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Date Posted: 16:40:03 01/16/03 Thu
Author: j
Subject: Ch21 - Statehouse Progressivism

I. Statehouse Progressivism
A. Many reformists considered state governments unfit to answer society’s needs
i. to reform the state governments and the party bosses that controlled them, they knew they had to increase the power of the electorate
B. there were two very important changes that the populists proposed called the initiative and the referendum
i. the initiative
a. allowed reformers to circumvent state legislators altogether by submitting new legislation directly to the voters in general elections
ii. the referendum
a. provided a method by which actions of the legislature could be returned to the electorate for approval
iii. by 1918, more than 20 states had either enacted one or both of these reforms
C. similarly, the direct primary and the recall were efforts to limit the power of the party and improve elected officials
i. the direct primary
a. the primary election was an attempt to take the selection of the candidates away from the bosses and give it to the people
b. in the south, it was also a way to limit black voting
ii. the recall
a. gave voters the right to remove a public official from office at a special election which could be called after a sufficient number of citizens had signed a petition
iii. by 1915, every state had instituted primary elections, but the reform was only adopted by a few states
D. the effort to take corporate privileges from elected officials also was addresses
i. many states passed laws prohibiting campaign contributions from corporations, and free passes from railroads
E. Robert La Folette, elected governor of Wisconsin in 1900
i. helped turn his state of Wisconsin into a “laboratory of progressivism”
a. under his leadership, Wisconsin progressives won approval of
- direct primaries
- initiatives
- and referendums
and also
- regulated railroads and utilities
- passed laws to regulate the workplace and provide compensation for workers injured on the job
- instituted graduated taxes on inherited fortunes
- they nearly doubled state levies on railroads and other corporate industries
b. reform, La Folette said, was not only the politician’s job, but that of newspapers, citizens’ groups, educational institutions, and businesses and professional organizations
- no one else was as effective as La Folette was in bending state government toward the goal of reform

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