George Walbridge Perkins - Political Career

Political Career

In 1910 Perkins began to pursue Progressive Era reform causes. Perkins was an articulate exponent of the evils of competition and the advantages of cooperation in business— he believed in the Good Trust. His biographer, John A. Garraty summarizes Perkins' business philosophy as follows:

The fundamental principle of life is co-operation rather than competition... Competition is cruel, wasteful, destructive, outmoded; co-operation, inherent in any theory of a well-ordered Universe, is humane, efficient, inevitable and modern.

In 1912 he helped organize Theodore Roosevelt's new Progressive party, becoming its executive secretary.

At the convention an anti-trust plank was suddenly dropped, shocking reformers like Gifford Pinchot who saw Roosevelt as a true trust-buster. They blamed Perkins (who was still on the board of U.S. Steel and remained on it until his death.) Perkins ties to big business alarmed the radical wing of the party. After 1913 he focused on New York City politics, while continuing as Progressive National Chairman. In 1916 he campaigned for Charles Evans Hughes and the GOP. The result was a deep split in the new party that was never resolved. Perkins was in effective control of the party in 1913, but it fared poorly in local elections. Perkins went public with his denunciations of anti-trust programs, arguing "The country knows that the Progressive Party believes that large business units are necessary in this day of interstate and inter-national communication and trade." Increasingly at odds with Progressives hostile to big business, and humbled by the party's very poor showing in the 1914 elections, Perkins watched his Progressive party support the Republican candidate in 1916 and soon disintegrate.

During World War I he was chairman of a joint state and municipal food supply commission. As chairman of a finance committee of the Young Men's Christian Association, he raised $200,000,000 for welfare work among American soldiers abroad.