The Progressive Party (also known as the “Bull Moose Party”) was a third-party political organization founded in the United States in 1912 by previous President Theodore Roosevelt after he sadly lost the Republican presidential nomination to his former protégé, sitting President William Howard Taft.
The new party was noted for taking progressive reform ideas and attracting top national reformers. After losing the presidential election in 1912, the party went into a fast fall in polls until 1918, eventually vanishing by 1920.
The Progressive Party is also known as the Bull Moose Party
At that point, Roosevelt stated that he felt “powerful as a bull moose” afterwards, losing the party nomination in June 1912 at the Chicago convention, earning the Progressive Party the nickname “Bull Moose Party.”
Roosevelt served on the board as president from 1901 to 1909 as a part of the Republican Party, growing increasingly progressive in his later years in office.
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1908 The Presidential Election
In the 1908 presidential election campaign, Roosevelt played a key role in ensuring that Secretary of War Taft would succeed.
Although Taft came into office determined to carry out Roosevelt’s domestic agenda, he faltered dramatically during the debates over the Payne–Aldrich Tariff Act and the Pinchot–Ballinger issue.
The Republican Party was split as a result of these events, and Roosevelt was estranged from his erstwhile buddy.
Robert M. La Follette, a progressive Republican, had already declared a challenge to Taft for the Republican presidential nomination in 1912, but many of his supporters switched to Roosevelt just after the former president decided to run for a third term, which was allowed under the Constitution before the reform of the Twenty-second Amendment.
Taft nearly defeated Roosevelt for the Republican presidential candidacy at the 1912 Republican National Convention.
Roosevelt, Frank Munsey, George Walbridge Perkins, and other progressive Republicans formed the Progressive Party after the conference and nominated Roosevelt and Hiram Johnson of California for the 1912 Progressive National Convention.
Several Republican officeholders joined the new party, while nearly all stayed true to the Republican Party—in California, Johnson as well as the Progressives, won control of the Republican Party.
The party’s platform was based on Roosevelt’s domestic programme, the Square Deal, and sought a number of progressive reforms. The platform stated that “the first duty of the day’s statesmanship is to shatter the unholy partnership between crooked business and corrupt politics.”
Restrictions on campaign finance contributions, a tariff reduction, the development of a social insurance system, an eight-hour workday, and women’s suffrage were among the platform’s proposals.
On corporate regulation, the party was split, with some members dissatisfied that the platform did not include a stronger call for “trust-busting.” Members of the Democratic Party had differing views on foreign policy, including pacifists like Jane Addams, who rejected Roosevelt’s proposal for a navy build-up.
Roosevelt received 27.4 percent of the popular vote in the 1912 election, compared to 23.2 percent for Taft, making Roosevelt the only third-party presidential nominee to receive a higher proportion of votes than a major party’s presidential nominee.
Both Taft and Roosevelt came in second to Democratic contender Woodrow Wilson, who received 41.8 percent of the popular vote and a landslide of electoral votes.
Several progressive candidates were elected to Congress and state legislatures, but the election was dominated by Democratic victories.
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The 1924 Presidential Campaign
TheProgressiveNational Convention was held concurrently with the Republican National Convention in 1916 with the intention of reuniting the parties, with Roosevelt as both parties’ presidential nominee.
Roosevelt denied the Progressive Party candidacy and requested that his followers vote for Charles Evans Hughes, a somewhat progressive Republican candidate.
The majority of Progressives entered the Republican Party, although some changed to the Democratic Party, and Progressives such as Harold L. Ickes served in President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s cabinet.
For his presidential campaign in 1924, La Follette formed a new Progressive Party. In 1948, a third progressive party was formed to support former Vice President Henry A. Wallace’s presidential campaign.
Platform and Convention for Progressives
Despite these challenges, the August convention got off to a wonderful start. There were about 2,000 delegates in attendance, many of whom were women. Neither Taft nor Wilson supported women’s suffrage on a national level in 1912.
On the eve of the election, he angered white Southern supporters by openly eating with black people at a Rhode Island hotel.
Roosevelt was elected president by acclamation, and Johnson was chosen as his running partner.
The platform, which outlined the emerging party’s appeal to voters, was the convention’s principal task. It featured a wide variety of social and political reforms that progressives had long called for.
It was almost religious in tone, or the nominee himself promised: “Our cause is founded on the everlasting principle of righteousness; and even if we, who now lead, fail for a time, the cause itself will win in the end.”