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Pros And Cons For The Election Of 1912

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1912 was a crazy year as far as presidential elections go. For one, there were four candidates voters were forced to choose from, rather than the usual Democrat or Republican. The incumbent, William Howard Taft, was challenged by former president Theodore Roosevelt in the Republican primaries, but even after losing nine out of twelve state primary elections, he still received his party’s nomination. The slight motivated Roosevelt to break off from the Republicans and campaign under his own Progressive, or “Bull Moose,” Party. For the Democrats, Woodrow Wilson, former president of Princeton University and Governor of New Jersey, was nominated after 46 contentious votes in their convention. Finally, there was Eugene V. Debs, the Socialist party …show more content…

What makes these issues similar to the ones voters face in today’s United States? How does the election of 1912 compare to 2017’s election showdown between Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders? The United States Presidential Election of 1912 has gone into the history books as the “decisive battle of the Progressive era” (Kolasky, 2011, para. 1) that had Taft and Roosevelt splitting the Republican vote, allowing Woodrow Wilson to become the 28th President of the United States and to ultimately introduce legislation that still conjures debate in America …show more content…

Under no circumstances will I be a candidate for or accept another nomination” (Gould, 2008, p. 43). In 1909, William H. Taft won the presidency after Roosevelt hand-picked his good friend for the Republican nomination. Their relationship took a turn for the worse over the following four years. After leaving office, Roosevelt spent a year and a half traveling Europe and Africa, and just before returning to the U.S., he received a long letter from Taft detailing the “hard luck” that had plagued him since becoming president, particularly his wife’s stroke and the “storm of abuse” he had been receiving from journalists. Roosevelt was disgusted by Taft’s unmanly “whining” (Kolasky, 2011, para. 5). The Roosevelt/Taft schism widened in 1910 after the Republican Party lost control of the House of Representatives in the midterm elections, and even more so in 1911 when Roosevelt was summoned to testify before the congressional Stanley Steel Investigating Committee to defend his approval of U.S Steel’s purchase of Tennessee Coal & Iron (Kolasky, 2011, para. 7). Taft, believing that Roosevelt testifying would demean the office of the president, asked him not to attend, but he was ignored. First, it was the Democratic majority of the Stanley committee that was largely critical of

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In the end, Roosevelt defeated Taft in the primaries, by which voters chose their preferred Republican candidate. Effectively, at the Republican National Convention, the party bosses nominated Taft for reelection. Roosevelt implicated the party leaders as thieves, him and his delegates walked out of the convention furious. Reported fistfights erupted on the convention floor. In the midst of all this, the Bull Moose Party lost at the national government level in 1912, it continued putting candidates on the election at the state and local votes.

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(142) Theodore Roosevelt and Howard Taft 's platforms on trusts and direct democracy, judicial recall and constitution usage in courts may have contrasted, but they did share similar opinions about women 's voting rights. Roosevelt, throughout the entirety of the election made his opinion on Taft very clear. Roosevelt said "But I do not care for Taft, indeed I think less of him as time goes on, in spite of the fact that I believe he is improving his position before the people. He is a flubdub with a streak of the second-rate and the common in him, and he has not the slightest idea of what is necessary if this country is to make social and industrial progress" (72). Taft, similarly, based much of his campaign on bad mouthing Roosevelt, while simultaneously advocating strong constitutional governing of the people.

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