1904 United States election

Republican Party
1904 was truly a tumultuous year in politics. Nowhere was this more the case than in the Republican Party. Strong voices of “Progressivism” in the party, among them Vice President Theodore Roosevelt and Wisconsin Governor Robert La Follette have become deeply dissatisfied with the state of American politics. With the overturn of the Sherman Antitrust Act, the lack of will to challenge the courts in the party, and the McKinley government's overly cavalier attitude in dealing with organized labor, they felt that the federal government and the state administrations controlled by the party had done great damage to the nation, and aggravated a growing class war.

In spite of the vulgar rhetoric thrown at them by the conservative branch of the Republican Party, the Progressive Republicans were not socialists; or even social democrats at that matter. Almost none of them were opposed to trusts on principle, and many have no love for organized labor. However, they did recognize that a state overtly colluding with the masters of capital on such a grand scale was tearing the nation apart. In their nationalism, they believed that a reconciliation between classes must be achieved; the excesses of capitalism must be restrained, the people must have some democratic voice in their governance.

Former Vice President and noted Progressive Theodore Roosevelt, though carrying considerable popular support going into the convention, was unable to defeat the retrenched conservatives in the presidential nomination. In a heated series of ballots, the conservative Charles Fairbanks swept aside Roosevelt, clinching the nomination.

As his running mate, the party selected a relative moderate, William Howard Taft, a lawyer from Ohio and former governor of the Philippines.

Democratic Party
The Democrats, at their St. Louis national convention, would ultimately thrust New York Appeals Court Judge Alton B. Parker into the limelight. A man with immaculate credentials and an air of seeming incorruptibility, Parker turned the party's campaign against “the rule of individual caprice” and “the presidential office's growing abuse of authority.”

The party platform would condemn the excesses of monopolies, high government expenses, and corruption within the executive departments. In spite of some of these paeans to populism, the party's platform remained essentially Bourbon in nature, favoring the gold standard, free trade and a relatively laissez-faire government attitude. While this put the Democrats at cross-purposes with the growing Legalist Progressives faction of the GOP, some common causes were found in the reduction of corruption and the limitation of presidential authority.

Socialist Labor Party
1904 would be American Railway Union chairman Eugene Debs' second run for president. A brilliant, charismatic orator capable of uniting both AF of L supporters as well as his own STLA union's constituency, Debs gave “socialist treason” a human face. Supported by SLP stalwart William Wesley Cox as his running mate, Debs would greatly expand both the SLP's membership rolls as well as its vote share through the course of the campaign.

The 1904 campaign saw the first chink in the AF of L's armor as well. Defiance of AF of L president Samuel Gompers’ explicit voluntarist philosophy became more common among union locals of AF of L affiliates, particularly among teamsters, brewers and locomotive engineers.

For the first time,The SLP also expanded into the traditional rural domains of the People's Party. Shattered by collusion and subsequent betrayal by the Democratic Party, the remnants of the Populists' organizations largely signed on to support Debs' call for a broad producers' alliance between industrial labor and yeoman farmers. This alliance was not yet universal, and many Populist groups did not actively endorse Debs' candidacy or make alliances with industrial labor. However, with the disintegration of much of the Populists' national organization those opposed to alignment with the SLP were unable to run a Populist candidate in the election.

Outcome
The Republican candidate Charles Fairbanks won with a clear majority, having over 55% of the popular vote and 336 electoral votes. Meanwhile, the Socialist Labor Party begins to grow as a formidable opposition and alternative to both the Capitalist Parties of the era. While the Socialist Labor Party(By then the Workers' Communist Party) will not have won an election until 1932 under Norman Thomas, this election begins a trend that will continue for the following decades.

Aftermath
In the aftermath, the Progressive Republicans themselves faced internal conflict over the proper course of action. The “Legalist Progressives,” represented among the professional politicians, civil servants, in the law schools and bar associations, argued that the movement as a whole needed to change tack and adapt to the new conditions. The majority of GOP Progressives, their intellectual center adopted a kind of proto-corporatist philosophy. Now that breaking up trusts was no longer on the table, they argued that the government must take an increased role to manage the excesses of capitalism in a more cooperative manner. The cartels would be need to be “guided” by the federal government to produce socially desirable outcomes, regulating prices and quality, with the government serving as the umpire between organized labor and large capitalists. Heavily influenced by political scholar Woodrow Wilson's treatise Congressional Government, the Legalist Progressives believed some form of constitutional form, likely pro-parliamentary, was necessary to reduce the “politics of personality” for the health of the republic.

In contrast, the “Populist Progressives” became embittered by what was seen as a betrayal of the principles of the Grand Old Party of Lincoln. Government of the people, by the people, they argued, could not be achieved through rational scientific management of the opposing classes of society. Without some material leveling, the republic itself was fast becoming an impossibility. Embittered and defeated in the post-election era, many of the faction felt they had been driven into the political wilderness.