Biographer and historian Doris Kearns Goodwin has written biographies of Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Lyndon Baines Johnson. As she looked to a new project, she realized that she had tremendous interest in the progressive movement at the turn of the 19^th century. She thereupon wrote her widely-acclaimed book, The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism.

For contemporary progressives, the book is a remarkable refresher course on what the original progressives in our country were like. Unlike those of a century ago, many current progressives are very tentative in stepping forward. With individuals like Barack Obama, this is certainly understandable; the political climate is rather forbidding for anyone who wants to advance a real progressive agenda. There are obvious exceptions, most particularly Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. But in the early 1900s, American citizens elected Theodore Roosevelt as president, a charismatic long-time practitioner of progressive politics and the William Howard Taft, a more subdued man, but still progressive in his beliefs. Mind you, America did this just prior to women’s suffrage (1920), which certainly would have provided far more votes in favor of a liberal agenda.

One of the key pieces of legislation in the progressive era was the establishment of the Interstate Commerce Commission. The ICC was actually passed in 1887 during the first term of President Glover Cleveland. The Commission’s mandate and its rulings have been key to a number of progressive laws including civil rights, transportation, safe food, and licensing for safe pharmaceuticals.

The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was a regulatory agency in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The agency’s original purpose was to regulate railroads (and later trucking) to ensure fair rates, to eliminate rate discrimination, and to regulate other aspects of common carriers, including interstate bus lines and telephone companies. The Commission was the first independent regulatory body (or so-called Fourth Branch), as well as the first agency to regulate big business in the U.S.

The ICC served as a model for later regulatory efforts. Unlike, for example, state medical boards, the Interstate Commerce Commissioners and their staffs were full-time regulators who could have no economic ties to the industries they regulated. At the federal level, agencies patterned after the ICC included the Federal Trade Commission (1914), the Federal Communications Commission (1934), the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (1934), the National Labor Relations Board (1935), the Civil Aeronautics Board (1940), Postal Regulatory Commission (1970) and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (1975). In recent decades

Unfortunately, Congress dissolved the Interstate Commerce Commission, effective the first day of 1996, but its legacy includes a number of other regulatory authorities. Most importantly, it clarified the meaning of Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution, which states that the United States Congress shall have power “to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States.” The “among the several states” is the key wording that permits the federal government to implement and enforce civil rights laws such as banning discrimination in hotels and restaurants (because they engage in interstate commerce in getting their supplies, etc.). It is one of the key clauses in allowing the federal government to monitor and adjust state voting laws that discriminate against individual or classes of individuals.

There are so many things that we can learn from the Interstate Commerce Commission of 1887 and the progressive movement of the late 19^th and early 20^th century. Perhaps the most important lesson is that progressive ideas can become the norm. If there had not been a break between Teddy Roosevelt and W.H. Taft in 1912, it’s quite possible that (a) the Great Depression might have not have been so severe in the U.S., and (b) more needed progressive legislation could have been passed. We in the present can work to keep what President Obama has started and follow it with more bold progressive ideas. Perhaps the key point is to minimize internal disagreements. Unfortunately that’s difficult for the more cerebral of the two parties. But we can try.

The post Resurging interest in Teddy Roosevelt’s Progressive Movement appeared first on Occasional Planet.

As bankruptcy predators began salivating over publicly owned treasures in Detroit–namely, the assets  of the Detroit Institute of Art–I was visiting the newly renovated, taxpayer-supported St. Louis Central Public Library. The $70 million renovation–funded to the tune of a $50 million bond issue, with $20 million more in private donations–has elevated a fading public asset  into a state-of-the-art city gem. Using the original bones of the 100-year old building, designed in the early 1900s by Cass Gilbert, the renovators have kept all of the exterior walls intact, while rethinking the old, dark stacks, restoring natural light, rejuvenating the magnificent ceilings, opening up big new public spaces, and generally creating an exciting, inviting place for exploring and learning.

I am obliged to admit, here, that as a suburbanite, before today’s tour, I hadn’t set foot inside the downtown library in at least two decades. So, I’m far from an expert on the place, and I’m eight months tardy in touring the renovation. [[It reopened, after a two year shutdown for the life-changing renovations, in December 2012 to celebrate its centennial.] Like other suburban residents, I had driven past it and/or parked near it many times, when I went downtown for the kinds of events non-city-dwellers travel to: Cardinals’ baseball games, a visit to the Gateway Arch, and special events. But going inside to do research or just look around was not my thing–especially in the dawning of the Google age–and when a perfectly adequate, suburban library was within five minutes of my house.

But earlier this year [2013], when the downtown library renovation started getting rave reviews, I knew it was time to make the trip–an easy 25-minute drive that I hadn’t bothered to take in so many years.

Our tour group was led by a very knowledgeable docent–a chemist by profession–who reminded us about the private-public partnership of the early 1900s that gave birth to the St. Louis Public Library system in what was then America’s fourth largest city. It all started with good old Andrew Carnegie, who provided the initial funds for many of the municipal libraries around the country–a lot of which are still standing as the biggest buildings in many small towns. After Carnegie kickstarted things in St. Louis, the citizenry got involved and passed a property tax to provide public funds for an asset then widely regarded as essential to the cultural and educational health of the city.

Our docent pointed out the role played by architecture in creating a–literally–enlightening environment. And the 21st century renovation continues that wise tradition, allowing in even more sunlight than ever.

Cass Gilbert [he was chosen as the architect because he had designed the St. Louis Art Museum for the vaunted 1904 World’s Fair, and, by the way, the U.S. Supreme Court building] also incorporated into the building many decorative details aimed at reminding us of the importance to a civilized society of literature, art and intellectual inquiry. The renovation has retained and polished up details such as the stained glass windows and the names of authors chiseled into the walls. The 21st century renovators have added their own literary touches, too, including an outdoor infinity fountain with famous literary quotations that shimmer under the glassy water’s surface. In the fiction section of the library, the first sentences of well-loved books are embossed on the ceiling in huge letters, as if to remind us of the pleasure of starting a book and wondering where it will go.

The huge [it takes up a full city block] Beaux Arts-style building has that cathedral-like feel that is meant to inspire you. [I generally am not inspired by that church-y thing; rather I feel that they’re trying to make me feel small and insignificant. But I’ll give the library a pass on that, because it is a building of its time, and because the renovators had the wisdom to leave well enough alone, while improving on things that–in the name of 1950s modernism–had been subjected to some misguided changes–such as the dropped ceilings that have now been eliminated, revealing the original, airy vaulted architecture.]

And speaking of ceilings, some of them are simply amazing. In the large room dedicated to art books, Gilbert recreated a ceiling he saw in Italy in the late 19th century. The library renovators had to remediate some very ill-advised modifications that had been made along the way to accommodate fluorescent [ugh!] lighting fixtures. But they have done a brilliant job of restoration, right down to removing the ugly fluorescents and replacing them with the beautiful chandeliers [rewired with LED] Gilbert installed at the beginning. There are other ceiling and light-fixture marvels in several other of the public spaces–so beautiful that staring at the ceiling–an activity usually reserved for the inattentive or bored–could become a worthy habit.

In a large space dedicated to St. Louis history and books, the library has added a touch of nostalgia that will probably be lost on anyone under 50, but worth noting. In the center of the room stands a large wooden case, filled with small drawers. Medicare-eligible people will recognize it as a card catalog–the erstwhile “search engine” we all learned to use in grade school. But, rather than relegate it to the dust pile, the library has given it a place of prominence and has cleverly populated its 3-by-5-inch drawers with index cards on which are written short notes jotted down over the years by librarians who recorded found tidbits as they ferreted out information for library users. Next time I have an afternoon with nothing to do, I’m going down to the library to slide out a couple of those drawers and flip through the cards, just for fun.

I left the tour feeling awed by the building, and ashamed of myself for not having appreciated it before. And I thought about how lazy Google has made me, and how much knowledge I haven’t tapped into…yet.

But I also felt thankful to the wise people, a century ago, at the height of the Progressive Era, who valued learning and who understood that books and knowledge and the tools of inquiry should be available to everyone–and that these things are essential public assets in any community. In an era when intellectual curiosity is scorned, when learning takes a back seat to test scores, and when cities like Detroit contemplate gutting their cultural heritage, the progressive values that created places like the St. Louis Public Library are worth restoring.

The post Awed by the public library appeared first on Occasional Planet.