Presidential Election of 1916

THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION of 1916 occurred during generally uncertain times, and in the midst of a debilitating World War that appeared to have no end. The election was seen as a decision on the direction and intensity of American Progressivism and its continuing place in national politics. Woodrow Wilson was the sitting Democratic American president, elected in 1912 in the face of a divided Republican Party, and he hoped to achieve a second term, to end the trend of one-term Democratic presidents; he became the first Democrat to do so since Andrew Jackson. Wilson and his vice president, Thomas R. Marshall, were re-nominated without opposition at the Democratic convention in June 1916.

Wilson supported neutrality, and he desired the war to end on fair and just terms. This position gave him a degree of popular public support. Further, his stand against Germany's unrestricted submarine warfare seemed to have produced results. However, Germany's brutal occupation of Belgium and French territories boosted the Allied cause in the eyes of the American mainstream. Nevertheless, some Americans, such as the German-Americans and the Irish-Americans, did not have sympathy for an Allied cause as represented by the British Empire.

At the Republican presidential convention held in Chicago in June 1916, Charles Evans Hughes received the presidential nomination on the third ballot, and Charles W Fairbanks of Indiana became his vice presidential running mate. Although Theodore Roosevelt still had a powerful contingent of Progressive (Bull Moose Republican) supporters, Roosevelt realized that he would only split the party again, as in 1912, and secure victory for the Democrats. With Roosevelt's former vice president Charles Fairbanks on the ticket, it appeared that fences could be mended so that a Republican victory might be achieved.

Charles Evans Hughes was a successful former two-term governor of the influential state of New York, and an associate justice of the Supreme Court. Hughes shared the Progressive agenda and was known as a consensus-builder who could overcome political divides and lead the party to the presidency. He, too, wanted to avoid war if it could be helped, but he was seen to favor the Allied side. During the campaign, Theodore Roosevelt's pro-war convictions seemed to undercut the official Republican position of neutrality based on preparedness and mobilization. It has been claimed that Roosevelt's strident calls for America's involvement in the European conflict allowed Hughes to be painted as a candidate who, if elected, would drag America into the war.

The Democrats exploited the nation's anti-war sentiments, and the slogan “He Kept Us Out of War” persuaded many to support Wilson's election, for he was portrayed as a man of peace and diplomacy. How to handle America's involvement in the war remained the critical issue, and the election unfolded in a climate of concern that was shaped by war propaganda from both the Allied and Central powers. In addition to outside persuasion, American interests were involved (through trade and loans) and both the Germans and the British had violated U.S. maritime rights. A critical case in point was the sinking of the Lusitania by a German submarine in May 1915, with the loss of over 1,000 civilian lives, including over 100 Americans. This event had poisoned the German reputation in the eyes of the American public.

...