Chapter I: "I Feel Like a Bull Moose"
The story of the 1912 Presidential Election:
According to the Encyclopaedia Germania: English Edition
Background
As a Republican, President Theodore Roosevelt had declined to run for re-election in 1908 in fulfillment of a pledge to the American people not to seek a second full term. Roosevelt's first term as president (1901–1905) was incomplete, as he succeeded to the office upon the assassination of William McKinley; it was only his second term (1905–1909) that encompassed four full years. He had chose Secretary of War William Howard Taft to become his successor, and Taft had gone on to defeat Democrat William Jennings Bryan in the general election. During Taft's administration, a rift grew between Roosevelt and Taft as they became the leaders of the Republican Party's two wings: the progressives, led by Roosevelt, and the conservatives, led by Taft. The progressive Republicans favored restrictions on the employment of women and children, favored ecological conservation, and were more sympathetic toward labor unions. The progressives were also in favor of the popular election of federal and state judges and opposed to having judges appointed by the president or state governors. The conservatives, like most progressives, favored high tariffs on imported goods to encourage consumers to buy American-made products, favored business leaders over labor unions, and were generally opposed to the popular election of judges. By 1910 the split between the two wings of the Republican Party was deep, and this, in turn, caused Roosevelt and Taft to turn against one another, despite their personal friendship. Taft's popularity among Progressives officially collapsed when he supported the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act in 1909 abandoned Roosevelt's anti-trust policy and fired popular conservationist Gifford Pinchot as head of the Bureau of Forestry in 1910. Roosevelt felt that the rift was too much and he could not support Taft for President. He was nominated on a seperate ticket- The Progressive Party
On the Campaign Trail
The 1912 presidential campaign was bitterly contested. Vice-President James S. Sherman died in office on October 30, 1912, less than a week before the election, leaving Taft without a running mate. With the Republican Party divided, Roosevelt hit the road trying to paint a portrait of Wilson as a reactionary class enemy, a adamant racist and a warmonger, against cooperation in Europe.
The election of 1912 is considered the high tide of progressive politics. A match-up between Roosevelt and Wilson alone may also have produced a Roosevelt victory, as many Northerners may still have preferred Roosevelt, who still would have won much of the Republicans and progressive basilsone.
The Socialists had little money—Debs' campaign cost only $66,000, mostly for 3.5 million leaflets and travel to rallies organized by local groups. His biggest event was a speech to 15,000 in New York City. The crowd sang “La Marseillaise” and “The Internationale” as Emil Seidel, the vice- presidential candidate, boasted, “Only a year ago workingmen were throwing decayed vegetables and rotten eggs at us but now all is changed…. Eggs are too high. There is a great giant growing up in this country that will someday take over the affairs of this nation. He is a little giant now but he is growing fast. The name of this little giant is socialism.” Debs said that only the socialists represented labor. He condemned “Injunction Bill Taft” and ridiculed Roosevelt as “a charlatan, mountebank, and fraud, and his Progressive promises and pledges as the mouthings of a low and utterly unprincipled self seeker and demagogue.” Debs insisted that the Democrats, Progressives, and Republicans alike were financed by the trusts. Party newspapers spread the word—there were five English-language and eight foreign-language dailies along with 262 English and 36 foreign-language weeklies. The labor union movement, however, largely rejected Debs and supported Roosevelt.
Roosevelt conducted a vigorous national campaign for the Progressive Party, denouncing the way the Republican nomination had been "stolen." He bundled together his reforms under the rubric of "The New Nationalism" and stumped the country for a strong federal role in regulating the economy and chastising bad corporations. Wilson supported a policy called "The New Freedom". This policy was based mostly on individualism instead of a strong government. Taft, knowing he had no chance to win, campaigned quietly, and spoke of the need for judges to be more powerful than elected officials. The departure of the more progressive Republicans left the conservative Republicans even more firmly in control of the party. The last Republican president elected was Calvin Coolidge in 1924. Much of the Republican effort was designed to discredit Roosevelt as a dangerous radical, but this had little effect.
The Results
Arizona and New Mexico were for the first time casting presidential votes.
The widespread distribution of the third-party vote is indicated by the fact that while by electoral vote Taft carried 3 states, Roosevelt 23, and Wilson 21, yet by majority of the popular vote, Taft carried 1 state, Roosevelt carried 36, and Wilson carried 11 (all the states of the former Confederacy except Florida, and Indiana).
Wilson had more votes than William Jennings Bryan had received in each of the New England states, in Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Texas, Wyoming, and Oregon, and but with slight decreases in Delaware and West Virginia. In South Dakota there was an increase, but in that state there was no Republican ticket in 1912. In Washington and California, there was an decrease, with women voting in 1912 as they had not been in 1908. Except for these states, Wilson fell behind the Bryan strength and notably so in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Nebraska, Kansas, South Carolina, Kentucky, and Arkansas. In only 2 sections was Wilson's vote greater than the greatest Bryan vote: in New England and in the Pacific section.
The Republican vote of 1908 was in 1912 found giving its support to Roosevelt or Taft. But Taft had a lead over the field in only 232 counties. In addition to 7 Southern states in which he had no county, he had none in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Washington, and of course none in South Dakota and California, where there was no Taft ticket,
The split in the Republican vote resulted in the weakest Republican effort in history. Winning only 14 electoral votes, Taft suffered a worse defeat than any other president defeated for re-election. Nicholas Murray Butler was selected to receive the electoral votes from Utah and Vermont that would have gone to Sherman, the deceased vice-president.
The 772 counties not carried by Wilson or by Taft were distributed in 38 states, most of them in Pennsylvania (48), Illinois (33), Michigan (68), Minnesota (75), Iowa (49), South Dakota (54), Nebraska (32), Kansas (51), Washington (38), and California (44), and almost without exception were carried by Roosevelt. Debs carried 2 counties.
In this election of 1912 was polled the largest non-Democratic, non-Republican vote of the Fourth Party System. The subsequent collapse of the 4th Party System could only be excepted
Eugene Debs, the nominee of the Socialist Party, polled nearly 1,000,000 votes, more than doubling his vote of 1908. Although Debs would obtain a higher vote total in 1920, Debs' 1912 showing of 5.98% was the highest percentage of the vote received by any Socialist presidential candidate in American history.
1912 marked the first (and last) election since 1860 in which 4 candidates each cleared 5.0%. 1912 was also the only election in which a third-party candidate received more popular votes and electoral votes than one of the major-party candidates.
Aftermath
Failing to make itself a successful party, the Republican Party ended up losing strength. Its candidates did poorly in 1914. It vanished in 1936 with most members following Robert Taft to the Democratic party. However, the Taft conservatives controlled the party and its platform from 1912 to 1928. This is the true start of the creation of the United Conservative Party in 1938.
The election of 1912 was the topic of counterfactual speculation by Harold Turtledove, "The Election of Woodrow Wilson, 1912", in What If? 3, edited by Robert Cowley.
Fmr. President Theodore Roosevelt (P-NY), Governor Hiram Johnson (P-CA) EV 295
Governor Woodrow Wilson (D-NJ), Governor Thomas Marshall (D-IN) EV 220
President William Taft, Nicholas Murray Butler EV 14
The map-