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The Candidates' Election Day - 1912 Posted September 10, 2020 at 08:00pm by Chronicler === Election of 11/5/1912 === In the presidential election of 1912, Woodrow Wilson won the presidency for the Democratic Party because the Republican Party divided between the regular Republicans supporting the re-election of President William Howard Taft and the Progressives supporting former President Theodore Roosevelt. Wilson won the popular vote with 42% to 27% for Roosevelt and 23% for Taft. The race featured the smallest number of minor candidates since 1896, but the Socialist Eugene Debs surprisingly won nearly a million votes.  Theodore Roosevelt (Progressive) Roosevelt spent the night before election day at his home, Sagamore Hill. Around mid-day, he and seven neighbors drove in automobiles to their polling place, a fire engine house. Roosevelt voted at 12:05 and waited for 15 minutes for the remainder of his party to vote. While waiting for his staff and neighbors to vote, TR told a reporter that he wished that he had more time to critique Elihu Root before the voting began. In the meantime, a lineman ran telegraph wires to his house. One of the lines was private, and TR demanded the private line be removed. His running mate, Hiram Johnson, finished his campaign in New York City; being away from his home in California, Johnson lost his vote in 1912. Theodore and Edith Roosevelt took a stroll on their property around 3 pm. On election night, Roosevelt and his family monitored the returns via the telegraph wire, with most of his information coming from the Progressive Party headquarters. He also received updated by telephone. At one point, it looked like the joint Republican-Progressive slate of presidential electors would win in Oklahoma, but Wilson closed the gap and won the state. Roosevelt kept reporters away from him most of the evening, and as a result newspapers carried limited information about TR. Late in the evening, he telegraphed his congratulations to Wilson and issued a statement accepting defeat but stating "the cause itself must in the end triumph." After sending his telegram to Wilson, TR allowed the reporters to enter his library. He sat at his desk with a fire in the fireplace and was good humored. He gave a brief statement, after which they chatted about the developments. His neighbors in Oyster Bay had planned a big victory celebration. While they did not expect Roosevelt to be elected, they did not expect him to win so few states.  William Howard Taft (Republican) President Taft ended his campaign with speeches in Ohio the day before the election. He arrived in Cincinnati the evening before election day and went to the house of his brother Charles Taft for two nights. Taft had not expected to win, and he told people in his campaign staff that he looked forward to returning to his law practice in Cincinnati. First Lady Helen Taft rented a hotel room in the Manhattan Hotel in New York City and visited with friends including Alice Longworth, TR's daughter (Hiram Johnson spent the night at the same hotel). Election day opened in Cincinnati with light rain. Several things happened for the first time in history. It was the first time that a presidential nominee drove to the polls in a car. Taft's motorcade was comprised of six cars, which went to his poll at Precinct M of the Third Ward. Taft voted at 12:37 pm. A crowd had been waiting for him for slightly over an hour and cheered his arrival. He was accompanied to the polls by his Secret Service detail, city detectives, and about 20 reporters. The Secret Service men ensured that the polling place was safe before Taft entered, also for the first time. The polling place was a former furniture store on Madison Road near Grandin Road. Taft was in a jovial mood as he greeted the poll workers. The reporters took a photograph of Taft as he received his ballots. The ballot in Ohio was complicated that year, with six separate pieces of paper: one for the presidential race and the others for the state races, judicial races, and legislative races. After voting, Taft briefly greeted people outside, including a young handicapped girl and an elderly man who said he had done everything in his power to re-elect the President. Taft waved his hat at the crowd and then visited the city Republican headquarters. He stopped briefly at the Prosperity League Club in Cincinnati to greet the crowd outside and acquaintances inside. The Business Men's Club held a reception for Taft, which began at 1 pm, and then Taft headed to his brother's house on Pike Street for a late lunch. A strange dichotomy existed in the Taft home. The President remained jovial throughout the evening, even in the face of disappointing returns. The people who monitored the results with him quickly recognized that Wilson had been elected and focused on whether Taft would poll more votes than Roosevelt. Newspapers began to report at 9:45 that Wilson had earned a majority of the electoral vote. Taft stood in the same spot where he received news of his victory four years earlier. At 11 pm, after the Republican National Committee had conceded, Taft sent Wilson a congratulatory telegram. Taft encouraged Republicans to regroup and maintain their primary principles. Throughout the evening, local friends stopped by for brief visits; many of them were intrigued by the noise made by the telegraph machines and walked into the room to watch them operate. Taft prepared to go to bed at midnight, but he stopped in the press room in the Taft house to thank the reporters for covering his campaign stops. Some of the reporters had been with him for over 1,000 miles of campaigning.  Woodrow Wilson (Democratic) Governor Wilson had almost reached the point he had envisioned while observing TR's inauguration in 1901, an event he thought at the time was a national mistake. Newspapers organized an immense poll of tens of thousands of people, and this poll pointed to a Wilson landslide. Two days before the election, the Governor's car was involved in an accident, and Wilson had a serious cut on his head that was slowly healing on election day. After breakfast, Wilson took a leisurely stroll through the white part of Princeton, greeting acquaintances. He pointed out a house where he stayed while a freshman at Princeton and mentioned that he once got a small fish bone stuck in his throat while on the porch. He was the earliest of the three main presidential nominees to cast his vote. He voted at 10:51 am at the fire engine station. After filling out his ballot, some photographers rushed forward to get a photograph of him depositing his ballot in the ballot box. The Governor jokingly pointed his cane at them and threatened to enforce the law against them for loitering around a polling place. Upon leaving the polling place, Wilson proudly told a reporter that he "felt like a school boy" seeing his name on the ballot. He said he wanted to spend the remainder of the day dictating a few letters and sitting with his wife and daughters. A young woman from New York City travelled to Princeton to give Wilson a rabbit's foot for good luck, which he accepted. Some distant relatives spent election night with him to help celebrate. Election returns poured in quickly in 1912. Wilson had hoped to retire early and was encouraged beginning with the earliest returns. As returns arrived, Wilson refused to jump to conclusions in any state. At one point, Dudley Malone, one of his earliest supporters who was monitoring the returns with the campaign staff, complained to a reporter "The Governor refuses to be elected." At 11 pm, Princeton students rang the bell in Nassau Hall, which they did every time the university won a sports event. A group of Princeton band members, students with torches, and others marched to Wilson's residence and serenaded him, so he went onto the front porch. Not being able to be seen, he stood on a chair to address the crowd. He felt a "solemn responsibility. I know that a great task lies ahead of the men associated with me and ahead of myself..." The students gave the "Locomotive" yell of their university and sang "Old Nassau." Upon his return to his house, he had received a telegram from Gov. Thomas R. Marshall congratulating him. Ellen Wilson provided a buffet luncheon just before midnight. Telegrams from Roosevelt and Taft sent to Wilson didn't make their way to his house that evening, and at 12:45 he decided it was time to retire for the night. Third Party Nominees Newspapers were remarkably silent about the third party nominees. Debs campaigned in Missouri the day before the election. Indiana had required all voters to register again in order to vote, and Debs was away campaigning during the registration period. Election day was Debs' 57th birthday, which he spent quietly at home in Terre Haute. The day after the election, Debs released a statement that Wilson's "administration will be a flat failure." His campaign won the highest vote of his four runs up to that point (900,000 votes or 6%), and in his home county he outpolled Taft. Eugene Chafin closed a 100-day campaign around the nation the day before election day; he had given 548 speeches. He voted in Tucson precinct 13. Reimer were ignored by the press. Sources: New York Times, 11/6/1912; Cincinnati Enquirer, 11/6/1912; Dayton Daily News, 11/4/1912; Sandusky Register, 11/5/1912; Akron Beacon Journal, 11/6/1912; Chillicothe Gazette, 11/5/1912; Trenton Evening Times, 11/5/1912; Boston Globe, 11/6/1912; Richmond [Indiana] Item, 11/5/1912; Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, 11/6/1912; New York Evening World, 11/7/1912; Seattle Star, 11/5/1912.
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