While the Republicans and Democrats were bringing their machinery into action, the supporters of Mr. Roosevelt were busy forming the organization of a new party. At a conference held shortly after the break with the Republican convention, a provisional committee had been appointed, and on July 8, a call was issued for the "Progressive" convention, which duly assembled on August 5 at Chicago. This party assembly was sharply marked by the prominence assigned to women for the first time in a political convention. Eighteen of the delegates were women, and Miss Jane Addams, of the Hull House, made one of the "keynote" speeches of the occasion. Even hostile newspapers were forced to admit that no other convention in our history, except possibly the first Republican convention of 1856, rivaled it in the enthusiasm and devotion of the delegates. The typical politician was conspicuous by his absence, and a spirit of religious fervor rather than of manipulation characterized the proceedings. Mr. Roosevelt made a long address, his "Confession of Faith," in which he took a positive stand on many questions which he had hitherto met in evasive language, and a platform was adopted which marked a departure from the old party pronouncements, in that it stated the principles with clarity and in great detail.
The Progressive platform fell into three parts: political reforms, labor and social measures, and control of trusts and combinations. The first embraced declarations in favor of direct primaries, including preferential presidential primaries, popular election of United States Senators, the short ballot, the initiative, referendum, and recall, an easier method of amending the Federal Constitution, woman suffrage, limitation and publicity of campaign expenditures, and the recall of judicial decisions in the form of a popular review of any decision annulling a law passed under the police power of the state. The program of labor and social legislation included the limitation of the use of the injunction in labor disputes, prohibition of child labor, minimum wage standards for women, the establishment of minimum standards as to health and safety of employees and conditions of labor generally, the creation of a labor department at Washington, and the improvement of country life.
The Progressives took a decided stand against indiscriminate trust dissolutions, declaring that great combinations were in some degree inevitable and necessary for national and international efficiency. The evils of stock watering and unfair competitive methods should be eliminated and the advantages and economies of concentration conserved. To this end, they urged the establishment of a Federal commission to maintain a supervision over corporations engaged in interstate commerce, analogous to that exercised by the Interstate Commerce Commission. As to railway corporations, they favored physical valuation. They demanded the retention of the natural resources, except agricultural lands, by the governments, state and national, and their utilization for public benefit. They favored a downward revision of the tariff on a protective basis, income and inheritance taxes, the protection of the public against stock gamblers and promoters and public ownership of railways in Alaska.
In spite of the exciting contests over nomination in both of the old parties, the campaign which followed was extraordinarily quiet.[92] The popular vote shows that the issues failed to enlist confidence or enthusiasm. Mr. Roosevelt polled about 700,000 more votes than Mr. Taft, but their combined vote was less than that polled by the latter in 1908, and slightly less than that received by the former in 1904. Mr. Wilson's vote was more than 100,000 less than that received by Mr. Bryan in 1896 or 1908. The combined Progressive and Republican vote was 1,300,000 greater than the Democratic vote. If we add the votes cast for Mr. Debs, the Socialist candidate, and the vote received by the other minor candidates to the Progressive and Republican vote we have a majority of nearly two and one half millions against Mr. Wilson. Yet Mr. Wilson, owing to the division of the opposition, secured 435 of the 531 electoral votes. The Democrats retained possession of the House of Representatives and secured control of the Senate. The surprise of the election was the large increase in the Socialist vote, from 420,000 in 1908 to 898,000, and this in spite of the socialistic planks in the Progressive platform which were expected to capture a large share of the voters who had formerly gone with the Socialists by way of protest against the existing parties.
These figures should not be taken to imply that had either Mr. Taft or Mr. Roosevelt been eliminated the Democrats would have been defeated. On the contrary, Mr. Wilson would have doubtless been elected if the Republicans had nominated Mr. Roosevelt or if the Progressives had remained out of the field. Nevertheless, the vote would seem to indicate that the Democratic party had no very clear and positive majority mandate on any great issue. However that may be, the policy of the party as outlined by its leader and victorious candidate deserves the most careful analysis.
In the course of the campaign, Mr. Wilson discussed in general terms all of the larger issues of the hour, emphasizing particularly the fact that an economic revolution had changed the questions of earlier years, but always speaking of "restoration" and a "recurrence" to older liberties.[93] "Our life has broken away from the past. The life of America is not the life that it was twenty years ago; it is not the life that it was ten years ago. We have changed our economic conditions, absolutely, from top to bottom; and with our economic society, the organization of our life. The old political formulas do not fit present problems; they read like documents taken out of a forgotten age. The older cries sound as if they belonged to a past which men have almost forgotten.... Society is looking itself over, in our day, from top to bottom; is making fresh and critical analysis of its very elements; is questioning its oldest practices as freely as its newest, scrutinizing every arrangement and motive of its life; and it stands ready to attempt nothing less than a radical reconstruction which only frank and honest counsels and the forces of generous coöperation can hold back from becoming a revolution."
One of the most significant of the many changes which constituted this new order was, in Mr. Wilson's opinion, the mastery of the government by the great business interests. "Suppose you go to Washington and try to get at your government. You will always find that while you are politely listened to, the men really consulted are the men who have the biggest stake—the big bankers, the big manufacturers, the big masters of commerce, the heads of railroad corporations and of steamship corporations.... The government of the United States at present is a foster-child of the special interests. It is not allowed to have a will of its own.... The government of the United States in recent years has not been administered by the common people of the United States."
Nevertheless, while deploring the control of the government by "big business," Mr. Wilson made no assault on that type of economic enterprise as such. On the contrary, he differentiated between big business and the trust very sharply in general terms. "A trust is an arrangement to get rid of competition, and a big business is a business that has survived competition by conquering in the field of intelligence and economy. A trust does not bring efficiency to the aid of business; it buys efficiency out of business. I am for big business and I am against the trusts. Any man who can survive by his brains, any man who can put the others out of the business by making the thing cheaper to the consumer at the same time that he is increasing its intrinsic value and quality, I take off my hat to, and I say: 'You are the man who can build up the United States, and I wish there were more of you.'" Whether any big business in the staple industries had been built up by this process, he did not indicate; neither did he discuss the question as to whether monopoly might not result from the destruction of competitors as well as from the fusion of competitors into a trust.