Posted on 03/23/2006 7:44:21 AM PST by Frank T
Of all the midterm elections of the last century, the elections of 1910 have to rank among the highest in terms of significance.
Republicans had won the previous four presidential elections beginning with William McKinley’s first victory over William Jennings Bryan in 1896. Indeed, among Democratic presidential candidates, only Grover Cleveland had won the White House in the 50 years since Abraham Lincoln was first elected. The GOP seemed solidly in control of Congress, and the Republican Speaker of the House, "Uncle Joe" Cannon, ran the House of Representatives with an iron fist.
Yet all was not well in the Republican camp. President William Howard Taft, elected with Theodore Roosevelt’s blessing in 1908, had alienated his predecessor and seemed ill-suited to navigate the political complexities of the times. In Congress, the split between "old guard" Republicans and "progressive" Republicans intensified. As the year wore on, an alliance of Democrats and "progressive" Republicans in the House revolted, stripping Cannon (and the office of the Speaker for decades to come) of most of his out-sized powers. Taft responded to the assertiveness of the progressives by attempting to read them out of the party. His attempts to have them defeated in the party primaries of 1910 were mostly unsuccessful; instead, a slew of old guard incumbents went down to defeat. For their part, Democrats were unusually united.
The general election produced several notable results:
- Democrats gained 57 seats in the House and 10 in the Senate, enough to give them outright partisan control of the House and working control of the Senate in combination with progressive Republicans.
- Democrats also made significant gains at the state level, where they won the governorships of New York and New Jersey for the first time since 1892, as well as gubernatorial races in Republican strongholds like Connecticut, Rhode Island, Ohio, and Massachusetts. These elections thrust forward a new cohort of Democratic leaders, including most notably Woodrow Wilson as the new governor of New Jersey.
- Psychologically, there was no question that the results dramatically boosted the confidence of Democrats, who had not had good news of this sort for almost two decades. In the words of the New York Times, "What a wonderful and quick regeneration has been wrought in the Democratic Party in this year."
- The internal composition of the President’s party shifted dramatically against him. Only a handful of congressional Republicans from progressive strongholds lost, while heavy losses were suffered by the GOP contingent from states where the old guard had been particularly strong. The consequence was a much-emboldened progressive wing within the Republican Party, which formed the National Progressive Republican League in January, 1911. This agitation contributed to the entry of Robert La Follette and Theodore Roosevelt into the Republican nomination race against Taft in 1912. Of course, Roosevelt would go on to bolt the GOP and run against Taft as the candidate of the Progressive (or "Bull Moose") party.
The new Democratic-progressive Congress elected in 1910 stymied Taft on numerous issues, as "deadlock" often reigned. Democrats also used their new power to advance their own agenda, establish a positive record for 1912, and force the President into unpopular vetoes, such as one for a bill lowering tariffs.
As scholar David Mayhew has pointed out, the 62nd Congress was responsible for the 17th Amendment (direct election of Senators), an eight hour federal work-day, creation of a federal Children’s Bureau, creation of the Department of Labor, and campaign finance restrictions. The Money Trust Investigation run by the House in 1912 pioneered the use of congressional hearings as a publicity tool for new policy.
When Wilson was nominated by Democrats as their presidential candidate in 1912, he ran on a platform that highlighted the progressive accomplishments of the 62nd Congress and excoriated Taft for blocking measures like the downward tariff revision. When Wilson won, he found that the Congress elected in 1910 had already paved the way for his New Freedom program.
There was a broad consensus on progressive reform in the early 1900's, and it found home in both political parties. Of course, as we know from history books (and maybe a couple of you were around back), one party has carried that torch more stridently than the other, beginning with Wilson's election in 1912.
What the author didn't mention in this article, but perhaps will in another in his series, is that the 1912 primaries would have a major impact, years later, on conservative realignment.
There was no way that conservatives were to unite under one party at the time, but with Theodore Roosevelt leaving the party, and taking much of the progressive vote with him, that helped make the GOP a more "old guard" party. The Democrats never did kick out their leftists. And I think that's why, half a century later, many Dem voters would bolt their party, and start voting Republican.
Taft wound up losing relection, and came in third place behind Wilson and Roosevelt, in 1912. There were probably members who said it was a bad decision to move away from the progressive wing of the base. But like Goldwater losing in '64, it sometimes takes a stinker to help realign the parties, and offer a clear choice.
There is another aspect of this story that is still important today. Teddy Roosevelt bolted the Republican Party at its convention in August, 1912, and yet was able to appear on the ballots in 47 of the then-48 states in the November election. (He misses making the ballot in Oklahoma.)
1912 marked the last time it was that easy for any candidate to run for President on a third-party or independent basis. The Republicans and Democrats jointly increased the requirements for such candidates after 1912, and sharply increased them after Senator LaFollette's run in 1924.
It was Supreme Court victories by George Wallace in 1960, and for Gene McCarthy in 1976 and for John Anderson in 1980, that reopened the legal door for third-party and independent candidates for President. It remains true, however, that any such effort is doomed legally unless it begins as well-organized and well-funded, the year before the election. The system will not return to the complete openness it had when Roosevelt ran as a Progressive in 1912.
I know this stuff because I was deeply involved in the litigation for McCarthy and Anderson, and based by brief for Anderson on the history of all American presidential elections since the beginning.
Congressman Billybob
Latest article: "Politboro Questions from the 'Edukashun' Association"
It sounds like "somebody" thinks 2006 could be a repeat of 1910; ie 57 seats pickup in the House?.. That would be truly devastating, IMO. We'd be looking a National health care and the rest of Eurabia's agenda. Terrible..
57 Dem pickups? Not going to happen. Recent federal elections are too evenly matched for such an imbalance in results. Districts are for the most part safe for encumbants.
The real danger is if the base of either party doesn't show up on significant numbers. That can change the composition of congress in the short term. But with no new great political realignment, I think seats would revert back after one party of the other is "punished." If the GOP does bad in '06, it'll rebound in '08.
And in 1913 we get an Income Tax.
Or was that the Federal Reserve?
While Democrats also supported the income tax, the Republican Congress with Taft's support passed the constitutional amendment in 1909, almost four years before ratification.
The basic difference is that in 1910 the democrats were in many ways the party of the middle and working class. Not as they are now the party of the frothing at the mouth barking moonbat.
bttt
I don't know when the Fed was created, but it was at some point during the Wilson administration.
Capitalism gets the blame from many for the stock market crash in '29, but laissez-faire economists since then have pointed to the creation of the Fed, and its handling of the money supply, as the cause. Centralized managment of the banking system causing a market crash? Who would have thought??
Apparently the big crash was set up to happen at the end of the first world war, but the Harding administration cut taxes, deflating the pressure.
Let this be a warning to conservatives that want to "cleanse" our party of RINOs overnight.
Any attempt to push RINOs out will result in a strengthened Democrat Party.
Patience and hard work will slowly eliminate the RINOs from our great party. Yes, it is frustrating to have people like Specter, McCain, Chafee, Snowe, etc screwing up our agenda. However, a return to Democrat majorities would be even more devastating.
Slow incrementalism and a solid grounding in principle is the key to long-term success in politics.
Good point. You can add that incrementalism also means not going further in the RINO direction, however.
Do you happen to remember the seat turnover in 1994?
BOTH!
Times have changed, i guess.
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