Progressivism: A Century-Long Legacy

Sidney M. Milkis and Jerome M. Mileur, eds. Progressivism and the New Democracy. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999). Pp. 312. $50.00 (cloth), $16.95 (paper).

Despite Peter Filene's 1970 obituary, political scientists and historians continue their fascination with the Progressive movement--a fascination that another fin de siècle has only served to heighten. ¹ Scholars have grappled with questions such as Who were the Progressives? What were their programs? Why are they significant? This collection of essays addresses these questions and attempts to place the Progressives in historical/political context, particularly in terms of how Progressive ideas resonate in the current political system and the ways in which the Progressive experience informs contemporary American politics.

The nine interdisciplinary studies included in this volume focus on three aspects of the Progressive legacy--the concern over the growing power of big business, the overall Progressive faith in democracy, and the exploration of new rights designed to protect American society from the vagaries of the marketplace that resulted, in fact, in a new assessment of the relationship between the individual and the government.

Within these parameters, the authors of the current volume revisit several of the central historiographical debates regarding the Progressive legacy, and for the most part they contribute new insights to the discussions, always with an eye toward placing the Progressive tradition in a contemporary light. The goal of the essays is not only to engage historians and political scientists, however, but also to indicate to journalists and political activists the ways in which Progressivism continues to be of interest. Sidney Milkis's thoughtful introduction expresses the hope that the essays will not only discuss how Progressivism "shapes contemporary politics and government" but also examine "roads that were not traveled" (2) as a starting point for discussing the current situation.

Wilson Carey McWilliams emphasizes the notion that while historians may ponder whether or not there was a Progressive movement, Progressives themselves were self-conscious regarding their shared pragmatic concept of action, reliance on conscience, duty to promote moral progress, and belief that government has a strong responsibility for uplifting society--as Daniel Rogers has eloquently argued and McWilliams agrees--attitudes shared by the entire Atlantic community as well. ² Progressivism "deserves much of the credit for building a government even remotely adequate for the problems of the 20th century" (115).

Morton Keller echoes this notion and illustrates that the Progressives encountered issues that continue to confront Americans--corruption and efficiency of government, corporate consolidation and maldistribution of wealth, race and gender, and the place of immigration and cultural pluralism in American life. In the process, Progressives often failed at achieving their goals, and those failures illustrate the need for both a broad popular coalition and a perceived national crisis as precursors to substantive legislative change. While Progressives achieved that kind of change in the cases of Prohibition and immigration restriction, the Clinton health-care proposals and the Republican "Contract with America" both failed because they did not enjoy the two prerequisites.

The Progressive concern with the growing power of big business and other interests continues in the current Microsoft lawsuit, and prompted the Progressives to reexamine governmental relationships. Alonzo Hamby discusses the politics of Progressivism in terms of the Progressives as battlers for social justice in relations between the classes and as fighters for democracy in combat with the special interests (primarily big business). In Hamby's view, Progressives determined that an expanded federal government was required to manage the economy; "many of the perspectives of Progressivism and much of its language remain with us, shaping our sense of the world around us more than we may realize" (74).

Martha Derthick and John Dinan echo Hamby's notion that American political thought was affected by Progressivism in terms of how Americans view the United States Constitution and the whole concept of federalism. According to Derthick and Dinan, Progressives sought to move Americans from a federalism grounded in...