page_title: 1912 United States presidential election
section_title: General election
hierarchical_section_title: 1912 United States presidential election / General election
caption_attribution_description: English: Into a bowl labeled “A Teddy Speech,” Roosevelt pours Progressivism; other ingredients near at hand are Conservative Views, Pure Democracy, and Radical Spice. “The more you mix in, the easier to satisfy everyone,” says Teddy cheerfully. Editorial cartoon by Karl K. Knecht (1883-1972) in Evansville Courier, Oct. 1912.
context_page_description: The 1912 United States presidential election was the 32nd quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 5. Democratic Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey unseated incumbent Republican President William Howard Taft and defeated former President Theodore Roosevelt, who ran under the banner of the new Progressive or "Bull Moose" Party. As of 2020, this is the most recent presidential election in which a top two finisher was neither a Democrat nor a Republican.
  Roosevelt served as president from 1901 to 1909 as a Republican, and Taft succeeded him with his support. However, Taft's actions as President displeased Roosevelt, and Roosevelt challenged Taft for the party nomination at the 1912 Republican National Convention. When Taft and his conservative allies narrowly prevailed, Roosevelt rallied his progressive supporters and launched a third party bid. At the Democratic Convention, Wilson won the presidential nomination on the 46th ballot, defeating Speaker of the House Champ Clark and several other candidates with the support of William Jennings Bryan and other progressive Democrats. The Socialist Party renominated its perennial standard-bearer, Eugene V. Debs.
context_section_description: The 1912 presidential campaign was bitterly contested. 
  Roosevelt conducted a vigorous national campaign for the Progressive Party, denouncing the way the Republican nomination had been "stolen". He bundled together his reforms under the rubric of "The New Nationalism" and stumped the country for a strong federal role in regulating the economy and chastising bad corporations. Roosevelt rallied progressives with speeches denouncing the political establishment. He promised "an expert tariff commission, wholly removed from the possibility of political pressure or of improper business influence."
  
  Wilson supported a policy called "The New Freedom". This policy was based mostly on individualism instead of a strong government.
  Taft campaigned quietly, and spoke of the need for judges to be more powerful than elected officials. The departure of the progressives left the conservative even more firmly in control of the Republican Party. Much of the Republican effort was designed to discredit Roosevelt as a dangerous radical, but this had little effect. Many of the nation's pro-Republican newspapers depicted Roosevelt as an egotist running only to spoil Taft's chances and feed his vanity.
  The Socialists had little funding. Debs' campaign spent only $66,000, mostly on 3.5 million leaflets and travel to locally organized rallies. His biggest event was a speech to 15,000 supporters in New York City. The crowd sang "La Marseillaise" and "The Internationale." Debs's running mate Emil Seidel boasted: 
  "Only a year ago workingmen were throwing decayed vegetables and rotten eggs at us but now all is changed... Eggs are too high. There is a great giant growing up in this country that will someday take over the affairs of this nation. He is a little giant now but he is growing fast. The name of this little giant is socialism."
  Debs insisted that Democrats, Progressives, and Republicans alike were financed by the trusts and that only the Socialists represented labor. He condemned "Injunction Bill Taft" and ridiculed Roosevelt as "a charlatan, mountebank, and fraud, and his Progressive promises and pledges as the mouthings of a low and utterly unprincipled self seeker and demagogue." However, labor unions largely rejected Debs and supported Wilson.
caption: A Republican editorial cartoon decipts Roosevelt mixing "radical" ingredients in his speeches.
exif: {}