Summary

From the outset, there were contradictions and paradoxes in the NPP. Roosevelt gave permission to states in the Old South to send only white delegates, although blacks from the north were admitted. Roosevelt rationalized his position by saying that racial progress would come only when unnamed "high-minded white men" in southern states decided to allow blacks to participate. He was also criticized for trying to give life to a national party using a sectionalist, or regional, approach. On most of the big progressive issues, however, there was near unanimity. The NPP convention drew people not usually seen at political conventions—young people, liberated women, suffragettes, social workers. And it was also clear from the outset that this was Roosevelt's party; he was the sole reason for its existence.

At the party's first convention in Chicago, Roosevelt repeated the themes of his candidacy: an...