Interviewed by: Joel Moroney
Q: Tell us what you learned about populists and progressives that informed your
research and why you chose this project?
A: Populists and progressives agreed on many policies and yet they disliked one another
and worked against each other in the 1890s; I wanted to know why. The main reasons
they were opponents in the 1890s was their cultural differences and their competition for
power. Progressives were typically educated cultural elites from the East
Coast—exemplified by Theodore Roosevelt. Populists were rural farmers who lacked
professional credentials. Populist and progressive cultural differences manifested in very
different styles of journalism and political communication. Both sides engaged in name
calling in the 1896 election, but outside of the election, populist journalism was radical
and partisan, while progressive journalists in the 1890s—including Theodore
Roosevelt—tended to be more investigative and restrained.
Q: Why do you think they were destined opponents despite sharing many of the
same policy objectives?
A: I don’t think populists and progressives were destined to be opponents. They
cooperated in the 1900s. Even in the 1890s, I believe there could have been a unified
populist-progressive reform movement if populist leaders had made a focused effort to
unite with reformers from within the two major parties. If populist journalism and
political communication had been able to show its common cause with reformers from all
backgrounds, then I think populists and progressives could have cooperated in the 1890s.
But populists would have likely had to allow progressives to lead the reform movement,
as Theodore Roosevelt and other progressives believed strongly that an educated elite
should lead. This made it very unlikely that progressives would follow the outcast
populist leaders. Because of the way populist journalism demonized everyone from the
two major parties, they ended up driving the mainstream reformers like Roosevelt onto
the side of the conservatives in the 1890s.
Q: Moderation being perhaps not Roosevelt’s most well-known personality trait,
was there more than political and journalistic pragmatism behind his hatred for the
more aggressively partisan stance of populism? Did Doris Kearns Goodwin have it
right?
A: I agree with much of Goodwin’s framing of Roosevelt and the muckrakers.
Roosevelt’s personality was not moderate, but his brand of reform was moderate. He
wanted to improve the existing system and not tear it down like the Populists. He thought
the best way to do this was to balance the interests of competing groups—capital and
labor, cities and rural areas, consumers and corporations—he saw the ideal leader as
standing above these self-interested factions and governing for the wider common good.
This is why Roosevelt’s journalism continually connected with the Founders’ ideal of
“disinterestedness.” Wealthy progressives could stand above the interests, while
struggling populists were more self-serving. Roosevelt also thought radical reforms
wouldn’t work because they would cause severe disruptions and would create new,
unintended, consequences, so he saw pragmatic reform as the correct way forward.
Q: You hint at it, but do you think elitism played a role in Roosevelt’s distrust of
populism and the “lunatic fringe”?
A: Roosevelt, and other progressive journalists like William Allen White and Ray
Stannard Baker, believed that the best educated, most experienced, wisest, and most
moral individuals should lead. Because of the populists’ background—their lack of elite
education, their lack of experience in government, and their extreme rhetoric—Roosevelt
did not think Populists should govern. This was very clear from his journalism and from
his personality and his hierarchical view of society. Roosevelt saw himself as a leader so
following populist reformers in the 1890s was probably never going to happen.
Q: What impact do you think his career in law enforcement had on his view of
populists? On the one hand, you mention it explicitly, but on the other it seems clear
that his opinion was set before becoming police commissioner.
A: My sense is it changed the way Roosevelt talked about corruption and social
problems, but it didn’t fundamentally change his beliefs. I agree that Roosevelt was not
fundamentally different after becoming a New York City police commissioner. Both
before and after becoming a police commissioner of New York City, Roosevelt wanted to
expose corruption and reform the government towards professionalism and away from
partisanship—but the language he used during the 1896 election became darker and
angrier.
Q: How do you rectify his distaste of divisive partisanship and journalism with his
overtly partisan writing, such as calling Tom Watson a “Georgia cracker”?
A: When Roosevelt wrote that Watson was a “Georgia cracker,” it was just before the
1896 election, and Roosevelt saw Watson as representing a fanatical faction or backward,
poor, southern, white, farmers. Roosevelt was clearly inconsistent with his prior calls for
restrained and high-minded journalism that elevated public debate. Roosevelt would
probably try to make a distinction between legitimate and illegitimate criticism and claim
he was trying to warn the public on the disreputable character of Watson, but it was clear
he failed his own standard during the 1896 election.
Q: It seems certain that civil service reform did not eliminate partisanship. Did your
research provide any insights?
A: My research was not on the civil service reform movement’s effects on partisanship,
but I do think the desire for a more professional, less partisan civil service is in harmony
with a more professional, less partisan style of journalism. Civil service reform changed
the way the federal administrative state operated, and it changed the number of
government positions that could be given out to the winner of an election—I don’t think
it’s a coincidence that many of the same advocates for civil service reform were also
advocates for this new style of professional journalism. Both can be seen as part of the
broader philosophy of pragmatism. Non-partisan, professional, educated journalism
shared similar core values with the movement for a professional, non-partisan, civil
service.
Q: You mention Roosevelt’s distrust of sensational reporting. Beyond the
muckrakers, did you make any discoveries about Roosevelt’s views of, or influence
upon, journalism?
A: Roosevelt loved the more moderate, and less partisan muckrakers, such as Lincoln
Steffens, Ray Stannard Baker, and Ida Tarbell. He appreciated an investigative story
based on documented evidence, but he clearly disliked the more radical muckrakers
whose evidence was less transparent and whose conclusions stretched far beyond their
evidence. Populist journalism often formed radical conclusions and rarely took the slow,
transparent, investigative approach—this made populist journalism a poor fit for reaching
Theodore Roosevelt—the leader of the progressives.
Q: Are there parallels to today’s political climate?
A: Absolutely. Both periods had extreme rhetoric on both the left and the right. There is a
severe lack of trust in institutions and in establishment political leaders. Roosevelt was
the elite credentialed reformer who had risen within government and from within his
party, but he also saw the corruption and the need for change. He was a reformer who
was taking on the establishment and party insiders, but he wasn’t a radical.
If we think about who represents a similar figure today, Barack Obama comes to mind, as do a
handful of Democratic governors in swing states, as well as a few reform-minded
Republicans (or in some cases former Republicans). They want change, and in their
campaigns, they run against the elite and the party establishment, but they don’t speak of
destroying or punishing one faction—so they are also running against the radicals.
Overall, I think today has much more intense partisanship than during the populist 1890s
or the progressive 1900s. In a paradoxical way, even though populist journalism was fully
aligned with the 19th century partisan press style of journalism, I think the populist movement helped
weaken Democratic and Republican partisanship, since it represented a significant block of voters
leaving the two main parties and briefly joining the People’s Party.
Today, I think there is a style of radical partisan journalism and political
communication that most moderates dislike and find uninteresting and bad for
democracy. In turn, today’s partisan radicals often find moderates attempts to be even-
handed, and their attempts to position themselves as being above political factions, as
uninspiring and ineffective.