That brings up an interesting question. It seems like reapportionment was something that ought to have been on LaFollette's mind. But the big Supreme Court reapportionment case (Baker v. Carr, 1962) didn't come up until three generations later. Until then, the constitutions of states like Georgia, Tennessee and Connecticut apportioned state senate and even state legislature seats by county or town, and not by recent census counts of population. Some 36 states had reapportionment cases in the 1960s, and there was talk of calling a new constitutional convention, since neither Congress not the courts were likely to change things in the states' favor.
The populists started the ball rolling for the 17th Amendment, because farmers on the plains were likely to have little input on who their Senator would be. The Amendment probably wouldn't have gone through if big city Progressives didn't pick it up, though, as the populist movement had died away in the TR years.
As for corruption cases, it may be that the cases of corruption in Senate elections were the tip of the iceberg. Given legislative corruption in other matters, the public probably assumed there was a lot going on that they didn't know about. If you found reasons not to trust your state representatives on other matters, you might not want them electing your Senators.
If you want to understand the spirit of the times, you might have a look at David Graham Phillips 1906 Cosmopolitan articles, "The Treason of the Senate." The progressives tended to get overheated about things and opted for easy, mechanical solutions to more complicated problems, but it's hard to see how, once the Democratic momentum had been started a century before, it could have been stopped.
Had the states remained more separate, had most people identified more with their state than with the country, indirect election of Senators by state legislators might have remained. But the nation had already prevailed over the states in people's minds so there wasn't much chance of the state legislatures retaining power over the voters of the various states. The removal of the state legislatures from Senate elections may have been more an effect than a cause.
In smaller countries mayors, governors and provincial officials serve in the legislature. This guarantees that local authorities will have more power in the national government. In a country as large as ours, this tradition never caught on. In the early years, mayors and governors would have been on the road more time than they were in Washington or in their own state ... which might have been a good idea.
I get a kick out of those things. In terms of its press, the progressive era can be seen as one of the best con jobs in American history. Cosmopolitan, I believe, was one of the biggest rag sheets. It's fun to go from those types of articles to, say, the American Review of Reviews. It's like switching channels from Geraldo to Jim Lehrer.
People don't realized the power of the press back then. It was tv, radio, & newspapers combined. It's difficult for a modern to appreciate the power of Hearst and Pulitzer, much less guys like Albert Shaw, Frank Munsey, and Henry Watterson who could just put forth whatever they wanted to a begging audience. Taft was taken down by the press (I have an article in a modern advertising journal that discusses his "failure of publicity"). The lead attorney in the Glavis affair, Louis Brandeis, was paid by Colliers Magazine upwards $30K, I think. Taft also got into huge trouble when he tried to bring the Postal Service into budget. It was bleeding red from 2nd class subsidies. It'd be like the FCC, back in pre-cable days, telling the networks they'd have to actually pay for their franchise... Taft needed to make up about 100mil annually. Didn't go over well, and the press that so loved to protect the consumer didn't blush when it demanded that 1st class mail consumers pay for its bills.
Senator Aldrich was the left's whipping boy back then. Historians have generally fallen in line. He was a machine politician, he was all-powerful, but he was not dishonest. Like a good politician, he left that to others... But he never, ever, traded politics for money, as David Graham Phillips chargeds in that article. Phillips didn't need any proof: just use the vile words "Wall Street" and "Interests," and that was that.
I shouldn't have used your word "apportionment," when I replied above. I ought have said "home rule" and stuck to the population shift. I don't know how apportionment went, although I do know that the 1910 census changed much.
I'm more familiar with what went on in Ohio around the time, and I think that legislative control of localities was as pernicious as slanted districting (always was & will be politics). Home rule was a reform to keep rural-dominated legislatures from controlling localities, through what was called "ripper legislation" that limited or restricted or gave franchise elsewhere. As far as apportionment went, remember that it was in this period that the population was making its swing from more than to less than half rural. The balance was tricky, and the realization of the swing trickier.
You are correct about how the movement started with the populists and got kicked in by the urban progressives. I don't know, however, that there really is any distinction between the old and the new corruption. It just morphs into something new, like Peter Angelos parading Cal Ripkin through Annapolis on the eve of a State vote on Angelos' billion dollar cut of the tobaccco deal. I don't know how my local rep voted on that.
Remember that the 17th has not just severed the voter from the State legislature, it has cut those same ties between the Congressional representative and the State legislature.
You wrote,
But the nation had already prevailed over the states in people's minds so there wasn't much chance of the state legislatures retaining power over the voters of the various states. The removal of the state legislatures from Senate elections may have been more an effect than a cause.Don't forget "direct democracy." It was a concerted, very well-financed and well-directed movement. The people didn't support it because they thought it would enlarge the federal government. They supported it because they had been convinced that it would clean up politics. Check out the Roosevelt rhetoric -- he was convinced that direct democracy would "moralize" the nation.
New Nationalism
Charter of Democracy
Odd, and very naive.