Colonel Roosevelt
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CHAPTER 10: ARMAGEDDON
1 Epigraph Robinson, Collected Poems, 66.
2 a baby parade The New York Times, 30 May 1912.
3 Next morning Heaton, The Story of a Page, 343.
4 A further similarity TR was about 20 percent behind WHT in delegates in the first week of June, and Wilson about 37 percent behind Clark.
5 his own claimants Gould, Four Hats in the Ring, 67. The Atlanta Constitution, 18 June 1912, cited affidavits by three Taft members of the Georgia delegation stating that they had been offered cash bribes of up to $400 apiece to switch their votes to TR. McHarg does not appear to have been directly involved.
6 Still, he had Bishop, TR, 2.322–23; The New York Times, 9 June 1912.
7 chairman of the convention Technically in 1912, temporary chairman. See above, 612.
8 “Elihu,” Roosevelt TR quoted by Finley Peter Dunne in The American Magazine, 24 Sept. 1912.
9 On 3 June TR, Letters, 7.555.
10 EXCEPTION OF A VERY FEW Barnes was alluding to New York’s imbalance of 7 delegates for TR and 83 for Taft. The phrase temporary chairman in this telegram has been shortened to chairman, for reasons explained above (612).
11 “Root,” he complained Mowry, TR, 242; TR, Letters, 7.548–49, 555.
12 Unfortunately, most Gould, Four Hats in the Ring, 66. Owen Wister describes delegates to the Republican convention in 1912 as coins pre-stamped with image and value. Notwithstanding their marks, the coins did not achieve currency until they had passed through a machine carefully calibrated by the National Committee. “A coin might be full weight, but if it were stamped with Roosevelt’s image, it might be rejected in favor of a short weight coin bearing Taft’s image.” Wister, Roosevelt, 310.
13 not a professional Rosewater (1871–1940), editor of the Omaha Bee, is generally portrayed as a conservative, but he had been comfortable with some of the reforms of TR’s second administration. In June 1912, Rosewater was acting chairman of the RNC, substituting for Harry S. New. He left a record of his convention experiences in a memoir, Back Stage in 1912: The Inside Story of the Split Republican Convention (Philadelphia, 1932).
14 The rest of the Committee Gould, Four Hats in the Ring, 66–67. At the beginning of June, TR’s forces in Chicago launched an attempt to stack the committee by having at least five newly elected members take seats at the hearings at once, rather than waiting for the convention to authorize them. Among these were William Allen White of Kansas and R. D. Howell of Nebraska, who had displaced Rosewater as a delegate and now hoped to displace him as acting chairman. (The New York Times, 3 June 1912.) But since current members of the committee were entitled to keep serving until 18 June, the Roosevelt putsch never went anywhere.
15 “theft, cold-blooded” The New York Times, 8 June 1912.
16 For a while Davis, Released for Publication, 292; Nicholas Roosevelt, TR, 86.
17 “If circumstances demand” Sullivan, Our Times, 4.497. The version of this quote given in Pringle, Taft, 796, comes with acquired dental effects.
18 proceeded to throw out For accounts of the hearings disputing TR’s accusations of delegate-stealing, see Rosewater, Back Stage in 1912, 80–120, and Pringle, Taft, 799ff.
19 Perhaps thirty Lewis Gould states that TR, on the basis of a modern impartial analysis, deserved “another twelve or fourteen” delegates from Texas, plus “probably … another twenty or so” from other states. With his 19 awardees, that would have given him an extra complement of 53, still far short of the number he needed to clinch the nomination. Earlier authorities, notably John Allen Gable in 1965, George E. Mowry in 1946, and Senator Borah, Governor Hadley, and Gilbert E. Roe (a La Follette supporter) back in 1912, differ in their assessments of TR’s chances of winning the nomination, but all agree that he was entitled to about 50 more delegates. See Gould, Four Hats in the Ring, 67, and Gable, “The Bull Moose Years” [diss.], 39.
20 An impartial observer This sentence quotes De Witt, The Progressive Movement, 82. See also Mowry, TR, 239–40; Gould, Four Hats in the Ring, 67. The former notes that TR, arranging the nomination of WHT in 1908, used many of the strong-arm tactics he accused the White House of using in 1912.
21 All the same, Roosevelt The clearest analysis of the bias of the Republican National Committee in 1912 remains that in Bishop, TR, 2.324–26.
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 15th 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.