Figure 4. William H. Taft and Theodore Roosevelt, 1909. Taft was Roosevelt’s hand-picked successor for the White House, but by the early months of Taft’s presidency the two men’s political alliance—and personal friendship—was in tatters. Brown Brothers, Library of Congress.
Whether motivated by duty, ego, or a combination of both, Roosevelt found it increasingly hard to resist the lure of the campaign trail as 1912 neared. As the next chapter will show, this had huge consequences.
CHAPTER 2
The Progressive Campaign
Roosevelt continued prevaricating for months, staying in the spotlight, publicly saying he would not run, and privately indicating that his arm might be twisted if circumstance allowed. Yet the circumstances started to become less favorable for a Roosevelt candidacy by the middle of 1911.
Wisconsin Senator Robert La Follette, perhaps the most prominent Republican progressive after Roosevelt, declared that he would run against Taft. “Fightin’ Bob” La Follette had harbored White House ambitions ever since being elected to the Senate in 1906. He was making the bet that Roosevelt refused to do, running on the belief that the progressive wing was strong enough to triumph over the “stand-patters” in the fight for the 1912 Republican nomination. Some of Roosevelt’s closest supporters became donors to the La Follette campaign, and by October the Wisconsin senator had won the endorsement of the National Progressive Republican Conference (an organization he had helped create one year earlier).1
Even as Roosevelt continued to dither, the sustained attention paid to both him and La Follette—and the rise of these new sorts of organizations that endorsed candidates but stood apart from the regular party machinery—signaled fundamental changes in the American political system. The nineteenth-century United States was long characterized as “a state of courts and parties,” in which a seemingly small federal bureaucracy and individual political leaders were subsumed in importance by the actions of the judiciary and the power of the two major political parties.2
Nineteenth-century politics was intensely local, and intensely personal. It also was a major source of entertainment. The parties orchestrated torchlight parades, festive rallies, and neighborhood parties. They delivered jobs, political favors, and Thanksgiving turkeys to those who were loyal to them. This system led to extraordinarily high voter turnout. In the 1896 presidential election, close to 80 percent of eligible voters went to the polls—and, by and large, voted straight party line tickets.
Yet that same year also introduced new methods of presidential campaigning that upended the old order and created a new partisan apparatus that made campaigning in the twentieth century far different from the nineteenth. Party dominance of all levels of government, from urban political machines to Congressional committees, had begun to decline as progressive reform gained traction in big cities and reform-minded leaders came into power in politics and in the media. Reconfigured party power created an opening for “candidate-centered politics,” in which individual candidates became the axes around which elections revolved. Although the 1896 Republican nominee, William McKinley, and his Democratic rival, William Jennings Bryan, had radically different political philosophies and campaign styles, both of their campaigns helped define the nature of the new style of modern campaigning. Bryan barnstormed the country with his Jeffersonian message of agrarian populism. Already well known for his oratorical gifts and charismatic self-presentation, he drew large and enthusiastic crowds. McKinley, in contrast, had the crowds come to him. From the front porch of his Canton, Ohio, home, McKinley gave an audience to any who desired one, and gave speeches while standing on a box or chair. This “front-porch campaign” drew thousands of supporters to Canton over the final weeks of the campaign, and won the attention of thousands more through newspaper coverage of this novel campaign strategy.3
Changes in the media landscape of course also contributed to the rise of the candidate-centered campaign. A proliferation of newspapers and magazines competed for readers’ eyeballs by reporting on impassioned speeches and colorful political personalities. At the same time, a press that once was fiercely partisan began to adopt a journalistic ethos of impartiality and objectivity. With all these changes, the candidate, not the party, became the center of attention.4
In this new environment, a candidate’s missteps mattered. In 1912, Robert La Follette made many of them. La Follette thought of himself as a game-changer and rabble-rouser, but he was reluctant to leave the comforts of Washington and regular Senate business to go on the stump. He gave speeches and statements that were guarded in their declarations of progressive values. His campaign sputtered through the summer and fall. In February 1912, it received its death knell when La Follette gave a meandering, vitriolic speech in Philadelphia to a group of newspaper publishers that began at midnight and lasted until nearly 2 a.m. His daughter had been ill, the campaign had proved exhausting, and La Follette perhaps had a little too much to drink earlier in the evening. All these triggered a speech that proved a “rambling, disconnected attack on his audience and the sinister influence of the press.” In its wake, the senator, reported to be “on the verge of a physical breakdown,” canceled all his campaign events.5 If progressive Republicans wanted a candidate who might win it all, Roosevelt soon seemed to be the best bet.
Back in Washington, reluctant campaigner Taft was baffled and distressed by this politics of personality. “It seems to me that intelligent men have lost their heads and are leaning toward fool, radical views in a way I never thought possible…. The day of the demagogue, the liar, and the silly is on.”6
By this time, all the uncertainty and speculation about whether Roosevelt would run destroyed what was left of the Roosevelt-Taft friendship. The stress manifested itself in Taft’s waistline, as he ballooned to 332 pounds. Roosevelt’s opinion of his judicious, loyal lieutenant had plummeted; by August 1911 he was characterizing Taft as “a flubdub with a streak of the second-rate and common in him.”7 Roosevelt’s ego colored his assessment. The rapturous crowds that greeted TR at every turn, and the reporters who trailed his every step, gave the ex-president increased confidence in his chances. His confidantes urged him on, and his letters back to them became more encouraging. By January 1912 he wrote progressive journalist Henry Beach Needham that if a nomination “comes to me as a genuine public movement of course I will accept.”8
After La Follette’s Philadelphia meltdown, Roosevelt finally stopped being coy, and announced he would contest Taft for the Republican nomination. On 21 February he traveled to Ohio to deliver a major address designed to kick off his campaign. The speech he delivered rehashed the New Nationalism themes he had been trumpeting for eighteen months, and staked a new, quite radical position supporting the recall of judges whose decisions went against the will of the voters. While Roosevelt indicated he was “pleased over the stir he made,” the address was a thunderbolt for the Republican conservative wing, and ultimately turned out to be quite damaging to Roosevelt’s chances.9
Funnily enough, Roosevelt’s decision to run against his former protégé was probably the one thing that fueled Taft to do what he always hated doing: campaign for office. Taft may not have wanted to be president, but he really, really did not want Roosevelt to win. “Sometimes a man in a corner fights,” Taft thundered to an audience in Boston. “I am going to fight.” As Roosevelt had once observed in the happier days of their friendship, Taft was “one of the best haters he had ever known.”10
Personal politics lit a fire under Taft, but he also had the great advantage of having spent more than a year working the party machinery to win key blocs of support. While Roosevelt was barnstorming, Taft and his aides were doing the quiet, deliberate work of locking up Republican delegates. Individual charisma and media attention had chipped away at the parties’ influence, but the nineteenth-century way of politics still very much held sway in 1912. Moreover, Taft was the sitting president. Having once enjoyed the benefits of incumbency, Roosevelt recognized Taft’s advantages
and was quick to characterize them as corrupt. “He has not a chance of being nominated if he relies merely on the people,” TR wrote Andrew Carnegie as the primary season heated up. “His sole chance, and excellent one, lies in having the wish of the people thwarted by the activity of the Federal office holders under him.”11
Roosevelt’s popularity shone through as he won big states like Illinois and sizeable delegate chunks in Pennsylvania. Vote for vote, Roosevelt won the primaries by a big margin; the combination of votes for Teddy and his Progressive competitor La Follette were nearly twice those for conservative Taft. The president was disappointed. “We had hoped by May 1 to have votes enough to nominate,” he wrote his brother Horace. Although things were uncertain, “I shall not withdraw under any condition.” The stakes were too high: “it seems to me that I am the only hope against radicalism and demagogy.”12
The New Politics
On the other side of the political aisle, twentieth-century modern campaigning and nineteenth-century partisan traditions were coming into conflict as well. While Roosevelt threw rhetorical bombs and Taft stealthily worked the party machinery, the Democrats also wrestled with the growing divide between old-schoolers and reformers.
After his victory in the New Jersey governor’s race, Woodrow Wilson became a national figure and fresh face for a Democratic Party in need of a new image. Woodrow Wilson Clubs sprang up across the nation, driving support for the New Jersey governor to move to the national stage. A high-minded introvert, Wilson was less a true believer than appearances suggested; “his political convictions,” noted his biographer, “were never as fixed as his ambition.”13 In 1911, Wilson sensed that the progressive mood was one he could take all the way to the White House, and he set out on a national tour to build support for his nomination.
Although Woodrow Wilson’s rectitude was a far cry from the red-meat populism of William Jennings Bryan, he was progressive in his advocacy of government action to break up corporate monopolies, reform the tariff and banking systems, and reduce the influence of special interests. While not delivering many policy specifics, Wilson gave stirringly progressive speeches and had a winning manner on the stump, where he liked to open an event by reciting a limerick composed for the occasion. He also had the great advantage of strong support in the New York-based national press, where he had cultivated strong relationships with editors during his years in neighboring New Jersey.
Wilson’s meteoric political career as a national politician was only possible because of the fundamental shifts in the structure and nature of electoral politics put in motion by progressive reform itself. By 1912, the effort to clean up corruption at all levels of government had successfully replaced many patronage jobs with nonpartisan, professional civil service systems. To end the influence of special interests like big railroads and big oil over state legislatures, reformers pushed through innovations like the initiative and referendum, putting ordinary voters in charge of decisions once left to elected officials. Western states like California, Washington, and Oregon became early movers in this system of direct democracy, and in 1911 California elected a new governor, Hiram Johnson, a former Republican who ran on the ticket of the newly formed Progressive Party.14
A second significant reform was the direct primary. In the nineteenth century, both Democrats and Republicans nominated most of their candidates for office through caucuses or party conventions. Unsurprisingly, these mechanisms gave party insiders the advantage, and made it extremely difficult for reform-minded newcomers to obtain electoral office. Secrecy and insider deal-making also allowed corporations—railroads, steel, oil—to maintain a stranglehold on state and national politics by making sure politicians beholden to their interests were nominated and elected, again and again. In the years leading up to 1912, reformers in many states agitated for replacing these systems with direct primary voting—more public, more professionalized, more democratic. An accompanying reform was adoption of the secret ballot. By 1910, two-thirds of the states had adopted the direct primary.15
Figure 5. Woodrow Wilson a few hours after nomination, 2 July 1912. While many changes had come to presidential politics by 1912, some old traditions remained, including the practice of candidates not attending nominating conventions. Here, Woodrow Wilson greets reporters from his seaside home in New Jersey after receiving news that he would become the Democrats’ nominee. Bain News Service, Library of Congress.
The diminished party power and the rise of candidate-centered electoral politics set in motion some profound changes in the way people ran for president. In the old system, candidates could stay out of the fray. Political operatives and party leaders did the speeches, led the parades, and mobilized voters. In an era of rough-and-tumble, mudslinging politics, presidential candidates did not need to sully themselves with the daily routines of the stump, much less attend the rowdy and argumentative national political conventions. In stark contrast to modern conventions that serve as multi-day infomercials for party and nominee, early twentieth-century candidates didn’t attend these party gatherings. They left the nominating process to the professionals, and then they gave an acceptance speech at a later date. Incumbency conferred even more insulation from the campaign trail, as most sitting presidents ran “Rose Garden campaigns,” rarely leaving the White House.
In the new system, advantages started to accrue to candidates like Wilson and Roosevelt who hit the road, giving speech after speech. The bigger the crowd, the better. Yet candidates and campaigns needed to be strategic in the places they visited and when they visited them. The rise of the direct primary and decline of party influence shifted the electoral math. Wooing party insiders in key states remained critically important—as Taft’s campaign was showing by mid-1912—but popular momentum built by personal visits by the candidate had a growing effect on electoral outcomes.
The rise of the New York-based national media added fuel to the fire. Technology allowed fast-breaking news—from elections to baseball scores—to be reported across the country. The rise of national newspaper chains meant that the same stories appeared in papers from East to West. The rise in the media also meant other things started grabbing Americans’ attention away from politics and toward sports, or show business, or sensational true-crime stories. This forced candidates and their campaign managers to be more dogged and creative in getting press attention. They could do this either by being charismatic and entertaining, or by making bold, headline-worthy policy proclamations—or both.
Living only a short train ride from the center of the media universe, Wilson not only benefited from the rise of a new journalistic elite but also mastered the art of making headlines. He staked a claim as a leader for a new era, but he was a different breed of Progressive than Roosevelt. Still a Southerner in allegiance and temperament, Wilson was a strong defender of states’ rights and a believer in maintaining the southern racial order. He fell in with many others in his party by having little patience with Roosevelt’s New Nationalism, which appeared to put a dangerous amount of power in the hands of the federal government.
Wilsonian progressivism was one that reached more boldly into the corporate capitalist order by arguing that the great trusts should not just be regulated, as Roosevelt advocated, but broken up altogether. He coupled this antitrust stance with support of strong regulation at the state level. Wilson simultaneously carried the conservative banner of limited federal control while articulating a progressive message of a government that fought for the interests of ordinary citizens. While derided in Republican-leaning editorial pages as “the New Jersey school master,” Wilson represented an exciting new hope for a Democratic Party desperate to win the White House. He was a traditionalist of the nineteenth century and technocrat of the twentieth: a potent combination in an election year that blended past and present.16
The Conventional and Unconventional
For both Democrats and Republicans, the 1912 national conventions became where the tensions between the new politics and the
old order burst out into the open. Although conventions during this era were often rowdy affairs, the 1912 editions were remarkable in their furious back-room deal-making, cliffhanger votes, and dramatic public displays of raw emotion and personal animosity. Yet personal feuds were not the sole engine of discord, but merely reflections of bigger, fundamentally divisive policy differences in each party. Both Democratic and Republican unity foundered on divisions of class, region, and political philosophy.
Personal resentments and internal tensions had brewed through the Republican primary season. Taft and Roosevelt’s attacks on each other had gotten fiercer as the spring wore on. Despite the wild popularity of Roosevelt and the uninspiring campaign of Taft, the race was very close. This was mostly the fault of TR, who was so swept up in his celebrity that he mistook popular adoration for real political support, and who spent so much of his time in a Progressive echo chamber of supportive friends that he underestimated the strong support that remained within the GOP for “old-fashioned” issues like the protective tariff. He dismissed the old guard as corrupt and patronage-addled, and came out swinging against some core issues of the Republican platform.
Taft, in contrast, reached out to state delegations and placed allies in critical party positions where they would have control of when, where, and who voted during the Republican Convention. Despite the rise of the direct primary, 15 of the 48 states still adhered to the old system. Even the primaries that were direct were not binding. Convention delegates did not have to follow the will of the people; a state that went one way in the primary did not necessarily have to back the same candidate at the convention.17
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