A SUCCESSFUL THIRD PARTY

...In 1952, the Liberal Party, running its own candidate for U. S. Senate, polled a half million votes...

...The Progressive Party, founded in 1948 with Henry Wallace at its head, saw its million votes of that year melt down to some 240,000 votes in 1952...

...The Liberal Party plays the traditional role of the third party as soapbox for an idea...

...In a special election, held in the spring of 1949, the Liberal Party ran Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., as its candidate for Congress when the Tammany machine refused a nomination to the young politico...

...it polled an almost equally large vote for Adlai Stevenson, its candidate for President...

...New York permits such double or even triple endorsement...

...While labor proposes that its rank and file endorse liberal-minded candidates, the ordinary trade union member finds it difficult to fine-comb the ballot and to sift the good from the bad or even to recall the multiple endorsements of his union...

...Its strategy is highly flexible...

...it runs mixed tickets, combining Liberal Party men, Democrats, Republicans, and independents on one slate...

...Strongly anti-Communist, it favors a strengthening of international agencies, rapid build-up of armed strength by the free world, support to the popular trade union and independence movements in other parts of the world, and speedy assistance to other peoples, particularly in the underdeveloped countries of Asia and Africa...

...New York's Liberal Party, founded in 1944, has enjoyed fairly regular growth...

...In that same election, the Liberal Party, in alliance with the Republican Party behind the liberal Republican, GUS TYLER, political director of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, is also a commentator over New York's WEVD, and an instructor at the New School...

...Ill In one major respect, however, New York's Liberal Party is vastly different from traditional third parties...

...John Childs and Dr...

...it endorses Democrats and Republicans...

...Halley won, marking the first time in the history of the city that a third party candidate carried a citywide election without the assistance of any major party...

...On the other hand, without a party of their own, New York liberals would not have the strong bargaining position of being able to run an independent candidate when both major parties failed to name a suitable person...

...Curiously enough, the Liberal Party—although born out of a vision of a greater nation in a free world —has had some of its greatest success at the municipal level: in the endless war for clean government...

...IV The highly flexible, and thus far highly successful, tactic of the Liberal Party is only possible in a state where the election law permits a candidate to appear on more than one party ticket...

...The Socialist Party, the third party with the longest continuous history of running Presidential candidates, saw its national total shrink to 20,000, leaving the party little alternative but to discontinue the rigid practice of running its own candidates...

...This is a fairly accurate description if it includes a number of striking proposals such as a public defender to speak for the consumer and an over-all expansion and democratic planning of the economy...

...it falls to the Liberal Party to play the practical role of daily critic...

...In several campaigns, the Liberal Party topped the Republican Party in the populous counties of the Bronx and Brooklyn...

...Alex Rose, president of the United Hat, Cap, and Millinery Workers' Union...

...Here neither of the old parties is a real party of opposition...

...He is active in Americans for Democratic Action and the American Veterans Committee, and is a member of both their state and city boards in New York...

...The ALP, founded in 1936, was primarily a party of New York trade unionists and affiliated ex-radicals eager to have an independent channel through which to support Franklin D. Roosevelt for President...

...Surviving the normal vicissitudes of a political party in its founding years, the Liberal Party has, within the last three years, come to a point where both New York City and New York State elections revolve largely around its decisions as a pivot...

...In a year when all third parties lost strength, the Liberal Party registered its greatest growth...

...A rigid policy of always running its own candidate would repeatedly deprive worthy candidates of Liberal Party support...

...He formerly taught at Princeton, the University of Wisconsin, Penn State, Rutgers, and New York University...

...If both major parties fail in this effort, then the Liberal Party names its own candidate on its own party line...

...Occasionally, the Liberal Party program is described as the New Deal carried to its logical conclusion...

...Although the Liberal Party was founded in a bitter fight against Communist control and its founders were nationally known anti-Communists, such as David Dubinsky, president of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union...

...The Liberal Party was founded when the old leadership of the ALP decided to break away because the parent organization had fallen into the hands of Communists...

...In 1951, the Liberal Party, seizing upon the exposes of the Senate Crime Investigating Committee, ran the Committee's chief counsel, Rudolph Halley, for the top city post open that year, president of the City Council...

...Later the same year, the Liberal Party vote gave Herbert H. Lehman the decisive margin necessary to carry him to the U. S. Senate...

...The Liberal Party plays the traditional role of a second party because, in the highly machine-organized State of New York, there are counties where the Democratic Party is the slavish servant of the Republican Party and other counties where the Republican Party is the lowly lackey of the Democratic machine...

...Finally, the Liberal Party plays the role of a first party—not only in the sense that it ultimately hopes to be the top party in its community— but more concretely in the sense that in America's metropolis it has carried a citywide election and may do it again, as civic-minded voters turn to it as the prime expression of local government without boss rule...

...The Liberal Party feels that to pursue a rigid policy of running a Liberal Party candidate at all times is to impose a strait-jacket on itself...

...The basic assumption of the Liberal Party is that there are worthy liberal elements in both the Democratic and Republican Parties...

...The Liberal Party leaders tend to refer to such a policy as a loss of independence...

...In its first year, the Liberal Party polled some 329,000 votes in New York State, placing it considerably behind the third-place American Labor Party...

...It came into being as the minority of a minority party: a split away from the American Labor Party...

...In this respect, the Liberal Party has duplicated the experiences of the old Socialist Party—part of an international ideal—with best practical success in mayoralty elections in Milwaukee, Reading, Bridgeport, South Norwalk...

...Newbold Morris, ran the campaign against William O'Dwyer...

...In the citywide election of 1951, both Democrats and Republicans had to yield first place to the Liberal Party...

...They prefer to define independence as the freedom to do as they please in line with their principle at every election...

...At the international level, too, the Liberal Party has been primarily a party of firm principle...

...Hence, the Liberal Party has had to contend not only with the normal handicaps of a third party but also with the added handicap of re-identification in a period of gross disrepute for the Communist movement...

...A Successful Third Party By Gus Tyler NEW YORK'S Liberal Party, a state-wide third party that polled a half million votes in 1952, is a singular phenomenon among the third party movements of this generation...

...To liberals outside of New York who may wish to study the operations of the Liberal Party, the novel practices of the Liberal Party may be summed up this way: The Liberal Party simultaneously seeks to play the role of a third party, a second party, and a first party...

...Roosevelt won...

...But it adds a novel appeal to the non-idealistic politician by promising the practical advantage of a good solid bloc of votes for a candidate who will be pledged to vote for a good piece of the liberal idea...

...For trade unionists, the Liberal Party line on the ballot has another mechanical advantage...

...It runs its own candidates...

...The Liberal Party line on the ballot is a listing of candidates carrying the pure "food and drug" stamp of the Liberal Party...

...In the upcoming municipal election of 1953 in New York City, the Liberal Party holds a commanding position...

...It is the aim of the Liberal Party to encourage the growth of such elements, both for the immediate and for the ultimate moment when "liberals" may re-align across party lines to create new political lines in America...

...By voting the straight Liberal Party ticket, a voter ballots for a program and simultaneously supports those Democrats and Republicans who are within the general embrace of the liberal program...

...The direct means for encouraging the growth of such liberal forces is to promise Liberal Party endorsement whenever the Republican and Democratic Parties put forward worthy candidates...

...The flexible policy attempts to combine principled with practical politics...

...II In its rise from fourth to third party in the state, the Liberal Party has not only forced the American Labor Party down to the hard-rock vote of 60,000 in the state, but has simultaneously challenged the Republican and Democratic Parties for major party status...

...Its long-range objective is a mixed economy, with private, cooperative, and public ownership existing side-by-side, with necessary governmental controls to protect the public interest against the private, exploiter...

...George S. Counts of Columbia University, many voters could not, in the first years, distinguish between the Liberal Party and the ALP...

...This practice has the advantage of preserving the integrity of the Liberal Party without dividing the strength of liberal elements on Election Day...

...In one respect, the Liberal Party resembles most third parties in the United States: it is a party of program and principle...