Progressive Party (United States)

“ The Progressive party must then either cease to exist, as so many other lesser independent movements have done, or it must acquire an organization precisely such as the old parties have had. It must acquire the same multitude of legal vote-directing machines, the same feudal hierarchy of politocrats, and by this means establish an extra-legal centralized government to run the decentralized legal government. Whichever happens, the new party, as the champion of the power of the electorate against the power of the politocrats, will have failed. ”

“ We had actually, when the Progressive Party was organized we had a real fight because the Progressive Citizens of America were coming in, they had an organizational drive which was in support of Wallace as such, but when the Progressive Party of Washington was actually set up the leadership came not from the people who were in the Progressive Citizens of America, but from people who were in the Democratic Party. ”

“ In the Republican party, the strife between conservatism and progress was so bitter as to produce a complete split; and the progressives nominated a candidate of their own, preferring, if they could not control the government themselves, to hand it over to the progressive element among the Democrats. The former political parties in the United States seem to have been so completely disrupted by recent events that even though they continue to hold some power under the old names, they now stand for wholly different things. ”

“ The Progressive party does not reveal itself as yet ready to assume a theory of government which lies at the basis of the short ballot and which insists upon the centralization of governmental power exercised in subordination to the popular will, as distinguished from the decentralization of governmental power exercised in subordination to the influence of an extra-legal government not readily answerable to the popular will. ”

“ If the Democrats are equal to the occasion they will render the Progressives superfluous. But Democrats have a habit of not being equal to the occasion. If the Progressives show a judgment as cool as their emotions are warm, they may prove as great as the Republican party was once, the phoenix from its ashes. ”

“ Should the various States be represented by
progressives, different recommendations will naturally follow and
probably an interpretation of the Constitution which will accord a new
standing to personal rights.
In the early part of 1911 the movement crystallized into a regular
political organization which called itself The National Progressive
Republican League, with the following platform:
(1) direct primaries; (2) popular election of delegates to the national
convention; (3) election of senators by direct vote of the people; (4)
initiative, referendum, and recall ”

“ The Progressive party is the only political instrumentality in existence to-day which recognizes the need of achieving this purpose by the new methods which under the changed industrial and social conditions are alone effective. ”

“ We were confident that the cause would triumph, in a degree at least, no matter what party was in power, and I think the facts amply justify our belief that the Progressive ideals made a definite impression upon the country, and have given strength, if not dominant influence, to Progressive principles in both of the old parties. ”

“ The conscience of the people, in a time of grave national problems, has called into being a new party, born of the nation's sense of justice. We of the Progressive party here dedicate ourselves to the fulfillment of the duty laid upon us by our fathers to maintain the government of the people, by the people and for the people whose foundations they laid. ”

“ You will be doing a dreadful injustice to yourselves; you will be doing a dreadful injustice to the rest of us throughout this Union, if you fail to stand with us now that we are making this National movement, and what I am about to say now I want you to understand if I speak of Mr. Wilson I speak with no mind of bitterness. I merely want to discuss the difference of policy between the Progressive and the Democratic Party and to ask you to think for yourselves which party you will follow. ”

“ Taft whenever they think his interests are jeopardized by the Progressive movement—that, for instance, any Electors will obey the will of the majority of the Republican voters at the primaries, and vote for me instead of obeying the will of the Messrs. ”

“ Independent reformers, either singly or in groups, labor organizations and parties, and radicals everywhere coöperated with them. Both the old parties were split into factions by this progressive movement; and in 1912 a Progressive party appeared on the scene and leaped to second place in its first election, only to vanish from the stage in 1916 when both the old parties were believed to have become progressive. ”

“ They want to be free from this condition; they can be free from it through the National Progressive party.
For the problems which America faces to-day are economic and national. They have to do with a more just distribution of prosperity. ”

“ Any man who agitates this business is doing everything he can to wreck the Progressive cause, and to make it a movement utterly impotent for accomplishing anything of good whatsoever. I shall oppose any such effort with every particle of strength I possess; and as regards the action on the trust plank at the Progressive convention I shall be delighted to have the whole matter made public at any time, and the sooner the better. It will be hard enough to make the Progressive Party win out on any terms; it will be infinitely harder if fighting among ourselves. ”

“ I observe, too, that the heroes of middle-class liberalism, such as we have hitherto known it, speak with a kind of prophetic anticipation of the great destiny which awaits them, and as if the future was clearly theirs. The advanced party, the progressive party, the party in alliance with the future, are the names they like to give themselves. ”

“ It is our hope and expectation that this brief account of the Republican party, of what it has stood for and what it stands for today, will assist in convincing an impressive majority of the new voters of the United States that it is the party which on the whole record is the more worthy of their choice. ”

“ If this country is really to go forward along the path of social and economic justice, there must be a new party of Nation-wide and non-sectional principles, a party where the titular National chiefs and the real State leaders shall be in genuine accord, a party in whose counsels the people shall be supreme, a party that shall represent in the Nation and the several States alike the same cause, the cause of human rights and of governmental efficiency. ”

“ Then there is the direct primary—the real one, not the New York one—and that, too, the Progressives offer as a check on the special interests. Most clearly of all does it seem to me that this change is wholly good—for every State. The system of party government is not written in our Constitutions, but it is none the less a vital and essential part of our form of government. In that system the party leaders should serve and carry out the will of their own party. ”

“ Neither do I believe that the Republican party can live if it makes itself the representative, advocate and agent of any special economic interest. Such a policy would certainly bring on its decomposition.
Nay, sir, the only way to preserve the vitality of the Republican party is to make it the party of progressive reforms; in other words, the new party, which is bound to come in one form or another. I do not mean that as a party of reforms it should lightly catch up every new “ism” hatched by heated brains ”

“ When, after a generation of that sort of compromising, the so-called Progressive party was organized and he seized the leadership of it from the Westerners who had founded it, he performed a feat of wholesale englutination that must forever hold a high place upon the roll of political prodigies. ”

“ Moreover, I absolutely agree with you that this Progressive Party, with its thousands of earnest men and women giving their strength to the cause of humanity, and with the millions of struggling people who see some hope in a cause dedicated to economic justice instead of to politics, offers something very fine and very full of possibilities of real usefulness to our country. ”

“ No political party is immune from its influence, but the rapid increase in the vote of the Socialist party, the growing volume of discontent, and the large vote polled by the newly organized Progressive party in 1912 indicate that neither of our two historic parties has been keeping step properly with the times. ”

“ In the campaign of 1916 the Democrats made strenuous efforts to win the Progressive vote. Energetic county chairmen would lure as many Progressives as possible to the front seats at all meetings that they might learn of the admiration in which they were held by forward-looking Democrats—the bond of sympathy, the common ideals, that animated honest Democrats and their brothers, those patriotic citizens who, long weary of Republican indifference to the [202] rights of freemen, had broken the ties of a lifetime to assert their independence. ”

“ Many of those who make promises of reform are undoubtedly sincere. But I fear, with the Democratic party in power, those sincere men would be unable to carry them out. They would find in the component elements of the party an insuperable difficulty.
Taking it all in all, therefore, I may return to what I said before: the best materials for progressive reforms, the true unselfish reformatory spirit, as well as the healthiest impulses of individual independence, are still to be found among the elements out of which the Republican party is formed. ”

“ Changes among the People.—The new democracy was strong and honest, but very ignorant. It was controlled by clever politicians, who used the machinery of caucus, primary election, and nominating conventions, and also introduced the ideas of the supreme virtue of party fealty, and of the propriety of distributing the spoils of office to the victors in each successive election. In other words, men were being taught to distrust their individual judgment and to trust that of their party. ”

“ Today our country is being psychologically divided by the confusion and the suspicions that are bred in the United States Senate to spread like cancerous tentacles of "know nothing, suspect everything" attitudes. Today we have a Democratic Administration that has developed a mania for loose spending and loose programs. History is repeating itself -- and the Republican Party again has the opportunity to emerge as the champion of unity and prudence. ”

“ He and the Progressive Party have not engaged in the big business of American politics for their health or amusement, but for the purpose of carrying forward to success great and far reaching measures of reform, which exclude from their benefits no race or class on account of color or sex but includes all American citizens, black and white alike. ”

“ The election laws of New York fill 330 printed pages. It is little wonder that American parties are beginning to study the organization of European parties, such as the labor parties and the social democratic parties, which have enlisted a rather fervent party fealty. These are propagandist parties and require to be active all the year round. So they demand annual dues of their members and have permanent salaried officials and official party organs. Such a permanent organization was suggested for the National Progressive party. ”

“ Just as the party would never have existed if there had been no movement, so the movement would not have attained such a surpassing measure of achievement so swiftly without the party.
The Progressive party came into full being at the convention held in Chicago on August 5, 1912 under dramatic circumstances. ”

“ Among Democrats we find some notable examples of progressive statesmanship and some advocates of reform. The Republican Party is not without some public men whose works and words give evidence of a desire to stand for the best type of popular government. Yet every reformer in the Republican or Democratic Party has to spend too much time, energy and ammunition in fighting the enemies within the ranks of his own party. ”

“ People's party, the Silver Republicans, the Prohibitionists, the Socialist-Labor party, the Social Democratic Party of the United States, the Social Democratic Party of America, the Union Reform party and the United Christian party. The Republicans won with 292 electoral and 7,207,386 popular votes; the Democrats got 155 electoral and 6,358,076 popular votes ”

“ The 3d party are the Insurgents or their favorers, the great majority of whom are for an annihilation of debts, public and private, and therefore they will not approve the new Constitution - this party 2/7ths. ”

“ They wanted a new party of radical ideas regardless of anything in the way of reformation and progress that the old parties might achieve. There were others who preferred to go back to the Republican party rather than to keep up the Progressive party as a mere minority party of protest, but who hoped in going back to be able to influence their old party along the lines of progress. ”

“ The Republicans felt themselves commissioned, by a successful election, to put the party program into force, but so powerful a minority could readily block any legislation under the existing parliamentary rules. ”