The Fourth Party System was a period of American political history from 1896 to 1932, coinciding with the Progressive Era. The era saw a major realignment in both the Democratic and Republican parties as national attention shifted from racial and American Civil War-related issues (the Third Party System) towards the government regulation of railroads and large corporations, the gold standard, the protective tariff, the role of labor unions, child labor, the need for a new banking system, corruption in party politics, primary elections, the introduction of the federal income tax, the direct election of US Senators, racial segregation, efficiency in government, women's suffrage, and immigration restrictions. The era saw the United States engage in the Spanish-American War, the Philippine-American War, the Banana Wars, and World War I and saw the onset of the Great Depression, which led to the New Deal and the rise of the Fifth Party System.
The major parties were:
The Democrats were a conservative political party founded by Andrew Jackson in 1828. The party was dominated by conservatives until the 1890s, when the rise of the Populist Party led to the Democrats running the populist and progressive William Jennings Bryan as their presidential candidate in the 1896 election. The progressive wing of the Democratic Party emerged as the dominant faction outside of the South during the 1900s, overcoming the conservative and pro-business Bourbon Democrats. Under President Woodrow Wilson, the Democrats supported a reduced tariff, stronger antitrust laws, new programs for farmers, hours-and-pay benefits for railroad workers, and the outlawing of child labor, although they tolerated segregation. Wilson also ended the debates over tariffs, money, and antitrust laws which defined the Third Party System, and he supported women's suffrage and Prohibition, two major bipartisan reforms. The party represented farmers, laborers, labor unions, and religious and ethnic minorities (including Catholics, Jews, and Southern and Eastern European immigrants), opposed unregulated business and finance, and favored progressive income taxes. During the 1920s, the party's pro-business wing had its last gasp under Al Smith, and it virtually disappeared outside of the South during the New Deal.
The Southern Democrats were the reactionary and pro-business Southern wing of the Democratic Party. While the national Democrats were influenced by the progressive movements of the early 20th century, the Southern Democrats continued to hold firm to their outdated Jeffersonian beliefs, staunchly supporting states' rights, property rights, and internationalism, while also supporting white supremacism, the disenfranchisement and segregation of African-Americans, and economic liberalism. The Southern Democrats were a coalition of conservative-populist poor white farmers, fiscally-conservative and pro-business elites, and Catholic immigrants to the South, and they were united in their belief in white supremacy and African-American inferiority.
The Republicans were a classical liberal political party formed in 1854 in opposition to the spread of slavery. The Republicans were motivated by their Protestant piety and moral rectitude, with evangelical Protestants flocking to their banner and liturgical Protestants and religious minorities such as Catholics and Jews flocking to the Democrats. The Republicans supported moral reforms such as Prohibition, women's suffrage, and African-American civil rights, but they were divided over their support for business interests. The party's conservative and imperialist wing was dominant under President William McKinley, supporting the power of the "robber barons" of American industry against the increasingly-powerful labor unions and permitting child labor. However, Theodore Roosevelt led the party's progressive wing as President from 1901 to 1909, supporting "New Nationalism"; he believed that it was the United States' duty to spread civilization to its colonies of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Pacific islands, and supported the assimilation of immigrants. In 1909, William Howard Taft became President, bringing the big business and laissez-faire faction back into power. In 1912, the Republican Party experienced a split when Roosevelt and the party's progressive wing split to form the Bull Moose Party, which opposed the conservative takeover of the Republican Party and supported labor unions and progressive reforms. The split in the Republican Party contributed to the Democratic victory in the 1912 presidential election, and, while many progressives returned to the Republican Party, others joined the Democrats or the Progressive Party. The Republicans had the support of evangelicals, white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, and business interests, and they held dominance over the industrial Northeast, the border states, the Midwest, and the American West. While they were progressive in terms of labor legislation, supported women's suffrage, and opposed the US entry into World War I, they were anti-immigration, passing the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Immigration Act of 1924.- The Socialist Party of America was a socialist political party which was founded in 1901 as a coalition of trade unionists, progressive social reformers, populist farmers, and immigrants (especially Germans in New York and the Midwest). While the party achieved widespread support among the working-class as part of a backlash against the country's embrace of economic liberalism, it refused to allow its members to vote for other parties, contributing to its inability to win any presidential elections. However, Eugene V. Debs twice won over 900,000 votes in the 1912 and 1920 presidential elections, and Socialists Victor L. Berger and Meyer London were elected to the US House of Representatives, dozens of Socialists were elected to state legislatures, and more than a hundred were elected as mayors. The party was shattered due to its opposition to World War I, which it saw as American imperialism, and it was weakened by the split of Communist Party USA in 1919.
