Henry Cabot Lodge Part VI (1909-1913)
1909
Henry Cabot Lodge began the second administration determine to laythe foundation for his run for the Presidency in 1912. He believed that after eight years of Aldrich’s weak-kneed foreign policy the electorate would clamor for the return of the Mahan Democrats and he would be perfectly placed as a candidate both Conservative and Reform Democrats could agree on. He intended to spend the next four years being the voice of the Mahanian opposition and yet offering enough just enough reform measures to not alienate the Party Bosses.
Lodge attended Aldrich’s inauguration in Washington DC, despite it taking place after one of the worst blizzards in the city’s history. Aldrich’s opponents snickered and joked that it would be a cold day in hell if the President was re-elected. Mahan watched from a section reserved for highranking Senators. It was the first inauguration in 20 years he was not standing in arms length of the President.
Lodge began the year by releasing two books, one of his Speeches and Addresses: 1882-1909 and The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose. (10 volumes). He wrote prodigiously on the subjects of national defense and foreign relations. He was an often quoted expert in many leading Remembrance newspapers on foreign and domestic issues.
In these articles, he did not overtly criticize the President’s foreign policy, at first. He supported the US-CS expedition to the North Pole and refrained from attacking the President on the US-CS Extradition Treaty. He was quick to remind others that the Remembrance movement was about maintaining peace and the national honor through military preparedness, not about naked aggression. Any thing that increased the likelihood of peace without sacrificing our integrity was a positive development. However he consistently argued that the US could not place its safety in the hands of a treaty, as such he began to argue against the rumors of an Arms Reduction Treaty with the CSA.
All of this changed when the CSA intervened in Nicaragua. Both Lodge and Roosevelt came out blasting the President for his weak kneed foreign policy in regards to the CS intervention in Nicaragua. After years of taking a hard line against Confederate Intervention in the Caribbean, Aldrich seemed to reverse this policy. After years of silence former President Mahan came out political retirement to denounce Aldrich for his lack of a response. Lodge in a speech before the Navy league argued the benefit of increased trade could never make up for the strategic loss the US would suffer if a canal was built. In response Aldrich made the CSA guarantee that it would not annex or attempt to build the canal.
1909 also saw an increase in tension with Great Britain. The British responded to the new US alliance with Chile and Paraguay by concluding their own alliance with Argentina and agreeing to sell 3 new dreadnoughts to Argentina (at a heavily discounted price.) Aldrich attempted to dissuade the British from this action which he was certain would set off an arms race throughout South America, but the British (who saw the US alliance with Chile as an dagger pointed at their primary source of nitrates: Peru) proved intransigent. Knowing that this would set off the Mahan Democrats, Aldrich approached Lodge to discuss an appropriate response. Lodge told Aldrich that they would not be happy with anything less than sale of America Dreadnoughts to Chile. Despite fears of a growing arms race in South America Aldrich approved the sale of 3 American made dreadnoughts (also at a heavily discounted price) to Chile. President Mahan who recently criticized the Aldrich came out in support of the new dreadnought sales.
Lodge and the other Mahanians quickly put forward the 1909 Navy bill calling for a new four for four Dreadnought program, including the construction of Battlecruisers. Aldrich agreed to a bill that would expand and modernize the US Great Lakes Fleet. Aldrich had not entirely abandoned his reticence on increased defense spending though as he did block the building 4 battlecruisers. The British would respond to the increases in the US fleet by further increasing their own dreadnought production and the following year and beginning the fortification of Bermuda and the Sandwich Islands. Both Roosevelt and Lodge were quick to capitalize on the failure of what they deemed appeasement policies.
On the domestic front the nation continued to be plagued by labor disturbances. The passage of Trade Dispute Act and the use of the Stevenson Anti Trust act to prosecute strike organizers, seriously undermined the Organized Labor movement. The Socialist Party now represented in the Senate vowed to fight on. However 1909 would go down as another dark year in Labor movements history. The Trade Dispute Act would be used to break the Watertown Connecticut, Arsenal Strike. Then the New York shirtwaist strike of 1909 "Uprising of the 20,000" and Pressed Steel Car Strike were undermined by the prosecution of its leadership. Labor agitators attempting to organize all female New York garment workers into the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, were indicted under federal anti-trust practices. Lodge sided with Aldrich on this occasion supporting his firm hand against the unions. Despite the failure of the striking garment workers, the incident was important for being the first time future Congresswoman and First Lady Flora Blackford (then Hamburg) would be involved in a labor strike. In her Memoirs An American Conscience, Congresswoman Blackford recalled how the ruthlessness of CID Agents in disrupting the strikers is what drove her to quit her job as a garment worker and work for the Socialist Party full time.
Tragedy struck the Lodge family when their oldest son George Cabot Lodge died suddenly in August of that year. George had served as secretary for both his father and a U.S. Senate committee in Philadelphia. He later served successfully naval cadet and was Ensign on the cruiser USS Yankton when it circumnavigated the globe with the Great White Fleet. George gained a reputation as a highly respected poet. He was a close to Theodore Roosevelt, who penned a fond introduction for the posthumous 1911 collection; Poems and Dramas of George Cabot Lodge. George was married and left behind two sons Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. and John Davis Lodge. Henry Cabot Lodge Sr. took a strong interest in their education and upbringing after the death of George. He often had them visit him in Washington and they were familiar faces in Independence Hall and the Senate office.
1910
In 1910 Aldrich also lost a key Conservative senatorial ally Mark Hanna. Without Hanna to lead the conservative opposition in the Senate, Aldrich was unable to prevent the Congress from passing Civil Service Reform legislation. Aldrich promptly vetoed the bill, and the Congress was unable to override the veto, but the mere fact that the bill had gotten through Congress at all showed that Aldrich’s authority was waning. Aldrich was also unsuccessful, despite considerable personal lobbying, at preventing Congress from passing the 18th Amendment, which provided for the direct election of US senators.
Theodore Roosevelt’s vigorous campaign in favor of the proposed amendment won over many wavering Democrat members of Congress, and Aldrich also suffered widespread revolt amongst the Mid-West Democrat senators, who believed that with Socialists and Republicans increasingly forming coalitions in their state legislatures, they were better off taking their chances with a popular election that they could win with a simple plurality, than relying on the Democrats to win a majority in their state legislatures. The amendment would be ratified in 1912. To maintain his popularity with party bosses Lodge did not support the Amendment. However because he was so popular with most Massachusetts voters, he did not actively oppose it either.
One of the significant acts of domestic legislation that year was the Newland Land Reclamation Act, which federally funded irrigation projects in the arid west. The project was the brainchild of Republican Congressmen Francis Newland of Nevada. Since the War of Secession the Presidency and Congress had largely been dominated by the more populous east. This sense of disenfranchisement by the west was a corner stone of Republican power. Newland did not have the votes and turned to the President for support. Aldrich who hoped to use this to break the de facto Socialist Alliance in the west then turned to Lodge among other to support the bill. Lodge suggested asking Roosevelt to campaign for it, but Aldrich flatly rejected anything that would further Roosevelt’s national standing. Roosevelt already new of the proposed legislation and as a owner of a thriving cattle ranch in Montana, he had already begun to campaign in support of the Bill. Roosevelt began a six state speaking tour of the eastern states to campaign for the Bill.
The act identified 13 states and territories to be included in the project; California, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Dakota, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. It requires surplus fees from sales of land be set aside for a "reclamation fund" for the development of water resources. To show the growing power of the anti-immigration lobby one section required. Authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to contract for the project with certain conditions. Also requires that the work day will be 8 hours and that no so-called “Mongolian” labor (unskilled laborers from Asia) will be used. The Act was a major success, winning new Democrat votes in the west. Unfortunately for the President Aldrich Roosevelt and Newland received most of the credit. Much of the West could not have been settled without the water provided by the Act. The West became one of the premier agricultural areas in the world. Bureau of Reclamation statistics show that the more than 600 of their dams on waterways throughout the West provide irrigation for 10 million acres (40,000 km²) of farmland, providing 75% of the nation's vegetables and 45% of its fruits and nuts.
In the realm of foreign policy President Aldrich faced one humiliating set back after another. The President’s policy of rapprochement was un-raveling. The Confederate’s backed out of the Arms Reduction Treaty and instead purchased the design for new heavy 10.5cm Vickers Artillery guns and four dreadnought Battlecruisers from Britain.
Despite the apparent collapse of Aldrich’s Rapprochement policy, the Democrat Party maintained their majority in the 1910 midterm elections. The economy was booming, and foreign policy issues dominated the election which played to the Democrats’ strength. (While Aldrich’s own foreign policy had become deeply unpopular, the congressional Democratic candidates were largely able to distance themselves from Aldrich by taking a hard line anti-Confederate, anti-British stance while Socialists and Republicans were poorly positioned to attack Aldrich on foreign policy since most of them had supported Rapprochement or even a more conciliatory foreign policy.) Still, even with large Democrat majorities in both houses, Aldrich’s influence over Congress had obviously been greatly weakened. Most of the newly elected Democrats were Mahan Democrats, and they looked to Theodore Roosevelt not Nelson Aldrich as the party’s leader.
1911
Foreign Affairs
1911 however would see a brief rise in Aldrich’s public standing as a border dispute between Liberia and the French Empire escalated to where the French were threatening to invade Liberia. That nation had long been a quasi-US protectorate, so Aldrich felt obligated to come to its aid and dispatched the cruiser, USS Detroit, along with a battalion of marines. The French government, surprised by Aldrich’s unexpected assertiveness and not wanting to risk a general war over a minor border dispute, backed down and agreed to resolve the issue through international arbitration.
Aldrich would take advantage of the boost in his public standing from the successful resolution of the Liberian Crisis to make one final attempt at Rapprochement with the Confederates. Aldrich believed his failure to come to an accord with President Wilson was due to having to negotiate with him through intermediaries and thus his best shot for achieving agreement was through a face to face summit. Thus Aldrich reopened negotiations concerning having the Confederate president make a state visit to the United States.
Wilson wanted the summit to be held in Richmond rather than in Washington, with the British to be invited as well. Aldrich wanted the conference to focus on arms reductions, while Wilson saw it more as an opportunity to discuss his plans for the Confederation of Sovereign Nation, an international body where nations could come together to peacefully resolve disputes. Wilson pointed the recent out break of the Italo-Turkish war as a prime example of crises the international body could resolve. Lodge vigorously campaigned against any such body, arguing that it would merely be a tool for the Entente’s domination of international relations.
After the end of the Summer Congressional recess, Henry Cabot Lodge and Nannie Lodge who had spent the summer in Massachusetts returned to the capitol. On the way to Philadelphia they spent the weekend at the Roosevelt home at Sagamore Hill on Long Island. The two couples spent a weekend spent swimming in the Long Island sound and horse back riding with the Governor. Nanny Lodge always enjoyed visiting the Roosevelt as she shared the Governors passion for athletics and strenuous living. On the night before they left Roosevelt and Lodge shared a quiet private discussion in the Governor’s study. It was believed that this is the place that each man revealed to the other their intentions to run for the Presidency. The next day the Lodges left early that morning and continued there trip to Philadelphia. It was after this weekend that Roosevelt and Lodge’s near daily correspondence ceased and did not resume again until after the convention.
Italo-Turkish War
In the fall of 1911, a second international crisis broke out between two of the few nations friendly towards the United States, the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Italy. Because Italy had initiated the hostilities the United States was nit bound to become involved. However Lasting from September 29, 1911, to October 18, 1912, the war was a great strain on the Quadruple Alliance partners. The United States had worked hard to cultivate ties with its new Italian ally, but the Kaiser’s government policy towards the war was increasingly erratic. The Kaiser had come to detest Italy’s lack luster support for the Quadruple Alliance. He and previous governments had spent the last two decades cultivating interest in the Ottoman court, now Italy seemed to jeopardize all that. At first, the Kaiser wanted to send military advisors to train the Ottoman Army, until his Foreign Minister reminded him that this might violate the Quadruple Alliance. Next the Kaiser was denouncing the Islam and all Asian powers and dreamed of leading a second crusade to return “Constantinople” and the Holy land to Christian control.
Aldrich asked Lodge for advice on navigating the crises and especially the Kaiser. Italy was looking like a less and less reliable ally should war break out with the Quadruple Entente. However unlike the Turk’s, Italy had a modern Navy. Despite the strategic threat the Ottomans placed on the Suez Canal, Italy’s navy would work to overstretch the Royal Navy. To Lodge the importance of overstretching the Italian Navy was more important. Lodge suggested publicly announcing neutrality, yet cautioning the Kaiser against alienating the Italians. He further suggested sending military observers and a squadron of hospital ships to treat each side.
The Italo-Turkish War saw numerous technological changes, notably the airplane. On October 23, 1911, an Italian pilot, Captain Carlo Piazza, flew over Turkish lines on the world's first aerial reconnaissance mission, and on November 1, the first ever aerial bomb was dropped by Sottotenente Giulio Gavotti, on Turkish troops in Libya, from an early model of Etrich Taube aircraft. The Turks, lacking anti-aircraft weapons, were the first to shoot down an airplane by rifle fire.
The war provided a great chance for US officers to observe modern warfare. Notable observers included Lieutenant Daniel MacArthur, Captain Felix Frankfurter, Colonel Preston Gist Blair, Navy Lieutenant Ernest King and Commander Harlan F. Stone. Several valuable reports came out of the of the war. US naval observers got to see modern Italian destroyers destroy the small Turkish Navy, showing the importance of the modern self-propelled electric torpedo.
Although minor, the war was a significant precursor of the First World War as it sparked nationalism in the Balkan states. Seeing how easily the Italians had defeated the weakened Ottomans, the members of the Balkan League attacked the Ottoman Empire before the war with Italy had ended. It was also in this conflict that the future Chancellor of the Ottoman Empire and leader of the Turkish forces during the Ottoman Civil War, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, distinguished himself militarily as a young officer during the Battle of Tobruk.
Domestic affairs
1911 saw the greatest industrial accident in New York City history and some of the greatest labor upheaval since the Coal Miners Strikes of 1902. On March 25, 1911 a fire broke out in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in the lower east side of Manhattan. Because the doors to the factory were locked 146 garment workers, mostly Italian and Jewish women from the lower east side, lost their lives. As a result a citywide strike by garment workers broke out. However unlike the past popular opinion was on the side of the workers, even the Tammany Hall machine backed the workers out of fear of losing more Italian and Jewish votes to the Socialist Party. After two failed attempts to create a citywide garment workers union, The workers were successful in having their International Garment Workers Union formed. Conservative Democrats quickly denounced the owners of the Garment industry for caving in to demands and Governor Roosevelt for not doing more to end the Strike. Attorney General Stimson ordered the prosecution of its leaders, however by the time trial got underway Aldrich was no longer President and the charges were withdrawn.
Other Labor strikes that year would not be so successful; including the 1911 Grand Rapids Furniture Workers, Westmoreland County Coal Strike, Chicago Garment Workers' Strike. These other strikes were ruthlessly put down by their state governors. Key to the success of the New York Garment workers strike, was the neutrality of Governor Roosevelt and the work of two Socialist New York Politicians State Assemblymen Robert F. Wagner and State Senator Alfred E. Smith. The two with support from Governor Roosevelt created The Joint Committee on Public Safety to investigate working conditions in the State. The success of the committee propelled both into the national spotlight. As a result Smith would go on to become the Mayor of New York City in 1913 and Robert Wagner would become the State’s first Socialist Senator.
For years Lodge had been a leader of the Anti-Immigration movement. He had attempted on many occasions to bring immigration bill to the floor of the senate each time it was blocked by Senate leadership. The immigration movement had succeeded in forming the Dillingham Commission in 1907. The Commission ended its work in 1911, concluding that immigration from southern and eastern Europe posed a serious threat to American society and culture and should be greatly reduced in the future. The Commission proposed the enactment of a "reading and writing test as the most feasible single method of restricting undesirable immigration." Its finding were used in the 1911 immigration Bill. The Bill set national quotes for immigration that were designed to ensure that an equal number of immigrants came from Northern and Western Europe as came from Southern and Eastern Europe. The Bill would tend overall restrict overall immigration, since the majority of new immigrants were not from Southern and Eastern Europe. It also excluded all immigration from Asia. The Bill had support among Midwesterner Republicans and Socialists. Again the bill was thwarted by eastern elites and orthodox Socialist. Normally this Bill would never make it to the floor, however with the death of Mark Hanna the vote only narrowly failed.
Aldrich would face new difficulties at home when scandal struck his administration early in 1912 after the pugnacious U.S. Attorney for Idaho, William Borah, announced he had uncovered widespread bribery and graft in the federal highway program in that state. The scandal would damage Aldrich’s Vice President (and preferred successor) Charles Fairbanks, as the disgraced Daugherty had long been a political ally of Fairbanks.
1912
The End of the United States Frontier
On January 12, 1912, New Mexico the last of the contiguous states to be admitted to the Union. New Mexico had been a territory, since 1850. Initially there had been proposals by Republican Congressmen to to divide the territory into three states including Gadsonia, Montezuma and New Mexico. However Democrats fearing the influence of Republicans and Miners in the proposed New Mexico areas voted to have the Territory admitted as one State.
The Campaign
The campaign for the Democratic nomination started as soon as the New Year began. Both Roosevelt and Lodge announced their intention to run for president on New Years day. Though others candidates entered the race, for the Democratic nomination like Charles Fairbanks, Thomas R. Marshall, Judson Harmon and Simeon E. Baldwin. However with growing unpopularity of the Aldrich administration’s weak foreign policy and its involvement in the National Road Way Administration scandal, most conservative and Reed Democrats were discredited. In the minds of the public the contest was only between the two Mahan Candidates Roosevelt and Lodge.
1912 would go down as the strangest race for the Democratic Part nomination in the United States History. Both of the two major candidates refused to publicly condemn each other in public. Each would often praise the other, while offering their own vision for the future. Ultimately this played against Lodge, because of Roosevelt’s greater popularity. Still in January of 1911 Henry Cabot Lodge initiated a plan he had been formulating for nearly eight years. Lodge used his influence with the party bosses to push his candidacy and move the gain support of party machinery. Roosevelt on the other hand relied on a grass roots organization and popular support. Both candidates toured the country offering similar views on foreign policy, but differing on domestic issues.
Many later historians would argue that Lodge did not really desire to be President, which was evidenced by his lack luster campaigning. In the years after the 1912 election some even suggested that Lodge’s campaign was a part of a plan to negate any conservative candidates, clear the path for the reform minded Roosevelt and his war. However there is little evidence to substantiate these claims. Lodge’s campaign was sincere and more than eight years in the making.
Lodge began his campaign with a speaking tour of New England and the major cities target by the Royal Navy in 1881. Lodge’s campaign focused on his work in the Senate and Secretary of State making the nation strong again and gaining its new German allies. He reminded the people of those cities bombarded by the Royal Navy of the need to expand the Navy faster than President Aldrich’s two for four dreadnought schedule. He campaigned on an increase in military spending, strengthening the alliance with Germany and a return to the policies of the Mahan administration.
On the domestic front he campaigned for a limited governmental interference with the economy. He supported the national rationing program and offering service in the national merchant marine for three years in lieu of formal military service. He also courted western and Christian voters, by promising to use the C.I.D. to prosecute Mormon polygamists. Unlike Aldrich, Lodge publicly supported Civil Service reform. While this was generally seen as a break from the Party bosses, in private he argued to party bosses that unlike himself Roosevelt would use the Federal Police powers to go after corruption on the state level. Lodge also controversially supported strict new immigration measures, similar to those proposed in the 1910 Bill.
Roosevelt on the other capitalized on his popularity with the working class Democrats, especially out west. Roosevelt knowing his base was secure in his home state of New York. Roosevelt toured much of the Midwest and states beyond the Mississippi River. As the owner of several substantial cattle ranches and the first major Democratic candidate to spend so much attention on western states, Roosevelt was hugely popular with these regions.[1] Roosevelt called for a more expansive role of the federal government in the economy, encapsulated in his Square Deal policy. Roosevelt touted the Squared Deal as an alternative to the Socialists program of ownership of the major industries. The Square Deal centered on Civil Service Reform, an end to child labor, higher corporate taxes, recognition of the rights of American workers to form unions and countering the influence of the corporate trusts that restricted the free market. This policy proved to be popular with both American workers and many middle class voters that had been slowly migrating towards the Socialist Party.
As another Mahan protégé’s, Roosevelt’s Foreign policy was similar to Lodge’s in many respects. However while Lodge spoke mainly on Naval Policy, Roosevelt emphasized the need to reinvigorate the Army. Roosevelt argued that Aldrich had let the Army decline relative to Canada and CSA and need to be strengthened. He called for both an expansion of the full time and reserve army. He also called for more money on better equipment, training, border defense and medical insurance for all veterans. This played well in border states and republican/ socialist districts that had had a disproportionate number of therir citizens conscripted.
The greatest difference between the candidates was their view on the of the American worker to organize. While Lodge came out against any Union that supported striking or walking off the job, Roosevelt supported what he called responsible unions. To Roosevelt those were Unions that carried out peaceful strikes, did not support industrial sabotage and did not interfere with industries key to national security. That year two major Labor Strikes broke out In the New England Mill Workers Strike and another Miners Strike in Pennsylvania. The New England Mill Workers had considerable support from the Socialist Party. Strike Socialist Party figure Elizabeth Gurley Flynn came to Lawrence to support the strikers . Together they masterminded its signature move, sending hundreds of the strikers' hungry children to sympathetic families in New York, New Jersey, and Vermont. The move drew widespread sympathy, especially after police stopped a further exodus, leading to violence at the Lawrence train station. Congressional hearings followed, resulting in exposure of shocking conditions in the Lawrence mills and calls for investigation of the "wool trust." Mill owners soon decided to settle the strike, giving workers in Lawrence and throughout New England raises of up to 20 percent. Roosevelt supported this move as peaceful and responsible, while Lodge came out against it. Roosevelt also visited Striking Laborers in Pennsylvania. Both of these moves helped to win Roosevelt greater support with working class voters.
Olympic Games in New York City
Theodore Roosevelt got a major boost to both his popularity and foreign policy credentials when New York City was chosen to host the fourth Olympic Games. The Opening ceremonies began on May 5th and the games lasted July 27th, 1912. Governor Theodore Roosevelt, himself an enthusiastic sportsman, was omnipresent at this event. Twenty nine nations competed in the New York games, and luckily for the City, New York was a major center for the regional sport of Baseball. Four Major League teams each with their own Stadiums were based in the city.[2] When added with the city’s many universities’ the city had more than adequate facilities to host the game. Still a special Olympic Stadium was built in West Midtown area of Manhattan. [3] Several authentically American sports were demonstrated at the games including Baseball, Basketball and American Football. Many believe that this was when the forward pass was first introduced to Confederate players. College rules had changed in 1906 to allow it in the United States.
The games hosted many new participants. Japan appeared for the first time, marking it the first appearance of an East Asian country at an Olympic Games. Egypt also made their first appearance, as did Iceland, Portugal and Serbia. Chile made its first appearance as a national team with fourteen athletes attending the Games, although it also had one individual entered at the 1896 Games. The first athletes from Armenia also competed, as part of the team from the Ottoman Empire.
Though Roosevelt had a reputation for being well traveled and being able to speak both French and German, until then he had little chance to demonstrate his skill as a Statesmen. Roosevelt presided over the opening ceremonies of the Games and held more then a dozen receptions for the foreign dignitaries attending the Games. The most famous of these was Prince Henry of Prussia, Kaiser Wilhelm II brother and a Grand Admiral in the German Navy. He traveled with the West Atlantic Squadron of the High Seas Fleet, which included three of the new class of German Dreadnoughts. He was very popular with the US public. He was given an honorary Engineering degree from Yale and met with his friend ex-President Alfred Thayer Mahan.
The other members of the Quadruple Alliance also sent representatives to the games. These included Prince Luigi Amedeo, famous explorer and Naval Commander on leave from the Italo-Turkish War. Most importantly for the future of the Quadruple Alliance and Charles the I of Austria, third in line for the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Charles arrived with his new wife Zita, for an extended tour of the country. He would go on to stay more than six months and visit more that 12 states. For the rest of his life Charles remained an admirer of the US Federal System.[4]
Roosevelt graciously hosted the Entente officials. Including British Ambassador James Bryce, Confederate Ambassador to the United States Walter Hines Page and the Confederate Shipping Magnate and former Assistant Secretary of the Navy Irvine Stephens Bulloch. Bulloch was not only one of the CSA for most Naval Policy expert, but was also Theodore Roosevelt’s maternal Uncle. Roosevelt rarely spoke about his roots, especially his mothers being from one of Georgia’s most prominent plantation families. For mthe first time since entering public office, Roosevelt allowed himself and his family to be photographed with his Bulloch relatives.
With the Democratic Convention next month, most major Democratic Politicians attended the games to be seen with the two major candidates. Old Democratic War Horse Daniel Sickles was on hand as a guest of Governor Roosevelt. Sickles wanted to be a member of the Olympic committee, however Roosevelt had to kindly reject his services out of fear he would misappropriate funds. Ex- President Mahan was there was conscious to not show overt support for either candidate over the other. Roosevelt even invited Lodge to the opening ceremonies, which was the first time they had met since each announced their candidacy.
Over all the games were a triumph for the United States showing its technical and economic progress, since the Second Mexican War. It helped to show that the United States was no longer the beaten and hapless power that it had seemed in in the latter half of the 19th Century, but a new Great Power. It was also a great triumph for Roosevelt to over saw much of its planning and execution.
The Conventions
The election was also unique, because it was the first time, significant numbers of delegates to the national conventions were elected in presidential preference primaries. Primary elections were advocated by the progressive faction of the Democratic Party, which wanted to break the control of political parties by bosses. Roosevelt had been instrumental in its introduction in New York. Altogether, fifteen states held Democratic primaries. Roosevelt won three of the first four primaries Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Lodge always popular in New England won New Hampshire. Beginning with his runaway victory in Illinois on April 9, however, Roosevelt won ten of the eleven presidential primaries (in order, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Oregon, Maryland, California, New York, Ohio, New Jersey, and Dakota), losing only Massachusetts to Lodge. Despite Roosevelt’s commanding Primary lead, most of these primaries were not binding, which still gave Lodge hope he could pull off a coup in the convention.
The Convention that year was held in Baltimore in the last week of June. With President Aldrich’s personal popularity at an all time low after his vetoes of the popular civil service reform and child labor bills the public had soured on conservative candidates like Lodge and Fairbanks. However Lodge still believed he could rely on the power of the Party bosses, but he had misread the national mood. Lodge’s best hope was to deadlock the convention and slowly use his influence in the party to pull delegates toward him. Though Roosevelt had one all but two of the primaries, they were essentially non-binding. Unfortunately for this plan he had misread the national mood and that of the delegates. All across the country the Democrats had chosen younger reform candidates over their conservative counterparts. Many party bosses in big cities defected fearing backlashes from their sizable immigrant population. Other Party bosses began to fear that if Roosevelt was not selected in 1912, then the Democrats might not win in 1916. In fact many socialist leaders pushed their members to vote for Lodge in the primary believing he would be an easier candidate to defeat.
Lodge and Roosevelt were pretty much split in the more populous eastern states. It was Roosevelt’s popularity in the west and border states became decisive. Roosevelt’s fame from the Newland Irrigation act and his Midwestern campaigning were a decisive factor in the campaign. Most importantly Roosevelt’s shrewd promise to make George McKenna, an influential party boss in Pennsylvania, his running mate sealed his victory. Roosevelt defied tradition and arrived at the convention to accept his nomination. In his speech he compared the coming presidential campaign to the end of days and stated that the Reformers were “ Where standing at Armageddon and ready to battle for the Lord."
The Republican and Socialist conventions were held in Chicago and Indianapolis respectively. Neither could match the excitement of the Democratic convention in Baltimore. The Republicans easily nominated Gilbert Hitchcock of Nebraska and James J. Couzens Minnesota. The Republicans plank again focused on Midwestern centric issues like immigration reform, Railroad Rate Reform and the introduction of more green backs bills. The party also saw a strengthening of its isolationist faction, which condemned the alliance with European powers. [5]
The Socialist convention was a slightly more interesting affair. The conservatives, led by Victor L. Berger of Milwaukee, promoted progressive causes of industrial efficiency and an end to corruption. They wanted government ownership of utilities and the railroads and the regulation of Corporate Trusts. They were nicknamed "gas and water socialist." In foreign policy they supported pacifism but not unilateral disarmament. Their opponents were the radicals who supported more orthodox international Marxism. They wanted to overthrow capitalism, unilateral dis-armament, the unification of all labor unions, and the re-establishment of the Industrial Workers Congress (the “Wobblies") disbanded under the Stevenson Anti-Trust Act.
The radicals won an early test by seating former V.P. Candidate and Congressman from Manhattan Myron Zuckerman on the Executive Committee, sending encouragement to western "Wobblies", and passed a resolution seeming to favor industrial unionism. The conservatives who supported Emil Seidel counterattacked by amending the party constitution to expel any socialists who favored industrial sabotage or syndicalism (that is, the IWC), and who refused to participate in American elections. They adopted a conservative platform calling for cooperative organization of prisons, a national bureau of health, abolition of the Senate and the presidential veto. Eventually a compromise was reached and the first Socialist Senator ever elected, Eugene V. Debs was nominated, who appealed to both groups.
Campaign for the General Election
Roosevelt met with Lodge immediately after the Convention. Many believed that Roosevelt would ask Lodge to reprise his role as Secretary of State. However Roosevelt informed Lodge that the position would be pretty powerless. Roosevelt intended to serve as his own Secretary of State and was going to offer it to Robert Lansing a popular Reed Democrat. Roosevelt instead asked Lodge to be his voice in the Senate. Lodge accepted and immediately began campaigning for his old friend.
Roosevelt campaigned for the general election with the same ferocity he did in his primary campaign. Roosevelt shrewdly visited miners both in the east and the west. His promise to end child labor was popular with most miners, because it undercut their wages.
Roosevelt ran on a platform promising political and economic reform, US military supremacy, and “No more Nicaraguas!” Where ever Roosevelt went fanatical Remembrance crowds, the likes of which the country had not seen since the election of Thomas Reed in 1888, met him. Roosevelt would go on to win in a popular and electoral landslide. Despite Deb’s considerable mainstream appeal, he was defeated in a landslide by Theodore Roosevelt, taking only his home state of Indiana and Nevada and West Virginia, mining states where the miner’s unions held considerable sway. For Lodge the election was bitter sweet. His Presidential campaign had failed, however he again would be at the center of Presidential decision making. Unbeknownst to him it would be during the Greatest Crises in the nations history.
[1] Roosevelt's first Ranch was in the Montana territroy, however high prices for Beef due to import Tax's on Confederate Beef allowed Roosevelt to expand and purchase other Ranches in the Dakota territories. He nearly had to sell his investments after the Blizzard of 1897. However the Haitian and Nicaraguan crises and subsequent Rationing Laws made Beef from Northern Ranches proiftable, despite the hard winters.This allowed Roosevelt to maintain both Ranches.
[2] Manhattan Giants, Bronx Higlanders, Brooklyn Dodgers, Stapleton “Stapes” of Staten Island.
[3] This facility would later be purchased and used by the New York Mutuals Football team.
[4] Many future historians attribute this visit and his experiences in the US to the his later reforms that liberalized and federalized the Empire following the Great War. Charles would also go on to play an important role as mediator between the Germans and the US during their Geopolitical rivalry in the late 1920’s.
[5] Many in the Republican and Socialist Party secretly wished Lodge to win the Election. Many Republican's with hardline foreign policy views hoped to draft Roosevelt hoping to reinvigorate the party as a Progressive Anti-Confederacy Party. Socialists hoped that four more years of Conservative Democrat rule would drive the America working man into revolution. Both parties told their members to vote Lodge in the Democratic primaries when they could. Many believe this helped to prolongue Lodge's campaign then it naturally would have.
