Alaska News

Democracy makes for periodic shifts

As we have seen this week, politics in a democracy can change at a moment's notice, though the meaning of Tuesday's election in Massachusetts is yet far from clear. The country remains politically deeply divided, not an unusual phenomenon in our history but only recently re-manifest. The conservative revolution of 1980, which built on the Jarvis tax cap initiative in California and catapulted Ronald Reagan into the presidency, lasted well into the 1990s and, many would say, until 2008. Before the Obama and Clinton candidacies, progressives despaired of ever again exercising political power.

Periods of party dominance in our politics are historically not uncommon. When William F. Buckley started the National Review in 1955, liberals had been in the ascendency since 1932, and despite the election of Eisenhower in 1952, many conservatives had despaired of ever again directing the national agenda. Pundits waxed funereal over the future of the right. They forgot, or didn't know, historians' understanding that change is the hallmark of democratic politics.

The Progressive Era was one of the periods when a single set of political assumptions dictated our politics: namely, that reform was both necessary and benign. Anti-monopoly measures designed to eradicate political corruption, plus conservation, women's rights and a host of other reforms enjoyed widespread support and generated much legislation, most of which is still with us.

The reform lasted until the U.S. entered World War I in April 1917 and the Bolsheviks rose to power in Russia in October.

Alaska fully manifested the political consensus of that time. In 1913, the first law passed by the first Alaska Legislature authorized the vote for women. The Legislature met every other year then, for two months in March and April. Those early Legislatures produced mine safety laws, protection for debtors, pure food and drug measures, a law providing for citizenship for Natives (understood as progressive at the time) and a burgeoning collection of other reforms.

Alaska also sought a full prohibition of the possession and consumption of alcohol. Unquestionably, alcohol consumption in Alaska was a menace. The non-Native population was predominantly male and drinking filled many non-working hours.

Congress retained authority over liquor legislation in the territory but members of the second Alaska Legislature invited voters to express their sentiments on the issue on a general election ballot in 1916. Prohibition passed by a 2-to-1 margin. Congress complied with the citizens' wishes and in 1917 passed what came to be known as the "bone dry law" because it banned importation, possession and sale. It took effect the first of the year in 1918, two years before the enforcement of national prohibition, which was weaker than the Alaska law.

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The third Alaska Legislature tackled labor matters. At that time mining was still the major non-government employer and radical unions targeted Alaska as ripe for protective legislation. The Western Federation of Miners organized most of the larger mines in the territory, and though owners had considerable success breaking strikes, the unions had little trouble reorganizing the work force.

Responding to broad union sentiment, Alaska lawmakers passed in 1917 a measure limiting the workday to eight hours, with no provision for overtime. Mine and cannery owners balked, of course, citing the short work season, while the appointed governor feared economic collapse. He persuaded the commissioner of fisheries to suspend implementation of the law for the duration of the war, which gave the judicial system time to react. A judge declared it null and void, which was sufficient to tie it up in legal suits long enough for Congress to do away with it.

Then, suddenly, the reform era ended. Woodrow Wilson had wanted to stay out of the European war, but once in it, he set about to mobilize the whole of the country to fight it, under national authority. That, and the fear of Bolshevism, led a crackdown on unions and socialist reformers and ushered in the election of Republican Warren Harding in 1920 on a campaign of return to "normalcy."

With their fellow citizens across the country, Alaskans learned the historians' lesson: Politics in a democracy is fickle business.

Steven Haycox is a professor of history at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

Steve Haycox

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Steve Haycox

Steve Haycox is professor emeritus of history at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

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