The Election of 1912

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Wilsonian Progressivism
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The Election of 1912 had several
candidates Taft Wilson TR Eugene Debs
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Taft Republican Party Platform

• High import tariffs.
• Put limitations on female and child labor.
• Workmans Compensation Laws.
• Against initiative, referendum, and recall.
• Against bad trusts.
• Creation of a Federal Trade Commission.
• Stay on the gold standard.
• Conservation of natural resources because they
  are finite.

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T.R. Bull Moose Progressive Party Platform

• Womens suffrage.
• Graduated income tax.
• Inheritance tax for the rich.
• Lower tariffs.
• Limits on campaign spending.
• Currency reform.
• Minimum wage laws.
• Social insurance.
• Abolition of child labor.
• Workmens compensation.

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Eugene Debbs The Socialist Party Platform The
issue is Socialism versus Capitalism. I am for
Socialism because I am for humanity.

• Government ownership of railroads and utilities.
• Guaranteed income tax.
• No tariffs.
• 8-hour work day.
• Better housing.
• Government inspection of factories.
• Womens suffrage.

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Woodrow Wilson Democratic Party Platform

• Government control of the monopolies ?
  trusts in general were bad ? eliminate them!!
• Tariff reduction.
• One-term President.
• Direct election of Senators.
• Create a Department of Labor.
• Strengthen the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
• Did NOT support womens suffrage.
• Opposed to a central bank.

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Election Results

• Wilson was a minority president, with only 41 of
  the popular votes.
• The 1912 election marked the peak of the
  Socialist movement in America the Socialists
  elected over 1,000 to state and local offices.

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Wilson became the first Southerner (Virginia) to
be elected president since the Civil War. After
his election, the moralistic, self-righteous
Wilson told the chairman of the Democratic Party
"Remember that God ordained that I should be the
next president of the United States. Wilson
sympathized with the Confederates attempt to win
its independence, and his foreign policy was
based on self-determination.
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Foreign Policy Wilson began as something of an
isolationist in foreign policy. He apologized to
Colombia for the U.S. role in Panama's
independence and he appointed the pacifistic
William Jennings Bryan as secretary of state. But
he would later vow to teach Latin Americans
lessons in democracy. This was Wilsons moral
diplomacy Wilson would deal only with those
leaders he thought were democratically elected or
otherwise supported American interests.
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Only a week after taking office in 1913, Wilson
called upon Mexico's president, Huerta, who had
seized power after the constitutional president
was murdered, to step aside when elections were
held. When Huerta refused, Wilson used minor
incidents--including the arrest of some American
sailors in Tampico and the arrival of a German
merchant ship carrying supplies for Huerta--as a
pretext for occupying the Mexico port of
Veracruz. Within weeks, Huerta was forced to
leave his country.
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During the conflict, the Mexican revolutionary
Pancho Villa had made a number of raids into U.S.
territory near the Mexican border. Wilson
responded by ordering Gen. John J. (Black Jack)
Pershing to cross into Mexico.
As president, Wilson also sent American troops to
occupy Haiti in 1915 and the Dominican Republic
in 1916. A year later, the United States bought
the Virgin Islands, thereby gaining control of
every major Caribbean island except British
Jamaica. He engaged in more military
interventions abroad than any other American
president.
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• Economic Policy
• The Underwood Simmons Tariff (1913), which
  substantially lowered taxes on imports for the
  first time since the Civil War.

• The Federal Reserve Act (1913), which established
  a Federal Reserve Board and 12 regional Federal
  Reserve banks to supervise the banking system,
  setting interest rates on loans to private banks
  and controlling the supply of money in
  circulation.

• The Federal Trade Commission Act (1914), which
  established the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
  The FTC sought to preserve competition by
  preventing businesses from engaging in unfair
  business practices.

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• Clayton Act Anti-Trust Act (1914), which limited
  the ownership of stock in one corporation by
  another, implemented non-competitive pricing
  policies, and forbade interlocking directorship
  for certain banking and business corporations. It
  also recognized the right of labor to strike and
  picket and barred the use of anti-trust statutes
  against labor unions.
• Interlocking directorship the practice of
  members of a corporate board of directors serving
  on the boards of multiple corporations.

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The Child Labor Act (1916), which forbade the
interstate sale of goods produced by child labor
and The Farm Loan Act (1916), which made it
easier for farmers to get loans. The Adamson Act
(1916), which established an eight-hour workday
for railroad workers. The Workingmen's
Compensation Act (1916), which provided financial
assistance to federal employees injured on the
job.
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Civil Rights Wilsons record on race relations
was not very good. During his first term in
office, the House passed a law making racial
intermarriage a felony in the District of
Columbia. His new Postmaster General also ordered
that his Washington offices be segregated, with
the Treasury and Navy soon doing the same.
Suddenly, photographs were required of all
applicants for federal jobs. When pressed by
black leaders, Wilson replied, "The purpose of
these measures was to reduce the friction. It is
as far as possible from being a movement against
the Negroes. I sincerely believe it to be in
their interest."
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When Wilson allowed his cabinet members to
segregate government offices, William Monroe
Trotter, a civil rights leader, led a delegation
to meet with the president and protest this
discriminatory policy. Wilson's explanation, that
"segregation was caused by friction between the
colored and white clerks, and not done to injure
or humiliate the colored clerks, but to avoid
friction," infuriated Trotter. After the shouting
match that followed, Trotter was ordered out of
the White House. Trotter then did what Wilson
considered unforgivable. Standing on the White
House grounds, he held a press conference and
detailed what had just happened. A Wilson
supporter in 1912, Du Bois now sided with
Trotter. In Du Bois' view, Wilson "was by birth .
. . unfitted for largesse of view or depth of
feeling about racial injustice."
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World War I At the outbreak of the war, the
official foreign policy was neutrality, and the
isolationist Americans felt, snug, smug, and
secure, but not for long. In 1914, America was
in an economic recession, but during American
neutrality, but JP Morgan advanced the Allies
2.3 billion dollars, and America attempted to
trade with both sides. British ships began
forcing American vessels into their ports to
prevent trade with Germany. Germany retaliated
with a U-boat war off the British Isles.
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The Lusitania, a passenger ship sailing from New
York to London, was sunk off the coast of Ireland
on May 7, 1915. Almost 1200 lives were lost,
including 128 Americans. The Lusitania was
carrying 4200 cases of small arms ammunition, and
the Germans had given a warning that they would
sink the ship. Wilson refused to engage Germany
in war, but in 1916, when a French ship, the
Sussex, was sank, Wilson gave an ultimatum sink
another ship and face America in war.
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Re-Election The Progressives wanted TR to run
again, but he thought he would split the ticket
and so did not run, killing the Progressive
Party. The Republicans ran Charles Evans Hughes,
Supreme Court justice and former governor of New
York. The Republicans criticized the progressive
reforms of Wilson and his foreign
policy. Wilsons campaign slogan was, He kept us
out of war. The East voted for Hughes, but the
rest of the country carried Wilson 277 to 254
electoral votes.