1912 CAMPAIGN
The Issues in 1912: The Progressive Movement that began in 1896 had now taken center stage. However, it wasn’t the Progressive mindset of the 21st Century. 20th Century Progressives were in large part Protestant reformers born out of the success of the industrial revolution. Their revival stood for initiative and referendum that laid the groundwork for what became the country’s new middle-class values. They wanted to smash unfair monopolies, set an 8-hour workday, a minimum wage and a 6-day workweek. They called for safe working conditions, housing laws and clean food and drugs. They believed in playgrounds and parks and public schools to Americanize immigrants. They stood against demon rum and championed a woman’s right to vote. They encouraged philanthropy, read McClure’s and campaigned to expose corruption. They believed in conservation.
Woodrow Wilson: Although Governor of New Jersey Wilson was a Virginian. At the 1912 Democratic Convention he was nominated on the 46th ballot. While he called himself a Progressive, he was actually a Bourbon Democrat. Growing up in the south Wilson held steady to the pre-Civil War beliefs of small government and states’ rights. While he campaigned for equal treatment for all he was a segregationist. He removed blacks from political office convinced segregation removed the friction between the races. Entertainment was “Birth of a Nation.” Wilson’s New Freedom saw big business as potentially risky business, but rather than impose universal regulation he wanted government to selectively intervene to correct injustices. To Wilson economic success was achieved when things were allowed to trickle up. He receives 435 electoral votes and takes 40 states.
William Howard Taft: Months before the 1904 election TR had been working on a list of handpicked successors. He narrowed the field to three: Elihu Root, Charles Evans Hughes and William Howard Taft. Taft got the nod and the GOP, and the country went along. TR was convinced he could continue to hold influence over his old friend. However, once President Taft proved to be more of his own man then TR expected. He was more conservative and where TR was action, Taft was compromise. It fell apart when Gifford Pinchot accused the Secretary of the Interior Richard Ballenger of using his office for personal gain. In January 1910 he called on congress to open a criminal investigation into both Taft and Ballenger. Taft immediately fired Pinchot. The House held hearings on Ballinger from January to May and cleared him of all and any wrongdoing. By early April Pinchot was in Porto Maurizio, Italy giving TR the news he’d been fired. Roosevelt was enraged. In 1912 TR seeks the Republican nomination, but the GOP back Taft. Roosevelt bolts the party and runs as a Progressive. The split guaranteed neither Taft nor TR would win in November. The Republicans lose the presidency and both houses of congress. Years later FDR’s Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes conducted his own investigation and found Ballinger innocent. He described Pinchot as a vindictive publicity-seeking sociopath who pursued Ballinger without pity even after his death 12 years later in 1922. Taft wins in Utah and Vermont totaling 8 electrical votes
Theodore Roosevelt: TR’s New Nationalism was introduced in a speech written by Gifford Pinchot and delivered by Roosevelt on August 31, 1910, in Osawatomie, Kansas. The New Nationalism called for income and inheritance tax, unemployment insurance and Worker’s Comp. He backed a minimum wage law for women and an 8-hour workday. TR told the audience big business had become the cornerstone of America’s economy. While that was in America’s best interest it needed to be regulated and required a strong activist government. Roosevelt declared the purpose of government was to guarantee prosperity and justice for all its citizens. The speech backfired. It was called socialism and communism in the press. TR later confided to Henry Cabot Lodge that he had gone too far. It was a crushing defeat. TR receives 4,111,000 popular votes (27%), 88 electoral votes and only takes 6 states.
