From Patronage To Primaries: How The Progressive Era Remade U.S. Politics

We track how the Progressive Era broke the grip of local party machines, elevated public opinion, and strengthened the presidency, reshaping both major parties. Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson anchor the story as primaries expand and conventions recede into ceremony.

• limited, decentralized party machines shift toward national agendas
• industrialization and foreign policy drive demand for federal action
• direct democracy tools weaken party gatekeepers
• primaries rise, conventions lose real power
• the presidency emerges as steward of public welfare
• Roosevelt’s reform push and the 1912 split
• Wilson embeds progressivism in Democratic governance
• McGovern–Fraser reforms cement voter-led nominations
• platforms increasingly reflect presidential priorities
• preview of New Deal realignment next

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Today's guest is Dr. Sidney Milkis. Sidney Milkis is the White Brickett Miller Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia and interim director of the program on constitutionalism and democracy. He has been an award-winning educator and a leading scholar of the American presidency, political parties, and democratic development. Professor Milkis is the author or co-author of numerous influential books on American politics, including works on the presidency, reform movements, and the evolution of constitutional democracy. He is also the co-founder of UVA's Project on Democracy and Capitalism, which examines the relationship between self-government and markets. Okay, welcome back, everyone. I'm very excited to have Dr. Cindy Milkes with us today. And today we're talking about how the progressive era shaped both major parties. So, Dr. Milkes, thank you so much for being here. And that is kind of it's a really big question. But how did the progressive era shape both of the major political parties?

From Local Patronage To National Power

Industrialization And World Affairs Pressures

Direct Democracy And The Rise Of Primaries

The Presidency Becomes Public Steward

Roosevelt, Taft, And The 1912 Split

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Yeah. Thank you for having me, Liz. It's nice to be here. The progressive era was a response to major social and economic changes in the country, Liz. In the 19th century, it's fair to say for most of the time we had limited government, a highly decentralized government with power at the state and local level. There were interruptions to that. Andrew Jackson, I guess I should mention Thomas Jefferson. Andrew Jackson, Lincoln. But those were episodes during political and economic crises, and out uh and power tended to be episodic in the 19th century for presidents and the national government. And so you had a party system that was highly decentralized, and we had a a highly decentralized party system at that time based on, and because it was it was provincial, and I mean that positively, it was in the community. There was a it was really fueled by a patronage system. To the victors go the spoils of the enemy. And so whichever party was in power got to appoint loyal party loyalists to offices. So that party system was really strong up through the uh 20th century. Uh, and two major events happen which begin to require a response on the part of the Democratic and Republican parties. One was the Industrial Revolution hit the country like a gale force, led to a concentration of economic power the country had never witnessed before. We were a country of smart primarily in the 19th century of farmers and shopkeepers. And then these giant corporations emerge in the industrial revolution, requiring more from the national government. Also, as we became an industrial power, Liz, then there were also pressures for us to get involved in in world affairs. And so and so those two things instigated uh efforts to transform a decentralized party system into a more national programmatic party system. Uh, and the pro and the progressive era was a reform era that was dedicated to making that change. Now, rather than seeing Liz, the progressive era as one where the Democratic, uh, where the Democratic and Republican parties were affected in distinctive ways, I think the way to think about it is there was major efforts on the part of reformers to transcend parties and to establish a political system that was less beholden to parties, which were viewed as bastions of corruption, uh, and therefore an impediment to the federal government's, the national government's efforts to reform the economy and get us involved in world affairs. And uh there are two primary ingredients of this effort to transform the the politics in America in the United States. One was a commitment to direct democracy, as Cedar Roosevelt called it, pure democracy, which was an effort to establish a direct relationship between the people and public opinion that wouldn't be mediated by these decentralized by these decentralized parties. Liz, it's during the progressive year, which is demarcated by the first two decades of the 20th century, that public opinion really becomes a really important dimension of American politics, an attempt to appeal directly to it. So this is when we we get the primary system. Uh we get the beginnings of the primary system, which Fertz occurs at the state and local level in uh state races and also congressional races, and gradually is applied to uh the presidential selection process. And this is an important uh development because it it leads, it weakens the uh convention system, the system that had the key party institution that's developed during the Jacksonian era, which gave state and local party leaders the opportunity to make to make nominations, both for Congress and for the presidency. So that become that begins to become a more direct process where candidates uh uh uh appeal directly to public opinion. It's a more candidate-centered process. The other thing that, and there are other the the other thing that happens, and I'll mention them. There are also a bunch of other things we can talk about. I'm trying, but the two major things are direct democracy, and a second thing is the strengthening of the presidency. So what we get in the 20th century is is uh efforts to uh expand the national government's responsibility with respect to regulating the economy and getting involved in world affairs to protect uh individual men and women from the from the vagaries of the marketplace and and abuses of of uh big business. And as the national government grows, Liz, it's natural that the national office of the presidency grows. So the president begins to replace the parties and assume many of the responsibilities that the party once assumed as the principal focus of the American people. As Theodore Roosevelt put in, this is a beguiling phrase that I love I love conveying to my students that Roosevelt said the president must become the steward of the public welfare. And so the president, rather than the parties, really becomes the major representative in American politics. So uh overall that has two effects on the party system, two almost competing effects on the party system. One is the party system uh becomes the party system goes from a decentralized patronage-based framework to a more national policy oriented oriented framework. And that's so we have a more national programmatic party system, but competing with that is that we have the parties being subordinated to the ambitions and of the president, which which substitutes the collective responsibility, which was so powerful when that party system was strong, to executive responsibility. So that this effect this weakens both the Democratic and Republican organizations and strengthens the presidency and and expands and leads to a more presidency-centered system, which expands the responsibilities of the fed of the national government both in domestic matters and in foreign affairs.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

Can you bring up Theodore Roosevelt, who personally is my favorite president to study because I think he's just unendingly interesting. If we're looking at this kind of progressive era and this, you know, switching toward national politics, but what are the other major players that besides Roosevelt that people could study if they wanted to?

Wilson Brings Progressivism To Democrats

SPEAKER_01 9:16

Well, I think Woodrow Wilson, who who so Roosevelt comes into the office in 1901 after the assassination of William McKinley. He was elected as vice president in 1900. He was put on the ticket because he was a hero of the Spanish-American War. And also he was governor of New York, and the party leaders wanted to get rid of him. Put him in an office they thought was safe with the vice presidency. He won't bother us there. Because Roosevelt was already making noises about reforming the party system. So when he became president, there's there's panic. And he he serves from 1901 to 1909. I agree with you. He's on, you know, he's incredibly in probably maybe our most interesting president in some ways. My students love learning about the Teddy, Teddy Roosevelt. But what and so he serves uh from 1901 and 1909, then virtually as as the Republican uh president, which had been the dominant party since the Civil War, but it's now reform it's a very different Republican Party from the Lincoln Republican Party. Uh Roosevelt makes some efforts to strengthen a reform wing in in the Republican Party, uh a kind of updating of the Lincoln wing of the party, if you will, to deal with national problems now, rather than the problems of slavery, which and the civil war, which which Lincoln confronted. So he he hands off power to William Power Taft, who was his Secretary of War. And Taft serves as pres the Republican president from 1909 to 1913. And uh Roosevelt is disappointed in him because he doesn't carry on the progressive torch as much as he had wanted, and he was more compliant to the other wing of the Republican Party, which is a powerful business wing of the Republican Party that grew up with the Industrial Revolution. And so Roosevelt challenges him with the Progressive Party campaign of 1912 that splits the majority Republican Party, and the the beneficiary of that is the Democratic candidate, Woodrow Wilson, who's elected in 1912 and becomes president from 1913 until and he's elected, re-elected in 1916, and he becomes and he's president until 1921. And he brings progressivism, Liz, to the Democratic Party. And he would be, I think, he's not as exciting as Roosevelt personally. He's got he's the only he's the only PhD in political science ever to be elected to the to the presidency. Really? Yeah, the only PhD to be elected to the presidency. So he's an academic who comes to politics and he's pretty good at it. But it you know, you're my students don't quite find him as as fun as CRS. But he brings uh he advances these progressive reforms in in very important ways.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

And then when he talks about the primary system, so is that the same primary system that we have today where we vote, you know. I know here in Arizona, we either get the Democratic or the Republican ballot, and then we choose who's going to be in the general election from there. Is that kind of where this came from then?

SPEAKER_01 12:34

That's precisely where it came from. And it and it expands over the course of the 20th century. And really its destination point is the uh McGovern Fraser reforms, which are passed in the early 1970s, which uh expand extend the primary system in into the presidential selection process. And so, you know, the convention system, which at one time was a place of real deliberation and and and and where important choices were made with respect to the party platform and with respect to the candidate, uh those those those conventions don't go away, but they basically ratify what what happens in the primaries. Uh and the platform is really uh put together by the president and and the president's leading political allies.

Conventions Fade, Presidents Lead Platforms

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Thank you so much for this. I know that we're gonna do our next episode, we're gonna talk about another Roosevelt and we're gonna talk about how the New Deal kind of realigned parties. So, Dr. Milchis, thank you so much.