Partisans and Progressives

Book excerpt: Thomas Pegram shows how progressives won certain battles even as they lost the war. The progressives popularized their various reform ideas but failed to control the all important process of shepherding these reforms through the legislative and bureaucratic systems. The largely unspoken irony of the progressive movement was that, in attempting to open up the political process, it fostered more economical and efficient forms of government. Eventually, this economy and efficiency led to the entrenchment of party bosses.