Reply #15: Progressive Party [View All]

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http://www.grolier.com/presidents/ea/side/progress.html

PROGRESSIVE PARTY


Progressive Party was the name used to designate several political organizations in the United States. In national politics, the term is associated with the unsuccessful presidential campaigns of Theodore ROOSEVELT (1912), Robert M. LAFOLLETTE, Sr. (1924), and Henry WALLACE (1948) . These leaders all broke off their major-party associations to take bold positions on domestic or foreign policies.

Bull Moose Party

William Howard TAFT was elected PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES in 1908 with the support of his friend and predecessor Theodore Roosevelt. But Roosevelt, a dynamic leader of the Progressive Movement, soon grew impatient with Taft's relatively cautious approach to reform. Taft's dismissal of Gifford Pinchot as chief forester angered Roosevelt, an ardent conservationist. Roosevelt challenged Taft for the REPUBLICAN presidential nomination in 1912, but was defeated because Taft controlled the party machinery. Roosevelt, saying he felt as fit as a bull moose, launched the Progressive party with himself as presidential candidate. His platform called for tariff reform, stricter regulation of industrial combinations, woman suffrage, prohibition of child labor, and other reforms. Roosevelt won 27% of the popular vote, running ahead of Taft but losing to the Democratic candidate, Woodrow WILSON. Progressive candidates for state and local offices did poorly, and the party disappeared after 1916, when Roosevelt returned to the Republican fold.

The LaFollette Progressives

Sen. Robert M. LaFollette, Sr., of Wisconsin was another leader of the Progressive Movement. Although progressivism receded after World War I, LaFollette fought on. By 1924, conservatives dominated both parties. LaFollette, nominally a Republican, decided to run for president on his own. Fearing that a formal party organization might be infiltrated by Communists, he ran as an independent. However, he accepted the support of the Conference for Progressive Political Action, which had been organized in 1922 by workers, farmers, and liberal intellectuals. The Socialist party also supported LaFollette. His platform denounced the control of industry and government by private monopolies. It favored public ownership of natural resources and railroads, farm-relief measures, lower taxes for persons with moderate incomes, and other laws to aid the less privileged. LaFollette got 17% of the popular vote but carried only Wisconsin. In 1934, LaFollette's sons, Sen. Robert LaFollette, Jr., and Philip, organized a Progressive party in Wisconsin. After Philip had been defeated for renomination as governor on the Republican ticket in 1932, the brothers concluded that the increasingly conservative GOP was no longer a reliable vehicle for advancing Progressive principles. Under the Progressive banner, the LaFollettes scored many successes, as did Progressive candidates for local offices in Wisconsin. But the party disappeared in 1946 when Robert chose to seek renomination to the Senate as a Republican unsuccessfully, as it turned out.

The Wallace Progressives

After World War II the Truman administration took firm stands against Soviet expansion. President TRUMAN dismissed Secretary of Commerce (and former Vice President) Henry Wallace after the latter called for a conciliatory policy toward Russia. Wallace declared his candidacy for president in 1948, and a new Progressive party was formed to nominate him.

He expected support from blacks, intellectuals, and other groups that had admired his militant liberalism. But the support of the U.S. Communist Party damaged the Progressives, and Wallace got only 2.4% of the vote. In 1950, the Progressive party was further weakened when it denounced U.S. entry into the Korean War, and Wallace left the party. The Progressives disappeared after polling a small vote in the 1952 presidential election.

Donald Young
Editor, Adventure in Politics: The Memoirs of Philip LaFollette