Summary

Concerned that the progressive movement was adrift, Wisconsin Sen. Robert La Follette pushed like-minded people to join a new organization, the National Progressive League, to restore the values and beliefs of the original progressive movement. These included direct elections of senators, direct primary elections, direct election of delegates to the party's national convention and state constitutional amendments providing for recall, referendum and popular initiatives. Original members included James Garfield, William Allen White, Louis Brandeis, Ray Baker and Gifford Pinchot. A sub-branch of the organization, the progressive Federation of Publicists and Editors, emerged with members such as Lincoln Steffens, S.S. McClure, Norman Hapgood.

Some newspapers saw the new group as an "anti-Taft" campaign to give Senator La Follette a leg up to nomination by the GOP as a presidential candidate. La Follette's efforts to gain support from Roosevelt came to...