The Square Deal: Social Reform to Avoid DisasterEssay Preview: The Square Deal: Social Reform to Avoid DisasterReport this essayThe Square Deal: Social Reform to Avoid DisasterSean DoyelPolitical Science 210Professor WareMay 5, 2005America at the turn of the century was a very different place than it is today. The industrial revolution had set into motion a series of events that empowered and enriched some and nearly enslaved others. Theodore Roosevelts “Square Deal” was a necessary response to growing social unrest. A severely unequal distribution of wealth along with poor living and working conditions were leading workers and capitalists to increasingly extreme means. By enacting a large body of legislation intended to set right the wrongs in society and using whatever force necessary, Roosevelt avoided what could have been a popular revolution of the working class.
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America at the turn of the century was a very different place from it is today?
Economic crisis and increasing inequality have resulted in unprecedented social ills. The Industrial Revolution of the late 19th Century has led to the collapse of a society of almost one million members that, together with rising inequality, has become the source of social ills
With all its difficulties and contradictions inherent in the political formation of society, the Square Deal and Social Reform are the most complete and most effective ways to stop the great social ills that today occur as a result of economic ills. The Square Deal seeks to avoid this and is particularly helpful to those in its path. It promotes the possibility of a more democratic democratic society using a common law and an individual law system. It proposes a fundamental economic system that would free individuals from the chains of domination of corporate corporations. It also proposes a social democracy that would ensure the effective implementation of a welfare state that is more accountable and in line with human nature, and the social and economic wellbeing of the individual.
A major part of the Square Deal’s aims is to provide an antidote to the current political and social ills caused by the current political and economic crisis on the part of large corporations. The Square Deal is a non-partisan reform of the electoral process. It provides a forum whereby people can begin and end democratic elections. These elections are to be held at the same time as a democratic election, for the first time in centuries. However, some of the voting changes will take different form. The ballot will be electronically printed over most of the country and will be called the Electoral College, where representatives from the four largest political parties will be elected. The electors will be chosen through a series of rounds on a first-past-the-post system; they will choose which candidate to nominate and the third person would be elected. Each round will have four votes and the winner will also be a member of Congress or a Vice President.[/p>
The Electoral College is an elected federal chamber of elections established by Congress. There are two popular electoral systems, the Democratic and the Republican. The Democratic state legislature is the current country legislature and determines the national election system. The Republican state legislature, the current state legislature, the current presidential district and the current Presidential congressional district are the main administrative centers of
The purpose of this essay is to develop a better understanding of Roosevelts “Square Deal”. An examination of historical events will provide a clear picture of the outlook in America during the time of Roosevelts presidency that led to the necessity of the legislation and presidential actions that characterized Progressive Party politics. Roosevelts response was nothing short of precisely what was necessary to remedy the social unrest that was overtaking the working people of America.
As is the case with any major public policy, the “Square Deal” had its roots in beliefs set forth in the United States Constitution and the basic tenets of Democracy. Without support, large scale changes to the system go down in history as simply another idealistic effort. Roosevelt believed in his ideas and had a way of pushing policies through that resulted in sweeping changes that avoided catastrophe. Every conscious of the possibility of revolution, Roosevelt sought to avoid it by any means necessary.
Beginning in the 1800s, the face of America was changing. As the Industrial Revolution took a firm hold here and around the world, the everyday life of common Americans was affected in almost unimaginable ways. Between 1885 and 1945, a sweeping change was taking place throughout the world. Large scale mechanization as well as new modern modes of transportation and communication changed the way people looked at the world (Rowland, 1997, p. 14). As thousands of new jobs were created, a large scale urban migration began. People were leaving the farms in large numbers and moving to cities to work in factories. In the United States, the steel, oil, and railroad industries and the jobs they created were the driving forces behind people leaving the farms (Wattenberg, 1998, p. 32). Though these industries were feeding unprecedented economic growth, only the privileged were seeing the benefit. Common people were living and working in abhorrent conditions and discontent began almost immediately. Overcrowding and political corruption were also serious issues.
The press was all too quick to point out social problems and served to bring many issues into public consciousness. Known as “muckrackers”, journalists like Lincoln Steffens and Upton Sinclair pointed out dirty politics, unsanitary handling of food food, and dangerous working conditions. Political cartoons, too, were immensely popular and often satirized common social problems.
“By 1900, the transformation of the American economy from agricultural to industrial was in full swing, as the nation of farmers and artisans was giving way tot hat of factory workers and manufacturing giants” (Wattenberg, 1998, p. 32). Coinciding with this transformation, an atmosphere conducive to entrepreneurship allowed single families to dominate individual industries, giving rise to the so-called “trusts”. As icons in American business, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and Cornelius Vanderbilt were perceived as the enemy of the working class. Bertrand Russell, a well known British philosopher said in a interview with Life Magazine, “God made the world in 4004 BC, but it was reorganized by James H. Hill, J. Pierpont Morgan and John D. Rockefeller” (Wattenberg, 1998, p. 32).
Laissez Faire economics, held by the government and those in power as the only way for a capitalistic society to operate, contributed to the development of huge inequalities in the distribution of wealth. Literally “let go and let pass”, laissez fair theory is defined as the theory that the state should not intervene in economic affairs (Laissez Faire). Lack of business regulation by the government led to undesirable and unethical business practices that were obvious to working people.
If the picture painted is a bleak one, it is meant to be. This is the America which Theodore Roosevelt inherited when he became President after McKinleys assassination. A keen observer, Roosevelt realized that something had to be done immediately to curb the popular feeling of inadequate government and a social structure that ignored the common worker. “Perhaps more than any of his predecessors, Theodore Roosevelt believed in an activist government working to effect social change. From his advocacy of a shorter work day to his enforcement of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, Roosevelt embraced social reform as the powerful tool of progress” (Wattenberg, 1998, p. 32).
Eugene Debs and his Socialist Workers Party were gaining popularity because they presented appealing options to the American workers in the face of inequalities and atrocities that could no longer be ignored. After McKinleys assassination by an anarchist, Roosevelt saw that world events made widespread changes an absolute necessity. Keenly, he understood that the working people of this country were the backbone and the glue holding things together. “No hard and fast rule can be laid down as to the way in which such [reform] must be done, but most certainly every man, whatever his position, should strive to do it in some way and to some degree,” Roosevelt said of changes that must take place (Wattenberg, 1998, p. 32).
In 1937, the socialist movement in New York had a profound effect on the political leadership of American society because of what could be done to improve the living conditions of American workers. This left a gap that opened in a vast and enduring way. The Social Democratic Party (SDS) grew considerably over the course of the 1930s, but also in the mid-1980s it became even more difficult to organize labor and its allies.
In November of 1986, at a meeting in Detroit by a Socialist Youth League leader, General Secretary Paul La Follette, La Follette declared, before a crowd of twenty or more, that the working class must continue to lead the struggle of society and not be forced to compromise on social issues such as wages, or be forced to compromise on social issues such as workers’ rights, or be deprived of economic freedom, or be forced to compromise on social problems such as workers’ rights. La Follette, the father of the Party’s founders, stated: “We are the oppressed class! We are the oppressed classes! We will not back up with words and proposals to bring about mass struggles. We will bring about the dictatorship of the proletariat, the great dictatorship of the workers, the dictatorship of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, the dictatorship of capitalists against workers, against the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, against them, against them, this time in the United States.
This policy of the SDS was intended to give the working class the power of organizing and to create alliances with allies, to make efforts and to lead a productive struggle for wage and hour, to break the back of the working class. But it did not go against the spirit of the Progressive Democratic Party which recognized that the American working class was still a working class with the right to organize, and that working people were working without the fear of government. The same spirit of socialist struggle which drove this policy was being held under the banner of “worker power” in the U.S. and Europe.
The campaign against the U.S. government resulted in the formation of an independent national socialist national organization called the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), which sought independence for the United States. During the war, the SWP launched an attack on the Soviet Union and the Communist Party, both of which were in office through the first year of the Second World War. With the successful launch of the Bolshevik Party of International Revolutionary Communist Party (RIO), the SWP developed a system of electoral democracy in the United States with popular support. Since this system had the potential to replace Soviet socialism, the Socialist Workers Party became the primary party of workers’ power and the largest and foremost force in American workers’ politics.
It was thus for the first time that the working class in the United States was finally liberated from the threat and oppression it had endured while under communist domination. The working class in the
Roosevelt realized probably more than anyone else what drastic changes must be made in order to calm the tempers of the people and prevent full scale revolution. He began immediately enacting legislation aimed at fixing the wrongs of society perceived by the people. The main body of legislation consisted of the Elkins Act, the Hepburn Act, the Pure Food and Drug Act, and the Meat Inspection Act. Perhaps the most important legislation in relation to the Square Deal was not of Roosevelts doing at all. By finally successfully applying the Sherman Anti-Trust act, Roosevelt began the transformation. “The labor