Who would you have voted for in 1912?

[elperromagico]

Poll question: Who would you have voted for in 1912?

Poll result (136 votes)
Woodrow Wilson (Democrat)	(14 votes, 10%)	Vote
William Taft (Republican)	(4 votes, 3%)	Vote
Theodore Roosevelt (Progressive)	(65 votes, 48%)	Vote
Eugene Debs (Socialist)	(52 votes, 38%)	Vote
Other	(1 votes, 1%)	Vote

[Aidoneus]

1. to those voting for Teddy Roosevelt:

You have forfeited your right to complain about the W regime's foreign policy.

[Aidoneus]

4. kick

[terrya]

6. I'm kicking myself right now.

Because I DID vote for Roosevelt. And you're exactly right. Roosevelt's foreign policy (a continuation of McKinley's) was imperialistic. VERY much like the current administration's...

I should have voted for Debs.

My bad.

Terry

[Muddleoftheroad]

10. Today's litmus test

Sorry, we don't ever forfeit anything.

[Aidoneus]

11. ok

Then the floor is yours, be my guest:--explain how it wouldn't be hypocritical and contradictory.

[Aidoneus]

14. the floor is still yours..

[Aidoneus]

22. still open..

mobuto can jump in in your place if he so desires..

[Muddleoftheroad]

26. Wasn't here

You asked us to vote in 1912, not 2004. We picked the best candidate during that time. The best candidate in that time was TR.

[Aidoneus]

30. Not exactly my question..

Read the posts again, if necessary. On what possible grounds would it not be hypocritical and contradictory?

[Muddleoftheroad]

31. I read the posts

The elections have absolutely NOTHING to do with one another. Nor do the worlds they took place in. Ninety years is a damn long time.

[Aidoneus]

40. Yet some things don't change

how would it not be hypocritical and contradictory? I don't really expect an answer, because there isn't one.

[Muddleoftheroad]

41. There really is one

It's a complete and totally different time and different election with different people running.

[mobuto]

12. Not at all

Theodore Roosevelt's foreign policy was very different from George Dubya's.

TR believed one should speak softly and carry a big stick. Bush believes you should speak loudly and then beat yourself on the head.

We need another Teddy Roosevelt; we don't need another Bush.

[lumpy]

18. I agree Aidoneus

TR set the tone for aggressive action in SA

[thelocalkgb]

21. You're right

The Roosevelt Corollary has caused the US to do some really jacked up stuff in Latin America.

[izzie]

2. Eash after, Right?

!!!!

[IrateCitizen]

3. My sig line should give away my choice

One of the most honorable Americans who ever lived, Eugene Victor Debs.

[TahitiNut]

5. Remember ...

... women didn't have the right to vote then. IMHO, that goes a long way towards shining some light on the stereotyped public persona of those elected to national office prior to 1920.

[Maeve]

8. You beat me to it!

I couldn't have voted then. However, it's primary day here in Ohio and my avatar and sig-line reflect that!

[David Zephyr]

16. TahitiNut and Maeve: Susan B. Anthony & Eugene Debs

In 1905, the great Susan B. Anthony and the also great Eugene Debs had this to say to each other:

Anthony: "Give us suffrage, and we'll give you socialism."

Debs: "Give us socialism, and we'll give you the vote."

[WoodrowFan]

27. In Some States they Could

in some states women could vote...

State Date
Wyoming 1890
Utah 1890
Colorado 1893
Idaho 1896
Washington 1910
California 1911
Oregon 1912
Kansas 1912
Arizona 1912


Other states had Women’s suffrage in such thing as School Board elections.

[bryant69]

7. William Taft

He's the guy. It's easy to come up with rhymes for Raft, and I figure back then the way you became poet laureat was to stand outside the White House shouting rhymes about how great the President is.

"Oh that Taft
He Hates Graft
He has a Raft
Laws he will Craft."

And so on. Being Poet Laureate really looks good on the old resume. But how many rhymes are there for Roosevelt. Or Wilson. Or Debs (accidently got the wrong socialist first time around). None. That's how many. I haven't spent any time thinking about it, but I'm quite sure that I'm correct.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Minstrel Boy]

9. Debs all the way in '12!

One of my American heroes. (Though I could have voted only if Madison had won the War of 1812.)


American Socialist leader Eugene V. Debs, addressing a crowd in Columbus in 1918. For this speech he was convicted and jailed under the Espionage Act.

"While there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free."

[mobuto]

13. Theodore Roosevelt

My great-grandfather was the leader of TR's Bull Moose party in NYC. The man was the most remarkable President we've ever had. He may have been the smartest President we've ever had, and he was extraordinarily Progressive when he didn't have to be. He was far superior to Wilson and Taft.

[David Zephyr]

15. Eugene Debs

Debs!

[efhmc]

17. Again, I must remind the MEN that start these threads that as a WOMAN

I would not have been allowed to vote in 1912.

[Cleita]

19. No one. As a woman I wouldn't have been able to vote.

eom

[efhmc]

20. Why do these guys not seem to understand this? This is about the 5th

thread with this type of question and the guys really get upset when I post this answer, saying it is just a hypothetical question and hypothetical or not we could not vote. It seems pretty realistic to me.

[Nobody]

23. First I'd have to get a sex change....

I'd be out there agitating for the right to vote. Women weren't allowed to vote until August 26, 1920.

[Zynx]

24. Roosevelt or Wilson

Either way you get WWI, but with Wilson you get it later and reluctantly.

[IndianaGreen]

25. Wilson also had his version of John Ashcroft as Attorney General

Palmer had Emma Goldman deported:

In 1919, a series of politically motivated bombing attempts culminated in an explosion at the Washington home of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. The federal government responded by rounding up thousands of suspected subversive immigrants across the country. They were held in unconscionable conditions, interrogated incommunicado, and in some cases tortured. In the end, more than 500 were deported, not for the bombing, but for their political associations. The “Palmer Raids,” were led in part by a young J. Edgar Hoover, then head of the Justice Department’s Alien Radical division. Eventually criticism of the raids brought the nation’s first Red Scare to what appeared to be an end.

http://www.amnestyusa.org/usacrisis/ashcroftraids.html

[WoodrowFan]

28. Not in 1912

Palmer was Wilson's last Attorney General. Wilson's stroke so disabled him that Palmer had free reign. One of Wilson's WORST appointments.

[Cooley Hurd]

29. Yes... Mitchell Palmer was a real a-hole...

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USApalmerA.htm

<snip>
Worried by the revolution that had taken place in Russia, Palmer became convinced that Communist agents were planning to overthrow the American government. His view was reinforced by the discovery of thirty-eight bombs sent to leading politicians and the Italian anarchist who blew himself up outside Palmer's Washington home. Palmer recruited John Edgar Hoover as his special assistant and together they used the Espionage Act (1917) and the Sedition Act (1918) to launch a campaign against radicals and left-wing organizations.

Palmer claimed that Communist agents from Russia were planning to overthrow the American government. On 7th November, 1919, the second anniversary of the Russian Revolution, over 10,000 suspected communists and anarchists were arrested. Palmer and Hoover found no evidence of a proposed revolution but large number of these suspects were held without trial for a long time. The vast majority were eventually released but Emma Goldman and 247 other people, were deported to Russia.

In January, 1920, another 6,000 were arrested and held without trial. These raids took place in several cities and became known as the Palmer Raids. A. Mitchell Palmer and John Edgar Hoover found no evidence of a proposed revolution but large number of these suspects, many of them members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), continued to be held without trial. When Palmer announced that the communist revolution was likely to take place on 1st May, mass panic took place. In New York, five elected Socialists were expelled from the legislature.
</snip>

[WoodrowFan]

32. AND NOTHING HAPPENED!

Or as Palmer said "OOPS! I was mislead by bad intelligence!"

BTW, his house is a couple blocks from where I work. He lived across the street from FDR. When Isabel came through here in 2003 it destroyed the old tree that was outside FDR's home when he lived there. I took a couple of pieces from the sidewalk after the storm. Supposedly parts of the bomber landed in that tree!

[Cooley Hurd]

33. I believe it was little James Roosevelt...

...that found a large chunk of bone on the street and dutifully gave it to his horrified father (FDR, while Asst SecNav).

[PATRICK]

34. TR, a question

Could his mere presence have stopped or delayed WWI, thwarted the pathetic "trigger" of the assassination of a petty Duke? Was Roosevelt cleared out of the way so the mega corporations could go about their business in various countries?

Wasn't the trouble that TR stepped aside in the first place until he realized the party had betrayed him and his ideals? I'm a little foggy here, especially as to why this is relevant today.

Wilson became another great leader consumed by a war and forced to fall short on the peace by the Republicans(who did the same to Lincoln).

[IrateCitizen]

35. Roosevelt was gung-ho on US entry into WWI

Most people like to deny the fact that Roosevelt was an ultra-hawk, by citing his saying, "Speak softly, and carry a big stick" as some kind of proof of moderation. But the truth is that Roosevelt was a person who not only was a hawk, but saw war as one of the natural callings of mankind. Under his watch, we saw the imposition of the Platt Amendment on Cuba (which basically guaranteed its status as a US "colony"), the forced secession of Panama from Colombia for the purposes of building the Panama Canal, the slaughter of native resistance and civilians in the Philippines, and so on.

In fact, his clamoring for US entry into WWI coupled with his vigorous support of that entry once it occurred produced a major split in the progressive movement. On one side was TR -- and a faction of progressives that supported overt militarism and what would be now considered to be some completely racist attitudes toward immigrants. On the other was Robert LaFollette, the Senator from Wisconsin who held up the Senate vote for US entry into the war for 24 hours and supported outspoken dissidents like Eugene Debs and "Red Emma" Goldman.

[WoodrowFan]

36. TR would have entered in 1915

Roosevelt was VERY upset when Wilson refused to go to war over the Lusitania in May 1915 calling hima "coward" and every other name he could think of.


BTW, one of the main issues in 1912 was the financial support the Trusts gave to Roosevelt in 1904 and again in 1912. He got a HUGE amount of corporate money compared to the Democratic candidate in both elections.

[IrateCitizen]

38. Which just goes to prove...

... how little many of those expressing such admiration for TR really know about him.

As an environmentalist, he was absolutely fantastic. As a foe of corporate power, he was actually overrated -- his administrations actually enacted fewer reforms than McKinley's. And as far as military matters are concerned, he was an unabashed imperialist hawk who believed fully in the theory of American exceptionalism.

[Athame]

37. Though I did not have the franchise

I would not have voted for the Democrat. Wilson was no friend to women.

[WoodrowFan]

39. He did support Woman's sufferage

He came to it late, but he did come around, mostly because of his daughters' influence.