Long before the opening of the campaign of 1912, the dissenters in the Republican party who had added the prefix of "Progressive" to the old title, began to draw together for the purpose of resisting the renomination of Mr. Taft and putting forward a candidate more nearly in accord with their principles. As early as January 21, 1911, a National Progressive Republican League was formed at the residence of Senator La Follette in Washington and a program set forth embracing the indorsement of direct primaries, direct elections, and direct government generally and a criticism of the recent failures to secure satisfactory legislation on the tariff, trusts, banking, and conservation. Only on the changes in our machinery of government did the League take a definite stand; on the deeper issues of political economy it was silent, at least as to positive proposals. Mr. Roosevelt was invited to join the new organization, but he declined to identify himself with it.

For a time the Progressives centered their attacks upon Mr. Taft's administration. Their bill of indictment may be best stated in the language of Senator La Follette: "In his campaign for election, he [Mr. Taft] had interpreted the platform as a pledge for tariff revision downward. Five months after he was inaugurated he signed a bill that revised the tariff upward.... The President started on a tour across the country in September, 1909. At the outset in an address at Boston he lauded Aldrich as the greatest statesman of his time. Then followed his Winona speech, in which he declared the Payne-Aldrich bill to be the best tariff ever enacted, and in effect challenged the Progressives in Congress who had voted against the measure.... During the succeeding sessions of Congress, President Taft's sponsorship for the administration railroad bill, with its commerce court, its repeal of the anti-trust act in its application to railroads, its legalizing of all watered railroad capitalization; his course regarding the Ballinger and Cunningham claims, and the subterfuges resorted to by his administration in defense of Ballinger; his attempt to foist upon the country a sham reciprocity measure; his complete surrender to the legislative reactionary program of Aldrich and Cannon and the discredited representatives of special interests who had so long managed congressional legislation, rendered it utterly impossible for the Progressive Republicans of the country to support him for reËlection."[84]

A second positive step in the organization of the Progressive Republicans was taken in April, 1911, at a conference held in the committee room of Senator Bourne, of Oregon, at the Capitol. At this meeting a number of Republican Senators, Representatives, newspaper men, and private citizens were present, and it was there agreed that the Progressives must unite upon some candidate in opposition to Mr. Taft. The most available man at the time was Senator La Follette, who had been an uncompromising and vigorous exponent of progressive doctrines since his entrance to the Senate in 1906; and the members of this conference, or at least most of them, assured him of their support in case he would consent to become a candidate for nomination. The Senator was informed by men very close to Mr. Roosevelt that the latter would, under no circumstances, enter the field; and he was afforded the financial assistance necessary to open headquarters for the purpose of advancing his candidacy. No formal announcement of the adherence of the group to Mr. La Follette was then made, for the reason that Senator Cummins, of Iowa, and some other prominent Republicans declined to sign the call to arms.[85]

In July, 1911, Senator La Follette began his active campaign for nomination as an avowed Progressive Republican, and within a few months he had developed an unexpected strength, particularly in the Middle West, which indicated the depth of the popular dissatisfaction with Mr. Taft's administration. In October of that year a national conference of Progressive Republicans assembled at Chicago, on the call of Mr. La Follette's campaign manager, and indorsed the Senator in unmistakable language, declaring him to be "the logical Republican candidate for President of the United States," and urging the formation of organizations in all states to promote his nomination. In spite of these outward signs of prosperity, however, Mr. La Follette was by no means sure of his supporters, for several of the most prominent, including Mr. Gifford Pinchot and Mr. James R. Garfield, were not whole-hearted in their advocacy of his cause and were evidently unwilling to relinquish the hope that Mr. Roosevelt might become their leader after all.

Indeed, Senator La Follette came to believe that many of his supporters, who afterward went over to Mr. Roosevelt, never intended to push his own candidacy to the end, but employed him as a sort of "stalking horse" to interest and measure progressive sentiment for the purpose of putting the ex-President into the field at the opportune moment, if the signs proved auspicious. This was regarded by Mr. La Follette not merely as treachery to himself, but also as treason to genuine progressive principles. In his opinion, Mr. Roosevelt's long administration of seven years had failed to produce many material results. He admitted that the ex-President had done something to promote conservation of natural resources, but called attention to the fact that the movement for conservation had been begun even as early as Harrison's administration.[86] He pointed out that Mr. Roosevelt had vigorously indorsed the Payne-Aldrich tariff in the New York state campaign of 1910; and that during his administration the formation and overcapitalization of gigantic combinations had gone forward with unprecedented speed, in spite of the denunciation of "bad trusts" in executive messages. Furthermore, the Senator directly charged Mr. Roosevelt with having used the power of the Federal patronage against him in his fight for progressive reforms in Wisconsin.

So decided was Senator La Follette's distrust of Mr. Roosevelt's new "progressivism," that nothing short of a lengthy quotation can convey the spirit of it. "While Mr. Roosevelt was President," says the Senator, "his public utterances through state papers, addresses, and the press were highly colored with rhetorical radicalism. His administrative policies as set forth in his recommendations to Congress were vigorously and picturesquely presented, but characterized by an absence of definite economic conception. One trait was always pronounced. His most savage assault upon special interests was invariably offset with an equally drastic attack upon those who were seeking to reform abuses. These were indiscriminately classed as demagogues and dangerous persons. In this way he sought to win approval, both from the radicals and the conservatives. This cannonading, first in one direction and then in another, filled the air with noise and smoke, which confused and obscured the line of action, but when the battle cloud drifted by and quiet was restored, it was always a matter of surprise that so little had really been accomplished.... He smeared the issue, but caught the imagination of the younger men of the country by his dash and mock heroics. Taft coÖperated with Cannon and Aldrich on legislation. Roosevelt coÖperated with Aldrich and Cannon on legislation. Neither President took issue with the reactionary bosses of the Senate upon any legislation of national importance. Taft's talk was generally in line with his legislative policy. Roosevelt's talk was generally at right angles to his legislative policy. Taft's messages were the more directly reactionary; Roosevelt's the more 'progressive.' But adhering to his conception of a 'square deal,' his strongest declarations in the public interest were invariably offset with something comforting for Privilege; every phrase denouncing 'bad' trusts was deftly balanced with praise for 'good' trusts." It is obvious that a man so deeply convinced of Mr. Roosevelt's insincerity of purposes and instability of conviction could not think of withdrawing in his favor or of lending any countenance to his candidacy for nomination. To Senator La Follette the "directly reactionary" policy of Mr. Taft was far preferable to the "mock heroics" of Mr. Roosevelt.

Nevertheless, at the opening of the presidential year, 1912, all speculations turned upon the movements of Mr. Roosevelt. His long trip to Africa and Europe and his brief abstention from politics on his return in June, 1910, led many, who did not know him, to suppose that he might emulate the example set by Mr. Cleveland in retiring from active affairs. If he entertained any such notions, it was obvious that the exigencies of affairs in his party were different from those in the Democratic party after 1897. Indeed, during the very summer after his return, the cleavage between the reformist Hughes wing of the Republicans in New York and the "regular" group headed by Mr. William Barnes had developed into an open breach; and at the earnest entreaty of the representatives of the former faction, Mr. Roosevelt plunged into the state contest, defeated Vice President Sherman in a hot fight for chairmanship of the state convention, and secured the nomination of Mr. H. A. Stimson as the Republican candidate for governor. The platform which was adopted by the convention was colorless enough for the most conservative party member and gave no indication of the radical drift manifested two years later at Chicago. The defeat of Mr. Stimson gave no little satisfaction to the ex-President's opponents, particularly to those who hoped that he had at last been "eliminated."

They had not, however, counted on their man. During the New York gubernatorial campaign, he made a tour of the West, and in a series of remarkable speeches, he stirred that region by the enunciation of radical doctrines which were listened to gladly by the multitude. In an address at Ossawatomie, Kansas, on August 31, 1910, he expounded his principles under the title of "the New Nationalism." He there advocated Federal regulation of trusts, a graduated income tax, tariff revision schedule by schedule, conservation, labor legislation, the direct primary, recall of elective officers, and the adjustment of state and Federal relations in such a form that there might be no neutral ground to serve as the refuge for lawbreakers.[87] In editorials in the Outlook, of which he was the contributing editor, and in his speeches, Mr. Roosevelt continued to discuss Mr. Taft's policies and the current issues of popular government. At length, in February, 1912, in an address before the constitutional convention of Ohio, he came out for a complete program of "direct" government, the initiative, referendum, and recall; but with such careful qualifications that the more radical progressives were still unconvinced.[88]

Notwithstanding his extensive discussion of current issues and his great popularity with a large section of the Progressive group, Mr. Roosevelt steadily put away all suggestions that he should become a candidate in 1912. In a letter to the Pittsburgh Leader, of August 22, 1911, he said: "I must ask not only you, but every friend I have, to see to it that no movement whatever is made to bring me forward for nomination in 1912.... I should esteem it a genuine calamity if such a movement were undertaken." Nevertheless, all along, men who were very close to him believed that he would not refuse the nomination if it were offered to him under proper circumstances. As time went on his utterances became more pronounced, particularly in his western speeches, and friendly as well as unfriendly newspapers insisted on viewing his conduct as a distinct appeal for popular support for the Republican nomination.

The climax came in February, 1912, when seven Republican Governors, Glasscock, of West Virginia, Aldrich, of Nebraska, Bass, of New Hampshire, Carey, of Wyoming, Stubbs, of Kansas, Osborn, of Michigan, and Hadley, of Missouri, issued a statement that the requirements of good government demanded his candidature, that the great majority of Republican voters desired it, that he stood for the principles and policies most conducive to public happiness and prosperity, and finally that it was his plain duty to accept regardless of his personal interests or preferences. To this open challenge, he replied on February 24 by saying that he would accept the nomination if tendered and abide by this decision until the convention had expressed its preference. The only political doctrine which he enunciated was belief "in the rule of the people," and on this principle he expressed a desire for direct primaries to ascertain the will of the party members.

The Nomination of Candidates in 1912

A new and unexpected turn was given to the campaign for nomination by the adoption of the preferential primary in a number of states, East as well as West. As we have seen, the direct primary[89] was brought into action by men who found themselves outside of the old party intrenchments. La Follette, in Wisconsin, Stubbs, in Kansas, Hughes, in New York, and the other advocates of the system, having failed to capture the old strongholds, determined to blow them up; the time had now come for an attack on the national convention. President Taft and the regular Republican organization were in possession of the enormous Federal patronage, and they knew how to use it just as well as had Mr. Roosevelt in 1908 when he forced the nomination of Mr. Taft. True to their ancient traditions, the Republican provinces in the South began, early in 1912, to return "representatives" instructed to vote for a second term for President Taft. But the Progressives were forearmed as well as forewarned.As early as February 27, 1912, Senator Bourne had warned the country that the overthrow of "the good old ways" of nominating presidential candidates was at hand. In a speech on that date, he roundly denounced the convention and described the new Oregon system. He declared that nominations in national conventions were made by the politicians, and that the "electorate of the whole United States is permitted only to witness in gaping expectancy, and to ratify at the polls in the succeeding November." The flagrancy of this abuse, however, paled into insignificance, added Mr. Bourne, "in the presence of that other abuse against partisan conscience and outrage upon the representative system which is wrought by the Republican politician in hopelessly Democratic states and by the Democratic politician in hopelessly Republican states in dominating the national conventions with the presence of these unrepresentative delegations that represent neither party, people, nor principle."

The speaker then elaborated these generalities by reference to details. He pointed out that the southern states and territories which (except Maryland) gave no electoral votes to Mr. Taft had 338 delegates in the convention, only 153 less than a majority of the entire party assembly, four more than the combined votes of New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Massachusetts, Indiana, and Iowa with 334 delegates. Moreover, equal representation of states and territories on the national committee and on the committee on credentials—the two bodies which, in the first instance, pass upon the rights of delegates to their seats—gave undue weight to the very states where wrongs were most likely to be committed. As to the power of the Republican President of the United States to control these delegates from the South, the Senator was in no doubt.

To the anomalous southern delegates were added the delegates selected in northern states by the power of patronage. Mr. Bourne was specific: "Three years ago," he said, "we had a convincing exhibition of the power of a President to dictate the selection of his successor. At that time, three fourths of the Republican voters of my state were in favor of the renomination of Mr. Roosevelt, and believing that their wishes should be observed, I endeavored to secure a delegation from that state favorable to his nomination for a second elective term. But through the tremendous power of the Chief Executive and of the Federal machine the delegates selected by our state convention were instructed for Mr. Taft. After all the delegates were elected and instructed, a poll was taken by one of the leading newspapers in Portland, which city contains nearly one third of the entire population of the state. The result indicated that the preference of the people of the state was 11 to 1 in favor of Mr. Roosevelt as against Mr. Taft." It was this personal experience with the power of Federal patronage that induced Mr. Bourne to draft the Oregon presidential primary law which was enacted by the use of the initiative and referendum in 1910.

The provisions of the Oregon law follow:

(1) At the regular primary held on the forty-fifth day before the first Monday in June of the presidential year, each voter is given an opportunity to express his preference for one candidate for the office of President and one for that of Vice President, either by writing the names or by making crosses before the printed names on the ballot.

(2) The names of candidates for the two offices are placed on the ballot without their consent, if necessary, by petitions filed by their supporters, just as in the case of candidates for governor and United States Senator.

(3) The committee or organization which places a presidential aspirant on the primary ballot is provided, on payment therefor, four pages in the campaign book issued by the state, and electors who oppose or approve of any such aspirant for nomination are likewise given space in the campaign book.

(4) Delegates to national conventions and presidential electors must be nominated at large at the primary.

(5) Every delegate is paid his expenses to the national convention; in no case, however, more than $200.

(6) Every delegate must take an oath to the effect that he will "to the best of his judgment and ability faithfully carry out the wishes of his political party as expressed by its voters at the time of his election."

The initial move of Oregon to secure a preferential vote on candidates and the instruction of delegates was followed in 1911 by New Jersey, Nebraska, California, North Dakota, and Wisconsin, and in 1912 by Massachusetts, Illinois, and Maryland.

The other presidential primary laws show some variations on the Oregon plan although they agree in affording the voter an opportunity to express his preference. Nebraska, for example, refused to disregard the Republican system of district representation, and provided that "four delegates shall be elected by the voters of the state at large; the remainder of the delegates shall be equally divided between the various congressional districts in the state and district delegates shall be elected by the voters of the various congressional districts in the state." Massachusetts follows Nebraska in this rule, but California prefers the Oregon plan of election at large. It was this provision in the law of California that caused the controversy over the seating of two district delegates at Chicago in June, 1912. Although Mr. Roosevelt carried the state, one of the districts went for Mr. Taft, and the convention seated the delegates from this district, on the ground that the rules of the party override a state statute.

The Illinois law does not attempt to bind the delegates to a strict observance of the results of the primary. On the contrary it expressly states "that the vote for President of the United States as herein provided for shall be for the sole purpose of securing an expression of the sentiment and will of the party voters with respect to the candidate for nomination for said office, and the vote of the state at large shall be taken and considered as advisory to the delegates and alternates at large to the national conventions of the respective political parties; and the vote of the respective congressional districts shall be taken and considered as advisory to the delegates and alternates of the said congressional districts to the national convention of the respective political parties."

The existence of these laws in several strategic states made it necessary for the Republican and Democratic candidates to go directly before the voters to discuss party issues. The country witnessed the unhappy spectacle of two former friends, Mr. Taft and Mr. Roosevelt, waging bitter war upon each other on the hustings. The former denounced the Progressives as "political emotionalists or neurotics." The latter referred to his candidacy in the words, "My hat is in the ring"; and during his campaign fiercely turned upon Mr. Taft. He gave to the public a private letter in which Mr. Taft acknowledged that Mr. Roosevelt had voluntarily transferred to him the presidential office, and added the comment, "It is a bad trait to bite the hand that feeds you."

Mr. Roosevelt's candidature was lavishly supported by Mr. G. W. Perkins, of the Steel and Harvester Trusts, and by other gentlemen of great wealth who had formerly indorsed Mr. Hanna's methods; and all of the old engines of politics were brought into play. While making the popular appeal in the North, Mr. Roosevelt's managers succeeded in securing a large quota of "representatives" from the southern Republican provinces to contest those already secured by Mr. Taft. As the matter was put by the Washington Times, a paper owned by Mr. Munsey, one of Mr. Roosevelt's ardent supporters: "For psychological effect, as a move in practical politics, it was necessary for the Roosevelt people to start contests on these early Taft selections, in order that a tabulation of strength could be put out that would show Roosevelt holding a good hand in the game. A table showing 'Taft, 150, Roosevelt, 19; contested none,' would not be likely to inspire confidence. Whereas one showing 'Taft, 23, Roosevelt, 19; contested, 127,' looked very different."

The results of the Republican presidential primaries were astounding. Mr. Roosevelt carried Illinois by a majority of 100,000; he obtained 67 of the 76 delegates from Pennsylvania; the state convention in Michigan broke up in a riot; he carried California by a vote of two to one as against Mr. Taft; he swept New Jersey and South Dakota; and he secured the eight delegates at large in Massachusetts, although Mr. Taft carried the preferential vote by a small majority. Connecticut and New York were strongly for Mr. Taft, and Mr. La Follette carried Wisconsin and North Dakota. Mr. Taft's supporters called attention to the fact that a very large number of Republicans had failed to vote at all in the preferential primaries, but they were speedily informed by the opposition that they would see the shallowness of this contention if they inquired into the number who voted for delegates to the conventions which indorsed Mr. Taft.

When the Republican convention assembled in Chicago, 252 of the 1078 seats were contested; 238 of these were held by Mr. Taft's delegates and 14 by Mr. Roosevelt's supporters. The national committee, after the usual hearings, decided the contests in such a manner as to give Mr. Taft a safe majority. No little ingenuity was expended on both sides to show the legality or the illegality of the several decisions. Mr. Taft's friends pointed out that they had been made in a constitutional manner by the proper authority, the national committee "chosen in 1908 when Roosevelt was the leader of the party, at a time when his influence dominated the convention." Mr. Roosevelt's champions replied by cries of "fraud." Independent newspapers remarked that there was no more "regularity" about one set of southern delegates than another; that the national committee had followed the example set by Mr. Roosevelt when he forced Mr. Taft's nomination in 1908 by using southern delegations against the real Republican states which had instructed for other candidates; and that what was sauce for the goose was sauce for the gander. Whatever may be the merits of the technical claims made on both sides, it seems fair to say that Mr. Roosevelt, according to all available signs, particularly the vote in the primaries in the strategic states, was the real choice of the Republican party.

The struggle over the contested seats was carried into the convention, and after a hot fight, Mr. Taft's forces were victorious. When at length, as Mr. Bryan put it, "the credentials committee made its last report and the committee-made majority had voted itself the convention," Mr. Roosevelt's supporters on Saturday, June 22, after a week's desperate maneuvering, broke with the Republican assembly. A statement prepared by Mr. Roosevelt was read as a parting shot. "The convention," he said, "has now declined to purge the roll of the fraudulent delegates placed thereon by the defunct national committee, and the majority which has thus indorsed the fraud was made a majority only because it included the fraudulent delegates themselves who all sat as judges on one another's cases.... The convention as now composed has no claim to represent the voters of the Republican party.... Any man nominated by the convention as now constituted would merely be the beneficiary of this successful fraud; it would be deeply discreditable to any man to accept the convention's nomination under these circumstances; and any man thus accepting it would have no claim to the support of any Republican on party grounds and would have forfeited the right to ask the support of any honest man of any party on moral grounds."

Mr. Roosevelt's severe arraignment of men who had been his bosom friends and chief political advisers and supporters filled with astonishment many thoughtful observers in all parties who found it difficult to account for his conduct. In Mr. Roosevelt's bitter speech at the Auditorium mass meeting on the evening of June 17, 1912, a sharp line was drawn between the "treason" of the Republican "Old Guard" and the "purity" of his supporters. Of this, Mr. Bryan said, with much irony: "He carried me back to the day when I first learned of this world-wide, never-ending contest between the beneficiaries of privilege and the unorganized masses; and I can appreciate the amazement which he must feel that so many honest and well-meaning people seem blind or indifferent to what is going on. I passed through the same period of amazement when I first began to run for President. My only regret is that we have not had the benefit of his powerful assistance during the campaigns in which we have protested against the domination of politics by predatory corporations. He probably feels more strongly stirred to action to-day because he was so long unconscious of the forces at work thwarting the popular will. The fact, too, that he has won prestige and position for himself and friends through the support of the very influences which he now so righteously denounces must still further increase the sense of responsibility which he feels at this time.... He ought to find encouragement in my experience. I have seen several campaigns end in a most provoking way, and yet I have lived to see a Republican ex-President cheered by a Republican audience for denouncing men who, only a few years ago, were thought to be the custodians of the nation's honor."[90]

When Mr. Roosevelt definitely broke with the Republican convention, most of his followers left that assembly, and the few that stayed behind there refused to vote on roll call. The substantial "rump" which remained proceeded with the business as if nothing had happened, and renominated Mr. Taft and Mr. Sherman as the candidates of the Republican party. The regulars retained the battle field, but they could not fail to recognize how forlorn was the hope that led them on.

On examining the vote on Mr. Root and Mr. McGovern, as candidates for temporary chairman, it becomes apparent that the real strength of the party was with Mr. Roosevelt. The former candidate, representing the conservative wing, received the overwhelming majority of the votes of the southern states, like Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Virginia, where the Republican organization was a political sham; he did not carry the majority of the delegates of a single one of the strategic Republican states of the North except Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, and New York. Massachusetts and Wisconsin were evenly divided; but the other great Republican states were against him. Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, North and South Dakota were solid for McGovern. Ohio gave thirty-four of her thirty-eight votes for him; Illinois, forty-nine out of fifty-eight; California, twenty-four out of twenty-six; Kansas, eighteen out of twenty; Oregon, six out of nine; Pennsylvania, sixty-four out of seventy-six. In nearly every state where there had been a preferential primary Mr. Roosevelt had carried the day. Mr. Root won by a vote of 558 to 501 for Mr. McGovern. It was a victory, but it bore the sting of death. When he stepped forward to deliver his address, the applause that greeted him was broken by cries of "Receiver of stolen goods."

If the supporters of Mr. Taft in the convention had any doubts as to the character of the methods employed to secure his nomination or the conduct of the convention itself, they were more than repaid for their labors by what they believed to be the salvation of the party in the hour of a great crisis. To them, the attacks on the judiciary, representative institutions, and the established order generally were so serious and so menacing that if high-handed measures were ever justified they were on that occasion. The instruments which they employed were precisely those which had been developed in party usage and had been wielded with kindred results in 1908 by the eminent gentleman who created so much disturbance when he fell a victim to them. Mr. Taft's supporters must have foreseen defeat from the hour when the break came, but they preferred defeat in November to the surrender of all that the party had stood for since the Civil War.

The Republican platform was not prolix or very specific, but on general principles it took a positive stand. It adhered to the traditional American doctrine of individual liberty, protected by constitutional safeguards and enforced by the courts; and it declared the recall of judges to be "unnecessary and unwise." It announced the purpose of the party to go forward with a program of social legislation, but it did not go into great detail on this point. President Taft's policy of submitting justiciable controversies between nations to arbitration was indorsed. The amendment of the Sherman law in such a manner as to make the illegal practices of trusts and corporations more specific was favored, and the creation of a Federal trade commission to deal with interstate business affected with public use was recommended. The historic views of the party on the tariff were restated and sound currency and banking legislation promised. The insinuation that the party was reactionary was repudiated by a declaration that it had always been a genuinely progressive party, never stationary or reactionary, but always going from the fulfillment of one pledge to another in response to public need and popular will.

In his acceptance speech, Mr. Taft took issue with all the radical tendencies of the time and expressed his profound gratitude for the righteous victory at Chicago, where they had been saved from the man "whose recently avowed political views would have committed the party to radical proposals involving dangerous changes in our present constitutional form of representative government and our independent judiciary." The widespread popular unrest which forced itself upon the attention of even the most indifferent spectators, Mr. Taft attributed to the sensational journals, muckraking, and demagogues, and he declared that the equality of opportunity preached by the apostles of social justice "involves a forced division of property and that means socialism." In fact, in his opinion, the real contest was at bottom one over private property, and the Democratic and Progressive parties were merely aiding the Socialists in their attack upon this institution. He challenged his opponents to show how the initiative, referendum, and recall would effect significant economic changes: "Votes are not bread, constitutional amendments are not work, referendums do not pay rent or furnish houses, recalls do not furnish clothes, initiatives do not supply employment, or relieve inequalities of condition or of opportunity." In other words he took a firm stand against the whole range of "radical propositions" advanced by "demagogues" to "satisfy what is supposed to be popular clamor."

The Democrats looked upon the Republican dissensions with evident satisfaction. When the time for sifting candidates for 1912 arrived, there was unwonted bustle in their ranks, for they now saw a greater probability of victory than at any time in the preceding sixteen years. The congressional elections of 1910, the division in the Republican party, and discontent with the prevailing order of things manifest throughout the country, all pointed to a possibility of a chance to return to the promised land from which they had been driven in 1897. And there was no lack of strong presidential "timber." Two of the recently elected Democratic governors, Harmon, of Ohio, and Wilson, of New Jersey, were assiduously "boomed" by their respective contingents of supporters. Mr. Bryan, though not an avowed candidate, was still available and strong in his western battalions. Mr. Champ Clark, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Mr. Oscar Underwood, chairman of the ways and means committee, likewise loomed large on the horizon as possibilities.

In the primaries at which delegates to the convention were chosen a great division of opinion was manifested, although there was a considerable drift toward Mr. Clark. No one had anything like a majority of the delegates, but the Speaker's popular vote in such significant states as Illinois showed him to be a formidable contestant. But Mr. Clark soon alienated Mr. Bryan by refusing to join him in a movement to prevent the nomination of a conservative Democrat, Mr. Alton B. Parker, as temporary chairman of the convention which met at Baltimore on June 25. Although at one time Mr. Clark received more than one half of the votes (two thirds being necessary to nominate) his doom was sealed by Mr. Bryan's potent opposition.

Mr. Wilson, on the other hand, gained immensely by this predicament in which the Speaker found himself. He was easily the second candidate in the race, as the balloting showed, and his availability was in many respects superb. He was new to politics, and thus had few enemies. He had long been known as a stanch conservative of the old school; and although he apparently had not broken with his party in the stormy days of 1896, it was publicly known that he had wished Mr. Bryan to be "knocked into a cocked hat." In his printed utterances he was on record against the newer devices, such as the initiative and referendum, and he therefore commanded the respect and confidence of eastern Democrats. As governor of New Jersey, however, his policies had appealed to the progressive sections of his party, without seriously alienating the other wing. He had pushed through an elaborate system of direct primary legislation, a public utilities bill after the fashion of the Wisconsin system, and a workmen's compensation law. On a western tour he met Mr. Bryan on such happy terms that their cordiality seemed to be more than ostensible, and at about the same time he declared himself in favor of the initiative and referendum. His friends held that the conservative scholar had been made "progressive" by practical experience; his enemies contended that he was playing the political game; and his managers were able to make use of one record effectively in the West and another effectively in the East. Having the confidence, if not the cordial support, of the conservatives and the great weight of Mr. Bryan's influence on his side, he was able to win the nomination on the forty-sixth ballot taken on the seventh day of the convention.The Democratic platform adopted at Baltimore naturally opened with a consideration of the tariff question, reiterating the ancient principle that the government "under the Constitution has no right or power to impose or collect tariff duties except for the purpose of revenue." President Taft's action in vetoing the tariff bills was denounced, and an immediate, downward revision was demanded. Recognizing the intimate connection between the tariff and business, the Democrats proposed to reach their ultimate ideal by "legislation that will not injure or destroy legitimate industry." On the trust question, the platform took a positive stand, demanding the enforcement of the criminal provisions of the law against trust officials and the enactment of additional legislation to make it "impossible for a private monopoly to exist in the United States." The action of the Republican administration in "compromising with the Standard Oil Company and the Tobacco Trust" was condemned, and the judicial construction of the Sherman law criticized. The valuation of railways was favored; likewise a single term for the President of the United States, anti-injunction laws, currency legislation, presidential primaries, and the declaration of the nation's purpose to establish Philippine independence at the earliest practicable moment.

Mr. Wilson's speech of acceptance partook of the character of an essay in political science rather than of a precise definition of party policies. He spoke of an awakened nation, impatient of partisan make-believe, hindered in its development by circumstances of privilege and private advantage, and determined to undertake great things in the name of right and justice. Departing from traditions, he refused to discuss the terms of the Baltimore platform, which he dismissed with the short notice that "the platform is not a program." He devoted no little attention to the spirit of "the rule of the people" as opposed to the rule by an inner coterie of the privileged, but he abstained from discussing directly such matters as the initiative, referendum, and recall. He announced his clear conviction that the only safe and legitimate object of a tariff was to raise duties, but he cautioned his party against radical and sudden legislation. He promised to support legislation against the unfair practices of corporations in destroying competition; but he gave no solace to those who expected a vigorous assault on trusts as such.

Indeed, Mr. Wilson refused to commit himself to the old concept of unrestricted competition and petty business. "I am not," he said, "one of those who think that competition can be established by law against the drift of a world-wide economic tendency.... I am not afraid of anything that is normal. I dare say we shall never return to the old order of individual competition and that the organization of business upon a great scale of coÖperation is, up to a certain point, itself normal and inevitable." Nevertheless, he hoped to see "our old free, coÖperative life restored," and individual opportunity widened. To the working class he addressed a word of assurance and confidence: "The working people of America ... are of course the backbone of the Nation. No law that safeguards their lives, that improves the physical and moral conditions under which they live, that makes their hours of labor rational and tolerable, that gives them freedom to act in their own interest, and that protects them where they cannot protect themselves, can properly be regarded as class legislation." As to the Philippines, he simply said that we were under obligations to make any arrangement that would be serviceable to their freedom and development. The whole address was characterized by a note of sympathy and interest in the common lot of the common people, and by an absence of any concrete proposals that might discourage or alarm the business interests of the country. It was a call to arms, but it did not indicate the weapons.

Mr. Wilson's speech had that delightful quality of pleasing all sections of his party. The New York Times saw in it a remarkable address, in spite of what seemed to be a certain remoteness from concrete issues, and congratulated the country that its tone and argument indicated a determination on the part of the candidate to ignore the Baltimore platform. Mr. Bryan, on the other hand, appeared to be immensely pleased with it. "Governor Wilson's speech accepting the Democratic nomination," he said, "is original in its method of dealing with the issues of the campaign. Instead of taking up the platform plank by plank, he takes the central idea of the Denver platform [of 1908, Mr. Bryan's own, more radical still]—an idea repeated and emphasized in the Baltimore platform—and elaborates it, using the various questions under consideration to illustrate the application of the principle.... Without assuming to formulate a detailed plan for dealing with every condition which may arise, he lifts into a position of extreme importance the dominating thought of the Baltimore platform and appeals to the country for its coÖperation in making popular government a reality throughout the land."[91]

While the Republicans and Democrats were bringing their machinery into action, the supporters of Mr. Roosevelt were busy forming the organization of a new party. At a conference held shortly after the break with the Republican convention, a provisional committee had been appointed, and on July 8, a call was issued for the "Progressive" convention, which duly assembled on August 5 at Chicago. This party assembly was sharply marked by the prominence assigned to women for the first time in a political convention. Eighteen of the delegates were women, and Miss Jane Addams, of the Hull House, made one of the "keynote" speeches of the occasion. Even hostile newspapers were forced to admit that no other convention in our history, except possibly the first Republican convention of 1856, rivaled it in the enthusiasm and devotion of the delegates. The typical politician was conspicuous by his absence, and a spirit of religious fervor rather than of manipulation characterized the proceedings. Mr. Roosevelt made a long address, his "Confession of Faith," in which he took a positive stand on many questions which he had hitherto met in evasive language, and a platform was adopted which marked a departure from the old party pronouncements, in that it stated the principles with clarity and in great detail.The Progressive platform fell into three parts: political reforms, labor and social measures, and control of trusts and combinations. The first embraced declarations in favor of direct primaries, including preferential presidential primaries, popular election of United States Senators, the short ballot, the initiative, referendum, and recall, an easier method of amending the Federal Constitution, woman suffrage, limitation and publicity of campaign expenditures, and the recall of judicial decisions in the form of a popular review of any decision annulling a law passed under the police power of the state. The program of labor and social legislation included the limitation of the use of the injunction in labor disputes, prohibition of child labor, minimum wage standards for women, the establishment of minimum standards as to health and safety of employees and conditions of labor generally, the creation of a labor department at Washington, and the improvement of country life.

The Progressives took a decided stand against indiscriminate trust dissolutions, declaring that great combinations were in some degree inevitable and necessary for national and international efficiency. The evils of stock watering and unfair competitive methods should be eliminated and the advantages and economies of concentration conserved. To this end, they urged the establishment of a Federal commission to maintain a supervision over corporations engaged in interstate commerce, analogous to that exercised by the Interstate Commerce Commission. As to railway corporations, they favored physical valuation. They demanded the retention of the natural resources, except agricultural lands, by the governments, state and national, and their utilization for public benefit. They favored a downward revision of the tariff on a protective basis, income and inheritance taxes, the protection of the public against stock gamblers and promoters and public ownership of railways in Alaska.

In spite of the exciting contests over nomination in both of the old parties, the campaign which followed was extraordinarily quiet.[92] The popular vote shows that the issues failed to enlist confidence or enthusiasm. Mr. Roosevelt polled about 700,000 more votes than Mr. Taft, but their combined vote was less than that polled by the latter in 1908, and slightly less than that received by the former in 1904. Mr. Wilson's vote was more than 100,000 less than that received by Mr. Bryan in 1896 or 1908. The combined Progressive and Republican vote was 1,300,000 greater than the Democratic vote. If we add the votes cast for Mr. Debs, the Socialist candidate, and the vote received by the other minor candidates to the Progressive and Republican vote we have a majority of nearly two and one half millions against Mr. Wilson. Yet Mr. Wilson, owing to the division of the opposition, secured 435 of the 531 electoral votes. The Democrats retained possession of the House of Representatives and secured control of the Senate. The surprise of the election was the large increase in the Socialist vote, from 420,000 in 1908 to 898,000, and this in spite of the socialistic planks in the Progressive platform which were expected to capture a large share of the voters who had formerly gone with the Socialists by way of protest against the existing parties.

These figures should not be taken to imply that had either Mr. Taft or Mr. Roosevelt been eliminated the Democrats would have been defeated. On the contrary, Mr. Wilson would have doubtless been elected if the Republicans had nominated Mr. Roosevelt or if the Progressives had remained out of the field. Nevertheless, the vote would seem to indicate that the Democratic party had no very clear and positive majority mandate on any great issue. However that may be, the policy of the party as outlined by its leader and victorious candidate deserves the most careful analysis.

In the course of the campaign, Mr. Wilson discussed in general terms all of the larger issues of the hour, emphasizing particularly the fact that an economic revolution had changed the questions of earlier years, but always speaking of "restoration" and a "recurrence" to older liberties.[93] "Our life has broken away from the past. The life of America is not the life that it was twenty years ago; it is not the life that it was ten years ago. We have changed our economic conditions, absolutely, from top to bottom; and with our economic society, the organization of our life. The old political formulas do not fit present problems; they read like documents taken out of a forgotten age. The older cries sound as if they belonged to a past which men have almost forgotten.... Society is looking itself over, in our day, from top to bottom; is making fresh and critical analysis of its very elements; is questioning its oldest practices as freely as its newest, scrutinizing every arrangement and motive of its life; and it stands ready to attempt nothing less than a radical reconstruction which only frank and honest counsels and the forces of generous coÖperation can hold back from becoming a revolution."

One of the most significant of the many changes which constituted this new order was, in Mr. Wilson's opinion, the mastery of the government by the great business interests. "Suppose you go to Washington and try to get at your government. You will always find that while you are politely listened to, the men really consulted are the men who have the biggest stake—the big bankers, the big manufacturers, the big masters of commerce, the heads of railroad corporations and of steamship corporations.... The government of the United States at present is a foster-child of the special interests. It is not allowed to have a will of its own.... The government of the United States in recent years has not been administered by the common people of the United States."

Nevertheless, while deploring the control of the government by "big business," Mr. Wilson made no assault on that type of economic enterprise as such. On the contrary, he differentiated between big business and the trust very sharply in general terms. "A trust is an arrangement to get rid of competition, and a big business is a business that has survived competition by conquering in the field of intelligence and economy. A trust does not bring efficiency to the aid of business; it buys efficiency out of business. I am for big business and I am against the trusts. Any man who can survive by his brains, any man who can put the others out of the business by making the thing cheaper to the consumer at the same time that he is increasing its intrinsic value and quality, I take off my hat to, and I say: 'You are the man who can build up the United States, and I wish there were more of you.'" Whether any big business in the staple industries had been built up by this process, he did not indicate; neither did he discuss the question as to whether monopoly might not result from the destruction of competitors as well as from the fusion of competitors into a trust.

On this distinction between big business and trusts Mr. Wilson built up his theory of governmental policy. The trust, he said, was not a product of competition at all, but of the unwillingness of business men to meet it—a distinction which some were inclined to regard as academic. Because the formation of no great trusts had been unaccompanied by unfair practices, Mr. Wilson seemed to hold that no such concern would have been built up had unfair practices been prohibited. Obviously, therefore, the problem is a simple one—dissolve the trusts and prevent their being reËstablished by prohibiting unfair practices and the arts of high finance.

Indeed, such was Mr. Wilson's program. "Our purpose," he says, "is the restoration of freedom. We purpose to prevent private monopoly by law, to see to it that the methods by which monopolies have been built up are made impossible." Mr. Wilson's central idea was to clear the field for the restoration of competition as it existed in the early days of mechanical industry. "American industry is not free, as it once was free; American enterprise is not free; the man with only a little capital is finding it harder to get into the field, more and more impossible to compete with the big fellow. Why? Because the laws of this country do not prevent the strong from crushing the weak."

"Absolutely free enterprise" was Mr. Wilson's leading phrase. "We design that the limitations on private enterprise shall be removed, so that the next generation of youngsters, as they come along, will not have to become protÉgÉs of benevolent trusts, but will be free to go about making their own lives what they will; so that we shall taste again the full cup, not of charity, but of liberty." The restoration of freedom for every person to go into business for himself was the burden of his appeal: "Are you not eager for the time when the genius and initiative of all the people shall be called into the service of business?... when your sons shall be able to look forward to becoming not employees, but heads of some small, it may be, but hopeful business, where their best energies shall be inspired by the knowledge that they are their own masters with the paths of the world before them ... and every avenue of commercial and industrial activity leveled for the feet of all who would tread it?"

Mr. Wilson's economic system seems to be susceptible of the following summary. The great trusts are "unnatural products," not of competition, but of the unwillingness of men to face competition and of unfair practices. Big business is the product of genuine services to the community, and it should be allowed to destroy whom it can by fairly underselling honest goods. The enemy is, therefore, the trust; it is the trust which prevents everybody who would from becoming his own master in some small business; it is the trust that has taken away the "freedom" which we once had in the United States. The remedy is inevitably the dissolution of the trusts, the prohibition of unfair practices in competition—then will follow as night the day that perfect freedom which is as new wine to a sick nation. With competition "restored" and maintained by government prosecution of offenders, no one need have a master unless he chooses.

Mr. Wilson's opponents saw in this simple industrial program nothing more than the old gospel of Adam Smith and Ricardo—the gospel of laissez faire and individualism. They asked him to specify, for example, into how many concerns the Steel Trust should be dissolved in order to permit the man with brains and a few thousand dollars capital to get into the steel business. They asked him to name a catalogue of "unfair practices" which were to be prohibited in order to put competition on a "free and natural" basis. They asked him to state just how, with the present accumulation of great capitals in the hands of a relatively few, the poor but industrious person with small capital could meet the advantages afforded by large capitals. They inquired whether England in the middle of the nineteenth century, with this perfect industrial ideal and free trade besides, presented the picture of utopian liberty which the new freedom promised.

To this demand for more particulars, Mr. Wilson replied that he was not discussing "measures or programs," but was merely attempting "to express the new spirit of our politics and to set forth, in large terms, which may stick in the imagination, what it is that must be done if we are to restore our politics to their full spiritual vigor again, and our national life whether in trade, in industry, or in what concerns us only as families and individuals, to its purity, its self-respect, and its pristine strength and freedom."

For the concrete manifestation of his general principles Mr. Wilson referred to his practical achievements in New Jersey, although at the time of the campaign he had not yet put through his program of trust legislation—a fact which was not overlooked by his opponents. He referred to his public service commission law, modeled on that which had been in effect for some time in Wisconsin. "A year or two ago we got our ideas on the subject enacted into legislation. The corporations involved opposed the legislation with all their might. They talked about ruin,—and I really believe they did think they would be somewhat injured. But they have not been. And I hear I cannot tell you how many men in New Jersey say: 'Governor, we were opposed to you; we did not believe in the things you wanted to do, but now that you have done them, we take off our hats. That was the thing to do, it did not hurt us a bit; it just put us on a normal footing; it took away suspicion from our business.' New Jersey, having taken the cold plunge, cries out to the rest of the states, 'Come on in! The water's fine.'"

In another place, Mr. Wilson summed up his program of redemption in New Jersey: a workman's compensation act, a public service corporations law, and a corrupt practices act. This program of legislation was viewed by Mr. Wilson as an extraordinary achievement. "What was accomplished?" he asked. "Mere justice to classes that had not been treated justly before.... When the people had taken over the control of the government, a curious change was wrought in the souls of a great many men; a sudden moral awakening took place, and we simply could not find culprits against whom to bring indictments; it was like a Sunday School, the way they obeyed the laws."

It was on his theory of the trusts that Mr. Wilson based his opposition to all attempts at government regulation. Under the plan of regulation, put forward by the Progressives, said Mr. Wilson, "there will be an avowed partnership between the government and the trusts. I take it the firm will be ostensibly controlled by the senior member. For I take it that the government of the United States is at least the senior member, though the younger member has all along been running the business.... There is no hope to be seen for the people of the United States until the partnership is dissolved. And the business of the party now intrusted with power is to dissolve it." In other words, the government was, in his opinion, too weak to force the trusts to obey certain rules and regulations, but it was strong enough to take their business away from them and prevent their ever getting together again. Apparently, Mr. Wilson did not expect to find that cordial coÖperation from the national trust magnates which he found on the part of New Jersey public service corporations when he undertook to regulate them.

Mr. Wilson's political program was more definite. His short experience in New Jersey politics had evidently wrought great changes in his earlier academic views. In 1907, he thought that the United States Senate, "represents the country as distinct from the accumulated populations of the country, much more fully and much more truly than the House of Representatives does." In the presidential campaign, he advocated popular election of United States Senators, principally on the ground "that a little group of Senators holding the balance of power has again and again been able to defeat programs of reform upon which the whole country has set its heart." He did not attack the Senate as a body, but he thought sinister influences had often been at work there. However, Mr. Wilson declared that the popular election of Senators was not inconsistent with "either the spirit or the essential form of the American government."

As to those other devices of direct democracy, the initiative, referendum, and recall, Mr. Wilson admitted that there were some states where it was premature to discuss them, and added that in some states it might never be necessary to discuss them. The initiative and referendum, he approved as a sort of "gun behind the door," to be used rarely when representative institutions failed; and as to the recall he remarked, "I don't see how any man grounded in the traditions of American affairs can find any valid objection to the recall of administrative officers." The recall of judges, however, he opposed positively and without qualification, pointing out that the remedy for evils in the judicial system lay in methods of nomination and election.

Such was the economic and political philosophy of the new Democratic President inaugurated on March 4, 1913.

FOOTNOTES:

[84] Autobiography, p. 476.