State Social Legislation 563During the first decade of the new century,
Robert M. La Follette, one of the most remarkable fig-
ures of the age, transformed Wisconsin, the progres-
sive state par excellence. La Follette was born in
Primrose, Wisconsin, in 1855. He had served three
terms as a Republican congressman (1885–1891) and
developed a reputation as an uncompromising foe of
corruption before being elected governor in 1900.
That the people would always do the right thing if
properly informed and inspired was the fundamental
article of his political faith. “Machine control is based
upon misrepresentation and ignorance,” La Follette
said. “Democracy is based upon knowledge.” His own
career seemed to prove his point, for in his repeated
clashes with the conservative Wisconsin Republican
machine, he won battle after battle by vigorous grass-
roots campaigning.
Despite the opposition of railroad and lumber-
ing interests, Governor La Follette obtained a direct
primary system for nominating candidates, a corrupt
practices act, and laws limiting campaign expendi-
tures and lobbying activities. In power he became
something of a boss himself. He made ruthless use
of patronage, demanded absolute loyalty of his sub-
ordinates, and often stretched, or at least oversimpli-
fied, the truth when presenting complex issues to
the voters.
La Follette was a consummate showman who
never rose entirely above rural prejudices. He was
prone to see a nefarious “conspiracy” organized by
“the interests” behind even the mildest opposition to
his proposals. But he was devoted to the cause of hon-
est government. Realizing that some state functions
called for specialized technical knowledge, he used
commissions and agencies to handle such matters as
railroad regulation, tax assessment, conservation, and
highway construction. Wisconsin established a legisla-
tive reference library to assist lawmakers in drafting
bills. For work of this kind, La Follette called on the
faculty of the University of Wisconsin, enticing top-
notch economists and political scientists into the pub-
lic service and drawing freely on the advice of such
outstanding social scientists as Richard T. Ely, John R.
Commons, and E. A. Ross.
The success of these policies, which became
known as the Wisconsin Idea, led other states to
adopt similar programs. Reform administrations
swept into office in Iowa and Arkansas (1901);
Oregon (1902); Minnesota, Kansas, and Mississippi
(1904); New York and Georgia (1906); Nebraska
(1909); and New Jersey and Colorado (1910). In
some cases the reformers were Republicans, in others
Democrats, but in all the example of Wisconsin was
influential. By 1910, fifteen states had established leg-
islative reference services, most of them staffed by
personnel trained in Wisconsin. The direct primary
system, in which candidates were selected by voters
than party bosses, became almost universal.
Some states went beyond Wisconsin in striving to
make their governments responsive to the popular
will. In 1902 Oregon began to experiment with the
initiative, a system by which a bill could be forced on
the attention of the legislature by popular petition,
and the referendum, a method for allowing the elec-
torate to approve measures rejected by their represen-
tatives and to repeal measures that the legislature had
passed. Eleven states, most of them in the West, legal-
ized these devices by 1914.State Social Legislation
The first state laws aimed at social problems long
preceded the Progressive Era, but most were either
so imprecise as to be unenforceable or, like the
Georgia law “limiting” textile workers to eleven
hours a day, so weak as to be ineffective. In 1874
Massachusetts restricted the working hours of
women and children to ten per day, and by the
1890s many other states, mostly in the East and
Midwest, had followed suit. Illinois passed an eight-
hour law for women workers in 1893. A New York
law of 1882 struck at the sweatshops of the slums by
prohibiting the manufacture of cigars on premises
“occupied as a house or residence.”
As part of this trend, some states established spe-
cial rules for workers in hazardous industries. In the
1890s several states limited the hours of railroad
workers on the grounds that fatigue sometimes
caused railroad accidents. Utah restricted miners to
eight hours in 1896. In 1901 New York finally
enacted an effective tenement house law, greatly
increasing the area of open space on building lots and
requiring toilets for each apartment, better ventilation
systems, and more adequate fireproofing.
Before 1900 the collective impact of such legisla-
tion was not impressive. Powerful manufacturers and
landlords often succeeded in defeating the bills or
rendering them innocuous. The federal system further
complicated the task of obtaining effective legislation.
The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution,
although enacted to protect the civil rights of blacks,
imposed a revolutionary restriction on the states by
forbidding them to “deprive any person of life, liberty,
or property without due process of law.” Since much
state social legislation represented new uses of coer-
cive power that conservative judges considered dan-
gerous and unwise, the Fourteenth Amendment gave
such judges an excuse to overturn the laws that
deprived employers of the “liberty” to choose how
long their employees should work or the conditions
of the workplace.