VDB leader Pieter Oud. They joined with the conservative liberal Freedom Party (PvdV) to form the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy. Ideology and issues The VDB started out as a left, social or progressive liberal party, committed to universal suffrage and the construction of a welfare state. It favoured the democratisation of the Dutch political system. Female suffrage was one of its most important issues. It favoured government influence in the national economy by nationalising crucial industries. It also believed that government should play an important part in ensuring the welfare of the population; hence, it favoured the implementation of state pensions for the elderly. In the 1930s, the leader of the party, Pieter Oud, was somewhat more conservative than his predecessors, at least fiscally, supporting as Minister of Financial Affairs the strict fiscally conservative line of the Cabinet. Before World War I it favoured an army formed by national conscription. After the war and until the 1930s, it favoured unilateral disarmament. This position was abandoned with the rise of international tensions after 1933. The VDB was mainly supported by atheists or liberal protestants from higher classes: the party was supported by teachers, civil servants, intellectuals and educated teachers. Regionally the VDB received most of its support form the large cities Amsterdam and Rotterdam, but also from provincial centres in Groningen, Drenthe, North and South Holland. Electoral performance General elections Municipal government In its strongholds of Amsterdam and Rotterdam the party provided various mayors. The former VDB leader Oud was mayor of Rotterdam between 1938 and 1941. In 1919 Maria Elisabeth Stellwag-Bes became party leader for the VDB in the municipal elections in Delft and was elected to the Delft municipal council. Deputy leader Corry Tendeloo, who later became instrumental in the legal advancement of women's rights, was a member of the municipal council in Amsterdam. Organisation Parliamentary leadership Parliamentary leaders in the House of Representatives Hendrik Drucker (18 September 1901 – 29 June 1913) Dirk Bos (29 June 1913 – 6 May 1916) Henri Marchant (16 May 1916 – 27 May 1933) Dolf Joekes (1 June 1933 – 20 September 1937) Pieter Oud (20 September 1937 – 15 October 1938) Dolf Joekes (16 October 1938 – 9 February 1946) Parliamentary leaders in the Senate David van Embden (September 1923 – 9 January 1946) Pillarisation The VDB lacked a real system of pillarised organisations around it. "Neutral" organisations, which