page_title: 1912 Democratic National Convention
section_title: Declined
hierarchical_section_title: 1912 Democratic National Convention / The Convention / Presidential candidates / Declined
caption_attribution_description: Bain News Service,, publisher. Kern (Ind), Mrs. Bryan, W.J. Bryan, and brother [ca. 1912] 1 negative&#160;: glass&#160;; 5 x 7 in. or smaller. Notes: Title from data provided by the Bain News Service on the negative. Photo shows Indiana senator John Worth Kern and William Jennings Bryan, possibly during the 1912 presidential campaign. (Source: Flickr Commons project, 2009) Forms part of: George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress). Format: Glass negatives. Rights Info: No known restrictions on publication. Repository: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA, hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print General information about the Bain Collection is available at hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.ggbain Higher resolution image is available (Persistent URL): hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ggbain.13284 Call Number: LC-B2- 2725-8
context_page_description: The 1912 Democratic National Convention was held at the Fifth Regiment Armory off North Howard Street in Baltimore from June 25 to July 2, 1912.
context_section_description: The main candidates were House Speaker Champ Clark of Missouri and Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey. Both Clark and Wilson had won a number of primaries, and Clark entered the convention with more pledged delegates than did Wilson. However, he lacked the two-thirds vote necessary to secure the presidential nomination.
  Initially, the front runner appeared to be Clark, who received 440¼ votes on the first ballot to 324 for Wilson. Governor Judson Harmon of Ohio received 148 votes while U.S. Representative Oscar W. Underwood of Alabama, the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, received 117¼ with the rest of the votes scattered among the other delegates. No candidate managed to gain a majority until the ninth ballot, when the New York delegation shifted its allegiance to Clark. Due to the then-official two-thirds rule used by the Democratic Party, Clark was never able to secure the presidential nomination as he failed to get the necessary two-thirds vote for victory.
  In past conventions, once a candidate received a majority of the votes, it would start a bandwagon rolling to the nomination. Clark's chances were hurt when Tammany Hall, the powerful and corrupt Democratic political machine in New York City, threw its support behind him. This was the move that gave Clark a majority on the ninth ballot, but instead of propelling Clark's bandwagon towards victory, the endorsement led William Jennings Bryan to turn against the Speaker of the House. A three-time Democratic presidential candidate and still the leader of the party's liberals, Bryan delivered a speech denouncing Clark as the candidate of "Wall Street".
  Up until the Tammany endorsement, Bryan had remained neutral, but once the corrupt machine put itself behind Clark, he threw his support to New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson, who was regarded as a moderate reformer. Wilson had consistently finished second to Clark on each ballot, Ironically, Wilson had nearly given up hope that he could be nominated, and he was on the verge of having a concession speech read for him at the convention freeing his delegates to vote for someone else. Bryan's endorsement of Wilson influenced many other delegates, and Wilson gradually gained in strength while Clark's support dwindled. Wilson received the presidential nomination on the 46th ballot.
caption: William Jennings Bryan attending the convention. Bryan's speech against Champ Clark and endorsement of Woodrow Wilson would ultimately affect the outcome of the nomination.
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