Bull Moose Party

AFTER HIS STUNNING victory over Alton B. Parker in 1904, Theodore Roosevelt chose not to run for another term. It was a decision he soon regretted, especially because he selected his replacement to carry on his legacy, William Howard Taft, a member of his cabinet and a friend. Taft won a stunning electoral victory over William Jennings Bryan in 1908, and he began his term in 1909 amid great hope by both the public and Roosevelt that the new president would carry out the policies initiated during Roosevelt's tenure as president. Roosevelt left the country to go on a hunting expedition believing all would go as planned; however, in 1910, he learned that Taft had moved right, and was not as progressive as he hoped. Furious, Roosevelt returned to the United States and attempted to wrest the Republican nomination away from Taft.

During the Republican convention, Roosevelt had a large majority of the delegates, but Taft had the majority of those chosen by state party conventions; furthermore, the credentials committee awarded 235 of the 254 contested votes to Taft. Roosevelt lost by a wide margin, because at Roosevelt's request, many delegates refused to vote. The Progressives stormed out of the Chicago Coliseum and marched to Orchestra Hall. Senator Hiram Johnson of California presided over the rump convention under a large portrait of Theodore Roosevelt as the progressives formed the National Progressive Party, which carried the nickname Bull Moose, because of Roosevelt's statement that he was ready to run because he felt “as strong as a bull moose.” Roosevelt also bolted the Republican convention, and while meeting at the Congress Hotel in Chicago on the night of June 20, 1910, the National Progressive Party came into existence, and the individuals gathered there asked Roosevelt to run on a third-party ticket in the general election.

The National Chairman, Senator Joseph Dixon of Montana, sent out the official call for the formation of the new party on July 7, 1910, and declared that a convention would assemble in Chicago on August 5, 1910, to write a platform and select a candidate. The new party met in convention in the same building where Roosevelt lost the GOP nomination a few months earlier, and gave Roosevelt their endorsement. Senator Hiram Johnson received the vice presidential nomination. Women received a place of prominence at the convention, and Jane Addams gave the seconding speech for Roosevelt. [Page 68]A woman with that level of visibility and influence in a party prior to the passage of the 18th Amendment was rare. The Republicans and the Democrats did not give women a place at the political table in 1912.

Roosevelt received inspiration for much of his political thought from Herbert Croly's 1909 book The Promise of American Life, in which Croly argued for “Hamiltonian” means (the expansion of federal power) to achieve “Jeffer-sonian” ends (the expansion of liberty and personal fulfilment. Croly, in his book, coined the term “New Nationalism. Roosevelt met Croly and adapted the concept and ideas in his speeches. In a speech at Osawatomie, Kansas on August 31, 1910, Roosevelt laid out his ideas for a truly just government and society. In agreement with Croly, Roosevelt called for a graduated income tax, inheritance taxes, workmen's compensation, conservation of the nation's natural resources, justice for labor, and the vast expansion of federal power in the public interest.

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