Robert M. LaFollette and the 1924 Progressives

 This article first appeared in Issue 14 of Buttons and Ballots, in November 1997.

In 1922, facing a new wave of conservatism in national politics, leaders of the Machinists' union and a number of the railway brotherhoods worked together to form a new group called the Conference for Progressive Political Action (CPPA). Wisconsin's Senator Robert M. LaFollette was one early supporter of the group. Soon a number of left-leaning organizations were supporting the CPPA, including the Non-Partisan League, the Farmer-Labor party, the Socialist party, the American Federation of Labor, and Henry George Single-Taxers. The CPPA was not a party, but was pledged to support progressive candidates irrespective of party.

Members of the CPPA were dismayed in 1924 when both the Democrats and Republicans nominated arch-conservatives to head their national tickets. Democratic nominee John W. Davis was a conservative corporate lawyer, a man who would later win notoriety by representing the losing side in Brown v. Board of Education. Calvin Coolidge was an "accidental president" who had first won fame by suppressing the policemen's strike while governor of Massachusetts. Liberals and labor union members had no reason to expect good things from either Davis or Coolidge.

At its July 4, 1924 national convention the CPPA voted to run a presidential ticket in the coming election, tapping Robert M. LaFollette for president and Burton K. Wheeler for vice-president. LaFollette had pioneered a number of Progressive reforms while governor of Wisconsin—he had made his state a "laboratory of democracy." LaFollette was now in the U.S. Senate, and so was his running mate Wheeler. Both men were strong exponents of Progressivism in the Senate, and Wheeler had won fame for helping bring the Teapot Dome scandal to light, and for insuring the downfall of several key players in that scandal.

The CPPA adopted the name "Progressive Party" for the 1924 race. Like the Progressive (or Bull Moose) party of 1912, the 1924 Progressives drew a great deal of their support from Republicans, and Burton K. Wheeler was chosen in part because he could balance the ticket, as a lifelong Democrat. Many Farmer-Laborites supported the LaFollette Progressives, and the Socialist Party of America endorsed LaFollette, for the first time in its history declining to run a presidential candidate of its own.

The party and its candidates stood for these things:

Republicans attacked LaFollette strenuously. Some suggested that his isolationism grew out of his secret sympathy for the Germans, the enemies in the recent war. Meanwhile many observers said neither the American Federation of Labor nor the Socialist Party were delivering the strong support they had promised.

LaFollette won nearly 5 million votes in 1924, or about 17 percent of the total. His percentage of the vote was higher than that of any other twentieth century third-party candidates except Theodore Roosevelt and Ross Perot. LaFollette carried his home state of Wisconsin, and was thus one of only three formal third-party candidates of the twentieth century to win electoral votes.

The 1924 Progressives really had not organized themselves into a strong, formal political party. For example, they made the conscious decision not to run candidates for governor, U.S. Senators, or local offices. After the 1924 race many LaFollette supporters drifted back into the Republican party, while the Socialists returned to their own camp.

With the death of Robert LaFollette in the year after his presidential run, any plans for keeping the Progressive party alive as national party were dashed. In his home state of Wisconsin, the Progressive party label survived, used by a political faction dominated by LaFollette's sons. The national Progressive party, however, would remain a one-election wonder.

 © 1997 by Stephen Cresswell