Document Type
Other
Publication Date
2024
Abstract
A rift shattered the Republican Party in 1912 as a result of a convention marked by sharp dissonance between two factions of the party: the conservatives and the progressives. This break was most clearly illustrated by the rapidly deteriorating relationship between the current President William H. Taft and the popular ex-President Theodore Roosevelt. Taft had grown conservative and amiable to the established members of the Republican Party, while Roosevelt seemed to only develop further into his progressive beliefs after the end of his presidency in 1909. Roosevelt’s failure to secure the presidential nomination during the 1912 Republican Party Convention led to the formation of the Progressive Party by a coalition largely composed of progressive ex-Republicans. Roosevelt declared to his new party: “Our opponents here in Chicago today have waged such a bitter and unscrupulous fight for the very reason that this is no ordinary factional contest. The big bosses who control the national committee represent not merely the led captains of mercenary politics but the great crooked financiers who stand behind these led captains.”1 This new “crusade” fought by the Progressives in the name of the common people furthered the political traditions of radicalism and modern liberalism, however something is notably different about the Progressive Party in comparison to later progressive political movements: policies of racial discrimination. The banning of African American delegates from the South to the convention in August represented a significant point of debate among members of the new party. This decision begs the question of why such a social justice oriented, progressive party would be discriminatory against a minority often courted by its prior parent party, the Republicans.
Publisher
South Dakota State University
Rights
Copyright © 2024 Caleb Stork
Recommended Citation
Stork, Caleb, "The Lily-White Strategy: The Internal Racial Politics of the Progressive Party Convention of 1912" (2024). Schultz-Werth Award Papers. 59.
https://openprairie.sdstate.edu/schultz-werth/59
