The Free-thinking Democratic League (, VDB) was a progressive liberal political party in the Netherlands. Established in 1901, it played a relatively large role in Dutch politics, supplying one Prime Minister, Wim Schermerhorn. The League is a predecessor of two of the major Dutch political parties, the conservative liberal People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and the social democratic Labour Party (PvdA). The social liberal Democrats 66 also claims that it and the VDB are ideologically connected. Name Like some other liberal parties in Europe, such as the Free Democratic Party of Switzerland, the party did not have the word "liberal" in its name because of its connotation with conservative liberalism. Instead it used the term vrijzinnig, which is difficult to translate into English. The term, which literally translated would be "free-thinking" or "free-minded" has meanings in the Protestant church referring to more liberal or latitudinarian tendencies in the church, rather than secular freethought, as well as more progressive and social tendencies in liberalism, as opposed to classical liberalism. The term "Democratic" is included in the parties name because of its clear commitment to further democratisation of the Dutch political system. The term "League" is used instead of "Party" because the organisation was not a centralised, strictly organised mass party but rather a loose league of politicians and local caucuses. In liberal circles parties were seen as factionalist and incompatible with the common good. History Background The VDB was a merger of two groups; one, the Radical League, was founded in 1892 as an Amsterdam secession of the Liberal Union; they left the Union over the issue of universal suffrage. The second group was the Free-thinking Democratic political club (Dutch: Vrijzinnig Democratische Kamerclub or VD-kamerclub). This was a club of Liberal Union MPs (in 1901 it had about twenty-five members, out of thirty-five Liberal Union MPs and one hundred MPs in total). The second group left the Union over the same matter. In 1901 the board of the Liberal Union, supported by the VD-kamerclub, proposed that all its candidates would stand on a platform of universal suffrage. The party congress rejected this proposal. In reaction to this the party's board, some of the members of the VD-kamerclub, and some of the party caucuses left the party. Founding and early history The two groups, the Radical League and the VD-kamerclub, merged in 1901 to form the Free-minded Democratic League. In