Roosevelt, Taft, Wilson

¶ … Presidents Compare the presidencies of Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson. What made them Progressive presidents? Identify what you believe to be the most important pieces of legislation passed during each administration. Why are these so significant? Finally, be sure to indicate what each president did to expand the meaning of freedom for American Theodore Roosevelt is often called our nation's first Progressive president.

Roosevelt used the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to break up heavily consolidated industries that were having a stifling effect upon American commerce and limiting the choices of the American consumer. Roosevelt was also an advocate against child labor and unfair labor practices in general. One of his first noteworthy achievements as president involved negotiating an end to a crippling coal strike.

Roosevelt was the first president to pass food and drug safety laws; mandated government supervision of insurance companies; investigated child labor violations and also passed the Hepburn Act, giving "the Interstate Commerce Commission power to regulate railroad shipping rates" (Yarborough). He also vastly expanded the nation's park system.

Roosevelt's actions indicate a shift in philosophy: rather than simply protecting Americans' liberties from government excess, Roosevelt's Progressive agenda demonstrated a belief that the federal government had to step in to protect people's personal and economic freedoms in an activist fashion, such as freedom from rapacious business practices or abuses from their employers. Roosevelt stressed that economic enrichment could not violate the good of the community, like unregulated monopolies which existed before his enforcement of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Roosevelt's actions also spelled the death knell of American isolation.

He pursued an aggressively expansionist foreign policy. "In foreign affairs, he announced the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, making it clear that the United States was now willing to intervene in the affairs of its Latin neighbors to keep the Europeans from doing so" (Yarborough). Roosevelt was dissatisfied by the conservativism of his successor, William Howard Taft and ran for an unprecedented third term, in support of a Progressive agenda.

He believed that unless America unleashed a more aggressive social welfare policy, it would fall behind Europe." Where once the United States had prided itself on its superiority to the monarchies of Europe, it was now lagging behind the governments of Western Europe, and especially Germany, in its commitment to social welfare" (Yarborough). Taft, in contrast, antagonized the Progressive movement by failing to support conservation efforts and also supporting the Payne-Aldrich Act "which unexpectedly continued high tariff rates," in contrast to the free trade supported by Progressives (Freidel & Sidey).

Woodrow Wilson, in contrast, had a truly international Progressive spirt in his foreign policy, eventually entering World War I, despite qualms about America becoming embroiled in European affairs. Wilson's most famous Progressive action was the establishment of the League of Nations as part of the Treaty of Versailles which ended the war. Sadly, isolationist sentiment worked against him and the Senate did not permit the U.S. To enter the League. Still, the League was an important model for the future United Nations.

Wilson also expanded the provisions of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act with the Clayton Antitrust.