Although Roosevelt had selected William H. Taft to be his successor, TR became increasingly displeased with Taft’s policies, which were anti-reform, anti-conservation and pro-big business. He also felt that Taft was under the influence of the political establishment, which Roosevelt saw as corrupt and which had opposed virtually all of the progressive measures he had advocated as president. TR’s approaches to Taft were unavailing, and by 1911 he had determined to contest the sitting President’s renomination. He entered the primaries in 1912 and overwhelmingly won them, with Taft even losing his home state of Ohio. Thus, entering the 1912 Republican National Convention, he was clearly the people’s choice. However, the majority of the delegates were machine men controlled by pro-Taft conservatives. Roosevelt showed up at the convention in person, and there elaborated his reform platform and attacked Taft’s bossism and perfidy. It was clear that Taft would carry the convention. Roosevelt, who had threatened to leave a Republican Party that denied him the presidential nomination, now bolted, announcing to his supporters that he wished them to wash their hands of a corrupt convention and follow him into a new political organization.
Thus was formed the Progressive Party, which duly nominated Roosevelt as its 1912 standard bearer. TR’s philosophy for the Progressive Party was based on belief in a strong government to regulate industry and protect the middle and working classes. The party’s platform called for women’s suffrage, social welfare and child protection legislation, conservation, workers’ compensation, laws enabling labor to strike, farm relief, required health insurance, new inheritance and income taxes, and improvement of inland waterways. In the election, Roosevelt had the satisfaction of outpolling Taft in both the popular vote and electoral vote, but the split engendered in the Republican vote helped Woodrow Wilson to win the presidency.
After the 1912 loss, the Republican Party sought to bring Roosevelt’s supporters back into the fold. TR saw his mission as the upholding of the Progressive Party’s ideals even as he sought to discourage the splintering of the party itself. Here, just three months after the election, he inspires a Progressive leader with the idealism that is at the core of the Progressive movement, reminding him that it is the true heir of Lincoln.
Typed Letter Signed on his The Outlook letterhead, New York, February 14, 1913, to Henry M. Wallace, a Michigan Progressive Party leader. “...The Progressive Party stands for principles, not men. We have in our ranks very many ex-Democrats just as we have very many ex-Republicans. Our loyalty is due to both. The present Republican Party is under the absolute control of the men who stole from the rank and file of the Republican Party last June their right to their own choice for President, when Mr. Taft was fraudulently nominated; and he and his supporters Messrs. Barnes, Penrose, Guggenheim, Lorimer and company have no claim to the support of any honest man. The men who follow and support these men can have nothing in common with our plans and ideas of government. The Progressive Party was formed on principles which we believe to be eternal, which will live long after men of this generation have been gathered to their fathers. We are the spiritual heirs of Abraham Lincoln. The feat accomplished last election was an extraordinary feat. It is necessary to continue with the organization and to make a clear cut fight against both of the old party machines... Wherever the Republican Party has had the opportunity since the election, as in Maine and Massachusetts, it has put in office reactionaries, men of the old machine, men committed to the system of bossism in politics and privilege in business...these men showed that they are still committed to the practice of utter political dishonesty, and to the breaking down of the power of the people in favor of the bosses. We are fighting for great principles, and we are also fighting for honest citizenship against dishonesty in citizenship. We have a right to hope that Michigan will come to the front on this issue...”
The Progressive Party did not hold together and faded into history. However, it made a major mark, as most of its programs were eventually to find their way into common acceptance and practice.