Committee of 48

Last updated
Committee of 48
Founded1919 (1919)
Dissolved1923 (1923)
Ideology Liberalism
Social democracy
Political position Center-left

The Committee of 48 was an American liberal political association established in 1919 in the hope of creating a new political party for social reform to stand in opposition to the increasing conservatism of both major U.S. political parties, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party.

Contents

Named in recognition of the 48 U.S. states to signify the desire to construct a broad national movement, the moderate progressives of the Committee of 48 attempted without success to form such a third party with sympathetic activists from the labor movement in 1920.

The group, commonly known as the "Forty-Eighters", became one of the key constituents in the Conference for Progressive Political Action in 1922, a movement culminating in the independent candidacy of Robert M. La Follette for President of the United States in 1924.

Organizational history

Establishment

J.A.H. Hopkins, a former member of the Democratic National Committee and head of the short-lived National Party, was the National Secretary of the Committee of 48. Hopkins-JAH-1917.jpg
J.A.H. Hopkins, a former member of the Democratic National Committee and head of the short-lived National Party, was the National Secretary of the Committee of 48.

The Committee of 48 traces its roots to January 1919, when a gathering of individuals interested in public affairs gathered in New York City. [1] Those so assembled decided that a formal organization should be sponsored and decided to issue a call for a National Conference. [1] The name "Committee of 48" was chosen as a reflection of the desire to form a national organization bringing together interested representatives of each of the nation's 48 states. [1]

The formal call for a new organization, headlined "Revolution or Reconstruction? A Call to Americans," was first published on March 22 in four prominent liberal publications. [1] This appeal was targeted to Americans who sought neither revolution nor a turn to reaction in America and urged the formation of a new political entity that would stand apart both from the proto-communist revolutionary socialist movement and from the increasing conservatism of the two "old parties" of American politics, the Republicans and Democrats. [2] Public reaction to this announcement was deemed as favorable by the group's organizers. [1]

The first published call to establish the organization read in part:

"Despite America's splendid success in a war waged against foreign autocracy, our country is menaced by the growing power of an autocratic and reactionary minority at home. We stand in danger of losing many of the liberties and advances won in the course of our national development....

"Centralization and autocracy are increasing rapidly in the organization of governments, in the control of credit, and in the determination of public opinion. The very classes whose labors in factory and field are the basis of our economic power, find no effective political medium through which to express their economic demand...

"It is the purpose of the Committee of Forty-eight to summon from all parts of the country the leaders of its liberal thought and of its forward-looking citizens, to meet in conference. We hope that out of this assemblage of the scattered forces of Americanism will come a flexible statement of principles and methods that will permit effective cooperation with organized Labor and Agricultural workers in the tasks of social reconstruction." [3]

Planning on entering the political fray for the long haul, the Committee of 48 opened a headquarters office at 15 E 40th Street in New York City in June 1919, with J.A.H. Hopkins of Morristown, New Jersey, former chairman of the National Executive Committee of the National Party, in the role of Chairman. [4] A more nebulous "General Committee" back of the organization included a number of marquee names of the American mainstream liberal movement, including historian and philosopher Will Durant, attorney Dudley Field Malone, pacifist minister John Haynes Holmes, and writer and academic Robert Morss Lovett, among others. [4]

To gauge public interest in its efforts, the Committee of 48 circulated some 30,000 copies of a survey to progressives around the nation inquiring as to their views on the need for a new political party and polling them on who should lead such a political ticket. [5] Some 21,000 surveys were returned to the organization, loudly voicing approval of a new organization to challenge the dominant Republican and Democratic Parties and endorsing the candidacy of Wisconsin Senator La Follette as their preferred nominee for President. [5]

On September 22, 1919, the organizing committee pegged St. Louis, Missouri as the location at which the founding conference would be held and slated December 9 to 12 as the dates for the event. [1] Some 300,000 copies of a pamphlet entitled A Call to a National Conference were distributed in preparation for the event. [1]

National Conference

Over 500 persons attended the organizational conference of the Committee of 48, which was gaveled to order on December 9, 1919. [1] That gathering unanimously adopted a first platform for the organization as well as a set of resolutions on various issues of the day. [1] This platform was envisioned as a working draft, to be discussed by the public in preparation for a formally delegated political convention. [1]

The platform approved by the December national conference of the Committee of 48 called for public ownership of transportation, stock yards, grain elevators, public utilities, and "the principle natural resources, such as coal, oil, natural gas, mineral deposits, timber, and water works. [6] The use of tax policy was urged to ensure that idle land was put into productive use. [6] The convention also declared itself for

"Equal economic, political, and legal rights for all, irrespective of sex or color. The immediate and absolute restoration of free speech, free press, peaceable assembly, and all civil rights guaranteed by the Constitution." [6]

An end to the use of legal injunctions in labor disputes was demanded, and the right of workers to "organize and bargain collectively" was endorsed. [6]

The conference passed resolutions calling for the retention of American railroads under government control for a two-year period, requiring that Congress submit any future declaration of war to a direct vote of the people, urging the Blockade of Soviet Russia be immediately lifted and all American forces withdrawn from that country, and demanding that "political prisoners and all imprisoned in violation of their constitutional right of free speech" be immediately released. [7] Additional resolutions were passed urging that universal military training not be implemented and that the American government should "make every effort to secure universal disarmament by international agreement. [7]

July 1920 Conventions

Attorney Dudley Field Malone, spokesman for the pro-unity forces in the Committee of 48 at the July 1920 Convention. Dudley Field Malone.jpg
Attorney Dudley Field Malone, spokesman for the pro-unity forces in the Committee of 48 at the July 1920 Convention.

A grand unification convention designed to bring together liberal forces around a new third party was opened in Chicago on July 10, 1920. The gathering brought together the Committee of 48 with representatives of the Single Tax movement, with a view to further combining with the convention of the Labor Party of the United States, due to start in the same city two days later. [8] Also joining the eclectic gathering of 539 accredited delegates were adherents of other political organizations, including the Non-Partisan League, the Northwest Farmers' National Council, the Triple Alliance of the Northwest, the Consumers' League, and other organizations. [8]

Lack of harmony was evident from the outset, with incompatible programmatic goals and Presidential desires evident, the Single Taxers insistent upon a Single Tax plank in the new party's platform and threatening to bolt the convention if the favorite of the Committee of 48, "Fighting Bob" La Follette of Wisconsin, were to be nominated to head the ticket. [8] Simultaneously, closed door unity negotiations were begun between representatives of the Committee of 48 and the Labor Party with a view to joining the two conventions in a new organization to challenge the so-called "old parties" of American politics, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. [9]

The unification effort was quickly on the rocks, however, as two days of preparatory meetings of conference committees of the two organizations proved unable to agree upon a common program. [9] Bad feelings were in evidence, with at least one member of the Labor Party charging the Committee of 48 with being "plutocratic philanthropists trying to use the Labor Party." [9] Moreover, the "Forty-Eighters" found themselves internally divided between a more conservative bloc based in the East, including top organizational leaders J.A.H. Hopkins, Allen McCurdy, and Amos Pinchot, and a more radical segment of newcomers hailing largely from the Western states, the most prominent spokesman for whom was lawyer Dudley Field Malone. [9]

The matter of central difference between the two groups related to the proposed unified organization's position on nationalization of industry, with the Labor Party camp and the Western radical members of the Committee of 48 in favor of the proposition while the Eastern leadership of the "Forty-Eighters" deeming the matter "pre-revolutionary idealism" that was far in advance of political realities. [9] Rumors circulated that Western adherents of the Committee of 48 believed their Eastern-based leadership, clearly unhappy with the direction in which the convention was headed, to be stalling unity negotiations in order to bring the unity convention to a stalemate and thereby preserve their organizational independence and personal control. [9]

On July 12, the first day of their own scheduled convention, Labor Party activists at the convention therefore issued the Committee of 48 an ultimatum: to either proceed with amalgamation the next day on terms suitable to the Labor Party or else the Labor Party would forward alone, nominating its own candidate for President of the United States and writing its own program in its own name. [9] The Hopkins-McCurdy-Pinchot bloc refused this proposition, and no unification of the two rival organizations was achieved. [9] The Labor Party of the United States went on to nominate Utahn Parley Parker Christensen to head its ticket and conducted its own campaign in the 1920 campaign.

The Eastern leaders of the Committee of 48 attempted to put the best face on their inability to construct a unified third party for the November 1920 election, with Allen McCurdy declaring the failure to have been "inevitable," while counterintuitively declaring that the inability of the July conventions to unite having revealed "more clearly than ever the necessity for a new party." [2] In McCurdy's view, unification had failed owing to the failure of the convention to accept the desires of "the responsible leadership of the Committee of 48" to establish a "great coalition party" of "believers in American progress," in which organized labor would play only a part. [2] Instead, influenced by the British Labour Party, the adherents of the Labor Party of the United States had opted for a "class party devoted to the interests of the workers alone." [2]

McCurdy declared:

"It is the conviction of the leaders of the Committee of 48 that the rank and file of the workers of the United States of America do not know what guild socialism is, do not believe it when they know what it is, and will not follow a political leadership which has this end in view." [2]

The Committee of 48 would continue its efforts to establish a new progressive political party, but on its own terms.

Activity in the Conference for Progressive Political Action

Over the course of the next two years, members of the Committee of 48 gave support to various insurgent progressive politicians in their campaigns for election. Some of these successful candidacies included the Senatorial campaigns of Non-Partisan League Republican Lynn Frazier in North Dakota and progressive Republican Robert B. Howell in Nebraska, the re-election of La Follette in Wisconsin, and the Gubernatorial campaign of Charles W. Bryan in Nebraska. [10]

Executive Chairman J.A.H. Hopkins saw this success of these and other progressive candidacies in the 1922 election to be indicative of a groundswell of support for a new political party to challenge the Republicans and Democrats in an organized manner, announcing to the press that plans were underway for the calling of yet another national convention to launch a new political movement. [10]

Dissolution and legacy

The failure of the Committee of 48 to establish a viable new progressive capitalist political party owing its own ideological timidity was foreseen even in 1920, when one discouraged Single Tax adherent noted of the failed unity effort of July 1920:

"[J.A.H. Hopkins of the Committee of 48] does not seem to see that the Farmer-Labor Party did not fail, but did just what it went to Chicago to do. It formed a political party. It matters not whether this party is large or small. It carried its program through victoriously, and the estimable bourgeoisie comprising the Committee of 48, for whom these hardened persons never had anything but the most thinly veiled contempt, melted away when the burning glass at Carmen's Hall [LP convention site] turned its fierce intensive rays toward the Hotel Morrison [48ers convention site]....

"Mr. Hopkins still thinks an amalgamation possible on the basis of the [Committee of 48's] St. Louis platform. That platform has a labor plank for collective bargaining; labor laughs at it. It has a plank for government ownership of railroads and public utilities; the Socialists are already in the field and go the 48ers a lot better. It has a Single Tax plank, or a plank for the taxation of idle land to force it into use; the Single Tax Party is in the field with a full Single Tax program. The St. Louis platform is a painfully strained dilution of issues that are now before the country, presented by men who are not afraid of their convictions. The program of the 48 Committee is chiefly interesting to the disembodied ghosts of the Chartists of the early ’40s." [11]

By 1923, the Committee of 48 had become defunct. [12]

Prominent members

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1924 United States presidential election</span> 35th quadrennial U.S. presidential election

The 1924 United States presidential election was the 35th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 4, 1924. In a three-way contest, incumbent Republican President Calvin Coolidge won election to a full term. Coolidge was the second vice president to ascend to the presidency and then win a full term.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Socialist Party of America</span> 1901–1972 United States political party

The Socialist Party of America (SPA) was a socialist political party in the United States formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party of America who had split from the main organization in 1899.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert M. La Follette</span> American lawyer and politician (1855–1925)

Robert MarionLa Follette Sr., was an American lawyer and politician. He represented Wisconsin in both chambers of Congress and served as the governor of Wisconsin from 1901 to 1906. A Republican for most of his life, he ran for president of the United States as the nominee of his own Progressive Party in the 1924 presidential election. Historian John D. Buenker describes La Follette as "the most celebrated figure in Wisconsin history".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Progressive Era</span> Turn-of-the-century political reform movement

The Progressive Era (1901–1929) was a period in the United States during the early 20th century of widespread social activism and political reform across the country. Progressives sought to address the problems caused by rapid industrialization, urbanization, immigration, and political corruption as well as the enormous concentration of industrial ownership in monopolies. Progressive reformers were alarmed by the spread of slums, poverty, and the exploitation of labor. Multiple overlapping progressive movements fought perceived social, political, and economic ills by advancing democracy, scientific methods, and professionalism; regulating business; protecting the natural environment; and improving working and living conditions of the urban poor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Farmer–Labor Party</span> American political party

The first modern Farmer–Labor Party in the United States emerged in Minnesota in 1918. The American entry into World War I caused agricultural prices and workers' wages to fall, while retail prices rose sharply during the war years. Consequently, farmers and workers made common cause in the political sphere to redress their grievances.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Progressive Labor Party (United States)</span> Communist political party

The Progressive Labor Party (PLP) is an anti-revisionist Marxist–Leninist communist party in the United States. It was established in January 1962 as the Progressive Labor Movement following a split in the Communist Party USA, adopting its new name at a convention held in the spring of 1965. It was involved in the anti-Vietnam War movement of the 1960s and early 1970s through its Worker Student Alliance faction of Students for a Democratic Society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1924 Republican National Convention</span> American political convention

The 1924 Republican National Convention was held in Cleveland, Ohio, at the Public Auditorium, from June 10 to 12.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bull Moose Party</span> American political party founded by Theodore Roosevelt

The Progressive Party, popularly nicknamed the Bull Moose Party, was a third party in the United States formed in 1912 by former president Theodore Roosevelt after he lost the presidential nomination of the Republican Party to his former protégé turned rival, incumbent president William Howard Taft. The new party was known for taking advanced positions on progressive reforms and attracting leading national reformers. The party was also ideologically deeply connected with America's radical-liberal tradition.

The Progressive Party was a political party created as a vehicle for Robert M. La Follette, Sr. to run for president in the 1924 election. It did not run candidates for other offices, and it disappeared after the election. The party advocated progressive positions such as government ownership of railroads and electric utilities, cheap credit for farmers, the outlawing of child labor, stronger laws to help labor unions, more protection of civil liberties, an end to American imperialism in Latin America, and a referendum before any president could lead the nation into war.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Conference for Progressive Labor Action</span> American political organization (1929–1933)

The Conference for Progressive Labor Action (CPLA) was a left-wing American political organization established in May 1929 by A. J. Muste, the director of Brookwood Labor College. The organization was established to promote industrial unionism and to work for reform of the American Federation of Labor. It dissolved itself in December 1933 to form the American Workers Party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Workers Party of America</span> Political party in the United States

The Workers Party of America (WPA) was the name of the legal party organization used by the Communist Party USA from the last days of 1921 until the middle of 1929.

The Conference for Progressive Political Action was officially established by the convention call of the 16 major railway labor unions in the United States, represented by a committee of six: William H. Johnston of the Machinists' Union, Martin F. Ryan of the Railway Carmen, Warren S. Stone of the Locomotive Engineers, E. J. Manion or the Railroad Telegraphers, Timothy Healy of the Stationary Firemen, and L. E. Sheppard of the Order of Railway Conductors. The idea of joining the "forces of every progressive, liberal, and radical organization of the workers must be mobilized to repel these assaults and to advance the industrial and political power of the working class" seems to have originated with the National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party, which issued an appeal to unions and progressive political organizations for such a group in September 1921.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Party (United States)</span> Short-lived American political party

The National Party was an early-20th-century national political organization in the United States founded by pro-war defectors from the Socialist Party of America (SPA) in 1917. These adherents of the SPA Right first formed a non-partisan national society to propagandize the socialist idea called the Social Democratic League of America. Many of these individuals were eager for the formation of an alternative political organization to both the old parties and the anti-war SPA and eagerly latched on to a burgeoning movement for a new party that sprouted in 1917.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1912 Republican Party presidential primaries</span> Selection of Republican US presidential candidate

From January 23 to June 4, 1912, delegates to the 1912 Republican National Convention were selected through a series of primaries, caucuses, and conventions to determine the party's nominee for President in the 1912 election. Incumbent President William Howard Taft was chosen over former President Theodore Roosevelt. Taft's victory at the national convention precipitated a fissure in the Republican Party, with Roosevelt standing for the presidency as the candidate of an independent Progressive Party, and the election of Democrat Woodrow Wilson over the divided Republicans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carl D. Thompson</span> American politician

Carl D. Thompson was an American preacher, Christian Socialist, and Social Democratic politician. A Congregationalist minister early in his life, Thompson is best remembered as a lecturer and political organizer for the Socialist Party of America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">League for Independent Political Action</span> Defunct American progressive political organization

The League for Independent Political Action(LIPA) was an American political organization established in late November or early December 1928 in New York City. The organization, which brought together liberals and socialists, was seen as a coordinating agency for a new political party in the United States. No such party was forthcoming, however, and the group remained in existence as a small membership organization into the middle years of the 1930s, when it was gradually rendered obsolete by the move to the New Deal by Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Democratic Party. The organization was terminated in 1936.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1912 Progressive National Convention</span> American political event

The 1912 Progressive National Convention was held in August 1912. Angered at the renomination of President William Howard Taft over their candidate at the 1912 Republican National Convention, supporters of former President Theodore Roosevelt convened in Chicago and endorsed the formation of a national progressive party. When formally launched later that summer, the new Progressive Party acclaimed Roosevelt as its presidential nominee and Governor Hiram Johnson of California as his vice presidential running mate. When questioned by reporters, Roosevelt said he felt as strong as a "bull moose". Henceforth known as the "Bull Moose Party", the Progressives promised to increase federal regulation and protect the welfare of ordinary people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1924 Nomination of Robert M. La Follette for President</span>

The nomination of Robert M. La Follette for president took place at a convention held in Cleveland, Ohio from July 4-5, 1924. The convention was called by the Conference for Progressive Political Action (CPPA) and included accredited delegates from national trade unions, state branches of the CPPA, and other political organizations. Members of the Socialist Party of America played a prominent role in the organization of the July convention and the subsequent La Follette presidential campaign; representatives of the Communist Workers Party of America were banned.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Swinburne Hale</span> American poet

Swinburne Hale (1884–1937) was an American lawyer, poet, and socialist, best remembered as one of the leading civil rights attorneys of the 1920s. Hale was a Harvard College classmate of Roger Nash Baldwin and law partner of Walter Nelles and Isaac Shorr and was active in the establishment and early work of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Hale also played a role in the progressive politics of the early 1920s as a leading member of the Committee of Forty-Eight and a spokesman for the fledgling Farmer-Labor Party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1924 United States presidential election in Ohio</span>

The 1924 United States presidential election in Ohio was held on November 4, 1924 as part of the 1924 United States presidential election. State voters chose twenty-four electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Platform of the Committee of 48: Unanimously Adopted at the First National Conference, St. Louis, Missouri, Dec. 9-12, 1919: Together with Supporting Argument, Resolutions, and Methods of Political Procedure. New York: The Committee of 48, n.d. [1919]; pg. 14.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Allen McCurdy, "The Forty-Eighters' Position," The Nation, vol. 111, whole no. 2874 (July 31, 1920), pp. 126-127.
  3. ↑ "Revolution or Reconstruction? A Call to Americans," The New Republic, vol. 18, whole no. 229 (March 22, 1919), pt. 1, pg. iv.
  4. 1 2 "Plan a Conference to Form New Party: Committee of Forty-Eight Opens Headquarters for 'Liberal' Political Organization," New York Times, June 25, 1919.
  5. 1 2 "Third Party Forms on Call of 21,000: 'Committee of 48' Reports Result of Its Nationwide Questionnaires," New York Times, June 16, 1920.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Platform of the Committee of 48, pg. 3.
  7. 1 2 "Resolutions Adopted by the Conference," in Platform of the Committee of 48, pg. 12.
  8. 1 2 3 "Lay Foundation for New Party: Committee of 48 and the Single Taxers Join in First National Convention," Spokesman-Review [Spokane, WA], July 13, 1920, pg. 8.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Committee of 48 Menaced By Labor: Must Show Compromise Spirit or Laborites Will Go Ahead Alone," New York Times, July 13, 1920, pp. 1, 3.
  10. 1 2 "Committee of 48 Backs Third Party: Executive Chairman Says Plans are Under Way for National Convention," New York Times, November 16, 1922.
  11. ↑ "The Committee of 48 Issues a Statement," The Single Tax Review, vol. 20, no. 5 (Sept.-Oct. 1920), pp. 134-135.
  12. ↑ Gieske, Millard L. (1979). Minnesota Farmer-Laborism: The Third-Party Alternative. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN   9780816662593.

External sources

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.