Fairbanks of Indiana—a conservative Republican with close ties to the railroad industry—as his running mate. When the Democrats met in St. Louis, they picked two conservatives, Judge Alton B. Parker, from New York, and eighty-one-year-old Henry G. Davis, a wealthy ex-senator from Virginia and the oldest man to ever run for the vice-presidency. The Democrats, showcasing themselves as the "sane and safe choice," attacked the Roosevelt administration as "spasmodic, erratic, sensational, spectacular, and arbitrary.
Neither Roosevelt nor Parker actively campaigned for the presidency, as was the custom. Over the summer of , Roosevelt directed the campaign from his front porch at Oyster Bay, issuing lofty statements to his supporters and instructions on strategy to Republican state parties. Roosevelt received a large amount of money for the campaign from wealthy capitalists, such as Edward H. Harriman the railroad tycoon , Henry C. Frick the steel baron , and J. Morgan the financial potentate of Wall Street.
They supported Roosevelt because they preferred an "unpredictable head of a predictable party" in power than the "predictable head of an unpredictable party. The election, however, had never been in doubt.
TR won electoral votes to Parker's He took every state outside of the South, including Missouri. Roosevelt was immensely popular and rode to a second term on a huge wave of public support, unlike anything the nation had ever seen. After the victory, Roosevelt vowed not to run again for the presidency, believing it was wise to follow the precedent of only serving two terms in office. However, he came to regret that promise in advance of the election, believing he still had much of his agenda to accomplish.
However, he held true to his pledge and supported his chosen successor, William Howard Taft, in Before he left office in , Roosevelt hand-picked William Howard Taft as his successor and worked to get him elected. Taft had served in the Roosevelt administration as governor of the Philippines and secretary of war. During the election, Taft vowed to run the country just as Roosevelt had. But the new administration was off to a rocky start with the outgoing President.
After apparently indicating that he would retain most of the existing cabinet members, Taft soon discovered that he would be better served by his own hand-picked secretaries. Roosevelt was miffed at having his cabinet members dismissed and at not being consulted on the new appointments. After Taft's inauguration, Roosevelt traveled in Africa and Europe for more than a year. He went on safari with his son Kermit, where he acquired more than 3, animal trophies, including eight elephants, seven hippos, nine lions, and thirteen rhinos.
He then met up with Edith in Egypt, and the two of them journeyed throughout Europe, encountering constant demands to meet and greet royalty and politicians.
When the Roosevelts returned to New York in June , they were greeted by one of the largest mass receptions ever given in New York City. When he first arrived back in the United States, Roosevelt remained noncommittal on the Taft presidency. He wanted time to assess Taft's performance before making any judgments. However, some of his old friends had already brought him negative reports. Gifford Pinchot was so angry with Taft regarding conservation that he had earlier traveled to Italy to meet Roosevelt and discuss the situation.
Once TR returned home, he was frequently visited by old friends who decried Taft's supposed efforts to undo his work.
During this period, progressivism was gradually rising from the local and state level to the national level. Increasing numbers of people across the nation supported expanding the role of the federal government to ensure the welfare of the people. Pressured by the progressive wing of the Republican Party to challenge Taft in , Roosevelt weighed his options. The Republicans met in Chicago in June , hopelessly split between the Roosevelt progressives and the supporters of President Taft. Roosevelt came to the convention having won a series of preferential primaries that put him ahead of the President in the race for party delegates.
Taft, however, controlled the convention floor, and his backers managed to exclude most of the Roosevelt delegates by not recognizing their credentials. These tactics enraged TR, who then refused to allow himself to be nominated, paving the way for Taft to win on the first ballot. Roosevelt and his supporters abandoned the G. Roosevelt electrified the convention with a dramatic speech in which he announced that "we stand at Armageddon, and we battle for the Lord.
The platform also supported the initiative, referendum, and recall as means for the people to exert more direct control over government. TR worried about the power of the minority—often politicians—over the majority and thought these changes would make government more accountable to the people. Marshall, the governor of Indiana, as vice president. Wilson's platform, known as "New Freedom," called for limits on campaign contributions by corporations, tariff reductions, new and stronger antitrust laws, banking and currency reform, a federal income tax, direct election of senators, and a single-term presidency.
Although Roosevelt and Wilson were both progressives, they differed over the means and extent to which government should intervene or regulate the states and the economy. When Roosevelt arrived to accept the nomination, he was greeted by a minute standing ovation. Theodore Roosevelt center addresses the crowd at the Progressive Party Convention.
Although he did not win the Republican nomination, Roosevelt had struck a blow against the idea that parties should nominate their candidates, rather than voters selecting them through primaries. With Taft mostly out of the picture, Roosevelt could focus on Wilson, the Democratic nominee. And the contest between them revealed the second major issue resolved in what to do about the trusts. Trusts were large combinations of companies in related industries that threatened to eliminate competition and establish monopolies over major parts of the economy, from railroads to steel production.
These combinations acted like monopolies when they conspired to manipulate prices, undercut their competitors to knock them out of the market, then raise prices when competition was gone, to increase profits.
There was already a law on the books, the Sherman Antitrust Act, that forbade combinations in restraint of trade, and Wilson wanted to enforce this law to restore competition and weaken corporate power. He distinguished between good trusts and bad trusts; in his view, not all trusts should be broken up. Most of them, he argued, should be subjected to governmental control rather than eliminated.
A powerful administrative commission, he believed, could keep these trusts in place but make sure they worked for the good of the people. The New Nationalism called for increased government control of the economy, whereas the New Freedom took a more traditional approach, seeking to restore competition rather than relying on government control. When voters went to the polls on election day to select their next president, Woodrow Wilson won a resounding victory.
Roosevelt came in second, winning 27 percent of the vote and 88 Electoral College votes. His campaign remains the most successful third-party bid for the presidency in American history. Taft finished with 23 percent of the vote, but only eight votes in the Electoral College. Debs received 6 percent of the vote but carried no states. In a strange twist of fate, Debs was later imprisoned by President Wilson during World War I for speaking out against the war.
Once again, however, Theodore Roosevelt lost the battle but won the war: When Woodrow Wilson entered office, he governed according to the principles of the New Nationalism, not his own New Freedom. He worked with Congress to enact laws establishing the Federal Reserve and the Federal Trade Commission, placing the economy under the kind of government control envisioned by Roosevelt rather than breaking up monopolies and relying on competition.
The election, therefore, influenced American politics for decades after its conclusion. Roosevelt weakened party power, laying the groundwork for a shift to primary elections rather than nominating conventions.
He made the case for greater government control of the economy, which Wilson opposed during the campaign but adopted while in office. Which of the following statements best summarizes the outcome of the presidential election? Croly, Herbert. Progressive Democracy. New York: Macmillan Co. Roosevelt, Theodore. Ashland, OH: Ashbrook Press, — Flehinger, Brett. Boston: Bedford, Gould, Lewis. Milkis, Sidney. Upcoming Events Explore our upcoming webinars, events and programs.
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