When I first decided to come to Idaho, my father mentioned that the only politician he had known from Idaho was William Borah. Everyone in the country during the 1920s and 1930s knew Borah; he was the personification of Idaho. The senator even had the mountain named after him while he was still alive. This book by LeRoy Ashby shows Borah as a human, not a deity, and more importantly as a politician. Ashby tries to show how Borah the man and the Progressives as a movement were intimately linked. One can learn as much about the Progressives in the 1920s from this book as about Borah.

Borah was a politician who looked out for his own electoral success as much as any principled position he took. The Lion of the Senate was also a fox, sly and cunning. His positions, on legislation and potential presidential candidates, were interpreted by some as subterfuges for his own presidential bid. The understanding of Borah is needed to be seen in context with the movement. Ashby defines the Progressive Movement as a major outburst of reformist zeal that sought to “salvage traditional American values and ideals of democracy and opportunity in the new industrial order.” Having reached its apex in the early portion of the 20th Century under Theodore Roosevelt, and to a lesser extent under Woodrow Wilson, by the end of the 1920s the movement, as a leader of the reform of the American political system, had become “spearless.” Likewise, by the end of the third decade of the century, William Borah had also failed as a leader and had become “spearless.”

Why Borah never lived up to the aspirations of other Progressives has many potential answers. Did the times change? Were the 1920s too prosperous for the nation that Progressivism could not survive? Was the country not ready for the next stage of political reform? John Kingdon believes policies are successful when various policy “streams” converge and provide a “window of opportunity” for the successful implementation of new policies. One could argue the streams did not converge in the United States until after the Stock Market Crash and that the leadership of FDR was needed. The lack of leadership of Borah must also be considered.

Was Borah more committed to his own political success than to the Progressive Movement? His inconsistencies seem to suggest this. Borah believed in a strict enforcement of national laws when those laws dealt with prohibition but he felt local enforcement of civil rights and civil liberties for African-Americans in the South was sufficient. He wanted the Eighteenth Amendment strictly enforced but did not demand the federal government strictly enforce the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Was Borah merely trying to join the “dry” West with the “racist” South for political advantage? Overall, Western Progressives, including Borah, had a racist streak. He didn’t want the “uneducated hordes” from Armenia, Greece, Italy and Mexico to enter the country because “we certainly do not want them as citizens due to their mental and physical inferiority.” This racism, which was based upon a strong belief in Americanism, sorely weakens any “progress” the movement advocated.

Borah would not fit well into the Republican Party in Idaho today and was probably too liberal for today’s Idaho Democrats. His views on civil liberties (at least for “Americans”) were much closer to Ron Paul. His foreign policy stand, built on Americanism, was again probably closest to Ron Paul. Borah did not believe in foreign entanglements or any American international domination and control. He was not an isolationist but sought freedom of action for the nation. Borah, though, differed from today’s Libertarians due to his positive views of the government’s ability to promote the general welfare on behalf of workers and consumers (e.g. government intervention into the coal industry) though the Senator kept a healthy skepticism of “big government” bureaucracy and centralized power.

William Borah may not be the iconic figure you learned about in elementary school in Idaho. To better understand him and the latter stages of the Progressive Movement, Ashby’s book is an excellent place to start.

Go Yotes.

Dr. Jasper M. LiCalzi
Professor
Department of Political Economy
The College of Idaho