How did America go from being a place of limited government and free markets to a German style Welfare State? Between 1900 and 1950 the intellectual climate of opinion went statist. One of the most important groups in promoting big, activist government was the mostly forgotten group the American Association for Labor Legislation. This group of mostly left wing economists provided the constant propaganda in the move to saddle businesses and consumers with costly regulations. Lloyd F. Pierce wrote a rather interesting doctoral dissertation concerning this left wing group. Here's a list of the Presidents of the organization:
Richard T. Ely (1906-1907)
Henry W. Farnam(1908-1910)
Henry R. Seager(1911-1912}
William F. Willoughby(1913)
Henry R. Seager(1914-1915)
Irving R. Fisher(1916-1917)
Samuel Lindsay(1917-1919)
Thomas Chadbourne(1920-1926)
Sam Lewison(1927-1928)
Thomas Parkinson(1929)
Joseph Chamberlin(1930)
Ernest Draper(1931-1933)
Leo Wolman(1934)
Joseph Chamberlin(1935-1945)
Henry Farnam and Irving Fisher were members of Yale's Skull and Bones. David Moss wrote an interesting book on this group.Moss stated that Farnam was the group's "biggest financial contributor during the progressive period".
