THE PROGRESSIVES AND THE WORKING CLASS VOTE IN CALIFORNIA.

The article comments on the progressive and the working class vote in California. Progressivism was a middle class movement, and while its leaders might strive to remedy the crassest abuses of industrial society, they were as fearful of concentrated labor power as of unregulated monopoly capitalism. In their zeal for moral reform and efficiency, they were often thrown into conflict with labor and immigrant-dominated political machines in cities. The interpretation that represents Progressivism as a political move by a disaffected middle class, as reformers frightened by the power of monopolistic corporations and fearful of organized labor, rests upon inferences drawn from public statements and, in a few instances, private thoughts of a leadership elite. Few attempts have been made to examine the other side of the coin and determine the response of labor leaders and the labor press. The conclusion that Progressivism was a middle-class movement has not been adequately tested against the voting records of metropolitan areas. It is the hypothesis of this paper that leaders of organized labor in California strongly endorsed Progressivism and that, though Progressivism was originally sustained by middle- and upper-class voters.