A Third Party in the United States

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22390, 2 May 1938, Page 8

A Third Party in the United States

Starting third parties has become so much of a habit with the La Fbllette family that their latest venture is not likely to arouse much interest. Indeed, it may even be doubted whether what has happened can properly be regarded as the emergence of a new party. Robert La Follette Is still a Republican; his^ons—R. M. La Follette and P. F. La Follette—formed an alliance with the Democrats just about the time when it became apparent that Mr Roosevelt was going to sweep the nation. The alliance has come to an end; but whether anything more than this has happened remains to be seen. Of the many third parties which have come into existence in the United States in the last century, only those which have been the result of fission in one or other of the older parties have been strong enough to exercise a decisive result in elections. Those which have started de novo in the electorate—as for instance the curious Coughlin-Lemke-Town-send party in the last presidential election—are invariably fiascos. The prospects of the La Follettes, as leaders of a national party, seem to depend, therefore, on whether they are joined by any substantial body of Democrat malcontents, a development which seems at the moment highly improbable. It may be, however, that the La Follettes have based their hopes, not on the possibility of a split in the Democrat Party, but on the possibility of an alliance between organised labour and the farmers. There have lately been signs that the C.1.0. unions, which are now stronger politically than the more conservative Federation of Labour, are growing impatient at the difficulty of pinning politicians to their promises. “The spectacle of august and dignified “members of Congress hiding their faces in “a party caucus to prevent a quorum from “acting on a labour measure,” declared Mr John L. Lewis recently, “is one that empha“sises the perfidy of politicians and blasts the

“ confidence of labour’s millions in politicians* “promises and statesmen’s vows.” It may oe suspected, however, that when American labour does make a direct entry into politics it will do so without the assistance of such compromising allies as the La Follettes.