March 1912

Roosevelt in Columbus (not yet stripped to the buff)

Battle has been joined between President Taft and former President Roosevelt for the Republican Party nomination.  Last month, as he was responding to the plea of progressive Republican governors to make his intentions known, Roosevelt told reporters “My hat is in the ring.  The fight is on and I am stripped to the buff.”  Addressing a constitutional convention in Columbus, Ohio, he took on a subject he knew would draw fire from the president.  In a speech he labeled "A Charter of Democracy," he advocated the recall, not only of elected officials but also of judicial decisions and, “as a last resort,” of judges who have “grown so out of touch with social needs and facts” that they are “unfit to render good service on the bench.”  He made it clear that he does not regard the traditional remedies, legislation in the case of bad decisions and impeachment in the case of bad judges, sufficient for the modern age.

The reaction to Roosevelt’s speech has been swift.  Speaking at the same venue on March 8, Taft made clear his strong opposition to recall as applied to the judicial branch of government.  Without mentioning Roosevelt by name, he said that recall of judicial decisions by popular vote “lays the axe at the foot of the tree of well-ordered freedom and subjects the guarantees of life, liberty and property without remedy to the fitful impulse of a temporary majority of an electorate.”  Roosevelt replied in a speech at Carnegie Hall on March 20, arguing that the country is “today suffering from the tyranny of minorities” and that “[t]he great fundamental issue now before the Republican Party and before our people is, are the American people fit to govern themselves?  I believe they are.  My opponents do not.”

Roosevelt’s advocacy of judicial recall has cost him the support of his long-time friend and ally, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge.  In a statement to the press, Lodge said “I am opposed to the constitutional changes advocated by Colonel Roosevelt in his recent speech in Columbus … but I cannot personally oppose him who has been my lifelong friend, and for this reason I can take no part whatever in the campaign for the political nomination.”  In response to a reporter’s question, he said “The Colonel and I have long since agreed to disagree on a number of points.”

The Secretary of War

Not all Republicans, even those who consider themselves progressive, think Taft is a conservative.  One such progressive is Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, who told a crowd in Chicago that the president is the true progressive in the race, and contrasted his policies with Roosevelt’s “fantastic radicalism.”  Meanwhile, Roosevelt has again challenged Taft to meet him in primary contests, and announced his intention to stump the country in support of his campaign.

The New Supreme Court (front row left to right: Justices Day and McKenna, Chief Justice White, Justices Holmes and Lurton; back row left to right: Justices Lamar, Hughes, Van Devanter and Pitney)

On March 13 the Senate confirmed Mahlon Pitney’s nomination to the Supreme Court by a vote of 50-26.  Taft’s five previous appointments (including the promotion of Justice Edward White to Chief Justice) were confirmed without opposition.  The unusual opposition to Pitney’s nomination came from Democrats and a few progressive Republicans.  Taft’s appointment of five new justices to the Supreme Court in a single term (not counting Justice White’s promotion to Chief Justice) is the most since the beginning of the Republic, when George Washington, starting with an empty bench, appointed eight justices in his first term.  It is perhaps appropriate that Taft should have a large role in shaping the Court.  As a former federal judge, he has taken a greater personal interest in the judiciary than any president in history.  Some suspect, indeed, that his ambition to lead the Supreme Court himself one day may not have vanished with his election to the presidency.  After Chief Justice Melville Fuller’s death in 1910, Taft appointed White, a 65 year old southern Democrat, to the post, rather than the much younger Charles Evans Hughes, a popular former Republican governor of New York whose appointment as an associate justice had just been confirmed by the Senate.  Taft’s choice of the older White over the younger Hughes may have been motivated in part by the thought that he himself might be in line for the post of Chief Justice should it become vacant in a future Republican administration.

Governor Burke

In an increasing number of states this year, convention delegates will be chosen, directly or indirectly, by primaries, the first of which was held March 19 in North Dakota.  The Democratic primary there was won by Governor John Burke, who will go to the convention as a favorite son but is known to be a supporter of Governor Wilson.  Senator LaFollette was the winner on the Republican side, despite having suspended his campaign last month.  In New York, primaries were held on March 26 in the first test of that state's new primary law.  Democrats chose delegates to their state convention, which will in turn select the state's delegates to the national convention, and where the principal concern is likely to be less the identity of the presidential nominee than the perennial fight for control of the party between Tammany Hall and upstate anti-Tammany Democrats.  In the Republican primary, in which voters selected delegates directly for the national convention, they dealt former president Roosevelt a stunning defeat in his home state: only seven of New York's 90 convention delegates will be for Roosevelt.  More primary elections are scheduled for April, beginning with Alabama and Wisconsin on April 2.

Champ Clark on the hustings

Campaign songs are hardly a new phenomenon.  Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, and “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too” are examples of successful presidential campaigns that have had rousing musical accompaniments.  Seldom, however, has the country been treated to a campaign ditty quite like this popular song, recently adopted as the campaign song of House Speaker Champ Clark (click to play):

The Missouri Dawg Song

(They Gotta Quit Kickin' My Dawg Aroun')
(sung by Byron Harlan)

*****

Henry Cabot Lodge

The general arbitration treaties with Great Britain and France, which were negotiated and submitted to the Senate last year, reflect the president’s firm belief in the efficacy of judicial-type process, even in the context of international disputes.  They ran into opposition, however, not only from Democrats but also from the president’s own party, which still controls the Senate.  The Senate ratified the treaties on March 7, but only after attaching reservations that render them little different from existing treaties.  The treaties establish a Joint High Commission of Inquiry, but as limited by the reservations they deny the Commission final power to decide whether particular disputes involving the United States are arbitrable, subjecting that decision to the Senate’s power of advice and consent.  The reservations also remove from the treaty’s scope all questions regarding immigration and the application of the Monroe Doctrine.  Almost all Senate Democrats supported the reservations, as did Republican followers of former President Roosevelt, who has been critical of the treaties from the beginning.  On this subject, Roosevelt and Lodge are in agreement.  As Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Lodge led Republican support for the reservations.

Albert Berry (right) with His Parachute

The aeroplane continues to demonstrate its potential.  On March 1, in France, Jules Vedrine broke his own speed record by flying his monoplane 101 2/3 miles in an hour.  On the same day, at the Jefferson Barracks Army Depot near St. Louis, U.S. Army Captain Albert Berry made what is believed to be the first parachute jump from an aeroplane.  After the machine had reached a level altitude of about 1,500 feet, Berry climbed out of his seat and suspended himself from a trapeze bar mounted underneath the aircraft.  The parachute, stowed in a conical container also attached to the bottom of the aeroplane, deployed behind Berry as he released himself from the bar and plunged earthward. 

U.S.S. Florida

Advancements in design and technology also continue in surface warfare.  On March 25, a new addition to the United States Navy, the U.S.S. Florida (BB-30), set a speed record for battleships by traveling 22.54 knots.  The Florida and her sister ship U.S.S. Utah (BB-31) are the new "Dreadnought" type battleships, named after the Royal Navy's H.M.S. Dreadnought, launched in 1906.  Dreadnoughts are characterized by their larger size, heavier armament, steam turbine propulsion, and more and larger guns (ten 12-inch guns in the case of the Florida).

U.S.S. Maine

An older and more famous veteran of the U.S. Navy, the U.S.S. Maine (ACR-1), whose destruction by a mysterious explosion in Havana Harbor in 1898 triggered the Spanish-American War, has finally been laid to rest.  Sometimes called a battleship, the Maine was officially classified as an armored cruiser.  On March 16 she was refloated, towed to the open sea, and sunk with appropriate ceremony.  The remains of the officers and men who went down with the ship were recovered and interred at Arlington National Cemetery on March 23.

Pascual Orozco

In Mexico, another former supporter of President Francisco Madero has mounted a revolutionary challenge to the government.  Pascual Orozco was a commander of the forces that toppled the government of Porfirio Diaz last year.  Disappointed by the new government’s failure to adopt the reforms he advocated, and perhaps even more disappointed by Madero's refusal to appoint him to an important position, Orozco declared his uprising on March 3.  President Taft has banned the shipment of war supplies to Mexico and is considering sending warships to Mexican ports to protect American citizens.

Turkish Photograph of Attack by Italian Airships

In Italy’s war with Turkey, the Italian government reports that 536 Italian soldiers have been killed and 324 are missing as of the end of February.  On March 4, in another demonstration of Italy’s naval superiority, an Italian cruiser bombarded the Arabian town of Dubab.  In the land war, a dirigible balloon was used as a weapon for the first time on March 6 when two Italian airships dropped bombs onto a Turkish camp at Zanzur.  Ten days later, Turks and Arabs attacked Italian positions in Tobruk, killing thirteen Italians and injuring seventy-three.  On the same day, back in Rome, three shots were fired at King Victor Emmanuel III as he rode through the streets.  The would-be assassin, a young anarchist, was arrested.  None of his shots found their mark.

 Damaged Shop Windows in London

English coal miners are on strike for a minimum daily wage, causing business disruptions and slowdowns throughout Britain.  Campaigners for woman suffrage have announced that they will follow the miners' example and call attention to their grievances by injuring business interests.  On March 1, they took their campaign to the streets, smashing shop windows around Trafalgar Square and along the Strand, Regent Street, Piccadilly and Oxford Street, where a number of fashionable jewelry and dry goods stores are located.  The demonstration was highly organized.  Well-dressed women arrived in cabs, from which in some cases they were assisted by the stores’ unwitting porters.  The damage was done and the women had melted into the crowds before the stores’ employees or the police were able to react.

Winston Churchill

In a speech to the House of Commons on March 18, First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill announced that British policy is to maintain 60 percent superiority over Germany in battleships and battle cruisers of the Dreadnought type.  This replaces the previous policy of ensuring that British strength matches or exceeds that of the next two largest naval powers.  Responding to the German naval plan of building three Dreadnoughts a year, Churchill proposed the construction of twenty-one new Dreadnoughts in the next six years, alternating four one year and three the next.  He said the British building programme could be reduced if Germany reduces hers, adding that removing those ships from the Royal Navy by simply not building them would be as effective from Germany's point of view as sinking them in battle, and far more economical.  Despite the unassailable logic of Churchill's argument, most observers think Germany is unlikely to be persuaded.

Amundsen and His Crew in Tasmania

Roald Amundsen appeared in Hobart, Tasmania on March 7, announcing that his expedition had succeeded in reaching the South Pole.  There has been no word of the British expedition led by Robert Falcon Scott, which set out for the Pole at about the same time.

March 1912 – Selected Sources and Recommended Reading

Contemporary Periodicals:
American Review of Reviews, April and May 1912
The Literary Digest, April 1912

New York Times, March 1912

Books and Articles:
James Chace, 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft & Debs -- the Election That Changed the Country

Randolph S. Churchill, Winston S. Churchill: Young Statesman 1901-1914
Lewis L. Gould, Four Hats in the Ring: The 1912 Election and the Birth of Modern American Politics
Lewis L. Gould, The William Howard Taft Presidency
Stephen Howarth, To Shining Sea, A History of the United States Navy

Kermit L. Hall ed., The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States

Robert K. Massie, Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War
Edmund Morris, Colonel Roosevelt
Patricia O'Toole, When Trumpets Call: Theodore Roosevelt After the White House
Henry F. Pringle, The Life and Times of William Howard Taft

February 1912

 Senator LaFollette

The campaign for the Republican nomination took a major turn this month.  On Friday, February 2, Senator Robert LaFollette, the leading progressive candidate, appeared to suffer a nervous breakdown during a speech to magazine publishers in Philadelphia.  His speech became a wild-eyed rant, in which he accused the publishers in his audience of being tools of the interests.  As the moderator tried to calm him down and his audience began to leave the room, his attacks became more violent.  The speech continued for two and a half hours and appears to have done serious harm to his public image and, of course, to his candidacy.  The following Monday his campaign office announced that his active campaign to win delegates to the convention will cease, and that his efforts will now concentrate on promoting “the thoroughgoing and definite principles which he has advocated.”

Theodore Roosevelt

LaFollette’s apparent collapse left the field open for another candidate to claim leadership of Republican progressives.  Former President Theodore Roosevelt has been the subject of intense speculation since his triumphant return from Africa on June 18, 1910 (the coincidence of the date being the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo led to references in the press to his "return from Elba").  Roosevelt has now announced his availability, if not his active candidacy, for the nomination.  Less than a week after LaFollette’s withdrawal, seven progressive Republican governors wrote to Roosevelt saying that they believed most Republicans favored his nomination and most Americans favored his election as the next president, and asked him to “declare whether, if the nomination for the presidency comes to you unsolicited and unsought, you will accept it.”  Roosevelt replied in a letter dated February 24, saying he “will accept the Republican nomination if it is tendered to me.”  He added a word in favor of primaries, expressing the hope that “so far as possible the people may be given the chance, through direct primaries, to express their preference.”  Apart from principle, Roosevelt’s support of primaries is self-serving.  Given the regulars' control of the party machinery in most states, state party conventions are likely to favor the president’s renomination.  Primaries, therefore, offer Roosevelt the most promising route to the nomination.  Despite his challenge to the president, Roosevelt insists that he remains loyal to his party.  Asked whether he will support the Republican nominee “whoever he may be,” Roosevelt replied “Of course I shall.”

The day after Roosevelt’s letter appeared in the newspapers, nine other Republican governors issued a joint statement in support of Taft’s nomination.

Meanwhile, Roosevelt has come out in favor of woman suffrage, but with important qualifications.  In an editorial this month in the Outlook, he says "I heartily believe in equality of rights as between man and woman, but also in full and emphatic recognition of the fact that normally there cannot be identity of function," adding that "the effort to ignore this patent fact is silly."  Specifically addressing the issue of suffrage, he says "I believe in woman suffrage wherever the women want it.  Where they do not want it, the suffrage should not be forced upon them."  He advocates special elections in which women would "vote ... as to whether they do or do not wish the vote as a permanent possession."  He cites as an example a recent referendum on the subject in Massachusetts, in which only women were allowed to vote.  A majority of those voting voted in favor of suffrage, but only about five percent of the eligible women voted.  In these circumstances, Roosevelt says, "those not voting should be held to have voted no."  He does not seem to have considered the possibility of letting women who want to vote do so, while letting those who don't want to vote stay home, a system that seems to work well enough when applied to the other sex.

President Taft signing the proclamation admitting the 48th state

On February 14, Arizona was admitted to the Union as the 48^th state.  The country has now filled in the last blank space on the map, extending, in the words of a recently published song, “from sea to shining sea.”

In a message to Congress on February 2, President Taft noted the rising cost of living, and advocated proposing to other nations "the appointment of an international commission to look into the cause for the high prices of the necessities of life."  He also addressed the growing militancy of labor, urging the appointment of a federal commission to make "searching inquiry into the subject of industrial relations."  While noting that "some of the remedies will lie with the separate States, or even entirely outside the sphere of Governmental activity," the President asserted that "the time is now ripe for a searching inquiry into the subject of industrial relations which shall be official, authoritative, balanced, and well-rounded, such as only the federal government can successfully undertake."

Woodrow Wilson

On February 12, in a speech in Chicago, Woodrow Wilson formally announced his candidacy for president.  His principal rival for the Democratic Party’s nomination, Speaker of the House Champ Clark, enjoys strong support among party leaders in the Midwest and West, including in his home state of Missouri.  Clark has been a long-time supporter of William Jennings Bryan but has tried to remain on good terms with all factions of the party.  Other candidates with substantial support include House Majority Leader Oscar W. Underwood of Alabama, the favorite of southern Democrats, and Governor Judson Harmon of Ohio, who is supported by northern conservatives, a faction of the party represented in the past by nominees Samuel J. Tilden, Grover Cleveland and Alton B. Parker.

 Representative Underwood

A proposed investigation of the so-called “money trust," sparked by the  recent submission of the report of the National Monetary Commission, has divided the Democrats in the House of Representatives.  The Bryan men want an all-out investigation of the banks, while the conservative Democrats, led by majority leader Underwood, are opposed.  Speaker Clark is trying to avoid antagonizing either faction.  Talk of compromise is focused on the creation of a special committee, the membership of which would be subject to negotiation.

 Representative Albert S. Burleson

The Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee have voted in their caucus to reject funding for two additional “Dreadnought” battleships requested by the Taft administration. Committee member Albert S. Burleson (Dem., Texas), defended the Democrats’ action, arguing that the United States should maintain a navy for defensive purposes only.  Further reflecting the prevailing resistance to military expenditures, the House of Representatives on February 9 adopted an amendment to the army appropriations bill reducing the number of cavalry regiments from 15 to 10.

 Chancellor Mahlon Pitney

For weeks it has been taken for granted that President Taft would appoint Kansan William C. Hook to the Supreme Court to fill the vacancy created by the death of Justice John Marshall Harlan.  Judge Hook is a respected judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, which encompasses a vast territory from Missouri to Utah and New Mexico to North Dakota.  At the last minute, however, opposition surfaced from Negro organizations, including the recently organized National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who objected to a recent Eighth Circuit decision in which Judge Hook participated that upheld the constitutionality of a “Jim Crow” law in Oklahoma.  The Negro vote, though severely restricted by local laws and customs in the South, comprises an important part of the Republican Party's support, so President Taft is sensitive to its concerns.  On February 19, therefore, he passed over Judge Hook and appointed Mahlon Pitney, Chancellor of New Jersey, to the vacant seat.

 Chief Justice White

Oregon adopted the initiative and referendum in 1902, and in 1906 Oregon voters employed it to impose a tax on telephone and telegraph companies in the state.  One of the companies challenged the initiative and referendum as a violation of Article IV, Section 4, of the United States Constitution, which guarantees the states a republican form of government.  On February 19, in a brief order signed by Chief Justice Edward D. White, the Supreme Court unanimously refused to consider the challenge, ruling that it presented a political question for Congress, not the Court, to decide.

Baden-Powell, Taft and Lord Bryce Reviewing the Boy Scouts

(Major Butt in dress uniform on the left)

On February 3, President Taft reviewed some 400 Boy Scouts from the front portico of the White House.  He was accompanied by Lieutenant General Sir Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of the Scouting movement in Great Britain, and Lord Bryce, the British Ambassador.  The Boy Scouts of America, modeled on the British organization, was founded in 1910.

 

 The 1911 Carlisle Football Team

(Jim Thorpe in the backfield on the right)

The Football Rules Committee of the National Collegiate Athletic Association has adopted major changes to the rules governing the game of football.  The Association's predecessor organization adopted major changes in 1906, including an increase from five to ten of the number of yards a team must gain (in three plays) to retain possession of the ball.  The 1906 rules also legalized the forward pass.  The forward pass has proven popular with fans and has been used effectively by coaches such as Glenn (“Pop”) Warner of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, but it has labored under a number of restrictions that reduce its effectiveness.  For example, if a pass crosses the goal line, or if it crosses the line of scrimmage less than five yards from center, possession is awarded to the other team.  The passing team also loses possession if a pass hits the ground without being touched.  The changes going into effect this year will remove these and other restrictions on the forward pass.  Other changes include shortening the field from 110 to 100 yards, adding 10-yard end zones, increasing from three to four the number of downs allowed to gain ten yards, and increasing from five to six the number of points awarded for a touchdown.  Perhaps the new rules will last longer than the old ones did.

Jumping from the Statue of Liberty

On February 2, steeplejack Frederick R. Law jumped from the torch of the Statue of Liberty and landed safely thanks to a parachute that followed him over the parapet as he leapt.  He chose the Statue of Liberty for his jump after considering and rejecting the two tallest buildings in New York, the Singer Building on lower Broadway and the Metropolitan Life Tower on Madison Square, because of the danger of interfering with traffic, and possibly causing runaway horses, on the streets below.

 

Franz Reichelt modeling his new invention

In a less successful attempt two days later, Franz Reichelt fell to his death from the Eiffel Tower in his first and only demonstration of his “parachute suit” (click to play):

Reichelt on the Eiffel Tower, newsreel cameras rolling

*****

Irish Party leader John Redmond

In Great Britain, the government has announced its plan for Irish Home Rule.  While Ireland would remain part of the British Empire, the plan proposes the creation of an Irish legislature with full power to legislate for Ireland.  It would include the power to control Irish trade and tariffs, with one important exception: there is to be free trade between Ireland and Britain.  This exception would seem to render the new legislature’s trade powers largely meaningless (goods could escape Irish tariffs by being shipped through British intermediaries) and may be unacceptable to Irish nationalists.  The plan also provides for greatly reduced Irish representation in the British Imperial Parliament, another point of possible disagreement.  Despite these potential issues, it appears almost certain that Home Rule in some form will be passed this year in the House of Commons.  On February 17, 15,000 people demonstrated in Trafalgar Square in support of Home Rule.

Support for Home Rule was the price of the Irish Party’s support of the Government last year in the battle over the Parliament Bill, which reduced the power of the House of Lords to block most legislation.  Because the Lords are strongly opposed to Home Rule, the reduction of their power was necessary, not only to pass the Liberal Government's social legislative agenda, but also to the ultimate adoption of Home Rule itself.  Before the Parliament Bill became law, the Lords could have exercised their veto to prevent Home Rule from becoming law indefinitely.  Now it can do so for only two years.  Barring unforeseen circumstances, therefore, the Irish dream of self-government for their island will become a reality in 1914.

Italian Armored Cruiser Garibaldi

The war between Italy and the Ottoman Empire continues, with military operations now ranging beyond North Africa to other parts of the Ottoman Empire that are accessible from the sea and thus exposed to Italy's superior naval power.  On February 5, an Italian fleet bombarded the Ottoman city of Hodeida on the Red Sea, and on February 24 an Italian naval force including the armored cruiser Garibaldi attacked Turkish naval vessels in Beirut, sinking several ships.  There also appears to have been extensive damage to buildings in Beirut, but Italy denies bombarding the city.  On land, the Turkish forces that control most of the Libyan interior attacked Italian defenses near the port city of Derna, but were repulsed, and at month’s end the Italian army claimed to have defeated Turkish forces near the town of Homs on the African coast.  On February 22, as the Italian Parliament reconvened, King Victor Emmanuel III issued a royal decree proclaiming the annexation of Tripoli and Cyrenaica.  At month's end, reports surfaced that Italy and Turkey may be looking to resolve their conflict through mediation. 

President Yuan Shih-Kai

There is a new government in China.  On February 12 the six-year-old Emperor Pu-Yi abdicated, ending over 250 years of rule by the Qing, or Manchu, Dynasty.   Within the week, Sun Yat-Sen requested that his rival Yuan Shih-Kai accept the post of president of the Chinese Republic, and the National Assembly followed promptly with a vote electing Yuan Shih-Kai president.  On February 27 Yuan Shih-Kai accepted the presidency, with General Li Yuan Hung, military leader of the revolutionary forces, as vice-president.

Emilio Vasquez Gomez

The situation in Mexico is dangerous and confusing, with every month seeming to bring another revolutionary challenge to Francisco Madero's government.  At the end of January, revolutionaries in Ciudad Juarez seized the city and proclaimed Emilio Vasquez Gomez, Madero's former Minister of the Interior, president.  The United States has denied the Mexican government’s request for permission to send Mexican troops through American territory to reach Juarez, and the revolutionary activity on the border has caused the United States to send additional forces to El Paso to protect American interests.



 

February 1912 – Selected Sources and Recommended Reading

Contemporary Periodicals:
American Review of Reviews, March and April 1912
Current Literature, March 1912

New York Times, February 1912

The Outlook, February 3, 1912

Books and Articles:
James Chace, 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft & Debs -- the Election That Changed the Country

Lewis L. Gould, Four Hats in the Ring: The 1912 Election and the Birth of Modern American Politics
Lewis L. Gould, The William Howard Taft Presidency
Edmund Morris, Colonel Roosevelt
Patricia O'Toole, When Trumpets Call: Theodore Roosevelt After the White House
Henry F. Pringle, The Life and Times of William Howard Taft

John Sayle Watterson, College Football: History, Spectacle, Controversy

January 1912

President Taft Signing the Proclamation

The United States increased by one on January 6 when President Taft signed a proclamation admitting New Mexico as the 47th state.  Because stars are added only on the Fourth of July, however, the American flag will continue for now to have the 46 stars it has had since Oklahoma joined the Union in 1907.  There will probably never be a 47-star flag because Arizona’s admission, already approved by Congress, is likely to take place before the Fourth.

This year President Taft has divided his annual "state of the union" message to Congress into separate sections dealing with distinct subjects.  He delivered the sections dealing with foreign affairs and trusts last month; on January 17 he delivered the section dealing with economy and efficiency in the administration of government.  As always, the message was submitted in writing and read by the clerk to a joint session of Congress.  In it, the president observed that the United States is the only major nation that operates without a budget.  Noting that the federal government spends almost $1,000,000,000 a year, he urged the adoption of an annual federal budget so that government officials and the public will have access to “a clear, well-defined statement showing in detail whether moneys appropriated have been economically spent and whether each division or office [of the federal government] has been efficiently run.”

Senator Henry Cabot Lodge

In a speaking trip through Ohio, Taft has continued to urge ratification of the arbitration treaties with Great Britain and France, which were signed and submitted to the Senate in August.  The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by Republican Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, has insisted on reservations preserving the Senate’s traditional role of advice and consent in the resolution of international disputes.  The fact that the opposition is led by a member of his own party has made the president’s position particularly difficult.  It now appears that he may have no choice but to accept the reservations and resubmit the treaties to Great Britain and France in altered form.

Inside the Aldine Club

The 1912 presidential campaign has begun in earnest.  On January 2, the New York Times reported that Roosevelt has advised Taft that he will not rule out accepting the Republican nomination if it is offered; and he is reported to have told his audience in a January 9th off-the-record speech at the Aldine Club that he will run if the nomination is “forced upon me.”

Senator Albert B. Cummins

Roosevelt is not the only Republican considered a potential candidate to replace Taft as the Republican nominee.  Senator LaFollette, who announced his candidacy in June, recently let it be known that he intends to stay in the race whether or not Roosevelt enters.  Senator Albert B. Cummins of Iowa, another progressive Republican, joined the race this month; and newly elected Michigan Governor Chase Osborn has publicly urged both Taft and LaFollette to withdraw in favor of either Roosevelt or former Senator Albert Beveridge of Indiana.  Responding to the governor’s suggestion, Taft has stated emphatically that he is in the race until it is over.  His control of the party machinery gives him the advantage in most states going into the delegate selection process. 

Some states will choose their delegates by a new system advocated by progressives: the primary election, in which voters go to the polls and either cast votes for delegates to their parties’ conventions (who may or may not be pledged to vote for a particular candidate) or simply express a preference among the candidates for the nomination.  The effect of the vote also varies, with some states providing that the delegates are bound by the result and some not.  It is unclear in any event whether a state law, or for that matter a state party committee, can dictate how a delegate casts his vote once he gets to the convention.  It will be interesting to see how the primaries affect the presidential nominating process this year.  While they will give party leaders some indication of the candidates’ electoral appeal, they will certainly not be decisive, if only because there will not be enough of them to control the convention of either party.  The first primary will be held in North Dakota on March 19 and New York on March 26; the others will be in April and May, starting with Wisconsin on April 2.

James R. Garfield

In Cleveland on January 29, Taft urged Republicans to stand together in 1912.  Among those greeting him in his home state was James R. Garfield, the son of the late president.  Garfield was Secretary of the Interior in the Roosevelt administration and has been among the progressive critics of President Taft in recent months.  It is expected that Garfield will be a strong supporter of Roosevelt should he decide to seek the Republican nomination.

 Governor Woodrow Wilson

On the Democratic side, House Speaker Champ Clark announced his candidacy for the party’s presidential nomination on January 27.  His principal rival is New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson, who has a long head start.  Wilson has been making speeches throughout the country as an acknowledged presidential candidate ever since he assumed the governorship a year ago.  Clark, however, has strong support among party leaders, especially in the Midwest.  Other leading Democrats considered strong candidates for the nomination include Oscar W. Underwood of Alabama, the majority leader of the House of Representatives, who enjoys strong support among Southern Democrats, and Ohio’s popular governor Judson Harmon.  The Democratic National Committee met in Washington, D.C., on January 8.

Colonel George Harvey

Wilson’s campaign for the presidency suffered several setbacks this month.  The first came when Harper’s Weekly, which had been carrying the legend “For President: Woodrow Wilson” on its editorial page masthead for years, suddenly stopped doing so.  It is suspected that Wilson and Colonel George Harvey, the editor of Harper’s, have had a falling out, though both Wilson and Harvey deny this.  Because Colonel Harvey is a prominent conservative voice in the Democratic Party, the parting of the ways if there is one may be due to Wilson’s recent attempts to move away from his conservative past and position himself as a progressive.

William Jennings Bryan

If he is to carry the progressive banner, however, Wilson must win the support, or at least not incur the opposition, of William Jennings Bryan, the party’s nominee in three of the last four presidential election years and still the leading progressive voice in the party.  Thus Wilson’s second setback occurred just as the Democratic National Committee was meeting in Washington, when an old letter surfaced in which Wilson is seen expressing the wish "that we could do something at once dignified and effective to knock Mr. Bryan once and for all into a cocked hat.”  That night at the Jackson Day dinner, Wilson attempted to repair the damage by paying tribute to Bryan, who was with Wilson at the head table, and proposing that they “apologize to each other that we ever suspected or antagonized one another” and that they “join hands once more” to show that they are “the friends of our country and the friends of mankind.”  Bryan appeared to accept Wilson’s gesture, but the eventual effect of the disclosure is unknown.

A third setback to Wilson’s campaign occurred earlier the same day when the National Committee failed even to take up his supporters’ proposal to support a rule change allowing the presidential nominee to be chosen by majority vote rather than the two-thirds vote that has always been required in Democratic Party conventions.  Wilson’s supporters hope for a victory on the first ballot, where they think he might win a majority of the delegate votes but not two-thirds.  The ultimate decision will lie with the convention itself, but the Committee’s refusal to consider changing the rule is viewed as a missed opportunity to remove a potential obstacle to Wilson’s nomination.

The Committee also decided, after receiving a certified check for $100,000 from a Baltimore supporter, to hold the party’s convention in that city.  It will begin June 25.  This is the first time the Democrats will have held their convention in an eastern city since 1872 (when it was also held in Baltimore).  New York was also in the running, but may have been passed up not only because its offer was less generous than Baltimore’s but also because, as the New York Times admitted, “Wall Street is situated in New York City, and, in the present temper of the Western Democracy, the party would do well to shun the contagion of that celebrated thoroughfare.”  Addressing the selection of delegates, the Committee adopted a resolution allowing direct primaries wherever they are allowed by state law, similar to the Borah resolution the Republicans rejected last month.  The result, however, is expected to be essentially the same, since few states require primaries and few if any state committees will opt for primaries where they are not required.  A proposal that the National Committee require primaries was soundly defeated.

Fighting the Equitable Building Fire

The Equitable Assurance Company Building, which has stood on Broadway just a block up from Wall Street since 1870, was destroyed by fire on January 9.  The tallest office building in the world when it was built, it was equipped with steam-powered elevators to provide access to the upper floors.  Although the building was considered fireproof, this fire apparently started in the Savarin Restaurant on the ground floor and spread quickly through the elevator shafts.  Six people died in the blaze, including Fire Department Battalion Chief William Walsh.  The fire was fought in strong winds and bitter cold that froze water from the fire hoses, coating the firemen, the sidewalks and the sides of the building with ice.  The frigid weather was part of a nationwide cold wave that took temperatures below zero in New York City and to more than 50 below in Minnesota.  After the fire was extinguished, some $385 million in cash and securities was recovered from ice-covered vaults in the rubble.

Rear Admiral Robley D. Evans

Rear Admiral Robley D. (“Fighting Bob”) Evans died this month.  An 1864 graduate of the Naval Academy, he was seriously injured leading a landing party of Marines in the assault on Fort Fisher, North Carolina, in 1865.  He won the name “Fighting Bob” as a result of his firmness in dealing with the Chilean government in an incident involving American sailors ashore in Valparaiso in 1895.  He commanded the first battleship commissioned in the U.S. Navy, U.S.S. Indiana (BB-1), and later commanded the U.S.S. Iowa (BB-4) in the Battle of Santiago, a decisive naval battle of the Spanish-American War.  In 1907 he was called out of retirement to command the Great White Fleet on the first leg of its cruise around the world.

Representative Charles A. Lindbergh

The long-awaited report of the National Monetary Commission was sent to Congress on January 8.  The Commission was established in the wake of the financial panic of 1907 to review and make recommendations regarding the American banking system.  One of the most outspoken critics of the present system is Representative Charles A. Lindbergh (Rep., Minn.), who has denounced what he calls a “money trust” that he says controls the banking system for the benefit of large Wall Street banks.  The National Monetary Commission (also called the Aldrich Commission after Nelson Aldrich, the former senator from Rhode Island who co-authored the 1908 legislation creating the Commission) recommends the establishment of a National Reserve Association as the fiscal agent of the United States Treasury.  The Association would hold a portion of the cash reserves of member banks and be charged with supporting the credit of the Treasury and the member banks.  It would also have the exclusive authority, subject to federal regulation, to issue bank notes for circulation as currency.  To prevent control of the Association by any one local interest (such as Wall Street bankers), the Association would be governed by a board comprised of representatives of each of fifteen regional districts.  Bills have been introduced in both houses of Congress to enact the Commission’s recommendations into law.

Darrow At His Arraignment

There has been another startling twist in the story of the McNamara brothers, labor union activists who pled guilty last month to dynamiting the Los Angeles Times and another building in Los Angeles.  Clarence Darrow, the lawyer who represented the brothers at trial and entered the guilty pleas on their behalf, has been indicted for jury tampering and attempted bribery of a prospective juror.  One of his investigators was arrested on similar charges shortly before the guilty pleas were entered.  Darrow, who has stoutly maintained his innocence, was freed after his arraignment on $50,000 bail.  He will be represented at his trial by prominent Los Angeles criminal defense attorney Earl Rogers.

Meanwhile, a new threat to the social order has appeared (click to play):

The Turkey Trot

New York’s Committee on Amusements and Vacation Resources of Working Girls has been concerned for some time with the problem of how best to eliminate from the city's dance halls new dances such as the “Turkey Trot” and the “Grizzly Bear,” which it calls “not dancing at all, but a series of indecent antics to the accompaniment of music.”  The Committee sends observers to functions where it suspects such activities might be taking place, and on January 4 the New York Times reported that the Committee's scrutiny has now expanded from ordinary dance halls to society cotillions, where it believes the “contagion” has spread.  The Committee is seeking the cooperation of the City's Bureau of Licenses, hoping it might declare the new dances “disorderly conduct” and revoke the license of any establishment where they are seen to be performed.

Admiral Sir Arthur Wilson

In one of his first acts as First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill has announced the creation of a Naval War Staff, charged with “the scientific and speculative study of naval strategy and preparation.” Among the reasons Churchill's predecessor Reginald McKenna was replaced as First Lord in October was his unwillingness to overrule the First Sea Lord, Sir Arthur Wilson, in his opposition to the creation of a War Staff, opposition that was overcome only by Churchill’s request for Wilson's resignation.  The new First Sea Lord is Sir Francis Bridgeman.  Implementation of the directive to create a Naval War Staff will be the primary responsibility of the new Second Sea Lord, Prince Louis of Battenberg.

Raymond Poincare

The Agadir crisis continues to roil French politics.  Premier Caillaux’s government fell on January 10 after Foreign Minister Justin de Selves stated, in response to a question posed in the Senate by former President Georges Clemenceau, that he was unable to support Caillaux’s assertion that the negotiations with Germany leading to the resolution of the crisis had not involved any secret dealings involving financiers.  The suggestion that France’s colonial interests and its international honor and prestige might have been compromised by financial considerations is apparently intolerable in the context of present-day French politics.  A new coalition government led by Raymond Poincare has assumed power in Paris.

 Jules Vedrines in His Monoplane

On January 13, French aviator Jules Vedrines set a speed record in the air, flying his Morane-Borel monoplane at Pau, France, at a speed of 142 kilometers (88 miles) per hour.

August Bebel, Founder and Leader of the German Social Democratic Party

In the German parliamentary elections held on January 12, the Socialist Democratic Party won 110 seats in the Reichstag, making it for the first time the largest party in the German legislature, more than twice the size of the second-place Centre Party.

Map of the Peking Legation Quarter

Sun Yat-Sen was inaugurated on January 2 in Nanking as the provisional president of the new “Republic of China.”  Premier Yuan Shih-Kai offered to open peace negotiations with the revolutionaries, but demanded that Sun Yat-Sen step down and allow the premier to exercise sovereign power until the forthcoming national convention.  Sun Yat-Sen, meanwhile, has appealed for recognition of the Republic, and Chinese Imperial Army generals have called for a peaceful settlement, by abdication of the emperor if necessary.  On January 16, a bomb was thrown at Yuan Shih-Kai in Peking, killing two of his guards. Reflecting increased concern about the political turmoil, the American minister has called Americans into the legation quarter in Peking.  Western powers, including the United States, have sent troops to protect the 100-mile long railway from Peking to Tientsin, Peking's outlet to the Yellow Sea.  At month's end there are reports that the Manchu Dynasty, which has ruled China since the seventeenth century, will soon surrender power.

January 1912 – Selected Sources and Recommended Reading

Contemporary Periodicals:
American Review of Reviews, February and March 1912
Current Literature, February 1912

New York Times, January 1912

Books and Articles:
James Chace, 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft & Debs -- the Election That Changed the Country

Randolph S. Churchill, Winston S. Churchill: Young Statesman 1901-1914
Lewis L. Gould, Four Hats in the Ring: The 1912 Election and the Birth of Modern American Politics
Lewis L. Gould, The William Howard Taft Presidency
Edmund Morris, Colonel Roosevelt
Patricia O'Toole, When Trumpets Call: Theodore Roosevelt After the White House
Henry F. Pringle, The Life and Times of William Howard Taft

Joseph P. Tumulty, Woodrow Wilson As I Know Him

December 31, 1911

The United States Capitol, 1911

As required by Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution, the 62nd Congress assembled in Washington on December 4, the first Monday of December.  Earlier this year, President Taft convened Congress in a special session to consider the ill-fated reciprocal trade agreement with Canada, but this is its first and only regular session before the 1912 election.  There will be a second session (dubbed the “short” or “lame duck” session) starting on the first Monday of next December, after the election.  That session will end when the newly elected 63rd Congress takes office on March 4, 1913, but unless there is another special session that Congress will not meet until the first Monday of the following December.

Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution states that the president “shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.”  It has been the custom for over a hundred years for the president to discharge this duty by sending a written message to Congress at the beginning of its annual session to be read by the clerk.  This year President Taft divided his message into several parts, each dealing with a different subject.  His first message, dealing with the trust question, arrived and was read to both houses of Congress on December 5.  His message on foreign policy was delivered on December 7.

 Congressman William Sulzer

The president’s foreign policy message this year addressed a subject at the top of Congress’s agenda, the nation’s 1832 treaty with Russia.  That treaty provides that American citizens are to be treated like all other citizens traveling abroad, but Russia refuses to permit entry of American Jews or to exempt American Jews already in Russia from the country’s harsh anti-Semitic laws.  In response to American complaints, Russia insists that this is a domestic matter with which the United States has no legitimate concern.  Although the United States itself has a Chinese Exclusion Act on the books, the Russian policy has aroused a strong political response in this country.  On the evening of December 6, New York’s Carnegie Hall was packed with people demanding support for a resolution pending in Congress urging the president to abrogate the treaty with Russia.  The speakers included Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey, Speaker of the House Champ Clark, Senator James A. O’Gorman of New York and publisher William Randolph Hearst, as well as Representative William Sulzer of New York, the sponsor of the resolution in the House.  The president, in his foreign policy message the next day, stated that he was attempting to renegotiate the treaty to more securely protect Americans’ rights and promised “a further communication on the subject” after the Christmas holidays.  Russian intransigence on the subject was clear, however, and on December 13 the House of Representatives approved the resolution with only one dissenting vote.  Senate approval appeared certain, and on December 17 Taft advised Russia that the treaty was no longer in effect.  The Senate speedily and unanimously ratified the president’s action.

Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall was again the scene of a political rally on December 12, this one called by prominent citizens including Andrew Carnegie and Joseph Choate, to express support for President Taft’s proposed arbitration treaties with Great Britain and France.  On this occasion, however, the meeting was infiltrated by hundreds of German sympathizers.  When one of the scheduled speakers, to the apparent surprise of the rally's organizers, denounced the treaties as aimed at Germany, the infiltrators rose to their feet cheering, and disrupted further proceedings by loudly interrupting speakers who attempted to speak in support of the treaties.  The president himself, who was not at the Carnegie Hall rally, had better luck a week later when he spoke forcefully in defense of the treaties at the Hotel Astor.

Senator William E. Borah

The Republican National Committee, meeting in Washington on December 12, designated Chicago as the location and June 18 as the date of the 1912 Republican Convention.  There will be 1,076 delegates, with 539 votes required to nominate a candidate for president.  The Committee’s rules stipulate that each state’s delegates are to be selected by convention, except that in states with laws that require delegates to be chosen by primary vote the state committees may determine how they are to be selected.  They may decide, in other words, whether to comply with or ignore the state law.  The Committee rejected a rule proposed by Senator William E. Borah that would have allowed state committees in every state to choose delegates by primaries rather than conventions.  This outcome is seen as a clear victory for the Taft forces and a defeat for those who would prefer another candidate, such as former President Theodore Roosevelt or Senator Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin.  The Taft forces on the Committee have been strengthened, unfairly some say, by their control of the state committees in the southern states, where memories of the Civil War and Reconstruction ensure that the Republican Party remains a decided minority.  Southern Republicans seem resigned to their minority status (the "Solid South" has voted Democratic in every election since the end of Reconstruction in 1877), but they are a force to be reckoned with in party affairs.  A northern Republican said of them, “They don’t want any more Republicans down there.  So long as they have enough to fill the [federal patronage] offices and man the machine that is all they are after.”  Progressives are frustrated.  After the Borah proposal was rejected, a spokesman for the LaFollette campaign charged the Committee with “insolent contempt” for the laws of the states that provide for primaries.  The committee’s next meeting will be in Chicago a few days before the convention.  Although Roosevelt continues to deny that he is a candidate for the nomination, his availability if called is increasingly taken for granted.

 Booker T. Washington

Early in Roosevelt's presidency, he created a firestorm of controversy when he invited Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House.  This was the first time such an invitation had ever been extended to a member of the Negro race, and it has not been repeated.  Because of widespread disenfranchisement of Negroes in southern states (where most of them live), no Negroes have been elected to Congress in recent years.  Representative George H. White (Rep., N.C.), who was defeated in 1900 after a successful campaign by North Carolina Democrats to deny the vote to Negroes in that state, was the last of his race to serve in Congress.

Meanwhile, there has been a small but potentially significant movement of Negro Americans away from the South and into big cities of the North.  On December 1, the New York Times carried a front page story with the headline “Invasion of Negroes Cuts Harlem Values.”  The article reported the loss of real estate values due to the movement of Negroes into areas of Harlem “which hitherto have been free of colored people” and the formation by white property owners of restrictive associations designed to “check the encroachment.”  The president of one of the associations said he believed the encroachment was part of a plan by the New York Central Railroad to drive down property values to facilitate the purchase of land for the construction of a railroad tunnel under Manhattan and the Harlem River to Long Island.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

One of the greatest tragedies in New York City’s history occurred earlier this year when a fire broke out in the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, a garment factory on the eighth, ninth and tenth floors of a building at the corner of Washington Place and Greene Street, one block east of Washington Square.  The doors to the stairwells and exits were locked, trapping hundreds of young women workers.  Over a hundred died, many of them leaping to their deaths on the sidewalks below before the eyes of horrified onlookers.  The owners of the company were indicted on charges of manslaughter.  The trial took place this month, and ended with a verdict of not guilty.  Observers attribute the surprising result in part to the trial judge’s instructions to the jury, which required them to find beyond a reasonable doubt that the owners knew the doors were locked at the time of the fire, and in part to the cross-examination of a key prosecution witness by defense attorney Max Steuer, who damaged the girl’s credibility by asking her to repeat her story several times, which she did using many of the same words each time, suggesting that she had been told what to say.  The jurors left the courthouse under police protection.

The Los Angeles Times After the Bombing

Another headline trial ended this month in Los Angeles with surprise guilty pleas from the McNamara brothers, labor activists and members of the International Association of Bridge & Structural Ironworkers.  James McNamara pled guilty to the dynamiting of the Los Angeles Times building, which started a fire that killed 21 people and injured over a hundred.  His brother John, the union’s secretary-treasurer, pled guilty to bombing the Llewellyn Iron Works, a local iron manufacturing plant.  Both bombings were apparently part of the union’s attempt to organize the iron workers in the Los Angeles area, an effort vigorously opposed by the Times and its proprietor Harrison Grey Otis.  James was sentenced to life imprisonment and John to fifteen years.  After the sentencing, it was announced that a federal grand jury would investigate the full scope of the conspiracy.  The labor movement is divided, having strongly supported the McNamaras prior to the trial and funded their defense.  The nation's largest labor union, Samuel Gompers' American Federation of Labor, has issued a statement expressing satisfaction that “the culprits have been punished for their crime.”  Clarence Darrow, the McNamaras’ defense attorney, said he advised them to change their plea to guilty because the evidence against them “presented a stone wall.”  The guilty plea came in the wake of the recent arrest of one of the defendants’ investigators for attempting to bribe a prospective juror.  The week after the guilty pleas were entered, Job Harriman, the Socialist candidate for mayor of Los Angeles who had assisted Darrow in the McNamaras' defense, was defeated by 36,000 votes in an election in which some 70,000 women took advantage of their new right to vote.

The Victor Talking Machine Company

1911 has been a good year for popular music.  Americans are singing “Let Me Call You Sweetheart,” “Down by the Old Mill Stream,” “I Want a Girl (Just like the Girl Who Married Dear Old Dad),” and “Put Your Arms around Me, Honey.”  Sheet music sales are still the principal measure of a song's popularity, but thanks to advances in recording technology, it is now possible for those who have the right equipment to listen to professional performances at home.

 Irving Berlin

The most popular song of the year was “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” written by a young Tin Pan Alley songsmith named Irving Berlin (click to play):

Alexander's Ragtime Band
(sung by Collins and Harlan)

The nation's fascination with flight is reflected in another song’s popularity this year (click to play):

Come, Josephine, In My Flying Machine
(sung by Ada Jones and Billy Murray)

The public's fascination has been focused since September on the transcontinental flight of Calbraith P. Rodgers, who reached Pasadena in November and continued this month to the Pacific Ocean.  On December 10, still recovering from his recent injuries, he piloted his Vin Fiz Flyer to the beach at Santa Monica and dipped its wheels in the surf as thousands of onlookers cheered.  Because of the many repairs it had undergone since leaving New York, very little of the original Flyer remained.

Emiliano Zapata

General Bernardo Reyes, back in Mexico after his arrest last month in San Antonio, raised the flag of rebellion in his home state of Leon.  Following a brief skirmish in Burgos, he surrendered to federal authorities, saying "I called on the people and the army, and they did not respond, so I must give up."  He is now imprisoned in Mexico City.  The main threat to President Madero's rule now appears to be the guerrilla forces led by Emiliano Zapata, operating in southern Mexico.

Delhi Durbar

For the first time since the crusades, a reigning British monarch has left Europe.  King George V and Queen Mary are in India, where on December 12 they were installed as Emperor and Empress at the Delhi Durbar.  Over 500 Indian princes attended and paid homage as the King-Emperor reviewed a grand parade of British and Indian troops.  During the ceremonies, it was announced that the capital of India is to be moved from Calcutta to Delhi, the old capital of the Mughal Empire.

Andrew Bonar Law

Meanwhile, there has been activity back home in the British Parliament.  In the House of Commons, Conservative (Unionist) party leader Andrew Bonar Law has announced, to no one's surprise, that his party will oppose the Irish Home Rule Bill, which the Liberals under Prime Minister Herbert Asquith have promised to enact in 1912.  Chancellor of the Exchequer Lloyd George’s Insurance Bill, providing government-funded insurance for the sick and unemployed, became law when it passed its third reading in the House of Lords on December 15.

The House of Lords has rejected the Naval Prize Bill, effectively killing legislation that would have made possible Britain’s participation in the Declaration of London.  The Declaration was the product of the London Naval Conference, which was called by Great Britain and attended by major maritime powers including Germany and the United States in 1908-09.  The Declaration outlined a set of agreed principles of international law regarding neutral rights in wartime, expanding those rights in some respects.  For example, it limited the definition of contraband (goods that could be seized if discovered aboard a neutral vessel en route to the enemy) by adopting a “free list” and distinguishing between absolute and conditional contraband.  It also limited the doctrine of “continuous voyage” (contraband aboard a neutral vessel en route to a neutral port may be seized if it is eventually bound for an enemy port) to absolute contraband (war material such as weapons and ammunition); and it restated the old rule against "distant blockades" (those extending beyond the ports and coasts of the enemy).  Great Britain's repudiation of an agreement it sponsored less than three years ago may seem surprising, but may simply reflect a changed international landscape.  In 1909 Britain regarded itself as a likely neutral in any future war; now it sees itself as a possible belligerent, and as such less interested in protecting neutral rights on the high seas given its dominant naval power.  Whatever the reason, because the Declaration provides that it is effective only if ratified by all signatories, Great Britain's rejection means it will have no legal effect in the event of a future war.

Justin de Selves

The Morocco (Agadir) crisis, though formally resolved by agreement last month, continues to dominate the politics of France and Germany.  On December 14, French Foreign Minister Justin de Selves in a speech to the Chamber of Deputies reviewed the French government's actions in the crisis.  He stated that Germany had been conciliatory in the negotiations and defended the French government against charges that it should not have agreed to cede French territory in Africa as part of the settlement.  The Chamber of Deputies ratified the agreement on December 20.

Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg

In Germany, the Reichstag was dissolved on December 8 at the expiration of its regular five-year term.  The elections, set for January 12, will be conducted in an atmosphere of lingering hostility toward Great Britain and France in the wake of Germany's perceived humiliation in the Morocco crisis.  Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg will continue as Chancellor, a position that is filled by appointment of the emperor.

 Enver Bey

In North Africa, neither side has made much progress in the war between Italy and the Ottoman Empire.  With its naval presence in the adjacent seas and some 50,000 troops ashore, Italy controls most of the Libyan coast, while Turkey, because of its relatively weak navy and its inability to move troops overland through British-controlled Egypt, has been unable to reinforce its forces there.  Still, Arab and Turkish forces control most of the interior, and guerrilla resistance is strong on the outskirts of the coastal cities.  The Turkish resistance has been organized and led by Enver Bey and Mustafa Kemal, members of the "Young Turks" party that recently came to power in Constantinople.

Morgan Shuster

November ended with Russia’s ultimatum to Persia demanding that William Morgan Shuster, the American hired by Persia as its Treasurer-General, be dismissed for being insufficiently sensitive to Russian interests in the country.  On December 1, the Majlis rejected the ultimatum, and Russian troops already stationed in northern Persia marched on the capital.  In an address to the House of Commons on December 14, British Foreign Minister Sir Edward Grey said that the Anglo-Russian agreement dividing most of Persia into Russian and British spheres of influence was not intended to guarantee the country's independence.  He stated that Britain did not object to Russia’s ultimatum and agreed that Shuster should be removed.  On December 25, bowing to superior diplomatic and military pressure, Persia notified Shuster of his dismissal and declared martial law in Tehran to forestall popular unrest.

Sun Yat-Sen

In China, an armistice has been declared between government and revolutionary forces.  On December 28, revolutionary leader Sun Yat-Sen was selected by the revolutionary forces as president of the "Republic of China," and Premier Yuan Shi-kai announced the emperor's assent to a national convention to decide China's future form of government.  Meanwhile, the Chinese provinces of Mongolia and Turkestan have taken advantage of the government's weakness to declare their independence.  They are likely to become, in effect, Russian protectorates.

December 1911 – Selected Sources and Recommended Reading

Contemporary Periodicals:
American Review of Reviews, January and February 1912
Current Literature, January 1912

New York Times, December 1911

Books and Articles:
James Chace, 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft & Debs -- the Election That Changed the Country
Patrick Devlin, Too Proud to Fight: Woodrow Wilson's Neutrality
Lewis L. Gould, Four Hats in the Ring: The 1912 Election and the Birth of Modern American Politics
Lewis L. Gould, The William Howard Taft Presidency
Sherwood Harris, Coast to Coast in 12 Crashes, American Heritage, October 1964

Edmund Morris, Colonel Roosevelt
Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex
Patricia O'Toole, When Trumpets Call: Theodore Roosevelt After the White House
Michael Perman, Struggle for Mastery: Disfranchisement in the South 1888-1908

Henry F. Pringle, The Life and Times of William Howard Taft