Theodore Roosevelt Works with Fellow Progressives to Set the Party’s 1913-14 Agenda

William Draper Lewis was for decades Dean of the University of Pennsylvania. During his deanship, Lewis’s attention was highly diverted by the politics of the Progressive movement. Advisor and confidant to Theodore Roosevelt; in fact, Lewis chaired the platform committee for Roosevelt’s failed run for president on the Bull Moose ticket in 1912. In his most politically impassioned maneuver, Lewis ran for Pennsylvania governor in 1914 on a straight Progressive platform, but was defeated.

William Hinebaugh was chairman of the Republican Party in Illinois, but switched to the [Progressive] Bull Moose Party in 1912 when his friend, Theodore Roosevelt, split with the Republican Party. It was on the Progressive Party ticket that Hinebaugh was elected to the 63rd U.S. Congress from the 12th Illinois District, where he served one term, 1913-1915. TR saw him as a leader as the party began to set and implement its 1913-14 agenda.

Typed letter signed, on his Outlook letterhead, New York, March 27, 1913, to William Draper Lewis. “Judge Hinebaugh is one of the Progressive members of Congress, and I think will be a leader in our little group at Washington. I have asked him to get into touch with you so as to get hold of the legislation which ought to be introduced by our National representatives in Washington. May I commend him to your courtesy and ask your aid for him?”