Unit VIII: "Waves of Reform" ca 1880s to 1921

Question/Problem 1: What were the political, economic, and social reforms that shaped America?

Directions: Read the following excerpts to get an idea of the problems addressed by the reform movement.

In 1912 Woodrow Wilson described problems in the United States Senate:

But you need to be told, and it would be painful to repeat to you, how seats have been bought in the Senate; and you know that a little group of Senators holding the balance of power has again and again been able to defeat programs of reform upon which the whole country had set its heart; and that whenever you analyzed the power that was behind those little groups you have found that it was not the power of public opinion, but some private influence, hardly to be discerned by superficial scrutiny, that had put those men there to do that thing....

Now, returning to the original principles upon which we profess to stand, have the people of the United States not the right to see to it that every seat in the Senate represents the unsought United States of America? Does the direct election of Senators touch anything except the private control of seats in the Senate?

We remember another thing: that we have not been without our suspicions concerning some of the legislatures which elect Senators. Some of the suspicions which we entertained in New Jersey about them turned out to be founded upon very solid facts indeed. Until two years ago New Jersey had not in half a generation been represented in the United States Senate by the men who would have been chosen if the process of selecting them had been free and based upon the popular will.

From Thomas A. Bailey, ed., The American Spirit: United States History As Seen By Contemporaries, vol. II (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1973), pp. 654-655.

Part I: In your own words, describe the problem being addressed by this excerpt.

Part II: Research the following terms and individuals to learn more about the specific people and actions involved with this reform.

	Robert La Follette	Initiative and Referendum
	Direct Primary	Seventeenth Amendment