THE LIBERAL PARTY IN THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1944
 The Liberal party's maiden presidential
campaign was a very active one, which included sponsoring a huge rally at Madison Square Garden,
placing newspaper ads and sponsoring radio programs. Terming itself "the party of tomorrow
doing a job today," the party's campaign materials included a button, literature and posters.
The party's button was a 1 1/8" size litho that used the official 1944 campaign photo of FDR
and was made by the Green Duck Co. of Chicago (Hake FDR 145). The wording and graphics of the
button were very much keyed to the New York ballot. The "Vote Row F" slogan refers to the fact
that historically New York has used an unusual, cross-hatched ballot, in which each of the
parties and their candidates are listed on horizontal lines, and the candidates for the
various offices being voted upon are listed in vertical columns. As a new party in 1944, the
Liberal Party and its candidates had the last line on the ballot, which was the sixth line
(the five parties above the Liberal Party in 1944 were, in order, the Republican, Democratic,
American Labor, Socialist and Industrial Government parties). For each party, the ballot also
shows a party emblem, and the emblem of the Liberal Party was the Liberty Bell, as shown on
the party's FDR button.
The Madison Square Garden rally took place on October 31, one week before Election Day,
and it was broadcast nationally over the radio. What made the rally unique is that it
featured the campaign's only joint appearance of vice presidential nominee Harry Truman
and the man he replaced on the ticket, Henry Wallace.
The rally had some comic-opera aspects. Wallace was not at the Garden at the time the
rally was to begin, and Dubinsky and the party leaders - who were not fans of Wallace to
begin with - immediately became concerned that he was intentionally delaying his arrival.
The thought was that the crowd was very much pro-Wallace, and that if he came on stage after
the rally started, he'd receive a huge ovation that would embarrass Truman before the national
radio audience. The organizers simply delayed the start of the rally until Wallace arrived,
but it was a very tense, angry time for them as Wallace didn't appear until just before the
(very expensive) broadcast was to begin. It seems the organizers had one other card up their
sleeve, as one of their people handled the logistics of the radio broadcast. Reportedly he
increased the volume of the ovation for Truman and decreased it for that of Wallace, so that
the radio audience wouldn't detect the crowd's preference for Wallace.
There was also at least one intentionally comic moment during the rally, which involved
two show-business stars who were on the program: the great tap-dancer, Bill Robinson,
and Frank Sinatra, who was at the time the absolute heart-throb of teenage girls
(so much so that their reaction to him at his concerts was something of a precursor to the
Beatlemania that would sweep the country twenty years later). According to an article in the
next day's New York Times, both gave brief speeches on behalf of FDR, and then, at Robinson's
prompting, Sinatra gave an impromptu performance of his hit "I'll Be Seeing You" while Robinson
danced some accompanying steps. Then, quite unexpectedly, the two switched places, and,
according to the newspaper story, "Mr. Robinson sang while the younger man tried feebly to
imitate his steps."
While the ILGWU conducted its own campaign for the Roosevelt-Truman ticket, it also
issued some items in support of the Liberal party. It seems that one of these is a round
ILGWU Roosevelt tab that pictures a Liberty Bell, which, as noted above, was the party's symbol.
LIBERAL PARTY PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS, 1948-2000
Of the fifteen presidential campaigns
that took place in the period of 1944 to 2000, the Liberal Party issued one or more buttons
in at least eight of them - not too bad of a record.
 Although, according to Dubinsky's autobiography, the party was very active in behalf of
Harry Truman in the 1948 campaign, it apparently didn't issue a button that year.
The party again sponsored a huge rally for Truman at Madison Square Garden, and Truman
later said the rally was the highpoint of the campaign. Dubinsky states that in 1948
the New York Democratic Party, believing - like nearly everyone else - that Truman
didn't have a chance, didn't lift a finger for him, and so the burden of the campaign
in New York fell to the Liberal Party. Its active support of Truman was especially important
because, as noted above, Henry Wallace had the American Labor Party's nomination that year.
Nevertheless, Truman lost New York State to Dewey by a whisker.
There is a Liberal Party button for Adlai Stevenson - a somewhat unusual name button
that has a powder blue border, a small image of a Liberty Bell, and the wording "Liberal Party
Stevenson Row C" (Hake STE 88). It is not clear whether that button was issued in 1952 or 1956.
In those elections, the party was on Row C of the ballot, having leapfrogged the American Labor
and other third parties that had preceded it on the 1944 ballot. As we shall see, the party
held Row C until the late 1960's.
In a number of respects, the 1960 campaign of John Kennedy was the Liberal Party's high-water mark.
In 1960, New York State returned to the Democratic column for the first time in four presidential
elections. And as the party would often boast in its literature, the party provided over 400,000
votes for Kennedy, which was more than his margin of victory in New York. The party issued at
least two pinbacks in the 1960 campaign: a simple, 7/8" celluloid name button with the wording
"Liberal Kennedy Row C" in black and green on white (Hake KEN 108), and a small flasher in the
shape of a Liberty Bell (Hake KEN 2029).
For the 1964 campaign of Lyndon Johnson, it seems
the party issued three buttons. One was similar to the Kennedy button, with the wording
"Liberal Johnson Row C", except that this one was lithograph and was printed in red on white
(Hake JOH 63). There is also a very similar name button that is red and blue on white, but
that says "Column C" instead of "Row C". The apparent reason for the use of the term "column"
on campaign material, in addition to "row", is that in 1964 at least some jurisdictions in
New York began to use new voting machines on which the various political parties were listed in
vertical columns, instead of horizontal lines. On those machines, the Liberal Party was
"Column C". There is also a 3 ½" Johnson-Humphrey-Kennedy trigate that pictures a Liberty Bell
(Hake JOH 2037) and that seems to have been issued by the party.
Although Johnson overwhelmed Goldwater at the polls, the Liberal Party vote for LBJ was
only 342,432 - about 64,000 less than the vote for Kennedy in 1960.
The party's vote for the Democratic presidential candidate declined further
in each campaign after that through 1976, when the Liberal Party vote for Jimmy
Carter was only 145,393. Dubinsky's autobiography states that in 1966, after he had
retired as the head of the ILGWU, the union severed its ties with the party.
It seems the party did not issue any buttons for Hubert Humphrey's 1968 campaign.
A collector who wrote to the party in the fall of that year requesting campaign
materials was sent some standard Humphrey-Muskie litho name buttons, along with
brochures featuring the party's ticket of Humphrey, Muskie and incumbent Republican
Senator Jacob Javits. Javits had been given the party's nomination over Democratic
candidate Paul O'Dwyer, who was strongly anti-war and had been active on behalf of
Eugene McCarthy.
In 1968, the Liberal Party was demoted to Row (or Column) D on the ballot.
The reason for this is that in the 1966 New York gubernatorial campaign, the
nominee of the then-new Conservative Party, Paul Adams, slightly out-polled the
Liberal Party nominee, Franklin Roosevelt, Jr.
Not surprisingly, in 1972 the party issued a button and other items for the George
McGovern campaign. The button was an interestingly designed 1 3/8" litho name button
with the wording "McGovern Shriver Liberal Column D", with the name of the manufacturer,
N.G. Slater Co. of New York, on the curl (Hake LIB 4). Perhaps someone having knowledge of
colors can identify the color of this one - is it hot pink, or magenta? A collector recalls
visiting the Liberal Party office on a button-collecting trip on a Saturday in the fall of 1972,
and being given a handful of these buttons by an enthusiastic young volunteer who seemed to be the
only person on duty that day.
....continue
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