Progressive Party (United States, 1924)
The United States Progressive Party was a political party in the United States. It was founded in 1924 by Robert M. La Follette senior in Wisconsin to support La Follette candidacy in the presidential election in 1924.
La Follette was a member of the Republican Party in 1900 and founded a progressive group within the Republican Party of Wisconsin. In 1912, he lost in the Republican primaries for the presidential election in 1912 against William Howard Taft. The also Taft defeated Theodore Roosevelt then founded with progressive -minded members of the Progressive Party ( chosen for the Roosevelt to the presidency ). La Follette, who was an enemy of Roosevelt, this party but not joined.
After the first incarnation of the Progressive Party had dissolved after 1916, La Follet 1924 founded a new Progressive Party. In the presidential election that year, he ran as a candidate, his vice presidential candidate was Burton K. Wheeler, Senator of the Democratic Party of Montana. The party which demanded, among other things, the nationalization of the railways, represented mainly farmers and workers and was supported by the Socialist Party of America, the American Federation of Labor and numerous railway associations. In the presidential elections La Follette received a total of 16.6 % of the vote and 13 electoral college of Wisconsin, where it reached almost 54 %. Even in other states, especially those who had voted in 1912 for the majority of Theodore Roosevelt, La Follette received a high share of votes (for example, 45.2% in North Dakota, 41.3 % in Minnesota, 33.1% in California ) but was there overtaken by Republican Calvin Coolidge. The Democratic Party candidate John W. Davis contrast, played in the progressive strongholds hardly a role and achieved partly blatantly poor results ( 6.8% Minnesota, North Dakota 7.0%, Wisconsin 8.1%). After the 1924 election, the United States Progressive Party quickly disappeared from the scene.
La Follette remained until his death the following year as a Republican in the Senate of the United States, as his successor in 1925, his son Robert M. La Follette junior was selected. This led, together with his brother Philip La Follette within the Republican Party of his father in Wisconsin politics continued, founded the magazine La Follette 's Weekly, 1929 The Progressive, and fought for reforms. He was opposed by the political left against the policies of President Herbert Hoover and supported the 1932 election campaign of Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt. Philip La Follette won the 1930 Republican primaries in Wisconsin and was subsequently elected governor.
1934 sparked the run by the brothers La Follette grouping the tape with the Republican Party of Wisconsin and called her father's party at the national level as Wisconsin ( rarely also called the Progressive Party of Wisconsin ) Progressive Party back to life.