Political Changes In The Progressive Era

Political Changes of the Progressive Era

Prior to the Progressive Era, politics was influenced by Laissez-Faire economics. This meant the government let supply and demand dictate the economy. This would lead to unregulated industry with generally poor conditions. Politics also turned a blind eye to social issues of the industrial era. This would change with the emergence of the progressive era. The era was prominent for regulation in factories to keep sanitation at government regulated levels to protect citizens and the focus on social issues like drinking, civil rights,and voting rights. Therefore, regulation of industry and the more prominent focus of social issues fostered political change in the United States.

During the early 1900s,

The act essentially outlawed trusts in the country. For example, the horizontal integration of the oil industry by Standard Oil would lead to its breakup in 1913. The goal of breaking up these trusts was to create competition and regulate prices as a monopoly had the power to set the price. Roosevelt did not enforce the act as much as Taft did, as Taft broke up over one hundred trusts during his single term. This helped foster political change as prior to the progressive era, laissez faire policies of the government allowed the monopolization of these industries

This is shown when the author questions “Why is it not the duty of the state, instead of asking merely whether a boy or a girl has committed a specific offense, to find out what he is, physically, mentally, morally”. Julian W Mack believes that it is the duty of the state to find out why criminal activity was done and find the best way to make the juvenile a productive citizen in society. He believes that they need to find the root cause of the crime. This would happen commonly to poorer families as their father would return home drunk after work and the intoxication would at times lead to violence in the family. To prevent repeat crimes and crime rates overall by juveniles or from other means like crimes committed intoxicated. In document 6, the Detroit police commissioner wants to study high crime areas to find methods of best placement of officers so that they can do the most good, shown in his first statement. This would reduce the need for police men and have a lawful society without a large police force to use up supplies that taxpayers would pay for. Prior to the progressive era governments punished criminals worst in prisons and new reforms of criminal justice like the juvenile court which document 3 mentions, was a reform put in place in the late 1890s to take children to court for a criminal offense, like today, the goal of