` Do Not Merge I normally wouldn't have taken a side on this issue, but unfortunately this article has proven quite useful for research. The Fourth Party System is described in The American Pageant: A History of the Republic AP Edition.  Quote from the text:  ``The long reign of Republican political dominance that it (McKinley victory in 1896) ushered in was accompanied by diminishing voter participation in elections, the weakening of party organizations, and the fading away of issues like the money question and civil-service reform, which came to be replaced by concern for industrial regulation and the welfare of labor. Scholars have dubbed this new political era the period of the ``fourth party system``.  I do believe that some pressing this issue for merger might be viewing this issue with an endocentric  (or is it exocentric?) point of view. This article was not in fact written by a ``Republican partisan``, but is instead established modern historical thought on US history. Please, do not associate the current actions of the US Republican Party today with the events that happened during the turn of the 20th century.  As a side note, I do agree that both articles need to be cleaned up and expanded greatly.   Just my thoughts  `