American Experience

Historian John Milton Cooper on the 1912 Election

Requires the RealAudio Player. Download the player from Real.com.

JOHN COOPER: Nineteen-twelve is the race of the three presidents: past president, current president, future president. The past president is Roosevelt. Roosevelt stands for his new nationalism, this vision of transcendent idealism, of reform essentially reform from above to maintain social order and the health of the nation.

Taft is the traditional Republican. He's for a certain amount of limited reform, but basically pro-business, not go too far, very careful rule of law. He stays in the race, frankly, because he knows he hasn't got a chance, but he wants to spoil it for Roosevelt. He wants to make sure Roosevelt doesn't win.

Wilson represents, I think, the most articulate of modern liberals. He wants something -- he wants an activist government that's going to promote economic competition, going to promote economic opportunity. It's the beginnings of the welfare state. So you've got reformed conservativism in Roosevelt, you've got traditional conservativism in Taft, and you've got modern liberalism in Wilson.

The big issue in 1912, the one that gets the most attention, is trusts. This is where Roosevelt and Wilson clash head-on. Roosevelt's position is regulate the trusts, that the problem is not the size of businesses, it's their conduct and you've got to regulate them. Wilson stands for very careful government watchdog and supervision of the economy, quite often breaking up the trusts, but for him the most important thing is to make sure that fresh competitors get in there. He wants to keep the market open. So you've got Roosevelt, the regulator, Wilson the marketeer, open, but keep the market open. It's their very different visions. They both believe in a very strong activist government role in that.

Taft, if anything, is probably the most of a traditional anti-truster. He believes that the anti-trust laws really are -- they ought to be enforced, perhaps not that often, but you've got to be careful about making sure that business obeys the law.

Return to Interviews >>