716 ★ CHAPTER 18 The Progressive Eragovernment as “a threat to individual
liberty,” to see it instead as “a means for
solving the ills of the body politic.”
Progressives could reject the tradi-
tional assumption that powerful govern-
ment posed a threat to freedom, because
their understanding of freedom was itself
in flux. “Effective freedom,” wrote the
philosopher John Dewey, was a positive,
not a negative, concept— the “power to
do specific things.” As such, it depended
on “the distribution of powers that exists
at a given time.” Thus, freedom inevita-
bly became a political question.State and Local Reforms
Throughout the Western world, social legislation proliferated in the early
twentieth century. In the United States, with a political structure more decen-
tralized than in European countries, state and local governments enacted most
of the era’s reform measures. In cities, Progressives worked to reform the struc-
ture of government to reduce the power of political bosses, establish public
control of “natural monopolies” like gas and water works, and improve public
transportation. They raised property taxes in order to spend more money on
schools, parks, and other public facilities.
Gilded Age mayors Hazen Pingree and Samuel “Golden Rule” Jones pio-
neered urban Progressivism. A former factory worker who became a success-
ful shoe manufacturer, Pingree served as mayor of Detroit from 1889 to 1897.
He battled the business interests that had dominated city government, forcing
gas and telephone companies to lower their rates, and established a municipal
power plant. Jones had instituted an eight- hour day and paid vacations at his fac-
tory that produced oil drilling equipment. As mayor of Toledo, Ohio, from 1897
to 1905, he founded night schools and free kindergartens, built new parks, and
supported the right of workers to unionize. Since state legislatures defined the
powers of city government, urban Progressives often carried their campaigns to
the state level. Pingree became governor of Michigan in 1896, in which post he
continued his battle against railroads and other corporate interests.Progressivism in the West
Although often associated with eastern cities, Progressivism was also a major
presence in the West. Former Populists and those who believed in the moralA photograph from 1910 depicts needy constit-
uents of New York political boss Timothy “Big
Tim” Sullivan receiving free pairs of shoes. Each
year, Sullivan distributed two thousand pairs on
his mother’s birthday. Such largesse endeared
political bosses to many voters, to the annoyance
of municipal reformers.