Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The rise of Progressive reformers, who helped to topple the Southern Pacific Railroad's longstanding influence in California politics and transformed Sacramento into a celebrated site of democratic innovation, stands as an iconic episode in the state's early twentieth-century history. The initial studies of California Progressives were sympathetic to these reformers, seeing their clean government initiatives and activist state as salvation from the Southern Pacific's monopoly politics (Mowry 1951). Later works, however, became increasingly critical of the Progressives. Historians today are less interested in studying their accomplishments and triumphs than in learning lessons from their limitations and failures with respect to land monopoly, organized labor, environmental policies, moral reform, and women's rights (Deverell & Sitton 1994). But no criticism of the Progressives has received greater emphasis than the reformers' racism and related nativism directed against Asian (and later Mexican) immigrants. This essay attempts to shed new light on themes of race and immigration in Progressive Era California by examining the discourse of one of its most articulate and influential leaders.The study of racism and immigration in Progressive California began with a critical account of the state's land monopolies and suppression of agricultural labor (McWilliams 1939). This left-wing ... log in or subscribe to read full text