Volume 14 , Issue 39

100 Years Ago Today - 24 September 1912

One hundred years ago today there was "Fear of Moose Splits Parties In New York," as reported in The Washington Times, Tuesday evening, 24 September 1912. It was also reported that Root and O'Gorman demanded concessions as Sop to Progressive element. If Bosses win, Theodore Roosevelt will carry state. There was a faction at Saratoga that insisted that Republicans nominate Straus for Governor.

Back in September, 1912, there was nothing quite like the political condition in New York. Democrats and Republicans were both having a family quarrel over the control of State conventions, nomination of tickets, and writing of platforms. It was reported in each party, the State machine stood for extremely conservative action and nominations. In each, a U. S. Senator was leading the forces which would insist on concessions to progressive sentiment.

Elihu Root, Republican Senator and spokesman of Taft, was trying to straighten out matters when he demanded a moderately progressive platform, that would steal some of the Progressives' thunder.

At this same time, James A. O'Gorman was the Democratic Senator and spokesman of Wilson, who was opening his fight for control of the coming Democratic State convention.

Root was pitted against Barnes and the old-line Republican bosses. O'Gorman was opposed to Murphy, Tammany, and the Democratic machine.

It was the national situation against the State machine, in both parties. The machine had undoubted control of a majority of delegates; nominal control, which could be enforced unless there was a ground-sell of protest or the bosses undertook to be too raw.

In each case the progressive side found its real reliance in the argument that if the new party was to be allowed a monopoly of all Progressiveness, it would carry the State, and the old parties would be out of business. That argument was what had made a progressive (a moderate progressive) out of Elihu Root. Root was merely progressive by comparison with Barnes, Hendricks, Wadsworth and the others of the black horse cavalry that had always stood firmly against admitting the people to any part whatever in politics.

It was a curious situation, in which the two New York Senators, one a Democrat and the other a Republican, found themselves. Each was made a Senator by the organization in his State. EAch getting away from the narrow vision of merely State affairs, realized that the country was for progressive measures, and that the Empire State could not fall out of the procession without injuring the respective parties within that State.

Root, the Republican, was in double role. The day of big bosses and absolute bossism was ended. The bosses, in both parties, had long held New York back from any real participation int he national movement toward better things. The organization of the new Progressive party in this State had suddenly forced the intelligent leaders in both parties to reckon with utterly new conditions and forces.

Elihu Root appeared in a new role; a role that testifies to his oft-demonstrated versatility and capability as a politician. Two years before he was made chairman of the State convention in this same village. At that time he was in alliance with Roosevelt and against the bosses; he helped Roosevelt to oust Barnes from control.

After two years had passed, and Root changed sides completely; he opposed Roosevelt for the nomination for President, and because he was the most expert presiding officer for such occasions in the country, the Barnes crowd at Chicago made Root temporary and permanent chairman of the national convention in which the nomination was stolen from Root's ally of two years before.

After that service to the cause of reaction, Senator Root swung once more toward the Progressive pole. He was there to see that this convention gave some hostages to the Progressive sentiment in the State, in order to keep the whole mass of the party's better element form going over, bag and baggage, to the Progressives. Roosevelt was reported that he may carry the State of New York. And that was just what O'Gorman was trying to do for the Democrats.

Senator Root was understood to favor a platform declaration in favor of a better primary law than New York had back then. The State could not possibly have had a worse one. Passed under the pretense that it was a concession to anti-boss sentiment, it had tightened the grip of the bosses in both parties. William Barnes was willing that this law should be repealed, and that the State should revert to the old soapbox plan, with a few modifications that would in no wise injure the status of the bosses. He was flat in his refusal to go forward, and promise the State a real, effective primary that would give the people a voice.

Senator Root wanted to give some mild assurances of this kind. Not that Senator Root cared for primaries, but he knew that the people would go where they can get what they want, and the Bull Moose party had given them an unconditional, indubitable pledge of real primaries if it came into power. The Bull Moose party pledged many other progressive measures, and the Root crowd was insisting that this convention should borrow as many as possible of them. Root's demand ws exactly the same that O'Gorman was pressing upon the Democrats. These clearheaded national leaders foresaw that if they don't make some effort to keep the independent voters in their old party affiliations, the State was going to smash both old parties and go for Roosevelt and Straus. If Roosevelt carried New York, he would be President. It looked as if he would do just that, for this gathering was the most listless, the most lacking in enthusiasm, the most disheartening, the worst attended, that the oldest convention goer could recall.

If Root and O'Gorman would both win, then the old parties would make a feeble pretension of having turned toward the light of modernity in 1912.

They would concede just as little as possible, consistent with keeping their parties from complete collapse. They would perform, after election, just as little as possible of what they had promised.

How the Bull Moose State convention dictated the terms which both old parties would have to accept if they would continue to exist, is one of the most remarkable chapters in this State's political history. Before the Progressive convention neither of the old parties took that movement seriously. The Progressives named Straus for governor, and made a magnificent Progressive declaration; and overnight, the State rose up in acclaim. The press flocked to the support of strays, or the the demand that the old parties must name equally good men.

There was a considerable force which demands that the Republican convention in addition to stealing most of the Bull Moose platform, should actually cap the climax by nominating Straus for governor. That would amount to complete surrender; yet there was insistent protestation that to do less was suicide. For the sturdy old Republican party to surrender and soul to a new party not two months old, would be a performance utterly unparalleled; yet that was what was urged by the men who most accurately represented the progressive sentiments of the masses of Republcicans.

Both Feared the new Bull Moose party. Oscar Straus had been asked if he would accept a Republican nomination, should it be tendered to him. He replied somewhat cryptically in a telegram that was interpreted to mean that if the Republicans would adopt his platform entire, they might also have Mr. Straus.

That Straus would be nominated was seemingly quite impossible; Root would not be for that, any more than Barnes; but the fact that there was a vigorous demand for just that course demonstrates how the terror of the new party had taken possession of men who best understood the extent of the defection toward Roosevelt and Straus.

The commonest expression of the Progressive and quasi-Progressive Republican elements there if Barnes rules this convention, then Murphy would rule the Democrats; both old parties would bog conservative, and the Straus-Roosevelt combination would carry the State.

It was reported in 1912, on the other hand, the expectation was that if Root and the pseudo-Progressive rule there and steal a Progressive flavor from the new party, that would strengthen the hand of O'Gorman in the Democratic State convention, and may bring about the defeat of Murphy.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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