now we discuss the leg gee of the 1912 election. >> we're in milwaukee, wisconsin, and we're joined by michael kazin and khalil muhammad. thank you for joining us. >> thank you for having us.

>> part of the reason that you're here is to look at the 100th anniversary of the election of 1912. why was 1912 important? >> well, it was an election where i think progressive reform was on the agenda for all of the major players that year. there were four important candidates in the election that year. teddy roosevelt, taft, and eugene, the socialist and all of the different ways where the platforms opposed consolidation of big business, the trusts or the monopolies at the time and it was also a time of a lot of upheaval in the country, upheaval among workers, upheaval among black and white, to the beginning of a modernist culture in america. it was a very exciting time.

>> you use the term progressivism and we hear that term today. what is your definition of that? >> my students ask that and it takes a while to explain it. what it meant at the time it people wanted a more efficient government, they wanted a social order generally that was dedicated to harmonizing relations and a government that would be more democratic and part of that is the progressives wanted to try to either bust up the big businesses in america or regulate them much more strictly. >> was the first election in which progressivism had a voice? >> no.

in 1896, even though the term wasn't used at the time, i think he was an early progressive, though he was defeated in 1896. >> i was going to say, shifting the focus slightly from the presidential level to how people managed it on the ground, progressivism had access to every day people who wanted a better quality of life. >> so to you, what do you see? what's your stand on the 100th anniversary of 1912? why does 1912 matter 100 years later? >> well, for me there was this wonderful moment where african-american leadership in this election really don't know where to go. they are looking at roosevelt

who had all of the promises of representing a republican party and came into his position obviously in the wake of the assassination, courting african-american voters but his star had dimmed greatly by 1912, even though he talked a tough game when it came to progressivism, he was courting southern delegates in this third-party race. this was really the first time that the republican party is not the parent for african-american voters and as it turns out, and he hopes that he's the president of all of the people and i think that resonates so profoundly with this moment and banking on wood row wilson as a democratic candidate who represents as a party leader the tradition of a white supremacist party in terms

of everything following the civil war due bois a professionalism, a kind of thoughtful leadership that could ultimately lead to him being the president of all of the people. but the rhetoric today is almost completely the reverse. the president of all of the people in the 2012 election is to push back against the potential for the president having special interests like african-american voters or latino voters. there's an interesting arc over 100 years in how that language is used. >> and i think it's really important what it's created in the progressive area, not just in 1912. you have a lot of ambiguities because they think that jim crow is -- white people and black people develop separately, they will not get in each other's way and you have dubois on the other side.

>> and these were progressive planks? >> yes. >> even the regulatory state that we take for granted on one hand and attack on the other came into being in the progressive period. >> and for some conservatives, like glenn beck say america started down the bad road in 1912. woodrow wilson was the beginning of the left's triumph making a huge state. >> would you say progressives are more successful by not becoming in the presidential power because you've pointed out things that have become law. we have not had a progressive candidate for president, or one who has been elected. >> well, we have progressive party which is an instrument for theodore roosevelt to run for president. he lost to taft. >> would you term president obama as a progressive candidate

going into 2012? >> i would. the term liberal took over the term for progressive for a long time and now progressive is back being used again. there are huge differences between barack obama and woodrow wilson, of course, but they both do believe in using the government to a power of big business. >> for some conservatives like glen beck say america started down the bad road in 1912. wilson was the beginning of the last triumph making a huge state. >> you said that the progressives were more successful by not becoming in the presidential power and you pointed out a number of things that became law. we have not had a progressive candidate for president or one elected president anyway. >> we're progressive candidates and the party was basically an instrument for roosevelt to run for president. he lost the nomination to the incumbent. >> would you view president obama as a progressive

candidate? >> i would. i would. in some ways the term liberal took over for the term progressive for a long time and progressive is back to be used again. >> in both cases, there are huge differences between barack obama and woodrow wilson, but they both of them believe at least in using the government to be a power to the power of big business. >> and the person that we've skipped over here in franklin theodore roosevelt who embodied at the federal level, the sort of best ideas of the progressive era and some of his

administrators cut their teeth in government in the progressive period. >> who are was a democrat back then. he supported wilson and became part of wilson's cabinet. >> they are all pretty prominent americans. why in the 100 years have we had an election with that firepower in terms of four separate parties and candidates. >> well, this goes back to the structure of the system and most times the two parties are able to absorb discontent on the right and the left to a large degree and convince enough voters that third pears don't make a lot of sense. you will just be wasting your vote or helping the greater evil. we had other third parties, but they are like the progressive party of 1912 and one-shot deals. 19% of the votes and the largest since t.r. himself in 1912. he runs again in 1996. 9% and he gives it up. >> there is another point to add too. obviously in the wake of television as a platform for big

medias in electoral politics, it's much more difficult for candidates to mount successful independent matters and they think that is counterintuitive. on the other hand, the way that the media works is much more easily discredited. you could produce them out of the hard scrabble, anti-big business world of terre haute, indiana who could gather resources regionally and build upon them without being attacked outside of print media which is difficult today. any real contender today has to go up against big money and big media. that is difficult to maintain a strong edge. >> what do you believe c-span to be the only network and everyone can take part. you wouldn't have to worry about ads. >> we will go back to the comment about the endorsement of wilson.

that was a moment you mentioned that began to attract african-americans to the democratic party in the end of the eight years of wilson, how did african-americans view his presence? >> terribly. there was a huge disappointment for any number of reasons. probably the most celebrated moment of wilson's betrayal was one of the first hollywood blockbusters of a movie called the birth of the nation. this was a movie that celebrated southern redemption and celebrated the role of the clan and reclaiming the virtue of southern nobility and the removal act of african-american leadership. so woodrow wilson who had been the president of princeton university endorsed the film. it's a true story of race

relations and really saw it as a moment of reconciling long standing regional differences between the north and south difference of racial equality. that was a betrayal to the people who supported. later they supported the interview and it's not as if it was an unmitigated critique, but it was significant. federal patriot is to southern congress people. he purged african-american leadership and 31 federal jobs held by republicans and down to eight within three years under wilson. >> segregate and allowed southern cabinet officers and

the post office departments and others as well. there was a great moment in 1914 where there was a group of black leaders who come to meet with the president. we had a newspaper journalist from boston denouncing the president in effect in his office. after that wilson said i don't want to be with these people ever again. they don't understand me and we have nothing in common. that was an amazing moment. >> you are writing recently and the recent book is called american dreamers and how the left changed the nation. we have been talking about progressive politics. that's the general thesis of your book. >> thesis is really about people to the left of progressivist and liberals. >> to the left? >> yes. radicals. the original meaning of the term left is people who want a

fundamental transformation of the society. so i trace people who were interested in the transformation from abolitionist to socialist to communist to new leftist and others. the thesis is that this kind of left has failed to build institutions and parties and unions and other groups that can vie for power politically. it's been much more successful i think in changing the sort of moral sense of american society and changing people's attitudes about issues like first slavery and racial equality and gender

equalit equality. homosexual equality didn't come out of the left entirely, but certainly people in the left in 1960s were an important part of that gay rights movement. >> you see it as these individuals for racial rights or homosexual rights or any other number of things, you need people on the far left. >> yeah, yeah. you need people to dream big dreams. big dreams that are very much in the american dream. calling for individual freedom to be respected and extended to everybody regardless of race and

national origin, sexual preference and gender. and also for calling for -- we also have responsibility of taking care of one another. radicals argue that means you need to have much more social leveling. certain redescription of resources too. i trace how people on the left in many ways succeeded in changing people's minds about those things and we in social movements as well and not in many other parts of the country are forming parties that lasted long and had a lot of party in forming radical unions going on strike. if that's the argument. >> as black leadership been a line with the left or is there -- are there marriages of convenience here and there on issues? it's the reformist muted version of the black left. on the one hand, you have a long list of the rest of the world thinking of capitalists,

imperialisms and most certainly in the context of the popular front which is a golden era and in the early 20th century african-americans are leaning much more to the left and to be organizing for the left and identifying socialists and the variation of left politics and the manipulation of the black people and ideological debate and not really recognizing the challenges of african-americans

and vision and equality among workers and the real problem was class, which wasn't true and listening to the longstanding problem. the final problem and the most consistent and to fall in line with companies who were holding out the carrot of opportunity in the wake of labor strikes. and that problem was always

there. and richard wright, an african-american writer, the bosses of the buildings who effectively use their leverage to divide and concur, there was plenty of racism who identified them as white socialist ambivalent about black leadership in these organizations. >> you pointed out, in our conversation earlier, that the beginning of parting of ways in african-americans and republican party, even though teddy roosevelt want party of this election, why has the party had such trouble in recent elections? >> the short answer to that is barry goldwater. the realignment of the political party -- i mean, when fdr became the party of -- coalition democratic standard bear and combined labor, women sufferage, as well as african-americans moving from south to north, it

split through the democratic party and you get strum thurman in 1948 and a long steady road to the erosion of white southern democratic support for the national party because they continue to make gains in civil rights. eisenhower is fairly moderate, even though he's a republican, it suggests that the race question is gaining a national foothold that can't be put in the bottle. by the time you get to the early 1960s that sustained civil rights activism, there's a move towards repudiation of the democratic party and ultimately a strategy emerges and republicans take over the south. >> i wanted to ask you about the political support for progressive causes because i think the article -- an excerpt you write about the early 20th century.

>> well, it goes up farther to world war i at least, was one period when there was a lot of white, middle class, working class people, small farmers and business people that were not on the left but sympathized with the poor labor, the things that people on the left like eugene were seeing. the socialist party was predominantly a democratic party. and radical causes, you know, from abolitionism and then to the 1930s and '40s, this alliance that you mention, who were educated and idealists, and

they feel that they have things fairly good and they don't really see a need to make radical changes. that alliance and there were fairly radical changes and corporate resolutions and it wasn't too early and it wasn't too, for the most part, later on as well. so the left has been more successful and a different society and not really organizing the majority of the people and the professor just

mentioned, can that wind up being the debate between the two candidates and where do not only african-american leaders but where do other political leaders in their view and we know that under president obama there is an effort to galvanize working people, certainly proposed jobs bill that will address kind of the outrage and protests animated by occupy movements around the country. so clearly in his case there's a sensitivity and a kind of policy base response to contemporary

inequality. the republicans have most certainly over the last 40 years been very successful in pursing a politics of supply side economics that argues that inequality can actually be addressed by putting more money in the hands of the people by shrinking government and those people can be either rich ofr middle class. as long as they have their money, the markets will take care of inequality. they are both, in effect, arguing for redressing as to how do you that. we live in a different time and the country was most certainly center left as opposed to being center right as a moment of 1912 into a period of economics and

republican and you end up with the new deal. so whatever blip on the screen of center left politics and addressing questions of inequality, you've got only a really small window that produces the great depression and we basically build an infrastructure a infrastructure and insurance institutionalize that gave voice and a fuel to the emergence of the new right. they are still fighting against the impact of fdr's policy. "the wall street journal" just had an opp ed a couple of days ago talking about president obama handling franklin theodore roosevelt and the stakes are much different today because there's a much more compelling populist attraction to the supply side of economics than the right has been advocating for a long time.

>> one of the things that we talked about earlier, grassroots progressivism, it explains why it was a center-left country then and it's more of a center-right country now, those building up structures, institutions, like labor unions, farmer unions, like naacp, which was founded before 1912, settlement houses, many others, women sufferage groups which what was going on in the political room and helped pressure politicians like it like they are not to become more progressive. woodrow wilson was not a progressive until 1912 and then he realized he had to be more progressive to get elected. and similarly, or in reverse, conservatives have been building very strong institutions i think in the last 30 years and

politics is not just about people who run for office or even about the parties. it's about social forces and when the social forces are organized on one side or another side of the political spectrum, that obviously helps that group and -- mitt romney on one side and barack obama on the other side, we'll hear so much about them. you will be talking about them on c-span, journalists the horse race. but which one wins and loses is a lot to do with who is enthusiastic about them or who enthusiastically dislikes the other candidate. that's a lot about what's happening the last 20, 30 years, which sets the stage for that. >> before we wrap up today, i do

have to ask you about the american dreamers. you write about ted in there, dr. seuss. >> yep. >> what do you say about him? >> well, you know, i read dr. seuss' books when i was a kid and i read them with my children, of course, when he was no longer writing them and i was struck by something which anybody who has read them seriously, at least not all of them but a lot of them, he was a man to the left, but the battle book and the sneeches and lorax which was recently made into a not very good movie, language creative ways, art creative ways really reflect and represent the views of the left about racial quality, anti-authoritative and anti-fascism, and i could keep going. and so i started the book saying it was inspired by dr. seuss because i thought about writing this book re-reading dr. seuss

to my children and realizing that the left would be influential sometimes without even the creators of these ideas saying, i'm on the left but in fact they become part of the cultural bloodstream, if you will. >> i think this is a great place to go because one of my favorites is all of the places you'll go. and it's one of my favorites because i kept getting it at every smile phone in graduation. one of the things that it speaks to, to what mining kell is describing, is the embrace of the contradictions of life's journey, that the part of the sort of main stay of the left is to take on the challenges and the uncertainty of a future and to be vigilant about what it means to protect democracy, not to simply embrace aspiration as the key to the future, which is very much conservatism because aspiration becomes about the