The United States Since the Civil War

by Charles Ramsdell Lingley

Few aspects of the labor problem have been the cause of more earnest thought than the search for peaceful methods of settling industrial controversies. In 1898, by the Erdman Act, the federal government provided a means for arbitrating disputes on interstate railways. The Newlands Act of 1913 superseded this by the creation of a formal Board of Mediation and Conciliation, and many disputes were decided under the terms of these laws. The Department of Labor mediated in many industrial disputes, and in 1916 when the four railway brotherhoods threatened to strike for an eight-hour day, Congress itself intervened with a piece of special legislation, the Adamson law, which was framed to settle the questions under dispute.[7] In some cases, profit-sharing plans have been put into force; in others, disputes have been referred to impartial boards of outsiders; and in yet others, machinery has been established for continuous conference between representatives of the employees and employers. Neither federal and state boards and commissions, however, nor the efforts of individual employers have been sufficient fully to insure industrial peace.

The increased activity of the state and federal governments in the fields of economic legislation, as indicated in the passage of labor laws, was also illustrated in two important measures passed in 1906. The adulteration of foods had been brought to a state of dangerous perfection, and drugs had been commonly advertised and sold all over the country which had none of the powers ascribed to them by their makers. Since the eighties, many states had forbidden the sale of impure or tainted food, but the laws were varied and difficult to enforce, and it appeared that reliance must be placed on the federal government. As early as 1890 a federal law had provided for the inspection of meats which were to be exported, but otherwise little progress had been made. In 1906 Upton Sinclair published The Jungle, a novel which purported to describe the ghastly conditions under which the meat packers of Chicago conducted their business. Sinclair's book, together with a campaign of education conducted by the muckrake periodicals against harmful patent medicines aroused public interest to such a degree, that two important laws were passed. One provided for federal inspection of meats intended for interstate commerce, so as to make sure that they were obtained from healthy animals and slaughtered under sanitary conditions. The other act concerned foods and drugs, and prohibited the sale of these commodities if they contained any injurious drugs, chemicals or preservatives, while a later amendment forbade false statements on labels attached to medical compounds. As a result of the provisions of the law in regard to patent medicines, many concerns which had been selling drugs that were falsely advertised as having curative effects were compelled to retire from business.

Innovations in the field of politics and government since 1896 have been as marked as in the field of social and economic legislation. Possibly the most outstanding development has been the rapid expansion of the range and variety of the activities of the federal government. The unification of the economic life of the nation, as has been shown, compelled a program of federal economic legislation, and helped inculcate a feeling of greater political solidarity. When fires and floods and other disasters occurred which were too great for a single city or state to take care of, when state laws became confusing because of their variety, when railroads crossed a dozen states and corporations that were chartered in New Jersey did business in Maine, Florida and California, only at the federal capital could the requisite authority be found, which would give the needed relief. As the theory of laissez faire gradually broke down, moreover, giving way to the belief that the government ought to be the servant of the mass of the people, it was inevitable that the people should themselves turn more to legislation as a remedy for their grievances. To Washington, therefore, hurried the proponents of every reform.

This tendency was not only counter to the probable intention of the framers of the Constitution, but it trenched upon the powers specifically granted to the states. The tenth amendment stated in so many words that "The powers not delegated to the United States … are reserved to the States." It was necessary for the federal government to act, however, or else to leave problems that had become national in character to the chaos that results from legislation in nearly fifty states. State laws concerning railroads, for example, as well as marriage and divorce, child labor and trusts are even now in a maze. No solution of the problem seemed possible other than constant stretching of the terms of the Constitution. In 1906, one of the most conservative statesmen in the country, Elihu Boot, even went so far as to utter a warning that if the states did not use their powers to better advantage a "construction of the Constitution will be found to vest the power where it will be exercised-in the National Government." The burden thus shifted from state to nation was somewhat lightened by the appointment of numerous commissions to which was entrusted the administration of specific laws or the accumulation of specific data. The earliest of these was the Interstate Commerce Commission; later, others were appointed to administer laws concerning banking, the tariff and the trusts.

With the expansion of the power of the federal government went the elevation of the office of chief executive. Cleveland's use of the veto power had given an indication of the possibilities of the presidential office in obstructing undesirable legislation; his action in bringing about the repeal of the purchase clause of the Sherman silver law in 1890 had shown the more positive force which a determined officer could exert. Roosevelt's activity in carrying his anti-trust program to the people, and his mediation in the coal strike carried the prestige of the presidency to greater heights. President Taft was by no means radical in his interpretation of the powers and possibilities of his office; nevertheless his conception of it was far removed from the conservative philosophy of President McKinley, and he even suggested in a message to Congress that the cabinet officers be given seats, although without votes, in the Senate and House. His successor augmented rather than diminished the powers of the presidential office.

The Senate, on the contrary, lost both in power and in prestige. Many reasons for the increasing popular distrust of the Senate after the middle nineties can be given. There was a widespread belief that a controlling fraction of the body had achieved membership through wealth, through the assistance of corporate interests and because of skill in the manipulation of political wires. The charge was common that a small coterie of powerful strategists held the Senate in their hands and with it the control of important legislation. Most of all, and especially in the West, many thoughtful people believed that the state legislatures were easily influenced to choose inferior or untrustworthy men as senators. Whatever the reasons, however, there grew increasingly after 1870 and particularly after 1893 a demand for the popular election of senators. Between the latter year and 1911, at six different times resolutions were presented to Congress proposing an amendment to the Constitution which should secure popular election. At length Congress gave way, adopted an amendment, and sent it to the states. Within ten months thirty-six states had agreed, and after May 31, 1913, senators were elected by the people.

The demand for greater popular control over the choice of senators was a part, merely, of a somewhat general political trend. Distrust of the state legislatures had long been observable, and new state constitutions had been notable for detailed prohibitions placed upon law-making bodies. The West, which had gone to greatest extremes in framing new state constitutions, was also the testing-ground for the initiative, referendum and recall. The first of these devices—the initiative—is a plan by which a specified percentage of the voters may initiate legislation—that is, propose a law and require the officials of the state to submit it to the electorate. If the people accept the proposal, it becomes law as if enacted by the legislature. Under the referendum system, any measure already accepted by the legislature is held in abeyance on petition of a specified number of voters, until presented to the people for approval or rejection. Both the initiative and the referendum had been commonly used in Switzerland before being adopted in South Dakota in 1898. In less than two decades they had been accepted in twenty-one states, all but four of which were west of the Mississippi, and in one of the four eastern states, Maryland, only the referendum was tried. In Oregon, which made the most complete trial of these methods of legislation, both the initiative and the referendum were extended to the municipalities. The reasons for the innovation were to be found in the determination to discover a means of compelling negligent or boss-controlled state legislatures to respond to public opinion.[8]

The recall is a process by which any public official may be withdrawn from his office by popular vote before the expiration of his term. Los Angeles adopted the plan in 1903 and was imitated by a small number of other western cities; Oregon in 1908 applied the device to all state officers, and in one form or another it has been adopted in ten states (1920). During the campaign of 1912 Roosevelt proposed that the voters be allowed to ratify or reject the decision of the courts on the constitutionality of legislation. The results of the suggestion were negligible.

More significant than the recall as an indication of the prevailing desire to increase popular control over the processes of government was the adoption of direct primaries. Under this expedient the nominees of a party for office are chosen directly by the party voters, rather than by a party convention. Wisconsin first used the system in 1903 and from that state it spread rapidly. At the present time most states have some form of direct nomination. The peculiar circumstances surrounding the campaign for the Republican nominations in 1912 gave force to the demand for presidential preference primaries which were held in about a fourth of the states. Only the future can tell with assurance whether the demand is more than temporary.

The agitation for women's suffrage was another example of the increasing desire for popular control of government. Suffrage for women was first granted by Wyoming in 1869 when its territorial government was organized, but the movement lagged thereafter until the early years of the twentieth century. At that time increasing numbers of states began to grant political privileges to women, and finally in 1919 Congress passed a proposed constitutional amendment expressly stating that sex should not be a bar to the suffrage.[9]