During the weeks while Roosevelt had been deliberating over
"throwing his hat into the ring," his opponents had been busily
gathering delegates. By this delay they gained a strategic
advantage. According to the unholy custom which gave to the
Republicans in the Southern States a quota of delegates
proportioned to the population and not to the number of
Republican voters, a large Southern delegation was pledged for
Mr. Taft very early. Most of the few Southern Republicans were
either office-holders or negroes; the former naturally supported
the Administration on which their living depended; the latter,
whose votes were not counted, also supported the President from
whom alone they might expect favors. The former slave States
elected 216 delegates, nearly all of whom went to President Taft,
making a very good start for him. In the Northern, Western, and
Pacific States, however, Roosevelt secured a large proportion of
the delegates. In the system of direct primaries, by which the
people indicated their preference instead of having the
candidates chosen in the State Conventions, which were controlled
by the Machine, the Progressives came out far ahead. Thus, in
North Dakota, President Taft had less than 4000 votes out of
48,000 cast, the rest going to Roosevelt and La Follette. In
several of the great States he carried everything before him. In
Illinois, his majority was 139,000 over Taft's; in Pennsylvania,
67 of the 76 delegates went to him. In Ohio, the President's own
State, the Taft forces were "snowed under"; in California, a
stronghold of Progressivism, Roosevelt had a large plurality.
Nevertheless, wherever the Regulars controlled the voting, they
usually brought President Taft to the front. Even when they could
not produce the votes, they managed to send out contesting
delegations.
On looking back, it appears indisputable that if the Republicans
could then have cast their ballots they would have been
overwhelmingly for Roosevelt; and if the Roosevelt delegates to
the Convention had not been hampered in voting, they too would
have nominated him. But the elections had been so artfully
manipulated that, when the Convention met, there were 220
contests. Everybody understood that the final result hung on the
way in which these should be decided.
The Convention assembled in the great Coliseum Hall at Chicago on
June 18, 1912. But for ten days the hosts had been coming in, one
delegation after another; the hotels were packed; each committee
had its special quarters; crowds of sight-seers, shouters, and
supporters swelled the multitude. The Republican National
Committee met; the managers of each candidate met. The
committees, which had not yet an official standing, conferred
unofficially. Rumors floated from every room; there were secret
conferences, attempts to win over delegates, promises to trade
votes, and even efforts at conciliation. Night and day this wild
torrent of excitement rushed on.
A spectator from Mars might have remarked: "But for so important
a business as the choice of a candidate who may become President
of the United States, you ought to have quiet, deliberation, free
play, not for those who can shout loudest, but for those who can
speak wisest." And to this remark, the howling and whirling
dervishes who attended the Convention would have replied, if they
had waited long enough to hear it through, by yelling,
"Hail! Hail! the gang's all here!
What the hell do we care?
What the hell do we care?"
and would have darted off to catch up with their fellow
Bacchanals. A smell of cocktails and of whiskey was ubiquitous; a
dense pall of tobacco smoke pervaded the committee-rooms; and out
of doors the clang of brass bands drowned even the incessant
noise of the throngs. There was no night, for the myriads of
electric lights made shadows but no darkness, and you wondered
when these strange creatures slept.
Such Saturnalia did not begin with the Convention of 1912. Most
of those who took part in them hardly thought it a paradox that
these should be the conditions under which the Americans
nominated their candidates for President.
Roosevelt had not intended to appear at the Convention, but when
he discovered that the long distance telephone from Chicago to
Oyster Bay, by which his managers conferred with him, was being
tapped, he changed his mind. He perceived, also, that there was a
lack of vigorous leadership among those managers which demanded
his presence. By going, he would call down much adverse
criticism, even from some of those persons whose support he
needed. On the other hand, he would immensely strengthen his
cause in Chicago, where the mere sight of him would stimulate
enthusiasm.
So he and Mrs. Roosevelt took the five-thirty afternoon train to
Chicago, on Friday, June 14th, leaving as privately as possible,
and accompanied by seven or eight of their children and cousins.
Late on Saturday, the train, having narrowly escaped being
wrecked by an accident, reached Chicago. At the station there was
an enormous crowd. Roosevelt's young kinsmen kept very close to
him and wedged their way to an automobile. With the greatest
difficulty his car slowly proceeded to the Congress Hotel. Never
was there such a furor of welcome. Everybody wore a Roosevelt
button. Everybody cheered for "Teddy." Here and there they passed
State delegations bearing banners and mottoes. Rough Riders, who
had come in their well-worn uniforms, added to the Rooseveltian
exultation. Whoever judged by this demonstration must think it
impossible that the Colonel could be defeated.
After he and his party had been shown to the suites reserved for
them, he went out on the balcony of a second-floor room and spoke
a few words to the immense multitude waiting below. He said, in
substance, that he was glad to find from their cheers that
Chicago did not believe in the thieves who stole delegates. Some
who saw him say that his face was red with anger; others aver
that he was no more vehement than usual, and simply strained
himself to the utmost to make his voice carry throughout his
audience. Still, if he said what they report, he was not politic.
Then followed days and nights of incessant strain.
The Colonel and Mrs. Roosevelt had their personal apartment in
the northeast corner of the hotel, at some distance from the
Florentine Room, which served as the official headquarters for
the Progressives. He had, besides, a private office with a
reception-room, and Tyree, one of the devoted detectives who had
served under him in old times, carefully guarded the entrance.
There was hardly a moment when one or two persons were not
closeted with him. Occasionally, he would come out into the
reception room and speak to the throng waiting there. No matter
what the news, no matter how early or late the hour, he was
always cheerful, and the mere sight of him brought joy and
confidence to his followers.
The young kinsmen went everywhere and brought back reports of
what they had seen or heard. One of them kept a diary of the
events as they whirled past, hour by hour, and in this one can
note many of the fleeting but vivid touches, which recall to the
reader now the reality of those feverish days. He attended a big
Taft rally at the Taft headquarters. Bell-boys ran up and down
the hotel corridors announcing it. "After each announcement,"
writes the young cousin, "a group of Roosevelt men would cry out,
'All postmasters attend!'" Two Taftites spoke briefly and "were
greeted by a couple of hand claps apiece; and then the star
performer of the evening was announced in the most glowing terms
as a model of political propriety, and the foremost and most
upright citizen of the United States--William Barnes, Jr., of
Albany." Mr. Barnes was supposed, at that time, to lead the New
York Republican Machine. "We have got to save the country," he
said, " save the constitution, save our liberty. We are in danger
of monarchy. The country must be saved!!" The Roosevelt cousin
thought that he spoke "without fervor to a listless, sedate, and
very polite audience. It was made all the more preposterous by
the fact that a very ancient colored gentleman stood back of
Barnes, and whenever Barnes paused, would point to the crowd and
feebly begin clapping his hands. They would then slowly and very
politely take up the applause, in every case waiting for his
signal. It was almost pathetic." At one time the Roosevelt scouts
alleged that "Timothy Woodruff is wavering, with four other
delegates, and will soon fall to us," and told "of delegates
flopping over, here and there." A still more extraordinary piece
of news came from Hooker to the effect that he had in some way
intercepted a telegram "from Murray Crane to his nephew saying
that Crane and Barnes would 'fight or ruin' and that it was now
'use any means and sacrifice the Republican Party.' Had it not
been for the way he told us, I couldn't have believed such a
thing possible."
Rumors like these were not verified at the time, and they are
assuredly unverifiable now. I repeat them merely to show how
suspense and excitement were constantly fed before the Convention
met. Remembering how long ex-Senator Crane and Mr. Barnes had had
their hands on the throttle of the Republican Machine, we are not
surprised at the young Rooseveltian's statement: "The Taft forces
control anything that has to do with machinery, but all the
feeling is for Roosevelt, and the Congress Hotel, at any rate,
favors the 'Big Noise,' as you will sometimes hear him called in
the lobbies or in the streets." Apparently, stump speeches were
made at any moment, and without provocation, in any hall; room,
or lobby of the hotel, by any one who felt the spirit move him;
and, lest silence should settle down and soothe the jaded nerves,
a band would strike up unexpectedly. The marching to and fro of
unrestrained gangs, shouting, "We-want-Teddy!" completed the
pandemonium.
Monday came. The young scouts were as busy as ever in following
the trails which led to Taft activities. The news they had to
tell was always very cheering. They found little enthusiasm among
the President's supporters. They heard, from the most trustworthy
sources, that this or that Taft leader or delegation was coming
over. And, in truth, the Taft body probably did not let off a
tenth of the noise which their opponents indulged in. The
shallows murmur, but the deeps are dumb, does not exactly apply
to the two opposing hosts. The Taft men resorted very little to
shouting, because they knew that if they were to win at all it
must be by other means. The Rooseveltians, on the other hand,
really felt a compelling surge of enthusiasm which they must
uncork.
Meanwhile Colonel Roosevelt and his lieutenants knew that the
enemy was perfecting his plan to defeat them. On Monday evening
his zealots packed the Auditorium and he poured himself out to
them in one of his torrential speeches calculated to rouse the
passions rather than the minds of his hearers. But it fitly
symbolized the situation. He, the daunt less leader, stood there,
the soul of sincerity and courage, impressing upon them all that
they were engaged in a most solemn cause and defying the
opposition as if it were a legion of evil spirits. His closing
words--" We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the
Lord"--summed it all up so completely that the audience burst
into a roar of approval, and never doubted that he spoke the
truth.
Tuesday at noon, a crowd of fifteen thousand persons, delegates
and visitors, packed the vast Convention Hall of the Coliseum.
Mr. Victor Rosewater, of Nebraska, presided at the opening. As it
was known that the Republican National Committee intended to
place on the temporary roll of delegates seventy-two names of
persons whose seats were contested, Governor Hadley, of Missouri,
made a motion that only those delegates, whose right was not
contested, should sit and vote during the preliminary
proceedings. Had he been successful, the Regulars would have lost
the battle from the beginning. But he was ruled out of order on
the ground that the only business before the Convention was the
election of a Temporary Chairman. This took place, and Senator
Root, from New York, was elected by 558 votes; McGovern, the
Roosevelt candidate, received 501 votes; there were 14
scattering, and 5 persons did not vote. Senator Root, therefore,
won his election by 38 votes over the combined opposition, but
his plurality was secured by the votes of the 72 whose seats were
contested.
During the three following days the Roosevelt men fought
desperately to secure what they believed to be justice. They
challenged every delegate, they demanded a roll-call on the
slightest excuse, they deluged the Regulars with alternate
showers of sarcasm and anger. But it availed them nothing. They
soon perceived that victory lay with the Republican National
Committee, which had the organization of the Convention and the
framing of the rules of procedure. The Taft people, the Regulars,
controlled the National Committee, and they knew that the rules
would do the rest, especially since, the Chairman of the
Convention, Senator Root, was the interpreter of the rules.
At no other National Convention in American history did a
Chairman keep his head and his temper so admirably as did Mr.
Root on this occasion. His intellect, burning with a cold, white
light,illumined every point, but betrayed no heat of passion. He
applied the rules as impartially as if they were theorems of
algebra. Time after time the Rooseveltians protested against the
holders of contested seats to vote, but he was unmoved because
the rule prescribed that the person had a right to vote. When the
contests were taken up, the Taft men always won, the Roosevelt
men always lost. The Machine went as if by clock-work or like the
guillotine. More than once some Rooseveltian leader, like
Governor Hadley, stung by a particularly shocking display of
overbearing injustice, taunted the majority with shouts of
"Robbers" and "Theft." Roars of passion swept through the hall.
The derision of the minority was countered by the majority with
equal vigor, but the majority did not always feel, in spite of
its truculent manner, confident of the outcome.
By what now seems shameless theft, the Credentials Committee
approved the seating of two Taft delegates from California, in
spite of the fact that the proper officials of that State had
certified that its twenty-six delegates were all for Roosevelt,
and had been elected by a majority of 76,000 votes. Chairman Root
put the question to the Convention, however, and those two
discredited delegates were admitted for Taft by a vote of 542 to
529. This indicates how close the Convention then stood, when a
change of seven votes would have given Roosevelt a majority of
one and have added to his list the two California delegates who
were counted out. Had such a change taken place, those who
watched the Convention believed there would have been a
"landslide" to Roosevelt. But the Republican Committee's sorely
tested rules held. After that, the Rooseveltians saw no gleam of
hope.
On Saturday, June 22d, the list of delegates to the Convention
having been drawn up as the Republican Machine intended, Mr. Taft
was nominated by a vote of 561; Roosevelt received 107, La
Follette 41, Cummins 17, Hughes 2; 344 delegates did not vote.
The last were all Roosevelt men, but they had been requested by
Roosevelt to refuse to vote. Through Mr. Henry J. Allen, of
Kansas, he sent this message:
'The Convention has now declined to purge the roll of the
fraudulent delegates placed thereon by the defunct National
Committee, and the majority which thus endorsed fraud was made a
majority only because it included the fraudulent delegates
themselves, who all sat as judges on one another's cases. If
these fraudulent votes had not thus been cast and counted the
Convention would have been purged of their presence. This action
makes the Convention in no proper sense any longer a Republican
Convention representing the real Republican Party. Therefore, I
hope the men elected as Roosevelt delegates will now decline to
vote on any matter before the Convention. I do not release any
delegate from his honorable obligation to vote for me if he votes
at all, but under the actual conditions I hope that he will not
vote at all. The Convention as now composed has no claim to
represent the voters of the Republican Party. It represents
nothing but successful fraud in overriding the will of the rank
and file of the party. Any man nominated by the Convention as now
constituted would be merely the beneficiary of this successful
fraud; it would be deeply discreditable to any man to accept the
Convention's nomination under these circumstances; and any man
thus accepting it would have no claim to the support of any
Republican on party grounds, and would have forfeited the right
to ask the support of any honest man of any party on moral
grounds.'
Mr. Allen concluded with these words of his own:
'We do not bolt. We merely insist that you, not we, are making
the record. And we refuse to be bound by it. We have pleaded with
you ten days. We have fought with you five days for a square
deal. We fight no more, we plead no longer. We shall sit in
protest and the people who sent us here shall judge us.
'Gentlemen, you accuse us of being radical. Let me tell you that
no radical in the ranks of radicalism ever did so radical a thing
as to come to a National Convention of the great Republican Party
and secure through fraud the nomination of a man whom they knew
could not be elected.'*
* Fifteenth Republican National Convention (New York, 1912), 333,
335.
Every night during that momentous week the Roosevelt delegates
met in the Congress Hotel, talked over the day's proceedings,
gave vent to their indignation, confirmed each other's
resolution, and took a decision as to their future action. The
powerful Hiram Johnson, Governor of California, led them, and
through his eloquence he persuaded all but 107 of them to stand
by Roosevelt whether he were nominated by the Convention or not.
And this they did. For when the vote for the nomination was taken
at the Convention only 107 of the Roosevelt men cast their
ballots. They favored Roosevelt, but they were not prepared to
quit the Republican Party. During the roll-call the Roosevelt
delegates from Massachusetts refused to vote. Thereupon, Mr.
Root, the Chairman, ruled that they must vote, to which Frederick
Fosdick replied, when his name was read again, "Present, and not
voting. I defy the Convention to make me vote for any man"; and
seventeen other Roosevelt delegates refrained. Mr. Root then
called up the alternates of these abstainers and three of them
recorded their votes for Taft, but there was such a demonstration
against this ruling that Mr. Root thought better of it and
proceeded in it no farther. Many of his Republican associates at
the time thought this action high-handed and unjustified, and
many more agree in this opinion today.
Except for this grave error, Mr. Root's rulings were strictly
according to the precedents and directions of the Republican
National Committee, and we may believe that even he saw the
sardonic humor of his unvarying application of them at the
expense of the Rooseveltians. Before the first day's session was
over, the process was popularly called the "steam roller." Late
in the week, a delegate rose to a point of order, and on being
recognized by the Chairman, he shouted that he wished to call the
attention of the Chairman to the fact that the steam roller was
exceeding its speed limit, at which Mr. Root replied, "The
Chairman rules that the gentleman's point of order is well
taken." And everybody laughed. There was one dramatic moment
which, as Dean Lewis remarks, has had no counterpart in a
National Convention. When the Machine had succeeded, in spite of
protests and evidence, in stealing the two delegates from
California, the friends of Mr. Taft gave triumphant cheers. Then
the Roosevelt men rose up as one man and sent forth a mighty
cheer which astonished their opponents. It was a cheer in which
were mingled indignation and scorn, and, above all, relief.
Strictly interpreted, it meant that those men who had sat for
four days and seen their wishes thwarted, by what they regarded
as fraud, and had held on in the belief that this fraud could not
continue to the end, that a sense of fairness would return and
rule the Regulars, now realized that Fraud would concede nothing
and that their Cause was lost. And they felt a great load lifted.
No obligation bound them any longer to the Republican Party which
had renounced honesty in its principles and fair play in its
practice. Henceforth they could go out and take any step they
chose to promote their Progressive doctrines. *
* Lewis, 363.
Shortly after the Convention adjourned, having, by these methods,
nominated Mr. Taft and James S. Sherman for President and
Vice-President, the Rooseveltians held a great meeting in
Orchestra Hall. Governor Johnson presided and apparently a
majority of the Rooseveltians wished, then and there, to organize
a new party and to nominate Roosevelt as its candidate. Several
men made brief but earnest addresses. Then Roosevelt himself
spoke, and although he lacked nothing of his usual vehemence, he
seemed to be controlled by a sense of the solemnity of their
purpose. He told them that it was no more a question of
Progressivism, which he ardently believed in, but a question of
fundamental honesty and right, which everybody ought to believe
in and uphold. He advised them to go to their homes, to discuss
the crisis with their friends; to gain what adherence and support
they could, and to return in two months and formally organize
their party and nominate their candidate for President. And he
added: "If you wish me to make the fight, I will make it, even if
only one State should support me. The only condition I impose is
that you shall feel entirely free, when you come together, to
substitute any other man in my place, if you deem it better for
the movement, and in such case, I will give him my heartiest
support."
And so the defeated majority of the Republicans at Chicago,
Republicans no longer, broke up. There were many earnest
hand-shakings, many pledges to meet again in August, and to take
up the great work. Those who intended to stay by the Republican
Party, not less than those who cast their lot with the
Progressives, bade farewell, with deep emotion, to the Leader
whom they had wished to see at the head of the Republican Party.
Chief among these was Governor Hadley, of Missouri, who at one
moment, during the Convention, seemed likely to be brought
forward by the Regulars as a compromise candidate. Some of the
Progressives resented his defection from them; not so Roosevelt,
who said: "He will not be with us, but we must not blame him."
Six weeks later, the Progressives returned to Chicago. Again,
Roosevelt had his headquarters at the Congress Hotel. Again, the
delegates, among whom were several women, met at the Coliseum.
Crowds of enthusiastic supporters and larger crowds of curiosity-
seekers swarmed into the vast building. On Monday, August 5, the
first session of the Progressive Party's Convention was held.
Senator Albert J. Beveridge, of Indiana, made the opening
address, in which he defined the principles of their party and
the objects it hoped to obtain. Throughout the proceedings there
was much enthusiasm, but no battle. It was rather the gathering
of several thousand very earnest men and women bent on
consecrating themselves to a new Cause, which they believed to be
the paramount Cause for the political, economic, and social
welfare of. their country. Nearly all of them were Idealists,
eager to secure the victory of some special reform. And, no
doubt, an impartial observer might have detected among them
traces of that "lunatic fringe," which Roosevelt himself had long
ago humorously remarked clung to the skirts of every reform. But
the whole body, judged without prejudice, probably contained the
largest number of disinterested, public-spirited, and devoted
persons, who had ever met for a national and political object
since the group which formed the Republican Party in 1854.
The professional politician who usually preponderates in such
Conventions, and, in the last, had usurped control both of the
proceedings and decisions, had little place here. The chief topic
of discussion turned on the admission of negro delegates from the
South. Roosevelt believed that an attempt to create a negro
Progressive Party, as such, would alienate the Southern whites
and would certainly sharpen their hostility towards the blacks.
Therefore, he advised that the negro delegates ought to be
approved by the White Progressives in their several districts. In
other words, the Progressive Party in the South should be a white
party with such colored members as the whites found acceptable.
On Monday and Tuesday the work done in the Convention was much
less important than that done by the Committee on Resolutions and
by the Committee on Credentials. On Wednesday the Convention
heard and adopted the Platform and then nominated Roosevelt by
acclamation. Miss Jane Addams, of Hull House, Chicago, seconded
the nomination, praising Roosevelt as "one of the few men in our
public life who has been responsive to modern movement." "The
program," she said, "will need a leader of invincible courage, of
open mind, of democratic sympathies--one endowed with power to
interpret the common man, and to identify himself with the common
lot." Governor Hiram Johnson, from California, was nominated for
Vice-President. Over the platform, to which the candidates were
escorted, hung Kipling's stanza:
"For there is neither East nor West,
Border nor breed nor birth,
When two strong men stand face to face,
Though they come from the ends of the earth."
Portraits of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Jackson, and
Hamilton, a sufficiently inclusive group of patriots, looked down
upon them. After Roosevelt and Johnson addressed the audience,
the trombones sounded "Old Hundred" and the great meeting closed
to the words--
"Praise God from whom all blessings flow."
The Progressive Platform contained many planks which have since
been made laws by the Democratic Party, which read the signs of
the times more quickly than did the Republicans. Especially many
of the suggestions relating to Labor, the improvement of the
currency, the control of corporate wealth, and oversight over
public hygiene, should be commended. In general, it promised to
bring the Government nearer to the people by giving the people a
more and more direct right over the Government. It declared for a
rational tariff and the creation of a non-partisan Tariff
Commission of experts, and it denounced alike the Republicans for
the Payne-Aldrich Bill, which dishonestly revised upwards, and
the Democrats, who wished to abolish protection altogether. It
urged proper military and naval preparation and the building of
two battleships a year--a plank which we can imagine Roosevelt
wrote in with peculiar satisfaction. It advocated direct
primaries; the conservation of natural resources; woman suffrage.
So rapidly has the country progressed in seven years that most of
the recommendations have already been adopted, and are among the
common places which nobody disputes any longer. But the
Initiative, the Referendum, and the Recall of Judicial Decisions
were the points, as I remarked above, over which the country
debated most hotly. The Recall, in particular, created a
widespread alarm, and just as Roosevelt's demand for it in his
Columbus speech prevented, as I believe, his nomination by the
Republican Convention in June, so it deprived the Progressives at
the election in November of scores of thousands of votes. The
people of the United States--every person who owned a bit of
property, a stock or a bond, or who had ten dollars or more in
the savings bank--looked upon it almost with consternation. For
they knew that they were living in a time of flux, when old
standards were melting away like snow images in the sun, when new
ideals, untried and based on the negation of some of the oldest
principles in our civilization, were being pushed forward. They
instinctively rallied to uphold Law, the slow product of
centuries of growth, the sheet anchor of Society in a time of
change. Where could we look for solidity, or permanence, if
judicial decisions could be recalled at the caprice of the
mob--the hysterical, the uninstructed, the fickle mob? The
opinion of one trained and honest judge outweighs the whims of
ten thousand of the social dregs.
The Recall of Judicial Decisions, therefore, caused many of
Roosevelt's friends, and even Republicans who would otherwise
have supported him, to balk. They not only rejected the proposal
itself, but they feared that he, by making it, indicated that he
had lost his judgment and was being swept into the vortex of
revolution. Judges and courts and respect for law, like
lighthouses on granite foundations, must be kept safe from the
fluctuations of tides and the crash of tempests.
The campaign which followed is chiefly remarkable for Roosevelt's
amazing activity. He felt that the success of the Progressive
Party at the polls depended upon him as its Leader. The desire
for personal success in any contest into which he plunged would
have been a great incentive, but this was a cause which dwarfed
any personal considerations of his. Senator Joseph M. Dixon, of
Montana, managed the campaign; Roosevelt himself gave it a
dynamic impulse which never flagged. He went to the Pacific
Coast, speaking at every important centre on the way, and
returning through the Southern States to New York City. In
September he swept through New England, and he was making a final
tour through the Middle West, when, on October 14th, just as he
was leaving his hotel to make a speech in the Auditorium in
Milwaukee, a lunatic named John Schranck shot him with a
revolver. The bullet entered his body about an inch below the
right nipple and would probably have been fatal but for an eye
glass-case and a roll of manuscript he had in his pocket. Before
the assassin could shoot again, his hand was caught and deflected
by the Colonel's secretary. "Don't hurt the poor creature,"
Roosevelt said, when Schranck was overpowered and brought before
him. Not knowing the extent of his wound, and waiting only long
enough to return to his hotel room and change his white shirt, as
the bosom of the one he had on was soaked with blood, and
disregarding the entreaties of his companions to stay quiet, he
went to the Auditorium and spoke for more than an hour. Only
towards the end did the audience perceive that he showed signs of
fatigue. This extraordinary performance was most foolhardy, and
some of his carping critics said that, as usual, Roosevelt wanted
to be theatrical. But there was no such purpose in him. He felt
to the depths of his soul that neither his safety nor that of any
other individual counted in comparison with the triumph of the
Cause he was fighting for.
After a brief examination the surgeons stated that he had better
be removed to the Mercy Hospital in Chicago. They put him on his
special car and by an incredible negligence they sent him off to
make the night journey without any surgical attendant. On
reaching the Mercy Hospital, Dr. Ryan made a further examination
and reported that there seemed to be no immediate danger,
although he could not be sure whether the Colonel would live or
not. Roosevelt, who was advertised to make a great speech in
Louisville, Kentucky, that evening, summoned Senator Beveridge
and sent him off with the manuscript of the address to take his
place. Mrs. Roosevelt reached Chicago by the first train
possible, and stayed with him while he underwent, impatiently,
nearly a fortnight's convalescence. Then, much sooner than the
surgeons thought wise, although his wound had healed with
remarkable speed, he returned to Oyster Bay, and on October 30th
he closed his campaign by addressing sixteen thousand persons in
the Madison Square Garden. He spoke with unwonted calm and
judicial poise; and so earnestly that the conviction which he
felt carried conviction to many who heard him. "I am glad beyond
measure," he said, "that I am one of the many who in this fight
have stood ready to spend and be spent, pledged to fight, while
life lasts, the great fight for righteousness and for brotherhood
and for the welfare of mankind."
President Taft and the members of his Cabinet took little or no
active part in the campaign. Indeed, the Republicans seemed
unable to arouse enthusiasm. They relied upon their past
victories and the robust campaign fund, which the Interests
gladly furnished. The Democratic candidate was Woodrow Wilson,
Governor of New Jersey, who had been professor at Princeton
University, and then its president. As Governor, he had commended
himself by fighting the Machine, and by advocating radical
measures. As candidate, he asserted his independence by declaring
that "a party platform is not a program." He spoke effectively,
and both he and his party had the self-complacency that comes to
persons who believe that they are sure to win. And how could
their victory be in doubt since the united Democrats had for
opponents the divided Republicans? When Colonel Roosevelt was
shot, Governor Wilson magnanimously announced that he would make
no more speeches. Roosevelt objected to this, believing that a
chance accident to him, personally, ought not to stop any one
from criticising him politically. "What ever could with truth and
propriety have been said against me and my cause before I was
shot, can," he urged, "with equal truth and equal propriety, be
said against me now, and it should so be said; and the things
that cannot be said now are merely the things that ought not to
have been said before. This is not a contest about any man; it is
a contest concerning principles."
At the election on November 5th, Wilson was elected by 6,286,000
votes out of 15,310,000 votes, thus being a minority President by
two million and a half votes. Roosevelt received 4,126,000 and
Taft 3,483,000 votes. The combined vote of what had been the
Republican Party amounted to 7,609,000 votes, or 1,323,000 more
than those received by Mr. Wilson. When it came to the Electoral
College, the result was even more significant. Wilson had 435,
Roosevelt 88, and Taft, thanks to Vermont and Utah, secured 8
votes. Roosevelt carried Pennsylvania the rock-bound Republican
State, Missouri which was usually Democratic, South Dakota,
Washington, Michigan, and eleven out of the thirteen votes of
California. These figures, analyzed calmly, after the issues and
passions have cooled into history, indicate two things. First,
the amazing personal popularity of Roosevelt, who, against the
opposition of the Republican Machine and all its ramifications,
had so easily defeated President Taft, the candidate of that
Machine. And secondly, it proved that Roosevelt, and not Taft,
really represented a large majority of what had been the
Republican Party. Therefore, it was the Taft faction which, in
spite of the plain evidence given at the choice of the delegates,
and at the Convention itself--evidence which the Machine tried to
ignore and suppress--it was the Taft faction and not Roosevelt
which split the Republican Party in 1912.
Had it allowed the preference of the majority to express itself
by the nomination of Roosevelt, there is every reason to believe
that he would have been elected. For we must remember that the
Democratic Platform was hardly less progressive than that of the
Progressives themselves. Counting the Wilson and the Roosevelt
vote together, we find 10,412,000 votes were cast for Progressive
principles against 3,483,000 votes for the reactionary
Conservatives. And yet the gray wolves of the Republican Party,
and its Old Guard, and its Machine, proclaimed to the country
that its obsolescent doctrines represented the desires and the
ideals of the United States in 1912!
Although the campaign, as conducted by the Republicans, seemed
listless, it did not lack venom. Being a family fight between the
Taft men and the Roosevelt men, it had the bitterness which
family quarrels develop. Mr. Taft and most of his Secretaries had
known the methods of Mr. Roosevelt and his Ministers. They could
counter, therefore, charges of incompetence and indifference by
recalling the inconsistencies, or worse, of Roosevelt's regime.
When the Progressives charged the Taft Administration with being
easy on the Big Interests, Attorney-General Wickersham resorted
to a simple sum in arithmetic in order to contradict them,
showing that whereas Roosevelt began forty-four Anti-Trust suits,
and concluded only four important cases during his seven and a
half years in office, under Taft sixty-six new suits were begun
and many of the old ones were successfully concluded. Some great
cases, like that of the Standard Oil and of the Railroad Rates,
had been settled, which equaled in importance any that Roosevelt
had taken up. In the course of debate on the stump, each side
made virulent accusations against the other, and things were said
which were not true then and have long since been regretted by
the sayers. That happens in all political contests.
Roosevelt himself, being the incarnation, if not indeed the
cause, of the Progressive Party, had to endure an incessant
volley of personal attack. They charged him with inordinate
ambition. We heard how Mr. William Barnes, Jr., the would-be
savior of the country, implied that Roosevelt must be defeated in
order to prevent the establishment of monarchy in the United
States. Probably Mr. Barnes, in his moments of reflection,
admitted to himself that he did not really mean that, but many
campaign orators and editors repeated the insinuation and
besought free-born Americans not to elect a candidate who would
assume the title of King Theodore. Many of his critics could
account for his leaving the Republican Party and heading another,
only on the theory that he was moved by a desire for revenge. If
he could not rule he would ruin. The old allegation that he must
be crazy was of course revived.
After the election, the Republican Regulars, who had stubbornly
refused, to read the handwriting on the wall during the previous
four years, heaped new abuse upon him. They said that he had
betrayed the Party. They said that he had shown himself an
ingrate towards Taft, whose achievements in the Presidency awoke
his envy. And more recently, many persons who have loathed the
Administration of President Wilson, blame Roosevelt for having
brought down this curse upon the country.
These various opinions and charges seem to me to be mistaken; and
in the foregoing chapters, if I have truly divined Theodore
Roosevelt's character, every reader should see that his action in
entering the field for the Republican nomination in 1912, and
then in founding the Progressive Party, was the perfectly natural
culmination of his career. Some one said that he went off at a
tangent in 1912. Some one else has said better that this tangent
was a straight line leading back to 1882, when he sat in the New
York Assembly. Remember that the love of Justice was from boyhood
his leading principle. Remember that, after he succeeded in
having a law passed relieving the miserably poor cigar-makers
from the hideous conditions under which they had to work, a judge
declared the law unconstitutional, thereby proving to Roosevelt
that the courts, which should be the citadels of justice, might
and did, in this case, care more for the financial interests of
landowners than for the health, life, and soul of human beings.
That example of injustice was branded on his heart, and he
resolved to combat the judicial league with in humanity, wherever
he met it. So Abraham Lincoln, when, at the age of twenty-two he
first saw a slave auction in New Orleans, said, in indignant
horror, to his companion, John Hanks: "If I ever get a chance to
hit that thing [meaning slavery] I'll hit it hard." Exactly
thirty years later, Abraham Lincoln, as President, was hitting
that thing--slavery--so hard that it perished. Roosevelt's
experience as Assemblyman, as Civil Service Commissioner, as
Police Commissioner, as Governor, and as President, had confirmed
his belief that the decisions of the courts often stood between
the People and Justice.
Especially in his war on the Interests was he angered at finding
corporate abuses, and even criminal methods, comfortably
protected by an upholstery of favoring laws. With that tact and
willingness to compromise on non-essentials in order to gain his
essential object, which mark him as a statesman, he used the
Republican Party, naturally the party of the plutocrats who
controlled the Interests, just as long as he could. Then, when
the Republican Machine rose against him, he quitted it and
founded the Progressive Party, to be the instrument for carrying
on and completing the great reforms he had at heart. Here was no
desertion, no betrayal; here was, first of all, common sense; if
the road no longer leads towards your goal, you leave it and take
an other. No one believed more sincerely than Roosevelt did, in
fealty to party. In 1884 he would not bolt, because he hoped that
the good which the Republican principles would accomplish would
more than offset the harm which the nomination of Blaine would
inflict. But in 1912, the Republicans cynically rejected his
cause which he had tried to make the Republican cause, and then,
as in 1884, he held that the cause was more important than the
individual, and he followed this idea loyally, lead where it
might.
In trying thus to state Roosevelt's position fairly, I do not
mean to imply that I should agree with his conclusions in regard
to the Recall of the Judicial Decisions; and the experiments
which have already been made with the Referendum and Initiative
and Direct Primaries are so unsatisfactory that Roosevelt himself
would probably have recognized that the doubts, which many of us
felt when he first proposed those measures, have been justified.
But I wish to emphasize my admiration for the large consistency
of his career, and my conviction that, with out his crowning
action in 1912, he would have failed to be the moral force which
he was. If ambition, if envy, if a selfish desire to rule, had
been the motives which guided him, he would have lain low in
1912; for all his friends and the managers of the Republican
Party assured him that if he would stand aside then, he would be
unanimously nominated by the Republicans in 1916. But he could
not be tempted.