Convinced that only he could heal the party breach, Roosevelt announced that he would run for the 1912 Republican presidential nomination. However, despite Roosevelt’s widespread popularity among rank-and-file Republicans, Taft still controlled the party machinery and the majority of convention delegates. Losing to Taft on the first ballot, an embittered but optimistic Roosevelt formed a third party to sponsor his run for the presidency. Roosevelt excitedly told thousands of supporters gathered in Chicago, including Jane Addams and Gifford Pinchot, that he felt “as strong as a BULL MOOSE,” which became the nickname for Roosevelt’s new Progressive Party.
In accepting the nomination of his new party, Roosevelt articulated the philosophy of New Nationalism. He argued that the federal government should use its considerable power to fight against the forces of special privilege and for social justice for the majority of Americans. To this end, the Progressive Party platform advocated income and inheritance taxes, an eight-hour workday, the abolition of child labor, workers’ compensation, fewer restrictions on labor unions, and women’s suffrage. This last plank mobilized the efforts of women throughout the country who, like Jane Addams, supported the party that she said “pledged itself to the protection of children, to the care of the aged, to the relief of overworked girls, to the safeguarding of burdened men.”
Roosevelt was not the only progressive candidate in the contest. The Democrats nominated Woodrow Wilson, the reform governor of New Jersey. The son of a Presbyterian minister, Wilson had the moral conviction of a pastor who knew what was best for his flock. As an alternative to Roosevelt’s New Nationalism, Wilson offered his New Freedom. As a Democrat and a southerner (he was born in Virginia), Wilson had a more limited view of government than did the Republican Roosevelt. Wilson envisioned a society of small businesses, with the government’s role confined to ensuring open competition among businesses and freedom for individuals to make the best use of their opportunities. Unlike Roosevelt’s New Nationalism, Wilson’s New Freedom did not embrace social reform and rejected federal action in support of women’s suffrage and the elimination of child labor.
If voters considered either Roosevelt’s or Wilson’s brand of reform too mainstream, they could cast their ballots for Eugene V. Debs, the Socialist Party candidate who had been imprisoned for his leadership in the Pullman strike (see chapter 17). He favored overthrowing capitalism through peaceful, democratic methods and replacing it with government ownership of business and industry for the benefit of the working class.
The Republican Party split decided the outcome of the election. The final results gave Roosevelt 27 percent of the popular vote and Taft 23 percent. Together they had a majority, but because they were divided, Wilson became president, with 42 percent of the popular vote and 435 electoral votes. Finishing fourth, Debs did not win any electoral votes, but he garnered around a million popular votes (6 percent). Counting the votes for Wilson, Roosevelt, and Debs, the American electorate overwhelmingly cast their ballots for reform. (See e-Document Project 19: The New Nationalism, the New Freedom, and the Election of 1912.)