Corruption In The Progressive Era

The progressive era lasted from the 1890s to the 1920s in American history and was largely founded on the ideals of eliminating corruption in the American government. The methods of doing so were extremely expansive and yet narrow minded at the same time. While the era is called the progressive era, the reality of the period specifically represents a fight against corruption, greed, and injustice. Today, we see these changes in a different light because they have become the norm in most civilized societies. First, — politically — one of the main goals of the progressive era was to make the government more receptive to the peoples wants and needs. Economically, the ideas of anti-trust and the creation of a federal income tax had huge roles …show more content…
The influence of political machines and corruption among government officials led the arguably the biggest political change of the time period: The creation of the 17th amendment which allowed for direct voting for senators. The 17th amendment was necessary because of the corruption in the state legislature as well as political gridlock. The corruption basically made it so that the legislatures would have the true say while the people were excluded. Furthermore the senate was originally designed to determine matters of trade and defense on a federal level. This insinuated that the power to control the states was left to the state and local level governments. By having state legislatures, the power that should've been in the hands of the people was placed i the hands of the federal government as well. The gridlock also made it so that many senatorial decisions were rendered ineffective. The 17th amendment allowed for a direct pipeline from the people to the Senate. One of the biggest proponents of the 17th Amendment was Andrew Johnson, he stated that the merits to the system were “so palpable” that there was no need for further discussion on the matter. This shows the relative progressivism in that, changes were made to the political system in the period that allowed for something that most people viewed as reasonable to begin …show more content…
The Trust Buster, as it is commonly referred to, was Teddy Roosevelt’s way of creating fair competition in a capitalistic society. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act was passed by congress in 1890. This law made it illegal to restrain trade between companies, however it was largely unsuccessful for the first 12 years of its existence. During the time the American Sugar Refining Company controlled 98 percent of the sugar industry. This monopoly however remained in existence even after the Anti Trust laws were put into place due to the Supreme Court’s tendency to side with businesses over the government. Teddy Roosevelt then went for J.P Morgan in pursuit of taking down monopolies which established precedence for determining good trusts versus bad trusts. Basically if monopolies used their power to inflate prices, they were deemed a bad trust, if they kept prices reasonable, they were considered a good trust. Secondly, the creation of the 16th Amendment created a constant income for the U.S government separate from tariffs that wouldn’t alienate the population. By introducing a federal income tax the government was able to decrease the income gap between the rich and poor. Again, this is relative progression rather than true progression because it was something that most individuals in the society would view as common sense before the