THIRD-PARTY IDEOLOGIES 



businessmen, and professional men, was ample evidence of this. La Fol- 

 lette talked of restoring democracy in government, but turned around, 

 after the fashion of a dictator, to hand down a decision that he would run 

 for President not as the candidate of a party but as an independent. "The 

 king has spoken. The convention must swallow it." Workers and farmers, 

 they said, had enough intelligence to rely on their organized strength 

 rather than "upon the ukases of an individual even though he be Robert 

 M. La Follette." His objective was "to lead the workers back to '76" and 

 not forward. Socialization of industry was the sole hope of the farmers 

 and workers, not trust busting. 65 



A couple of weeks after the C.P.P.A. convention La Follette re-empha- 

 sized the fact that he was going to run as an independent and not on a 

 Farmer-Labor ticket in any state. He had received numerous telegrams 

 from Farmer-Labor groups in several states asking him to run on that 

 ticket to help them build up their organizations for future campaigns, 

 but he refused. La Follette believed that his chances for obtaining Re- 

 publican and Democratic votes in both states would be lessened if he ran 

 as a Farmer-Laborite, and his managers had advised him that he would 

 get the Farmer-Labor votes regardless of local politics. For instance, North 

 Dakota was considered safe for La Follette, since four out of five of the 

 Republican electors there had already declared themselves for him. 66 



The reasons for his refusal to associate himself with state Farmer-Labor 

 tickets were several. First, he considered it bad politics to associate him- 

 self with any single element in the general movement that he headed. 

 There were prospects of serious conflicts between the aims of the farmers 

 and the railroad labor groups. His position would be weakened considera- 

 bly if he were tied to platforms and organizations over which he had no 

 control. Second, La Follette's strategy was to make it possible for Re- 

 publicans and Democrats to desert their tickets and support him without 

 placing themselves under the need for assuming the burden of a new 

 party structure. Third, La Follette wanted to be a free agent after the 

 campaign to move about as he pleased without the baggage and impedi- 

 ments which a hard and fast political party would bring. He did not want 

 to be swallowed up by the independent movement. He wanted "to be the 



65. Ibid., July 6, 1924. 



66. Pioneer Press, July 22, 1924. 



