Committee of 48

The Committee of 48 was an American liberal political association established in 1919 in the hope of creating a new political party for social reform to stand in opposition to the increasingly conservative Republican and Democratic parties. Named in recognition of the 48 states of the USA to signify the desire to construct a broad national movement, the moderate progressives of the Committee of 48 attempted without success to form such a third party with sympathetic activists from the labor movement in 1920.

The group (commonly known as "The Forty-Eighters") then became one of the key constituents in the Conference for Progressive Political Action in 1922, a movement culminating in the independent candidacy of Robert M. La Follette Sr. for President of the United States in 1924.

The Committee of 48 traces its roots to January 1919, when a gathering of individuals interested in public affairs gathered in New York City. Those so assembled decided that a formal organization should be sponsored and decided to issue a call for a National Conference. The name "Committee of 48" was chosen as a reflection of the desire to form a national organization bringing together interested representatives of each of the nation's 48 states.

The formal call for a new organization, headlined "Revolution or Reconstruction? A Call to Americans," was first published on March 22 in four prominent liberal publications. This appeal was targeted to Americans who sought neither revolution nor a turn to reaction in America and urged the formation of a new political entity that would stand apart both from the proto-communist revolutionary socialist movement and from the increasing conservatism of the two "old parties" of American politics, the Republicans and Democrats. Public reaction to this announcement was deemed as favorable by the group's organizers.

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