Progressive Party (United States, 1912)
In the United States, the Progressive Party of 1912 was a political party created by a split in the Republican Party in the presidential election of 1912. It was formed by Theodore Roosevelt when he lost the Republican nomination to William Howard Taft and pulled his delegates out of the convention. The party is colloquially also known as the Bull Moose Party, after the party’s emblem and after Roosevelt’s boast that he was “as strong as a bull moose”. The great majority of Republican governors, congressmen, editors and local leaders refused to join the new party, even if they had supported Roosevelt before. Johnson, the Vice-Presidential nominee, who had been elected Governor in California in 1910, remained a member of the Republican Party (GOP) because his supporters took control of the GOP in California. However, many independent reformers signed up. Two important activists were Gifford Pinchot and his brother Amos Pinchot.
