“We are witnessing a renaissance of public spirit, a reawakening of sober public opinion, a revival of the power of the people, the beginning of an age of thoughtful reconstruction that makes our thoughts hark back to the age in which democracy was set up in America!’
—WOODROW WILSON
“I’M A BRYAN MAN,” chirped the dedicated suffragist Mrs. Mary Arkwright Hutton of Spokane, Washington. Mrs. Hutton was more than that; she was one of only two woman delegates at the 1912 Democratic Convention in Baltimore. As such, she attracted even more attention than her scarlet suit and awesome straw hat would naturally warrant. Everywhere she went, reporters crowded around, plying her with questions. Since Bryan said he wasn’t running, how did she feel about Woodrow Wilson, Governor of New Jersey, former president of Princeton, and the cherished hope of reformers, Texans, and all true sons of Old Nassau?
“No man,” Mrs. Hutton declared, “who has been a schoolmaster all his life is quite big enough to be President of the United. States.”
A lot of people felt the same way. After all, until he was elected Governor in 1910, what had Wilson done? Erudite son of a Southern clergyman, he had indeed spent most of his life in the cloistered halls of Johns Hopkins, Bryn Mawr, Wesleyan, and his own alma mater Princeton. True, he proved a dazzling college president, but did even that prepare a man for the White House? Wilson himself dryly observed that college politics were the best preparation of all, but many remained unconvinced.
Others had different complaints. Dean Andrew F. West, who had defeated Wilson’s own plan for the Princeton Graduate School, felt he was dictatorial and deceitful. Old Tigers, who saw their eating clubs threatened by Wilson’s drive for college “quadrangles,” were sure he was a dangerous radical. Editor George Harvey of Harper’s Weekly, who was bumped off the original Wilson-for-President bandwagon, thought he was ungrateful. New Jersey boss Big Jim Smith, who put Wilson over as governor, sadly discovered he wouldn’t play ball. And William Allen White had a Kansan’s suspicion of anyone with a handshake “like a ten-cent pickled mackerel in brown paper.”
Yet the Wilson movement rolled on, for he also had qualities that thousands of Americans found irresistibly appealing. If he was aloof, he could certainly unbend—take that cakewalk he danced with Senator Frelinghuysen. If he looked professorial, he was also the man who once coached the Wesleyan football team. And though his words were often lofty, he remained a master at rough-and-tumble campaign speaking. Who could forget the night in Jersey City when he derided the state bosses as “warts on the body politic”?
Above all there was that magic touch with people … that art of making them want to join him—work with him—in bringing about a better day. He had a curiously convincing way of linking everything he believed with human progress, and he could make any goal seem so exciting—so easy to reach—that men could hardly wait to follow him, wherever he might lead.
It had always been that way. As Princeton’s president, he electrified the men he wanted for his faculty. “Had Woodrow Wilson asked me to go with him while he inaugurated a new university in Kamchatka or Senegambia,” declared the young English preceptor Robert K. Root, “I’d have said yes without further question.”
And there was that night in Trenton in 1910 when Big Jim Smith put him over as Democratic candidate for Governor. Smith thought Wilson would be an easily-handled puppet, but the candidate accepted the nomination with a ringing declaration of independence. Reformers who had bitterly fought him an hour before listened in astonishment. Joe Tumulty cried to Dan Fellows Platt, “Dan, this is one of the happiest days of my life!” Judge Crandall, another liberal who had fought Wilson’s nomination, waved his cane with joy: “I am sixty-five years old and still a damned fool!” All over the Taylor Opera House men wept and shouted, “Thank God, at last a leader has come!” Long after Wilson had finished his speech, they stood on their seats and in the aisles crying, “Go on, go on!”
It was the same in 1911, as he toured the country expressing his ideas, seeking the support that would make him President. The message was simple enough—the cure for the evils of democracy was more democracy; not controls, but greater freedom. Yet it was not the doctrine but the way he said it that stirred men’s souls. He spoke in Denver the night the first long-distance line was hooked up with the East. Marking the occasion, a reporter phoned from New York and asked perfunctorily, “What is the news in Denver?” Back over the wire came the faint, static-filled answer: “The town is wild over Woodrow Wilson!”
It was this way everywhere—immense crowds and enthusiasm—and perhaps that was just the trouble. The party’s conservative block had never taken to Woodrow Wilson’s lofty talk; these huge ovations made them worry more than ever. The big city machines took one look and knew they could never control the man—it would be New Jersey all over again. Still other leaders—slighted by the tactless Governor somewhere along the way—watched the ovations with growing jealousy. It was all very well for the New York World to say that in gratitude was a cardinal virtue in a politician, but “Marse Henry” Watterson of the Louisville Courier-Journal, who had felt Wilson’s, cold shoulder, didn’t think so at all.
By March, 1912, new candidates were blooming like the spring blossoms. There was Ohio’s Governor Judson Harmon, choice of most staunch conservatives. There was Indiana’s bland, amiable Governor Thomas R. Marshall. There was the South’s favorite son, Oscar W. Underwood, Congressman from Alabama and the only man who, if locked in a closet, could still come up with a perfect tariff schedule.
And most important of all, there was Missouri’s Champ Clark—Speaker of the House … old-time liberal … party wheelhorse … choice of William Randolph Hearst … ringing orator whose slightly dog-eared lecture “Signs of the Times” had echoed through a hundred county fairs.
Clark had come from nowhere this spring, easily overtaking Wilson’s early lead. The Governor had popular appeal, all right, but it couldn’t beat organization. Clark lieutenants knew every district leader from Bangor to San Diego. Even his black slouch hat and his long, old-fashioned coat seemed to spell party regularity. In four momentous weeks he swept eleven primaries, picked up 324 delegates.
Now, as the delegates began coming to Baltimore the week before the convention opened, Clark men swarmed all over town. An advance headquarters blossomed at the Emerson Hotel on June 20. The Speaker’s good friend William Randolph Hearst moved into an adjoining suite. Supporters from Clark’s home state Missouri poured from a stream of special trains, scarcely noticing the Democratic emblem of two thousand flowers that the B & O groundkeeper had lovingly planted on the slopes of Mount Royal station. Up and down Charles Street they marched, singing and shouting the song that had become their man’s trademark:
I don’t care if he is a houn’,
You gotta quit kickin’ my dawg aroun’.
Wilson fortunately didn’t have to hear it. He had gone to the Governor’s summer cottage at Sea Girt, New Jersey, to sit out the convention. Here he was exasperating his family and staff with an attitude of exaggerated indifference. But his worried supporters in Baltimore grew frantic as the Clark boom continued to build up steam. One frustrated Wilson delegate seriously considered getting a hound dog and kicking him around Bolton Street just to see what would happen. The Clark men were wild enough, he was warned; don’t stir them up any more.
Outyelled, but possessing certain advantages of his own, Tammany Boss Charles F. Murphy rolled into town on the evening of June 21. With him on his special train came New York’s ninety delegates—a group of cheerful men who amiably discussed their preferences. Most were for Harmon, but they freely admitted they would do whatever the Big Chief ordered. On the way down they were summoned from time to time to his drawing room. When they emerged, they always seemed quieter than before.
Perhaps this was natural. Charlie Murphy was the most reticent of men. Not at all the traditional brassy type of boss, he was polite and silent. His political demise had been predicted for years, but he always grew stronger. Now he had moved from saloonkeeper to water-front man to country gentleman. The new role went well with his courtesy, his pleasant smile, his nice gray eyes. There was absolutely nothing sinister about him. He was just awfully quiet.
Sitting in the drawing room, he politely parried a reporter’s questions. Who would get New York’s ninety votes? “I really don’t know.” Could he give any hint? “Any good man …”
Later he briefly dropped his guard. When Mrs. Borden Harriman cornered him in the Emerson and asked why he wasn’t for Wilson, Murphy answered softly, “The boys don’t want him.”
The delegates were pouring in now—loud Westerners in their soft felt hats … Princeton students yelling for Wilson … Cap Mitchell, who walked the whole way from Oklahoma with a Clark houn’ dawg. The Cook County Democratic Club of Chicago arrived behind a fifty-piece band, defying the heat with toppers, Prince Alberts and white four-in-hands. New York delegate August Belmont quietly holed up in the Belvedere Hotel. His Wall Street friend, Thomas Fortune Ryan, mysteriously turned up in the Virginia delegation—the state convention thought it had elected his son. Mississippi’s colorful Senator-elect James K. Vardaman swaggered about in a cream-colored flannel suit, roaring the virtues of Oscar Underwood.
And people listened, for these days the South was riding high. It had at last recovered from the Civil War; it had not yet run into the problems that undermined its political power a generation later. At the moment, Georgia had more delegates than California; Kentucky more than Connecticut and Oregon combined. No one ever said, “You can’t elect a Southerner.”
Vardaman himself mirrored this Southern resurgence. His flowing locks and even more flowing speech carried over the old days; his cocky manner reflected the new. He was a bundle of contradictions, drawing a fascinated audience wherever he appeared. What sort of campaign lay ahead? “Progressive, of course!” How about the colored vote? “Why, sir, every patriotic white man knows that God never intended a Negro to take part in the government of this or any other country.”
A very different type of Southerner was William Gibbs McAdoo, who arrived on June 22. McAdoo grew up in Georgia, moved to New York, built the Hudson Tubes, and earned a reputation as a progressive by his startling slogan, “The public be pleased.” He was one of the first on the Wilson bandwagon, and during the past year had grown closer and closer to the Governor.
Checking into campaign headquarters at the Emerson, McAdoo was appalled at what he found. There just didn’t seem to be anyone in charge. Wilson’s manager, William McCombs—always jealous and high-strung—was now a nervous wreck. He had so little to offer bosses like Taggart of Indiana and Sullivan of Illinois, and they always wanted so much. Good steady Joe Tumulty, who might have been a help, was holding Wilson’s hand at the Governor’s cottage in Sea Girt. The only real professional, the mysterious Texan Colonel Edward M. House, was in mid-Atlantic on the Cunarder Laconia. The frail colonel felt he had done all he could and was now bound for a vacation in Europe. He left behind instructions for such details as “flying squadrons” on the convention floor, but what good did they do at this point? Wilson had less than a third of the delegates … not even enough to exercise a veto.
And yet there was hope. There had to be, with that vast groundswell of support throughout the country. The voters wanted him—everyone knew that. But the barriers of pledged delegates had to be broken. The time-honored mechanics of the convention had to be thrown aside. The torrent of popular support had to be let loose by something—or someone.
On the afternoon of June 23 a balding, pasty-faced man in a crumpled alpaca coat stepped off the train at Baltimore’s Union Station and blinked at the crowd rushing toward him. William Jennings Bryan—three times Democratic candidate, three times disastrous loser—was meant to be all through … a thoroughly shopworn standard-bearer. Woodrow Wilson privately called him “The Great Inevitable.” Yet to the thousands who now swarmed around him, he clearly remained “The Great Commoner” … “The Peerless Leader.”
They swept him along the platform, up the stairs, out into the street where a touring car was waiting. He sat in back, smiling and waving as the crowd lining Charles Street passed the word along: “Here he comes! Here comes the Leader!” It was twilight by the time the procession reached the Belvedere, but for William Jennings Bryan the sun was far from setting.
In the lobby ardent party leaders climbed on chairs, the cigar counter—even the office safe—carried away by excitement. On the ninth floor bellboys and chambermaids joined the horde of well-wishers who cheered him to his suite. Inside it was a madhouse. Wherever he stayed, Bryan’s rooms were always as public as a railroad station—the door open, strangers milling in and out—this time was no exception. In one corner Mrs. Bryan desperately fended off reporters: “You can look at me if you want, but I won’t answer any questions.” In the center, Bryan himself embraced the blind Senator Gore of Oklahoma. Outside, a grizzled sentry in blue flannel shirt vainly tried to keep some sort of order. But the uproar continued, and above the general din came the distinct cry, “Bryan, our next President!”
This was the last thing he wanted, he insisted. As he told his wife, “The other boys have been making their plans; I would not step in now.” He was just here as a delegate from Nebraska … just here to help choose a truly progressive candidate … just here to make sure there was no repetition of the Republican Convention in Chicago. There, as a special correspondent, Bryan saw the Old Guard steamroller Taft through … then watched the Roosevelt progressives stalk out to form a new party. This must not happen to the Democrats. If they were to win, Bryan felt they had to be united behind the type of liberal he thought the country wanted.
Yet there were already signs of trouble. While Bryan was still in Chicago word came that the Democratic National Committee planned to install Judge Alton B. Parker as temporary chairman of the convention. A small matter to most men—the job was honorary and only lasted a day—but not to Bryan. Parker was New York’s choice; he stood for Augie Belmont, Thomas Fortune Ryan, Tammany, all those conservative Easterners who led the party to ruin in 1904. Convinced they were trying to seize control again, Bryan wired the leading progressive candidates to help him block the move.
A hot potato for them all. If they joined him, they risked any hope of getting those ninety New York delegates; if they refused, they risked the wrath of the Peerless Leader. Marshall preferred a shot at the ninety delegates and came out firmly for Parker: “I do not see how his selection will result in a reactionary platform in 1912.” Clark tried to play it safe—a vague appeal to avoid controversy “in the interest of harmony.” At Sea Girt Wilson hesitated for hours. Tumulty begged him to back up Bryan; McCombs urged him to dodge the whole mess. Finally he turned to his family. It was his wife Ellen who broke the ice: “There must be no hedging.”
Sitting on the edge of his bed, the Governor then took a pencil and began scribbling his answer to Bryan: “You are quite right. …”
At Wilson headquarters on the tenth floor of the Emerson, McCombs was appalled when he read the reply. He always felt that the Governor’s only chance lay in winning over the big party bosses. Now it would be harder than ever. He threw himself on a bed and lay there sobbing.
McAdoo stood uneasily by, fumbling for something to say—he never knew what to do with weeping men. Besides, he felt that Wilson had done the right thing. McCombs looked up and blurted brokenly “All my work has gone for nothing.”
He slowly rose and moved to the window. Down below the Clark legions were marching—neat ranks of political club members, proudly swinging their canes. They were the men that Wilson needed, the powerful men so hard to catch. “The Governor,” sighed McCombs, “can’t afford to have a row.”
“The Governor,” answered McAdoo, “can’t afford to have anything but a row.” By now he was convinced that Wilson’s chance lay not in winning the machines but beating them. “The bigger the row the better for us.”
At exactly 12:16 P.M. on Tuesday, June 25, Democratic National Chairman Norman E. Mack called the convention to order in Baltimore’s Fifth Regiment Armory. Over fifteen thousand delegates and spectators were packed in the hall, but it’s safe to say that not one of them heard him. That electronic miracle, the public address system, had yet to be invented; anyone who wanted attention depended on megaphones, lungs of leather, and endless patience.
At 12:20 Mack was still pounding his gavel. Completely oblivious of the hammering, Delegate Platt of New Jersey stood directly below, tossing bananas to the crowd. The fruit made a pungent contribution to the already stifling atmosphere, for air-conditioning was something else that hadn’t been invented.
At 12:25 Mack’s weary arm still pounded in vain. On the floor Master-at-Arms Martin now took over. He used the tactics of a lion tamer, prodding and bullying his charges into their seats. Miraculously he began getting results, and by 12:30 the convention was as orderly as it ever would be—a restless sea of sweating people. Despite the heat, the women wore heavy dresses, the men stiff collars and black winter suits. Seersucker was still another marvel yet to come.
Cardinal James Gibbons now came forward, a colorful splash of scarlet against this dark background. A respectful hush fell over the armory, as he prayed for wisdom, guidance, and calm deliberation.
Assistant Secretary Smith followed with a list of officials. “Temporary Chairman,” he began, “the Honorable Judge Alton B. Parker of New York.” The band instantly burst into “Oh, You Beautiful Doll.” Tucked away deep in the New York delegation, Judge Parker blushed happily. Boss Charlie Murphy smiled, and the cardinal seemed pleased with this early sample of calm deliberation.
But as Smith finished, a familiar figure in an alpaca coat suddenly appeared in the middle of the stage. He seemed to come from nowhere (actually, he had very carefully picked a hidden side entrance), and perhaps this touch of magic gave his arrival extra impact. Not that he needed it—William Jennings Bryan always had the knack of setting a crowd off.
Instantly thousands of people were on their feet, cheering, booing, stamping, whistling. These were the days when a man was willing to sacrifice his hat to a cause, and dozens of skimmers sailed off into the armory haze. The New York delegation roared with rage; his old friends from Texas yelped with joy. The Peerless Leader benignly surveyed the scene, head erect and one foot forward like a statue from Ancient Rome. His right hand toyed with a palm-leaf fan, which he occasionally raised in mild protest. This only made the crowd shout louder.
When he finally began to speak fifteen minutes later, his rich ringing voice needed none of the yellow and white bunting spread over the ceiling for better acoustics. It was the most famous voice in the land. It carried to the farthest corner of the building. It quivered with indignation as he explained why he, “a mere delegate from one of the smaller states,” demanded that the reactionary Judge Parker be rejected, that Senator John Kern be named temporary chairman instead.
“‘He never sold the truth to save the hour’—that is the language of the hero of Monticello,” thundered the Commoner, pointing to the inscription above a large portrait at the end of the hall. Actually it was a quote from Tennyson and the picture was of Andrew Jackson, but nobody cared. The Texans yelped louder than ever; the New Yorkers gave exaggerated groans of boredom. On the platform one cynic dryly remarked to his neighbor, “I told them that he would use that quotation if they put it up there.”
“The Democratic party is true to the people,” Bryan roared on, “you cannot frighten it with your Ryans nor buy it with your Belmonts.” Again, the hall was swept with cheers and groans, and the place seemed a madhouse by the time Bryan finished. Senator Kern came forward, failed to get Parker to join him on a compromise candidate, then dramatically announced that the Commoner himself should be the temporary chairman: “There is only one man fit to lead the interests of progress. That man has been at the forefront for sixteen years—William Jennings Bryan!”
The Tammany men cursed and howled. At last it was out—Bryan wanted the job for himself. “All I know,” answered Cone Johnson, the human foghorn from Texas, “is that the fight is on; Bryan is on one side and Wall Street the other.” As the uproar spread, the peace-loving Cardinal Gibbons gathered his robes and fled in dismay.
When they finally voted, Parker beat Bryan 579 to 508. So the New York crowd won—but it was close. And very revealing. The Wilson delegates stuck by Bryan to a man. Most of the Clark voters went over to Parker. Ever since the Speaker’s cautious wire to Bryan, there had been rumors of a Clark-Murphy deal. Was this it? Was Old Champ selling out to Tammany in return for New York’s ninety votes?
Certainly the answer wasn’t written in the blank face of the pinkish old gentleman who ambled to the stage as temporary chairman. Judge Parker was perhaps the least memorable of all presidential candidates, and he never seemed more forgettable than now. He began his keynote speech at 3:40 P.M. and within seconds the crowd was yawning. If anyone was satisfied, it must have been Bryan, who had feared a ringing declaration of conservatism. All that came, however, was a fast, low, unintelligible monotone that quickly emptied the building.
At 4:17 Congressman Fitzgerald of New York decided that the travesty had gone far enough. He moved for adjournment, suggesting that the judge try again after supper. With a yell of relief the delegates poured out, leaving Parker alone on the stand gazing at the empty seats.
Buoyed by the “William Tell Overture,” Parker began again that evening. This time he finished, although he still had his troubles. Once when a photographer set off some flash powder too close to the speakers’ stand, the judge disappeared completely in a cloud of smoke. When he was visible (and audible), he stuck to an innocuous plea for harmony. “We had our little differences here this afternoon,” he said lightly.
It wasn’t that easy. Bryan was now thoroughly aroused. He had tried to keep clear of the Clark-Wilson fight. He felt they were both liberals, and if anything, he leaned toward Clark. As a Nebraska delegate he was pledged to Clark and certainly no one had a better party record. Wilson, on the other hand, was new, unpredictable, and just a little bit aloof in an Eastern sort of way. But this afternoon was an eye-opener: 228 Clark men went over to the enemy. In a burst of bitterness that night Bryan told a Wilson supporter, “I know what has happened; I am with you.”
Actually he hadn’t gone that far. But he was impressed. And even more impressed after calling Sea Girt for Wilson’s views on the permanent chairman—a job that really counted. The Governor smoothly suggested Bryan’s great friend, Congressman Ollie James of Kentucky.
“But, Governor Wilson, Mr. James is in the convention as a Clark man.”
“It does not matter, he is our kind of fellow. …”
Bryan had never known a politician quite like that. Maybe this was the genuine liberal the people wanted. And they certainly seemed to want one, judging by the wires coming in. Messages from farmers, millhands, clerks, ordinary citizens everywhere. All over the country they were down at the local telegraph office, checking the latest convention bulletins. Then, whenever they didn’t like something, they chipped in together and fired off a wire to their delegate. A new practice, but in keeping with the new spirit that a man could and should help shape his own destiny. As these telegrams poured into Baltimore, they all seemed to say one thing: Give the nation a progressive candidate running on a progressive platform.
The delegates could almost feel the note of exasperation that ran through the wires. The liberal tide was never stronger, yet events of the past four years convinced many people that shadowy forces were at work, deliberately subverting the reforms. The country wanted a lower tariff—but it got the Payne-Aldrich travesty, actually increasing most rates. It wanted conservation—but it saw the dismissal of Garfield, Pinchot, and other officials seeking an effective program. It wanted social welfare—but just this past year the courts threw out New York’s new minimum wage law. It wanted a tough antitrust policy—but the latest Supreme Court decision said trusts were only bad if “unreasonable.” To many that seemed like opening the gates.
Searching for an explanation, most eyes focused on Wall Street. Here were the men who controlled commerce and industry. And the 1907 panic showed that they also controlled the nation’s money and credit. Many authorities felt that this “credit monopoly” was the most important of all. If these men had all the money, why wouldn’t they spend it to get the business and political climate they wanted ? Oversimplified perhaps, but an easy idea to grasp, and the wires that poured into Baltimore dripped with hatred of Wall Street.
Spurred by this bombardment, on Wednesday, June 26, the progressives won their first major victory. A wild battle developed over the convention’s seventy-six-year-old “unit rule.” Under this system a state cast all its votes the way the majority of its delegates wanted. This meant that Ohio had to give Governor Harmon all forty-eight of its ballots, even though the state primaries had instructed nineteen delegates to vote for Wilson. Led by Cleveland’s young Mayor Newton D. Baker, the Wilson men revolted and took the fight to the convention floor. In the vote that followed, nearly all the old-line party men went for unit rule. But dozens of independents—impressed by the wires pouring in from home—joined the Wilson and Bryan forces supporting the rebels. In the end unit rule was beaten, 565½ to 492½—the first clear-cut progressive victory.
But the biggest event of the day was not the unit rule fight; it was the interruption that came in the middle of it. Ohio’s John W. Peck was speaking—a long, dull argument in favor of the rule. By now it was evening, and the galleries seemed bored and listless. Peck’s voice droned on above the hum of conversation, the scraping chairs, the occasional coughing. Driving home one of his innumerable points, he casually observed, “This is the position taken by the distinguished Governor of New Jersey—”
“Wilson!” roared a man in the gallery, and suddenly—incredibly—the whole armory went wild. It was the first time the Governor’s name had been mentioned, and the crowd made the most of it. Senator John Sharp Williams of Mississippi raced to the stage and led cheers with his big planter’s hat. In the balcony the Princeton men yelled their locomotives. The band burst into “Maryland, My Maryland,” and the Baltimoreans went crazy. From somewhere above, a blizzard of Wilson pictures floated down. A lady grabbed one and climbed on a chair. Two men lifted her up and began parading her around. Delegates poured into the aisles trying to follow. Wilson opponents tried to sabotage the demonstration by getting the band to play the “Star-Spangled Banner,” but it took more man the anthem to stop this.
Five … ten … fifteen minutes went by, and still the crowd pushed and shoved. “Good old Texas—40 votes for Wilson” … “Give us Wilson and we’ll give you Pennsylvania”—dozens of banners surged back and forth in a sea of yelling people. No organized march ever got started simply because there was no organization. This was spontaneity in its purest form.
Twenty minutes passed, and the demonstration at last began to lose steam. But at that moment a great orange and black banner appeared in the west gallery: “Staunton, Virginia—Woodrow Wilson’s birthplace.” The band crashed into “Dixie” and the crowd was off again.
A flying wedge brought the Staunton banner down to the main floor, and the more dedicated tried to plant it on the press stand. Even the pro-Wilson newsmen took a dim view of this—that is, all except L. T. Russell, owner of the Elizabeth, New Jersey, Daily Times. He was for the Governor beyond all else, and threw himself into the fray. Rushing up and down on top of the tables, he trampled typewriters, telegraph keys, and reams of copy.
The reporters cursed and shouted, but nobody did anything until Russell had the audacity to step on even Arthur Brisbane’s copy. The great Hearst editor jumped up, tackled Russell and brought him crashing down on the Alabama delegation.
“Rush up twenty-five men from every police station,” Floor Marshal Farnan frantically called headquarters in downtown Baltimore. But long before Lieutenant Scott’s men arrived, the crisis had passed. Brisbane return to his place and calmly resumed writing as though nothing had happened. Russell was taken in tow by Nellie Bly, invariably identified as “the newspaperwoman.”
The whole demonstration lasted thirty-three minutes, the statisticians said, and the exhausted crowd was ready to believe it. Only the Tammany and Clark delegates seemed fresh. Through it all they sat passively by, watching the show with great indifference.
Bryan now suspected more strongly than ever that a Clark-Tammany deal was brewing. And when he returned to the Belvedere at 3:00 A.M. his brother Charles confirmed his fears. Charles had heard that Murphy would throw New York’s ninety votes to Clark at some early stage, putting the Speaker under obligation to Wall Street. To smoke out the conspirators, Charles had a bright idea: Why not offer a resolution to expel Belmont and Ryan from the convention? If the Clark men voted against the resolution, it would mean that the Speaker had indeed sold out.
Bryan went along with the idea and next morning, the 27th, drafted his resolution. It put the party on record against any candidate “who is the representative of or under obligation to J. Pierpont Morgan, Thomas Fortune Ryan, August Belmont, or any other member of the privilege-hunting and favor-seeking class.” Getting down to specifics, it also demanded the withdrawal of any delegate “constituting or representing the above-mentioned interests”—in other words, Ryan and Belmont.
Those who had a chance to see the draft were shocked. States’ rights were still sacred to every good Democrat, and that, of course, included the right of a state to choose its own delegates. The resolution seemed an outrageous interference. But Bryan no longer cared. When he entered the hall for the evening session, his big jaw was clamped tight, his lips pressed in that hard, thin line that always formed when he was angry. No doubt about it, he was going to introduce his resolution.
The New York delegation was in caucus in an anteroom when the session opened. There were procedural matters to discuss, and everyone knew nothing important ever happened the first few minutes. They were still at it when a white-faced man burst into the room, shouting that Bryan had just introduced a resolution that was an insult to all New York. Murphy’s men tumbled back into the hall and found the place in wild tumult.
“You have heard of bedlam,” McAdoo later recalled, describing the scene. To Josephus Daniels it was like Dante’s Inferno. Hundreds of cursing delegates surged about the floor. One man stood on a chair, shouting that he would give $25,000 to anyone who killed Bryan. Another scrambled onto the stage and stood swearing at the Commoner until he literally frothed at the mouth and was led away by his friends. Hal Flood of Virginia was up there too, dramatically refusing an offered handshake. Down on the floor one man was dashing wildly about shouting, “Lynch him!”
Others seemed to have the same idea. Sometimes Bryan completely disappeared in the midst of the fist-shaking men who milled around him. Big Cone Johnson of the foghorn voice and some of the Commoner’s more rawboned friends rushed forward to protect him. Police and marshals dashed about the floor. The bewildered Ollie James kept pounding his gavel. Slowly the crowd retreated and order was restored.
Bryan finally withdrew the second part of his resolution—he no longer demanded that any delegate get out. This left only the first part, putting the party on record against any candidate under obligation to Morgan, Ryan, Belmont, “or any other member of the privilege-hunting and favor-seeking class.” Few could argue with that, and the emasculated resolution passed easily 883 to 201½. Even Tammany went along; as Boss Murphy cast his ninety votes he caught Belmont’s eye and smiled, “Now, Augie, listen to yourself vote yourself out of the convention.”
So Bryan had to back down—or did he? McAdoo for one, was sure that he never expected Belmont and Ryan to be expelled. All he really wanted was to alert the country that a conspiracy was afoot. Certainly the resolution did that. More than ever, people saw the issue as Wall Street against Freedom; more than ever they looked to Bryan and Wilson to protect them from the rascals. The flood of wires increased; the crowds at the telegraph tickers watched their delegates even more carefully.
“The old lion at his best,” mused Woodrow Wilson at Sea Girt. It was hard to believe that these words came from the man who once hoped that the Commoner would be “knocked into a cocked hat.” Or who less than a year ago compared Bryan’s cluttered home to his state of mind. With so much at stake, it was easy to discover new virtues and forget old flaws in such a valuable ally.
In Baltimore the convention moved on to the business of nominating the candidates. It was nearly 11:00 P.M., but no one thought of adjourning or even saving any breath. Young William B. Bankhead took over thirty minutes to portray the virtues of Oscar W. Underwood, then the crowd cheered for another half hour. At that, the demonstration seemed a little genteel—the high point came when a lady set loose a flock of white doves.
There was nothing genteel about what happened next. At 11:55 P.M. Arkansas yielded to Missouri, and Senator James A. Reed launched a thundering speech for Champ Clark. “Give me no political dilettante,” he sneered, and the Speaker’s delegates yelled in agreement. They were at fever pitch when he finished at 12:25. Into the aisles they poured braying the “Houn’ Dawg Song.” They seemed to keep marching forever—12:40 … 1:00 … 1:25.
At Sea Girt Joe Tumulty leaned over the special ticker, keeping track of every minute. Pocket watch in hand, he was a picture of dejected agony. Wilson himself seemed hardly to notice. He always had the knack of looking especially calm when others were most excited. Hearing that young Genevieve Clark was riding around the hall wrapped in an American flag, the Governor merely said to his own daughters, “Now you will understand why I wouldn’t allow any of you to go to the convention.”
The demonstration finally ended at 1:30 A.M.—after lasting an hour and five minutes—and the delegates slowly got back to business. Connecticut put up her favorite son, Governor Baldwin … the roll of states continued … Delaware yielded to New Jersey … and at 2:08 A.M. Judge John W. Wescott took the stand to nominate Wilson.
He never even got started. Wilson banners rolled down from the gallery rail … a fifteen-foot portrait of the Governor appeared at the west end … hundreds of shouting delegates poured into the aisles. Texas led the way … then Pennsylvania … then no one could keep track any longer. A half-dozen different parades were under way. Around and around they marched amid an endless uproar of horns, whistles, rattles and Princeton locomotives.
Anything to keep going longer than the Clark men. Some genius set a live rooster loose in the crowd. The band contributed a musical answer to the houn’ dawg—it steadily pumped out “School Days.” From the stand Chairman Ollie James watched benignly. He was a Clark man, but he made no attempt to stop the show. He understood these games … probably enjoyed them more than the issues. And above all, he wanted to be fair. As Wilson told Bryan, “He’s our kind of fellow.”
At Sea Girt Tumulty excitedly studied his watch. At 3:13 A.M. he let out a yelp of joy. The demonstration had beaten Clark’s record. He rushed upstairs but was unable to break the good news. The Governor had gone to sleep.
It was 3:20 before Judge Wescott was able to start speaking … 4:00 when he finished. It was a deeply moving if somewhat flowery effort, but largely wasted on the crowd. The long, hot night had taken its toll. The sweating delegates slumped wearily in their seats. It was so muggy that the steam from their wringing clothes rose in a cloud toward the grimy canopy.
The hours wore on—hours of interminable eloquence. In the humid galleries, mothers fanned the children who slept in their laps. Fathers foraged for cold water or sarsaparilla. On the stage, prominent women who had “kalsomined” their faces against the heat, sat like powdered mummies… afraid to move lest they spoil what they felt was a dainty appearance. Their unappreciative escorts lay sleeping on side benches—so many battlefield casualties. After every oratorical outburst the dozing reporters roused themselves long enough to flash “release speech,” then sagged back at their tables. Even the policemen were stretched out on chairs, their pistols under their heads.
Yet hardly anyone left. They didn’t dare to go. There had already been too many unexpected explosions, too many rumors of sinister plots. When big Ollie James persistently refused to adjourn, the story spread that another trick was afoot: a vote would be called unexpectedly and the nomination quickly rammed through. Nobody wanted to be caught that way; so, tired as they were, the crowd hung on.
Dawn was breaking when Senator Shively nominated Indiana’s Governor Marshall at 5:00 A.M. A band appeared in an ill-starred attempt to stir some enthusiasm, but all it got was shouts for quiet. Through it all, only one man never seemed to tire. Tammany’s Charlie Murphy sat bolt upright the whole night long … his quick gray eyes darting here and there, his bright mind obviously spinning with plans everyone longed to know.
At 7:00 the last speech was over, and James called for the first ballot. Magically, the hall snapped back to life—voices babbling everywhere … delegates rushing to their seats … messengers running up and down the aisles on tantalizing errands. The roll call began; Wilson and Clark instantly took the lead; the others lagged far behind. From time to time there were cheers at some unexpected vote … then a great hush as New York’s turn came. In a loud, calm voice Charlie Murphy called, “Ninety votes for—Judson Harmon.”
So Murphy wasn’t trying a stampede after all. There would be nothing decisive this time. The crowd relaxed, hardly listening to the rest of the ballot, which ended up Clark 440%, Wilson 324, Harmon 148, Underwood 117½, Marshall 31.
Out into the sun they poured, finally released by Ollie James at 7:20 A.M. They had been at it all night, but as they gulped in the cold, clean air of the morning, they were no longer in the mood for sleep. They could only wonder what Murphy was up to. Was there nothing to those rumors of a Clark-Tammany deal? Was the Big Chief really for Harmon after all? Was he playing for a deadlock, giving him a chance to put his man over? Certainly Harmon was Augie Belmont’s choice, and that was where the money lay. To say nothing of Thomas Fortune Ryan, who sank $77,000 into Harmon’s campaign (while hedging his bet with another $35,000 on Underwood). Or was there indeed a deal with Clark? Was Murphy just biding his time? Waiting for the right moment to shift his ninety votes and start a Clark landslide?
At Sea Girt, Wilson took no apparent interest in any of these intriguing questions. He had just discovered a new way to tease Joe Tumulty. This was to hum the “Houn’ Dawg Song” whenever his harassed secretary entered the room.
Friday afternoon the convention reconvened, with the delegates tensely expecting some break. But the fifth ballot still found Clark and Wilson about the same, still found Murphy monotonously calling, “New York casts ninety votes for Harmon.”
Nor did the supper recess make any difference. The sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth ballots all told the same story—minor changes here and there, never anything important. Whenever New York’s turn came, the armory fell quiet, but as always, Murphy merely called, “New York casts ninety votes for Harmon.”
It was 1:00 A.M. by the time the tenth ballot began. Again the states rolled by, again the usual adjustments—Marshall took seven from Underwood in Connecticut … Wilson lost two in Michigan. Now it was New York’s turn, and once more the hall grew quiet to hear the dry, flat voice of Charlie Murphy: “New York casts eighty-one votes for Champ Clark—”
The shift really meant all ninety votes for Clark, since New York still preferred the unit rule, but this was a minor detail—Murphy had made his move. Old Champ had New York. With an ear-splitting yell, the Clark men surged into the aisles.
Missouri’s standard bobbed into the lead. Then Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky; the parade was on. The band blasted away with “Tammany” in tribute to Murphy’s statesmanship. Genevieve Clark reappeared with her American flag. The New York standard-bearer scaled the stage, and other states swarmed up too, swamping the party dignitaries. In the most literal sense, Clark was taking over the convention.
The band swung into the “Houn’ Dawg Song,” and the marchers were wilder than ever. At 1:30 A.M. some New Yorker tried to tear up a Wilson banner hanging near the Nebraska delegation. Someone rushed over and knocked the man down. Revealingly, the Wilson supporter turned out to be William Jennings Bryan, Jr.
The Governor’s men desperately battled back all over the hall. One group fought to hold the Massachusetts standard in place. “Alfalfa Bill” Murray stopped a break by Oklahoma: “We won’t put our stamp of approval on Wall Street!” A friendly policeman hurled the Rhode Island standard-bearer down from the stage. William McAdoo made the shrewdest move of all. He rushed to the press stand, confidentially announcing that New York’s ninety votes would be transferred to Underwood on the next ballot.
At the height of the uproar, Bryan raced into the hall. He had been at a committee meeting, caught completely off guard. Now he was trying to make up for lost time, bellowing against any candidate “besmirched” by New York’s vote. As he watched the excitement swirl around him, he remembered a lesson he once taught others: how easy it was to stampede a convention with some dramatic, unexpected move.
Then and there Bryan vowed this wouldn’t happen here if he could help it. He decided never again to leave the floor during a session. From this moment on, he remained rooted in the Nebraska delegation—a bottle of lukewarm water under his seat, sandwich crumbs liberally sprinkled over his famous alpaca coat.
Gradually the hall quieted down, and Ollie James resumed calling the roll. It was North Carolina’s turn next, and the crowd listened tense with excitement. Until now she had given seventeen of her votes to Wilson, but Murphy’s shift was designed to trigger a general rush to Clark. Here was the test. “North Carolina,” announced a calm, cool voice, “casts eighteen votes for Wilson. …”
North Dakota stood firm too, and the pair of votes lost in volatile Ohio seemed like getting off easily. Then came Oklahoma, another big Wilson state. A Clark member, trying to blast loose some votes, demanded that the delegation be polled. “Alfalfa Bill” Murray leaped to his feet, shouting, “We do not intend to be dragged into Tammany Hall!” This set off a fifty-five-minute Wilson demonstration, giving the Governor’s men valuable time to bolster their position.
So the lines held; there was no stampede. But the tenth ballot showed Clark 556, Wilson 350½, everyone else left in the dust. The Speaker now had a majority of the 1,088 delegates. True, the rules said he needed two-thirds—or 726—to be nominated, but for the past sixty-eight years any candidate with a majority had gone on to win. In fact, it had become the accepted thing, and all good progressives said that was the way it ought to be. Now the Clark men clamored for the Governor’s surrender. The Wilson leaders scoffed at the idea, but they squirmed a little too—as recently as March 11, Woodrow Wilson said a majority was the fair way to decide the nomination.
Thanks to newly discovered virtues in the two-thirds rule, the Governor was still hanging on when the convention adjourned at 4:03 A.M. after the twelfth ballot. The delegates poured out into the predawn darkness and scattered to the traditional “smoke-filled rooms.” Munching Georgia watermelon in the Belvedere, William McCombs put on a brave front, but his heart must have been heavy.
He was on the phone to Sea Girt by breakfast time that morning, Saturday the 29th. As Wilson listened calmly in the little phone booth under the stairs, McCombs explained that the case was hopeless, that the Governor had better release his delegates. Possibly he might like to ask them to vote for Underwood on the long shot that a complete outsider could still beat Clark. No, answered Wilson, that wouldn’t be fair. “Please say to them how greatly I appreciate their generous support and that they are now free to support any candidate they choose.”
Overhearing the Governor from the next room, great tears welled in the eyes of Ellen Wilson.
Breakfast began, heavy with gloom. Mrs. Wilson, daughters Margaret, Jessie, and Eleanor, glumly toyed with their food. After asking Tumulty to draft his congratulations to Clark, Wilson joined them and immediately plunged into the job of cheering them up. Finding a coffin advertisement in the morning mail, he laughed with delight, “This company is certainly prompt in its service.”
The joke didn’t go over very well, but the Governor wasn’t about to give up. Taking a new and softer tack, he reminded Ellen of the beautiful summers they had spent in the English Lake Country. “Do you realize,” he said gently, “that now we can see our beloved Rydal again?”
There was no one to cheer up McCombs in Baltimore. When McAdoo dropped by headquarters about 10:00 A.M., he found the manager in a state of collapse: “The jig’s up; Clark will be nominated. All my work has been for nothing.”
McAdoo was amazed; he himself felt rather optimistic after four hours’ sleep. But McCombs went on to explain that even Wilson had given up. He described his phone call to Sea Girt and told how the Governor agreed to release his delegates.
McAdoo exploded. He accused McCombs of “betraying” Wilson, of “selling him out.” Unfair charges, and McCombs flared back. But there was no time to stand there arguing. Word of the release might get out any minute. McAdoo raced to the phone and got Sea Girt. In another minute he had Wilson on the line. “I’m dumbfounded,” he told the Governor and begged him to ignore McCombs’ advice, to cancel the authority releasing his delegates. “You’re gaining all the time. Clark can never get two-thirds. …”
It was all too much for Wilson. He countermanded the release, but turned to his family in a daze. He told them it was high time for a vacation … urged them to take up something healthy. He himself wandered off for a round of golf.
In Baltimore, the crowd packed the armory for the thirteenth ballot on Saturday afternoon. The Clark men were confident—in Washington the Speaker was already writing his telegram of acceptance.
At 1:06 P.M. Ollie James began his roll call. Again the crowd hung on every state’s answer, but the result was an anticlimax. Clark picked up only seven more votes.
Fourteenth ballot. Again James started down his list, again nothing sensational. Wilson gained a vote in Connecticut; Clark took one from the Governor in Michigan. Now it was Nebraska’s turn. Senator Hitchcock interrupted the call, asking that the delegation be polled.
Instantly Bryan was standing on his chair, waving his palm leaf fan, demanding the right to explain his vote. He was hopelessly out of order, and Congressman Sulzer (spelling Ollie James for a moment) refused to recognize him. It didn’t make the slightest difference. Ignoring the chair, the Commoner began, “As long as—”
His voice was drowned in a torrent of jeers and catcalls. Finally Senator Stone of Missouri interceded, suggesting that since this was a democratic meeting, Bryan be allowed to proceed. Another roar of dissent, which Sulzer met with majestic disdain: “The chair hears no objection.”
From the platform, Bryan now began again: “As long as Mr. Ryan’s agent—as long as New York’s ninety votes are recorded for Mr. Clark, I withold my vote from him and cast it—”
Once more his words were lost in the howls that swept the hall. Now Bryan pulled a prepared statement from his pocket—enough of a switch to quiet the crowd and give him a chance to go on. When instructed to vote for Clark, he shouted, he gladly supported the Speaker as a progressive. But Murphy’s shift changed everything: “I shall withhold my vote from Mr. Clark as long as New York’s vote is recorded for him.” The same, he added, went for any other candidate under obligation to the Tammany-Wall Street combination. “Having explained my position, I now announce my vote for—”
For the third time his voice disappeared in a storm of angry protest. Only his chief target Charlie Murphy seemed completely unperturbed. Through it all, he presided over a quiet huddle with his chief lieutenants. Finally the hall calmed down again, and this time Bryan got it out: “I cast my vote for Nebraska’s second choice Governor Wilson.”
The Wilson supporters exploded with joy … poured into the aisles, dancing and hugging each other. In their excitement, they failed to notice that Bryan hadn’t endorsed the Governor at all. His switch was clearly labeled a vote against Tammany and Wall Street—not a vote for Wilson. Was he really biding his time for a moment when he could step in and walk off with the nomination himself?
Whatever his motives, the effect was spectacular. Once again the wires began pouring in, backing his stand, demanding that the delegates cleanse themselves of Wall Street. Slowly Clark’s vote began falling. Sixteenth ballot 551 … Seventeenth 545 … Eighteenth 535—now for the first time since Murphy’s shift, the Speaker no longer had a majority.
At first Clark’s losses were not Wilson’s gains. Many of the deserters were just conservatives looking for someone Bryan wasn’t mad at. For several ballots the Wilson total hovered around 360. Then the chanting galleries, the wires from home began to have their effect. Nineteenth ballot: Clark 532, Wilson 358. Twenty-first ballot Clark 508, Wilson 395½. On the twenty-fourth, the Governor passed 400 for the first time, and the galleries went wild. In Sea Girt, Wilson dryly told his family, “I’ve been figuring it out. At this rate, I’ll be nominated in 175 more ballots.”
Watching the ticker in Washington, Champ Clark was desperate. Suddenly the thought occurred: a dramatic appearance at the armory might turn the tide. Normally, candidates didn’t plead their own cause, but it was easy to feel that this time was different. He raced to the station, jumped aboard the first train out. Thirty-nine minutes later, Clark leaped to the platform in Baltimore—only to discover that the convention had just adjourned for the weekend.
Sunday, June 30, proved no day of rest; there never was a Sabbath more shattered by deals, plots, bargains, and intrigue. Clark’s able lieutenant “Gum-Shoe Bill” Stone worked on the Harmon and Marshall die-hards. Thomas Fortune Ryan did his best to corral the Underwood men—after all he had given them that $35,000. Charlie Murphy played a subtler game—he engineered a meeting with Mitchell Palmer, suggesting that if he deserted Wilson, he could have the nomination himself. Palmer indignantly declined.
Meanwhile the Wilson forces were far from idle. Senator Saulsbury of Delaware worked on the border states most of the morning. McCombs polished up a promising deal with Tom Taggart of Indiana: if the Hoosier boss would deliver his thirty delegates, Governor Marshall could have second place on the ticket.
McCombs also dickered with Murphy, ignoring the fact that if the Tammany leader did come over, Bryan and his followers would pull out. Small loss, felt Wilson’s manager; he far preferred the scores of disciplined votes that could be instantly produced by a strong political boss. And when these leaders began putting on the pressure—saying they would never fall in line until Bryan was shelved—McCombs quickly called Sea Girt. He explained that he could get those badly needed Eastern votes only if Wilson promised not to name Bryan Secretary of State.
Wilson was shocked. The whole idea violently clashed with that inflexible Calvinist streak that ran so deeply in him—sometimes his greatest strength, sometimes a heartbreaking weakness. He had showed it as Governor when he risked political suicide by vetoing an unfair grade-crossing bill. He showed it as president of Princeton when he fought his losing battle against Dean West’s separate graduate school. Once over a game of billiards, a faculty friend tried a gentle word of advice: “There are two sides to every question.” Wilson gave him an icy glance: “Yes—the right and the wrong.”
It was the same now. Rejecting McCombs’ suggestion, he turned to Tumulty and sternly declared, “I will not bargain for this office.” It was ironical, of course, that unknown to Wilson, his friends were bargaining all over Baltimore. But in the last analysis, their combined manipulations produced nothing compared to the votes he won as the uncompromising champion of political cleanliness.
The blizzard of telegrams increased—110,000 that week, 1,182 for Bryan alone—most of them clamoring louder than ever for Wilson. And if there was any delegate who failed to grasp the meaning, the press was happy to let him know. Charles H. Grasty’s Baltimore Sun, the paper read by every delegate, slanted its columns heavily for the Governor. (Old Sun men still enjoy the hatchet job they did on Thomas Fortune Ryan.) The New York World now called Wilson’s nomination “a matter of Democratic life and death.”
Monday, July 1. The weary delegates, the wilted spectators trudged back to the armory for another day of balloting. The band was gone—no more money to pay it—and many of the camp followers were going home too. But if the carnival touch was missing, the battle itself was tenser than ever. Twenty-seventh ballot: no major change. Twenty-eighth: Indiana suddenly bolted for Wilson. Tom Taggart, it seemed, was a man of his word.
Now it was the thirtieth ballot. Suddenly most of Iowa switched from Clark to Wilson … then Vermont, Wyoming, Michigan in quick succession. The armory was in an uproar as the Governor forged into the lead 460-455.
“You’ve passed him! You’ve passed him!” yelled the reporters at Sea Girt. They crowded around Wilson, begging for a statement. “You might say,” he suggested, “that Governor Wilson received the news that Champ Clark had dropped to second place in a riot of silence.”
Oddly enough, the Wilson lead was deceptive. He had gone about as far as he could without a major shift somewhere. But Murphy was out of the question, and the Underwood men still banked on a deadlock. The only hope was Illinois’s crafty old boss Roger Sullivan. His fifty-eight delegates were in the Clark column, but he had occasionally flirted with Wilson’s managers.
Monday night they tried every conceivable pressure. Mrs. Sullivan and his son Boetius—both avidly for the Governor—added their weight. A caucus showed the delegates too wanted Wilson. Finally, Sullivan said he would shift in the morning, but he didn’t seem particularly enthusiastic.
McCombs worried the night away, and by Tuesday morning, July 2, he was near hysterics. “Roger,” he cried, “we’ve got to have Illinois, or I’ll withdraw!”
“Sit steady, boy,” was all the old man had to say. But true to his word, Illinois came over on the forty-third ballot… making the count Wilson 602, Clark 329.
Even now, it wasn’t all over. First, the Underwood crowd had to be won, and never were men more stubborn. They still clung to the hope of deadlock and compromise. All during the forty-fifth ballot McCombs, Palmer, the other Wilson managers feverishly worked on the Alabama delegation. And as the delay grew longer, the wildest rumors spread: Sullivan would shift his vote to Underwood next ballot … no, he would switch them back to Clark … the Speaker was in an anteroom about to make his long-advertised dramatic appearance.
At 2 45 P.M. Ollie James stood by, ready to take the roll for the forty-sixth time. But before he could start, old Senator Bankhead of Alabama got permission to say a few words. Underwood, he declared, wanted an end to sectional prejudice far more than the nomination … Underwood would gladly forgo the honor if the country was united … Underwood never entered the race to defeat any man. …
No doubt about it—he was withdrawing. Murphy darted down the aisle to pay his last respects to the Missouri boys—he was abandoning ship. The Clark forces began cursing and heckling. The Wilson rooters rocked the hall with their cheers.
The landslide began. Trying on his new loyalty, Murphy’s lieutenant John Fitzgerald suggested that Wilson be nominated by acclamation. But the Missouri delegates refused—they wanted to cast “one last vote for Old Champ Clark.” Few others were as sentimental. State after state fell in line, including New York.
The forty-sixth ballot ended Wilson 890, Clark 84. Her honor intact, it was Missouri that now suggested the nomination be made unanimous. The delegates roared their approval, and at exactly 3:30 P.M., a hoarse, weary Ollie James shouted above the din, “I declare Woodrow Wilson the nominee of this convention!”
At Sea Girt Joe Tumulty was waiting. At his frantic signal, a band stepped out from behind a clump of bushes blaring “Hail, the Conquering Hero Comes.” Wilson merely asked what the band would have done if he had lost.
Instantly the broad lawn seemed to fill with people; Reporters and friends crowded around. A passing Pennsylvania Railroad train came to a stop, the engineer and fireman abandoned the locomotive and rushed across the field to congratulate the Governor. Wilson mechanically greeted them all. He seemed in a daze, repeating over and over, “Well, well, is it really true?”
But he wasn’t so stunned that he failed to recall that gloomy breakfast just three days ago. Turning to his wife Ellen, he smiled and said, “Well, I guess we won’t go to Rydal after all.”
“The most remarkable demonstration of the people’s influence upon a national council of a national party in the history of the republic,” proclaimed the Baltimore Sun the day after Wilson’s nomination. The whole country seemed to agree. Everyone gloried in the thought of amateurs beating professionals … of the man in the street routing the interests … of David thrashing Goliath.
The stand against Murphy was compared to Thermopylae (but with a happy ending) … to Garibaldi’s liberation of Italy. Joe Tumulty went even further—he thought it was like the Crusades.
The Crusades, in fact, were always a favorite progressive image. There was something more exhilarating than mere reform in this battle for social justice. It was a Mission, a Holy War. The theme ran through the whole Wilson campaign, and it positively saturated the new Progressive party launched by Theodore Roosevelt.
Roosevelt’s Progressives gathered in Chicago on August 5, and from the start it was less a convention than a religious revival. “We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord,” the Colonel had cried, and his followers took the cue. The band blared “Onward Christian Soldiers.” The crowds sang “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Senator Beveridge’s keynote speech sounded the call—“we battle for the actual rights of man.” Roosevelt himself delivered a “Confession of Faith.” Wallowing in evangelism, the Progressives nominated the Colonel, and for the first time in years a third-party candidate posed a serious challenge.
Poor Taft was crushed. It inwardly killed him to hear those slashing attacks from his old friend Roosevelt. He hated running for office anyhow. Everything he did seemed to go wrong. Even when he sat in the baseball bleachers—presumably a safe course for any politician—he was criticized for wasting his time at ball games. Sadly he wrote to Helen Taft, “I think I might as well give up so far as being a politician is concerned; there are so many people who don’t like me.”
Wilson and Roosevelt soon forget about him, traveled all over the country happily battering each other. For some observers it was difficult to understand how two progressives could so violently disagree, yet each represented an entirely different branch of the movement. Roosevelt and his New Nationalism stood for government as a positive force, looking after the people’s needs through social welfare laws. Wilson and his New Freedom saw the government more as a referee, hired to keep the game clean. The Governor argued that if Washington wiped out special privilege, free men could look after themselves.
Roosevelt derided Wilson’s theory as “rural Toryism”—an effort to turn back the clock. By now the Colonel took monopolies for granted—the solution was to make them behave. Wilson rejected this flatly—the solution was to abolish them: “If America is not to have free enterprise, then she can have freedom of no sort whatever.”
The people listened—intrigued as ever by this eloquent man who spoke so glowingly of freedom. And they enjoyed more and more the way he slugged it out with the rambunctious Colonel. The schoolmaster turned out to be an incredibly good campaigner. “Ladies and gentlemen in the boxes,” he saluted the agile souls perched on boxcars, when his campaign special stopped at Willimantic, Connecticut. And when a would-be assassin wounded Roosevelt in Milwaukee, Wilson reaped enormous dividends by a dramatic display of sportsmanship. He announced he would simply mark time until the Colonel was back in action—“my thought is constantly of that gallant gentleman lying in the hospital. …”
Fighting this sort of campaign—and with the Republicans hopelessly split—Wilson won easily. Even the surprisingly large Socialist vote—showing that at least some people were still dissatisfied with the system—didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of this first Democratic victory in twenty years.
That November 5 was a glorious election night at Wilson’s home in Princeton—the students cheering outside … the college band playing … the old bell tolling on Nassau Hall. Swept up in the thrill of the victory, next morning’s New York World saw no limit to the possibilities ahead: “a new era … a new vindication of republican institutions … a new birth of freedom.”
“New” was the keynote. And not merely in politics, where this new administration heralded its New Freedom. In every field the country was bursting with fresh, exciting ideas. New theatre—J. M. Synge’s outspoken Playboy of the Western World. New music—Irving Berlin changed America’s whole taste in popular tunes with “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.” New art—in February, 1913, New York’s Armory Show introduced the nation to a revolution in painting. When the show went on the road, 400,000 people in Chicago alone flocked to see pictures by men with unfamiliar names like Matisse and Cezanne. Everyone talked about “Nude Descending a Staircase” and tried to find either the nude or the staircase. (The public was much more shocked by a recently discovered picture that anyone could understand—“September Morn.”)
The same month as the Armory Show, the country faced still another innovation—a new kind of levy called the “income tax.” When Delaware gave its approval on February 3, 1913, the Sixteenth Amendment went into effect, and Washington turned its thoughts to the provocative concept of taxing people according to their ability to pay. Conservatives howled with dismay when it was reported that the rate would run as high as 2 per cent on incomes from $20,000 to $50,000.
But the liberals were in the saddle now, and they brushed aside complaints. There was a better world ahead, and they could hardly wait to get going. Swarming down Pennsylvania Avenue on Inauguration Day, March 4, they crowded behind the barriers on the east side of the Capitol.
Shortly after 1:10 P.M., Woodrow Wilson took his place on the temporary stand. Chief Justice White administered the oath; the crowd cheered, then fell silent to hear the Inaugural Address. But Wilson’s first words were no speech at all. Noticing the huge throng behind the distant barrier—and supremely mindful of all he stood for—he turned to the guards and calmly ordered, “Let the people come forward!”