Abstract

Exit the Wisconsin Progressives

A Wisconsin farmer with a gift for homely and colorful expression rose to his feet. He was one of 425 delegates gathered at the little city of Portage to assist at the burial rites of the state's twelve-year-old Progressive Party. It was not an easy decision for Progressives, long accustomed to damning Republicans, to make. There were a number of reasons for their action. For one thing, hard as it was to admit it, they recognized that the Progressive Party organization had collapsed completely in 1944, when for the first time in its history, it ran an ignominious third. They recognized too that as Republicans their candidates for county sod legislative offices would have a better chance of being elected in traditionally Republican Wisconsin.