The early leaders of the Society were known as the "Red Progressives". Progressive American Indians referred to themselves as such because they shared the enthusiasm and faith of the white reformers in the inevitability of progress, and belief in social improvement through education and governmental action. All them fought hard and for what they had won and expected that gains could not be made without pains. They had a good deal of the psychology of the self-made man and very little of the psychology of the passive victim of circumstance. The Society was born of hope, rather than despair. Not the last stand of and embattled people, but a new force in American life. The choice of Columbus Day for the opening of the founding conference of the Indian reformers, October 12, 1911, was to be a new beginning for American Indians.