“A deeper reason for the failure of progressives to unite ideologically in the 1920’s was what might be called a substantial paralysis of the progressive mind… .[They] fought so hard all through the 1920’s against Andrew Mellon’s proposals to abolish the inheritance tax and to make drastic reductions in the taxes on large incomes. [Yet] the progressives were hard pressed to justify the continuation of nearly confiscatory tax levels.”

–Arthur S. Link, “What Happened to the Progressive Movement in the 1920s?” American Historical Review 64 (1959): 851-883. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1905118