Progressive Party of 1948

Progressive Party of 1948. Only nominally related to the Progressive Party of 1912–1924, this national political party was established in July 1948 to support the presidential candidacy of the New Deal liberal Henry A. Wallace (1888–1965), secretary of agriculture (1933–1941) and vice president (1941–1945) in the Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration. Created from the membership of the Progressive Citizens of America (PCA), itself an amalgam of several left‐liberal political‐action organizations, the Progressive party was dominated by professionals of the middle and upper‐middle classes, with many high‐profile members drawn from the arts and sciences. Along with Wallace's candidacy, the party's formation marked the culmination of a crucial breach in American liberal ranks between anticommunist or Cold War liberals, in organizations such as Americans for Democratic Action, and the liberals of the Progressive party, who accepted communists in their ranks and leadership. The Progressives advocated a range of domestic policies somewhat to the left of New Deal liberalism, including the socialization of several large components of the American economy and the expansion of civil rights. After their nomination, Wallace and his running mate, the Idaho senator Glen Taylor, dramatically campaigned through the South, holding integrated rallies in the face of often violent protests. It was the party's stand on foreign relations, however, that aroused the most vehement attacks. Representing, by 1948, one of the few high‐profile critiques of the Harry S. Truman administration's hard‐line policies toward the Soviet Union, the Progressives—and Wallace in particular—faced sustained and often innuendo‐laden denunciations of their policies and their loyalty.

Never in serious contention, the Progressives garnered less than 3 percent of the popular vote as Truman narrowly defeated the Republican Thomas E. Dewey. Although the party persisted after the 1948 election, still espousing Progressive positions, it never regained even the modest stature it attained at its founding. In 1950, the Progressives lost the little credibility they still retained when Wallace broke with the party over its opposition to American involvement in the Korean War.
See also Anticommunism; Communist Party—USA; New Deal Era, The; Political Parties.

Bibliography

Norman D. Markowitz , The Rise and Fall of the People's Century: Henry A. Wallace and American Liberalism, 1941–1948, 1973.
Mark L. Kleinman , A World of Hope, a World of Fear: Henry A. Wallace, Reinhold Niebuhr, and American Liberalism, 2000.

Mark L. Kleinman