National Party (United States)

These adherents of the SPA Right first formed a non-partisan national society to propagandize the socialist idea called the Social Democratic League of America.

The National Party seems to have begun as a byproduct of personal coalitions around single-issue advocacy, such as the drive for constitutional amendments for woman's suffrage and prohibition.

Coming together to lobby Congress and the Wilson Administration on behalf of these measures, activists came to realize their common vision in practical terms, despite whatever philosophical differences they might have harbored in the theoretical plain.

Thus veterans of the Progressive Party believing in the "spirit of 1912," Prohibitionists, suffragists, Single-Taxers, and Socialists began to talk amongst themselves about the possibility of uniting their forces in a new political organization to advance their common cause.

Those not wishing to cast their lot with the organization as full members could gain "sympathizer" status through the purchase of an annual button for fifty cents.

[1] The founding conference of the National Party adopted a tentative platform declaring for universal and equal suffrage; for strong advocacy of the rights of Initiative, Referendum, and Recall; for the absentee ballot as a means of enfranchising and deradicalizing transient labor; for prohibition of the sale and use of alcoholic beverages; for prison reform; for a system of proportional representation allowing minor parties representation according to voting strength; and for government ownership of transportation, communications, and other natural monopolies.

"[5] This had been a comparatively moderate document dominated by the party's right wing, placing emphasis upon immediate ameliorative demands rather than long-term universal objectives.