Progressive Presidents: Crash Course US History #29 episode transcript - U.S. History by Crash Course
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Progressive Presidents: Crash Course US History #29
From: U.S. History by Crash Course
In which John Green teaches you about the Progressive Presidents, who are not a super-group of former presidents who create complicated, symphonic, rock soundscapes that transport you into a fantasy fugue state. Although that would be awesome. The presidents most associated with the Progressive Era are Theodore Roosevelt, William Taft, and Woodrow Wilson. During the times these guys held office, trusts were busted, national parks were founded, social programs were enacted, and tariffs were lowered. It wasn't all positive though, as their collective tenure also saw Latin America invaded A LOT, a split in the Republican party that resulted in a Bull Moose, all kinds of other international intervention, and the end of the Progressive Era saw the United States involved in World War. If all this isn't enough to entice, I will point out that two people get shot in this video. Violence sells, they say.
Full Transcript
Progressive Presidents Crash Course US History 29
speaker01 00:00:00
Hi I'm John Green, this is Crash Course us history and today we're going to finish our discussion of progressivism and indulge in a bit of great man history. Mr Green Mr Green, great man history. Well, I was born on a sunny summer morning in 19 9 70 that great me from the past. Also, you're a boy, not a man, and the only historically significant thing you ever participated in was a brilliant senior prank that wasn't even your ideal. However, 39 of our 43 presidents were at least arguably great men. And today we'll be talking about three of them. It'll be kind of like a Jefferson versus Hamilton for the 20th century, except not like that at all. But there will be a canal and two people get shot.
speaker01 00:47:00
So as we saw in Crash Course world history, national governments were on the rise from the middle of the 19th century until basically now. And in the US, corporations became national. And then by the 20 th century, international, like the British East India Company was kind of an international corporation, but it wasn't the same as coca cocola, although they did both deal with narcotics. And this mania for nationalization even affected sports like in baseball. The National League and the American League were formed. And in 19 oh 3, they played the first inaccurately named World Series. I'm sorry, was Botswana invited then? It's not a World Series anyway, the rise of a strong national government was seen as an alternative to people's lives being controlled by provincial, city, and state governments, or by ever growing corporation like Herbert Crowley, editor of The New Republic, thought that to achieve the Jeffersonian Democratic self-determination ideal of individual freedom, the country needed to employ Hamiltonian government intervention in the economy.
speaker01 01:40:00
And he wasn't the only one who believed that. So in 19 oh 1, 42 year old Theodore Roosevelt became the youngest American president ever after William McKinley was assassinated by Lee Colts, hold on.
speaker01 01:55:00
ISS chogochujang his name was Leon Chuckles, and Leon Chuckles was a real barrel of laughter for an anarchist. Usually they're very serious, right? So Leon Chuckles paved the way for Teddy Roosevelt, who in many ways was the model of the 20th century president. He was very engaged in both domestic and foreign policy, and he set the political agenda for the whole country. His political program, the Square deal, aimed to distinguish good corporations that provided useful products and services at fair prices from evil corporations that existed just to make money. That is hilarious.
speaker01 02:28:00
A corporation that doesn't exist just to make money fantastic. Teddy, everybody knows that corporations are just inherently greedy people, but they are people. Roosevelt, it was the federal government's responsibility to regulate the economy directly and to break up power of wealthy corporations and to use the Sherman Act to prosecute bad trust, such as the Northern Securities Company, which was a holding company created by JP Morgan that directed three major railroads and monopolized transport and that did not make JP Morgan a happy bunny. Thank you for that stand. That's wonderful.
speaker01 03:00:00
Legislative and executive branches managed to work together and Congress passed some actual legislation, including the Hepburn Act of 19 oh 6, which gave the Interstate Commerce Commission the power to regulate railroad rates and examine their company books.
speaker01 03:12:00
And Roosevelt was also a conservation. He wanted to preserve the environment from economic exploitation, probably so that there would be plenty of animals for him to hunt with his big stick while he walked softly, having appointed noted progressive Gifford pin show head of the Forest Service, millions of acres were set aside for new two highly managed national parks, reflecting the progressive idea that experts could manage the world. But then in 19 9 0 8 Teddy Roosevelt decided to go elephant hunting instead of running for reelection. And he picked William Howard Taft to be his successor.
speaker01 03:40:00
But the man who became our largest president massively disappointed Roosevelt. When I say our largest, by the way, I don't mean our greatest, I mean our largest. That was a pretty hardcore trust buster who ordered the prosecution that broke up standard oil in 1911, but he didn't see big business as bad unless the corporation stifled competition. He also supported the 16th Amendment, allowing Congress to pass an income tax, and that paved the way for the 18th Amendment prohibition because with an income tax, the federal government didn't have to rely on liquor excise taxes. So why didn't Roosevelt like taftville not only was more conservative than most progressives, he also fired pin show in 1910. And Roosevelt was so frustrated with Taft that he actually challenged the incumbent president for the Republican nomination in 1912, which Roosevelt lost. But he didn't let it drop. He founded his own party called the Bull Moose Party so that he could run again.
speaker01 04:31:00
So the election of 1000 and 912 featured four candidates, Taft Teddy Roosevelt for the Bull Moose Party, Eugene Debs for the Socialist Party, and Democrat Woodrow Wilson. It's worth noting that in contemporary American political discourse, all four of these people would have been seen as somewhere between crazy liberals and actual communists. So Eugene Debs, from right here in my home state of Indiana, did not support the Socialist Party's goal of abolishing capitalism, but he ran on a plan that included public ownership of railroads and banks and law, limiting work hours and running on the socialist ticket. Debs won 6% of the vote, which was, to quote another president, not bad.
speaker01 05:07:00
But the election of 19 9 12 turned out to be a contest between Wilson and Roosevelt's competing views over the dangers of increasing government power and economic concentration.
speaker01 05:15:00
Wilson claimed freedom today is something more than being let alone. The program of government must in these days be positive, not negative. Merely. That's just not good grammar, sir. His program, called New Freedom, was to reinvigorate democracy by restoring market competition and preventing big business from dominating government. It included stronger antitrust laws and policies to encourage small businesses. Roosevelt's answer to New freedom was a program he called New National because, of course, in election years, all things are new. Roosevelt recognized the inevitability of big business and hoped to use government intervention to stop its abuses. New nationalism included heavy taxes on personal and corporate fortunes and greater federal regulation of industry.
speaker01 05:56:00
So the Bull Mouse Party platform was in some ways a vision of a modern welfare state. It called for women's suffrage, federal regulation, national labor and health legislation for women and children, 8 hour days, and living wage for all workers, national systems of social insurance for health, UN and old age. Are we Canada? We were Canada, you recording?
speaker01 06:19:00
Roosevelt thought his party's platform was one of the most important documents in the history of mankind, and Americans agreed. They supported him and elected him in a landslide. Oh, wait, no, they didn't. Instead, he lost, and also a guy shot him at one of his campaign stops, that shooting number two. Roosevelt, however, survived and even went on to make the speech after being shot. What happened in the election is that Captain Roosevelt split the Republican vote, leaving Woodrow Wilson president with a mere 42% of the popular vote, giving us our only Democratic president between 1896 and 1932.
speaker01 06:52:00
Oh, it's time for the mystery document. The rules here are simple, I guess. The author of the mystery document. If I'm wrong, I get shocked by the shock pen, which many of you insist is fictional, but I promise it's not the two things we are fighting against, namely excessive tariffs and almost universal monopoly, are the very things that these two branches of the Republican Party both decline to combat. They intend to accept these evils and stagger along under the burden of excessive tariffs and intolerable monopolies as best they can through administrative commissions. I say, therefore, that it is inconceivable that the people of the United States whose instinct is against special privilege and whose deepest convictions are against monopoly should turn to either of these parties for relief when these parties do not so much as pretend to offer them relief.
speaker01 07:41:00
All right, it's definitely about the 1912 election talks about the Republican Party being split into two parts. So it's by a Democrat or a socialist, but probably a Democrat, judging from the mystery document itself, you always make it hard stand, so it's not going to be Woodrow Wilson because that would be obvious. But I do not know the names of any other prominent Democrats, so I am going to guess Woodrow Wilson. Yes, get in So with its stirring anti tariff, anti monopoly, do not pass go, do not collect $200 stance, new freedom 1 out as the Democrats also controlled Congress Wilson was able to implement this program.
speaker01 08:17:00
The Underwood tariff reduced import duties and after the ratification of the 16th Amendment Congress imposed a graduated income tax on the richest 5% of Americans. Other legislation included the Clayton Act of 19 9 14 which exempted unions from antitrust laws and made it easier for them to strike the Keating Owen Act which outlawed child labor in manufacturing, and the Adamson Act, which mandated an eight hour work day for railroad workers. Sounds a lot like Roosevelt's New Nationalism. That's because they ended up being pretty similar.
speaker01 08:46:00
Wilson engaged in West trust busting than expected in more regulation of the economy. Wilson didn't institute a national system of health and unemployment insurance, but he did expand the powers of the Federal Trade Commission to investigate and prohibit unfair monopolistic practice. He also supported the founding of the Federal Reserve System in 1913, which gave the government much more control over banks in response to the Panic of 19907, where the us had to be bailed out by JP Morgan. They not big banks. The government will bail you in due time. So under Roosevelt and Wilson, and to a lesser extent Taft, progressivism flourished domestically, but it also became an international phenomenon as presidents expanded national government power outside the country's border, mostly in the Western Hemisphere, in 19 9 oh 1 and 1009, 20 us Marines landed in Caribbean countries over 20 times, usually to create a more friendly environment for American businesses, but sometimes just to hang out on the beach. And this points to an interesting contradiction. Progressive presidents were very concerned about big business as a threat to freedom in the United States, but in Latin America and the Caribbean, they weren't that concerned about freedom at all.
speaker01 09:50:00
Teddy Roosevelt especially was much more active in international diplomacy than his predecessors. He was the first president to win the Nobel Peace Prize, for instance, for helping to negotiate the Treaty of Portsmouth that ended the Russo injap Nese war in 1000 and 905. You may be familiar with his motto, speak softly and carry a big stick, which essentially meant the U will intervene in Latin America whenever we want. And probably the most famous such intervention was the building of the Panama Canal. It featured feats of engineering and succeeding where the French had failed, and these are my favorite things. Let's go to the thought bubble, the way we got the 10 mi Wide Canal Zone wasn't so awesome in 19 oh 3, Panama was part of Colombia, but the U us encouraged Philippe banal varea to lead an uprising. Banal veria, a representative of the Panama Canal Company, was so grateful after the us sent a gunboat to ensure that the Columbian Army couldn't stop him that he signed a treaty giving the us the right to build and operate the canal and sovereignty over newly independent Panama's Canal Zone, which we gave up in 2000 after enjoying nearly 100 years of sovereignty. Thanks to Jimmy Carter's stupid altruism, Roosevelt also added the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, the 1823 statement that the us would defend independently American states from European intervention.
speaker01 11:02:00
Now according to Roosevelt we would wield our big stick like a policeman waving around a Night Stick, exercising an international police power over the Western Hemisphere. In practice, this meant using American troops to ensure that Latin American countries were stable enough for Americans to invest there. Like in 19 oh 4, we seized the Customs House in the Dominican Republic to make sure that they paid their debts to investors. Then, by executive agreement, American banks got control of the Dr's finances. Roosevelt also encouraged investment by the United Fruit Company in Honduras and Costa Rica, helping to turn those nations into Banana Republic's note, not to store Thought Bubble.
speaker01 11:38:00
Yes, Taft, on the other hand, maybe because of his experiences as governor of the Philippine, was less eager to waive America's big stick. He emphasized loans and economic investment is the best way to spread American influence in a policy that came to be known as dollar diplomacy. Ultimately, dollar diplomacy was probably more effective, but it seemed weak to many people. In contrast to Roosevelt's strategy of send all the troops right now bubble. I wore my Banana Republic shirt just for this occasion. So we've discussed Roosevelt and task foreign policy.
speaker01 12:05:00
Let's move on to Wilson, who was, of course, an isolationist.
speaker01 12:10:00
No, Woodrow Wilson. OK, Woodrow Wilson was not a volleyball. He was the son of a Presbyterian minister, a former American history professor, and once had been governor of New Jersey. So he understood moral indecency and thought the best way to teach other countries about the greatness of America was to export colossal amounts of American products. Like in 19 9, 16, he instructed a group of businessmen sell goods that will make the world more comfortable and happy and convert them to the principles of America. In short, Woodrow Wilson believed, correctly, that the essence of democracy is the freedom to choose among hundreds of brightly colored breakfast series.
speaker01 12:47:00
Still, Wilson intervened in Latin America more than any other us president, and his greatest moral triumph was in Mexico, where he wanted to teach the Mexicans, quote, to elect good men. To do this, Wilson sent troops to stop weapons going to the military, dictate victoriano Huerta. But the Americans who landed at Veracruz were not welcomed with the open arms, and 100 Mexicans and 19 Americans were killed. And then in 19 9, 16, having learned his lesson, just kidding, Wilson sent 10000 troops into northern Mexico to chase after revolutionary bandit Pan via Via had killed 17 Americans in New Mexico. And everyone knows that the proper response to such a criminal act is to send 10000 troops into a foreign country. Pershing's expedition was a smashing success, fortunately, except that he actually did not capture Poncho Villa. But all of that was a prelude to Wilson's leading America to our first international moral crusade.
speaker01 13:36:00
Our involvement in the Great War of American history is important because Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson oversaw the expansion of the power of the federal government, both at home and abroad, and in doing so, they became the first modern American presidents. I mean, these days we might talk about small government and large government, but really we're always talking about large government. Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson recognized that the national government was going to have to deal with big business and that it would have to get big to do that, and also that it had a role to play in ensuring that Americans would retain some freedom in this new industrial era. And they also built neo aimeri of foreign policies around the idea that the safer the world was for American business, the better it was for Americans, as our old friend Eric foner wrote the presidents who spoke, the most about freedom were likely to intervene most frequently in the affairs of other countries, sometimes for good, and sometimes for ill. Stream and ambiguous case of that next week, when we look at America in World War One. Thanks for watching. I'll see you then.
speaker01 14:35:00
Crash Course is produced and directed by Stan Muller. Our script supervisor is Meredith Danko, the associate producer is Danica Johnson, our show is written by my high school history teacher, Raul Meyer, rosiana Rojas and myself, And our graphics team is Thought Cafe. Every week theres a new captain for Liberties. If you'd like to suggest one, you can do so in comments where you can also ask questions about today's video that will be answered by our team of historians. Thanks for watching Crash Course as we say in my hometown, don't forget to be awesome.