The Progressive platform joined democratic reform to naval arms limits

The Progressive Party's program was an unusually ambitious package for 1912. Campaign contribution limits, disclosure, lobbyist registration, and published committee proceedings targeted the alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics. A national health service, social insurance, workers' compensation, limits on anti-strike injunctions, a minimum wage for women, an eight-hour day, farm relief, securities regulation, and inheritance tax extended reform into labor and welfare. Women's suffrage, direct election of senators, primaries, recall, referendum, initiative, and judicial recall sought to make government more directly accountable. Lower tariffs and international limits on naval armaments connected domestic reform to economic and strategic policy. The closing comparison is chronological: these proposals predated the First World War and should be judged against 1912 rather than as a modern platform.