In 1883, the Pendleton Act establishing a federal civil service ended government patronage. Federal workers were therefore hired for competitions rather than political influence. Public jobs would now be based on merit, requiring an era of progressivism. Populists and socialists soon emerged, then declined. Farmers rose up to form the Populist Party, which advocated shorter working days and government loans to farmers, as well as electoral reforms. Once their party's leader lost the election, the lawsuits vanished. Subsequently, the socialist party was formed to end capitalism. Socialists believed that capitalism was the reason for the large gap between poor and rich workers. Middle- and upper-class Americans rejected this view and instead formed the progressivism movement. Progressives have made their way onto the scene with a not-so-extreme approach. Progressives have called for government and business reform for better working conditions. These conditions can be seen in an excerpt from John Spargo in The Bitter Cry of Children: “Sometimes a worse accident occurs: a terrified cry is heard and a boy is mangled and torn by the machinery, or disappears down the slide to be spotted later suffocated and died. Clouds of dust fill the breakers and are inhaled by the boys, laying the foundations for asthma and consumption among the miners” (Reading 12: p. 2). The coal industry was no place for a child, especially in conditions where death is at stake for a boy so young who has the rest of his life ahead of him. Spargo documented just one example of the conditions that Americans were facing and that progressivism was called upon to solve. In a 1903 speech before the Western Federation of Miners by Eugene V. Debs, he calls for “the… middle of paper… to come into office, tariff rates be reduced, and a private banking system be created.” created. He continued to stop unfair trade practices. However, Wilson had lapses when he failed to support anti-lynching legislation and supported the practice of segregation. Ray Stannard Baker wrote The Condition of a Negro in which he states: "They murdered the negro in cold blood on the prison door... Easy people imagine that, after hanging a negro, the mob goes quietly away for its business…but once released, the spirit of anarchy spreads and spreads, not abating until it has accomplished its full measure of evil” (Reading 12, p. 4). harsher and needed the government to stop this evil. The unemployment rate was rising and few trusts were dissolved compared to other progressive presidents, while Wilson was in office.