How Progressigve was the Progressive Era?

The so-called Progressive era in America was a time in which, according to A Peoples History of the United States by Howard Zinn, the people of the United States were so downtrodden, poor, oppressed, and unhappy that socialism was rapidly gaining popularity. The prospect of a socialist system was a direct threat to the rampant capitalism that had infiltrated American government, so the mucky-mucks tried to calm the masses by passing laws and regulations that barely improved living conditions. Zinn writes on pg. 14: "History books give the label 'Progressive Period' to the early years of the twentieth century. True, it was a time of reforms--but the reforms were made unwillingly. They were not meant to bring about basic changes in society, only quiet the uprisings of the people."

Undoubtedly if the upper class had spent more of their unseemly fortunes educating their underprivileged laborers, said workers would have been able to modify the very structure of America. Like a toddler with play-doh, the lower class could have molded the government and it's priorities into nearly any shape they wanted (in this case socialism). As the Declaration of Independence states: "Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government."