Roosevelt loved to tell people, businessmen, especially, that he was all that stood between prosperity and ruin, that they must take him and his progressivism or succumb to a socialism that would destroy everything. He always stood sideways on issues, and I think this was his rationalization for his radicalism.
Instead, all he did was legitimize William Jennings Bryan.
Politics are dangerous, and one can never say what might have been. I'll take a shot, wasted as it'll get me:
Had McKinley taken on the anthracite strike, the Panama Canal, and big business (Hanna blamed Morgan and Harriman for the Northern Securities trust bust -- which the very conservative lawyer, Philander Knox, prosecuted), the results would have been the same as Roosevelt achieved, but the expectations would have been radically different. Whereas Roosevelt used those instances as stepping stones, McKinley would have pursued them as mere obstacles. A look at the way McKinley handled the entry to the Spanish War illuminates this: he went reluctantly, but he went on his own terms, and very successfully.
I'm thinking that McKinley would have launched the 20th Century on firmer ground than Roosevelt. Roosevelt, rather, mucked it up (to use his term). He did it by talking Bryan's talk, and going half way there. Modern reactionaries ought find little appealling in the way Roosevelt adopted his opponents' politics.
(Roosevelt had the great fortune of going up against the conservative Parker in 1904; Bryan's people sat out the election, and Roosevelt didn't have to do or say anything radical that would offend his conservative Republican base).
I won't say that Roosevelt's co-option of progressivism and Bryan wasn't successful. I will say that it was unfortunate.
1912 was the product of eleven years of hysteria forced upon the nation, chiefly by the muckrakers, but much facilitated by their president of 1901-1909, and, especially, ex-president thereafter. Roosevelt spent 1910 to 1912 perfecting his radical/conservative posture, tuning his appeal to the fearful and the cautiously fearful who were otherwise afraid of Bryan.
It was up to Taft to uphold the intrepid. Taft from 1910:
The present political situation is a curious one. Indeed, the condition of public opinion is curious. It seems to be feeling the effect of the flood of misrepresentation which manifests itself in a protest against everything and everybody who is not in the forefront crying "Stop thief!"And this one is my fave:
I had a letter the other day from a man who said: "I don't like the tariff bill which was passed and which you signed. I don't like your association with Joe Cannon. I don't like your association with Aldrich. I don't like what you are doing with respect to the magazines and the periodicals and suppressing free speech.* I don't like anything about your administration."
Well, I sat down and dictated the following: "My dear Sir: You are in a bad way."
* a reference to the 2nd class postal rate hike proposalsI do not wonder what would have happened to the nation had Bryan won in 1908. Taft did the nation a tremendous service.
Taft certainly was more responsible than TR, though. Like Taft, McKinley might have taken some of the steps TR did but without the drama and show and without stirring things up too much. I've heard that Taft took TR's trustbusting seriously, and strove to break up monopolies, while TR played a much more devious game. So yes, I think you're right about TR's role. And had he not run in 1912 Taft would surely have won, and our history would be quite different.
TR's problem was that he couldn't help stirring people up more than was good for them. His cousin Franklin's problem was different. FDR allowed power to seduce him to the point where he'd do any thing to keep it and increase his hold on it. Not that TR didn't want to keep power -- but it was more that he wanted the limelight and the applause, and not power in itself. FDR took the applause for granted and wanted to hold on the power itself. Both cousins were seducers, but FDR soothed, and TR aroused passions. TR's faults were those of a man who couldn't sit still and stop moving. FDR obviously didn't have that problem, and succumbed to the vices of a more sedentary life and feline character.
Something happened to the Democratic party around 1910-12. Prior to then you had the Bryanite Westerners and the Conservative Easterners. With Wilson, you got a fusion of the two tendencies, progressive, but friendly to Wall Street, hostile to Bryanist populism, and more than a little shaped by TR's activism. It's certainly a fascinating thesis that progressivism might have gone the way of populism if TR hadn't stirred the pot. La Follette had planned to run in 1912, and he could have played the same role as TR, though not nearly so well.
There is much that's admirable about TR and things that are loveable, but this seems to reflect the amorality of charisma. He's a little like the "live wire" who so brightens the room that you don't ask too many questions about the shadier sides of his life, or an actor you can't help cheering, even though he and his character aren't paragons of virtue. The fact that TR did have some major virtues not found in some of his successors -- courage, patriotism, fidelity, devotion, energy, personal honor -- complicates the picture.
Watching the "Civil War" documentary, I couldn't help asking myself, what would have happened if Booth had shot Lincoln earlier, in 1861, 1862 or 1863, or what if the assassination plot had failed entirely. And come to think of it what if TR had died from the bullet he took on the campaign trail? Or if Czolgosz had missed McKinley?