research and black culture discuss the legacy of the 1912 election. >> american history tv is at the annual conference in wisconsin and we're joined by michael kazin and kahlil muhammad. thank you for joining us. part of the reason 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 -- allow for every day voters to be much more invested in who would represent them. police reform is on the tables. you get the professalism of groups in ways that the federal government might or might not have been, but they didn't just start at the top. >> what's your stand on the 100th anniversary? 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. sort of big tent approach to change. >> 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 a dispute between one side, dubois, wells on the other side. it's important now because think of a lot of the institutions we have today. income tax amendment. part of 1913. >> 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. >> and the person that we've

skipped over here is franklin roosevelt it best ideas of the progressive area and some of his administrators cut their teeth in government. >> who is a democrat then. he didn't support it wilson and became part of his cabinet. >> you pointed out the four candidates that ran that year and all pretty prominent americans. why in the 100 years since we've had an election would that sort of fire power in terms of four separate parties and candidates? >> well, this goes back to the structure of the american party system. in most times the two parties were able to absorb discontent, either on the right or on the left to a large degree and convince enough voters that third parties don't make a lot of sense because you'll be

wasting your vote or helping the greater evil defeat the lesser evil. we've had third parties but kind of like the progressive party in 1912, one-shot deals, like ross perot. the largest since 1912, but runs again in 1996 and gives up. >> i think there's another point to add, which is an important one, obviously in the wake of television is a platform for big media, it's difficult for candidates today to mount successful independent parties. on the one hand, that's counterintuitive and because of the way that the media works, on the other hand, because of the way the media works, they can been discredited. and so you could produce a rouge debs out of the terra haute, indiana, who could build upon

them without being attacked outside of print media. which is difficult today. any real contender today eventually has to go up against big money and big media. that's very difficult to maintain a strong edge. >> c-span to be the only network and everyone can take part and you wouldn't have to worry about ads. >> i want to go back to your the endorsement of wilson. that was a moment that you said began to attract african-americans. how do they view this? >> terribly. there was a huge disappointment for any number of reasons. probably the most sell rated was wilson's betrayal of african-americans was one of the first hollywood blockbuste called "the birth of a nation." it celebrated redemption, the

world of the klan and the reremoval of african-american leadership. woodrow wilson endorsed the film, said -- it's a true story of race relations and really saw long standing regional differences of the north and south racial equality. and that was absolutely a betrayal to people that dubois supported. it most certainly was a significant one. the other thing is that federal patronage under the wilson administration partly has a capitulation to southern congress people.

he purged african-american leadership. in the early days, there were 31 jobs held by black republicans and it was down to eight under wilson. >> and he allowed post office departments where there's a group of black leaders, newspaper journalists in washington denounces the president, in effect, in his office and after that wilson says i don't want to meet with any of these people again. they don't understand me. we have nothing in common. that was quite an amazing moment, actually. >> you are writing recently, your recent book is called american dreamers, how the left changed the nation. we've been talking a bit about progressive politics but what's the general thesis of your book? >> well, the thesis is really

about people to the left of progressivism. >> to the left? >> yes, people who want a fundamental transition of society, economically, politically, socially. and so i traces people who were interested in bringing about this transformation to socialists, communists, new black power advocates and others. and the thesis is that this kind of left, the radical left, has failed to build institutions, parties, unions, other groups which really can vie for power politically.

but it's been much more successful, i think, in changing the moral sense of american society, changing the attitudes about first slavery, gender equality, the idea of homosexual quality which is something that didn't come out of the left completely, entirely, but certainly people in the left in the 1960s was a very important part of that gay rights movement. >> so you see it as these individuals, whether it's for racial rights or for homosexual rights, you need people on sort of the far left? >> yeah. you need people to dream big dreams, which is calling for individual freedom to be respected and extended to everybody regardless of race and national origin, sexual preference, gender, and also for calling for, you know, we have a responsibility, taking care of one another. well, radicals argue this means you need to have much more social leveling, certain redistribution of resources,

too. so i trace how people on the left in many ways succeeded in changing people's minds about those things and leaning social movements as well but not in many parts of the country forming socialist parties that lasted very long and had a lot of power in forming are radical unions that were going on strike to change the whole basic economy. so that's the argument. >> professor muhammad, has black leadership always been aligned with the left or are there marriages of convenience here and there on issues? are there areas where, more broadly speaking, african-american leadership disagrees 180 degrees from the american left? >> it's a lot messier today than it was in the past. and so -- >> why? >> well, because you have a strain of conservatism, social

conservatism among african-americans that doesn't match their politics or political voice which tends to be democratic, which tends to be some kind of reformist version of anything that starts on the black left. so on one hand, you have blacks and social communists who were in scope and saw the rest of the world as evidence of capitalists and imperialism and most certainly in the context of the golden era which everyone talks about, combining interests of labor and racial democracy. so there's a richer history of leaning much more to the left and being aligned with politics. the long running critique of black leadership and those sympathizing with the organizing of the left but not necessarily identifying with socialists, was

that there was internal racism. that there was manipulation of black people for the purposes of sort of gaining leverage in the american ideological debate but not really recognizing the unique challenges of african-americans and even the call for subverting the race question to the class question was a problem for eugene who had a very explicit vision of racial equality among black workers and white workers and it basically called for in an imaginative way which wasn't true. it was both race and class when it came to african-americans and without recognizing that sensitivity and without listening to the voices of those who pointed it out, it created longstanding friction. the one that was more consistent is that at the union gate, at the workshop floor, african-americans often had a

choice either to subject themselves to discrimination among unions or to fall in line with companies who were holding out the carrot of opportunity in the wake of labor strikes. and that problem was -- it 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 you abou political support for progressive causes. an excerpt from your book, american dreamers, you write about the working class support of progressive ideas and causes and early part of the 20th century. >> i think the period, culminates in 1912, goes up further to world war i at least, was one period when -- when there was a lot of white middle class working class people small farmers, small business people were not on the left. they certainly sympathize with the anti-monopoly, anti-corporate, an tytitrust, p labor, people on the left, populist with capital p were saying. the party was a white party at

that time. but, socialism, communism have never been popular among mainstream americans. and radical causes, you know, from abolitionism, jumping, past progressive era into the 1930s and 40s, you have -- this alliance as you mentioned, between people who have resources who are well educated often, idealists, sometimes a little guilty about their privilege whose are inspired by the idea of the left. yet people who are more at the bottom of society. that alliance -- really often skips people who -- white middle-class people who feel like they have things fairly good. they don't want to, want to, see the need to make radical changes. in that one period 1870s to 1920, many people in america saw the need for fairly radical changes. they thought the corporate revolution was changing the face of america, enlarging the gap

between rich and poor. that wasn't true earlier. it wasn't true for the most part later on as well. so -- as the american dreamers, you argue, history to the left has been more successful than the top and bottom, alliance putting forth rebellious ideas about a different society, not organizing the majority to support their goals. >> looking back to 1912, professor just mentioned -- the inequality. we are hearing that term a lot in the 2012 election. can that wind up being a real issue of -- of debate between the two candidates, and, and how -- where do -- not only african-american leaders, where do other, other, political leaders -- lie in their view on the -- issue of inequality what is called inequality. >> this is an open-ended question. it is not clear what the debate will be. we know that under, president

obama, there is -- an effort to galvanize working people. he certainly has pro poposed a s bill. clearly in his case there is a sensitivity and a kind of -- of policy based response to contemporary inequality. but the truth is that it in terms of the larger debate, the republicans have most certainly over the last 40 years been very successful in pursuing a politics of, of supply-side economicsics th economicsics -- economics that argue inequality can be addre addressed putting more money in the hands of people, shrinking the government, the people can be rich, middle-class, as long as they have the money the markets will take care of inequality. they're both in effect, arguing for redressing the issue of inequality. these are long running,

ideological differences as to how you do that. we live in a different time than we did before. i mean, the country was most certainly center-left in the moment of woodrow wilson's success as owe posed edopposed center-right today. we are moving from a moment 1912 into a kind of period of laissez faire politics in the 1920s. and yet you end up with the new deal. so whatever blip on the screen of center left politics and addressing inequality, go from 1912 to 1972,you have only a small window in there that produces the great depression. and we basically build an infrastructure, institutionalize the best of the progress of our social welfare system. that gave face and fuel to the emergence of the new right. they are still fighting against

the impact of fdrs policy, "the wall street journal," just had an op-ed, talking about obama channelling franklin dell knroo. the stakes are much different. there is a much more compelling populist attraction to supply-side economicsics that the right has been advocating for a long time. >> one of the things, said earlier, we talk grassroots progressivism. helps to explain why i think why it was a center left country then and center right country now. at those grassroots. people who are progressives were building up structures, institutions like labor unions, like farmers unions, like naacp, which founded, just before 1912. settlement houses. many others. women's suffrage groups. which, really under girded what was going on in the political

realm. and helped to pressure politicians whether they liked it or not to become more progressive. woodrow wilson, for example was not a progressive until 1909. and, wanted to run for governor of new jersey. he realized he would have to be more progressive. >> look today -- ha-ha. >> and similarly, or in reverse, conservatives hatch be s have bs building strong institutions, whether the federal society. >> building nongovernmental ips tuips -- nongovernmental institutions. >> exactly. exactly. politics is about social forces. when a social force is organized on one side or another side of the political spectrum, that obviously helps that group, you know, mitt romney, barack obama on the other side, are, we'll hear so much about them this year. talking about them on c-span. pollsters, consultants, journalist whose were analyzing the horse race.

but, which one wins and loses will have a lot to do with, who on the ground is enthusiastic about them or enthusiastically dislikes the other candidate. that is a lot about, you know what's been happening the last, 20, 30 years, sets the stage for that. >> beavfore we wrap up if i do have to ask you about "american dreamers" you write about ted geisel in there, dr. suess, what do you say about him? >> i read dr. suess's book when i was a kid. when he was actually writing them. i read them to my children, of course when he was no longer writing them. and i was struck by something which anybody who, has the read them seriously at least not all of them, but a lot of them is he was a man of the left, in fact. look at books like, yertle and the turtle, and the snitche s&l -- snitches and the lorax, made

into a not so good movie. this in a lot of ways, reflects and represents the views of the left, about racial equality, anti-authoritarianism on the job, yertle the turtle, anti-fascism, anti-nuclear weaponry, and i could keep going. and so, you know, i started the book saying i was inspired by dr. suess. i thought about writing this book, rereading dr. suess to my children. and realizing that, that the left could be influential sometimes without even, the creators of the idea saying, i'm on the left. you know? but in fact, they become part of the, the cultural blood stream if you will. >> i had, i think a great, great place to, to go. because, one of my favorites is "all the places you'll go." i kept getting it, at every milestone, at graduation. one thing i think this speaks to what michael is describing is-- the embrace of the contradictses

-- contradictions of life's journey. part of the mainstay of the left ties take on, the, the challenges and uncertainty of a future and to be vigilant about what it means to protect democracy. not, not to simply embrace aspiration as the the key to the future. which is very much a mainstay of conservatism. because aspiration becomes about the individual, become as but a retreat to what an individual is willing to give to their feature. and what i love about that book is that, on that journey, you know there is that dark space. that the protagonist has to travel through and for a kids' story, it's unexpected. you know? i think that legacy of the left of the cultural left is one that privileges art and visual expression as a way of reminding people that contradicts and uncertainty and pain, i'm named for one of the greatest poets of all time, who really