The Independence Party, established as the Independence League, was a short-lived minor American political party sponsored by newspaper publisher and politician William Randolph Hearst in 1906. The organization was the successor to the Municipal Ownership League under whose colors Hearst had run for Mayor of New York in 1905.
After its second-place finish in a race for Governor of Massachusetts in 1907, the party set its sights on the Presidency, and held a national convention to nominate a ticket in 1908. The party garnered only 83,000 votes nationally in the 1908 election, however, and immediately dissolved as a national force.
The Independence League of New York continued to nominate candidates for office in New York state until the state election of 1914.
Establishment
In 1905, millionaire newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst made a high-profile run for Mayor of New York City under the banner of the Municipal Ownership League. Hearst ran on a reform ticket in opposition to incumbent Tammany Hall Democrat George B. McClellan, Jr. and Republican William Mills Ivins, Sr. Hearst narrowly missed election, losing to the Democrat by fewer than 3,500 votes out of nearly 600,000 cast between the three candidates, with the New York Supreme Court ultimately deciding the matter in favor of Tammany Hall on June 30 amidst charges of electoral fraud.
In the wake of the defeat the Municipal Ownership League was replaced by a new political organization with a less socialistically oriented name: the Independence League of New York.
In 1906, Hearst again ran for political office, this time going down to defeat in the race for Governor of New York on a Democratic–Independence League fusion ticket. Despite his own loss, other members of the fusion slate were elected, including Lewis S. Chanler as lieutenant governor, John S. Whalen as Secretary of State, Martin H. Glynn as comptroller, Julius Hauser as treasurer, William S. Jackson as Attorney General, and Frederick Skene as state engineer.
Parallel Independence Leagues were active at the same time in several other states, including California and Massachusetts. In the latter, state party nominee Thomas L. Hisgen garnered a substantial number of votes in the 1907 election for governor, topping the candidate of the Democratic Party for second place. Prospects seemed bright for a new national political organization to replace the Democrats as the chief opposition party in the United States.
1908 Presidential convention
Buoyed by the promising results for Thomas Hisgen in Massachusetts, the Independence League moved to establish a national presence as the Independence Party ahead of the election of 1908 at a convention held in Chicago. The gathering was convened on July 27, 1908, in a hall bedecked with patriotic red-white-and-blue bunting and streamers.
Although Hisgen was regarded as a favorite to win nomination prior to convocation, the nominating convention's decision was not unanimous nor the nomination process without acrimony, requiring three ballots of the assembled delegates to reach an ultimate decision. The first person nominated was former Congressman Milford W. Howard of Fort Payne, Alabama, placed into consideration by a long-winded speech which drew catcalls. The Howard nomination was followed by a speech by Rev. Roland D. Sawyer of Massachusetts, who formally placed Hisgen's name into the pool of candidates. This was followed by the nomination of Georgian John Temple Graves, the editor of a Hearst newspaper.
An attempt by a Kansas delegate to put the name of Democratic Party standard bearer William Jennings Bryan into nomination was met with raucous jeering which briefly prevented the speaker from continuing. With order restored, the speaker continued in his effort to formally nominate Bryan, causing an even more fierce explosion of rage and protest, as a report in The New York Times indicates:
"A scene of riot immediately followed, several delegates attempting to reach the rostrum for the purpose of offering physical violence to the speaker. 'I intend, if I am allowed to finish, to nominate Mr. William J. Bryan,' said Mr. [J.I.] Sheppard.
"The hall broke into a wild uproar, a dozen delegates vainly struggling in the main aisle in an attempt to reach Mr. Sheppard. Canes and fists were shaken at him furiously, while howls of execration went up from all sides of the hall."