Who is A Progressive?

This essay explores the concept of progressivism and the views of Theodore Roosevelt on progressive and anti-progressive sentiments. It discusses the key principles of progressivism, the characteristics of anti-progressive parties, and the goals of progressivism. The essay also examines the impact of progressivism on the federal government and society.

Running Head: Sociology
Who is A Progressive?
Essay
MAY 26, 2019

Sociology 1
Who is a Progressive?
When Theodore Roosevelt first joined the politics in the age of 23, he was not known for
his progressive sentiments. After few years in his politics, he gave the concept of progressive.
Later he was known for his views about the progressive and anti-progressive sentiments. Later
he was becoming 26th president of United States from 1901 to 1909 (Calton, 2018).
According to the Roosevelt, there are three key principles or characteristics of a
progressive party or progressive movement. In the first characteristics he included those party
who preserve the nature and natural resources of the country, the second characteristics is
protecting the consumer and third characteristics of progressive is control the corporations.
These characteristics of progressive are known as the “Square Deal” (Sanders, 2011).
The Roosevelt said in his speech that anti-progressive are those parties or movements
which is are unconvinced or doubtful with progressive agenda. He further added in this group
business organizations and lobbies, conservatives, and federalists. He specially mentioned that
conservatisms were the real anti-progressive because they against his progressive sentiments and
stressed on the good of established industries and never care about the progressive thought. The
conservatism are focuses on promote the anti-democratic activities and American institutions.
This type of parties or anti-progressive because they disagree with the reforms in favour of USA
government and more focuses on waste of resources (Teaching American History, 2019).
According to the Roosevelt the key goals of progressivism is to enhance the power of
government and solve the issues of society and community people. Apart from this,
progressivism is also responsible for checking the power of large business organization and
increase the number of democratic institutions in the country. Through the progressive concept,
Roosevelt wanted to control the unethical business practices of private organization and want to
restrict them to excessive use of the natural resources and exploitation of other natural resources.
The goals of Progressive theory of Roosevelt mainly applied on the federal government because
it was lacking in power, second one is state and local governments because they were involved in
corruption, and third group was big business organization who are doing their own and
destroying the natural resources for the industrial progress (Kushlan, 2011). Roosevelt wanted to

Sociology 2
control the unethical practices of business organization through the federal government power
and restrict them to unnecessary exploitation of resources.
The major impact of progressive sentiments of Roosevelt was on the federal and central
government. The progressive sentiment of Roosevelt increases the power of central government
to remove the unfair and unethical business practices, stopped the huge destruction of natural
resources which was done by the large organization for economic development and for
industrialization, and eliminate the corruption from the society (Murdach, 2010). The major
emphasis of this sentiment of American president was on negative societal thoughts of people
related to industrialization. Apart from this, the progressive era strengthens the situation of
women and children in the society and Women get the right of vote for making government in
the country.

Sociology 3
References
Calton, C. (2018). The progressive era. Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, 21(1), 87-92.
Hutchison, C. (2017). Progressive Era Conceptions of the Corporation and the Failure of the
Federal Chartering Movement. Colum. Bus. L. Rev., 1017.
Kushlan, J. A. (2011). The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for
America [online]. Retrieve from: https://bioone.org/journals/the-auk/volume-128/issue-
3/auk.2011.128.3.595/The-Wilderness-Warrior--Theodore-Roosevelt-and-the-Crusade-
for/10.1525/auk.2011.128.3.595.full
Murdach, A. D. (2010). Does American social work have a progressive tradition?. Social
Work, 55(1), 82-89.
Sanders, E. (2011). Rediscovering the Progressive Era. Ohio St. LJ, 72, 1281.
Teaching American History (2019). Who is a Progressive: Theodore Roosevelt [online]. Retrieve
from: https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/who-is-a-progressive/