Creating the American state

Richard Joseph Stillman, II

Stillman finds that the basis for our current administrative state lies in the lives of the seven individuals who, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, invented its various elements. Furthermore, he finds that although they lived at different times, these seven founders had much in common: all were products of intensely Protestant, small-town America, and all were motivated by strong moral idealism. All were rooted in the cultural and moral values peculiar to the United States in the late nineteenth century. Indeed, Stillman finds that state making in the United States has been a continuation of the Protestant goal to "protest and purify.". George William Curtis led the fight for civil service reform. Charles Francis Adams, Jr., created the "sunshine commission" whereby previously hidden public issues would now be aired for all citizens to discuss. Emory Upton,...

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