The National Progressives of America (NPA) also referred to as the National Progressives was a Progressive political party in the United States established in April 1938. The organization was closely associated with the personality and agenda of Wisconsin governor Philip La Follette and was delivered an essentially mortal blow as a national organization when his bid for re-election was defeated in November of that year.
Although continuing to operate from its Madison, Wisconsin, headquarters into the early 1940s, the NPA failed to gain significant support around the country and was broadly criticized for lack of programmatic specifics and for its perceived use of fascist-inspired iconography.
History Background
The Wisconsin Progressive Party emerged from the Republican Party of Wisconsin and was established in 1934 by Philip La Follette and Robert La Follette Jr.—the sons of Robert M. "Fighting Bob" La Follette, who ran for President of the United States as a Progressive candidate during the 1924 presidential election.
The new Progressive Party was successful in subsequent elections and the party surpassed the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, relegating the Democrats once again to effective third party status in the state.Donald R. McCoy, "The Formation of the Wisconsin Progressive Party in 1934," The Historian, vol. 14, no. 1 (1951), pp. 70–90. The National Progressives of America was an attempt to take this state-level success and replicate it on the national stage.
First elected governor of Wisconsin in the fall of 1930 as a Republican, Philip La Follette won re-election in 1934 on the ticket of the Wisconsin Progressive Party and looked askance at both of the "old parties" as inadequate to meet the extraordinary economic situation of the Great Depression. While he was generally supportive of the New Deal legislation of President Franklin D. Roosevelt throughout the middle years of the 1930s, he became disillusioned after the election of 1936, with the large scale dismissal of Works Progress Administration personnel in 1937 marking a particular tipping point in his perspective.Donald R. McCoy, Angry Voices: Left-of-Center Politics in the New Deal Era. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 1958; pp. 162–163.
Beginning in the spring of 1937, La Follette began to look around the country for prospective allies in construction of a new political party to challenge the hegemony of the Democrats and Republicans,McCoy, Angry Voices, p. 164. both of which were constrained by conservative elements. At a May 1937 celebration of the third anniversary of the Wisconsin Progressive Party, La Follette made a public call for liberals around the country to cooperate with the Wisconsin Progressives in establishing a new third party.
"The time is close at hand for the formation of a new political realignment in the nation which will defeat the reactionary forces in the nation just as the Progressive Party has defeated the reactionary forces in Wisconsin," he declared.
He spent the following summer networking with like-minded political figures around the country, making the acquaintance of Raymond Haight, leader of the California Progressive Party and recipient of more than 300,000 votes in the 1934 California gubernatorial election, as well as Mayor Fiorello La Guardia of New York City and various leaders of the Midwestern farmer-labor movement.McCoy, Angry Voices, p. 165.
Formation
The National Progressives of America was established on April 28, 1938, at a rally in Madison, Wisconsin, convened and addressed by Governor La Follette. The organization was inseparably bound with the personality of the charismatic governor—no figure of national prominence sat with him on the platform, with assistant secretary of state Adolf Berle and Minnesota budget director Paul Rasmussen, acting as a representative of Governor Elmer A. Benson, seated as the top dignitaries in attendance to the side of the platform.Aldric Revell, "Governor Fails to Announce He Will Run for Re-election: LaFollette Starts Organizing Immediately with Speech at Des Moines; 3,500 Stand Outside Building," [Madison] Capital Times,vol. 41, no. 137 (April 29, 1938), pp. 1–8. Berle, who appeared as the representative of New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia, received the advance permission of President Roosevelt to attend the gathering."National Progressives of America," Escanaba [MI] Daily Press, May 1, 1938, p. 1.
In preparation for a grand political event, the University of Wisconsin stock pavilion was decorated in red, white, and blue, with a military band playing marching music and other patriotic songsMorris H. Rubin, "Governor Keeps Silent on Own Plans," Wisconsin State Journal, April 29, 1938, pp. 1–2. and players for the Wisconsin Badgers football team acting as ushers. An overflow crowd estimated at 7,500 people assembled to hear the Governor's 90 minute speech at the pavilion, with thousands milling outside listening to loudspeakers after all the seats in the 3,500 seat hall were taken. Wisconsin circuit court judge Alvin C. Reis had been tasked with leading the meeting as its chairman.
At the front, under the rostrum, were three long tables reserved for members of the press.Herbert Jacobs, "Applause at Peak When Phil Asks Quick Action," [Madison] Capital Times, April 29, 1938, pp. 1, 8. Some 75 reporters were in attendance, including representatives of newspapers in Washington, DC, New York, and Chicago, as well as dozens of photojournalists. In addition, hot klieg lights were in place for newsreel cameramen — an arrangement which left the assembled photographers up front dripping with sweat by the end of the evening.
Beginning his speech slowly and without gestures, Governor La Follette rose to what one journalist described as an "evangelical fervor," pointing his forefinger and theatrically stretching his arms wide. Behind him was a gigantic banner with the emblem of the new party—rendered as a blue cross on a white background, inside a red circle, "typifying the voter's mark on the ballot."
La Follette struck "a nationalistic note in the sense that he was primarily, and almost exclusively concerned with America. The country remained mired in an economic depression that had lasted nearly a decade, La Follette said, with liberty itself endangered by disrupted production and a low standard of living for a major part of the country.Philip La Follette, "La Follette Launches THE Party: National Progressives of America: Turns Back on Parties that Brought 'Plague,'" Wisconsin State Journal, April 29, 1938, p. 8. The nation had become mired in attempt to maintain prices, profits, and wages by combating what La Follette considered the mythical notion of "overproduction" by restricting agricultural and industrial output—all the while millions of Americans remained without adequate food, shelter, or clothing.
Both the Republican and Democratic parties were to blame for the decade of malaise, La Follette declared, with the nation waiting hopelessly for "prosperity which was just around the corner" for four years under Herbert Hoover before six unsatisfactory years of the Roosevelt administration that only "transferred red ink from the books of private enterprise to the bookkeeping of our local, state, and national government." This attempt to maintain living standards through private and public borrowing had been a costly and futile exercise, albeit "well-meant," La Follette asserted.
La Follette sought a return to the policy of the "old days" in which
"our country did not pay people to remain idle or to do unproductive work. We gave everyone an opportunity to do wealth-creating work. If they did not take that offer, they could sink or swim as they pleased. Today we have idle resources, and also idle people.... Again we must provide every able-bodied man and woman with a real opportunity for wealth-creating work at decent hours and at decent pay. Then, let us return to the principle that he who is able and does not work—well, then, at least he shall not live at the expense of his neighbor."
With enthusiasm among the attendees duly escalated, La Follette unveiled a set of principles for the new National Progressives of America (NPA).
The organization's six principles were very general in tone, affirming the freedoms of religion, press, and assembly and adding the right of Americans "to have effective voice in...political and economic life"; the right of citizens to earn a living through useful work; the right of youth to adequately funded public education; the right of the elderly to a "self-respecting system of old-age pensions"; the right of workers to organize and collectively bargain; and a vague right of all to live under a government that was both strong and just."National Progressives of America: Our Principles," [Madison] Capital Times, April 29, 1938, p. 6.
Response
Reaction to the formation of the new national political party was tepid, with various national liberal figures, allies of Roosevelt, organized labor, and even allies of La Follette declining to join the new party.
Minnesota Farmer–Labor Senator Ernest Lundeen said of the new organization, "I am very glad to see my third or first or any other new party formed. I predict that all such parties which we may form will eventually drift into a great national labor party as it did in England."Ruby Black, "Liberals Reluctant to Join," Wisconsin State Journal, April 29, 1938, p. 1. For his own part, however, Lunden said, "we in Minnesota like the name farmer–labor. I do not think we shall want to change the name of our party or merge in this new party, but I think we shall want to cooperate with it."
Officials of the Minnesota Farmer-Laborites and the Nonpartisan League of North Dakota "could see no immediate possibility of a coalition." Viewing the NPA as more oriented towards the political Interests of farmers in which they viewed would "largely make up" the NPA.
Others, like liberal Democratic U.S. Senator Sherman Minton of Indiana, saw the new party as a potential threat to the unity of liberal forces which would result in the election of reactionaries. Independent Senator George W. Norris of Nebraska, took a wait-and-see approach, indicating that such a national organization of progressive people would be a good thing, while offering that a third party campaign would split liberal forces, resulting in election of a right wing president. "I do not know whether it is Phil's intent to have a presidential ticket in 1940," Norris said.
Additionally, Mayor La Guardia and John L. Lewis, then president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), refused to associate themselves with the NPA. Robert Jr. himself seemed skeptical of his brother's efforts, as he gave half-hearted statements of support for the party.
Journalist Walter Lippmann was skeptical of La Follette's efforts, believing that a national coalition of liberals would need the support of both the American Federation of Labor and the CIO. He believed that such support would be unlikely due to La Follette's leadership and due to his formation of the NPA as separate from the farmer-labor movement. This criticism was similar to those expressed by members of Roosevelt's cabinet, such as Harold L. Ickes, who felt La Follette was trying to seize the moment and be the center of attention. Heywood Broun, another prominent journalist, criticized the event for its attempts at appealing to the middle class, claiming that "the most formidable fascist movement which has yet arisen in America is being nurtured in Madison, Wisconsin by Phil La Follette".
The seven Wisconsin Progressive members of the United States House of Representatives appeared with the NPA's Emblem. With Robert Jr. going on to state "I shall do everything I can to contribute to the development of the new party. I shall seize every opportunity that is presented to advance this new movement."