The Triumph of Conservatism: A Reinterpretation of American History, 1900–1916

by Gabriel Kolko

A radically new interpretation of the Progressive Era which argues that business leaders, and not the reformers, inspired the era’s legislation regarding business.

Genres: History, Politics, Economics, American History, American, Nonfiction, United States

356 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1977

About the author

A historian specializing in 20th century Ameican politics and foreign policy, Gabriel Morris Kolko earned his BA in history from Kent State University in 1954, his MS from the University of Wisconsin in 1955, and his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1962. He taught at the University of Pennsylvania and at SUNY-Buffalo before joining the history department of York University in Toronto in 1970.

Reviews

[Bryan]

More than fifty years after this book's publication, many readers would more readily grasp the premise if the title said "Cronyism" in place of "Conservatism." Kolko produces statistics to argue that after a period of intense merger activity in the U.S. at the end of the 19th century, which both intellectuals and business leaders believed was an inevitable evolution of capitalism, giants in many sectors of the economy—in finance and insurance, steel and iron, copper, telephone service, oil, agricultural machinery, automobiles, meat packing, and many more—found that they were still losing ground to vigorous and innovative smaller competitors. In a volatile time, they had attempted to establish certainty by voluntary business methods (undercutting their competitors and buying them out), and they were failing. So in the first decade and a half of the 20th century, they turned to politics.

The era's major federal legislation and regulation have been hailed as Progressive victories in restraint of monopolies and unscrupulous "robber barons," but Kolko traces those policies back to business leaders whose aim was to protect their positions against competition and instability. In industry after industry, the biggest actors not only asked for the regulation, they led the development of the policies (even writing the bills) and staffed the bureaucracy that regulated their industries. Sure enough, the resulting federal actions favored the largest and most established firms. The Progressive Era presidents—Theodore Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson—were quite complicit in all of this, and had the confidence of business leaders, with few hostile exceptions that were more personal and political than ideological.

Kolko is bitter that even supposedly radical voices of the era failed to understand that Progressivism was a tool wielded by elite incumbents to entrench themselves in the economy, with enough appearance of reform to divert energy from the simmering socialist sentiment that found more successful outlets in Europe.

But it's easy enough to set aside Kolko's politics; a reader interested in a history of attacks on free markets, for example, will find in this book a detailed (often dry) affirmation of one of Milton Friedman's refrains: "In many ways, business is the enemy of markets, because businessmen are always seeking to get government to intervene on their behalf. We don’t have any of these regulatory agencies opposed by business. They all are in favor of it."

[Rhonda · Rating 2 out of 5]

A wonderful cure for insomnia. I fell asleep every time I picked this up.

Quick summary:

Teddy Roosevelt listened to JP Morgan, Rockefeller and so on. Political conservatism started around 1900, not before. JP Morgan & co. were puppet masters. Government and business worked together to destroy small business. Etc.

[Ryan Maher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kolko seems to have a solid thesis, but the vast, vast, vast majority of this book is just a long-ass list of names of people talking to each other. Here's a summary of one paragraph:

Roosevelt cooperated with Aldrich. First Secretary of Commerce Cortelyou wrote George Perkins. Roosevelt then contacted James R. Garfield, son of President Garfield. Francis Lynde Stetson knew James Garfield from Williams College alumni functions, and so he approved of his appointment as Commissioner of Corporations. Hanna didn't care for Garfield, but a meeting between the two men won him over.

I'm glad Kolko did this research, but I don't see the value of reading about 300 pages of it.

The intro and conclusion of the book say just about everything meaningful I personally took from reading this. Here's a key excerpt, taken from a couple pages of the conclusion.

"Ultimately businessmen defined the limits of political intervention [in the economy], and specified its major form and thrust ... The basic fact of the Progressive Era was the large area of consensus and unity among key business leaders and most political factions ... federal regulation of the economy was conservative in its effect in preserving existing power and economic relations in society..."

Basically meaning that it's called the "Progressive Era", but the reforms and government regulatory bodies created at the time were created essentially by businessmen in order to make the government useful for them, as a class. Government action to regulate business doesn't mean it's anti-business, and in fact government in a capitalist society is by-and-large a tool of the capitalist class.

[Jamil · Rating 4 out of 5]

a must read.

[Nathanael Mickelson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dated but a genuinely novel interpretation of the Progressive Era

[Erik Riker-Coleman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny, in that after reading this I belatedly found the main source for Bill Barney’s Progressive Era lecture when I TA’d for him 25 years ago.

[Tommy · Rating 3 out of 5]

...Roosevelt’s view of the dangerous, potentially irresponsible character of the masses, and the need to channelize them along controllable lines, was expressed by many others as well. “… the day has gone by,” Charles S. Meilen of the New Haven Railroad told the Hartford Board of Trade in 1904, “when a corporation can be handled successfully in defiance of the public will, even though that will be unreasonable and wrong. A public must be led, but not driven, and I prefer to go with it and shape or modify, in a measure, its opinion, rather than be swept from my bearings with loss to my self and the interests in my charge.” Reiterating the theme of an irrevocable tension between the masses and “good government,” William Dudley Foulke, a leading civil service reformer in this period, indicated that popular government and parties were the source of spoils, and that the aim of civil service reform, which Roosevelt so notably advanced, was to mitigate this evil of democracy.
Increased state regulation of railroads, state suits against major corporations, and state efforts to implement economic and social welfare laws of every type, only illustrated the value of comprehensive federal regulation that was more responsive to big business than the majority of individual states might be. The Hamiltonian conception of the role of the national government as predominant, which was so central to the New Nationalism of Roosevelt, was motivated by the same fear of state and local initiatives that could express the genuine desires of the masses. When the détente between the Bureau of Corporations and International Harvester was created, Elbert H. Gary was explicit in suggesting that one of the advantages of the arrangement was to prevent violent state attacks on Harvester such as were then taking place in the Midwest, Gary consistently feared the masses, and for this reason hoped for a general institutionalization of the détente system into a formal political capitalism. “I think one of the great disturbers and objections to the conditions and proceedings of this country,” he remarked to a Senate inquiry in late 1911, “is the frequent elections.” A possible solution, he suggested, was the election of an “absolutely independent” President for a term of eight years. Albert Stickney, a Harvard-trained New York attorney, suggested a few years earlier that periodic elections resulted in business instability and lost time. The solution was to merge both houses of Congress, abolish term limitations for Congressmen and the President, and have elections only at times of vacancies or upon removal of the President by a two-thirds vote of the Congress. “Mass rule is mob rule,” he frankly stated. Representative government, according to Willard A. Smith, editor of the Railway Review, led to the victory of “the loudest mouthed.” It could be saved only if the businessmen took over.
The discontent of the masses, Francis Lynde Stetson remarked in 1917, “is to be allayed not by a policy of stern and unbending toryism,” but by flexibility. His advice had been followed by the big businessmen in the National Civil Federation, Brandeis, and other progressive capitalists, who acknowledged, along with Roosevelt, the right of trade unions to be organized in genuine open shops. However different their functional actions, which were antiunion, the Garys, Perkinses, Carnegies, and pro-regulation capitalists knew that labor would demand a place in the sun as well. The choice, they well realized, was between a lackadaisical A.F. of L. that accepted the ideological premises of the status quo and a radical industrial union movement led by a Eugene Debs or a William Haywood.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tedious prose and over-detailed. But the main argument is worth the slog. The reform efforts of the progressive-era were made possible through the dedicated action of their primary beneficiaries: the major corporations. Kolko argues (this part I am not convinced of) that the trend at the dawn of the twentieth century was not toward increased consolidation and monopoly but toward increased competition and uncertainty. This led of course to unpredictability, the bane of all major corporations. Desiring rationalization and predictability, Corporations lobbied the presidents to make entry more difficult, by erecting barriers that looked like consumer protection (this also sounds more conspiratorial than Kolko intends it to). Particularly instructive is his example of the Pure Food and Drug Act, generally associated with the muckraking journalism of Utpon Sinclair, major food producers had been lobbying for reform since the 1880s. Why? Because Germany and France were no longer importing questionable American pork! By standardizing and making basic safety/ health requirements the law of the land, Corporations could expand to foreign markets, block upstart competitors who could not pay for the certification process, and the presidents could look tough and on the side of the consumer while simultaneously passing much of the cost onto them. Of course, this is not to suggest that consumer protection reforms are bad, but it helps to answer the questions: why was reform passed then and why can't it be passed now

[B · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has a very interesting premise and it somewhat delivers. Kolko is able to find a lot of proof that the progressive legislation was supported by various business interests.

The real problem is that Kolko never really tests his hypothesis against the dominant perspective. Sure, Teddy Roosevelt talked up the importance of business, but he also talked up the importance of antitrust. Sure, he had business supports, but he also had relatively radical support. &c.

It also winds up feeling like Kolko is blaming the leaders of the day for not having some definitely new vision, which Kolko pointedly makes clear isn't socialism, but never defines. There seems to be an argument here that businesses never had to get big and many leaders did not feel that way.

As a caution--"Don't forget about the powerful moneyed interests when describing who helped devise policy at the turn of the century"--it works. As a conclusive statement that everyone were essentially stooges for Morgan et al. it does not prove its case.

[Brandy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Had to read this one for a grad class.
Probably (hopefully) will never pick it up again. While I will admit that I didn't read it cover to cover, I don't think that that would've helped me enjoy or understand it any more. What normally would've taken me three or so hours to get through took the better part of a day, and I still don't feel like I fully got what Kolko was trying to say. Maybe I just feel insecure because I disagree with his premise. I don't know.

[Trevor Howells · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this book is extremely thorough and offers an argument that I personally find compelling, it is a bit of a slog to get through. The book can get repetitive, delineating seemingly every possible industry during every period, all with essentially the same outcome. The argument is worth reading and considering, especially for those teaching the period, but the book might warrant some gutting to really enjoy.

[Anders · Rating 5 out of 5]

A key book for understanding the progressive era and American history in general. It shows how the reforms of that era were intended to maintain the status quo and cement the power of the wasp establishment and big business.

[Sean Chick · Rating 1 out of 5]

The thesis is simplistic and attractive if you think there is something fundamentally wrong with America. However, the evidence does not support Kolko's interpretations. Business often times opposed reform and these reforms were actually effective in many cases.

[Lance · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting take on the progressive era, but too clouded by Kolko's 60s world view.

[Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full review to come.

[Leonard Lanier]

A