The Election of 1916

Wilson had won the presidency in 1912 only because the Republican party had split in two. In late 1915 he sought to broaden his support by winning over the progressives. In January 1916 he appointed Louis D. Brandeis to the Supreme Court. In addition to being an advanced progressive, Brandeis was the first Jewish Justice appointed to the Court. Wilson’s action won him many friends among people who favored fair treatment for minority groups. In July Wilson bid for the farm vote by signing the Farm Loan Act to provide low-cost loans based on agricultural credit. Shortly thereafter, he approved the Keating-Owen Child Labor Act barring goods manufactured by the labor of children Under 16 from interstate commerce, and a workers’ compensation act for federal employees. He persuaded Congress to pass the Adamson Act, establishing an eight-hour day for railroad workers, and he modified his position on the tariff by approving the creation of a tariff commission.

Each of these actions represented a sharp reversal. In 1913 Wilson had considered Brandeis too radical even for a Cabinet post. The new farm, labor, and tariff laws were all examples of the kind of “class legislation” he had refused to countenance in 1913 and 1914. Wilson was putting into effect much of the progressive platform of 1912. Although the progressive convention came out for the Republican nominee, Associate Justice Charles Evans Hughes, who had compiled a record as a progressive governor of New York, many other progressives supported Wilson.

The key issue in the campaign was American policy toward the warring powers. Wilson intended to stress preparedness, which he was now wholeheartedly supporting. However, during the Democratic convention, the delegates shook the hall with cheers whenever orators referred to the president’s success in keeping the country out of the war. One spellbinder, referring to the Sussex pledge, announced that the president had “wrung from the most militant spirit that ever brooded above a battlefield an acknowledgement of American rights and an agreement to American demands,” and the convention erupted in a demonstration that lasted more than twenty minutes. Thus “He Kept Us Out of War” became the Democratic slogan.

To his credit, Wilson made no promises. “I can’t keep the country out of war,” he told one member of his Cabinet. “Any little German lieutenant can put us into the war at any time by some calculated outrage.” His attitude undoubtedly cost him the votes of extremists on both sides, but it won the backing of thousands of moderates.

The combination of progressivism and the peace issue placed the Democrats on substantially equal terms with the Republicans. In the end, personal factors probably tipped the balance. Hughes was very stiff (Theodore Roosevelt called him a bearded Woodrow Wilson) and an ineffective speaker; he offended a number of important politicians, especially in crucial California, where he inadvertently snubbed the popular progressive governor, Hiram Johnson; and he equivocated on a number of issues. Nevertheless, on election night he appeared to have won, having carried nearly all the East and Midwest. Late returns gave Wilson California, however, and with it victory by the narrow margin of 277 to 254 in the Electoral College. He led Hughes in the popular vote, 9.1 million to 8.5 million.