A few weeks back, I received an e-mail with a reference to a piece written by a noted conservative author and lecturer Dr Thomas Sowell. I was asked to respond and did so as follows.
While I was in college I had the good-fortune to write high-school sports for the (long gone) Long Island Press. The work hours were good: 9 PM to 1 AM, just enough time to gather the results of the basketball games and put them into a readable piece. The Sports Editor, Al Spitzer, made sure I understood two points. First, get who, what where and when into the first sentence and second: remember that probably the only people who will read it are the athletes and maybe their mothers.
I remembered this when I read this document as Mr Sowell commences by unnecessarily stating that our elected President is black and further referring to his complexion when the point of the essay that follows has nothing to do with ethnicity but is more focused on political and social dogmas. Just my thought and apologies if they offend.
When I first read the essay, I was confused for a moment. I thought that a progressive party is one in which guests travel from home to home, eating one course at each stop. We had one of those a few years back and met two neighbors for the first and thankfully last, time. They were a couple who could not even consider the actuality that a majority of “we the people” had chosen Barack Obama President. They not only questioned his birth place, his education, his religion; they fed off each other, irrefutably convinced it was a machinated plot conceived by some group that was now going to run the country.
Antithetical to the suggestion that problems with history are irrelevant, I went back a century to refresh myself on Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Party. Most interesting. Here he was up against his former Republican colleague, Taft, who had just broken up Standard Oil and the academician-type Governor of New Jersey, Wilson, seen today as the archetypal “progressive”. Unequivocally, three reformist peas in the same progressive pod.
The genuine Progressive Party had some interesting planks in its platform: the italics are mine.
· Women's suffrage – sounds reasonable
· Direct election of Senators – no more cronyism in state legislatures?
· Primary elections for state and federal nominations – work in progress.
· Social insurance, to provide for the elderly, the unemployed, and disabled – wow, socialism and while the Czar still ruled!
· A minimum wage law for women – amazing there was even one for men.
· An eight hour workday – with the option of working two jobs or course.
· A federal securities commission – admittedly we could do with one that works now.
· Workers' compensation for work-related injuries- still being argued: states’ rights et al.
· Strict limits and disclosure conditions on political campaign contributions – in 1912 Really?
· Registration of lobbyists – again, in 1912! Seriously, who knew?
· Recording and publication of Congressional committee proceedings – ahh, sunshine laws.
· Recall elections to remove an elected official before the end of his term – think WI and AZ?
· Referenda, enabling citizens to decide on a law by popular vote – God Bless Plato: a democracy vs. a republic.
· Judicial recall (when a court declares a law unconstitutional, citizens may override that ruling by popular vote) - unquestionably that would have some appeal today, e.g. Roe v. Wade?
Sarcasm aside, these are some of the, according to Dr Sowell, “discredited ideas that originated a hundred years ago”
Overall, the primary thesis of the Progressive Party’s platform was the denunciation of the perceived control of the political process by business interests, in both the “established” parties. To that end, the platform asserted “To destroy this invisible Government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day”.
A little florid for today perhaps but sounds to me like they would not be open to the idea of Super PAC’s.
Someone defined progressivism as governmental practices that are adjusted as society evolves. Strict constructionists oppose this as we blogged a few months back. Last Sunday, Tampa Bay Times published a lead piece: Click here: US Constitution losing its appeal as mode for the world Saint Petersblog. I don’t agree with all of its contentions but it is an interesting perspective to examine especially as it relates to other nations and our relevant “high ground” position.
Now, an acknowledged non-sequitur: have a look at the New Yorker Magazine this week and the article by Jane Mayer attacking Larry McCarthy, one of Romney’s message team. Ms. Mayer is the granddaughter of Allan Nevins, an American historian and journalist, remembered in part for his biographies of industrial giants Henry Ford, and John D. Rockefeller.
In the course of his research for the five Rockefeller books, Nevins developed the interesting thesis that the American corporate adventurers on whom Matthew Josephson bestowed the enduring name ‘Robber Barons’, were in fact American heroes, designers and constructers of American civilization and democracy.
Parenthetically, both Josephson and Nevins taught at Columbia and I could not help but wonder if they or their writings had an influence on Thomas Sowell. Intriguing thought.
By the way, I thought the article by Ms. Mayer was not up to the standard of the magazine nor was it fairly presented. It is however, sadly indicative of the depths to where our political process has descended.
Apropos, the antonym for “progressive” is “reactionary”.
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