Progressivism

In the article on Progressivism, historians have very conflicting views on the motives of the Progressives. In the 1950's felt that the progressives had the intention of curbing the power of the special interests. Later historian George Mowry considered the motives of the Progressives to be "people who considered themselves the natural leaders of society and who were trying to recover their fading influence from the new capitalist institutions that had displaced them." Richard Hofstadter called this "status anxiety". That was challenged by Gabriel Kolko, who said, " Progressive reform was not an effort to protect the people from corporations; it was, rather,a vehicle through which corporate leaders used the government to protect themselves from competition."

I believe the answer is somewhere in the middle. While some progressives did want to curb the power of special interests, many were only interested only in reform that benefited them. While many progressive were genuinely interested in bettering the American way of life, many more I believe were only interested in helping themselves.