The Everything Theodore Roosevelt Book (37 page)

The Primary Elections of 1912

Once TR made it known that he was willing to run for president, supporters flocked to his side. There were new developments in the ensuing presidential election that led to major changes in the political landscape after 1912, particularly the inclusion of women in party politics and the expansion of the primary system. The Bull Moose Party may have lost the election, but it altered the face of national politics.

TR won nine of the twelve primaries: California, Illinois, Maryland, Nebraska, Oregon, South Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. Taft narrowly won Massachusetts, and LaFollette won North Dakota and Wisconsin, which was uncontested. The delegate count, was 278 for TR, 48 for Taft, and 36 for LaFollette. TR was off to a strong start.

There were three major Republican Party presidential candidates in 1912: the incumbent, William Howard Taft, TR, and U.S. Senator Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin. LaFollette was about as conservative as a politician could get. He ran because he thought both Taft and TR were too liberal!

Until 1912, there were no presidential primaries. The primaries that did exist were at the state level. So this was a year of major electoral upheaval. Not all states held primaries, but in the twelve that held direct presidential contests, TR did well. The results showed that Taft had something to worry about, at least from TR.

Even though TR had a commanding lead in the delegate count, the numbers were misleading. The national party leaders actually had the last say in whose delegates got seated at the convention. As a result, there were 254 delegate seats contested prior to the convention. The Republican National Committee awarded 235 of them to Taft and 19 to TR. The primary results that had looked so promising went up in smoke.

Birth of a New Party

The biggest blow to TR was that the number of disputed votes awarded to Taft all but guaranteed that the incumbent would win the nomination on the first ballot at the National Convention in Chicago in June. LaFollette’s chances of winning the nomination were nil. TR’s were hardly better. Nevertheless, TR went to Chicago.

Until TR entered the presidential race in 1912, LaFollette was the acknowledged leader of the Progressive Party. Most of his followers switched their support to TR, however. The embittered LaFollette became an independent. He suffered an apparent nervous breakdown during one speech in Philadelphia, dropped out of the race, and backed Wilson.

When it became evident that Taft was going to win the nomination, TR and the bulk of his delegates walked away from the convention. They formed their own party and urged TR to head it. He agreed.

The defectors named their new faction the Progressive Party, met in Chicago for their own convention in August 1912, and named TR as their presidential candidate, with Governor Hiram W. Johnson of California, a co-founder of the Progressive Party, as his vice president. When someone asked TR if he was healthy enough to run for president, he retorted that he was “fit as a bull moose.” TR put his stamp on the new party, which became known from that point on as the “Bull Moose” Party.

The “Bull Moose” Roars

TR’s supporters rallied to his side as the campaign began. He had a penchant for affiliating with people who would be helpful to him when their support was needed. The presidential race of 1912 was one of those times. Some surprising people allied with him, and he found a new cause or two to espouse.

On the other hand, some surprising people turned away from TR. Among them was his son-in-law, Nicholas Longworth. TR’s daughter Alice sided with her father. That strained the Longworth’s marriage, which had never been that strong to begin with. TR was grateful for his daughter’s support.

One of the surprising elements of the 1912 presidential campaign was the role women played in it. TR had always been supportive of women and children, starting with his sisters and continuing through his political career. Therefore, it should not have surprised anyone that women received a voice in the Bull Moose Party’s campaign.

There were several women in attendance at the Bull Moose convention in Chicago. They included doctors, lawyers, college professors, social workers, and other professionals. The women played a large role. Prior to 1912, women had not played a significant role in national politics. If TR had not included them in the Bull Moose Party’s campaign in 1912, that trend would have continued. Neither President Taft nor the Democrat candidate, Woodrow Wilson, supported women’s suffrage nationally. Only women in a few Western states even had the right to vote, let alone participate in political campaigns. TR changed that.

Jane Addams seconded TR’s nomination for president. That was the first time a female had ever spoken at a large political party’s national convention.

Jane Addams was an innovative social reformer who attempted to bring people at different economic, ethnic, and social levels closer together in interdependent communities that featured settlement houses. The best known was Hull House, founded in Chicago in 1889 by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr. Addams was also the first woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, in 1931.

In another step toward progress, the Bull Moose Party mandated four women as members-at-large on the Progressive National Committee. That was another first in the fight for women’s suffrage. It ensured that females would be represented at the top of the party’s leadership structure. That was a politically popular move among the progressives and drew some significant support for TR.

Books and the Campaign

With extraordinary timing, TR produced two books in 1912. One was
The Conservation of Womanhood and Childhood
, which was a compilation of his thoughts on women’s and children’s suffrage over the years. His ideas were folded into his campaign platform.

TR noted in the book, “We must work then for each partial remedy that may alleviate something of the misery of mankind, that may cause a measurable betterment in the condition of children, women and men.”

Whether by intent or not, TR placed “men” last in the equation. He was, after all, campaigning for everybody’s votes in an effort to better conditions for women and children.

The second book was
Realizable Ideals
, a collection of five speeches he delivered in the spring of 1911 at the Pacific Theological Seminary in Berkeley, California. In his presentations he warned, “All our extraordinary material development, our wonderful industrial growth will go for nothing unless with that growth goes hand in hand the moral, the spiritual growth that will enable us to use aright the other as an instrument.” That theme, too, tied in nicely with his campaign of 1912.

Everything was in place for TR as the campaign got into full swing in 1912. He approached it with his usual energy and a great deal of hope. The results were not what he hoped for.

The “chapters” in
Realizable Ideals
featured TR’s views on religion and reform. They included “Realizable Ideals,” “The Home and the Child,” “The Bible and the Life of the People,” “The Public Servant and the Eighth Commandment,” and “The Shaping of Public Opinion and the Ninth Commandment.” They made ideal campaign material for TR in 1912, without the overt religious references.

On the Campaign Trail

Initially, there were five candidates in the 1912 presidential race: the incumbent, William Howard Taft (Republican), Woodrow Wilson (Democrat), Theodore Roosevelt (Bull Moose), Eugene Debs (Socialist), and Eugene Chafin (Prohibition). Debs and Chafin were never a factor. So, it boiled down to the first three candidates. Each had a solid shot at winning the election.

The presidential election of 1912 drew a lot of interest because of several unique factors. There was a viable third-party candidate, the personal attacks were unusually vicious, sound recordings of campaign addresses became more widely available, and people could watch film footage of the candidates for the first time. The campaign was short—but riveting for the voters.

TR came out swinging. He established himself as the most pro-labor candidate in a speech, “The Liberty of the People.” In it, he accused Wilson of siding with the business operators who wanted to oppress workers. TR noted:

We propose, on the contrary, to extend governmental power in order to secure the liberty of the wage workers, of the men and women who toil in industry, to save the liberty of the oppressed from the oppressor. Mr. Wilson stands for the liberty of the oppressor to oppress. We stand for the limitation of his liberty not to oppress those who are weaker than himself
.

There existed a problem with TR’s focus, however. Three of the major campaign issues centered around the best way to deal with trusts, whether to give women the right to vote, and whether tariffs should be used to protect trade. Based on his history, TR did not have to explain his approach to trustbusting, he favored the right to vote for women, and he had ignored tariffs while he was president.

Instead of confronting the real and contemporary issues, he ran a campaign based mostly on what had been important when he was running the country. That had only been four years earlier, but times were changing quickly. TR was not quick enough. The voters were not willing to take a step back, especially when some of the issues of the day were in need of resolution and more government regulation did not seem to be the answer.