CHAPTER 35
MY PART IN THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1912
THE SECOND year of my service as Governor was a year of presidential campaign. A successor to Mr. Taft was to be selected. Early it became apparent that there was great dissatisfaction with President Taft. No matter what merit he might have, and forgetful of his great public services in the past, it was plain that a majority of his party would not and did not approve or trust him politically. They could no longer see good in him or in anything he proposed. Because it was a Taft proposition, the proposed Treaty of Canadian Reciprocity, a measure of great merit, was bitterly opposed. I was, I think, the only governor in the United States who supported that treaty, at home and at Washington. It was passed with difficulty, after long hearings and delays that aided in perverting the Canadian view and supplying fuel for its subsequent repudiation across the border.
Always in public life and in politics I have clung to certain ideals of citizenship and its responsibilities. Like millions of others I have looked upon Theodore Roosevelt as personifying most nearly these mind and heart types. He was human and made errors, but he was heartful and earnest, courageous and honest. He worked at the job of being a citizen when with another temperament he might have been a loafer, because he never had to work for bread, that great industrial incentive. Always active and giving of himself, spending and being spent, he has the highest batting average of public service in the modern history of the nation. And as such things are usually interpreted his work has been unselfish. In a higher way of thought his labors have been the essence of worthy selfishness for social and individual welfare including himself.
First with all good citizens comes the good of the nation; then the good of those agencies that contribute to the nation; then the man: Country, party, individual.
I cared only in this way. It seemed to me that the Republican party had attracted to itself the greater volume of genius for government. As is always true in a successful party the bad entered with the good. Virtue in party should be and always will be at friction with vice in party. Those who, as participants in or agents for intrenched privilege, believe in government by the few will be naturally opposed by those who believe in government by all for all.
Mr. Taft might be nominated by force, but he would be defeated. The midyear’s elections foreshadowed that certain result. What was the party to do if it would achieve the success within itself that would preserve in control its best element, and continue it in governmental power and direction? A candidate other than Mr. Taft must be found. This thought was one common to many earnest minds. The field to select from was not large. But there were some good, earnest, courageous public men, and more were being created out of an atmosphere growing from an aroused public conscience. Of these the first and greatest and clearest and most consistent and courageous was Theodore Roosevelt. His own idea, as he had told me and all who talked with him, was to be ready to serve in peace or war at any time his country, that had so honored and trusted him, demanded. But he would not be a candidate. He must be drafted and the call must be unmistakable.
Now it is one thing for a king to call and another thing for a people. There may be ever so much material for a chorus, but it is always scattered, untrained and undirected. A big Roosevelt movement began all over the land. He was unmoved by it. In fact it was so intangible as to be difficult of measurement. No one man or men started it. But it was still in no form to carry convictions of duty and sacrifice to Oyster Bay.
Alexander Revell headed the Roosevelt movement in Chicago. Edwin W. Sims was associated with him. Mr. Sims was from Michigan. Perhaps that is why he came to me.
“There is only one way that I can think of that will formulate this Roosevelt movement so that it will compel him to be a candidate; that is to call a conference of Republican governors and pass resolutions urging Colonel Roosevelt to come out and do his duty.”
It was the idea of Mr. Sims. It appealed to me. I signed a call for a meeting of the governors. There were not many Republican governors, only nine or ten. The States had fallen like bean-poles before the anti-Taft hurricane. There were eight governors at the meeting. Seven of them signed the call eagerly. The message was carried to Oyster Bay. Colonel Roosevelt became a candidate. The steam-roller national convention in Chicago nominated Taft. Then came the revolt. The followers of Roosevelt entered upon the formation of a new party. This I opposed. At the first meeting in Michigan I succeeded in preventing the formation of a progressive party. There was no progressive principle that I did not and do not believe in and advocate. The thing was to decide what instrumentality would most quickly secure the adoption and application of progressive reforms in government. I am firmly convinced that the great majority of the Republican party was progressive and is so to-day. The only thing to do as I saw it, was to remain in the party and wrest control from the leaders who were abusing it. This had already been done in Michigan and other States, and it seemed particularly unwise to desert and leave behind all the good work that had been done up to date. Suffering from a broken foot, I had managed to attend the Lansing meeting, though on crutches. An inflammation in the injured member prevented me from attending the convention at Jackson where Senator Dixon, of Montana, swept men off their feet who had promised me not to secede, and the Progressives in Michigan were organized.
Roosevelt, Taft and Wilson ran. I made it plain that I would remain in the Republican party and would vote for Roosevelt as a Republican, and I advised other Republicans to do the same. I was at Deerfoot Lodge when I got the news that Colonel Roosevelt was shot. In a flash I reviewed the early part I had played in getting him into the fight. A decision to go and help him now that he was hors du combat was acted upon at once. I tendered my services and asked to be sent wherever the committee had difficulty in getting or keeping speakers. After several speeches in Chicago, St. Louis and other places in Missouri, I was sent to Oklahoma. My progress in Oklahoma was such that William Jennings Bryan was sent to follow me. I closed the campaign in Indiana, too far away to enable me to reach Sault Ste. Marie in time to vote.
