The Progressive

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The Progressive
Progressive Cover 10-02.jpg
October 2002 cover
Acting Managing Editor David Boddiger
Categories Politics, culture
FrequencyMonthly
PublisherProgressive, Inc.
Founder Robert M. La Follette, Sr.
Founded1909;115 years ago (1909)
(as La Follette's Weekly)
First issue1929;95 years ago (1929) (as The Progressive)
Country United States
Based in Madison, Wisconsin
LanguageEnglish
Website progressive.org
ISSN 0033-0736
OCLC 531780706

The Progressive is a left-leaning American magazine and website covering politics and culture. Founded in 1909 by U.S. senator Robert M. La Follette Sr. and co-edited with his wife Belle Case La Follette, it was originally called La Follette's Weekly and then La Follette's. [1] In 1929, it was recapitalized and had its name changed to The Progressive. [1] [2] [3] For a period, The Progressive was co-owned by La Follette family and William Evjue's newspaper The Capital Times . [3] Its headquarters are in Madison, Wisconsin. [4]

Contents

The publication covers civil rights and civil liberties-related topics, immigrant issues, environmentalism, criminal justice reform, and democratic reform. [5] Its current acting and managing editor is David Boddiger. [6] Previous editors included La Follette Sr., Belle Case La Follette, their son Robert Jr., William Evjue, Morris Rubin, Erwin Knoll, Matthew Rothschild, Bill Lueders and Ruth Conniff.

History

La Follette's Weekly

On the first page of its first issue, La Follette wrote this introduction to the magazine:

In the course of every attempt to establish or develop free government, a struggle between Special Privilege and Equal Rights is inevitable. Our great industrial organizations [are] in control of politics, government, and natural resources. They manage conventions, make platforms, [and] dictate legislation. They rule through the very men elected to represent them. The battle is just on. It is young yet. It will be the longest and hardest [battle] ever fought for Democracy. In other lands, the people have lost. Here we shall win. It is a glorious privilege to live in this time, and have a free hand in this fight for government by the people. [5]

Some of the campaigns La Follette's Weekly engaged in were non-intervention in World War I, [2] opposition to the Palmer Raids in the early 1920s, and calling for action against unemployment during the Depression. La Follette's wife, Belle, edited the publication's women's section, and also wrote articles for the publication condemning racial segregation. [1] An early associate editor was the writer Herbert Quick. [7]

The Progressive

During the 1940s, The Progressive adopted an anti-Stalinist view of the Soviet Union. [8] [9]

During the early 1940s, the magazine argued that the United States should stay out of World War II. [2] Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, The Progressive declared its support for the American war effort. [2] However, The Progressive also condemned the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima, in contrast to both The Nation and The New Republic's support for the bombing. [8] The Progressive reprinted an essay from The Christian Science Monitor by Richard Lee Strout, arguing that by using the bombs, "The United States has incurred a terrible responsibility to history which now, unfortunately, can never be withdrawn". [8]

In 1947, The Progressive's editors announced they were suspending publication. However, after readers raised $40,000 to save the magazine, The Progressive returned as a monthly magazine issued as a non-profit venture. [1] [2]

In the 1950s, The Progressive criticized McCarthyism, although the magazine agreed that the U.S. government had the right to blacklist members of the Communist Party. [1] The Progressive issued a special issue criticizing McCarthy, McCarthy: A Documented Record in 1954; sections from the issue were read aloud in the U.S. Senate, and it became the magazine's best-selling issue. [2] [10] The Progressive also criticized U.S. nuclear policy and clandestine CIA activity in this period. [1]

In the 1960s, the magazine published five articles by Martin Luther King Jr. and James Baldwin's open letter, "My Dungeon Shook - Letter to my Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of Emancipation", the first section of The Fire Next Time . The Progressive also denounced U.S. involvement in Indochina. [1]

In 1984, The Progressive published "Behind the Death Squads" by Allan Nairn, a critique of U.S. policy in El Salvador. [2]

The Progressive opposed the Persian Gulf War, accusing the George H. W. Bush administration of rejecting any options for peaceful negotiation of the crisis. While condemning Saddam Hussein's government for its abuse of human rights, it accused the Bush administration of hypocrisy for not taking action against other governments that also abused human rights. [11] The magazine also opposed the second Iraq War. [12]

United States v. Progressive, Inc.

The forerunner of The Progressive was LaFollette's Magazine, established in Madison, Wisconsin in 1909. 250700-lafollettesmagazine-cove.jpg
The forerunner of The Progressive was LaFollette's Magazine, established in Madison, Wisconsin in 1909.

In 1979, The Progressive gained national attention for its article by Howard Morland, "The H-bomb Secret: How we got it and why we're telling it", which the U.S. government suppressed for six months because it contained classified information. The magazine prevailed in a landmark First Amendment case of prior restraint, United States v. Progressive, Inc. . [1]

2011 Wisconsin protests

Located a few blocks from the Wisconsin State Capitol, The Progressive covered the protests that began in February 2011 in response to Governor Scott Walker's Wisconsin budget repair bill. Madison Magazine named The Progressive's political editor Ruth Conniff as one of its Editors' Choice in 2011 for her "frontline dispatches from inside and outside the State Capitol and the courtroom across the street". [13]

100th anniversary

For its 100th year in print, the magazine published a book featuring "some of the best writing in The Progressive from 1909 to 2009" [14] titled Democracy in Print, published by the University of Wisconsin Press.

Circulation

With a fall to 27,000 subscribers in 1999, in April 2004, following the Iraq War, The Progressive's circulation reached a record 65,000. [14] By 2010, circulation had settled near 47,000. [15]

The Progressive solicits gifts, grants, and sponsorships, publicizing donors who give a total of $5,000 or more per calendar year, according to its website. [16]

Notable contributors

Throughout the years, The Progressive has published articles by Jane Addams, James Baldwin, Louis Brandeis, Noam Chomsky, Clarence Darrow, John Kenneth Galbraith, Charles V. Hamilton, [17] Nat Hentoff, Seymour Hersh, [17] Molly Ivins, June Jordan, Helen Keller, Martin Luther King Jr., Sidney Lens, [18] Jack London, Milton Mayer, A.J. Muste, George Orwell, Marcus Raskin, [18] Bertrand Russell, [19] Edward Said, Carl Sandburg, Upton Sinclair, Lincoln Steffens, I.F. Stone, Norman Thomas, George Wald, [18] James Wechsler [17] and Howard Zinn.

It has also published liberal politicians such as Russ Feingold, J. William Fulbright, Dennis Kucinich, George McGovern, Bernie Sanders, Adlai Stevenson, and Paul Wellstone. [20]

Related Research Articles

<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">Robert M. La Follette Jr.</span> American politician (1895–1953)

Robert Marion La Follette Jr. was an American politician who served as United States senator from Wisconsin from 1925 to 1947. A member of the La Follette family, he was often referred to by the nickname "Young Bob" to distinguish him from his father, Robert M. "Fighting Bob" La Follette, who had served as a U.S. senator and governor of Wisconsin. Robert Jr., along with his brother Philip La Follette, carried on their father's legacy of progressive politics and founded the Wisconsin Progressive Party. Robert Jr. was the last major Progressive Party politician in the U.S. Senate, ending in 1946 when the party disbanded. La Follette was defeated in the 1946 Republican Senate primary by Joseph McCarthy.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philip La Follette</span> 20th century American lawyer and politician, 27th Governor of Wisconsin

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Isabelle Case La Follette was a women's suffrage, peace, and civil rights activist in Wisconsin, United States. She worked with the Woman's Peace Party during World War I. At the time of her death in 1931, The New York Times called her "probably the least known yet most influential of all American women who have had to do with public affairs in this country." She was the wife and helpmate of Robert "Fighting Bob" La Follette—a prominent Progressive Republican politician both in Wisconsin and on the national scene—and as co-editor with her husband of La Follette's Weekly Magazine.

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Ruth Conniff is an American progressive journalist who served as editor-at-large of The Progressive. and is now the editor-in-chief of the Wisconsin Examiner. Conniff has also written for The Nation and the New York Times among other publications.

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Francis Edward McGovern was an American lawyer and politician from Wisconsin. He served as the 22nd Governor of Wisconsin from 1911 to 1915. In 1911 especially he sponsored a major series of progressive achievements through the legislature. Originally a close ally of Senator Robert M. La Follette, the two progressive leaders held an uneasy truce for McGovern's reelection in 1912. The two became bitter enemies in 1913-1916 and McGovern lost his bids for office and retired from politics.

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.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">1946 United States Senate election in Wisconsin</span>

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Jon Bekken (2008). "Progressive". In Stephen L. Vaughn (ed.). Encyclopedia of American Journalism. New York: Routledge. pp. 422–3. ISBN   978-0-415-96950-5.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Timeline", The Progressive magazine May 1, 2004.
  3. 1 2 Bernard A Weisberger, The La Follettes of Wisconsin: Love And Politics in Progressive America Madison, Wis. : University of Wisconsin Press, 1994. ISBN   0299141306 (p. 282)
  4. ↑ Bill Bigelow; Bob Peterson (1 January 2002). Rethinking Globalization: Teaching for Justice in an Unjust World. Rethinking Schools. p. 380. ISBN   978-0-942961-28-7 . Retrieved 5 December 2015.
  5. 1 2 Rothschild, Matthew (2009). Democracy in Print: The Best of The Progressive Magazine, 1909–2009. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN   978-0299232245.
  6. ↑ "Staff & Board of Directors". Progressive.org. Retrieved 2024-03-17.
  7. ↑ Ehrlich, Eugene and Gorton Carruth (1982). The Oxford Illustrated Literary Guide to the United States. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 337.
  8. 1 2 3 Boller, Paul F. (c. 1992). "Hiroshima and the American Left". Memoirs of An Obscure Professor and Other Essays. Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press. ISBN   0-87565-097-X.
  9. ↑ O'Neill, William L. (1990). A Better World: Stalinism and the American Intellectuals. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. p. 86. ISBN   1412816025. The Progressive, an anti-Stalinist monthly
  10. ↑ Robert Griffin, The Politics Of Fear : Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate (Second Edition). Amherst, the University of Massachusetts press, 1987. ISBN   0870235540 (p. 187).
  11. ↑ Gibson, Donald (2011). Wealth, Power, and the Crisis of Laissez Faire Capitalism. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN   978-0-230-34750-2.
  12. ↑ "The Case Against the Iraq War, A Speech by Matthew Rothschild, Editor of The Progressive Magazine". The Progressive. August 28, 2002. Retrieved August 20, 2014.
  13. ↑ "Editor's Choice: Four Individuals Worth Their Weight in BOM Gold". Madison Magazine. July 2011. Archived from the original on January 13, 2015. Retrieved August 11, 2012.
  14. 1 2 Ivey, Mike (April 29 – May 5, 2009). "Rebel with a cause". The Cap Times.
  15. ↑ "PR News | AARP, Under Pressure, Quits Legislative Group - Tue., Aug. 9, 2016". www.odwyerpr.com. Retrieved 2024-03-20.
  16. ↑ "Mission & History". Progressive.org. Retrieved 2024-03-20.
  17. 1 2 3 "Advertisement for The Progressive". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: 42. December 1971.
  18. 1 2 3 Advertisement for The Progressive, Mother Jones magazine, August 1976, p.4.
  19. ↑ Bertrand Russell, "Who Is It That Wants War?" The Progressive, September 24, 1932.
  20. ↑ "The Progressive Magazine to Celebrate Its 90th Anniversary in January". Common Dreams NewsWire. October 18, 1998. Archived from the original on May 16, 2008. Retrieved July 9, 2008.
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