Progressive Party (United States, 1924–1934)
Political party in the United States / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Progressive Party was a political party created as a vehicle for Robert M. La Follette, Sr. to run for president in the 1924 election. It did not run candidates for other offices, and it disappeared after the election. The party advocated progressive positions such as government ownership of railroads and electric utilities, cheap credit for farmers, the outlawing of child labor, stronger laws to help labor unions, more protection of civil liberties, an end to American imperialism in Latin America, and a referendum before any president could lead the nation into war.
Progressive Party | |
---|---|
Chair | Robert M. La Follette |
Founded | 1924 |
Dissolved | 1927 |
Split from | Republican Party Democratic Party |
Succeeded by | Wisconsin Progressive Party |
Headquarters | Washington, D.C. |
Ideology | Agrarianism Populism Progressivism |
After winning election to the United States Senate in 1905, La Follette had emerged as a leader of progressives. He sought the Republican presidential nomination in the 1912 election, but many of his backers switched to Theodore Roosevelt after the former president entered the race. La Follette refused to join Roosevelt's Progressive Party, and that party collapsed after 1916. However, the progressives remained a potent force within both major parties. In 1924, La Follette and his followers created their own Progressive Party which challenged the conservative major party nominees, Calvin Coolidge of the Republican Party and John W. Davis of the Democratic Party.
The Progressive Party was composed of La Follette supporters, who were distinguished from the earlier Roosevelt supporters by being generally more agrarian, populist, and midwestern in perspective, as opposed to urban, elite, and eastern. The party held a national convention in July 1924 that nominated a ticket consisting of La Follette for president, and La Follete later selected Democratic Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana as his running mate. The ticket enjoyed support among many farmers and laborers and was endorsed by the Socialist Party of America and the American Federation of Labor.
In the 1924 election, the party carried only La Follette's home state of Wisconsin. The ticket won 16.6% of the national popular vote and carried many counties in the Midwest and West with large German American elements or strong labor union movements.[1] The party's share of the vote represents one of the best performances by a third party in presidential election history. After the election, La Follette continued to serve as a Republican Senator until he died in 1925.
The Progressive Party's National Committee would hold its last meeting in 1927.[2] In 1934, nine years after his death, Follette's sons would create the Wisconsin Progressive Party and briefly dominate Wisconsin politics.