Richard M Abrahams Summary

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Historians do not agree on the past, in three separate articles they try and discredit the opposing historian in a lengthy debate. In article one (Issue 7) Richard M Abrahams argues that progressivism failed because it tried to impose a common set of values on a culturally diverse set of people whom have never been seen as equals in American society. He supports this by stating that the set of values, social relations and politics imposed where challenged by the influx of religious and ethnic diversity in the nation. Roosevelt tried to remedy this by creating racial reforms but this created racial inequality. When this failed the progressive energies turned toward sedition and criminal syndicalist laws. He states that reform also failed to…show more content…
The Jewish community believed that they had to become Zionists to become a better American. Meanwhile Roosevelt started to pass a series of legislation to raise the quality of American political life. The legislation that was passed had only made elections more expensive thus reducing the number of eligible candidates. Abrahams suggests that the distribution of advantages made things worse. He uses the statistics from the National Industrial Conference Board to prove that the wealth distribution had stayed the same as the years before 1921. American farmers as a whole also suffered from an increase in disadvantages because only 16 percent of the national income went to farmers. This caused in increase in tenant farming and a high percentage of farmers did not own their own land. Richard also mentions that not only did progressivism fail American farmers it also failed to stop corporate capitalism. Robert also suggest the Supreme Court allowed this because the corporations where behind Americas unbounded material…show more content…
Link and Richard L. McCormick provide a rebuttal against Richard M. Abrams Suggesting that the progressive movement was a success. The progressive movement combined a very varied and sometimes contradictory group of intellectuals and citizens. Some wanted to concentrate the authority to experts in their field such as the big industrialists of the time whom everyone looked up to. Another big idea was created based on a concerned for the welfare of the “new” immigrants to keep them from falling victim to the political machines and poverty. Others thought that the ‘new’ immigrants should be Americanized into society to fit in with all of the Americans. In general progressives sought to improve the lives of every American and to create as much social stability as possible. The term progressivism is not a label that separated people based on their ideas but in general it brought people together to seek a common cause. A time before the progressive movement consisted of large scale, commercial and financial enterprises which all paid very poorly for very long work days and harsh working conditions. Progressivism called mankind to action. Only through purposeful action could the environment and conditions of life get better because if nobody did anything it would only get worse. Progressivism also destroyed the term “social Darwinism “and replaced It with “reform Darwinism” The blame of failure was no longer on the shoulders of the worker. Using moralistic appeals made
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