Chapter XII 



THIRD-PARTY IDEOLOGIES 



1920-24 



LESS successful than the farm bloc but nonetheless an important phase 

 of agrarian unrest in the western Middle West was the launching 

 of third parties that were based on farmer-labor cooperation. Such pro- 

 grams for political action were spearheaded by elements within the Equity 

 Society and the Nonpartisan League, the La Follette Progressives, liberals 

 of various shades, and labor leaders who felt that the time was ripe for an 

 American counterpart of the British Labor party. The Farm Bureau, as 

 was to be expected, came out against this movement in unmistakable 

 terms; the two major parties also viewed it with misgivings and conserva- 

 tives everywhere fought it, but the farmer-labor challenge was to remain 

 a vital force as long as farmers and labor had common grievances. The 

 Farmer-Laborites went down to defeat in the national elections of 1920, 

 but they also took some comfort in the victory of Ladd in North Dakota 

 and the showings of Brookhart in Iowa and Shipstead in Minnesota. In 

 1922 the re-election of La Follette, along with the senatorial victories 

 of Shipstead, Brookhart, and Howell in Nebraska and gubernatorial 

 triumphs of progressives in Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Kansas, gave the 

 progressives and Farmer-Laborites fresh courage. The victory of Magnus 

 Johnson in Minnesota in the following year also was encouraging. The 

 climax was finally reached in 1924 when La Follette bolted the Repub- 

 lican party to head an independent ticket. 



