Volume 14 , Issue 32

100 Years Ago Today - 6 August 1912

One hundred years ago today we find the Bull Moose Independent party convention opened in Chicago and arranged preliminaries. It was reported as a cut and dried program with the vice presidential candidate as the only question and the Negro delegates ditched, 6 August 1912, in The Hawaiian Gazette.

As reported by Associated press Cable, Chicago, August 6, 1912, the National Progressive convention opened in the Coliseum shortly before one o'clock, at which time the convention hall was crowded. The nomination of Theodore Roosevelt was a foregone conclusion.

The leaders of the Progressives agreed that Governor Hiram Johnson of California, would be the candidate for Vice President as the running mate of the Rough Rider. It is now asserted that a Southern Democrat for Vice President, as was first planned, was impossible.

Governor Johnson was considered the logical candidate and it was proposed that upon his nomination he shall stump the East while Colonel Roosevelt stumps the West during the campaign.

Colonel Roosevelt dominated when he arrived on the morning of August 5 (1912) from Oyster Bay and made a typical speech to a crowd at his hotel. Later Roosevelt went unattended to the convention hall and there attended a meeting of the credentials committee and straightened out a tangle of contesting delegates.

The contestants were from the South and the committee decided in favor of the white delegations as against the negro delegates, thus endorsing white leadership in the South. The session of the committee was a stormy one. During the fight before the credentials committee the Florida and Mississippi negro delegates were decisively ditched.

It was Doctor Venerable, head of the Colored Men's Progressive Association, that had emphatically repudiated Roosevelt and scored the "Lily White" policy.

We find that Judge Ben Lindsey, of Denver Colorado, declined to accept the tender of the permanent chairmanship of the convention, which was called to order by Senator Dixon, Roosevelt's manager, at 12:43 o'clock. Former Senator J. A. Beveridge of Indiana was elected temporary secretary, and Oscar King Davis, well known Washington newspaper correspondent and head of the Roosevelt publicity bureau, was elected general secretary. Senator Beveridge in his keynote speech denounced the invisible government (corporation rule) and asserted that this invisible government was the chief danger to American institutions.

It was practically certain to be Roosevelt and Johnson on the first ballot.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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