GOP nominates TR in 1916?

TR-1916.jpg
Yes, he would have plenty of obstacles to overcome, as the attached cartoon indicates. He himself very much doubted his chances--even in mid-1916, when he was more confident than he had been the previous year that the country and especialy the GOP was coming around to his views of preparedness, he wrote, "My own judgment is that among the rank and file of the Republican voters, and including the voters opposed to Mr. Wilson, there is very much more sentiment for me than for any other candidate. But — I think — the convention at Chicago will be in the hands of a very sordid set of machine masters..." Quoted in John Allen Gable, *The Bull Moose Years: Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Party,* p. 243.

Yet he did have one powerful weapon--the threat of another third party campaign. If he were to run as the Progressive Party candidate again, it could destroy the GOP's hope of recapturing the WHite House in 1916. The problem is that unless the Republicans nominated a candidate so conservative as to be utterly unacceptable to most Bull Moosers, it would really look bad for TR to follow through on such a threat. He would seem to be putting personal ambition over principle. And he did not want another three-way race letting Wilson in. This meant that if the Republicans could just find a candidate acceptable to the majority of the Progressive Party, TR would almost certainly have to support him. And the GOP did find such a candidate in Charles Evans Hughes, who had a moderately progressive record as governor of New York, and who as a Supreme Court justice took no part in the divisive 1912 campaign.

Yet TR did have prominent backers in the GOP--including some 1912 Taft supporters:

"George von L. Meyer, postmaster general in the Roosevelt administration and then secretaty of the navy under Taft, had remained with the GOP in 1912; but as a leader of the Navy League and other preparedness groups he was once again in the Roosevelt camp. Mayer became president of the Roosevelt Republican Committee, and enlosted such Republicans as Ogden Reid of the *New York Tribune,* George B. Cortelyou, Senator Albert B. Fall of New Mexico, and J. Ogden Armour. Meyer's group was complemented by the Theodore Roosevelt Non-Partisan League, headed by the banker-philanthropist Guy Emerson and the building contractor Thomas Charles Desmond, and by Alice Carpenter's Women's Roosevelt League. T.R.'s Harvard classmate Charles G. Washburn prepared a campaign biography, and the magazine writer Julian Street published *The Most Interesting American,* another campaign document. Pamphlets were distributed and advertisements placed in newspapers and magazines. Meyer claimed that his organization had "no relations whatsoever with the Progressive Party," but in fact he was in close contact with the Bull Moose leaders, and it was Perkins who arranged for the committee's headquarters in the Congress Hotel...

"A publicity campaign, however, was simply not enough. Meyer and his cohorts assembled an elaborate card file on all the Republican delegates, noting business and political associations and the appeals which might move each to vote for Roosevelt. It was soon discovered, however, that the mass of the delegates could not be convinced to turn to the Colonel. For the most part the G.OP. Old Guard remained opposed to Roosevelt. Furthermore, there seemed to be no political necessity to nominate him. Roosevelt and the Progressive leaders had stated they would unite with the Republicans if a candidate could be found acceptable to both parties. Hughes seemed to filI the bill with his progressive record. Moreover, it became apparent that the Progressive National Committee's decision to hold the Bull Moose convention at the same time as the Republican convention was a tactical blunder. As Donald Richberg recalled: ". . . The Progressive Party advertised that it would be on a certain corner at a certain time, wearing a red carnation, and that its intentions were matrimonial!" The better course would have been to hold the Progressive convention first, nominate Roosevelt, and then wait for the Republicans to act. But Roosevelt had feared that such a plan might backfire, and result in another three-cornered race and the reelection of Wilson. Finally, Meyer's efforts were also doomed because until the last minute Roosevelt had refused to work on his own behalf. On March 9 he had issued a statement declining to allow his name to be used in the Republican primaries, adding "that it would be a mistake to nominate me unless the country has in its mood something of the heroic. . . ." He spent the final months before the conventions, not in trying to round up delegates, but in preaching preparedness in cities like Detroit, the home of pacifist presidential hopeful Henry Ford, where he thought the sentiment for national defense was weakest...." Gable, p. 245.

What is necessary for making TR's nomination by the Republicans in 1916 plausivle? I think three things.

(1) TR has to work on his own behalf earlier than in OTL, and probably enter some primaries in states that look winnable. (This of course is tricky, because he might lose some of the primaries--for example in strong machine states or states with strong "favorite son" candidates--but I think he has to enter *some* primaires to make his claims of rank-and-file GOP support plausible.)

(2) Hughes has to definitely say he will *not* accept the nomination.

(3) The remaining likely GOP candidates have to be conservatives who will clearly be unacceptable to most of the Progressive Party. In that case, TR could with a clear conscience ask the Progressives to nominate him before the GOP made its decision--because he could argue that Progressives would not vote for any of the GOP candidates other than himself, anyway, even if he asked them to. So it will be the *Republicans* (or their "bosses") who would be guilty of splitting the anti-WIlson vote if they don't nominate him.

The GOP would then face a difficult choice--maybe they can't win with TR (and many wouldn't be altogether happy even if they did win with him) but they are sure to lose with anyone else.

Thoughts?
 
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(3) The remaining likely GOP candidates have to be conservatives who will clearly be unacceptable to most of the Progressive Party. In that case, TR could with a clear conscience ask the Progressives to nominate him before the GOP made its decision--because he could argue that Progressives would not vote for any of the GOP candidates other than himself, anyway, even if he asked them to. So it will be the *Republicans* (or their "bosses") who would be guilty of splitting the anti-WIlson vote if they don't nominate him.

The GOP would then face a difficult choice--maybe they can't win with TR (and many wouldn't be altogether happy even if they did win with him) but they are sure to lose with anyone else.

Thoughts?


Would all conservatives be unacceptable to TR?

My impression is that by 1916 he looked quite favourably on Henry Cabot Lodge and Elihu Root. Had one of them been nominated, would he really have done a bolt?
 
Would all conservatives be unacceptable to TR?

My impression is that by 1916 he looked quite favourably on Henry Cabot Lodge and Elihu Root. Had one of them been nominated, would he really have done a bolt?

He reconciled with them, though, partly because he had pretty much given up hope of winning the GOP nomination himself. If he thought he had a real chance for the nomination and worked for it, things might be different.
 
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