosevelt (R) and Woodrow Wilson (D), three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan (D), and Wisconsin's progressive Republican Robert M. LaFollette."

Wikipedia on the Progressive Era:
"The national political leaders included Theodore Roosevelt, Robert M. La Follette, Sr., Charles Evans Hughes and Herbert Hoover on the Republican side, and William Jennings Bryan, Woodrow Wilson and Al Smith on the Democratic side."

As well, both cite 1932 as the definitive end of either the system, or the era.

Wikipedia on the Progressive Era:
"There is general agreement that that the era was over by 1932, especially since a majority of the remaining progressives opposed the New Deal."

Wikipedia on the 4th Party System:
"It included the Progressive Era, World War I, and the start of the Great Depression. The Great Depression caused a realignment that produced the Fifth Party System, dominated by the Democratic New Deal Coalition until the 1960s."

The sub-article Business Progressivism in the 1920's states:
"What historians have identified as "business progressivism", with its emphasis on efficiency and typified by Henry Ford and Herbert Hoover reached an apogee in the 1920s. Wik, for example, argues that Ford's "views on technology and the mechanization of rural America were generally enlightened, progressive, and often far ahead of his times."
Tindall stresses the continuing importance of the Progressive movement in the South in the 1920s involving increased democracy, efficient government, corporate regulation, social justice, and governmental public service. William Link finds political progressivism dominant in most of the South in the 1920s. Likewise it was influential in Midwest.[81]
Historians of women and of youth emphasize the strength of the progressive impulse in the 1920s. Women consolidated their gains after the success of the suffrage movement, and moved into causes such as world peace, good government, maternal care (the Sheppard–Towner Act of 1921), and local support for education and public health. The work was not nearly as dramatic as the suffrage crusade, but women voted and operated quietly and effectively. Paul Fass, speaking of youth, says "Progressivism as an angle of vision, as an optimistic approach to social problems, was very much alive." The international influences which had sparked a great many reform ideas likewise continued into the 1920s, as American ideas of modernity began to influence Europe.
There is general agreement that that the era was over by 1932, especially since a majority of the remaining progressives opposed the New Deal."

I'd think the progressive era would end at Wilson, neither Harding or Coolidge were Progressive, and Hoover only if you stretch the term.

On civil rights for women and minorities, Harding was far more progressive than Wilson.  You'd have to limit progressive issues to only economic ones to argue he absolutely should not be considered part of the progressive era, and even then given his support for the eight-hour workday, it's hard to argue he should be excluded without there being another suitable era for him to be placed in.

Roosevelt is the only really good President here. I like McKinley's sound money policy and Taft was ok but that's it.

Teddy is the only truly good president here, and is one of the best presidents we've ever had.  The 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act was one of the most important pieces of legislation ever, that plus his conservationism were major steps forward out of the Gilded Age "law of the jungle" and towards a more intelligent and compassionate conception of government that recognizes the interconnected realities of modernity, and is willing to step in to redress externalities and protect the life and limb of its citizens.  Also, in 1905 he saved (and/or arguably created what could first truly be described as) football- after a number of well-publicized fatalities on the gridiron, he called for changes which included banning the flying wedge and allowing the forward pass.  His foreign policy was perhaps a smidge more interventionist than I'd prefer, but I'm willing to bow to realpolitik and accept that if we were indeed a new power on the world stage (as we were), a bit of muscle-flexing in the Caribbean was unavoidable.  And he helped broker peace in the Russo-Japanese war, also a good thing.

Taft was just kind of meh, but that's enough to make him a clear second-best in this era.  He didn't really have the temperament and skill to move forward the reforms we needed (aside from the 16th Amendment and some other scattered incremental things), but at least we didn't move backward.

Pretty much everyone else had serious problems one way or another.  McKinley is someone who I very well might have liked at the time, but all of his signature planks (pro-gold, high tariffs, and a ginned-up war with Spain) kind of stink from a distance.  Eh, I actually can buy the argument that tariffs made sense back then, even if they don't anymore. 

Wilson is Nixonian in his combination of mostly good economic policies coupled with being a repulsive human being.  Accomplishments like Clayton Anti-Trust and establishing the Federal Reserve were major major improvements on what we had before, and his 14 Points, while ultimately ineffective, were a noble attempt at forging a respectful peace that we would have done better to take to heart.  On the other hand, he was a raging racist even for his time, and the Palmer Raids were about as shameful as it gets.  Also, Prohibition started on his watch.

Hoover... Hoover meant well.  He was a very good man with a strong sense of public service and humanitarian impulses whose imagination just wasn't up to the challenges of the Depression.  He couldn't quite conceive of necessary measures like the WPA and eliminating the gold standard, and therefore he couldn't get the job done. 

Harding and Coolidge obviously fall at the bottom.  Hearing that Harding pardoned Debs increases my opinion of the man, but he was still as corrupt and useless as they get.  As for Coolidge, he was hands-off when the 1927 Mississippi Flood happened... but was perfectly willing to sign off on the Chemist's War, where the government poisoned its own citizens because yay Prohibition.  That's all you really need to know about the man.  HP through and through.

Taft was actually more effective in terms of trust-busting, though I mistakenly voted for him before realizing that Teddy's status as a symbol of progressivism was much more useful for the cause of progressivism than Taft's low-key efforts.

Also, the Pure Food and Drug Act is a big one, yeah.

Those are easily part of the same party system.  Solid South vs. Republican New England and (mostly) Midwest; populist strength in the West (whether that be the Populist Party or a Democrat who is the de facto Populist candidate, same diff); New York is a swing state due to Republicans upstate and Tammany in NYC.  The similarities are much more striking than the differences.

That, good sir, is ignoring everything that happened to change the Democratic party between Election Day 1892 and Election Day 1896. There's a reason Cleveland was able to take states like New York and Connecticut, even biting into the Mid-West with Illinois and Indiana, yet got utterly screwed out West. At the same time, there's a reason Bryan got absolutely destroyed in New England, failed to capture any of the Northern industrial states, and did better than any Democrat in the West since the 1850's. There is a reason that over the course of the next couple of years, Democrats actually could regularly take states like Nebraska (when they could take any states at all), when as late as 1892 they had been unable to carry it even once.

Well, sure, the Dems had both Bourbon and populist factions, and obviously the coalitions they created were somewhat different.  But you still had populist Dems in 1892 and Bourbons in 1896, despite them not being at the helm of the party.

Let me put it to you this way: do you consider 1996 and 2008 part of the same party system?  I think they are, and the differences in the Democratic coalition both times is comparable.

When examining the Progressive Era and its surrounding years, we have the lens of history to look through. This is still 2013 bub.

Teddy for his John Calvinist views on religion separation of Church and State, for his Oliver Holmes SCrt nomination and his views on the environment. He did something for blacks for lynching was still a problem. Wilson would have been good with the equal rights amendment for women and the income tax but his views on race relations was deplorable.

The Progressive Era is a ridiculous moniker and some of the people on this list (and not just the ones everyone knows) are some of the most conservative if not reactionary presidents the US has ever had.

Write In: Chester A. Arthur.

I'm curious if you could elaborate on what you mean by this.  I do think that putting McKinley, Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover in the "Progressive Era" is kind of strange, and nearly all of these folks had significant conservative and reactionary elements to their thinking.  But keep in mind also that "progressive" is very much not the same as "left-wing", and also (please do correct me if I'm wrong) I'm having a hard time thinking of any US president that doesn't count as conservative when compared to you.

Chester A Arthur is for sure the best Gilded Age president we had, can't argue with that.

I think Teddy Roosevelt. That's because he passed two laws that affect all of us on a daily basis. The fact that he passed the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act made him one of the greatest presidents in history in general, not just of those three. We depend on these two acts every single day that we’re alive, so without them, what would we do? We would continue to get food-borne illnesses on a regular basis and everything would be very unhealthy. It was also during his presidency that the Panama Canal was built, and that it one of the biggest canals in the world and it is used the most often. Without these milestones, who knows where we would be in history or how long it would've taken for these things to come about.

Of that list, give me good old TR any day! He used the Presidency to accomplish much good for this country. He signed laws making food safer to eat, to protect the environment, to destroy monopoly and promote a fair playing field and for all his hawkishness, he had a peaceful Presidency.

Wilson. His views on race are terrible, and the actions of his government during and after the war (Red Scare) are disgusting, but he was a great leader and his vision on foreign policy are still alive nowadays. And like it or not, but creating the Fed was probably the biggest accomplishment of the 20th century. It changed the American economy.