Henceforth known as the "Bull Moose Party", the Progressives promised to increase federal regulation and protect the welfare of ordinary people.

The party was funded by publisher Frank Munsey and its executive secretary George Walbridge Perkins, an employee of banker J. P. Morgan and International Harvester.

In 1912, neither the Republican candidate, President of the United States William Howard Taft, nor the Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson, had endorsed women's suffrage on the national level[1] and the famed suffragette and social worker Jane Addams gave a seconding speech for Roosevelt's nomination.

[2][6] The platform's main theme was reversing the domination of politics by business interests, which allegedly controlled the Republicans' and Democrats' parties alike.

Though the platform called for limiting naval armaments, it also recommended the construction of two new battleships per year, much to the distress of outright pacifists such as Jane Addams.