Fourth Party System
The Fourth Party System was the political party system in the United States from about 1896 to 1932 that was dominated by the Republican Party, except the 1912 split in which Democrats captured the White House and held it for eight years.
American history texts usually call the period the Progressive Era. The concept was introduced under the name "System of 1896" by E. E. Schattschneider in 1960, and the numbering scheme was added by political scientists in the mid-1960s.[1]
The period featured a transformation from the issues of the Third Party System, which had focused on the American Civil War, Reconstruction, race, and monetary issues. The era began in the severe depression of 1893 and the extraordinarily intense election of 1896. It included the Progressive Era, World War I, and the start of the Great Depression. The Great Depression caused a realignment that produced the Fifth Party System, dominated by the Democratic New Deal Coalition until the 1970s.
The central domestic issues concerned government regulation of railroads and large corporations ("trusts"), the money issue (gold versus silver), the protective tariff, the role of labor unions, child labor, the need for a new banking system, corruption in party politics, primary elections, the introduction of the federal income tax, direct election of senators, racial segregation, efficiency in government, women's suffrage, and control of immigration. Foreign policy centered on the 1898 Spanish–American War, Imperialism, the Mexican Revolution, World War I, and the creation of the League of Nations. Dominant personalities included presidents William McKinley (R), Theodore Roosevelt (R), and Woodrow Wilson (D), three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan (D), and Wisconsin's progressive Republican Robert M. La Follette Sr.
Beginnings[edit]
The period began with the realignment of 1894–96. The 1896 presidential election is often seen as a realigning election, as McKinley's view of a stronger central government building American industry through protective tariffs and a dollar based on gold triumphed.[2][3] The voting patterns established then displaced the near-deadlock the major parties had held seen since the Civil War; the Republicans would dominate the nation (with a brief exception in the mid-1910s) until 1932, another realigning election with the ascent of Franklin Roosevelt.[4] Phillips argues that, with the possible exception of Iowa Senator Allison, McKinley was the only Republican who could have defeated Bryan—he theorized that eastern candidates such as Morton or Reed would have done badly against the Illinois-born Bryan in the crucial Midwest. According to the biographer, though Bryan was popular among rural voters, "McKinley appealed to a very different industrialized, urbanized America."[5]
The Republican victory in 1896 over William Jennings Bryan and his Democratic Party was relatively close the first time. When Republican victory repeated in 1900 by an even bigger margin, business confidence was restored, a long epoch of prosperity was inaugurated, and most of the issues and personalities of the Third Party System were swept away. Most voting blocs continued unchanged, but some realignment took place giving Republicans dominance in the industrial Northeast and new strength in the border states. Thus, the way was clear for the Progressive Movement to impose a new way of thinking and a new agenda for politics.[6]
During this period, a generational shift took place as the veterans of the Civil War aged out and were replaced by a younger generation more concerned with social justice and curbing the inequalities of industrial capitalism.[7] The Democratic Party, after largely being excluded from national politics in the decades following the Civil War, would see a resurgence during this period thanks to the new immigrant voting blocs. The presidency of Woodrow Wilson marked a watershed as a new generation of Democrats without the baggage of slavery and secession.[8] Meanwhile, the Republican Party, after a brief fling with progressivism under Theodore Roosevelt, quickly reasserted itself as the party of big business and laissez-faire capitalism.[9]
Progressive reforms[edit]
Alarmed at the new rules of the game for campaign funding, the Progressives launched investigations and exposures (by the "muckraker" journalists) into corrupt links between party bosses and business. New laws and constitutional amendments weakened the party bosses by installing primaries and directly electing senators.[12] Theodore Roosevelt shared the growing concern with business influence on government. When William Howard Taft appeared to be too cozy with pro-business conservatives in terms of tariff and conservation issues, Roosevelt broke with his old friend and his old party. He crusaded for president in 1912 at the head of an ill-fated "Bull Moose" Progressive party. The schism with Roosevelt helped elect Woodrow Wilson in 1912 and left pro-business conservatives as the dominant force in the GOP. The GOP elected Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge. In 1928 Herbert Hoover became the last president of the Fourth Party System.
Many of the Progressives, especially in the Democratic Party supported labor unions. Unions did become important components of the Democratic Party during the Fifth Party System. However, historians have long debated why no Labor Party emerged in the United States, in contrast to Western Europe.[13]
The Great Depression that began in 1929 spoiled the nation's optimism and ruined Republican chances. In long-term perspective Al Smith in 1928 started a voter realignment—a new coalition—based among ethnics and big cities that spelled the end of classless politics of the Fourth Party System and helped usher in the Fifth Party System with Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal coalition.[14] As one political scientist explains, "The election of 1896 ushered in the Fourth Party System ... [but] not until 1928, with the nomination of Al Smith, a northeastern reformer, did Democrats make gains among the urban, blue-collar, and Catholic voters who were later to become core components of the New Deal coalition and break the pattern of minimal class polarization that had characterized the Fourth Party System."[15] In 1932 the landslide victory of Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt led to the New Deal coalition which dominated the Fifth Party System, after 1932.