CHAPTER4 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT 75 74 PART ONE THE CONSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK PROGRESSIVE REFORMS The Progressive movement's major goal was to curb the referendum as means of allowing the public to enact power of party bosses and big business.Led by such men legislation:dependence on experts and proven admin- istrators instead of party workers to staff executive as Wisconsin's Robert La Follette,it infuenced nearly every aspect of American political life,local and branch. well as national.No other reform movement before or Nationml govermmert:Use of primaries rather than ca The aince has had such a broad and lasting effect on American cuses as method of choosing delegates to presidential press made newspaper o produce and brought their politics.Among the Progressive reforms are the following: nominating conventions;election of U.S.senators di- rectly rather than through state legislatures. 的 Municipal govemment:Utilities converted from private to public ownership;govemment contracts awarded These newer ways of goveming were not adopted every- through public bids rather than political deals;adminis where.Cities and states of the East and South were much tration of government through city managers or com- more likely than those of the Midwest and West to retain Progressive reformers looked for ways to weaken the power of corporations mission plan instead of elected mayors;nonpartisan the older systems.Party bosses and big business remained and party bosses and to give the public a greater voice in politics.In its elections substituted for partisan ones. strong in many (perhaps most)locations,but their power Declaration of Principles of 1911,the Natlonal Progressive League defined its State goverment:Nominatlon of candidates by direct would never again be what it was before the Progressive goal as"the promotion of popular government."The Progressives rejected the primary rather than party caucuses;use of initlative and era Burkean idea (discussed earlier in this chapter)of representatives as trustees; they embraced instead the idea of representatives as delegates-officeholders who are obligated to respond directly to the expressed opinions of the people ratified in 1913,had been chosen by state legislatures and were widely whom they represent. The Progressive movement was made possible by changes in education and perceived as agents of the rich(the Senate was nicknamed the "millionaires communication during the nation's first century.In 1787 the vast majority of club).Earlier attempts to amend the Senate election procedure were blocked Americans were illiterate,and many of those who could read could not afford by the senators,who stood to lose their seats if they had to submit to direct vote the hand-printed newspapers of the time.During the nineteenth century, by the people.At length,however,the Senate was finally persuaded to support however,a broad-based public school system was created,and the invention of an amendment by pressure from the Progressives and by revelations that the high-speed printing press led to the "penny"newspaper.By the time of the corporate bribes had influenced the selection of several senators. Progressive movement,literacy was widespread in America,as was newspaper Of the many Progressive reforms,the most significant was the primary election, readership.Ordinary Americans believed themselves to be politically informed which gave rank-and-file voters a voice in the selection of party nominees.Party and wanted the greater influence that the Progressives promised.The strongest bosses would no longer have absolute control of nominations,which had been a AaT2 THE ISS店品 force behind the Progressives'call for a more direct democracy was the chief source of their power.No greater blow to political parties can be imagined. persistent American belief that govemment should be subject to popular When a party does not have the power to select its candidates,it cannot Reform of Government majo period of reform.What control-the more,the better. command their loyalty to its organizational and policy goals.Candidates will embrace or reject their party as it suits their needs.In other democracies,which does i设uaggest about the have no primary elections,parties have retained control of the nominating ability of self-govemment to renew itself?In your Progressive Reforms process and therefore have remained strong (Chapter 12 discusses party udgment,were the reforms organization in detail.) elves,such as the Two of the Progressives'reforms gave voting majorities the direct power to primary elections decide policy at the state and local levels.One device was the iritiative,which Political parties in America were further undercut in the early twentieth consistent with allows citizens through petition to place legislative measures on the ballot.A century by the extension of merit-based civil service,which cost the parties see related measure was the referendum,which permits legislative bodies to submit thousands of patronage jobs.By 1916,elections were becoming "advertising- proposals to the voters for approval or rejection.The Progressives also sought to style"campaigns in which candidates appealed to the voters directly rather than eed for refom ody?sth United States sufficiently ratic?If you believe give the public recourse against wayward state and local officials through the through party organizations.The time was coming when no institution of any strength would stand between the voters and their representatives. that it is not, what reforms recnll,in which citizens petition for the removal of an elected official before the might reasonably be scheduled completion of his or her term of office. introduced? In terms of national politics,a more significant Progressive reform was the Richard lensen,"American Electioo direct election of U.S.senators,who,before the Seventeenth Amendment was