Progressives' Objective is to Strengthen the National Government

It is known that progressives believed that society was capable of improvement and that continued growth and advancement were in the nation’s best interests. Specifically progressives felt that direct, purposeful human intervention in social and economic affairs was essential to achieving that growth in which they thought the nation was capable of. Theses interventions were implemented by a number of reformers: dissatisfied Republican officeholders, Democrats, journalists, scholars, social workers, and other activists. Together they “formed new organizations and institutions with the common objective of strengthening the national government and making it more responsive to popular economic, social, and political demands”(561). Although not everything went according to plan all the time, the progressive movement, in my opinion, should still be considered a success because of the great leaps towards a better nation they were able to complete.

Progressives’ common objective of strengthening the national government can be easily broken up into three major sections. The first major sub-section was, protecting social welfare. Basically they wanted to make sure all citizens were being adequately taken care of. They sought to reduce the impact of harsh work and living conditions brought about by industrialization, as well as protecting human life and well-being. They tried to achieve this goal by providing support for the poor and oppressed citizens, this tactic became so popular it even received the term “social justice” also referred to as “Social Gospel”, which is widely known and still practiced around the world today (569). More specifically, the implementation of the Salvation Army in the United States as well as the Settlemen...

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...fect, not everything goes according to a desired plan, but success is not measured based on how well the implementation went, but how effective the results were. Many of the programs and policies put into place during the progressive time era are still in place today or have evolved to be even more encompassing, such as the Salvation Army, Women’s Suffrage, and the American Socialist Party. The Salvation Army continues to aid the poor, women’s right to vote continues to affect our nation’s decisions as a whole, and the American Socialist Party, now evolved into the Social Democrats, continues to be a substantial party in the United States. Where one might say Progressivism was a failure because it did not solve all of the goals it set out to, I would say it does not matter because it positively affected the United States’ economy, government, and American citizens.