User	Date	Time	Score	Percentage	Elapsed Time	Q10	Q30	 	
Wechter.Carolyn	05/07/2001	16:51:40 PST	0	0	6087	The Progressive Movement of the early 20th century was largely a response to the urbanization of America. The Progressive  Movement attracted various different reform groups from different parts of the country who sought to preserve different ideologies.  The various reform groups that comprised the coalition of the Progressive Movement often had disparate objectives and motives. Overall, the Progressive Movement sought to preserve natural lands and the moral high ground of democracy in politics, economics, and education. However, supporters of the Movement in the South sought to preserve the status quo of white supremacy.  The civil rights movement and the women's suffrage movement also had roots in the Progressive Movement.    Southern reformers, in their effort to preserve white supremacy, passed state laws that prohibited blacks from voting and having a voice in democracy. Some southern states instituted a poll tax.  Most blacks were poor and couldn't pay the poll tax.  They created literacy tests that were given to black voters.  Since the South had outlawed education for blacks prior to the Civil War, few blacks were literate enough to vote under their criteria.  The South implemented the property ownership requirement and the "grandfather clause" as prerequisites to vote, which excluded almost all black voters.    African-Americans were attracted to the Progressive Movement in response to their desire for social, economic, and political change.  They realized that their winning the freedom and the "right to vote" was a hollow victory if they couldn't support get jobs or educate their children. Booker T. Washington was a well-known advocate of African-American civil rights. He advocated active protests as a catalyst for change.  W.E.B. DuBois advocated change by working for a more democratic legal processes.  The NAACP was eventually formed as a result of DuBois' work.    The women's suffrage movement supported the Progressive Movement. It had began 50 years earlier with the work of Elizabeth Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Alice Paul formed the National Women's Party and fought for access to education for women.  She led a demonstration of 5,000 supporters during President Wilson's inauguration and held a 6-month vigil in Washington, D.C. It took until 1920 for the 19th Amendment to the Constitution to be passed which gave women the right to vote in all states in the United States.    Aside from the smaller groups that comprised the Progressive Movement, the majority of reformers were reacting to urban sprawl created by industrialization and the growing gap between the rich factory owners/operators and the poor who worked in the factories. They sought to preserve some of the natural countryside and the moral high ground with regard to laws concerning living conditions, education, working conditions, etc. The country was experiencing exuberent prosperity with the Industrial Revolution, but it wasn't shared by all.  In fact, with so many families leaving their rural farms and moving to cities to work in factories, housing, sanitation, and education systems were inadequate to accommodate the needs of the growing urban population. Reformers protested the robber baron tenement owners who charged high prices for run-down, unsafe, unsanitary housing the poor lived in.  They protested the unsafe and unsanitary conditions in factories.  They protested the pollution created by factories.    Most reformers of this movement were from middle to upper class citizens, often with good educations.  They were appalled at the living and working conditions of poor urbanites.  Jane Addams was a Progressive Reformer. She founded settlement houses like the Hull House. She worked to establish laws to set standards for housing, create sanitation systems and clean up factory pollution, ban "red light" prostitution districts in urban areas, and to bring about more democratic legal processes. Some of the positive results of the movement are the change in the process for electing state senators, the state initiative, referendum, and recall processes.    Theodore Roosevelt responded to the Progressive Reform Movement by promising what he called a "square deal" for both businesses and labor.  He promised to regulate monopolies, but he didn't advocate busting monopolies.  He created five new national parks and 50 wildlife reserves.  President Wilson, the last president during the Progressive Movement, sought to bust monopolies and create equal opportunities for small businesses. Wilson passed the Federal Reserve Act in 1913. He passed the Clayton Antitrust Act in 1914 which outlawed unfair business practices.  He passed the Federal Trade Commission Act to investigate suspicious business practices. Wilson also passed the Keating-Owen Child Labor Act which established the legal age for employment as 16 years old.    Th Progressive Movement, although brief in history in it's structured form, had a significant impact on American politics and created many beneficial reforms. Although it was not totally successful in all its goals, it preserved some of the wild lands and moral high ground it had sought.	President Woodrow Wilson truly envisioned the United States as a world power with a role as a defender of democracy and moral reformer. He was idealistic about creating a peace keeper alliance of nations that would be powerful enough deter future wars. Wilson was reluctant to join the war effort. He maintained a neutral policy for the first three years of the war. The United States was experiencing a mood of isolationism.  The public didn't feel the war in Europe was their problem. Wilson would have had a difficult time finding Congressional and public support to join the war if it had not been, ultimately, to safeguard American economic interests.    The United States was having a "hay day" trading with both the Allied Powers (England, France, and Russia) and the Central Powers (Germany, Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Turkey). The Declaration of London was a treaty signed in 1909 which defined the "rules of war" and gave the right to trade with countries at war provided no military supplies were traded. It gave the right to blockade ports and seize war contraband. Both the Allied Powers and the Central Powers needed humanitarian and war supplies. European countries were economically crippled by the war effort. Manpower and economic resources were drained for the war effort. The Unites States businessmen were economic opportunists making huge profits selling supplies to both sides from 1914 to 1917.     England and the Allied Powers began seizing U.S. merchant ships and confiscating supplies as contraband even if the cargo didn't include ammunition or weapons because even food and clothing sent to the Central Powers supported their war effort. Germany began mining trade channels and ports. The U.S. viewed this as an infringement of their freedom on the seas. Both Powers sought to starve the other side out by preventing shipments from the United States. In 1915, Germany sank the English passenger ship, The Lusitania, killing 1,000 civilians, some of which were Americans.  In 1916, Germany sank France's Sussex. In 1917, Germany declared it would wage unrestricted submarine warfare on all Atlantic shipping and create an economic deadlock on the allies. The U.S. was outraged at Germany's use of submarines in warfare.  Then in 1917, the Zimmerman Note was discovered.  The Zimmerman Note was sent to the Mexican government from a Germany persuading Mexico to reclaim New Mexico, Arizon, and Texas. This was a direct threat to American interests and brought the European war theoretically to American soil. This was the basis for President's Wilson's request of Congress to declar war on th basis of "freedom for deomocracy".     A massive propaganda campaign was launched by the U.S. government and American businessmen who wanted to protect their foreign trade interests. There was a backlash of resentment against German-Americans in the U.S. Many socialists, pacifists, and isolationists protested against sending poorer working class Americans to war to protect the financial interests of big business. To curb antiwar sentiments, the U.S. passed the Espionage Act which made it legal to prosecute and sentence anyone who spoke against the war or who were suspected of doing anything at all that might be thought to hinder the war effort.    Wilson proposed a "peace without surrender" to end the war. The Armistices was signed on November 11, 1918 based on Wilson's 14-Point Plan. Wilson's plan provided for freedom of the seas, a League of Nations (which didn't come to fruition), open treaties known by all countries, arms reduction, adjustment of European borders, removal of tariffs on imports, and self-determination to allow groups to form their own countries.    The military draft was created. About five million men joined the military. About half of those were shipped overseas to fight for the Allied Powers. About 53,000 American lives were lost.  There were 10 million killed worldwide. The war left a legacy of hatred, it costs approximately $350 billion, taxes had to be raised in the U.S., and conditions for an unprecedented economic depression was spawned.      Woodrow Wilson is known as the "idealist president" because he had grand visions of the United States role as an international protector and proliferator of democracy. He really wanted to make the world safe for democracy, but ultimately, the United States went to war to protect American business enterprise.