Socialist Party

Since the 1870s, critics of American capitalism had been seeking an improvement in working conditions and a more equitable distribution of wealth. Some on the left end of the political spectrum advocated reform, while others went so far as to agitate for revolution. As you have observed, reformers such as the Populists and the Progressives formed third parties in an effort to achieve their political and economic objectives. Although these left-wing parties never achieved victory in a presidential contest, they nonetheless enjoyed some success in state and local elections.

In 1912, for example, approximately 1,200 candidates running on the Socialist Party ticket were elected to various state and local offices. That year, voters in 79 cities chose socialist mayors, and one city, Milwaukee, sent a socialist named Victor Berger to Congress. Eugene Debs, the Socialist Party leader and perennial presidential candidate, received 900,000 votes in the 1912 election. Eight years later, Debs, an outspoken critic of the government during World War I, was in prison after being convicted under the Espionage Act, but he still managed to exceed his 1912 vote total by some 15,000 ballots.

A look at the fortunes of the Socialist Party candidate in the presidential election of 1932 reveals the influence that third parties can have on the American political system even when they fail to achieve electoral victories. After the stock market crash of October 1929, the nation became mired in the depths of an economic depression the likes of which the country had never seen. By 1932, the American industrial engine had slowed to a virtual standstill, Midwestern farmers were facing bankruptcy and foreclosure, and the unemployment rate hovered between 25 and 30 percent. Yet, President Herbert Hoover (a Republican) opposed direct federal relief for unemployed American workers and refused to further expand federal public works programs. The free-market system that had produced the world's largest middle class and its most stable democracy was in danger of collapse.

If there was ever a ripe moment for the political fortunes of the Socialist Party, the election of 1932 was it. Indeed, Norman Thomas, the Socialist presidential candidate, polled 884,000 votes, more than tripling his total from the previous election. Yet Thomas' vote total amounted to only four percent of the votes received by the Democratic Party candidate and winner of the 1932 election, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Although he was the nominee of a more mainstream political party, Roosevelt's stunning electoral victory was due in large part to his promise of a "New Deal" for Americans suffering from the Great Depression. During his first three months in office, Roosevelt instituted a huge federal public works program to aid the unemployed, stabilized the banking industry, and provided payments and other assistance to impoverished farmers. Subsequent New Deal legislation guaranteed collective bargaining rights to union members and established the Social Security and unemployment compensation systems still in existence today.

Once the New Deal gained the support of a conservative Supreme Court, the idea that the federal government should play a large role in regulating the national economy, an idea formerly advocated only by socialists and other reformers on the left, became a permanent fixture in mainstream American politics. Today, Republican and Democratic politicians still vigorously debate exactly how much of a role the federal government should play in managing the economy, but widespread agreement remains that there is a need for federal regulation of large corporations, especially in the wake of the recent collapse of Enron and other corporate accounting scandals.