The party has withstood a number of major attempts to convert it into another party. Horace Greeley and Senator La Follette tried it. Even Theodore Roosevelt at the height of his influence, supplied with an ample sum of money, could not accomplish it. Republican leaders to-day, to be victorious in changing the Republican Party into a new party, would have to be far more powerful than Theodore Roosevelt’s group and able to command more men and money.

Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Party expected to break up the Solid South with a new national party. Aside from Democratic solidarity, there is a special impediment to a new organization in the South which proved fatal then and still exists. Their state and local Democratic Party organizations have the proprietorship of an unexpressed but overwhelming issue—white domination. Any new party would not be credited without assurances on this question; nor is any new party likely to make such an assurance.

Ad finally, did the whole Republican Party machinery acquiesce, it must be borne in mind that many million Republicans, once their own banners were changed, would be broken from their sentimental and intellectual moorings and just as open to conviction from the enemy as by the new party.

It may be conceivable that all these difficulties could in time be overcome and a new party might be built if there were two or three national elections within which to build it. But our great issue must be determined in 1940.

The second suggestion is that the Republican Party completely change its name. The idea is that would attract more Democrats, especially in the Solid South, where the very considerable hangover of feeling form the Civil War and the reconstruction period still remains. But the deeper emotion exists that defeated this purpose in the Progressive Party. The opposition would obviously denounce a changed name as another suit of sheep’s clothing for the same bad wolf.

A change of name would encounter many of the same obstacles as the attempts at a new party—the same amendments to state laws, the assent of the national, state, and county organizations.

And again there are the Republicans who vote from faith and inheritance and loyalty, who would resist and divide the party. And there are those whose moorings would be loosened by a change of name and who would become salvage for the opposition.

Such strategies, of a new party or change of name, might bring disaster to America by dividing the major party and thereby preventing any unity of opposition. It was disunity in the opposition which aided in opening the doors to Fascism in Italy and Germany.

The third proposal is coalition. The coalition ideas take various forms, one of them being limited to coincident nomination of the same candidates for President and Vice President by the Republican Party and some yet undefined wing of the Democratic Party under the name ‘Republican’ linked to some additional informal word or label. This idea has the purpose of avoiding the difficulties of a new party or a change of name and at the same time preserving the identity and organization of the two groups. Coalition, however, presupposes responsible groups and leaders to agree upon something. And this presupposes that a wing of the Democratic Party develops into a definite entity with leaders of national standing influencing large constituencies who can make agreements. What is wanted is constituencies. there is no real coalition by incorporating a few leaders. That was tried in the last campaign and failed to bring a handful of Democrats when it came to the vote. AS a matter of fact, the Republican vote in the Solid South was 29 per cent in 1936.