The return this period and became a subject of national agitation. Women were given the vote first by Wyoming in 1890, then by Colorado in 1893, by Utah and Idaho in 1896, by Washington in 1910, and within the next four years by California, Arizona, Kansas, Oregon, Illinois, Nevada, and Montana. During the political crisis of Taft's administration, Roosevelt was absent from the United States, engaged in a hunting trip in Africa. When he returned in June, 1910, of Roosevelt the whole country was eager to know what he would have to say about Taft's stewardship. Many of Roosevelt's warmest personal friends had split with the president, the spirit of reform was rampant in the West, and there seemed to be a trend toward the Democratic party. A few weeks after his return Roosevelt plunged into the New York fight between the Hughes and Barnes wings of the Republican party, defeated Vice-President Sherman for the chairmanship of the State convention, and secured the nomination of Stimson for governor. The defeat of the latter in November was hailed as the "elimination" of Roosevelt, but he was not to be so easily disposed of. On August 31, in a speech at Osawatomie, Kansas, he laid down a new political creed which he named the "New Nationalism." In this address he embraced the whole Western program: Federal regulation of trusts, a graduated income tax, tariff revision, labor legislation, direct primaries, and the recall not only of administrative officers, but of judicial decisions. In February, 1912, in an address before the constitutional convention of Ohio he came out strongly for the intiative, referendum, and recall. Organization of the In January, 1912, a group of "Insurgents" met at the house of Senator La Follette in WashingProgressive ton and organized the National Progressive ReRepublicans publican League. A second meeting of this group was held in the office of Senator Bourne in April. They assured La Follette of support if he would become a candi date for the presidency. In July he began an active campaign, and in October a national conference of Progressive Republicans at Chicago indorsed him, although Pinchot, Garfield, and other friends of Roosevelt held aloof from the La Follette movement. In February, 1912, seven Republican governors united in a letter to Roosevelt urging him to become a candidate for the Republican nomination. He replied, February 24, that he would accept the nomination if tendered, and expressed a desire to let the people decide the matter in direct primaries. He immediately began an active campaign for delegates to the Republican National Convention and the fight between himself and Taft, who expected the nomination, became extremely bitter. Roosevelt exclaimed, "My hat is in the ring," and showed every intention of waging the fight to a finish. The cam 1912 As the Republican machine stood by Taft he had a safe majority of the delegates that came to the Chicago convention, though Roosevelt carried the States in which primaries were held and secured over 400 paign of delegates. In addition, the latter contested on various pretexts the seats of 250 Taft delegates, thus claiming a majority of the convention. The national committee refused to recognize these claims and Taft was renominated. Roosevelt denounced this action as "theft," addressed a mass convention of his followers, and sent them home to organize a new party. The Democratic convention met in Baltimore July 1. The principal candidates for the nomination were Speaker Clark, Chairman Underwood of the Ways and Means Committee, Governor Harman of Ohio, and Woodrow Wilson, who had resigned the presidency of Princeton University to become governor of New Jersey. On a number of ballots Clark received a majority and his nomination seemed a question of time, but the Wilson followers would not give up the fight, and Bryan, who regarded Clark as the candidate of the Democratic machines in the Eastern States, finally came out openly for Wilson, who was nominated on the forty-sixth ballot with Governor Thomas Marshall of Indiana for vice-president. Early in August Roosevelt's followers met in Chicago and organized the National Progressive party. The movement attracted many social reformers and free lances, but the number of political leaders in attendance was significantly small. Roosevelt was nominated amid great enthusiasm, and Governor Hiram Johnson of California was placed on the ticket as candidate for vicepresident. Roosevelt conducted a vigorous campaign, but his attack was directed against Taft rather than against Wilson. The antagonism between Republicans and Progressives became exceedingly bitter. Although Wilson's popular vote was about a million less than the combined Republican and Progressive votes, he received 435 electoral votes to Roosevelt's 81 and Taft's 15. Woodrow It was some months after the inauguration of Wilson before the politicians began to comprehend the new type of man whom the people had called to the presidential chair. They readily admitted his intellectual force and his extraordinary gifts as a writer and speaker, but these powers did not convince them of his fitness for the presidency. What they could not understand was his grasp of the details of political organization, of the game of politics as actually played, and above all his sympathetic interpretation of the popular will, and his use of publicity as a weapon of coercion. Although Roosevelt had developed latent presidential powers to a striking extent, even he had failed to realize the full possibilities of the office. Wilson's belief in presidential initiative and party leadership, based on principle and derived from a profound study of English as well as of American politics, was more consistently exercised. He broke the precedents of a hundred years, disconcerted the politicians, and astonished but pleased the people by going before Congress and personally urging legislation on important matters. No president had ever been so successful in forcing the hand of Congress and compelling that body to enact into law party pledges and popular demands. President Wilson called Congress to meet in extra session in April, 1913, and appeared before the two houses to urge in person the revision of the tariff to which the Constructive platform had pledged the party. The Under- legislation wood Act, which became law October 3, 1913, was a revision downward of the existing tariff and was framed with a view to encouraging rather than restricting foreign trade. The Federal Reserve Act of December 23, 1913, radically revised the financial system which had grown up under the National Banking Act of 1863. Its object was to decentralize credits by establishing reserve banks in convenient centers throughout the country and thus preventing the accumulation of reserve currency in the New York banks. It has made the currency more elastic and greatly diminished the danger of financial panics to which the old system frequently gave rise. In January, 1914, the president again appeared before Congress and proposed anti-trust legislation. He suggested a clearer definition of illegal practices than was provided by the somewhat vague and general language of the Sherman Act of 1890. He also proposed a trade commission with power to investigate and prevent illegal practices and interlocking directorates. These proposals were debated for months but finally embodied in the Federal Trade Commission and Clayton Anti-Trust bills which were passed in October, 1914. Congress then adjourned, having been in almost continuous session for eighteen months and having passed measures of more far-reaching importance than any Congress since the Civil War. AntiJapanese legislature in California In foreign affairs President Wilson had from the first exceedingly difficult problems to face. His administration was scarcely under way when the attention of the country was once more drawn to the anti-Japanese agitation in California. This time the State legislature proposed to deny to aliens who were ineligible to American citizenship the right to acquire agricultural land. The president sent Secretary Bryan to California to urge moderation upon the legislators. His mission was not wholly successful. The act as finally passed safeguarded the treaty rights of aliens, but as the Japanese treaty did not specifically cover the point in question, the Japanese were left without redress. The Panama tolls The dispute with England over the Panama Tolls Act was another question which the president had to handle with care. The British government claimed that the exemption of American vessels engaged in the question coastwise trade from the payment of tolls was a violation of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty. The president believed that the British interpretation of the treaty was correct and he had the difficult task of having to persuade Congress to repeal the exemption clause of the Tolls Act. This was done June 15, 1914. Mexican question In May, 1911, Porfirio Diaz, who had been president of Mexico since 1884, was forced to retire, and Francisco Madero, the leader of the revolt, was elected president. His efforts to improve the condition of the native race aroused factional opposition and on February 18, 1913, he was seized and imprisoned as the result of a conspiracy formed by one of his generals, Victoriano Huerta, who forthwith proclaimed himself dictator. Four days later Madero was murdered while in the custody of Huerta's troops. Henry Lane Wilson, the American Ambassador, |