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At these meetings, Wisconsin's slim, serious young Governor talked in significantly vague terms about his own future and the nation's. Conferees and the press, to whom Phil La Follette maintained an air of tantalizing secrecy, were led to believe that something significant was afoot. The belief was substantiated last fortnight when the Governor delivered four voluminous radio speeches on successive nights. Gist of last fortnight's radio speeches was: 1) that both La Follettes had broken with Franklin Roosevelt when he hopefully cut down on spending a year ago, and 2) that a message of first national importance would be forthcoming at last week's meeting in Madison.
An immediate impression which many an observer got from the animadversions at Madison was that they were characterized by a refreshing and appealing amateurism. To this sort of audience, Governor La Follette's five-point manifesto and 9,000-word speech, apparently a family collaboration, failed to present even a pretense of a formal body of policy for progressives or anyone else to unite on. But they indicated a thorough awareness that "for ten years the Republicans and Democrats have been fumbling the ball," that the rest of the world was even worse off, and gave evidence that if Phil La Follette could not come up with a polished orchestration of what to do about it, he was supremely confident that he could play his way out by ear.
Manifesto on which the La Follette Progressive Party proposed to unite was summarized in five points which called for: 1) public "ownership and control of money and credit"; 2) restoring "to every American the absolute right to earn his living by the sweat of his brow"; 3) granting "the Executive branch power to get things done . . . with ample guarantees against . . . abuse of such power"; 4) security for "those who work on the farm and in the city . . . measured by ... contribution"; 5) no more "coddling or spoon-feeding . . . restore to every American the opportunity to help himself. After that, he can sink or swim."
Phil La Follette's points obviously did not add up to a clear-cut set of governmental principles. His one pass at an economic technicality, the brief proposal of Government control of credit, was nowhere amplified. At very least it would mean nationalization of the Federal Reserve banks. At most, it would mean nationalization of the entire banking system. But when he waded into his speech, Phil La Follette spread himself enthusiastically and, to many a listener, compellingly over half the isms in the social and political dictionaries.