CHAPTER XIX. THE BEGINNING OF A NEW CENTURY

Most of the tendencies which characterized the growth of population, the expansion of the West, the concentration of the people in cities, the development of manufacturing and agriculture, and the extension of the railway system, from 1870 to 1890, were equally significant during the two decades following the latter year. Nevertheless there were important differences of detail in the tendencies of the later period; and about the year 1900 in particular there occurred changes that were far-reaching.

The rate of growth of population slowed up slightly after 1890, being twenty-one per cent. per decade, as contrasted with twenty-five per cent. from 1870 to 1890. The increases were distributed over a larger area during the later two decades, and aside from the industrial states, those which showed the greatest growth were Oklahoma, Texas and California. Immigration continued to be large, and concentrated in the north, especially in the cities. In New York city, for instance, forty per cent. of the inhabitants in 1910 were foreign born, and thirty-eight per cent. more were of foreign, or mixed foreign and native parentage. The chief European contributors to the population of America in 1910 in the order of their importance were Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Ireland, Italy and England. Moreover the foreign elements had frequently become concentrated in especial states: the Germans in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois; the Russians in New York, North Dakota and Connecticut; the Austrians in Pennsylvania and New Jersey; and the Irish in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York. The immigration of Canadians, which had been of importance before 1900, appreciably slowed down after that year; and instead there was a distinct movement in the opposite direction, especially from Minnesota, North Dakota and Washington. The emigration was caused mainly by the desire to take up fertile lands which had been widely advertised by the Canadian government. The migration from the eastern states toward the West continued as in earlier years. It was noticeable, however, that whereas previous migration had been almost wholly on east and west lines, there was in later years a greater tendency to seek favorable openings wherever they were found. Oklahoma, for example, in 1910 contained 71,000 natives of Illinois, 101,000 Kansans and 162,000 Missourians. The trend of population toward the cities was so rapid between 1890 and 1910 as to suggest the likelihood that by 1920 half the people of the country would be living in communities of 2,500 persons or more. Of the twenty-three towns that more than doubled in numbers during the two decades after 1890, seventeen were in the South and on the Pacific Coast, indicating that the tendency toward urban life was no longer confined to the North and East.

Manufacturing increased its importance as the greatest economic activity in the Northeast, and was moving westward so rapidly that Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Illinois found their interests becoming increasingly like those of the eastern states. Parts of the South, also, developed considerable industrial interests. The manufacture of cotton goods, for example, increased with such rapidity that three of the first five states in the value of their product in 1909 were southern states - North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. Since 1889 the production of lumber has taken a prominent place. Louisiana doubled its activity from 1889 to 1899 and had tripled this record by 1909. Almost the entire South from Virginia to Louisiana produced large amounts during the twenty years under consideration. The iron and steel industry in Alabama, and the production of turpentine, resin and fertilizers were other important southern interests. Throughout the country at large the number of wage earners engaged in manufacturing grew somewhat more rapidly than the population, being about twenty-five per cent. per decade from 1890 to 1910.

The center of agriculture continued to be in the Middle West, in which was to be found nearly fifty-three per cent. of the improved farm lands and fifty-eight per cent. of the value of all farm property. It was in this part of the country that the greatest increases in the amount of improved land took place, and particularly in the prairie country west of the Mississippi. By 1890 the Plains had lost their earlier unique and picturesque characteristics as a cattle country, and had given way to the homesteader. Hence the greatest expansion in agriculture took place in the tier of states from North Dakota to Texas. It appeared, therefore, that manufacturing was driving agriculture farther and farther to the west: New England cultivated less farm land in 1910 than in 1850; the improved area in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania declined after 1880; Ohio tilled fewer acres in 1910 than in 1900, and the gradual replacement of agriculture by manufacturing was observable in Indiana and Illinois. Oklahoma and Texas, on the other hand, together opened to cultivation between 1890 and 1910 nearly 24,000,000 acres, an expanse almost equivalent to the combined areas of New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and Maryland.

By 1890 it was clear that the future of the Far West lay in agriculture, rather than in the mining of the precious metals. Between that date and 1910, the amount of improved farm land in the section increased sixty-five per cent. In the states of Washington, New Mexico, Colorado, Idaho and Montana, large areas were placed under cultivation. In Washington the amount of improved farm land increased about 350 per cent. The growing of fruits and nuts was brought to a high state of excellence in the coast states. The timber industry developed after 1880 and particularly after 1900. About the close of the nineteenth century the great lumber companies began to seek sources of supply to take the place of those around the Great Lakes. They turned to the South and the Far West. The methods which were used for getting control of the land, and the recklessness with which the supplies of timber were cut off became of importance as causes of the conservation movement. The main handicap in the way of the development of trade between the Far West and the East was the great distances involved. Hence arose the interest of the Coast in transcontinental railway rates and the project for a canal across the isthmus of Panama.

An economic fact of no little importance was a change in the downward tendency of the price level after 1896. It will be remembered that the constant fall in prices from 1873 to 1896 had brought distress to the farmers of the West and had been one of the causes of the Populist revolt. After 1896 the process was reversed. Between that year and 1913 the quantity of gold in circulation considerably increased, as has been seen; bank deposits subject to check trebled in volume, and the use of checks became more common; altogether it was estimated by Professor Irving Fisher that the quantity of money in circulation increased two-fold. Prices were fifty per cent. higher in 1913 than in the earlier year, and accordingly the complaints of the farmer were less frequently heard. The wage earner in the factories, however, was differently affected. The price which he had to pay for the necessities of life increased faster than his wages, so that his standard of living was going down. Inasmuch as the number of wage earners in the factories was rapidly increasing, it seemed inevitable that the problem of rising prices after 1896 would constitute as great a problem as the problem of falling prices had done before that year.

In industrial enterprise the close of the nineteenth century and the opening of the twentieth were characterized by a mad rush toward consolidation. To a milder degree the process had, of course, been under way for many years, during which the Standard Oil Company and other trusts were the subject of much study and legislation. In the course of time some of these concerns made such great profits that their leaders sought attractive openings for the investment of their surplus. They began to appear on the boards of directors of railways, banks, electric lighting companies and other industrial organizations. Before 1900 two powerful groups had definitely formed. The Standard or Rockefeller group was obtaining large interests in such railroads as the Missouri, Kansas and Texas, the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western, and the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul. It was reaching out to the gas and electric companies in New York, had an alliance with the National City Bank and others, and was in touch with great life insurance companies such as the Equitable and the Mutual of New York. Such connections enabled them to determine the policies and direct the investments of these important concerns. The Morgans extended their influence over the Philadelphia and Reading, the New York, Lake Erie and Western, the Lehigh Valley and others. Morgan himself also entered the industrial field as organizer of the Federal Steel Company and the National Tube Company.

The mania for organizing large corporations came to a climax about 1900. The census taken in that year noted ninety-two that had been formed between January 1, 1899, and June 30, 1900. Early in 1904 the editor of Moody's Manual of Corporation Securities noted the existence of 440 large industrial and transportation combinations whose capitalization as measured by the par value of their stocks and bonds was nearly $20,500,000,000. The securities - stocks and bonds - of the new companies were eagerly taken up by the investing public. Prosperity was wide-spread and the financial strength behind the organizations seemed unlimited. Speculation became common. A few individuals amassed wealth through the shrewd purchase and sale of stocks, and countless others sought unsuccessfully to imitate them. Where sales of 400,000 shares on the stock exchange had formerly been looked upon as a good day's business, the record jumped to a million, then two, and even three.[1]

A threatened competitive struggle among certain steel manufacturers in 1901 led to the formation of the United States Steel Corporation, the most famous consolidation of the period. It was, strictly speaking, a "holding corporation" which did not manufacture at all, but merely held the securities and directed the policies of the group of companies of which it was composed. It integrated all the elements of the industry - ore deposits, coal mines, limestone, a thousand miles of railroads, ore vessels on the Great Lakes, furnaces, steel works, rolling mills and other related interests. The value of the tangible property which was thus brought under the control of a single group of men was estimated by the United States Commissioner of Corporations at about $700,000,000. The company issued securities, however, to somewhat over twice this amount. In other words, about $700,000,000 of the capitalization was "water," that is, securities issued in excess of the value of the tangible properties owned. The prices paid to those who controlled the constituent companies were such as to make them multi-millionaires over night, and the commission given to the financiers who organized the Corporation was unparalleled in size, amounting to $62,500,000.

The appreciation of the value of the ore deposits controlled by the Steel Corporation later replaced some of the water in its securities, but in many cases no such process came about. Investors therefore discovered that the paper which they had purchased did not represent real property, but merely the hope of a company that its profits would be large enough to provide returns upon all its securities. One hundred of the leading industrial stocks shrank in value $1,750,000,000 within eighteen months. In the case of the Steel Corporation it was noticeable that its supremacy depended to a large extent on the possession of resources of ore on land much of which had originally belonged to the public, a fact which, the Commissioner of Corporations remarked, made the affairs of the company a matter of public interest.

The growth and consolidation which characterized the history of industry were also taking place in the railway system, although somewhat more slowly. It has already been noted that the length of the railroads had reached 160,000 miles by 1890. For the next two decades the rate of construction diminished slightly, yet the total in 1914 was 252,231 miles, and the par value of all railroad securities was estimated at $20,500,000,000. Nearly four and a half million persons, a railroad president estimated in 1915, were at that time interested in the industry as employees, as workmen in shops making railroad supplies, or through the ownership of stocks and bonds.

The management of the roads is, of course, continually changing; alliances are made and broken; groups form and dissolve. About the time that the United States Steel Corporation was being organized, however, about ninety-five per cent. of the important lines were in the control of six groups of influential persons, which were dominated by fourteen individuals. Each group had obtained the upper hand in the roads of one or more sections. The Morgan-Hill group, for example, held the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, the Northern Pacific, the Great Northern, the Southern, the Atlantic Coast Line, the Erie and others, amounting to 47,206 miles. E.H. Harriman, chairman of the board of directors of the Union Pacific, succeeded in obtaining control of so many lines that by 1901 the Interstate Commerce Commission asserted that the consummation of plans which he then had in mind would subject nearly one-half the territory of the United States to the power of a single will. Before his death in 1909 he had obtained practical control of a system of roads running from coast to coast and passing through the most important cities of the country and had planned to continue indefinitely the process of acquiring new lines.

The concentration of the banking interests of the country went hand in hand with consolidation in industry and railway control. The unprecedented operations which have just been mentioned demanded unprecedented amounts of capital and credit, and the concentration of these necessities occurred in New York City. The Standard Oil group and the Morgan group dominated the banking interests to such an extent that it was doubtful whether any great business enterprise demanding large capital could be started without the aid of one or the other of them. Some years later a congressional investigation was started, to discover whether the control of a few men over the financial affairs of the nation amounted to a "money trust," and at that time it was found that the members of four allied financial institutions in New York City held 341 directorships in banks, insurance companies, railroads, steamship companies and trading and public utility corporations, having aggregate resources of $22,245,000,000.

The financial power thus placed in the hands of a small number of men was the cause of much legislation passed by the states and by Congress in connection with the railroads and trusts. Opinions varied widely in regard to the effects of concentration. On the one hand it was argued that the men of greatest ability and vision naturally came to the top; that industry received the necessary stabilizing influence; that production and demand were compelled to harmonize; that scientific research directed toward the discovery of new processes and products, and the better utilization of old ones could be successfully carried on only by concerns with large resources; and that efficiency and economy resulted from large-scale operation. On the other hand it was pointed out that a small number of persons who were responsible to nobody could dominate the fortunes of hundreds of thousands of wage earners, manipulate production, make or break a region or a rival, bring about financial crises and, in a controversy or for private gain, use a great industry or a railroad as a weapon and wreck it regardless of the welfare of the public at large.

Among the intellectual forces underlying American history after 1890, a prominent place should be given to the expansion of the public library, the growth of public education and the development of the press. Many libraries, of course, had been established long before the Civil War - the Library of Congress, for example, having been founded in 1800 - but the great growth of the public library supported by taxation and open to all citizens alike occurred after 1865. Between that year and 1900 no fewer than thirty-seven states passed laws enabling the towns within their borders to levy taxes for the support of public libraries; private bequests amounted to fabulous sums, the outstanding example of which were the gifts of Andrew Carnegie, amounting to $62,500,000 between 1881 and 1915. By 1914 there were over 2,000 libraries containing at least 5,000 volumes, and forty that contained more than 200,000 each.

The significant features in the growth of education between 1865 and 1890 had been the improvement of the public grammar school, the establishment of high schools and the foundation of the great state universities. After 1890 the public high schools were greatly improved, business and vocational courses were added, and the enrollment at the colleges and universities received large additions. Such universities as that in Wisconsin exerted an unusual influence on intellectual and political currents in individual states.

A large proportion of the political, social and economic changes and reforms that have taken place in the United States since 1890 have done so because public opinion was educated, quietly influenced or noisily bestirred by the press. Governors and presidents appealed to their constituents through the newspaper and the periodical. Political campaigns have become increasingly matters of publicity; candidates for office have their press bureaus; corporations, abandoning their traditional policy of silence, explain their practices; and railroads defend their policies by means of advertisements in the newspapers. Newspaper correspondents go out through the country months before candidates for the presidency are nominated, and discover and publish sentiment favorable to the individual whom the particular organ desires to see placed in office. In 1918 the circulation of the daily newspapers amounted to approximately 28,000,000 copies for each issue. In the North, the Middle West, and on the Pacific Coast the number published was sufficient to provide every family with one copy. The South and the Rocky Mountain region were less well supplied. The great metropolitan newspapers circulate widely, not only in the immediate vicinity of the publisher's office, but over a wide area outside. At least one of them in 1918 approached half a million copies daily, another exceeded 800,000, and a third issued nearly three-fourths of a million on Sunday. William R. Hearst established a chain of newspapers which gave him an audience of over a million readers every day. Several of the weekly and monthly magazines circulated in hundreds of thousands of copies; and one weekly periodical which presented newspaper opinion of all shades of political partisanship had a circulation of 750,000 copies for every issue.

The rise of the "muck-rake"[2] magazines was typical of the ten years at the opening of the twentieth century. These periodicals printed articles which portrayed a side of American life not commonly discussed in the newspapers. One of the earliest serials of this type was Miss Ida M. Tarbell's History of the Standard Oil Company, published in McClure's Magazine in 1902-1903. Instead of the ordinary eulogy of the size and success of the Company, Miss Tarbell presented many of its unfair practices. At the same time and in the same publication Lincoln Steffens was exposing the seamy side of municipal affairs in "The Shame of the Cities." Between 1901 and 1906 one of the muck-rake periodicals increased its sales threefold, another four and another seven.

Cooperation among newspapers in the gathering of information is no novelty in the United States, but the greatest strides have been taken since 1890. By 1915 the Associated Press had leased 50,000 miles of telegraph wires forming a net all over the country; it had agents in every important news center; it exchanged services with three European press associations; and it had its own representatives not only in London, Paris, and Berlin, but in Fez, Madeira, Colombo, Tsingtau and Sydney. News from Europe reached New York in less than an hour and was promptly sent to 900 newspapers, whence it was copied in thousands of daily and weekly publications. As in the case of other enterprises the publication of newspapers showed a tendency towards consolidation. The establishment of a new periodical became a million-dollar venture, and it remains to be seen whether the tendency toward centralization will result in the publication only of such news or such phases of the news as meet the approval of the relatively small number of persons that can launch a million-dollar organization.

It will be remembered that laissez faire was the prevailing theory in regard to the proper relation between government and industry during the twenty-five years after the close of the Civil War, except in so far as industrial organizations desired protective tariffs. In brief the upholders of this creed contended that legislation should concern itself as little as possible with the regulation of trade, that it should restrict itself to protecting commerce from interference and that business men should be permitted to work out their own problems with the least possible reference to such artificial forces as were supplied by legal enactments.[3] It would be inaccurate to say that the theory of laissez faire had completely given way by the end of the half century after the Civil War. Nor would it be wholly correct to say that any other theory has yet demonstrated its permanent reliability, Nevertheless the distinctive philosophy upon which later legislation has been built is the theory of public interest. The theory needs definition in some detail, because it forms the philosophy which underlies most of the political developments and much of the legislation of the early twentieth century.

As the men of the eighties and nineties contemplated the vast amounts of wealth created during those decades they saw it concentrated to a great extent in the hands of the few. The few believed that the public good was best cared for in this way, but an increasing majority of the people looked upon the tendency with greater and greater alarm. They complained that the railroads discriminated in favor of the powerful few; that corporations were achieving monopoly; and that the government itself often assisted the process by framing tariff schedules primarily for the interest of the manufacturers. When the reaction against this situation started, it was of course found that the seats of power were already occupied by the adherents of laissez faire, - the party committees, the legislatures, the executive offices and the courts. There ensued, therefore, a long struggle for power and for a new theory of government. The land-marks of the controversy were to be found in interstate commerce acts, anti-trust laws, income taxes, bureaus of labor and factory legislation.

The proponent of laissez faire would allow the few to accumulate large fortunes which they might share with the many through benefactions, gifts to education, libraries, and other public enterprises; the adherent of public interest would inquire why the many are poor, and attempt so to change economic conditions as to reduce the number of the poor to a minimum. Instead of framing laws so that wealth and power would get into the hands of a small number of individuals, in the expectation that prosperity would filter down to the many, the advocate of public interest would aim his legislation directly at what he considers the needs of the less powerful classes. He would interfere with the railroads, for example, to compel them to charge uniform rates, prevent corporations from electing public officers by means of large contributions to campaign funds, force industry even at some cost to protect employees through safety devices, and would hold the great forests on the public lands for the direct good of the whole people. The transfer of emphasis from laissez faire to public interest was based upon a steady growth in the value placed upon the worth of the individual man, and upon a shift from legislating for the few to legislating directly for the multitude. The change was greater than can be indicated by citing any one law or group of laws. It was "a new intellectual perspective through which we view all moral issues affecting society."[4]

Underlying many of the difficulties in the way of replacing laissez faire with a new theory, was the attitude of the courts toward certain parts of the Fourteenth Amendment. It will be remembered that a portion of section one of the Amendment forbids the states to "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." It will also be remembered that the majority of the Supreme Court in early decisions interpreting the Amendment had expressed the belief that its purpose was the protection of the negro. By 1890, however, the Court had come to hold that the word "person" as used in the first section included corporations, and thus had given the language of the Amendment a greatly widened application. Of 528 decisions given by the Court on the Amendment between 1890 and 1910, only nineteen concerned the negro race, while 289 affected corporations. In the decision of the case Lochner v. New York, a state law regulating hours of labor in bakeries was declared to conflict with the Amendment, because the right of the laborer to work as many hours as he pleased was part of the "liberty" which was protected by the Amendment. Laws regulating railroad rates through commissions were held to deprive corporations of property without due process. Until recently changed, the statutes did not allow appeal to the Supreme Court in cases where state courts declared state laws in conflict with the United States Constitution, and the Fourteenth Amendment therefore acted as a protective bulwark in state as well as nation. In brief, then, the legal position of the big industrial organizations was almost impregnable because of the fortuitous circumstance that the words of a part of the Constitution might be held to mean something which probably did not enter the minds of the Congress or the state legislatures which placed the words in the document.

The people of the United States have usually avoided hostile criticism of the Constitution and the decisions of the Supreme Court, and they have reflected this feeling in their acquiescence in the unexpected turn given to the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. The members of the Court, however, have frequently expressed disquietude. Dissenting opinions opposing the view which the Court has taken, have been common. Mr. Justice Harlan declared that the scope of the Amendment was being enlarged far beyond its original purpose; Mr. Justice Holmes asserted that the word "liberty" was being "perverted" and that the Constitution was not intended to embody laissez faire or any other economic theory.[5]

The most prominent pioneers in replacing the old by the new theory were William J. Bryan, Robert M. La Follette and Theodore Roosevelt. Bryan's leadership in 1896 has already been mentioned. With courage and sincerity he attempted to solve the social and economic problems of his day, but his youth, his inexperience, his radicalism, and the fact that he did not choose issues that were immediately practicable made it impossible for him to command the confidence of the majority. Unable himself to scale the heights of reform, he nevertheless pointed them out to others. With a voice that has been likened to an organ with a hundred stops, with persistence, energy and good nature he spread far and wide a new conception of social obligation. He insisted that the social and economic discontent of the South and West were real, and that they could not be laughed out of court or frightened into silence.

La Follette's constructive pioneer work was done for the most part in Wisconsin. During the ascendency of the laissez faire theory, the state was largely controlled by the lumber, railroad and other interests, using the Republican party as their political agency; and a small but powerful group controlled the election of state and federal officials, the press and state legislation. Between 1885 and 1891 La Follette, who was himself a Republican, was a representative in the federal House. In the latter year he came into collision with Senator Sawyer, a wealthy lumber merchant who was the leader of the dominant party in the state. For years the state treasurers had been lending the state's money to favored banks without interest. Senator Sawyer had acted as bondsman for the treasurers and was sued by the attorney-general of the state for back interest. La Follette threw himself into this controversy on the side of the state; and being unable to obtain a hearing through the usual medium of the press, he and his supporters went directly to the people, speaking from town to town before interested audiences; and subsequently the state won.

In the Sawyer controversy were visible all the elements of the later creed and methods of La Follette. He always remained with the Republican party, preferring to attempt change from within; and he always opposed the interests and found his strength in direct appeals to the people of his state. Out of those years came the "Wisconsin idea," - a program which included the taxation of railroads and corporations, primaries in which the people could nominate their own candidates for office, the prohibiting of the acceptance of railroad passes by public officials, and the conservation of the forests and water power of the state. The conflict between laissez faire and public interest in Wisconsin was long and bitter, but it led to a series of triumphs for La Follette, who was elected governor in 1900, 1902 and 1904, and chosen to the federal Senate in 1905. In the meanwhile there was a widespread demand throughout the West for legislation along the lines marked out by Wisconsin.

Party lines are so drawn in the United States that it is difficult for like-minded men of different parties to cooperate in furthering a program. The three pioneers were men whose capacities and personal qualities differed greatly, but in their economic and political philosophy they were nearer to one another than to the rank and file of their own parties. Bryan in 1902 refused to take part in the Democratic campaign in Wisconsin because he favored La Follette's program, and in 1905 he even aided the latter in his fight for railroad regulation; in 1912 Bryan found Roosevelt leading a revolt in the Republican party on a program to much of which he could give unqualified assent; and of La Follette, Roosevelt said in the same year: "Thanks to the movement for genuinely democratic popular government which Senator La Follette led to overwhelming victory in Wisconsin, that state has become literally a laboratory for wise experimental legislation aiming to secure the social and political betterment of the people as a whole."

Roosevelt's own share in the history of the early twentieth century was of such magnitude as to require a more extended account.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The literature is voluminous and not easy to evaluate. On population changes and immigration, the best source is the Abstract of the Thirteenth (1910) Census (1913), with the Atlas accompanying it (1914);Reports of the Immigration Commission, appointed under the Congressional Act of Feb. 20, 1907 (42 vols., 1911), is exhaustive; F. A. Ogg, National Progress (1918), has a good chapter; consult Joseph Schafer, A History of the Pacific Northwest (rev. ed., 1918), for Washington and Oregon.

The consolidation in industry, railroads and finance may be followed in: A.D. Noyes, Forty Years of American Finance (1909); John Moody, The Truth about the Trusts (1904); Report of the Commissioner of Corporations on the Steel Industry (3 parts, 1911), on the United States Steel Corporation; Anna P. Youngman, Economic Causes of Great Fortunes (1909); C.R. Van Hise,Concentration and Control a Solution of the Trust Problem in the United States (rev. ed., 1914); E.R. Johnson and T.W. Van Metre, Principles of Railroad Transportation (1916); John Moody, The Railroad Builders (1919); John Moody, The Masters of Capital (1919); and Report of the Committee Appointed Pursuant to House Resolutions 429 and 504 to Investigate the Concentration of Control of Money and Credit, (Pujo Committee) 1913.

There is no satisfactory study of the social and political effects of the great increase in the circulation of newspapers and periodicals. Suggestive articles are: World's Work (Oct., 1916), "Stalking for Nine Million Votes"; Arena (July, 1909), "The Making of Public Opinion"; Atlantic Monthly (Mar., 1910), "Suppression of Important News." Less superficial articles are those of Walter Lippmann in the Atlantic Monthly (Nov., Dec., 1919). The statistics are available in N.W. Ayer, American Newspaper Annual and Directory.

The emergence of the theory of public interest is best seen in the Autobiography of R.M. La Follette (4th ed., 1920); consult also Theodore Roosevelt, Autobiography, and C.G. Washburn, Theodore Roosevelt; the Logic of his Career (1916). A profound article is W.J. Tucker, "The Progress of the Social Conscience," in Atlantic Monthly (Sept., 1915).

On the Fourteenth Amendment, consult the volumes already mentioned under Chap. IV.

There are no thorough estimates of Bryan and La Follette. On the former: Atlantic Monthly (Sept., 1912), and Nineteenth Century (July, 1915); H. Croly, Promise of American Life (1914), is critical. W.J. Bryan, First Battle (1897), is essential. On La Follette, his own narrative as given in the Autobiography is best, but should be read with care as it was written in the heat of partisan controversy. See also F.C. Howe, Wisconsin an Experiment in Democracy (1912), friendly to La Follette.

Frank Norris, The Octopus, and The Pit; Winston Churchill, Coniston and Mr. Crewe's Career; and Upton Sinclair, The Jungle, are illustrative fiction.

       * * * * *

[1] The shrinkage of the value of these securities caused the "rich men's panic" of 1903. Consult Noyes, Forty Years, 308-311.

[2] The word originated in 1906 with President Roosevelt, who likened certain sensational journalists to the man with the Muck-Rake in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Annual Register, 1906, 442.

[3] Cf. pp. 94-96 above.

[4] I have drawn largely at this point upon Dr. W.J. Tucker's article "The Progress of the Social Conscience" in the Atlantic Monthly, Sept., 1915, 289-303. The clearest idea of the transition from laissez faire to public interest is gained by reading the biography of M.A. Hanna by Croly, and La Follette's and Roosevelt's autobiographies.

[5] Usually cases involving the Fourteenth Amendment have also involved other parts of the Constitution. The main reliance, however, in such cases has been the Amendment mentioned.