New Nation Vs New Freedom

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New Nationalism versus the New Freedom During the 1912 Presidential election Roosevelt ran on a progressive platform called the New Nationalism. The following are the main points: 1. He believed the President was a dynamic force in the lives of the American people. The President was also an innovator who had as much right to introduce legislation as the Congress. He believed the President should active in the general welfare of the American people and that since the people could not speak for themselves against powerful forces like business he would. 2. He believed in Social Justice and advocated a federal workmen compensation law, universal healthcare, and the regulation of the conditions for America’s work force. 3. He supported high protective tariffs, but not for the benefit of big business. High tariffs would help protect high wages of American workers from foreign competition. 4. While he was not anti-monopoly he believed the federal government had the power and the duty to regulate the excesses of the great amalgams of wealth. 5. Despite his blustering during the Hepburn Act drive, he did not believe in changing the monetary or banking system. Woodrow Wilson strangely felt that he too was a progressive but his New Freedom platform often seemed at odds with that and often contradictory. 1. Rejected the notion the president was a dynamic, innovative, present force working on behalf of the American people. He believed in Jeffersonian individualism and in a competitive society every man had to rise or fall based on his achievements. The President’s role was that of a “policeman.” When he saw free and unfettered competition being obstructed by special interests groups like big business or labor unions the President’s job was to step and restore open competition and get out of the affairs of the American people. 2. He was opposed to any form of social
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