What a Difference a Century Makes (1912 Election)

What a Difference a Century Makes (1912 Election) (Full Version)

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dcnovice -> What a Difference a Century Makes (1912 Election) (6/7/2012 6:56:39 PM)
November will bring not only the presidential election, of course, but the centennial of the 1912 vote. I've been thinking a bit about the difference between the two contests. Nineteen-twelve saw three major candidates: Woodrow Wilson (Democrat, winner), Theodore Roosevelt (Progressive, second), and William Howard Taft (Republican, third). The race shaped up largely as a contest between Wilson and Roosevelt, and it turned in no small part on which man was more progressive. Both were complex, flawed men, yet I think they had a stature I don't see in Obama or Romney. And Taft, the only man to be both President and Chief Justice, was no slouch either. That raises some interesting (imho) questions: Was 1912 an outlier, or has the caliber of candidates declined a bit? If the latter, any theories why?

erieangel -> RE: What a Difference a Century Makes (1912 Election) (6/7/2012 7:02:23 PM)
I'd say the caliber of candidates have gone down for one reason---America does not value education.

dcnovice -> RE: What a Difference a Century Makes (1912 Election) (6/7/2012 7:06:30 PM)
That could be. Both WW and TR were unashamedly erudite. Each wrote a shelf of serious books, and Wilson had the only earned Ph.D. in American presidential history.

FatDomDaddy -> RE: What a Difference a Century Makes (1912 Election) (6/7/2012 7:39:13 PM)
Please... every man that have ever been elected President have been flawed men. Woodrow Wilson an example of the value of Education? Give me a break! For the first time since The Civil War a huge number of Black voters crossed over and supported Wilson, who had promised racial reform and an end of Jim Crow. In fact it can be argued that his support in the Black Community was one of the reasons he won. But Woodrow Wilson, beyond being a man of his time was a died in the wool, 24 karat racist! He single handily set back race relations in the United States to pre Civil War status. Wilson not only expanded segregation , he also virtually eliminated all Black political appointees in the United States! Many federal office had been integrated since 1863 but Wilson overtly made sure that was over. In fact, it would not change until Harry Truman was elected in his own right in 1948. BTW... as President of Princeton, he also made sure Black students couldn't even apply for admission. His statement to the New York Times in 1914 pretty much sums up how much he cared about the "negro" vote; "If the colored people made a mistake in voting for me, they ought to correct it" Finally Wilson's, (how did you describe it, shelf serious book...ha!) History of the American People cemented the idiocy of the Lost Cause and championed the Ku Klux Klan! Next to Wilson, Teddy looks like Gandhi!

LookieNoNookie -> RE: What a Difference a Century Makes (1912 Election) (6/7/2012 8:19:13 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: dcnovice November will bring not only the presidential election, of course, but the centennial of the 1912 vote. I've been thinking a bit about the difference between the two contests. Nineteen-twelve saw three major candidates: Woodrow Wilson (Democrat, winner), Theodore Roosevelt (Progressive, second), and William Howard Taft (Republican, third). The race shaped up largely as a contest between Wilson and Roosevelt, and it turned in no small part on which man was more progressive. Both were complex, flawed men, yet I think they had a stature I don't see in Obama or Romney. And Taft, the only man to be both President and Chief Justice, was no slouch either. That raises some interesting (imho) questions: Was 1912 an outlier, or has the caliber of candidates declined a bit? If the latter, any theories why? I just want to say one thing: If elected, I will not serve. If put in that position, I will decline. (Okay, that was two things).

DarkSteven -> RE: What a Difference a Century Makes (1912 Election) (6/7/2012 8:27:39 PM)
Wilson will always be remembered for the German reparations that he negotiated. With Europeans screaming for Germany's blood, Wilson acquiesced and approved incredibly harsh sanctions that ruined Germany. Unaccountably, the agreements omitted any requirements to verify that Germany was not rearming. WWII was the natural result. It's not like Wilson was unaware - Bernard Baruch notified him that Germany must be monitored.

FatDomDaddy -> RE: What a Difference a Century Makes (1912 Election) (6/7/2012 8:47:14 PM)
And then there Wilson's stance on immigrants. Wilson was steadfast in his opposition to post Civil War immigration into the United States and his "shelf serious books" filled with vitriol against the large European populations streaming into the US. Until... oddly enough...he decided he wanted to be Governor of New Jersey in 1910. It was at that time where he became a vocal supporter for Irish Home Rule and more than just hinted at his real support for Irish Republicanism, that is until he actually had a chance to DO SOMETHING about it and reneged on the promises he made to support Irish Independence at Versailles. He the accused Irish Americans of disloyalty and while stumping for the League of Nations let loose this warm and fuzzy aimed at Irish and German Americans "There is an organized propaganda against the League of Nations and against the treaty proceeding from exactly the same sources that the organized propaganda proceeded from which threatened this country here and there with disloyalty, and I want to say, I cannot say too often, any man who carries a hyphen about with him carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this Republic whenever he gets ready."

LookieNoNookie -> RE: What a Difference a Century Makes (1912 Election) (6/7/2012 9:06:09 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: FatDomDaddy And then there Wilson's stance on immigrants. Then there was his stance on basketballs. (But that came later).

FatDomDaddy -> RE: What a Difference a Century Makes (1912 Election) (6/7/2012 9:14:20 PM)
Oh... and one more thing... until 1910, Wilson was an extremely harsh critic of the US Constitution going so far as to call it archaic, cumbersome and prone to corruption. He was one of the leading voices in post Civil War America calling for reformed parliamentary system of government for The United States.

dcnovice -> RE: What a Difference a Century Makes (1912 Election) (6/7/2012 9:22:10 PM)
FDD, I'm impressed that you've read Wilson's History and are such an antiquarian that you had a 1914 NYT lying around. And that you studied Wilson's speeches during the League fight. [:)] Wilson's track record on race relations was sorry indeed. I'm not sure he quite took things back to "pre Civil War status," when African Americans were enslaved, and segregation in the federal work force, at least according to biographer John Milton Cooper, originated with cabinet members rather than the President. Still, Wilson could and should have put a stop to it. That raises the difficult question, for which I don't have an easy answer, of whether this stain on Wilson's record blots out his accomplishments. It's akin to the thorny question of whether owning slaves cancelled out, say, Washington's or Jefferson's achievements. On immigration, TR had his own concern about "hyphenated Americans," as expressed in a 1915 speech in Carnegie Hall: There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all... The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic... There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else. Source: Wikipedia I think both men reflected attitudes of their time--and ours?--toward immigrants.

FatDomDaddy -> RE: What a Difference a Century Makes (1912 Election) (6/7/2012 9:31:58 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: dcnovice FDD, I'm impressed that you've read Wilson's History I own all five volumes and and an abridged edition.

dcnovice -> RE: What a Difference a Century Makes (1912 Election) (6/7/2012 9:45:30 PM)
quote: Wilson will always be remembered for the German reparations that he negotiated. With Europeans screaming for Germany's blood, Wilson acquiesced and approved incredibly harsh sanctions that ruined Germany. I agree that the crushing reparations were a huge flaw, but I'm not sure how much of it to lay at Wilson's feet. They were driven in large part by Britain and France's need for money to repay loans to the United States. Years later, when the idea of lessening those loans (which would have allowed easing up on reparations) was broached to President Coolidge, he famously replied, "They hired the money, didn't they?" John Morton Blum, an esteemed Yale historian, wrote a largely critical study of Wilson in 1956. It makes some interesting points about Wilson's performance in Paris: "Though Wilson tempered Frances's territorial and military ambitions, be bowed almost without a struggle to the combined French and British claims for reparations far in excess of anything Germany could pay.... It was a measure of Wilson's total achievement that the decision on reparations, the only issue on which he permitted his adversaries their way, was probably the worst solution reached at Paris." "In spite of secret treaties and armies of occupation, Wilson time and again, in situations of extraordinary difficulty and complexity, had brought his adversaries to incline toward him. Of course they did not surrender, but they granted enough to his vigilance to make the treaty more moderate and just than it could have been without his constant effort." quote: Unaccountably, the agreements omitted any requirements to verify that Germany was not rearming. WWII was the natural result. It's not like Wilson was unaware - Bernard Baruch notified him that Germany must be monitored. I don't, alas, know this issue well enough for intelligent comment.

dcnovice -> RE: What a Difference a Century Makes (1912 Election) (6/7/2012 9:48:16 PM)
quote: Then there was his stance on basketballs. I don;t know where he came down on basketball. But he did like baseball and football and helped manage/coach them at some points in his academic career.

dcnovice -> RE: What a Difference a Century Makes (1912 Election) (6/7/2012 9:50:29 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: FatDomDaddy quote: ORIGINAL: dcnovice FDD, I'm impressed that you've read Wilson's History I own all five volumes and and an abridged edition. Cool! I've never read it. I get the impression from Cooper that Wilson didn't regard it as his best work. I gather it was something of a hack job, but paid well.

FatDomDaddy -> RE: What a Difference a Century Makes (1912 Election) (6/7/2012 10:03:18 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: dcnovice I think both men reflected attitudes of their time--and ours?--toward immigrants. First, Theodore Roosevelt was the first President to invite and African American into the White House as his guest. Second, Roosevelt was speaking on a minority of immigrants who eschewed American Culture and refused to assimilate into American society. Roosevelt also wrote; "We must Americanize in every way, in speech, in political ideas and principles, and in their way of looking at relations between church and state. We welcome the German and the Irishman who becomes an American. We have no use for the German or Irishman who remains such... He must revere only our flag, not only must it come first, but no other flag should even come second." Wilson on the other hand, by the time of his League of Nations Colorado speech was deep into his xenophobic paranoia and actually accusing Irish and German American politicians of conspiring against the nation to defeat the Treaty of Versailles. John Milton Cooper's "well paid" attempt to revive Wilson's stock aside; Woodrow Wilson belongs with Richard Nixon and James Buchanan in the pantheon of American Presidents.

Anaxagoras -> RE: What a Difference a Century Makes (1912 Election) (6/7/2012 10:21:29 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: LookieNoNookie I just want to say one thing: If elected, I will not serve. If put in that position, I will decline. (Okay, that was two things). To decline and serve... If you're running for the senate or pres I'll break into the American Embassy and modify all the expatriate votes to your favour. If your moniker is anything to go by... Why? Well the theory according to my 1912 edition of Vitalogy is that we need to have leaders that don't have sex.

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