"We are established, then, in the belief that the American national promise can be fulfilled only by a keeping of the national faith; and that the keeping of the national faith demands a better quality of individual and social distinction... The dynamic of reform must be nationalized. We must use Hamiltonian means to achieve Jeffersonian ends... The state must accept the existence of great corporate combinations but regulate them through a centralized federal authority to serve the public interest, rather than attempting to restore a past era of small-scale competition."
— Herbert Croly, The Promise of American Life, 1909
Which of the following statements best analyzes how the political philosophy expressed in the excerpt represents a shift from the reform goals of the late nineteenth-century Populist movement?
- AIt proposed that the federal government should adopt a strictly laissez-faire stance to allow natural market efficiency to self-correct, whereas Populists demanded that the government inflate the currency through the free coinage of silver.
- BIt advocated for the return of economic power to local and state governments to preserve individual liberty, whereas Populists campaigned for a highly centralized federal administration of all private industries.
- It accepted corporate consolidation as an inevitable feature of modern industrial society and sought to regulate it, whereas Populists sought to dismantle trusts and restore decentralized competition.Answer
- DIt prioritized rural agrarian mobilization over urban middle-class activism, whereas Populists rejected electoral politics in favor of direct labor strikes and union organizing.