History That Doesn't Suck - 124: The “Bull Moose” Election of 1912

Episode Date: November 21, 2022

“It’s true. But it takes more than that to kill a bull moose.” This is the story of one of the most unique, bitter, impactful, and noteworthy elections in US history: the presidential election ...of 1912. President William H. Taft is sure that he’s carrying on the progressive legacy of his dear friend and mentor, Theodore Roosevelt. But TR disagrees. Returning from an African safari and European tour, Teddy feels compelled to challenge his old friend for the GOP nomination as he touts his progressive “New Nationalism” plan. His challenge will split the party and several friendships. But TR isn’t the only one talking “reform.” A rising star in the Democratic Party, Princeton Professor and President T. Woodrow Wilson, is also looking to take his party down the progressive path. The professor is putting his “New Freedom” up against TR’s New Nationalism. Nor is Woodrow the only challenger. Socialist Eugene Debs thinks both the Prof. and TR are too still conservative, and he’s armed with greater support for the socialist cause than the nation has ever seen. A Republican. A Socialist. A progressive Democrat. A progressive Bull Moose. That mix alone is interesting, to say nothing of the friendships that will end or a nearly successful assassination attempt. This is the election of 1912. ____ Connect with us on HTDSpodcast.com and go deep into episode bibliographies and book recommendations join discussions in our Facebook community get news and discounts from The HTDS Gazette  come see a live show get HTDS merch or become an HTDS premium member for bonus episodes and other perks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:58 Welcome to History That Doesn't Suck. I'm your professor, Greg Jackson, and as in the classroom, my goal here is to make rigorously researched history come to life as your storyteller. Each episode is the result of laborious research with no agenda other than making the past come to life as you learn. If you'd like to help support this work, receive ad-free episodes, bonus content, and other exclusive perks, I invite you to join the HTDS membership program. Sign up for a 7-day free trial today at htdspodcast.com slash membership, or click the link in the episode notes.
Starting point is 00:01:37 It's around 8 p.m., October 14th, 1912, and Theodore Roosevelt is just stepping out of his second-story suite at the Hotel Gilpatrick in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The former president's horse from his recent speech in Chicago, but as they say, no rest for the weary. TR arrived in Milwaukee today, dined at a banquet this evening, and now, with a 50-page speech folded and snugly tucked in his inner right coat pocket, is off to speak at the Milwaukee auditorium. It's a campaign speech, but to be clear, he isn't stumping for an up-and-comer. This speech is for himself.
Starting point is 00:02:14 Teddy's so disappointed in his hand-chosen successor, President William Howard Taft, that he's launched his own presidential campaign to return to the White House. Surrounded by his small entourage, the bespectacled 53-year-old former president with a touch of gray in his mustache exits the hotel lobby and walks toward a roofless, seven-seater automobile. Hundreds watch as Elbert Martin gets the car door for Tiar, who, per his habit, takes a seat in the back, in the tonneau, on the right-hand side. The rest of the group clambers in, and as they do, onlookers cheer their former and possibly
Starting point is 00:02:52 future president. T.R. stands up in the open-top vehicle, takes a bow, and waves hat in hand to the crowd. And that's when it happens. The next few seconds are sheer pandemonium. Fired at almost point-blank range, the bullet strikes T.R. in the chest. He collapses, and before his body can even hit the seat, his faithful assistant, the stenographer, Albert, is flying through the air. A former football player, Albert tackles the assailant, a fair-featured 36-year-old named John Schrank, stopping the murderous ex-barkeep from giving the Colt revolver's trigger a second squeeze.
Starting point is 00:03:32 But with TR already down, rage courses through Elbert. He begins choking the life out of the shooter as the likewise shocked and incensed crowd screams out its assent. Lynch him! Kill him! Just then, a hoarse, high-pitched voice calls out from the car. Don't hurt him. Bring him here. It's Theodore Roosevelt. He's alive. T.R. looks down at his would-be assassin and asks, What did you do it for? No response, but given the vapid facial expression and dirty clothes, Teddy gathers that his attacker isn't in a healthy mental state. With instructions that the man isn't to be harmed,
Starting point is 00:04:10 he hands John over to the police. Teddy feels inside his coat. Yeah, blood. He turns to his party's chairman of the Speakers Bureau and matter-of-factly says, He pinged me, Harry. The entourage instructs the chauffeur to drive to the hospital, but Teddy won't have it.
Starting point is 00:04:26 To their dismay, he hollers out, You get me to that speech. In the Milwaukee auditorium's green room, Dr. Scurry Terrell, who came along to look after T.R.'s raspy, worn voice, not bullet wounds, examines the former president. Teddy's whole right side has turned black, and just below the right nipple is a slowly bleeding hole about the size of a dime. But the doctor can't locate where the bullet lodged in his body. As in the car, the doctor
Starting point is 00:04:57 again urges Tiar to drop the speech and go to the hospital. Teddy takes a few breaths. Feels okay. He's not coughing blood. The avid hunter and war vet, who still loves being called the colonel, knows that this means his lungs aren't punctured. Good enough for now. T.R. slaps a clean handkerchief over the hole in his chest, dresses, and heads to the stage. Having been informed of the assassination attempt while T.R. was backstage, the packed house of 10,000 stares incredulously as he approaches the podium. How is he here? Was he really shot? Alternately, voices call at him. Are you hurt? Fake!
Starting point is 00:05:41 Teddy signals to the audience to quiet down. He then answers whether he's been shot with a reference to his newest nickname. It's true, but it takes more than that to kill a bull moose. Sensing doubt, the colonel unbuttons his vest. All eyes settle on the massive, still-spreading bloodstain consuming the right side of his shirt. As the audience absorbs this image, the still, raspy, shot former president says, I'm going to ask you to be very quiet. I'll do the best I can.
Starting point is 00:06:12 T.R. reaches into his jacket. He pulls out his 50-page folded speech. In this moment, standing before 10,000 people, he realizes the bullet cut through his thick wad of pages as well as his metal spectacles case. He realizes the bullet cut through his thick wad of pages as well as his metal spectacles case. Both slowed the projectile down. Thank goodness for his verboseness and terrible nearsightedness. Heart pounding, wound hotly throbbing, T.R. alternates between reading and speaking extemporaneously. As usual, he lets each page drop as he finishes with it. The better part of an hour
Starting point is 00:06:47 passes. The colors left his face. He's short of breath. Still, Teddy goes on. Nothing will keep him from speaking his piece about antitrust law or labor unions. Oscar Davis and Philip Roosevelt both learn that the hard way when each tries to get him to stop. Teddy answers both attempts with a ferocious stare. The best his aides can do is stand below the footlights, prepared to catch the bull moose should he fall. Finally, after well over an hour of TR speaking, the 50th page falls. The audience cheers.
Starting point is 00:07:21 Ashen-faced, TR turns to the doctor and says, Now, I am ready to go with you and do what you want. That night, doctors at Milwaukee's emergency hospital find that, thanks to T.R.'s thick coat, spectacles case, and folded speech, the slowed, deflected bullet came to a stop at the fourth rib on his right side. And there it will live, just as TR will continue to live. It does indeed take more than a point-blank range.38 bullet to stop this bull moose, especially amid the high stakes of the 1912 presidential election. Welcome to History That Doesn't Suck. I'm your professor, Greg Jackson, and I'd like to tell you a story. John Schrenk tried to kill Theodore Roosevelt because he believed William McKinley's ghost
Starting point is 00:08:34 told him to do it. More than a decade prior, John had a dream in which the dead president's apparition appeared, blamed his assassination on Teddy, then asked the barkeep to avenge him. Recent newspaper articles claiming TR wanted to overthrow the Constitution brought the dream back to John's mind, which led to a second supposed ghostly visitation and the would-be Avenger pulling the trigger. John will be found insane. He'll spend the rest of his life institutionalized. Welcome to one of the wildest presidential contests in American history, the election of 1912. Seriously, it's unreal. At this time, much of the electorate wants to see change. Their concerns include social, political, and economic issues, and those wanting such reforms
Starting point is 00:09:19 are called progressives. But the devil is in the details. How far does one reform? Considering himself a moderate progressive, President William Howard Taft nonetheless finds himself branded the conservative and at odds with his dear friend, the man who handed him the White House, former President Teddy Roosevelt. As things continue to sour between them, their friendship will split right along with the Republican Party, birthing Teddy's Progressive or Bull Moose Party in the process. But as we'll see, TR doesn't have the corner on reform. Just ask Eugene Debs, whose Socialist Party has never been more popular. Likewise, ask the Democrat and professor-turned-New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson. He's answering TR's plan, called New Nationalism, with his own
Starting point is 00:10:05 progressive path, called New Freedom. A Republican, a Socialist, and two progressives, the Bull Moose and a Democrat. Wow. It's time for America to choose, and our story starts, believe it or not, with an African safari almost three years before T.R. got shot. Rewind. It's a hot and humid day, January 16th, 1910. Theodore Roosevelt and his 20-year-old son, Kermit, are sweating buckets as they trudge through the tall grass and greenery somewhere near the banks of the White Nile, about two degrees north of the equator, by the Belgian Congo's eastern border. Never mind the heat though. Nature-loving T.R. couldn't be happier out here. For 10 months now, almost since the day his presidency ended,
Starting point is 00:10:56 T.R., his son, and a few naturalists have been on an incredible expedition in Africa, hunting. In the name of science? It's true. Teddy loves the thrill of the hunt, but as we learned in episode 114, he's also a conservationist who doesn't believe in killing purely for sport. But this hunt, funded by Andrew Carnegie for the purpose of providing specimens for the Smithsonian's soon-to-open National Museum of Natural History? Oh, the colonel's all about that. Teddy and Kermit soon come across the animal that's brought them up from British East Africa
Starting point is 00:11:30 to this part of the heavily colonized continent. The northern white rhino. Overhunting is wiping out this species, and the thinking is that if he doesn't bring some back to the U.S. now, future generations of Americans may never see one. Not even in a museum. Teddy shoulders his rifle, likely his 405 Winchester, and pulls the trigger.
Starting point is 00:11:52 The massive mammal falls dead. T.R. will shoot one more before the day is out. After a night spent under mosquito nets as lions and elephants roared, T.R., Kermit, and the others rise to face another sweltering day. But soon, a local messenger arrives. Teddy can't help but notice the man is nude. More important, though, is what he carries, a cable from the press agency. T.R. reads in shock. It says that his friend, former Secretary of War and chosen successor President William Howard Taft, has fired Forest Service Chief Gifford Pinchot. The press wants his comment.
Starting point is 00:12:29 TR won't respond to them, but he does write to his friend, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge. I most earnestly hope it is not true. It seems crazy that the press would go to such lengths for TR's commentary on who's running the U.S. Forest Service. But as we learned in episode 114, one of the three C's of TR's square deal was conservationism. And Gifford Pinchot was TR's right-hand man on the sea. He helped the nature-loving president create 150 national forests. They're good friends. And more than that, TR never thought Will Taft would do something as president so different from him. Back in the 1908 election, Teddy rejected his
Starting point is 00:13:12 party's call for a third term. First, he'd already publicly declared he wouldn't seek a third term, but second, he knew he could trust his handlebar mustache-wearing and famously heavy Secretary of War, Will Taft, to carry on his policies. That's why he worked to ensure Will got the GOP's nomination. As Teddy puts it, I had thrown myself heart and soul into the business of nominating Taft. He and I view public questions exactly alike. In fact, I think it has been very rare that two public men have ever been so much as one in all the essentials of their beliefs and practices.
Starting point is 00:13:50 Of course, Will made TR a little uneasy by immediately replacing Secretary of the Interior James R. Garfield with Richard Bollinger, but the former rough-riding colonel still trusted his chosen successor would stay the progressive course. Gifford getting the boot is a bad sign, though. Something's off. More letters arrive, from Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and Gifford himself. It seems that, upon becoming the new Secretary of the Interior, Richard Bollinger questioned the constitutionality of how Teddy's administration
Starting point is 00:14:20 made millions of acres public land. The Secretary then released some of those lands, claiming this would let Congress do it properly. But Gifford believed he was in cahoots with private corporations, ready to buy up the lands upon the release. Gifford went public with his disapproval. According to Senator H.C. Lodge, this insubordination left President William Taft no choice but to fire the Chief Forester. Sounds messy. Leaving Africa to tour Europe with his wife, Edith, T.R. writes back to the senator on March 1, 1910, reassuring him, I shall say nothing about politics until I have been home long enough to know the situation. But politics won't return the favor. Unwilling to await T.R.'s
Starting point is 00:15:04 return, Gifford Pinchot personally visits the Roosevelts at their Italian Riviera villa on April 11th. The tall, grain, mustachioed former chief forester defends his criticisms of the new secretary of the interior and produces letters from progressive colleagues lambasting the public land-selling, tariff-supporting Taft administration for forsaking the TR legacy.
Starting point is 00:15:26 Teddy writes to Senator Henry Cabot Lodge that night. In his note, he calls Will Taft an honest man and says he wants to give his old friend every benefit of the doubt, but this administration has completely twisted around the policies I advocated and acted upon. Teddy continues to enjoy Europe,
Starting point is 00:15:43 meeting with royals and giving his famous man-in-the-arena speech at the Sorbonne in Paris. But as he does all of this, his doubts about Will Taft linger. On June 18th, 1910, T.R. sails into New York Harbor aboard the Kaiser and Auguste Victoria.
Starting point is 00:16:03 Thousands of spectators and a 21-gun salute greet him. No word from his old friend, the president, though. Not since he sent Teddy a present as the former president left for Africa. Then T.R. didn't write back. Or did he? T.R.'s records show that he sent Will a telegram the day he left the States. Did Will not get it? Sounds like some miscommunication, and neither took the initiative from there. Insecurity has settled into their now strained friendship. Later that same month, TR goes to his Harvard class reunion. While there, New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes convinces Teddy to help him reform the Empire State by clearing out the GOP's old guard. Teddy's on board. He decides to run for
Starting point is 00:16:45 temporary chairman of the New York State Republican Convention. President William Taft is ready to support TR's run, but in return, he wants his former boss's full endorsement for his administration. Teddy isn't so sure he can do that. Fine. Will doesn't give his support to Teddy. The State Republican Executive Committee goes with Vice President James S. Sherman instead. Ouch. T.R. feels betrayed. The silence grows. Will Taft doesn't know what to do.
Starting point is 00:17:15 Discussing T.R. with a military aide, Will laments, if only I knew what he wanted, I would do it. But you know he has held himself so aloof that I am absolutely in the dark. I would do it. But you know he has held himself so aloof that I am absolutely in the dark. I am deeply wounded, and he gives me no chance to explain my attitude or learn his. In August, Teddy goes on a tour of 16 states west of the Mississippi.
Starting point is 00:17:38 Despite the rift between him and Will, the popular former president, the colonel, is determined to share a message of unity with Republicans. He carefully avoids criticizing the Taft administration. Midterm elections are approaching, after all. But not knocking the Taft administration doesn't preclude T.R. from sharing some of his own ideas. And he does so with gusto in Ossawatomie, Kansas on August 31st. Speaking to a crowd of 30,000, T.R. touts an idea he calls new nationalism. To quote Teddy, new nationalism puts the national need before sectional or personal advantage. It is impatient of the utter confusion that results from local legislatures attempting to treat national issues as local
Starting point is 00:18:25 issues. This new nationalism regards the executive power as the steward of the public welfare. It demands of the judiciary that it shall be interested primarily in human welfare rather than in property, just as it demands that the representative body shall represent all the people rather than any one class or section of the people. Han, strong executive, prioritization of human welfare over property. These are bold words, and TR knows it. He goes on, asserting that labor is superior to capital and deserves much the higher consideration. TR then reminds the audience that he's quoting Abraham Lincoln. Good thing, too, because, he says, if that remark was original with me,
Starting point is 00:19:16 I should be even more strongly denounced as a communist agitator than I shall be anyhow. Ah, but as when he was president, TR avoids the extremes. After his communist quip, he clarifies that while capitalists needed to hear that, laborers need to remember, quote, Property is desirable, is a positive good in the world. Close quote. And toward the speech's end, Teddy adds, I do not have any sympathy with the reformer who says he does not care for dividends.
Starting point is 00:19:54 I know well that the reformers must not bring upon the people economic ruin or the reforms themselves will go down in the ruin. Yet, even with TR's characteristic balance to his critiques, it's clear that his progressivism has grown stronger, more radical than in years past. So is Will Taft more conservative or is TR more extreme? Is it both? Either way, it increasingly appears that despite calls for a unified GOP, the party's conservatives like will, while its progressives increasingly want TR to run for president again. But even as the Democrats crush the midterm elections in November,
Starting point is 00:20:34 TR remembers his promise not to run again. That tune starts to change a year later, though. On October 27th, 1911, TR's 53rd birthday, the announcement of President William Taft's latest antitrust suit breaks. The United States v. The United States Steel Corporation. An antitrust case? Sounds very TR. In fact, Will, who maintains he's staying true to Teddy's legacy, is very proactive about trusts. He's already brought more such suits than the colonel did as president. But TR's fuming at this news because the suit explicitly names him for giving his blessing to U.S. Steel's purchase of Tennessee coal and iron for $45 million back in 1907. The next month, Teddy answers with an article in The Outlook. He says that he did right
Starting point is 00:21:27 by allowing U.S. Steel's 1907 purchase in the midst of a panic. Further, TR clarifies that antitrust suits aren't about breaking up big companies just because they're big, which seems to be the Taft administration's approach. It's about breaking up big companies that abuse their power
Starting point is 00:21:44 with monopolistic, unfair practices. Ooh. administration's approach. It's about breaking up big companies that abuse their power with monopolistic, unfair practices. Ooh, that smarts. Will looks bad. In one fell swoop, the president's upset TR's biggest fans, as well as conservatives, who saw this suit as unfounded. A growing number of progressive Republicans want Teddy to enter the presidential race. But again, he promised not to, and another progressive Republican, Wisconsin's U.S. Senator Robert La Follette, aka Fighting Bob, is already looking to challenge Will Taft for the party's nomination. He and TR would just split the progressive vote at convention.
Starting point is 00:22:22 Teddy continues to stay on the sidelines. Until the senator makes a significant misstep, that is. It's late at night, well past 10 o'clock, February 2, 1912. Senator Robert La Follette is mid-speech at the Periodical Publishers Association's annual banquet in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and it isn't going well. Undoubtedly, Fighting Bob's a bit distracted given his 13-year-old daughter's impending surgery, and it doesn't help that he's following New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson's excellent, humor-laden speech. But it's his topic that's killing him.
Starting point is 00:23:01 Right this minute, the round-faced, thick-haired senator is arguing that the nation's newspapers and magazines are just a bunch of corporate shills. Yeah, not exactly what this 800-strong crowd filled with people from the newspaper and magazine industry care to hear. Frankly, many of them are downright offended. Some are starting to get up and leave. The senator takes notice. He shakes a fist and cries out, There goes some of the fellows I'm hitting.
Starting point is 00:23:31 They don't want to hear about themselves. Fighting Bob then returns to his speech, but he's so disconcerted, he reads a passage he's already read. The night goes on. So does Fighting Bob. More leave while some applaud his commentary with overt and obvious sarcasm. Over and over, the senator reacts by lashing out with statements like, You can't drown me out. And if you don't shut up and listen, I'll talk all night.
Starting point is 00:23:58 Invariably, he loses his place and rereads passages. He repeats one part seven times. And he does talk all night. Fighting Bob goes for over two hours, ending around 1230 a.m. Eight days after the senator's fiasco, seven Republican governors write to Teddy. They plead with him to enter the contest for the GOP's nomination, but frankly, the pleading isn't necessary. Despite his former promise not to run, TR is now giving himself a pass for not going for a third consecutive term
Starting point is 00:24:31 and would therefore be delighted to run at this point. Asked about entering the race later that month at a train station in Cleveland, TR declares, my hat is in the ring, the fight is on, and I am stripped to the buff. Sounds like the upcoming Republican National Convention is going to be a friendship-ending political bloodbath. But we can't go there just yet, not without first crossing the political aisle to meet another 1912 contender for the White House. Yes, after minor appearances in past episodes, it's time to welcome Woodrow Wilson to the story properly. Only one way to do that.
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Starting point is 00:25:32 Sometimes we do it tipsy. Sometimes we have amazing guests on our show. Historians like Barry Strauss, podcasters like Liv Albert, Mike Duncan, and authors like Joanne Harris and Ben Aronovich. We take you to the top of Hadrian's Wall to watch the Roman Empire fall at the end of the world. We walk the catacombs beneath the temple of the Feathered Serpent under Teotihuacan.
Starting point is 00:25:56 We walk the sacred spirals of the Nazca Lines in search of ancient secrets. And we explore mythology from ancient cultures around the world. Come find us at ancienthistoryfangirl.com or wherever you get your podcasts. and you might not even know you had. But once you hear the answer, you'll want to share it with everyone you know. Why do rivers curve? Why did the T-Rex have such tiny arms? And why do so many more kids need glasses now than they used to?
Starting point is 00:26:32 Spoiler alert, it isn't screen time. Our team of scientists digs into the research and breaks it down into a short, entertaining explanation jam-packed with science facts and terrible puns. Subscribe to MinuteEarth wherever you like to listen. Born in Virginia in 1856, Thomas Woodrow Wilson, or just Tommy as the child is known, is a son of the South. Well, kind of.
Starting point is 00:27:04 Tommy's Scots-Irish first and second generation American parents only relocated to the Old Dominion in 1854 because that's where his Presbyterian pastor father got a gig. So no deep roots, but he's growing up here. Keep that dynamic in mind. We'll circle back to it later. From Virginia to Georgia and after the Civil War, South Carolina, the Reverend's work means the Wilsons bounce around the South. All the while, little Tommy Wilson craves his stern father's approval. But that's hard to come by.
Starting point is 00:27:36 His father is a man of letters, yet poor Tommy only grasps the alphabet at nine years old. He's likely dyslexic, but in this era, Tommy's simply deemed slow. The square-jawed youth overcomes his struggles, though. At 17, he enrolls in Davidson College of North Carolina and proves a gifted writer. He then transfers to the College of New Jersey. Finishing his undergrad there, Tommy then attends the University of Virginia Law School, where he meets Ellen Axon. Ellen is very loving and affectionate. She gives Woodrow the approval he desperately needs. As he writes to her, my salvation is in being loved. There surely never lived a man with whom love was a more critical
Starting point is 00:28:17 matter than it is with me. Tommy may not love the law enough to finish the program. He ditches it for graduate studies in history and political science at Johns Hopkins, but he sure does love Ellen. They marry in 1885, one year before Tommy finishes his PhD. Now the once illiterate child turned academic rises like a rocket. Published as a book, his dissertation, titled Congressional Government, is a smashing success. He teaches the ladies at Bryn Mawr College, the gentlemen at Wesleyan, The book, his dissertation, titled Congressional Government, is a smashing success. He teaches the ladies at Bryn Mawr College.
Starting point is 00:28:51 The gentleman at Wesleyan, then in 1890, returns to the College of New Jersey. His second book, The State, is another hit. Students love Tommy's lectures. Or Woodrow, actually. He's going by his middle name at this point. Which is fitting, since the College of New Jersey is changing its name as well. It's now Princeton University. With a national reputation and offers from other universities, Princeton's trustees give Professor Woodrow Wilson raise after raise to retain him. In 1902, they make him president. But the professor, turned university president,
Starting point is 00:29:20 soon learns just how nasty the fights in academia can get. Hemmed in by trustees, challenged by faculty, this gig is rough. After losing a painful battle to the graduate school's dean, Andrew West, in early 1910, Woodrow wants an exit. He lands on something less combative than academics. Politics. Joking aside, Woodrow is just what his party, the Democratic Party, needs. The Civil War casts a long shadow, and the mostly solid South political faction still lives under it. Now, we know from past episodes that the pro-silverminting champion of laborers and farmers, William Jennings Bryan, has shifted the Dems' reputation for secession a bit. But the parties run WJB as their presidential nominee three times already, in 1896, 1900, and 1908. 1912 could use a new face, one that, as historian H. W. Brands so perfectly puts it, is, quote, young enough to have missed the Civil War, one with a national reputation,
Starting point is 00:30:26 although not necessarily a reputation acquired in the practice of politics, and one with Southern connections but not so closely identified with the South as to tempt the Republicans to wave the bloody shirt one more time. As Wilson's star rose above Princeton, he seemed the answer to many Democratic prayers. Close quote. Yes, as a Southerner with little Southern heritage and a national reputation, Woodrow Wilson's perfect. But even his star can't shoot straight from Princeton to the White House. First comes a trial run at the state level.
Starting point is 00:31:01 In January 1910, two powerful Democrats, newspaperman Colonel George Harvey and party boss James Smith, have lunch at New York's famous Fifth Avenue Politico Drawing Restaurant, Delmonico's, and discuss Woodrow as a possible candidate for New Jersey governor. James has his doubts. I mean, seriously, a professor? George pushes back. A moralizing preacher's son and academic will play well in this era of distrust toward big business and political parties. Further, even though Woodrow's made
Starting point is 00:31:35 some progressive comments about education, he's spoken against labor unions in the past. They can rest assured then that the professors know WJB. He's a conservative Democrat who can save the party from the great commoner. What's more, Woodrow's lack of political experience will make him a perfect puppet. Over the next week, James Smith reflects on this and confers with the boys. The king-making party boss then meets George Harvey for a second Delmonico's lunch and gives his blessing.
Starting point is 00:32:05 Time to make the professor a governor. It's five in the evening, September 15th, 1910, and the Opera House in Trenton, New Jersey, is packed with the Democratic Party's state convention delegates. But the minority of progressive delegates can't help fuming in their seats. James Smith and the other party bosses just shoved Woodrow Wilson down their throats. Now this conservative, whom they haven't met, as candidates don't typically attend conventions, is their nominee for governor. The conservatives are happy enough, but what a disappointment for these progressives.
Starting point is 00:32:42 Just as the delegates are preparing to leave, though, the chairman shouts out, we have just received word that Mr. Wilson, the candidate for the governorship and the next president of the United States, has received word of his nomination, has left Princeton, and is now on his way to the convention. Hmm, interesting. Even the progressives decide to stick around. Only moments later, Woodrow walks in. Thin, glasses, and wow, look at that jaw. So that's what the 53-year-old professor looks like, huh? Okay, shh, let's quiet down. He's ready to speak.
Starting point is 00:33:22 You have conferred upon me a very great honor. I accept the nomination you have tendered me with the deepest gratification that you should have thought me worthy to lead the Democrats of New Jersey. As you know, I did not seek this nomination. It has come to me absolutely unsolicited with the consequence that I shall enter upon the duties of the office of governor, if elected, with absolutely no pledges of any kind to prevent me from serving the people of the state with singleness of purpose. Wait up. That doesn't sound like a man at the party machine.
Starting point is 00:33:59 The conservative and progressive delegates alike enjoyed that one. They rise and cheer. Woodrow continues. He discusses regulating business, though as a good Southerner, he knows that's for the states, not the federal government to do. This lands well with the delegates. More cheers, more enthusiasm,
Starting point is 00:34:21 particularly as he calls for the Democratic Party to be an, quote, instrument of righteousness for the state and for the nation, close quote. Woodrow goes to conclude, but you have been here since noon and I have been playing golf and I'm fresher and will not tire you. But the cheering delegates won't have it. They roar with applause and a voice calls out, go on! The seasoned, sensational professor of history and political science has no problem waxing eloquent. Woodrow speaks extemporaneously for several minutes before ending. After 15 years of Republican governors, New Jersey elects Democrat Woodrow Wilson to the office by a landslide. And it turns out he's no party puppet.
Starting point is 00:35:07 Even though Woodrow owes his governorship to James Smith, he immediately turns around and denies the party boss reciprocal support in his bid for the U.S. Senate. Party bosses call him a traitor, but Governor Woodrow Wilson has made himself clear. No one controls him. Nor is he conservative. In 1911, he pushes four astonishingly progressive laws through the legislature. An employer's liability slash workers' compensation law, another revising electoral laws,
Starting point is 00:35:34 one that establishes a commission to regulate public utilities, and a law to counteract corruption on the part of political candidates. All of this further disappoints party bosses, but whether they like it or not, this progressive governor is proving popular in New Jersey. Woodrow may yet be the Democratic Party's next presidential candidate. And so, we come to the summer of 1912's party conventions. But before Theodore Roosevelt fights his progressive fight in the GOP, and Woodrow Wilson does likewise in the Democratic Party,
Starting point is 00:36:06 we need to know an increasingly successful third party that believes neither of these parties' progressives go far enough. This is the Socialist Party of America. Founded in 1901, the Socialist Party merged the nation's various socialist movements into one faction. It was a smart move. The parties seen measured growth and increasingly won elections, particularly mayoral races.
Starting point is 00:36:29 As for their message, socialists consider progressivism's regulation of capitalism too conservative. They want to end capitalism, period. Convening in Indianapolis, Indiana that May, the socialists produce a platform that provides intermediate steps, but clarifies that,
Starting point is 00:36:45 quote, Such measures of relief as we may be able to force from capitalism are but a preparation of the workers to seize the whole powers of government, in order that they may thereby lay hold of the whole system of socialized industry and thus come to their rightful inheritance. Close quote. And of course, the convention nominates a presidential candidate. For the third consecutive time, or fourth if we count his run in 1900, the socialists go with a man of railway labor,
Starting point is 00:37:14 a union leader we met back in episode 98, Eugene Debs. Now, Gene doesn't stand much of a chance of winning, but given his party's growth, we'll want to keep an eye on how he fares. But we can't linger in Indianapolis. We have to get to Chicago, Illinois. The Republican Party's nearly two-week battle royale over its presidential candidate is upon us. June 7, 1912. That's the day the Will Taft and Teddy Roosevelt men first unsheathed their political swords as the Republican National Committee meets in advance of the convention
Starting point is 00:37:50 to consider the 254 contested delegates that both campaigns claim. In following days, the loyal to the president RNC hands all but 19 of these to Will Taft. That's hard to believe. In states trying out this new method called primary elections, TR largely crushed Will and the still-in-it Senator Robert La Follette. Furthermore, this suspicious decision gives Will the 540 delegates needed to win the nomination in one round of voting. Teddy cries foul. Theft! He estimates 80 to 90 of those delegates should
Starting point is 00:38:23 be his, which would likewise hand him the nomination. TR is undoubtedly overshooting as well, but future scholars won't debate if the RNC is being dishonest, only how dishonest. So screw this. The colonel is ready for battle. He boards a train to Chicago. June 15th, 4 p.m. An ecstatic crowd greets Theodore as he descends from his train at Chicago's LaSalle station. He checks into the Congress Hotel, but can still hear his adoring supporters outside the window. Going to his balcony, TR gives them an impromptu speech, declaring, The thieves shall not win! At dinner that night, a reporter asks Teddy how he's feeling.
Starting point is 00:39:06 The nature-loving hunter answers with the image of a powerful animal. I'm feeling like a bull moose! June 17th, 6pm. Some 5,000 people pack the Chicago auditorium to capacity as a crowd three times as large is stuck outside, desperately trying to gain admittance. All are eager to hear Teddy speak. Inside, TR takes the stage as his adoring audience chants,
Starting point is 00:39:31 Teddy! Teddy! Teddy! The high-pitched roughrider calls on Senator Robert La Follette's backers to join him, the only progressive who can beat William Taft. TR then decries the RNC's dishonest decision on the disputed delegates. They must not get to vote. We'll see what happens with credentialing, but for now, T.R.'s confident. He closes with righteous fervor, declaring, Victory shall be ours! We stand at Armageddon, and we battle for the Lord! June 18th, day one of the Republican National Convention at the 12,000-seating Coliseum. U.S. Senator and Teddy's former Secretary of State, Elihu Root, is selected as its chairman.
Starting point is 00:40:16 But that's bad news to TR and his delegates. Elihu backed Will in the primaries. Good God, just how many friendships can this election destroy? Elihu is honest to a fault, but emotions are too charged at this point. Teddy and his followers aren't seeing that. Following Elihu's election as chair, a TR delegate yells out, receiver of stolen goods. Then fistfights break out. June 19th, the Roosevelt camp maintains that 72 of the once 254 contested delegates belong to TR. Elihu allows debate. A compromise candidate appears to be emerging, but then an attractive woman, Mrs. W.A. Davis, appears in the gallery. Blowing kisses,
Starting point is 00:41:04 she descends to the floor with a massive portrait of T.R. urging fairness toward her hero as she leads a nearly hour-long pro-Teddy demonstration. Emotions again charge and like yesterday, fists fly. Once order is restored, rule following Elihu root declares that the still contested 72 won't be barred. The credentials committee will decide their fate. But the committee is predominantly pro-Will Taft. All appears over for TR. June 20th, 2 a.m.
Starting point is 00:41:35 As the Credentials Committee meets at this early, still dark hour, Teddy's supporters have gathered at his invitation in a conference room at the Congress Hotel. TR himself and his closest confidants are in his suite. In both rooms, there's talk of splitting from the Republican Party. As Teddy paces, Frank Munzee and George Perkins approach him. The wealthy duo place their hands on his shoulders and declare,
Starting point is 00:42:00 Colonel, we will see you through. Frank goes further. My fortune, my magazines, and my newspapers are with you. Okay, this just got real. Teddy isn't so sure about this, but his progressive Republican followers are. It's time to start their own party. It's now Saturday night, June 22, 1912. Chicago's Orchestra Hall is packed with delegates
Starting point is 00:42:29 who came to the Windy City as Republican delegates, but that they are no longer. This group feels no consternation knowing that, right at this very moment, the Republican convention is in session, nominating President William Taft for a second term. The crowd sings and excitedly shouts as the banners of 22 represented states
Starting point is 00:42:47 soar over their respective delegations. Then California Governor Hiram Johnson takes the floor. We came here to carry out the mandate of the people to nominate Theodore Roosevelt. By a fraud, he has been robbed of that which was his. We, the delegates, free and untrampled, have come here to nominate him tonight. The delegates roar their approval and welcome T.R. as he accepts the nomination with a caveat. Each delegate must go home and ensure this new party does indeed want him.
Starting point is 00:43:21 If the party is for another, T.R. tells them, I will give him my party's support. But this new party, the Progressive Party, or Bull Moose Party, as TR's response to that reporter his first night in Chicago catches on, will not choose another. Teddy will be their candidate, while the remaining, more conservative Republicans will run President William Howard Taft, and socialist Gene Debs enjoys the greatest support his party's ever known. But will New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson get the Democratic nomination? Or will disappointed conservative party bosses defeat the very candidate they created?
Starting point is 00:43:57 The answer to that question is far from certain, as the Democrats head to their convention. When Johann Rall received the letter on Christmas Day 1776, he put it away to read later. Maybe he thought it was a season's greeting and wanted to save it for the fireside. But what it actually was, was a warning delivered to the Hessian colonel, letting him know that General George Washington was crossing the Delaware and would soon attack his forces.
Starting point is 00:44:26 The next day, when Raw lost the Battle of Trenton and died from two colonial Boxing Day musket balls, the letter was found, unopened in his vest pocket. As someone with 15,000 unread emails in his inbox, I feel like there's a lesson there. Oh well, this is The Constant, a history of getting things wrong. I'm Mark Chrysler. Every episode, we look at the bad ideas, mistakes, and accidents that misshaped our world. Find us at ConstantPodcast.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Ever wondered what it's like to be in the room with top Al-Qaeda terrorists plotting their next move? Thank you. Trace the epic battles between Muslims and the West. What are the Houthis' objectives in the Red Sea?
Starting point is 00:45:26 It's a lesson to the rest of the Muslim world and the Arab world. Do not trust the Islamists. Hosted by me, Thomas Small, an author and filmmaker, and my good friend, Ayman Deen, an ex-Al-Qaeda jihadi turned MI6 spy. Conflicted tells stories of the Islamic past and present to help you make sense of the world today. And now Conflicted Season 5 is being cooked up, coming to you very soon. And in the meantime, you can sign up to our Conflicted community to give you bonus episodes and access to our community hub on Discord.
Starting point is 00:45:59 Subscribe to Conflicted wherever you get your podcasts. A split Republican party. Split to create a new progressive party. Each sapping the other's strength. What more could the Democrats ask for? In the roughly half a century since the Civil War, the largely Southern parties only produced one candidate capable of arresting the White House from the Republicans, and even he couldn't hold it straight through.
Starting point is 00:46:36 Democrat Grover Cleveland had two non-consecutive terms as president. This split feels like a godsend to the Dems. Party leaders are elated. But who should their candidate be? Despite Woodrow Wilson's popularity as governor of New Jersey and his being touted as the next president of the United States at the Garden State's 1910 Democratic Convention, let's not overstate his rising star. There are other strong potential candidates. Further, let's recall that Woodrow's conversion to progressivism upset party bosses.
Starting point is 00:47:08 He's even lost the support of his first champion, Colonel George Harvey. And seeing his rise, conservative newspapers have slammed Woodrow. Opponents have also sought to undermine the professor's progressivism by pointing to his multi-volume History of the American People. In it, Woodrow wrote harshly of railway strikers and used bigoted language to describe Italian, Polish, and other recent immigrant groups. Woodrow's now apologized for the decade-old work, and he's rewriting those sections for future editions. Nonetheless, Woodrow's enemies have not undone him. He's still a strong
Starting point is 00:47:43 contender to become the Democratic presidential candidate, particularly as he has growing friendships with William Jennings Bryan and a prominent Democrat from Texas, Edward House. He's also fared well in those few states doing primaries. But as the Democrats gather for their convention, days after the Republicans, is that enough for Woodrow
Starting point is 00:48:02 to clinch his party's nomination for president? It's Tuesday, June 25th, 1912. 20,000 Democrats are gathered in Baltimore at the 5th Maryland Regiment Armory. They've been here at the fortress-looking structure since midnight, and only as the sun rises does the balloting for the presidential nominee get underway. Soon enough, though, the tallies are called out, and they show four men as real contenders. These include Ohio Governor Judson Harmon and Congressman Oscar
Starting point is 00:48:35 Underwood, both of whom managed to get more than 100 votes, as well as Woodrow Wilson, who's fared far better with 324. But at the top of the pack is Missouri's nine-term Congressman and the Speaker of the House, James Beauchamp Clark, aka Champ Clark. He's received a commanding 440 and a half votes. Impressive, but still not enough. Time to ballot again. Party bosses and state delegations wheel and deal as the ballots continue over the next few days. On June 28th, during the 10th round of voting, New York decides to back Champ Clark.
Starting point is 00:49:12 Not only does this kill Governor Judson Harmon's chances, but it gives the Missourian a majority with 556 votes. Ah, but the Democrats require two-thirds of the vote, not a simple majority, to win. So the balloting continues. The next day, on the 14th ballot, the influential William Jennings Bryan puts his finger on the scale. Decrying the Empire State's party bosses, the great commoner says he will not support Champ Clark so long as New York does. He's switching to Woodrow. Angry words and fists fly. Although, one progressive New Yorker who snuck into the convention is glad to Woodrow. Angry words and fists fly. Although, one progressive New Yorker who snuck into the convention is glad to hear it.
Starting point is 00:49:53 30-year-old freshman state senator Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He'd love to see the Princeton schoolmaster run against the Bull Moose candidate, his distant cousin Theodore. And in fact, young FDR is getting his wish. Raking only for the Sabbath, the delegates go through 46 rounds of balloting, but on the afternoon of Tuesday, July 2nd, they hand the professor 990 votes. That puts him well over the required two-thirds majority. Woodrow Wilson is officially the Democratic candidate for president. Socialist, a Republican, a Bull Moose, and a Democrat.
Starting point is 00:50:31 All four now head into the general election, but this four-man race proves soon enough to be a head-to-head contest. While the socialists have never been more popular, the vast majority of Americans, including progressives, find Eugene Debs' vision of capitalism ending reform far too radical. On the opposite hand, a clear majority of the electorate still wants some reform. Thus, even though President William Howard Taft enjoys more support than Gene and thinks of himself as the moderate progressive holding true to what he and
Starting point is 00:51:02 Theodore Roosevelt started, He's become the conservative option in a time of progressivism. Will's far behind. Nothing captures the truth of this more fully, albeit harshly, than when a man shouts out at one of Teddy's campaign stops, tell us about Taft, and the rough rider fires back, I never discussed that issues. Ouch. Sorry, Will, but point made. This race is really between the two bespectacled progressives, the popular former president and rough-riding colonel Theodore Roosevelt and the thin Princeton president-slash-professor-turned-New-Jersey-governor Woodrow Wilson. But Woodrow was full of self-doubt. In a letter to his dear friend,
Starting point is 00:51:43 said by some to be his mistress, Mary Peck, the New Jersey governor writes, I feel that Roosevelt's strength is altogether incalculable. The contest is between him and me, not between Taft and me, and I am by no means confident. Woodrow knows that if this is a battle of personalities, he will lose,
Starting point is 00:52:03 as evidenced by the professor asking his daughter. Are the people interested in personalities rather than principles? If that is true, they will not vote for me. Woodrow's right. Though an amazing orator, he still can't connect with people like Teddy. Nor can he attack TR's character or experience. If the professor is going to stand a chance then, he has to make this a battle of ideas. Woodrow must distinguish his progressivism from Teddy's progressivism,
Starting point is 00:52:32 that is, TR's new nationalism, and with the help of a lawyer and strategist named Louis Brandeis, he figures out how to do just that. Woodrow calls his progressive vision new freedom. Teddy's new nationalism and Woodrow's new freedom are actually fairly similar. Close fraternal twins, as author William Manners puts it. Both are very progressive, social justice-centric initiatives. The key difference, however, lies in their ideas about monopolies. Woodrow's plan calls for breaking up big corporations that so much as
Starting point is 00:53:05 threaten free markets and small businesses. And as a Southerner, he knows these liberating laws that will end big business and thus free the free market should come from the states, not the federal government. Thomas Jefferson would be proud. But TR knows this is nonsense. Big corporations do serve their purposes. They need to exist. We just have to keep them from abusing their power. Hence, Teddy's program, New Nationalism, which will create a robust federal commission to oversee corporations and keep them in check. Huh, robust federal power. Alexander Hamilton would be proud. Woodrow Wilson starts pushing his new freedom in earnest on Labor Day, September 2nd, 1912. Addressing over 10,000 people in Buffalo, New York, Woodrow accuses
Starting point is 00:53:55 Teddy of welcoming monopolies. He further suggests that TR's new nationalism will only bring onerous regulation while failing to keep these monopolies in check, whereas new freedom will rely on To quote Woodrow, As to the monopolies, which Mr. Roosevelt proposes to legalize and to welcome, what has created these monopolies? Unregulated competition. It has permitted these men to do anything they choose to do to squeeze their rivals out. We know the processes by which they have done those things. We can prevent these processes through remedial legislation
Starting point is 00:54:40 and so restrict the wrong use of competition that the right use of competition will destroy monopoly. Ours is a plan of liberty. Theirs is a program of regulation. If I were to sum up the whole history of liberty, I should say it consisted at every turn of life in resisting the accumulation of regulative power in the hands of a few persons. In San Francisco, almost two weeks later, Theodore claps back as he speaks to his own audience of 10,000. He seizes on Woodrow's comment about the history of liberty, saying, quote,
Starting point is 00:55:18 This is a bit of worn-out academic doctrine which was kept in the schoolroom and the professorial Oh, that stings. TR goes on, calling Woodrow's model of a laissez-faire economy, void of big corporations, not liberty-inducing, but a naive way of thinking about the modern railroad, telegraph, and telephone-connected United States. Killing two birds with one stone, he illustrates this by knocking President Will Tapp's role in the recent breakup of Standard Oil. Sure, Will busted a trust into several smaller companies, but, TR argues, this has backfired. Says Teddy, what has been the actual result?
Starting point is 00:56:06 All the companies are still under the same control, or at least working in such close alliance that the effect is precisely the same. The price of the stock has gone up over 100% so that Mr. Rockefeller and his associates have actually seen their fortunes doubled by the policy which Mr. Wilson advocates and which Mr. Taft defends. At the same time, the price of oil to the consumer has gone up.
Starting point is 00:56:32 In short, TR has painted Woodrow as a daft academic with no real-world experience who fails to grasp the realities and complexities of the nation's modern economy while arguing that you can't protect the common people by eradicating all big corporations. You protect them by creating a federal commission to keep a close eye and prevent abuses. The answer then, says Teddy, is his new nationalism. Weeks pass, and what will amount to more than 150 speeches, TR vigorously preaches new nationalism.
Starting point is 00:57:09 Woodrow likewise hits triple digits as he schools the country on new freedom. But as we know from today's opening, things take a terrible turn on October 14th, when John Schrenk puts a.38 bullet through Teddy's thick coat, 50-page speech, Spectacle's case, and his right fourth rib. The Bull Moose speaks that night anyway, but then reports to the hospital. All of his opponents, socialist, Republican, and Democrat alike, send their condolences and stop campaigning. T.R. doesn't like that. He answers, the fight should go on to its conclusion, just as it would in case of battle. On October 30th, 1912, Teddy makes his way to New York City's Madison Square Garden to deliver one last
Starting point is 00:57:52 pre-election day speech to a crowd of 16,000. Though healthy, he's still healing, and it's a painful experience. Woodrow addresses his supporters in the very same spot the next day. And a week later, the nation votes. It's just shy of 10 p.m., Election Day, November 5th, 1912. Woodrow Wilson, his wife Ellen, and their three 20-something daughters, Margaret, Jessie, and Nell, are all gathered in Ellen's art studio inside their home at 25 Cleveland Lane, Princeton, New Jersey. Most of them are trying not to think about the election.
Starting point is 00:58:33 Woodrow's resorted to reading a collection of work by Victorian poet Robert Browning. But not Nell. She keeps scurrying across the house for updates. And on one of those little trips, she hears the university's bell, Old North, start ringing. Ellen comes flying out. Opening the door, she finds Woodrow's secretary, Joe Tumulty, bursting forth from a slew of reporters on the front stoop. He blurts out, he's elected, Mrs. Wilson. Ellen rushes to Woodrow. They lock eyes, and he knows. Ellen says softly, my dear, I want to be the first to congratulate you. The whole family embraces as the governor's face turns a touch. The weight of the responsibility to come is striking him. Then, from somewhere outside, the haunting sounds of bagpipes and a chorus of Princeton
Starting point is 00:59:18 students singing Old Nassau reach the Scots-Irish professor and president-elect's ears. This is when it all catches up with him. Stepping outside to address the crowd, Woodrow weeps. As midnight approaches, roughly a hundred miles away, near Oyster Bay on New York's Long Island, Theodore Roosevelt sits at his desk in his beloved home known as Sagamore Hill. Somber reporters, newspapermen who've followed him for years, sit before TR and the crackling fire warding off the cold November night. They listen attentively
Starting point is 00:59:57 as the high-pitched colonel greets them. Now, old friends, I'm really glad to see you. They ask the former president about his communication with Woodrow Wilson. Speaking from memory, the bespectacled, mustachioed rough rider, still in his black tie, recites the telegram he fired off to the professor an hour ago. Quote, the American people,
Starting point is 01:00:18 by a great plurality, have conferred upon you the highest honor in their gift. I congratulate you thereon. Close quote. The reporters stare. It sounds hard to buy after such a brutal, friendship-damaging, if not ending contest.
Starting point is 01:00:35 But Teddy leaves no doubt. He adds resolutely, quote, Like all other good citizens, I accept the result with good humor and contentment." TR's telegram, sent to Woodrow about the same time as President Will Taft's congratulating telegram, was spot on. The New Jersey governor won with a great plurality. Here's the breakdown. Socialist Eugene Debs won over 900,000 votes. While none of those translate to electoral votes,
Starting point is 01:01:09 this means 6% of all voters cast their ballots for him. As I record this episode in the 21st century, this remains the best performance ever of a socialist candidate for president. It speaks volumes about Gene and America's thirst for reform. As for Republican President William Howard Taft, he came in just shy of 3.5 million votes. That translated to 23.2% of the popular vote and 8 electoral votes, courtesy of Utah and Vermont.
Starting point is 01:01:36 The bullet-carrying Roughrider, Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, fared better. He took just over 4.1 million votes, 27.4% of the popular vote, and 88 electoral votes. Even as a former unpopular president, birthing a third party only months before the general election that can bump one of the two major parties into third place is an incredible feat. And with no disrespect to poor Will, it's hard not to imagine that, had the Republicans run Teddy, they would have taken the White House. It's a safe bet that even the Taft administration's biggest fans would have stuck with TR in that scenario. Their combined votes would have made for a clear majority. But the GOP didn't do so, and that brings us to Woodrow Wilson's great plurality.
Starting point is 01:02:21 After all, his more than 6 million votes may have only translated to 41.9% of the popular vote, but it was a commanding victory in the Electoral College. 435 electoral votes, 40 out of the 48 states. And so, Woodrow prepares to head to the White House, knowing his election is not a commanding mandate, yet knowing that the nation's cumulative response to his, TR's, and Gene Debs' platforms are a mandate of sorts for progressive reform. From women's suffrage to tariffs, banking, and so much more, there are several issues coming his way. And little does Woodrow know that a war unlike any the world has ever seen is looming. So dig deep, professor, because in the White House, you're the student, and there's no room for failure on the exam to come.
Starting point is 01:03:14 HTDS is supported by premium membership fans. You can join by clicking the link in the episode description. My gratitude to you kind souls providing additional funding to help us keep going, and a special thanks to our members, whose monthly gift puts them at producer status. Andy Thompson, Anthony Pizzulo, Art Lane, Thank you. Durante Spencer, Donald Moore, Donna Marie Jeffcoat, Ellen Stewart, Bernie Lowe, George Sherwood, Gerwith Griffin, Henry Brunges, Jake Gilbreth, James G. Bledsoe, Janie McCreary, Jeff Marks, Jennifer Moods, Jennifer Magnolia, Jeremy Wells, Jessica Poppock, Joe Dobis, John Frugal-Dougal, John Boovey, John Keller, John Oliveros, John Ridlavich, John Schaefer, John Sheff, Jordan
Starting point is 01:03:58 Corbett, Joshua Steiner, Justin M. Spriggs, Justin May, Kristen Pratt, Karen Bartholomew, Cassie Conecco, Kim R., Kyle Decker, Lawrence Neubauer, Linda Cunningham, Mark Ellis, Matthew The French Revolution set Europe ablaze. It was an age of enlightenment and progress, but also of tyranny and oppression. It was an age of glory and an age of tragedy. One man stood above it all. This was the Age of Napoleon. I'm Everett Rummage, host of the Age of Napoleon podcast. Join me as I examine the life and
Starting point is 01:04:45 times of one of the most fascinating and enigmatic characters in modern history. Look for the Age of Napoleon wherever you find your podcasts.

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