Progressive Party (United States)

I

Introduction

Progressive Party (United States), name of three distinct political parties in United States history.

II

The Bull Moose Party

The first Progressive Party, known colloquially as the Bull Moose Party, was founded after a bitter fight for the Republican presidential nomination among the incumbent president William H. Taft, the Wisconsin senator Robert M. La Follette (leader of the Republican Party's progressive “insurgents”), and the former president Theodore Roosevelt. At the Republican convention in June 1912, most La Follette supporters switched to Roosevelt, but the nomination went to Taft. Roosevelt, incensed at Taft's conservative bent, then formed the Progressive Party. Many liberal Republicans bolted to the new party, which in August 1912 nominated Roosevelt for president and the California governor Hiram W. Johnson for vice president. Condemning Taft as unduly responsive to big business, the Progressives advocated primary elections, prohibition of child labor, woman suffrage, national social insurance, and restrictions on the use of injunctions in labor disputes. Although the Progressives greatly outpolled the Republicans in the election, the net result was a victory for the Democratic candidate, Woodrow Wilson. Most Progressives soon rejoined the Republican Party, and the Progressive Party died out in 1917.

III

League for Progressive Political Action

In 1924 a liberal coalition, frustrated by conservative domination of both major parties, formed the League for Progressive Political Action, popularly called the Progressive Party. Nominating Senator La Follette for president and Montana Democratic Senator Burton K. Wheeler for vice president, the party, which also drew support from the Socialists, advocated government ownership of public utilities and labor reforms such as the right to collective bargaining. Although he was overwhelmingly defeated by the Republican candidate, the incumbent president Calvin Coolidge, La Follette polled more than 4.8 million votes, about 16.5 percent of the total ballots cast, and 13 electoral votes.

IV

The Election of 1948

A third Progressive Party was formed in 1948 by dissident Democrats, most of whom had been prominent in developing the New Deal program of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. With the former vice president Henry A. Wallace and the former undersecretary of agriculture Rexford G. Tugwell among their leaders, the Progressives nominated Wallace for president and Idaho Democratic senator Glen H. Taylor for vice president. Charging that both major parties advocated policies that would lead to economic crisis at home and war with the USSR abroad, the party favored high-level international conferences to lessen tension with the USSR. At home they advocated full constitutional rights for all minority and political groups, federal curbs on monopolies, anti-inflation measures such as price and rent controls, and repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act. When the U.S. Communist Party supported the Progressives, the Democrats and Republicans attacked them as Communist-dominated. The Progressives maintained their right to support from any group backing them. Defeated by the Democrats under the incumbent president Harry S. Truman, the Progressives received more than 1 million popular votes, but after 1948 they no longer played a role in national politics.

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See also Political Parties in the United States.

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