The Progressive Movement (1915) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER .V THi PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT t THE SOCIA1JST PAETT The progressive movement in the Socialist party differs from the progressive movement in the Democratic and Republican parties, rot so much in the essentials of the movement as in the emphasis placed upon them. Progressives in the Democratic and Republican parties, although they appreciate the need of extending the functions of government, emphasize primarily the elimination of organized special influence and the modification of the structure of government with a view to making it more easily controllable by the people. The Socialist party, on the other hand, places the prima"ry emphusis oa the desirability of extending the functions and activities of government in the interests of the individual and looks upon the removal of corruption and the simplification of government as mere means to that end. The progressive movement in the Socialist party differs from the progressive movement in the Progressive party, with which it is most readily compared, not so much in the emphasis placed upon any single phase of the movement as opposed to the other phases, as in the kind and amount of emphasis placed upon one phase; i. e., the extension of the activities of government. Both the Progressive and Socialist parties believe in freeing government from special influence, in making it moreresponsive to public opinion and in insisting upon its use to relieve social and economic distress. Both parties agree further in regarding the first two of these phases of the movement as subordinate to the third. But they differ fundamentally with regard to the extent to which, the purposes foi- which, and the methods by -which the activities ot government should be increased, While tl.'e Progressive party and, in an even greater degree, ...