{"id":1627,"date":"2020-03-07T21:15:55","date_gmt":"2020-03-07T21:15:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/?p=1627"},"modified":"2020-03-13T21:34:51","modified_gmt":"2020-03-13T21:34:51","slug":"1912-wilson-roosevelt-taft-and-debs-by-james-chace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/?p=1627","title":{"rendered":"1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft and Debs<\/em> by James Chace"},"content":{"rendered":"

[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.3.2″ custom_padding=”0px||||false|false”][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_2,1_2″ _builder_version=”4.3.2″][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”4.3.2″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.3.2″]<\/p>\n

1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft and Debs<\/em> by James Chace<\/h1>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”4.3.2″][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/1912-US-presidential-election-campaign-buttons.jpg” _builder_version=”4.3.2″ box_shadow_style=”preset2″][\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.3.2″ custom_padding=”0px||||false|false”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.3.2″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.3.2″]<\/p>\n

The book is subtitled “The Election That Changed the Country”. <\/em>This is\u00a0not hyperbole —\u00a0author James Chace makes a very convincing argument that, indeed, the\u00a0U.S. presidential election of 1912 was without precedent for a number of reasons, <\/strong>not the least of which is\u00a0that it included four viable parties on the ballot. Theodore Roosevelt had come out of retirement to found\u00a0the Progressive or “Bull Moose<\/em>” Party\u00a0and run as its candidate.\u00a0A number of factors, including unrest among the new immigrant populations, had turned the party of Eugene Debs \u2013 the Socialists \u2013 into a threat as well.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.3.2″ custom_padding=”0px||||false|false”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.3.2″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.3.2″]<\/p>\n

As for the two \u201cmajor\u201d parties, William Howard Taft was running for re-election as the Republican incumbent whereas a newcomer on the national scene \u2013 former Princeton University president and New Jersey governor Woodrow Wilson \u2013 represented the Democrats.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.3.2″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.3.2″][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Candidates-for-1912-US-presidential-election.jpg” _builder_version=”4.3.2″ box_shadow_style=”preset2″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.3.2″ custom_margin=”-17px||||false|false”]<\/p>\n

The 1912 U.S. Presidential candidates (l-r):\u00a0 Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft, Eugene V. Debs<\/em><\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.3.2″ custom_padding=”0px||||false|false”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.3.2″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.3.2″]<\/p>\n

The\u00a0outcome\u00a0of the\u00a0four-way race hinged on a number of \u201cnew\u201d issues that we are still wrestling with today: activism vs. isolationism in foreign policy, bigger vs. smaller government, and unbridled capitalism vs. regulation of the marketplace<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row admin_label=”Row” _builder_version=”4.3.2″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.3.2″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.3.2″]<\/p>\n

One of our history’s great “what-if’s” is how might history have been different if the Republicans had united behind Roosevelt<\/strong> who,\u00a0as shown in the chart above, ran ahead of Taft in both the popular and electoral vote and thus very well might have defeated Wilson. Note also how different the outcomes are in the popular vote compared to the electoral vote.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.3.2″ custom_padding=”0px||||false|false”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.3.2″][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Chart-showing-1912-US-presidential-election.jpg” _builder_version=”4.3.2″ box_shadow_style=”preset2″][\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row admin_label=”Row” _builder_version=”4.3.2″ custom_padding=”0px||||false|false”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.3.2″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.3.2″]<\/p>\n

It all reminds me — on many levels<\/em> — of several of the elections in the first part of the 21st century.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row admin_label=”Row” _builder_version=”4.3.2″ custom_padding=”0px||||false|false”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.3.2″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.3.2″ custom_padding=”0px||||false|false”]<\/p>\n

Personal connection<\/h4>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_2,1_2″ _builder_version=”4.3.2″ custom_padding=”0px||0px||false|false”][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”4.3.2″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.3.2″]<\/p>\n

One the one hand this seems like the distant past, yet on a personal level my father was born<\/strong> on December 22, 1912<\/strong>, just weeks after the election.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”4.3.2″][et_pb_button button_url=”http:\/\/www.booknotes.org\/Watch\/183270-1\/James-Chace” button_text=”Listen to an interview about %221912…%22 with author James Chace ” _builder_version=”4.3.2″][\/et_pb_button][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The US presidential election of 1912 had 4 viable candidates and was remarkable in many ways. Moreover, issues from that time are still being debated today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1630,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.oganovic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/1912-US-presidential-election-campaign-buttons.jpg?fit=1153%2C720&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1627"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1639,"href":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1627\/revisions\/1639"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.oganovic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}