THIRD-PARTY IDEOLOGIES 



ing, transportation and all important business enterprises. Through grain 

 exchanges, elevator combinations and packing monopolies markets are 

 manipulated and prices fixed on all products of the farm."" 



One of the big problems before the convention was the question of 

 actually forming a third party, and not merely confining the movement to 

 the setting up an independent ticket without a formal organization. La 

 Follette supporters, who knew that the senator did not want to be tied 

 to a third party, at least at that stage, sought to have him endorsed im- 

 mediately, but Morris Hillquit, head of the New York Socialist delegation, 

 promptly objected on the grounds that the convention was not officially 

 organized and that the chairman of the credentials committee had not 

 yet made his report. The Socialists succeeded in postponing the endorse- 

 ment, but they were not able to bring about the formation of the third 

 party. 60 



The progressives fully understood the value of appealing to tradition. 

 There followed in the convention the reading of the Declaration of In- 

 dependence and of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Little time was lost 

 in likening La Follette to Abraham Lincoln. 61 



The platform presented to the convention, a model from the standpoint 

 of brevity, was drafted by La Follette himself and showed no evidence of 

 control by either "Wall Street or Moscow." It was less than a thousand 

 words in length and had in it fourteen specific pledges, ranging from the 

 restoration of excess-profits taxes to public ownership of railroads and 

 the repeal of the Esch-Cummins Law. The document was read by Donald 

 A. Richberg, the general counsel for the railway brotherhoods and the 

 chairman of the platform committee. 62 



The matter of nominating a vice-presidential candidate also confronted 

 the convention. For a time, Louis Brandeis, long a personal as well as 

 political friend of La Follette, was mentioned; the slate of "La Follette 

 and Brandeis" was favored by some because it would link the East and 

 the West and thus be geographically correct. Other vice-presidential sug- 

 gestions included Huston Thompson, chairman of the Federal Trade 



59. New Yor% Times, July 5, 1924. 



60. Kenneth C. MacKay, The Progressive Movement of 1924 (New York, 1947), 

 pp. 119-20. 



61. New Yor\ Times, July 5, 1924. 



62. Ibid., July 6, 1924. 



