These Truths: A History of the United States

by Jill Lepore

Populists believed that the system was broken; Progressives believed that the government could fix it. Conservatives, who happened to dominate the Supreme Court, didn’t believe that there was anything to fix but believed that, if there was, the market would fix it. Notwithstanding conservatives’ influence in the judiciary, Progressivism spanned both parties. After 1896, when the Democratic Party convinced Bryan to run as a Democrat instead of as a Populist, Democrats boasted that they had successfully folded Populists into their party. In 1905, Governor Jeff Davis of Arkansas said, “In 1896, when we nominated the grandest and truest man the world ever knew—William Jennings Bryan—for President, we stole all the Populists hate; we stole their platform, we stole their candidate, we stole them out lock, stock, and barrel.” But Republicans were Progressives, too. “The citizens of the United States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have themselves called into being,” Theodore Roosevelt said. And, as Woodrow Wilson himself admitted, “When I sit down and compare my views with those of a Progressive Republican I can’t see what the difference is.”