Bereaved, Bothered, and Bewildered

This week’s Graphical History Tour sets the calendar back 100 Augusts ago to find two political parties in mourning.

"Leaderless" by Fred Morgan in Philadelphia Inquirer, Aug. 2, 1925

The deaths of William Jennings Bryan and Robert LaFollette had left voids in their respective political parties. Three-time Democratic presidential nominee Bryan had been replaced as his party's standard bearer, but still wielded considerable influence; badly divided Democrats had named his brother their vice presidential candidate in 1924 to secure his support for the ticket.

"Which Will Capture Democracy" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, Aug. 3, 1925

The major factions in the Democratic Party were Bryan's western populists and the more conservative Wall Street and Tammany Hall New Yorkers. I find it telling that McCutcheon overlooks Southerners in this cartoon.

McCutcheon's liberal and conservative labels here did not quite mean the same values that they do today. The western liberals were agrarian, nationalist, and open to the support of the Ku Klux Klan. The conservative wing of the party supported Wall Street interests, favored laissez-faire capitalism and the gold standard. Support of and opposition to Prohibition, international agreements, immigration, and tariffs cut across both wings of the party.

"The Wisconsin Wild Waves" by Clifford Berryman in Washington [DC] Evening Star, Aug. 19, 1925

Meanwhile, Wisconsin scheduled a special election to fill Fighting Bob LaFollette's seat in the U.S. Senate. His 30-year-old son Robert LaFollette, Jr., was heavily favored over his Republican rivals in the September 15 primary. (The leading Democratic candidate failed to get enough votes in the primary to qualify for the general election two weeks later and was forced to run as an Independent.)

"Help Aplenty" by Bill Sykes in Philadelphia Public Ledger, ca. Aug. 21, 1925

Elsewhere, the Progressive movement was hard-pressed to find a new leader. The Iowa Republican Party joined with the state's Democrats to challenge Progressive Republican Senator Smith W. Brookhart's narrow 1924 election victory over Daniel Steck; the Senate Committee on Elections and Privileges would ultimately side with Steck, and the full Senate would then vote to unseat Brookhart.

"I'll Never Quit You Entirely" by Clifford Berryman in Washington [DC] Evening Star, Aug. 18, 1925

Another potential leader of the Progressive Party was Senator George Norris, a very independent-minded Republican from Nebraska. But he quashed speculation that he could succeed LaFollette as a leader of any Third Party, vowing to remain a Republican — which didn't stop him from endorsing the Democratic Party presidential nominees in 1928 and 1932. 

Giving the lie to Berryman's cartoon, Norris did switch to the Democratic Party in 1934 and won re-election to the Senate one more time. Running six years later as an Independent, he came in second to the Republican candidate.

By the way, Norris left two lasting legacies in state and national politics. As a state legislator, he successfully championed changing Nebraska's legislature from bicameral to unicameral (the only such legislature in the country). As Senator, he wrote the 20th Amendment to the Constitution, which moved the presidential inauguration date up from March 4 to January 20.

"It Pays to Stay on a Main Traveled Road" by Ed LeCocq in Des Moines Register, Aug. 5, 1925

The Progressive Party also lost vital support as the American Federation of Labor (AFL) announced that it would thenceforth devote its political capital to wooing the two established political parties. Under Samuel Gompers, the AFL had purged socialists and communists from local union leadership positions, and would now distance itself from the Progressive Party — Bill Sykes, above, was following the major party line by labeling progressivism "radicalism" — as well.

"Thou, Too, Brutus" by Jesse Cargill for King Features Syndicate, ca. Aug. 6, 1925

With no national leader in Washington and rejected by its most viable source of support, the Progressive Party could not survive. That left Americans with the same two political parties they had to choose from since the Civil War.

"Rehearsing for the Next Big Show" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. Aug. 18, 1925