WEBVTT NOTE The Progressive Era 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:29.000 I have a few brief preliminary things to note. The first is, it's difficult to follow Professor Livingston always, but I want to note to you that probably, I don't know what the timetable is exactly, but early next year, there's going to be appearing a special issue of the Journal of Libertarian Studies, which I'm honored to be serving. 2 00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:49.000 The Confederacy Morally Available to Libertarians 3 00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:05.040 Let's see, the second thing is I am sort of the mysterious phantom faculty member here 4 00:01:05.040 --> 00:01:09.460 because for some reason I don't appear in the list of faculty at the end of the handout 5 00:01:09.460 --> 00:01:15.680 that you got. I assure you I am a faculty member at this seminar. So I had a couple 6 00:01:15.680 --> 00:01:20.560 people ask me, you know, are you going to give us your email address? Well, congratulations 7 00:01:20.560 --> 00:01:27.160 everybody. Here it is. Okay. Woohoo. All right. If you should want to correspond with me, 8 00:01:27.160 --> 00:01:35.600 Please don't correspond with me in the spirit of a crank who, if I haven't returned your email in three days, denounces me in a subsequent email. 9 00:01:35.600 --> 00:01:42.440 You know, I do have work and family responsibilities in addition to your email, but I'll do the best I can to get right back to you. 10 00:01:42.440 --> 00:01:45.000 Anyway, that's State University of New York. 11 00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:54.040 Okay, and the third thing is our dean, Professor Reiko, just asked me, are you some kind of a nihilist when it comes to dress codes? 12 00:01:54.040 --> 00:02:00.040 And in my own defense, I'm actually a rather smart dresser most of the time. 13 00:02:00.040 --> 00:02:14.040 When I was here last month, those of you who were on the faculty of the Rothbard Graduate Seminar will remember that you were all wearing t-shirts and short-sleeved shirts and walking around with, you know, cut-offs on or something. 14 00:02:14.040 --> 00:02:19.040 And I got the note from Pat Barnett saying that this was casual dress. 15 00:02:19.040 --> 00:02:23.040 I'm not okay, I'll show up with my, I won't even bring a coat or a tie, and everybody's wearing a coat. 16 00:02:23.040 --> 00:02:26.040 You just don't know. It's one of these black tie events. 17 00:02:26.040 --> 00:02:30.040 Do I show up, and you show up in black tie, black tie optional, and you're the only one wearing black tie. 18 00:02:30.040 --> 00:02:34.040 You never know what you're supposed to do. Anyway, the Progressive Era is what we're talking about. 19 00:02:34.040 --> 00:02:39.040 And we talk about the Progressive Era, we're talking about basically the turn of the century, 20 00:02:39.040 --> 00:02:44.040 obviously I mean 19th and 20th centuries, until about the end of World War I. 21 00:02:44.040 --> 00:02:51.840 And this is the period in which we get many innovations that we've enjoyed over the years, 22 00:02:51.840 --> 00:02:57.140 the Federal Reserve system, the income tax, it's just, you know, how could I even list them all? 23 00:02:57.140 --> 00:03:01.640 You should all read Murray Rothbard's book, The Case Against the Fed. 24 00:03:01.640 --> 00:03:08.740 I have a friend, one of my best friends, who works at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. 25 00:03:08.740 --> 00:03:12.040 And I've never really broached the issue with him. 26 00:03:12.040 --> 00:03:19.040 But he came to, I had a bunch of friends stay over one night and he saw that book on my shelf and that got the picture through to him. 27 00:03:19.040 --> 00:03:24.040 Basically what I'm saying to him is, you know, if I had my way, you know, you'd be selling pencils on the street, my friend. 28 00:03:24.040 --> 00:03:32.040 But anyway, anyway, the progressive era, well, as Dr. Higgs noted in his opening talk, 29 00:03:32.040 --> 00:03:41.040 this is obviously a period of accelerating statism in U.S. history and it's a period in which statism is given a kind of an ideological and philosophical veneer. 30 00:03:41.040 --> 00:03:51.040 It isn't simply brute force. There's a rationale behind it. I'm not saying it's a good one, but it's there. 31 00:03:51.040 --> 00:03:57.040 So in other words, the prejudice always is toward a state solution to whatever the problem is. 32 00:03:57.040 --> 00:04:02.040 Likewise, there is a prejudice in favor of expert direction in society. 33 00:04:02.040 --> 00:04:10.040 That so-called value-free technocratic experts ought to be entrusted with dealing with the various problems in society. 34 00:04:10.040 --> 00:04:21.040 and the problems in society. So you see, therefore, during the progressive era, a lot of boards, a lot of, in the executive branch, to deal with various issues. 35 00:04:21.040 --> 00:04:26.040 For instance, setting railroad rates, where we'll have an expert board decide what the railroad rates should be. 36 00:04:26.040 --> 00:04:34.040 None of them have anything to do with railroads, but we'll have them set the rates, and I'm sure that will be really efficient. 37 00:04:34.040 --> 00:04:40.040 Then there is a kind of a cult. There's a cult of efficiency. Everything needs to be efficient. 38 00:04:40.040 --> 00:04:48.040 In a sense, this follows from everything else. The state, guided by experts, will give us efficient outcomes in various circumstances. 39 00:04:48.040 --> 00:04:57.040 And we see that in a variety of areas in the progressive area, this emphasis on efficiency, not only in things like scientific management, 40 00:04:57.040 --> 00:05:02.040 but also even there's a trend toward what's called scientific charity, whereby you might think, you know, 41 00:05:02.040 --> 00:05:16.040 Scientific charity means we'll keep a little card on each family and say, well, you know, this one's kind of a louse or whatever, we are able to channel charity more effectively. 42 00:05:16.040 --> 00:05:24.040 That's not necessarily a bad thing. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. The Catholic Church and the St. Vincent de Paul Society kind of took some of that. 43 00:05:24.040 --> 00:05:30.040 But I'm saying that it does reflect a spirit of efficiency in many areas of life. 44 00:05:30.040 --> 00:05:34.120 and even, of course, in the way government works. 45 00:05:34.120 --> 00:05:40.720 If the emphasis is on efficiency, well, then the U.S. Constitution isn't really your friend 46 00:05:40.720 --> 00:05:47.960 because the U.S. Constitution throws up all kinds of roadblocks in your way, if you interpret 47 00:05:47.960 --> 00:05:54.440 it in the traditional way. So you have to stop doing that. For instance, Theodore Roosevelt 48 00:05:54.440 --> 00:05:59.360 is a good example. I'll be returning to him several times. I found, going through some 49 00:05:59.360 --> 00:06:08.360 A letter in which he expressly says that insofar as the Senate becomes simply an obstructionist body, 50 00:06:08.360 --> 00:06:13.360 and you can translate that as, as much as the Senate doesn't approve the things I want, 51 00:06:13.360 --> 00:06:20.360 then power will pass into the hands of those willing to exercise it. 52 00:06:20.360 --> 00:06:24.360 So in other words, efficiency is to be extended to government. 53 00:06:24.360 --> 00:06:27.360 So if the Senate is not being efficient, if it isn't passing everything, 54 00:06:27.360 --> 00:06:33.360 So I, being the executive, I can be more efficient. I'm just one guy. So let me do the governing. 55 00:06:33.360 --> 00:06:37.360 So you see this cult of efficiency everywhere. 56 00:06:37.360 --> 00:06:45.360 And finally, this really is the point that you can pinpoint as really the birth of the regulatory state, 57 00:06:45.360 --> 00:06:49.360 with the regulatory agencies and a ceaseless stream of regulations. 58 00:06:49.360 --> 00:06:56.360 I remember Professor Hoppe had written an article in the 90s, and I haven't updated it since then, 59 00:06:56.360 --> 00:07:01.360 in which he was looking at the Federal Register, the Code of Federal Regulations, 60 00:07:01.360 --> 00:07:05.360 and I remember it being something like, I forget how many hundreds of volumes it is, 61 00:07:05.360 --> 00:07:11.360 but the index of it was almost 800 pages, just the index to all the regulations. 62 00:07:11.360 --> 00:07:15.360 I think it took up something like 27 feet of shelf space, some bizarre thing. 63 00:07:15.360 --> 00:07:20.360 So, you know, thank you very much, progressive era, for getting that particular ball rolling. 64 00:07:20.360 --> 00:07:25.360 And I'm sure if even one of these regulations were removed, we'd probably all drop dead. 65 00:07:25.360 --> 00:07:27.360 So thank goodness they're there. 66 00:07:27.360 --> 00:07:38.360 Also connected to this emphasis on experts in science and efficiency, you can see in, for instance, trends in economic thought at that time. 67 00:07:38.360 --> 00:07:42.360 And in a sense, this sort of precedes the progressive era. 68 00:07:42.360 --> 00:07:48.360 But the beginnings of the American Economic Association, for instance, are very revealing. 69 00:07:48.360 --> 00:07:53.680 and this is a point that you can see elaborated in the in the cost of war book 70 00:07:53.680 --> 00:07:58.160 in Murray Rothbard's one of his chapters called world war one is fulfillment power 71 00:07:58.160 --> 00:08:00.760 and the intellectuals which it was originally published in the journal of 72 00:08:00.760 --> 00:08:04.280 libertarian studies an excellent excellent chapter that once you read it 73 00:08:04.280 --> 00:08:08.840 the whole the whole atmosphere the whole milieu of the progressive era will be 74 00:08:08.840 --> 00:08:12.840 infused into your brain it's extremely effective and extremely well done you 75 00:08:12.840 --> 00:08:18.360 We should all have this book. It's absolutely indispensable. 76 00:08:18.360 --> 00:08:24.520 Well, nevertheless, for instance, this, in 1884, when the AEA says this, 77 00:08:24.520 --> 00:08:27.920 this very much sums up the spirit of the progressive era, 78 00:08:27.920 --> 00:08:32.880 even though chronologically it somewhat precedes it. 79 00:08:32.880 --> 00:08:36.720 We regard the state as an educational and ethical agency 80 00:08:36.720 --> 00:08:41.480 whose positive aid is an indispensable condition of human progress. 81 00:08:41.480 --> 00:08:47.400 Well, we recognize the necessity of individual initiative in industrial life. 82 00:08:47.400 --> 00:08:48.760 How kind of them. 83 00:08:48.760 --> 00:08:54.320 We hold that the doctrine of laissez-faire is unsafe in politics and unsound in morals, 84 00:08:54.320 --> 00:09:00.520 and that it suggests an inadequate explanation of the relations between the state and the citizens. 85 00:09:00.520 --> 00:09:02.120 Okay, well, that's that. 86 00:09:02.120 --> 00:09:08.480 And as Rothbard points out, a lot of these folks who got the ball rolling here 87 00:09:08.480 --> 00:09:13.480 saw that if they were going to be able to use economics in the service of the state, 88 00:09:13.480 --> 00:09:17.480 have expert economists telling everybody how to organize things, 89 00:09:17.480 --> 00:09:24.480 economics had to be emancipated from a tradition whereby economic truths were attained through deduction, 90 00:09:24.480 --> 00:09:29.480 deduction from axioms and premises, very much like praxeology in Austrian economics, 91 00:09:29.480 --> 00:09:33.480 because that always seemed to lead to free market conclusions. We have to chuck that. 92 00:09:33.480 --> 00:09:36.480 Instead, we need to have a bunch of experts who go out and gather data 93 00:09:36.480 --> 00:09:40.480 and then just sit there and look at the data and magically theories will come out of the data 94 00:09:40.480 --> 00:09:43.480 or explanations will just pop up out of the data. 95 00:09:43.480 --> 00:09:49.480 Well, you know, anyway, I don't know how you would evaluate that, but I'm not necessarily in favor of that. 96 00:09:49.480 --> 00:09:52.480 But that indicates the spirit that animates this. 97 00:09:52.480 --> 00:09:57.480 Likewise, another thing you see, you mentioned the progressive era, you think about things like muckrakers, 98 00:09:57.480 --> 00:10:04.480 muckraking journalists who are writing articles about terrible conditions in the meatpacking plants and this sort of thing. 99 00:10:04.480 --> 00:10:11.600 and that is a feature as well that we see but I you know I've some of these some 100 00:10:11.600 --> 00:10:15.400 of these muckrakers don't really have in my view a whole lot of moral authority 101 00:10:15.400 --> 00:10:19.560 like Lincoln Steffens he's going to lecture me on various problems in the 102 00:10:19.560 --> 00:10:24.240 country here's the dolt who goes over into Soviet Russia after the Bolsheviks 103 00:10:24.240 --> 00:10:31.000 have taken over and comes back with his most famous justly famous inane remark I 104 00:10:31.000 --> 00:10:36.000 I have seen the future and it works. 105 00:10:36.000 --> 00:10:38.000 You know, what kind of a complete idiot are you? 106 00:10:38.000 --> 00:10:40.000 And I'm supposed to sit there and read your articles and say, 107 00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:43.000 Oh my gosh, American society needs to be reformed. 108 00:10:43.000 --> 00:10:46.000 Likewise, Ida Tarbell, who writes all about Standard Oil. 109 00:10:46.000 --> 00:10:50.000 Well, she had a family member who was driven out of business by Rockefeller. 110 00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:52.000 So, you know, no wonder she's a little bitter against Standard Oil. 111 00:10:52.000 --> 00:10:55.000 You know, she may have an axe to grind in this case. 112 00:10:55.000 --> 00:11:00.000 So, I don't know, in my opinion these people are basically reprehensible. 113 00:11:30.000 --> 00:11:34.920 There was no social gospel movement in the Catholic Church at this time, nothing resembling 114 00:11:34.920 --> 00:11:35.920 it whatsoever. 115 00:11:35.920 --> 00:11:39.120 Yes, there was Rearim Navarro, but that's not at all the same thing. 116 00:11:39.120 --> 00:11:44.040 The social gospel movement, as most of you know, is a movement within American Protestantism 117 00:11:44.040 --> 00:11:49.640 that is guilty of certain innovations in Christian doctrine. 118 00:11:49.640 --> 00:11:54.240 And that might not sound like such a sin to you, but innovation is not really the hallmark 119 00:11:54.240 --> 00:11:56.560 or the cornerstone of Christian thought. 120 00:11:56.560 --> 00:11:59.640 The idea is you're transmitting something that's old, and you're preserving something 121 00:11:59.640 --> 00:12:07.640 There's nothing new about a theologian saying we ought to refer to the Bible in considering social problems. 122 00:12:07.640 --> 00:12:12.640 There's nothing new about a theologian saying we ought to be generous toward those who are less fortunate. 123 00:12:12.640 --> 00:12:19.640 What is new in the social gospel movement is theologians who are willing to remake Christian categories, 124 00:12:19.640 --> 00:12:28.640 Christian ideas, Christian mysteries, to remake them, to reinterpret them and to give them a naturalistic meaning. 125 00:12:28.640 --> 00:12:45.640 Salvation has to be carried out in a community context. 126 00:12:45.640 --> 00:12:52.640 How can you really have salvation if housing is sort of dilapidated? 127 00:12:52.640 --> 00:12:58.120 If you haven't figured out what the best railroad fare is yet, the railroad, you don't have 128 00:12:58.120 --> 00:13:02.040 enough railroad regulation, how can we really say we've got salvation? 129 00:13:02.040 --> 00:13:06.060 So salvation takes on this, and you begin to think that Christ died so that you could 130 00:13:06.060 --> 00:13:13.240 get good railroad rates, you know, just absolute inane blasphemies like this that you see. 131 00:13:13.240 --> 00:13:18.080 And by no means the worst of them is Walter Rauschenbusch, who has a number of books, 132 00:13:18.080 --> 00:13:26.080 A theology for the social gospel, in which he argues that before all these dummies got 133 00:13:26.080 --> 00:13:34.160 involved in Christianity, like St. Paul, and beyond that, we had a perfectly ethical religion. 134 00:13:34.160 --> 00:13:37.640 It was dealing only with man's relationship to his fellow man. 135 00:13:37.640 --> 00:13:39.240 That's what we need to get back to. 136 00:13:39.240 --> 00:13:44.320 We don't need this dogmatic superstructure and things like sin and all these other... 137 00:13:44.320 --> 00:13:49.560 Yeah, there's sin, but there's industrial sin, and judicial sin, and collective sin. 138 00:13:49.560 --> 00:13:54.540 You know, anyway, but now obviously what's really notable about this, so obviously these 139 00:13:54.540 --> 00:13:58.140 are people who go right along with the whole progressive program. 140 00:13:58.140 --> 00:14:03.780 These are people who see in the state a kind of a divine institution that can get us out 141 00:14:03.780 --> 00:14:07.860 of these messes that we're in, but what's especially notable, because I did my whole 142 00:14:07.860 --> 00:14:13.700 dissertation on Catholics in the progressive era, is that the progressives are generally 143 00:14:13.700 --> 00:14:21.700 is hostile toward traditional sort of dogmatic sectarian religion, Catholicism, some of the 144 00:14:21.700 --> 00:14:27.980 reform churches that are still dogmatic, they teach Christian dogmas, the progressives are 145 00:14:27.980 --> 00:14:33.380 generally hostile to them, the New Republic magazine is very hostile to Catholicism, sometimes 146 00:14:33.380 --> 00:14:38.860 it's muted but it comes out, whereas on the other hand they have no problem with the social 147 00:14:38.860 --> 00:14:42.620 gospel and they welcome them in because here's a completely non-threatening religion, doesn't 148 00:14:42.620 --> 00:14:51.720 is a way of getting Christianity and using it as a tool to advance the program. 149 00:14:51.720 --> 00:14:56.220 There are a million and one reasons, by the way, why they don't like dogmatic and sectarian religion, 150 00:14:56.220 --> 00:14:59.020 but I have whole chapters on that, so we can talk about that later. 151 00:14:59.020 --> 00:15:04.480 I want to just make a brief note up here of a couple of books that you might find useful. 152 00:15:04.480 --> 00:15:07.760 These are books that all the faculty, they'll be yawning. 153 00:15:07.760 --> 00:15:11.700 They all read these books a thousand times, but I assume most people don't sit around 154 00:15:11.700 --> 00:15:15.200 I was thinking about the Progressive Era all the time, so there are a couple I would think of. 155 00:15:15.200 --> 00:15:20.200 The first one isn't really on the Progressive Era per se, but I still want to mention it. 156 00:15:20.200 --> 00:15:26.200 In fact, I know people can't really see the bottom of this board back there, so I'm going to use all the space I can get. 157 00:15:26.200 --> 00:15:34.200 I was recommending this book to somebody the other day, and some of the time period that's covered in this book overlaps with the Progressive Era, 158 00:15:34.200 --> 00:15:37.200 so I think it's legitimate to mention it now. 159 00:15:37.200 --> 00:15:41.200 You know, it's sort of silly, but it's sort of good. 160 00:15:41.200 --> 00:15:50.200 Let's see. Oh yeah, yeah. The Myth of the Robber Barons. It's got a good title, you know, because you're always being told, 161 00:15:50.200 --> 00:15:56.200 oh my goodness, how could you believe what you believe? You know, if we didn't have the state look at all these terrible things that would happen, 162 00:15:56.200 --> 00:16:02.200 we'd be getting cheap consumer goods. Yeah, what a disaster that would be. Okay, that's one thing. 163 00:16:02.200 --> 00:16:10.200 This was published in the 90s, I think, by Young America's Foundation. It may still be in print. I think it is, but if you can check Amazon, it's good. 164 00:16:10.200 --> 00:16:15.480 It's good, it destroys all the myths about this, and I mention this because it was during 165 00:16:15.480 --> 00:16:22.440 the progressive era, particularly 1911, when Standard Oil had an antitrust suit, the suit 166 00:16:22.440 --> 00:16:27.000 was brought in 1906, but didn't actually get resolved until 1911, and an American tobacco 167 00:16:27.000 --> 00:16:28.640 company as well. 168 00:16:28.640 --> 00:16:35.480 These are things that you'll see covered in here, and you'll get really what actually 169 00:16:35.480 --> 00:16:36.480 happened. 170 00:16:36.480 --> 00:16:41.480 And this is really almost kind of, I don't want to say out of date, but I think it still holds up. 171 00:16:41.480 --> 00:16:50.480 It's everyone's favorite Marxist historian, sort of Marxist historian. 172 00:16:50.480 --> 00:16:54.480 Gabriel Kolko, the triumph of conservatism, yes. 173 00:16:54.480 --> 00:16:57.480 Now this doesn't mean conservatism in the sense that you're thinking. 174 00:16:57.480 --> 00:17:02.480 It means conservatism in the sense of protecting established interests. 175 00:17:02.480 --> 00:17:18.480 That's conservatism. And according to Kolko, all the reforms and regulations and all these maneuverings of the progressive era really were a sham, because all they did was, what you had at first was a highly competitive business environment. 176 00:17:18.480 --> 00:17:30.480 And these regulations actually were an attempt by businessmen, who don't like, frankly, that competitive environment, to freeze the situation, to freeze their privileged position, 177 00:17:30.480 --> 00:17:39.480 to use the mechanism of the state, to use regulation as a way of preserving their privileged position in the economy at that time. 178 00:17:39.480 --> 00:17:44.480 Now, that's quite an interesting thesis, and I actually think this is a good book, actually. 179 00:17:44.480 --> 00:17:55.480 The interesting thing is that Kalko is a complete leftist, and Professor Reiko was telling me the other night that, obviously, as you would imagine, 180 00:17:55.480 --> 00:17:58.980 A lot of our type of people would also cite his book and say, 181 00:17:58.980 --> 00:18:01.980 you see, this whole regulation business is a big scam. 182 00:18:01.980 --> 00:18:07.480 It's just business taking advantage of people through regulation and hurting their competition that way and so on. 183 00:18:07.480 --> 00:18:12.480 Well, Kolko got wind of this, that all libertarians were citing his work, you know, free market people. 184 00:18:12.480 --> 00:18:17.480 And he actually said, look, stop citing me. I didn't write this for you people. Leave me alone. 185 00:18:17.480 --> 00:18:20.980 Well, anyway, so this is something to look at. 186 00:18:20.980 --> 00:18:23.980 Oh, and finally, just one more, one more, one more, and then we move on. 187 00:18:23.980 --> 00:18:53.940 Institute, Antitrust and Monopoly, Anatomy of a Policy, 188 00:18:53.940 --> 00:19:16.940 failure, so you know it's got to be a good book. It's not necessarily a book you'd read cover to cover, although maybe you would, but it's an excellent book for reference, because it's got all the really key cases, antitrust cases, mainly in the 20th century, and you see how flimsy they all are, and a lot of them are things that take place during these years. 189 00:19:16.940 --> 00:19:24.940 Well, another issue I want to get to in the progressive era that isn't always mentioned 190 00:19:24.940 --> 00:19:29.300 has to do with the growth of the presidency and the increase in the power of the presidency. 191 00:19:29.300 --> 00:19:34.260 Now, there's a brand new volume out here on the presidency that the Institute has just published. 192 00:19:34.260 --> 00:19:40.020 It's a huge book, and you really all should buy it, because I haven't had time to look at it yet, 193 00:19:40.020 --> 00:19:45.220 but I was at the conference where the papers were given, and it's just excellent. 194 00:19:45.220 --> 00:19:53.020 It just busts all these myths. It's wonderful. You're going to know more than 99% of the population just by reading it. 195 00:19:53.020 --> 00:19:57.220 It's a real, real pleasure to own. 196 00:19:57.220 --> 00:20:05.820 The chapter on Theodore Roosevelt, according to laissez-faire books, is a, quote, great chapter. 197 00:20:05.820 --> 00:20:10.820 That was written by me, I guess, wasn't it? 198 00:20:10.820 --> 00:20:14.820 I don't know if you had a chance to see the laissez-faire catalogue, but I thought I'd just bring you up to date on that. 199 00:20:14.820 --> 00:20:18.820 Anyway, so I'm going to say a few things about Teddy Roosevelt. 200 00:20:18.820 --> 00:20:24.820 During this period, you do see the presidency growing by leaps and bounds in its powers. 201 00:20:24.820 --> 00:20:27.820 And I'm actually going to give empirical evidence for this. 202 00:20:27.820 --> 00:20:33.820 But first, I have a little quotation from our friend Woodrow Wilson, who, you know, 203 00:20:33.820 --> 00:20:36.820 president of Princeton University, getting elected president of the United States. 204 00:20:36.820 --> 00:20:39.820 You know, need I say more? I'm at the end of discussion about Woodrow Wilson. 205 00:20:39.820 --> 00:20:48.460 Well, he notes this. Of course, he's elected for our foreign guests. He's elected in 1912, serves two terms. 206 00:20:48.460 --> 00:20:54.220 Woodrow Wilson, in his book, Constitutional Government in the United States, says this about the President. 207 00:20:54.220 --> 00:21:00.820 Let him once win the admiration and confidence of the country, and no other single force can withstand him. 208 00:21:00.820 --> 00:21:04.520 No combination of forces will easily overpower him. 209 00:21:04.520 --> 00:21:10.520 If he rightly interpret the national thought and boldly insist upon it, he is irresistible. 210 00:21:10.520 --> 00:21:18.520 And the country never feels the zest of action so much as when its president is of such insight and caliber. 211 00:21:18.520 --> 00:21:27.520 The presidential office, Wilson said in another passage, is anything the president has the sagacity and force to make it. 212 00:21:27.520 --> 00:21:32.520 Oh, unbelievable. He's a great president, Woodrow Wilson. 213 00:21:34.520 --> 00:21:39.520 Theodore Roosevelt philosophy. Now, of course, T.R. precedes Wilson. 214 00:21:39.520 --> 00:21:44.520 He's going to take over after he was vice president of McKinley. He was assassinated. 215 00:21:44.520 --> 00:21:49.520 So he takes over in 1901 and then will serve an additional full term. 216 00:21:49.520 --> 00:21:56.520 Now, there's plenty in my chapter on Roosevelt. There are plenty of stories about what a crazy not he is 217 00:21:56.520 --> 00:22:26.520 Theodore Roosevelt's philosophy of the presidency stated briefly is that I, the President of the United States, have a special authority because I'm the only figure in the government 218 00:22:26.520 --> 00:22:28.520 Everybody in the country votes for him. 219 00:22:28.520 --> 00:22:31.520 Everybody in the country doesn't vote for the senators from Massachusetts, 220 00:22:31.520 --> 00:22:33.520 just the Massachusetts people do. 221 00:22:33.520 --> 00:22:38.520 But we all, theoretically, vote for a president. 222 00:22:38.520 --> 00:22:40.520 So that gives the president a special authority. 223 00:22:40.520 --> 00:22:43.520 He is the fountainhead, in a sense, of the people. 224 00:22:43.520 --> 00:22:46.520 He is the summit of the people. 225 00:22:46.520 --> 00:22:50.520 He is their representative, and he can therefore make a claim 226 00:22:50.520 --> 00:22:53.520 that no other person in the government can make. 227 00:22:53.520 --> 00:22:59.240 So he has this theory of the executive branch and of his power in particular. 228 00:22:59.240 --> 00:23:04.720 Moreover he has the view, which is kind of an inverted view of the traditional view of 229 00:23:04.720 --> 00:23:11.200 the Constitution, that the President can do anything that is not prohibited in the Constitution. 230 00:23:11.200 --> 00:23:14.520 Well that's a little bit, gives a little latitude doesn't it? 231 00:23:14.520 --> 00:23:20.440 They didn't really cover every conceivable issue that you could or could not do. 232 00:23:20.440 --> 00:23:27.960 And he boasts of this, he boasts of the fact that he expanded the authority of the office, 233 00:23:27.960 --> 00:23:32.640 he did things nobody else did or thought were constitutional, and he thought he was doing 234 00:23:32.640 --> 00:23:37.440 the country a service in doing so, and he repeats this again and again. 235 00:23:37.440 --> 00:23:45.400 And I think we can see, we can actually quantify this somewhat when we look at the issue of 236 00:23:45.400 --> 00:23:54.400 Executive orders, presidential directives, when the president issues an order of his own accord, like when the pope issues a motu proprio. 237 00:23:54.400 --> 00:24:02.400 I guess that's sort of an obscure reference. In other words, nothing that passes Congress is the president issuing something. 238 00:24:02.400 --> 00:24:12.400 So, for instance, Andrew Johnson, after the war between the states, pardoning people who had taken part in the so-called rebellion, did that by executive order. 239 00:24:12.400 --> 00:24:19.920 and that was a power that he legitimately held to issue pardons well this is going to become very 240 00:24:19.920 --> 00:24:23.680 important with with Theodore Roosevelt it looks as though if you look back throughout history the 241 00:24:23.680 --> 00:24:28.800 first what we would today refer to as executive orders were actually issued under George Washington 242 00:24:28.800 --> 00:24:33.040 appropriately enough the first president incidentally before going on i would just note 243 00:24:33.040 --> 00:24:41.280 that i think we all may remember the clinton aide who said some years ago he said speaking of 244 00:24:41.280 --> 00:24:46.920 executive orders stroke of the pen law of the land kind of cool how could you 245 00:24:46.920 --> 00:24:51.520 not want to punch that guy in the face you know I unbelievable unbelievable 246 00:24:51.520 --> 00:24:57.560 well George that's right George Washington I think the first he called it 247 00:24:57.560 --> 00:25:02.240 a proclamation but in our lingo we've called executive order in 1789 he asked 248 00:25:02.240 --> 00:25:08.120 the outgoing confederation government to write him a report on the state of the 249 00:25:08.120 --> 00:25:13.320 Country. Okay, that was an executive order, and nobody really thought that was an abuse of power. 250 00:25:13.320 --> 00:25:19.560 And there are a few other things. By proclamation, he declared days of Thanksgiving. But the first 251 00:25:19.560 --> 00:25:26.960 controversy involving executive orders seems to have taken place in 1793, when George Washington 252 00:25:26.960 --> 00:25:33.000 did something that seems very straightforward and not especially controversial. And that is when he 253 00:25:33.000 --> 00:25:40.040 He declared in 1793 the neutrality of the United States in the wars of the French Revolution. 254 00:25:40.040 --> 00:25:44.720 Now obviously that is what most Americans believe, they wanted neutrality, but at that 255 00:25:44.720 --> 00:25:49.860 time the President did not have the authority, strictly speaking, to declare neutrality. 256 00:25:49.860 --> 00:25:54.560 So at the time, believe it or not, this was considered an abuse of Washington's power 257 00:25:54.560 --> 00:25:58.320 to have simply of his own accord declared neutrality. 258 00:25:58.320 --> 00:26:03.880 What wound up happening was, after the fact, Congress then later, in effect, ratified what 259 00:26:03.880 --> 00:26:05.520 Washington had done. 260 00:26:05.520 --> 00:26:07.120 And that's set right away. 261 00:26:07.120 --> 00:26:11.960 President number one, a bad precedent is set, because it means the president could do some 262 00:26:11.960 --> 00:26:15.680 crazy thing, and the Congress will get all upset about it, but basically they'll sign 263 00:26:15.680 --> 00:26:16.680 off on it eventually. 264 00:26:16.680 --> 00:26:18.720 I don't know if you want to be doing that. 265 00:26:18.720 --> 00:26:22.840 Well you look down the history of presidential directives, executive orders, and what do 266 00:26:22.840 --> 00:26:23.840 you see? 267 00:26:23.840 --> 00:26:28.440 Well, let's say, okay, James Garfield didn't issue any. 268 00:26:28.440 --> 00:26:31.280 Well, he wasn't really alive that long, but he didn't issue any. 269 00:26:31.280 --> 00:26:34.280 Chester Arthur, I think, issued three of them. 270 00:26:34.280 --> 00:26:40.680 And you keep going down, and you get to, and you keep looking at the list, zero, zero, four, zero. 271 00:26:40.680 --> 00:26:45.680 You get to, and I think in his first term, Grover Cleveland, six. 272 00:26:45.680 --> 00:26:51.180 In his second term, Grover Cleveland issued 71, and doubtless that had something to do with the labor unrest, 273 00:26:51.180 --> 00:27:21.180 Theodore Roosevelt, 1006 274 00:27:21.180 --> 00:27:31.180 That is quite a jump, and granted he served two terms, but really you could pretty much add up all the other ones in US history and give him a run for his money. 275 00:27:31.180 --> 00:27:36.180 So that is an example of the way he thinks about the office of president. 276 00:27:36.180 --> 00:27:48.180 Well, I have also a specific example that really stunned my class, and that is the Roosevelt corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. 277 00:27:48.180 --> 00:28:18.180 I'm sure a lot of you know what that is, but very quickly, the Monroe Doctrine, 1823, James Monroe, the President, essentially declares that it's the policy of the United States, you know, I'm not even paraphrasing, I'm butchering this so badly, but ultimately that we don't get involved in Europe's affairs and we expect Europe to return the favor in our hemisphere, in our backyard, for them, we expect them not to colonize in our backyard because that would be, we would consider 278 00:28:18.180 --> 00:28:28.180 In 1904, the United States held in such contempt that no European power even bothered to respond for the Monroe Doctrine, but it was issued. 279 00:28:28.180 --> 00:28:34.180 This is altogether too wishy-washy for Theodore Roosevelt. 280 00:28:34.180 --> 00:28:40.180 His view, his corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, is to say, suppose something is happening. 281 00:28:40.180 --> 00:28:45.180 He makes this clear in 1904 and then he puts it into effect the following year. 282 00:28:45.180 --> 00:28:52.260 Suppose you have a country that is deeply in debt to some European power and is unable 283 00:28:52.260 --> 00:28:58.640 to repay and the European power is threatening to intervene to collect that just debt. Then 284 00:28:58.640 --> 00:29:04.380 in order to prevent them from intervening, the U.S. should intervene first to prevent 285 00:29:04.380 --> 00:29:08.960 them from intervening and that would be just our updated version of the Monroe Doctrine. 286 00:29:08.960 --> 00:29:14.060 So we will intervene so they won't intervene and we will resolve the situation and make 287 00:29:14.060 --> 00:29:17.060 to make sure that all just claims are satisfied. 288 00:29:17.060 --> 00:29:23.060 So for instance, this was put into effect in the case of the Dominican Republic, 1905. 289 00:29:23.060 --> 00:29:27.060 The Dominican Republic, again, they're in debt, and the United States, 290 00:29:27.060 --> 00:29:33.060 Theodore Roosevelt's idea was that the United States would take over the customs houses in the Dominican Republic, 291 00:29:33.060 --> 00:29:39.060 collect the money, and then dish out some of it for debt repayment and so on. 292 00:29:39.060 --> 00:29:55.060 Well, when Roosevelt went through with this and established this agreement with the Dominican Republic, he did so, and he said, the agreement said, this agreement will take effect February 1st, 1905. 293 00:29:55.060 --> 00:30:05.060 Well, the agreement was reached on January 21st, 1905. So, for the Senate to approve this, I mean, it is in effect a treaty. 294 00:30:05.060 --> 00:30:12.060 Can you imagine, especially in these days, transportation is slow, everything is slow, the Senate approving this in 11 days with no... 295 00:30:12.060 --> 00:30:20.060 He was obviously hoping to just bypass the Senate altogether. There's not enough time for them to consider this momentous decision. 296 00:30:20.060 --> 00:30:26.060 He had hoped to just bypass them altogether. Well, at that time, the Senate actually cared about having a voice in anything, 297 00:30:26.060 --> 00:30:32.060 and they protested vigorously and said, wait a minute, you don't have the authority to do this, what do you mean, some kind of madman? 298 00:30:32.060 --> 00:30:34.060 I'm just going to bypass the Senate all together. 299 00:30:34.060 --> 00:30:38.060 So finally, reluctantly, TR had to issue it to the Senate. 300 00:30:38.060 --> 00:30:42.060 Okay, all right, why don't you look it over and, you know, let's get the ball rolling. 301 00:30:42.060 --> 00:30:50.060 And the Senate, there was a special session, and they left without actually passing it one way or the other. 302 00:30:50.060 --> 00:30:52.060 They didn't approve it. They didn't approve it. 303 00:30:52.060 --> 00:30:54.060 So Roosevelt just enacted it anyway. 304 00:30:54.060 --> 00:30:59.060 And he said, okay, well, it's not a treaty, really. It's an executive agreement. 305 00:30:59.060 --> 00:31:01.060 So I don't really need your approval, as it turns out. 306 00:31:01.060 --> 00:31:07.300 That's funny, I didn't think of that earlier, but after you didn't approve it, I suddenly found that it's an executive agreement. 307 00:31:07.300 --> 00:31:12.620 Now this is just a... And you don't read about this either. I don't read that. 308 00:31:12.620 --> 00:31:17.460 I'm always looking for a good American history textbook. Never find one. You don't see that. You don't see that. 309 00:31:17.460 --> 00:31:23.700 We're supposed to be, you know, worshipping the guy and being thrilled about him, and I just... I won't do that. 310 00:31:23.700 --> 00:31:27.300 Okay. Well, anyway, that's an example of Theodore Roosevelt and the presidency. 311 00:31:27.300 --> 00:31:35.540 William Howard Taft, who was the president between TR and Woodrow Wilson, said, 312 00:31:35.540 --> 00:31:40.300 this is very interesting, I didn't realize this until relatively recently, but he wrote a book in 1916, 313 00:31:40.300 --> 00:31:50.340 Our Chief Magistrate and His Powers, and William Howard Taft in that book expressed alarm at this trend in the presidency, 314 00:31:50.340 --> 00:31:53.940 that, you know, what force can stop him? You know, what's happening? 315 00:31:53.940 --> 00:31:58.240 Well, you know, maybe before you brought all those antitrust suits, you might have asked yourself that, you big jerk. 316 00:31:58.240 --> 00:32:05.540 But Taft wrote, you know, he was growing concern, and Taft is, you know, at least a thoughtful person. 317 00:32:05.540 --> 00:32:12.740 I have to note, by the way, I can't resist in mentioning TR, since I've basically said everything I want to say about him before. 318 00:32:12.740 --> 00:32:17.940 I have a couple of additional things that I didn't say about him in that chapter. 319 00:32:17.940 --> 00:32:21.840 And this really, in a sense, also sums up the whole ethos of the progressive era. 320 00:32:21.840 --> 00:32:25.480 Here's one historian's take on T.R. 321 00:32:25.480 --> 00:32:31.280 He had only the greatest scorn for the kind of middle-class individualism and liberalism 322 00:32:31.280 --> 00:32:37.500 that emphasized minding one's own business, both at home and abroad. 323 00:32:37.500 --> 00:32:43.320 Following his death, T.R.'s death soon after the armistice of 1918, H.L. Mencken... 324 00:32:43.320 --> 00:32:47.800 You don't want to get on the wrong side of H.L. Mencken's pen, my friends. 325 00:32:47.800 --> 00:32:54.200 He wrote an autopsy of the late president, comparing him to Frederick the Great and the 326 00:32:54.200 --> 00:33:00.000 Kaiser in his love of armies and battleships, to Nietzsche. 327 00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:04.200 And he said this, all the fundamental objects of liberalism, of course in its classical 328 00:33:04.200 --> 00:33:10.840 variety, free speech, unhampered enterprise, the least possible governmental interference, 329 00:33:10.840 --> 00:33:13.580 were apparent to him. 330 00:33:13.580 --> 00:33:19.700 In all his career, no one ever heard him make an argument for the rights of the citizen. 331 00:33:19.700 --> 00:33:23.780 His eloquence was always expended in expounding the duties of the citizen. 332 00:33:23.780 --> 00:33:26.980 Okay, well these are things that are certainly true about him. 333 00:33:26.980 --> 00:33:29.980 Let me have a little drink here. 334 00:33:29.980 --> 00:33:37.980 Okay, let's see, there are several other points I want to make and then I'll take any questions. 335 00:33:37.980 --> 00:33:43.540 I think I'll write one more thing up here. 336 00:33:43.540 --> 00:33:48.220 If you were to try to pin down the progressive movement, which you couldn't, but if you 337 00:33:48.220 --> 00:33:53.420 wanted to get a good overview by somebody who was a member of the progressive movement and 338 00:33:53.420 --> 00:34:01.700 who could be maybe a good example for you, it would be, well, if it were a magazine, 339 00:34:01.700 --> 00:34:05.200 it would be The New Republic, which believe it or not was, it's hard to decide whether 340 00:34:05.200 --> 00:34:10.380 it was better, was worse or better then than it is now, but The New Republic magazine, 341 00:34:10.380 --> 00:34:16.180 You read article after article, it's cheering all these developments, cheering the increase 342 00:34:16.180 --> 00:34:17.180 in power of the president. 343 00:34:17.180 --> 00:34:21.780 I mean, I've read so many articles from old New Republics, not for fun, it was for research. 344 00:34:21.780 --> 00:34:26.860 And one of the editors of the New Republic wrote the book on the progressive movement 345 00:34:26.860 --> 00:34:30.780 that Theodore Roosevelt read and said, you know, this is it, this is my standard that 346 00:34:30.780 --> 00:34:35.640 I'm going to, when he ran his third party campaign, in effect, this is more or less 347 00:34:35.640 --> 00:34:36.640 my program. 348 00:34:36.640 --> 00:34:44.640 Herbert Crowley wrote a book called The Promise of American Life. 349 00:34:44.640 --> 00:34:52.640 Don't read it unless you're mature and settled enough to be able to grit your teeth through a real ordeal. 350 00:34:52.640 --> 00:34:58.640 But at the same time it's a good primary source because it does sum up so much of the progressive program. 351 00:34:58.640 --> 00:35:04.640 The first thing he does in this book is to attack laissez-faire theory. 352 00:35:04.640 --> 00:35:10.360 This is morally reprehensible, and so is Jeffersonianism. 353 00:35:10.360 --> 00:35:12.720 He absolutely loathes Jefferson. 354 00:35:12.720 --> 00:35:17.040 Incidentally, so did Theodore Roosevelt loathed Jefferson. 355 00:35:17.040 --> 00:35:19.520 Theodore Roosevelt loathed the Confederacy, 356 00:35:19.520 --> 00:35:21.160 well, because it was not nationalist. 357 00:35:21.160 --> 00:35:24.120 He wanted to break free from the nation. 358 00:35:24.120 --> 00:35:27.320 He didn't think that a big country was its own justification, 359 00:35:27.320 --> 00:35:28.800 so Roosevelt didn't like it. 360 00:35:28.800 --> 00:35:31.280 Well, neither does Crowley. 361 00:35:31.280 --> 00:35:34.600 He says that, really, Jeffersonianism is unrealistic. 362 00:35:34.600 --> 00:35:39.480 with the small scale, with the individualism, the strict construction of the Constitution. 363 00:35:39.480 --> 00:35:42.840 This is all really not reasonable. 364 00:35:42.840 --> 00:35:46.680 And he compared Jefferson unfavorably to Hamilton. 365 00:35:46.680 --> 00:35:52.600 He said Hamilton was much the finer man and much the sounder thinker and statesman. 366 00:35:52.600 --> 00:35:57.560 Okay, well anyway, that's a point of view, I suppose. 367 00:35:57.560 --> 00:36:03.460 According to Crowley, Jeffersonianism was inimical to a sound nationalism. 368 00:36:03.460 --> 00:36:07.060 is necessary to the progressive reform movement in his view. 369 00:36:07.060 --> 00:36:11.180 No reform can really be effective if it is not national in scope. 370 00:36:11.180 --> 00:36:16.300 And there is beneath the surface of this whole movement 371 00:36:16.300 --> 00:36:22.260 a profound distrust of and loathing for a federal system. 372 00:36:22.260 --> 00:36:26.580 In fact, this is actually a book that I would recommend 373 00:36:26.580 --> 00:36:29.380 on the progressive era, even though you look at the title 374 00:36:29.380 --> 00:36:33.100 and you think, you know, I'd rather hang upside down by, 375 00:36:33.100 --> 00:36:38.900 I don't know, my toenails are something to read this book, but it is not a bad book. 376 00:36:38.900 --> 00:36:46.700 And it really brings out a lot of themes that hardly ever are brought out, except in my dissertation. Isn't that funny? 377 00:36:46.700 --> 00:36:52.200 Okay. What a jerk I am. Okay, let's see. 378 00:36:52.200 --> 00:36:57.900 This is a pretty good book. And it points out a million and one things. 379 00:36:57.900 --> 00:37:10.500 It analyzes Crowley, it goes through all these things, and it makes note of and analyzes the progressive hostility toward dogmatic religion. 380 00:37:10.500 --> 00:37:13.500 And it's very revealing, some of these arguments. 381 00:37:13.500 --> 00:37:21.300 It examines the nationalism of the progressives, that they loathe the states, they loathe local government. 382 00:37:21.300 --> 00:37:25.000 This is where we have corruption. Didn't you read The Muckrakers? It's all corruption. 383 00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:33.000 Instead, on the national level, this is where you'll get your more efficient and less corrupt administration, presumably. 384 00:37:33.000 --> 00:37:41.000 This is all brought out very well in this book, and I'm told that this gentleman is somewhat sympathetic to us. 385 00:37:41.000 --> 00:37:46.000 Well, nevertheless, you go through Herbert Crowley, and he goes through American history, and he says, 386 00:37:46.000 --> 00:37:52.000 look at Andrew Jackson. He thought that in order to be a Democrat, you had to be anti-national. 387 00:37:52.000 --> 00:37:59.000 the National, you had to smash the bank of the United States, you had to destroy the great civil service system that we had being built up. 388 00:37:59.000 --> 00:38:02.000 You know, what a big jerk, what an adult he was. 389 00:38:02.000 --> 00:38:07.000 According to Crowley, really what we want to do is blend Jefferson and Hamilton. 390 00:38:07.000 --> 00:38:14.000 And basically we take all the substance of Hamilton, we take a little, you know, we get a carrot, a little bit from Jefferson. 391 00:38:14.000 --> 00:38:21.000 His idea was that he says, I favor democracy, but I don't favor the Jeffersonian brand where you've got all these little units. 392 00:38:21.000 --> 00:38:30.360 Jefferson was positing a system in which power would be vested at the level of the 393 00:38:30.360 --> 00:38:37.400 ward, which is really just be a part of a city, and this is how he imagined the country 394 00:38:37.400 --> 00:38:38.400 looking. 395 00:38:38.400 --> 00:38:39.400 No, no, no. 396 00:38:39.400 --> 00:38:44.080 The kind of democracy that these people want is just one in which the national community 397 00:38:44.080 --> 00:38:46.200 is taken into account. 398 00:38:46.200 --> 00:38:50.680 That's what they want, and we give our allegiance to national elites. 399 00:38:50.680 --> 00:38:57.120 And we remove our allegiance to local or other officials. 400 00:38:57.120 --> 00:39:02.680 I remember I was at a conference some time ago of mostly leftists. 401 00:39:02.680 --> 00:39:06.480 It was the E.F. Schumacher Society Decentralist Conference. 402 00:39:06.480 --> 00:39:10.560 And I knew it was going to be bad when they opened a Decentralist Conference with a message 403 00:39:10.560 --> 00:39:13.960 from Al Gore. 404 00:39:13.960 --> 00:39:15.960 What does this guy know about Decentralism? 405 00:39:15.960 --> 00:39:18.480 Anyway, so with, oh, this isn't going to be any good. 406 00:39:18.480 --> 00:39:24.080 The one guy I liked at the whole conference was a Quaker, who was a traditional Quaker. 407 00:39:24.080 --> 00:39:29.600 He wore the hat. He didn't own a telephone or a car. It broke my heart. I didn't want 408 00:39:29.600 --> 00:39:35.120 to ask him, well, how'd you get here? He said, I didn't. But he published a good magazine, 409 00:39:35.120 --> 00:39:38.240 and I liked him because he got up there and he said, you know, maybe I'm at the wrong 410 00:39:38.240 --> 00:39:41.960 conference. But everybody keeps saying, in a decentralized conference, they're using 411 00:39:41.960 --> 00:40:11.560 The American State will in effect be making itself responsible for a morally and socially 412 00:40:11.560 --> 00:40:22.920 Desirable Distribution of Wealth. 1912, there's an election, a presidential election, and 413 00:40:22.920 --> 00:40:32.100 you've got Taft running, the hapless Taft. You've got, not a thin man, Taft. You've got 414 00:40:32.100 --> 00:40:39.000 Theodore Roosevelt running on a third party, and you've got Woodrow Wilson. So this is 415 00:40:39.000 --> 00:40:42.360 This is an election to stay home for, and you've got Debs and the rest of them. 416 00:40:42.360 --> 00:40:47.720 Well, anyway, in this election, if you actually look at it, you wonder what in the world separates these people. 417 00:40:47.720 --> 00:40:51.880 You read historians, you read textbooks. Oh, it was a fiercely contested election. 418 00:40:51.880 --> 00:40:56.760 Well, it's a battle of personalities, but what the heck is the difference, really, between 419 00:40:56.760 --> 00:41:04.120 Theodore Roosevelt's new nationalism, which he models on Crowley, and Woodrow Wilson's new freedom? 420 00:41:04.120 --> 00:41:08.760 What's the big, big, big difference? I mean, you can see tiny little things change in emphasis and whatever. 421 00:41:08.760 --> 00:41:14.600 The New Republic basically supported TR, but then they rather came to like Woodrow Wilson. 422 00:41:14.600 --> 00:41:16.200 He basically did what they wanted. 423 00:41:16.200 --> 00:41:21.720 The key issue that you always see mentioned in the textbooks is, well, here's the difference. 424 00:41:21.720 --> 00:41:24.680 It has to do with how did they want to deal with big business? 425 00:41:24.680 --> 00:41:27.480 Well, TR had matured. 426 00:41:27.480 --> 00:41:29.560 He used to be the trust buster and so on. 427 00:41:29.560 --> 00:41:32.520 That's a little bit exaggerated, but he used to be interested in that. 428 00:41:32.520 --> 00:41:37.960 And then he sort of matured and said, well, business combination per se isn't such a bad thing. 429 00:41:37.960 --> 00:41:40.660 Perhaps it should be encouraged. It's a mark of civilization. 430 00:41:40.660 --> 00:41:44.460 What we need to do simply is regulate businesses in the public interest. 431 00:41:44.460 --> 00:41:48.160 Woodrow Wilson, on the other hand, you know, according to this, 432 00:41:48.160 --> 00:41:53.160 favored, was favored breaking up large conglomerations, breaking them up, 433 00:41:53.160 --> 00:41:56.460 using the antitrust legislation, breaking them up. 434 00:41:56.460 --> 00:41:58.560 And that's it. That's the range of debate. 435 00:41:58.560 --> 00:42:02.260 So nobody says, well, you know, if they're observing property laws, 436 00:42:02.260 --> 00:42:05.260 why should we harass them at all? No one, basically. 437 00:42:05.260 --> 00:42:09.260 You look in vain, try to find somebody who is officially arguing that. 438 00:42:09.260 --> 00:42:11.260 So this is the great range of debate. 439 00:42:11.260 --> 00:42:15.260 And as it turns out, most of the time when you read about the Progressive Era, 440 00:42:15.260 --> 00:42:18.260 Woodrow Wilson is portrayed as the laissez-faire candidate. 441 00:42:18.260 --> 00:42:22.260 Because, you see, what he's doing is he's restoring competition. 442 00:42:22.260 --> 00:42:25.260 He's taking a big, big company, and if he splits it up, 443 00:42:25.260 --> 00:42:28.260 then they can all compete against each other, and that's competition. 444 00:42:28.260 --> 00:42:32.260 Now this is, I mean, these people, you know, historians understand nothing about economic, 445 00:42:32.260 --> 00:42:37.260 These are the same historians who say that the Federal Reserve is a capitalist institution. 446 00:42:37.260 --> 00:42:39.260 Where do you begin explaining these things? 447 00:42:39.260 --> 00:42:42.260 There's nothing laissez-faire about Woodrow Wilson. 448 00:42:42.260 --> 00:42:47.260 Anyway, one barely knows where to begin. 449 00:42:47.260 --> 00:42:54.260 I would note in addition that you should, as I already recommended, 450 00:42:54.260 --> 00:42:58.260 the chapter in The Costs of War about the Progressive Era that Murray Rothbard wrote. 451 00:42:58.260 --> 00:43:02.760 Well, in particular, notice the title of his chapter when he says, World War I as fulfillment, 452 00:43:02.760 --> 00:43:05.760 because it was sort of common for historians to say, 453 00:43:05.760 --> 00:43:10.260 oh, you know, the progressive era was going gangbusters until World War I, 454 00:43:10.260 --> 00:43:14.760 and then it was a disaster because they had to, it was like the Great Society in Vietnam, 455 00:43:14.760 --> 00:43:16.260 you know, you can't do them both. 456 00:43:16.260 --> 00:43:20.260 But in fact, as Rothbard correctly points out, 457 00:43:20.260 --> 00:43:26.760 the progressive intellectuals with very few exceptions, like Jane Addams and a couple others, 458 00:43:26.760 --> 00:43:34.760 They loved World War I, because now, since we supposedly need a command economy, well guess who's going to do the commanding? 459 00:43:34.760 --> 00:43:36.760 All these intellectuals who have nothing else to do. 460 00:43:36.760 --> 00:43:39.760 So now they get to be in charge of the state apparatus. 461 00:43:39.760 --> 00:43:43.760 They get to put into effect all the status schemes they've been advocating. 462 00:43:43.760 --> 00:43:47.760 A lot of these progressive intellectuals had studied in Germany. 463 00:43:47.760 --> 00:43:49.760 That's where you could get a PhD. 464 00:43:49.760 --> 00:43:54.760 They had absorbed a lot of statism from there, and they were anxious to carry this out. 465 00:43:54.760 --> 00:44:05.760 And you can see the New Republic is practically gushing about the prospect and the possibilities of how we can produce not-for-profit anymore and we can produce for use and this and that. 466 00:44:05.760 --> 00:44:13.760 And John Dewey is going on and on about how wonderful this is. So in fact, there is no incompatibility here. 467 00:44:13.760 --> 00:44:23.760 They loved World War I. They loved coordinating the economy. And frankly, if you look at the Progressive Era, what they think they're doing is bringing order to chaos. 468 00:44:23.760 --> 00:44:28.600 you've got a business community that's that's that's chaotic will bring order 469 00:44:28.600 --> 00:44:33.280 to it and you've got also you've got a world that's chaotic well we the 470 00:44:33.280 --> 00:44:35.800 enlightened intellectuals will bring order to it so there's there's a 471 00:44:35.800 --> 00:44:39.600 similarity and a lot has been written about the fact that it's not a 472 00:44:39.600 --> 00:44:43.040 coincidence that the progressives also happen to be imperialists it's the same 473 00:44:43.040 --> 00:44:48.400 kind of nanny state intervention philosophy that that exists in both 474 00:44:48.400 --> 00:45:08.400 The New York World newspaper, looking over what had happened during the first decade of the 20th century and into the second one, asked this question, 475 00:45:08.400 --> 00:45:19.400 Question. Where will it all end? Despotism? Caesarism? Well, I think we have our answer. 476 00:45:19.400 --> 00:45:24.400 Okay, I'm done. I'll take questions if you'd like to throw them at me because I didn't have that much time. 477 00:45:24.400 --> 00:45:26.400 Thank you very much.