Authors: Edmund Morris
Historiographical Note:
The exact number of delegates won in primary elections by TR and WHT in 1912 has been the subject of much dispute among historians and biographers. (See above, 637, for the similar elusiveness of the total primary vote.) Mowry, e.g., allows WHT only 48 delegates, whereas Bishop gives him 68, and Sullivan and Pringle 71. There is even disagreement on how many primaries were held. In their general tendency to emphasize TR’s popularity among rank-and-file GOP voters, these historians mystifyingly exclude New York. Technically, it is true that the Barnes machine exerted an undue influence on the voting in that state, but the canvass held on 26 March was very definitely a primary, and treated as such by all participants.
The 83 delegates pledged to WHT from New York, plus the 7 pledged to TR, should be therefore included in the overall tally, making the President’s unpopularity less marked, while a recalculation of TR’s performance hardly affects the decisiveness of the outcome. The following table, compiled in calendar order, includes delegates-at-large who remained loyal to their candidate despite contrary instructions (as in Massachusetts) or who were added on by state conventions (as in Ohio). It does not, however, include 28 Taft delegates from the primary in Georgia, a state where the GOP was effectively disenfranchised.
| STATE | TAFT | TR |
| North Dakota (La Follette) | 0 | 0 |
| New York | 83 | 7 |
| Wisconsin (La Follette) | 0 | 0 |
| Illinois | 2 | 56 |
| Pennsylvania | 9 | 65 |
| Nebraska | 0 | 16 |
| Oregon | 0 | 10 |
| Massachusetts | 18 | 26 |
| Maryland | 0 | 16 |
| California | 0 | 26 |
| Ohio | 14 | 34 |
| New Jersey | 0 | 28 |
| South Dakota | 0 | 10 |
| TOTALS | 126 | 294 |
When these numbers are subtracted from the aggregates brought by each candidate to the convention, it will be seen that the real conflict in the spring of 1912 was not between WHT and TR, but between two delegate-producing systems: the modern primary one, confined to northern states tolerant of progressivism, and the old caucus-convention method, supreme in the South and other regions where authority mattered more than popularity. If the primary states had not so suddenly doubled in number, they would have posed less of a challenge to what Taft called “the principles of the party … the retention of conservative government and conservative institutions.” (Gable, “The Bull Moose Years” [diss.], 40.) They gave TR a more than two-to-one advantage, whereas a reverse imbalance in favor of the President applied in the other 35 states, contributing to his overall majority. Until one or other of the systems won out (TR himself was not persuaded that the primary should be adopted everywhere), it would always be foolhardy for a popular candidate to take on a party-sanctioned one.
22
“The Taft leaders”
The New York Times
, 9 June 1912.
23
There was nothing
For TR’s post-campaign sabbatical at Oyster Bay, see Sullivan,
Our Times
, 4.496–504.
24
“confusion and comparative”
The New York Times
, 16 June 1912.
25
He found Roosevelt
Nicholas Roosevelt, “Account of the Republican National Convention at Chicago, June 12, 1912, compiled from notes taken on the spot,” bound vol., 1 (TRC). See also Nicholas Roosevelt,
TR
, 86ff.
26
“Well, Nick”
Nicholas Roosevelt, “Account of the RNC,” 1.
27
The New York party
Harper, a stenographer dispatched by
The Outlook
to assist TR on his tour of Europe in 1910, had stayed with him ever since. The following account of TR’s journey to Chicago is based on Nicholas Roosevelt, “Account of the RNC.” Extra details from
The New York Times
and
Syracuse Herald
, 15, 16 June 1912, and Sullivan,
Our Times
, 4.505–6.
28
“the great effort”
Nicholas Roosevelt, “Account of the RNC,” 1, 20.
29
In mid-afternoon
John C. O’Laughlin, “Diary of the National Republican Convention,” 14–15 June 1912 (OL). It had been O’Laughlin who first conceived the idea of TR making a dramatic pilgrimage to the Chicago convention. (O’Laughlin
to TR, 7 June 1912 [OL].) Mowry,
TR
, 244–45 cites the Taft campaign’s nervousness about the fickle loyalty of 66 Negro delegates, whom Roosevelt agents in Chicago were courting “by one means or another.”
30
a new, tan campaign hat
Sullivan,
Our Times
, 4.505–6 and 510 (illustration).
31
People packed
Nicholas Roosevelt, “Account of the RNC,” 7.
32
“Chicago is”
Syracuse Herald
and
The New York Times
, 16 June 1912.
33
“It is a fight”
The New York Times
, 16 June 1912. Meanwhile, Chicago bookies were betting 2 to 1 that TR would not be nominated. Decatur
Sunday Review
, 16 June 1912.
34
The crowd in
Nicholas Roosevelt, “Account of the RNC,” 12, 16;
The New York Times
, 16, 17 June 1912.
35
The fervor of
William Jennings Bryan,
A Tale of Two Conventions
(New York, 1912), 10; White,
Autobiography
, 464; Nicholas Roosevelt, “Account of the RNC,” 20;
The New York Times
, 17–18 June 1912.
36
cries of “Shame”
The New York Times
, 18 June 1912. The following extracts from TR’s Auditorium address, entitled “The Case Against the Reactionaries,” are taken from TR,
Works
, 19.285–317.
37
William Jennings Bryan
“The Arabs are said to have seven hundred words which mean
camel,
” Bryan wrote in his report of the speech. “Mr. Roosevelt has nearly as many synonyms for
theft
, and he used them all tonight.” Bryan,
A Tale of Two Conventions
, 16.
38
“I am never surprised”
O’Laughlin, “Diary of the National Republican Convention,” 17 June 1912 (OL).
39
the fanaticism of his followers
“I can liken it only to a belief in God,” one Taft delegate recalled. “They thought Roosevelt was infallible—I have never known such intensity of feeling before or since.” (Ezra P. Prentice interviewed by Mary Hagedorn, 28 June 1955 [TRB].) William Allen White wrote that he was “thrilled to my heart” by the speech, yet at the same time, “I was disturbed, I suppose a little frightened, at the churning which he gave to the crowd.”
Autobiography
, 464–45.
40
At Three o’Clock
Sullivan,
Our Times
, 4.511. Sullivan was unsure whether this flyer was circulated during the GOP or Progressive Party conventions of June and August, 1912, respectively. But two accounts by participants confirm the earlier date. Prentice interview, op. cit.; Henry J. Allen in Wood,
Roosevelt As We Knew Him
, 273.
41
“I am for Teddy”
Marshall Stimson, “Colonel Roosevelt and the Presidential campaign of 1912,” n.d., memorandum in TRB.
42
By the time
Except where otherwise indicated, the following account is based on the reportage of
The New York Times, Syracuse Herald, Emporia Gazette
, and
Atlanta Constitution
, 18–23 June 1912, and
Official Report of the Proceedings of the National Republican Convention
(1912, Internet Archive [
http://www.archive.org/
]), hereafter
Proceedings of the 15th RNC
. Mark Sullivan’s account reproduces some brilliant sketches of the conventioneers in action. Sullivan,
Our Times
, 4.512–30.
43
“the mere monstrous embodiment”
Morris,
The Rise of TR
, 481. For discussion of the relationship between James and TR, see Philip Horne, “Henry James and ‘the Forces of Violence’: On the Track of ‘Big Game’ in ‘The Jolly Corner,’ ”
The Henry James Review
, 27 (2006).
44
The bands that had
White,
Autobiography
, 463. According to Gould,
Four Hats in the Ring
, 70, the Roosevelt campaign spent $10,000 on bands during the course of the convention.
45
Victor Rosewater’s gavel
Since the convention had not yet elected its chairman, Rosewater presided over its initial business in his capacity as acting chairman of the Republican National Committee. See Rosewater,
Back Stage in 1912
, 160–64.
46
But first
Emporia Gazette
, 18 June,
The New York Times
, 19 June 1912.
47
Contrary to rumors
Nicholas Roosevelt, “Account of the RNC,” 24; Lewis,
TR
, 441.
48
Hadley, a calm
Harlan Hahn, “The Republican National Convention of 1912 and the Role of Herbert S. Hadley in National Politics,”
Missouri Historical Review
, 59.4 (1965).
49
“Mr. Chairman,” he said
Proceedings of the 15th RNC
, 32. Except where otherwise indicated, all convention quotations are taken from this source.
50
William Barnes, Jr
.
The New York Times
, 20 June 1912;
Proceedings of the 15
th
RNC
, 32.
51
Hadley said
For the negotiations that permitted Hadley to make his move, see Rosewater,
Back Stage in 1912
, 153–59.
52
The latest
New York Times
estimate
16 June 1912.
53
“Elihu Root is the ablest”
Proceedings of the 15th RNC
, 43. TR’s original tribute, abbreviated by Hedges, was even more fulsome: “He is the greatest man who has appeared in the public life of any country in any position, on either side of the ocean in my time.” Quoted by Walter Wellman in
American Review of Reviews
, Jan. 1904. For another cadenza of superlatives about Root, written when TR was on the Nile in 1910, see TR,
Letters
, 7.48.
54
“Cousin Theodore”
Nicholas Roosevelt, “Account of the RNC,” 26.
55
for the first time
Gould,
Four Hats in the Ring
, 72.
56
rows of emptying benches
Atlanta Constitution
, 19 June 1912.
57
Hadley, elegant in
White,
Autobiography
, 471;
Proceedings of the 15th RNC
, 108.
58
“Are you going to abide”
The New York Times
, 20 June 1912.
59
“I will support”
Ibid.
60
Instantly every Roosevelt delegate
Nicholas Roosevelt, “Account of the RNC,” 26, 40–41. For a verbal portrait of Root as chairman, see White,
Autobiography
, 470–71.
61
The demonstration was
The New York Times
, 20 June 1912. See also Sullivan,
Our Times
, 4.528–30, and Bryan,
A Tale of Two Conventions
, 45–47, 55–56.
62
“That question is not”
Proceedings of the 15th RNC
, 144–46.
63
“No man can be”
Ibid., 160. “In other words,” Owen Wister wrote, “the counterfeit Taft coins were allowed to decide that they were genuine, and the genuine Roosevelt coins were counterfeit.” Wister,
Roosevelt
, 312.
64
That night the woman
Lowell
(Mass.)
Sun
, 20 June 1912. Suspicions among Taft leaders that the demonstration was not entirely spontaneous were confirmed when it transpired that Mrs. Davis had tried out her portrait-waving stunt two nights earlier, jumping onto a table in the Congress Hotel and stimulating great enthusiasm among Roosevelt supporters. Later in the week she was seen visiting with Alice Roosevelt Longworth.
The New York Times
, 22 June 1912.
65
But throughout the day
Nicholas Roosevelt, “Account of the RNC,” 31–33; W. Franklin Knox in Wood,
Roosevelt As We Knew Him
, 267–79; Travers Carman in Abbott,
Impressions of TR
, 84–85; Davis,
Released for Publication
, 302–10; Gould,
Four Hats in the Ring
, 72–73; TR,
Letters
, 7.570. According to Carman, an eyewitness, the representative of 38 Southern delegates offered him all their nominating votes if he would agree to an organization-controlled platform. These votes, added to the most recent assessment of TR’s core strength, would assure him of victory. Two aides urged him to accept. He put his hands on their shoulders and said, “I have grown to regard you both as brothers. Let no act or word of yours make that relationship impossible.” This is, however, but one of many conflicting stories in the above sources as to what transpired between TR and Hadley (who came to see him with a group of supporters seeking
permission to make the governor a compromise candidate), and between TR and other negotiants whose names he chose not to reveal. After the convention, Hadley said that TR was promised “Washington and Texas” for cooperating with the Taft forces; Knox said TR wanted “at least four states” as his price; and TR himself stated that he was offered “Washington (not California or Texas),” but insisted on all or nothing. The truth is probably impossible to ascertain. But as Mowry remarks, “The facts clearly indicate that the Colonel would have tolerated no nomination but his own.” (Mowry,
TR
, 251–52.) See also Rosewater,
Back Stage in 1912
, 180–81.