The American Nation A History of the United States, Combined Volume (14th Edition)

Political Reform: The States 561

the Chicago school, denounced the local plutocrats but
sang the praises of the city they had made: “Hog
Butcher for the World,” “City of the Big Shoulders.”
Most writers eagerly adopted Freudian psychology
without understanding it. Freud’s teachings seemed
only to mean that they should cast off the restrictions
of Victorian prudery; they ignored his essentially dark
view of human nature. Theirs was an “innocent rebel-
lion,” exuberant and rather muddleheaded.

Political Reform: Cities First

To most “ordinary” progressives, political corruption
and inefficiency lay at the root of the evils plaguing
American society, nowhere more obvious than in the
nation’s cities. Urban life’s anonymity and complexity
help explain why slavery did not flourish in cities, but
also why the previously named vices did flourish. As the
cities grew, their antiquated and boss-ridden administra-
tions became more and more disgraceful. Consider the
example of San Francisco. After 1901, a shrewd lawyer
named Abe Ruef ruled one of the most powerful and
dissolute political machines in the nation. Only one kind
of paving material was used on San Francisco’s streets,
and Ruef was the lawyer for the company that supplied
it. When the gas company asked for a rate increase of ten
cents per 100 cubic feet, Ruef, who was already collect-
ing $1,000 a month from the company as a “retainer,”
demanded and got an outright bribe of $20,000. A
streetcar company needed city authorization to install
overhead trolley wires; Ruef ’s approval cost the com-
pany $85,000. Prostitution flourished, with Ruef and
his henchmen sharing in the profits. There was a brisk
illegal trade in liquor licenses and other favors. Similar
conditions existed in dozens of communities. For his
famous muckraking series in McClure’s, Lincoln Steffens
visited St. Louis, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, New York,
Chicago, and Philadelphia and found them all riddled
with corruption.

Beginning in the late 1890s progressives mounted

a massive assault on dishonest and inefficient urban

governments. In San Francisco a group headed by

Fremont Older, a newspaperman, and Rudolph

Spreckels, a wealthy sugar manufacturer, broke the

machine and lodged Ruef in jail. In Toledo, Ohio,

Samuel M. “Golden Rule” Jones won election as

mayor in 1897 and succeeded in arousing the citizenry

against the corrupt officials. Other important progres-

sive mayors were Tom L. Johnson of Cleveland

(whose administration Lincoln Steffens called the best

in the United States), Seth Low and John P. Mitchell

of New York and Hazen S. Pingree of Detroit.

City reformers could seldom destroy the machines

without changing urban political institutions. Some

cities obtained “home rule” charters that gave them

greater freedom from state control in dealing with local

matters. Many created research bureaus that investi-

gated government problems in a scientific and nonpar-

tisan manner. A number of middle-sized communities

(Galveston, Texas, was the prototype) experimented

with a system that integrated executive and legislative

powers in the hands of a small elected commission,

thereby concentrating responsibility and making it eas-

ier to coordinate complex activities. Out of this experi-

ment came the city manager system, under which the

commissioners appointed a professional manager to

administer city affairs on a nonpartisan basis. Dayton,

Ohio, which adopted the plan after a flood devastated

the town in 1913, offers the best illustration of the city

manager system in the Progressive Era.

Once the political system had been made respon-

sive to the desires of the people, the progressives

hoped to use it to improve society itself. Many cities

experimented with “gas and water socialism,” taking

over public utility companies and operating them as

departments of the municipal government. Under

“Golden Rule” Jones, Toledo established a minimum

wage for city employees, built playgrounds and golf

courses, and moderated its harsh penal code. Mayor

Seth Low improved New York’s public transportation

system and obtained passage of the tenement house

law of 1901. Mayor Tom Johnson forced a fare cut to

three cents on the Cleveland street railways.

Political Reform: The States

To carry out this kind of change required the support

of state legislatures since all municipal government

depends on the authority of a sovereign state. Such

approval was often difficult to obtain—local bosses

were usually entrenched in powerful state machines,

and rural majorities insensitive to urban needs con-

trolled most legislatures. Therefore the progressives

had to strike at inefficiency and corruption at the

state level too.

Oklahoma City

Agrarian Tulsa

Socialism,

Oklahoma,

1912

30

15

Percentage of

presidential

Socialist vote:

Rural SocialismSocialist strength extended far beyond the cities.
Socialists in rural areas called for tenants to be allowed to work on
state-owned plots of land. In 1912, Socialist candidates received
nearly half the vote in southern Oklahoma.