The Gilded Age & the Progressive Era (1877–1917) Wilsonian
Progressivism: 1913–1916 The New Freedom Even though Woodrow
Wilson won the vast majority of electoral votes in the election
of 1912, he received only 41 percent of the popular vote,
ostensibly leaving him with little mandate. Despite this
handicap, Wilson managed to accomplish every one of his major
domestic goals on his progressive New Freedom agenda. In just
four years, Wilson reduced the tariff, passed more anti-trust
legislation, and reformed the banking system. Wilson began in
1913 by pushing Congress to pass the Underwood Tariff, which
drastically reduced duties on foreign goods from an average rate
of 40 percent to an average rate of 25 percent. Congress
compensated for the loss of revenue by creating a national
income tax under the Sixteenth Amendment, another major
progressive achievement of 1913. Next, Wilson took on the
banking industry, which despite industrialization and the
population boom had remained essentially unchanged since the Ci