The 1948 Progressive Party convention, held in Philadelphia on July 27, nominated Henry Wallace for president and Senator Glen H. Taylor for vice president. Its unusually diverse and youthful delegates gathered behind an antiwar platform, but their refusal to distance the party from Communist support and their rejection of a resolution asserting its independence from foreign governments made the convention a revealing test of the movement’s political identity.

Nominees and Delegates

More than three thousand delegates assembled under the banner of Henry Wallace’s Progressive Citizens of America, a larger gathering than either the Republican or Democratic convention had drawn. The delegates acclaimed Wallace as their presidential candidate and chose Taylor, the Idaho Democrat known as the Singing Cowboy, as his running mate.

The composition of the gathering distinguished it from the major-party conventions. Black delegates were present in impressive numbers, nearly a third of the delegates were women, and young people predominated. The average Progressive was described as twenty years younger and thirty pounds lighter than the typical Democratic or Republican delegate. Alcohol was scarce and there were no smoke-filled rooms, although the convention’s youthful energy did not come with much political experience.

Communist Support and Party Identity

The convention’s visible associations sharpened questions about the party’s character. Wallace and Taylor were not Communists, nor were most delegates, but prominent pro-Communists including Paul Robeson and New York Congressman Vito Marcantonio were present. Communists also had a conspicuous influence within the new organization, a presence that disturbed many observers and much of the country.

Wallace would not repudiate the Communist support he received, insisting that he would accept support offered in the cause of peace. Taylor, for his part, distinguished between Communists who sought change through evolution and those who favored revolution, arguing that the former could support the Progressive cause. These positions left the convention’s appeal to peace entangled with a dispute over whether the party could define itself independently of its Communist supporters.

Platform and Foreign Policy

The platform condemned the Marshall Plan, the Truman Doctrine and the new draft law, and called for the destruction of American nuclear weapons, then the only nuclear weapons known to exist. Its foreign-policy positions closely resembled those of the Communist Party of the United States of America.

A Vermont farmer, James Hayford, proposed an amendment stating that the Progressive Party did not intend to endorse the foreign policy of any other country. Delegates denounced the amendment as reflecting outside pressure and voted it down. Wallace understood that rejecting it was a mistake but did nothing to prevent the defeat. The episode made the tension plain: the party asserted a distinctive political movement while declining to adopt an explicit declaration of independence on foreign policy.

Wallace’s Acceptance Speech

Wallace delivered his acceptance speech at Shibe Park before an exuberant audience of more than thirty thousand people, all of whom had paid for their seats. Charging admission was an innovation intended to help meet the convention’s expenses. In his speech, Wallace blamed American policy for much of the world’s trouble and tension, while offering no criticism of the Soviet Union. On Berlin, he argued that there was nothing to lose by giving it up in pursuit of peace.

He also attacked the privileged interests he said controlled the established parties and sought to dominate public thought and political life. The speech brought the convention’s competing features into focus: a mass gathering marked by youth and substantial Black and female participation, alongside an inexperienced organization whose foreign-policy platform and refusal to criticize the Soviet Union intensified unease about its direction.