35 2 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



like similar conventions in the past, there was "no hymn-singing ... no 

 sense of battling at Armageddon. If there has been, the conference anthem 

 would have had to be: 'We don't know where we're going, but we're on 

 our way.' . . ." The conference moved slowly because it was not sure 

 whether the Republicans would nominate La Follette in 1924, and also 

 because the railroad men who dominated it were afraid that the radicals 

 would take over the movement. This same observer also commented on 

 the restrained temper of the delegates. Most of the labor representatives 

 "were comfortable-looking and gray-haired, obviously men of prominence 

 in their communities. They stayed at the best of hotels, and plainly saw 

 no reason why they should not be expected to do so. . . ." 2 



With the elections and the progressive conferences over, the strategy 

 and the tactics that the progressive bloc hoped to employ in the Sixty- 

 eighth Congress became of more than passing interest. The strength of 

 the bloc in the lower house was placed at about sixty, which progressives 

 hoped would be enough to nullify the Republican majority. Into this 

 had gone many House members of the old farm bloc. Again, as was to be 

 expected, the backbone of this new bloc was furnished by representatives 

 from the western Middle West. There were pledged to it ten men from 

 Wisconsin, seven from Minnesota, five from Iowa, four from Kansas, 

 three each from Illinois and Nebraska, two each from California and 

 New York, and one each from North Dakota, South Dakota, and 

 Michigan. 



The strategy of the progressives, as understood at the time, was not to 

 bolt the Republican party, but to resist all efforts to pack the Interstate 

 Commerce Commission, the Ways and Means Committee, and to some 

 extent the Rules Committee to make it impossible to suppress desirable 

 or to promote undesirable legislation. Some considered this La Follette 

 strategy as timely because of an oligarchy that appeared to have sprung 

 up around the Steering Committee, the Speaker, and the chairman of the 

 Rules Committee. Significantly, this progressive minority challenged the 

 administration fully nine months before the new session of Congress 

 convened. It was even hinted that this possibly could have the effect of 



23. "The Bricks of the New Party," The Nation, CXV (December 27, 1922), 

 p. 707. 



