Progressive Party in the United States
1948 Progressive Party: The Election of 1948
Introduction to Progressive Party
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.” (1)
Progressive (Bull Moose) Party in the U.S. Legal History
Summary
A political party established in 1912 by supporters of Theodore Roosevelt after William H. Taft won the Republican presidential nomination. The party proposed a broad program of reform but Bull Moose candidate Roosevelt and Republican nominee lost to the Democratic candidate, Woodrow Wilson.
Resources
Notes and References
- Information about Progressive Party in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia