Compare the Progressive politics of Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson
Compare the Progressive politics of Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson
The U.S. presidential election of 1912.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Transcript
NARRATOR: In 1912 all three presidential candidates were Progressives. Theodore Roosevelt had been president in 1902. He had forced the coal mine owners to settle with the union. He had stopped Hill and Harriman when they tried to monopolize the western railroads. He accepted trusts as inevitable, but insisted the federal government regulate them. He denounced Woodrow Wilson's call for the limitations of federal power as the surest way to allow the employer to work his employees to death.
ROOSEVELT: The liberty of which Mr. Wilson speaks today means merely the liberty of the factory owner to close his operatives into some crazy death trap on a stuffed floor where, if fire starts, the slaughter is immense.
NARRATOR: Roosevelt was running as a Progressive against the incumbent William Howard Taft.
But Taft, too, ran as a Progressive. He claimed accurately that he had carried out more legal actions against the trusts than Roosevelt ever had.
TAFT: We must make up the abuses in the good old Anglo-Saxon ways, adjust our statutory remedies to the fitness of the thing, place our confidence in the public servants who show themselves alive to public need, and courageous and energetic enough to prosecute the offenders to convictions.
NARRATOR: Which brings us back to the beginning--Woodrow Wilson's campaign film starring everybody's favorite villain, the fat capitalist. By 1912 the Muckrakers had done their work well. Our villain carried on his back the accumulated sins of a thousand trusts. He carried with him the stench of the tenements, the nameless miners who had been killed in his mine shafts, the hordes of farmers who had been dispossessed by his sheriffs, the anguished children who had collapsed at his looms, the army of politicians who were on his payroll. He was behind it all. If he could be regulated by law, the world would be a better and a happier place.
And so Teddy Roosevelt said, let the federal government control him. And William Howard Taft replied, yes, but I can control him better than Teddy Roosevelt ever did. And Woodrow Wilson added, he's too fat, too big; let us break him up into a thousand smaller businessmen; send me your dollars, and I will bring forth the Progressive world. For Wilson, too, preached the Progressive litany.
WILSON: We hold that the night labor of women and children is abnormal and should be prohibited; we hold that the employment of women over 48 hours per week is abnormal and should be prohibited; we hold that the 7 day working week is abnormal; we hold that one day of rest in 7 should be provided by law.
ROOSEVELT: The liberty of which Mr. Wilson speaks today means merely the liberty of the factory owner to close his operatives into some crazy death trap on a stuffed floor where, if fire starts, the slaughter is immense.
NARRATOR: Roosevelt was running as a Progressive against the incumbent William Howard Taft.
But Taft, too, ran as a Progressive. He claimed accurately that he had carried out more legal actions against the trusts than Roosevelt ever had.
TAFT: We must make up the abuses in the good old Anglo-Saxon ways, adjust our statutory remedies to the fitness of the thing, place our confidence in the public servants who show themselves alive to public need, and courageous and energetic enough to prosecute the offenders to convictions.
NARRATOR: Which brings us back to the beginning--Woodrow Wilson's campaign film starring everybody's favorite villain, the fat capitalist. By 1912 the Muckrakers had done their work well. Our villain carried on his back the accumulated sins of a thousand trusts. He carried with him the stench of the tenements, the nameless miners who had been killed in his mine shafts, the hordes of farmers who had been dispossessed by his sheriffs, the anguished children who had collapsed at his looms, the army of politicians who were on his payroll. He was behind it all. If he could be regulated by law, the world would be a better and a happier place.
And so Teddy Roosevelt said, let the federal government control him. And William Howard Taft replied, yes, but I can control him better than Teddy Roosevelt ever did. And Woodrow Wilson added, he's too fat, too big; let us break him up into a thousand smaller businessmen; send me your dollars, and I will bring forth the Progressive world. For Wilson, too, preached the Progressive litany.
WILSON: We hold that the night labor of women and children is abnormal and should be prohibited; we hold that the employment of women over 48 hours per week is abnormal and should be prohibited; we hold that the 7 day working week is abnormal; we hold that one day of rest in 7 should be provided by law.