76 ChaPter 2
“Social liberals” wanted a “safety net”—a set of laws to protect the people
from the worse excesses of the economic system, and “corporate liberals”
demanded government action to insure their continued influence over the
capitalist system. In the public’s mind, Progressivism was probably best asso-
ciated with muckraking. “Muckraker” was a term coined by Teddy Roosevelt,
a negative word to describe people who raked around in the much to reveal
the dark side of the American economy [similar to someone like Michael
Moore, Glenn Greenwald, or Edward Snowden in the 21st Century]. So-called
Muckrakers like Lincoln Steffens wrote about corrupt politicians who did not
take care of their cities but instead used public money to pay off their friends,
or “cronies,” and not even provide basic services to their mostly poor citizens.
In 1902, Ida Tarbell wrote an important article titled “History of the Standard
Oil Company” in which she exposed the way Rockefeller did business, using
his political connections and economic power to run other oil companies out
of business [and then buying them for pennies on the dollar] and creating the
massive Standard Oil Trust, as previous described. The best-known MuckrakerFIGuRE 2-6 Slaughtering floor at Swift & Co.’s Packing House, Chicago