In his acceptance speech, Mr. Taft took issue with all the radical tendencies of the time and expressed his profound gratitude for the righteous victory at Chicago, where they had been saved from the man "whose recently avowed political views would have committed the party to radical proposals involving dangerous changes in our present constitutional form of representative government and our independent judiciary." The widespread popular unrest which forced itself upon the attention of even the most indifferent spectators, Mr. Taft attributed to the sensational journals, muckraking, and demagogues, and he declared that the equality of opportunity preached by the apostles of social justice "involves a forced division of property and that means socialism." In fact, in his opinion, the real contest was at bottom one over private property, and the Democratic and Progressive parties were merely aiding the Socialists in their attack upon this institution. He challenged his opponents to show how the initiative, referendum, and recall would effect significant economic changes: "Votes are not bread, constitutional amendments are not work, referendums do not pay rent or furnish houses, recalls do not furnish clothes, initiatives do not supply employment, or relieve inequalities of condition or of opportunity." In other words he took a firm stand against the whole range of "radical propositions" advanced by "demagogues" to "satisfy what is supposed to be popular clamor."
The Democrats looked upon the Republican dissensions with evident satisfaction. When the time for sifting candidates for 1912 arrived, there was unwonted bustle in their ranks, for they now saw a greater probability of victory than at any time in the preceding sixteen years. The congressional elections of 1910, the division in the Republican party, and discontent with the prevailing order of things manifest throughout the country, all pointed to a possibility of a chance to return to the promised land from which they had been driven in 1897. And there was no lack of strong presidential "timber." Two of the recently elected Democratic governors, Harmon, of Ohio, and Wilson, of New Jersey, were assiduously "boomed" by their respective contingents of supporters. Mr. Bryan, though not an avowed candidate, was still available and strong in his western battalions. Mr. Champ Clark, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Mr. Oscar Underwood, chairman of the ways and means committee, likewise loomed large on the horizon as possibilities.
In the primaries at which delegates to the convention were chosen a great division of opinion was manifested, although there was a considerable drift toward Mr. Clark. No one had anything like a majority of the delegates, but the Speaker's popular vote in such significant states as Illinois showed him to be a formidable contestant. But Mr. Clark soon alienated Mr. Bryan by refusing to join him in a movement to prevent the nomination of a conservative Democrat, Mr. Alton B. Parker, as temporary chairman of the convention which met at Baltimore on June 25. Although at one time Mr. Clark received more than one half of the votes (two thirds being necessary to nominate) his doom was sealed by Mr. Bryan's potent opposition.
Mr. Wilson, on the other hand, gained immensely by this predicament in which the Speaker found himself. He was easily the second candidate in the race, as the balloting showed, and his availability was in many respects superb. He was new to politics, and thus had few enemies. He had long been known as a stanch conservative of the old school; and although he apparently had not broken with his party in the stormy days of 1896, it was publicly known that he had wished Mr. Bryan to be "knocked into a cocked hat." In his printed utterances he was on record against the newer devices, such as the initiative and referendum, and he therefore commanded the respect and confidence of eastern Democrats. As governor of New Jersey, however, his policies had appealed to the progressive sections of his party, without seriously alienating the other wing. He had pushed through an elaborate system of direct primary legislation, a public utilities bill after the fashion of the Wisconsin system, and a workmen's compensation law. On a western tour he met Mr. Bryan on such happy terms that their cordiality seemed to be more than ostensible, and at about the same time he declared himself in favor of the initiative and referendum. His friends held that the conservative scholar had been made "progressive" by practical experience; his enemies contended that he was playing the political game; and his managers were able to make use of one record effectively in the West and another effectively in the East. Having the confidence, if not the cordial support, of the conservatives and the great weight of Mr. Bryan's influence on his side, he was able to win the nomination on the forty-sixth ballot taken on the seventh day of the convention.
The Democratic platform adopted at Baltimore naturally opened with a consideration of the tariff question, reiterating the ancient principle that the government "under the Constitution has no right or power to impose or collect tariff duties except for the purpose of revenue." President Taft's action in vetoing the tariff bills was denounced, and an immediate, downward revision was demanded. Recognizing the intimate connection between the tariff and business, the Democrats proposed to reach their ultimate ideal by "legislation that will not injure or destroy legitimate industry." On the trust question, the platform took a positive stand, demanding the enforcement of the criminal provisions of the law against trust officials and the enactment of additional legislation to make it "impossible for a private monopoly to exist in the United States." The action of the Republican administration in "compromising with the Standard Oil Company and the Tobacco Trust" was condemned, and the judicial construction of the Sherman law criticized. The valuation of railways was favored; likewise a single term for the President of the United States, anti-injunction laws, currency legislation, presidential primaries, and the declaration of the nation's purpose to establish Philippine independence at the earliest practicable moment.
Mr. Wilson's speech of acceptance partook of the character of an essay in political science rather than of a precise definition of party policies. He spoke of an awakened nation, impatient of partisan make-believe, hindered in its development by circumstances of privilege and private advantage, and determined to undertake great things in the name of right and justice. Departing from traditions, he refused to discuss the terms of the Baltimore platform, which he dismissed with the short notice that "the platform is not a program." He devoted no little attention to the spirit of "the rule of the people" as opposed to the rule by an inner coterie of the privileged, but he abstained from discussing directly such matters as the initiative, referendum, and recall. He announced his clear conviction that the only safe and legitimate object of a tariff was to raise duties, but he cautioned his party against radical and sudden legislation. He promised to support legislation against the unfair practices of corporations in destroying competition; but he gave no solace to those who expected a vigorous assault on trusts as such.
Indeed, Mr. Wilson refused to commit himself to the old concept of unrestricted competition and petty business. "I am not," he said, "one of those who think that competition can be established by law against the drift of a world-wide economic tendency.... I am not afraid of anything that is normal. I dare say we shall never return to the old order of individual competition and that the organization of business upon a great scale of coöperation is, up to a certain point, itself normal and inevitable." Nevertheless, he hoped to see "our old free, coöperative life restored," and individual opportunity widened. To the working class he addressed a word of assurance and confidence: "The working people of America ... are of course the backbone of the Nation. No law that safeguards their lives, that improves the physical and moral conditions under which they live, that makes their hours of labor rational and tolerable, that gives them freedom to act in their own interest, and that protects them where they cannot protect themselves, can properly be regarded as class legislation." As to the Philippines, he simply said that we were under obligations to make any arrangement that would be serviceable to their freedom and development. The whole address was characterized by a note of sympathy and interest in the common lot of the common people, and by an absence of any concrete proposals that might discourage or alarm the business interests of the country. It was a call to arms, but it did not indicate the weapons.
Mr. Wilson's speech had that delightful quality of pleasing all sections of his party. The New York Times saw in it a remarkable address, in spite of what seemed to be a certain remoteness from concrete issues, and congratulated the country that its tone and argument indicated a determination on the part of the candidate to ignore the Baltimore platform. Mr. Bryan, on the other hand, appeared to be immensely pleased with it. "Governor Wilson's speech accepting the Democratic nomination," he said, "is original in its method of dealing with the issues of the campaign. Instead of taking up the platform plank by plank, he takes the central idea of the Denver platform [of 1908, Mr. Bryan's own, more radical still]—an idea repeated and emphasized in the Baltimore platform—and elaborates it, using the various questions under consideration to illustrate the application of the principle.... Without assuming to formulate a detailed plan for dealing with every condition which may arise, he lifts into a position of extreme importance the dominating thought of the Baltimore platform and appeals to the country for its coöperation in making popular government a reality throughout the land."[91]