On Progressivism: What Clarence Thomas Forgot or Never Learned

I happened to be reading The Progressive Movement: 1900 to 1915 edited by Richard Hofstadter (NY: Simon and Schuster, 1963 ISBN 0-671-62824-0) around April 15, 2026 when Clarence Thomas gave a speech protesting early 20th century progressivism.
These quotes from the book strongly indicate one of the reasons why Clarence Thomas would dislike the Progressive Movement. One he didn’t mention in his speech.

Transcript of Clarence Thomas’ April 15, 2026 speech:
https://www.civitasoutlook.com/research/justice-clarence-thomas-remarks-on-the-250th-anniversary-of-the-declaration-of-independence-b1d62423-c04b-4aae-aab3-b35d648f9209

Theodore Roosevelt “The New Patriotism” (1910)
(124) There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains. To put an end to it will be neither a short nor an easy task, but it can be done.
We must have complete and effective publicity of corporate affairs, so that the people may know beyond peradventure, whether the corporations obey the law and whether their management entitles them to the confidence of the public. It is necessary that laws should be passed to prohibit the use of corporate funds, directly or indirectly for political purposes; it is still more necessary that such laws should be thoroughly enforced. Corporate expenditures for political purposes, and especially such expenditures by public service, corporations, have supplied one of the principal sources of corruption in our political affairs.

(125) Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more easily collected and far more effective – a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion and increasing rapidly with the size of the estate…

William Allan White “The Revival of Democracy” (1910)
(132) For not merely in the West and South, but all over the country, the people have passed laws, compelling candidates and party committees to file statements of their expenditures and their sources of income, and many states have enacted laws limiting the amount of money that candidates or committees may spend in any primary campaign or in any campaign before general election. These laws are becoming universal. Publicity of expenses is required of candidates and party committees in Alabama, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Kansas, Montana, and Washington; and campaign expenses are limited either as to amount or as to the right of corporations to contribute in Arizona, California, Colorado, Missouri, Oklahoma, Nebraska, North Dakota, Minnesota, Indiana, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Florida, Texas, Oregon, and Arkansas.

(134) Democracy proposes to put capital out of politics, so that the rights of men where they conflict with the rights of property may be impartially defined…

Woodrow Wilson “The Meaning of the New Freedom” (1912)
(169) Introduction: Wilson could not accept the idea so often expressed by [Theodore] Roosevelt, that large corporations are inevitable. He believed far more urgently in breaking them up, along the lines promised by the Sherman Act, arguing that any government that tried only to control big business would itself be dominated by the very corporations it sought to govern. He believed that both democracy and free enterprise depended upon an assault on the illicit large businesses, though he had difficulty in /explaining how this assault could be safely carried on.

(174) The policy of a great nation cannot be tied up with any particular set of interests… We have got to relieve our government from the domination of special classes, not because these special classes are bad, necessarily, but because no special class can understand the interests of a great community.