Roosevelt, of course, had picked Taft, who had been a Roosevelt Cabinet member, as his successor circa 1910, following T.R.'s trips abroad to Europe and on safari in Africa. Teddy was more than a bit upset when he found Taft in the pocket of the Republican conservatives who had schemed against his administration and were celebrating its finale. The progressive wing of the party still supported him, as did crossover voters from other camps, and he challenged Taft in the Republican primary. When the nomination went to Taft, Roosevelt and the Republican progressive *wing*, then led by Bob LaFollette of Wisconsin, left the Republicans to become the Progressive Party, better known as the Bull Moose Party. The Democrats nominated the then-president of Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson as their candidate.
Taft campaigned very little; having no doubt as to what was coming; and the Republicans of the day were aware that a vote for him was as good as a vote for Wilson. Following the August assassination attempt on Roosevelt's life, both Taft and Wilson halted their campaigning until Roosevelt left the hospital and Roosevelt's campaign never regained the momentum it had begun. When the votes were counted, Wilson won his first four years of the presidency with more than 6 million votes; Roosevelt and the Progressives received some 4 million and Taft took hind place [well, except for Debs' Socialists, and even Debs didn't vote for himself] with just over 3 million.
Thus, after the election, Woodrow Wilson began his first term. Following the next presidential election of 1916, during which Wilson sucessfully ran against Republican challenger Charles Evans Hughes, Wilson began his second term in office as president.
The only confusion remaining was whether the little moose collar pins of 1912 designated Roosevelt supporters or members of the fraternal organization, as they were likely intended to do. The lodge pins were marked *P.A.P.* standing for the order's stated virtues; those of the political group were sometimes marked *P.P* for *Progressive Party*. I suppose there were those who wore both....
