Headpiece, THE PROGRESSIVE PARTYTHE PROGRESSIVE PARTY[1]BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Headpiece, THE PROGRESSIVE PARTY
BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT
THENational Progressive Party was born in Chicago, August 5, 1912, at a convention which nominated Roosevelt for the presidency. Since that time, though defeated in the national election, it has figured more and more in the legislative and political activities of State and Nation. In fact progressivism is the one altogether incalculable element in the political situation of this country at a time when all men are peering, puzzled and anxious, into the mists of the future. At THECENTURY’Srequest Mr. Roosevelt prepared the following paper for the thoughtful attention of the people of this land. It is crowded with suggestion.—THEEDITOR.
THENational Progressive Party was born in Chicago, August 5, 1912, at a convention which nominated Roosevelt for the presidency. Since that time, though defeated in the national election, it has figured more and more in the legislative and political activities of State and Nation. In fact progressivism is the one altogether incalculable element in the political situation of this country at a time when all men are peering, puzzled and anxious, into the mists of the future. At THECENTURY’Srequest Mr. Roosevelt prepared the following paper for the thoughtful attention of the people of this land. It is crowded with suggestion.—THEEDITOR.
F
FUNDAMENTALLYthe reason for the existence of the Progressive party is found in two facts: first, the absence of real distinctions between the old parties which correspond to those parties and, second, the determined refusal of the men in control of both parties to use the party organizations and their control of the Government for the purpose of dealing with the problems really vital to our people.
As to the first fact, it is hardly necessary to point out that the two old parties to-day no longer deal in any real sense with the issues of fifty and sixty years ago. At that time there was a very genuine division-line between the Republicans and the Democrats. The Republicans of those years stood for a combination of all that was best in the political philosophies of both Jefferson and Hamilton; and under Lincoln they represented the extreme democratic movement which was headed by Jefferson and also that insistence upon national union and governmental efficiency which were Hamilton’s great contributions to our political life in the formative period of the republic. The Republicanism of that day was something real and vital, and the Republican party under Lincoln was the radical party of the country, abhorred and distrusted by the reactionaries and ultraconservatives, especially in the great financial centers, precisely as is now true of the Progressives. The Democratic party of that day, on the contrary, was no longer the party either of Jefferson or of Jackson, whose points of unlikeness were at least as striking as their points of likeness, and in the world of politics stood for slavery and for such development of the extreme particularistic doctrine euphoniously known as “States’ rights,” as to mean, when carried to its logical extreme, total paralysis of governmental functions and ultimately disunion.
The outbreak of the Civil War and its successful conclusion forced the majority of the conservative class of the North intothe Republican ranks; for when national dissolution is an issue, or even when any serious disaster is threatened, all other issues sink out of sight when compared with the vital need of sustaining the National Government. There is no possibility of even approximating to social and industrial justice if the National Government shows itself impotent to deal with malice domestic and foreign levy.
On the other hand, after the Civil War, the Democratic party found its position one of mere negation or mere antagonism to the Republican party. The Democrats in the Northern States had very different principles in the East and the West, and both in the East and the West alike they had nothing in common with the Democrats of the South save the bond of hatred to Republicanism.