Christ or Darwin? The 1916 Presidential Election
“I believe that it is this election in which the Christian ideals of this nation shall be put to the test; shall we surrender to the naked cynicism of the jungle, or remain in the abode of civilization? Shall we continue in the task of building a just order for worker, farmer, and merchantman, or shall we descend to the violence of tooth and claw? I refuse to submit to the teaching that man’s inhumanity to man must be the natural course of things; I refuse to bow my head at the altar of Moloch and send American boys to die for English interests and Wall Street coin.
My opponent wants you to believe that the essential interests of this nation can only be served by having our government act as the insurance agent of the Wall Street Banker. It is true that Britain has taken American loans; but I will not allow American lives to serve as the collateral on loans extended by reckless financiers. If a man wishes to place a bet, he may do so without my compunction. If he asks me to make good his loss afterwards with the money of my neighbor, I will take him to be either making a rather poor joke or to be a genuine scoundrel.”
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-Williams Jennings Bryan addressing a crowd in Cleveland, Ohio on September 2nd, 1916.
“It has not been and never will be the position of this campaign that we must go to war with Germany. This baseless calumny from the President is advanced solely to distract attention from his own failures. Is this nation stronger than it was when President Bryan was elected? The death of American soldiers on American territory, attacked by a petty Mexican warlord, gives us an important indication about the efficacy of Bryan’s weak-kneed diplomacy. The spineless groveling of this nation in response to Germany’s illegal submarine warfare and its continuation of such warfare gives us another. And what of the President’s decision to retreat from territories paid for with American blood, including my own? Does he believe he has the right to unilaterally revoke that which was won through the toil of American soldiers?
I am as Christian a man as any. I have attended church my entire life. The true Christian is not just the hearer or the speaker of the word, but also its doer. My opponent might drape his speeches in fine oratory and subtle metaphor, but the essence of his message can be readily determined:in the manner as a medieval pope, he has the right to decide who belongs in the elect and who must be consigned to the damned. This is not the spirit of Christianity as I know it, and it is certainly not the broad-minded spirit of this nation. The Christianity that I know does not counsel haughty condemnation of the world but encourages active engagement with it; it does not call to tolerate and bargain with evil, but to confront it straightforwardly, without unmanly quivering about the cost of doing so.”
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-Theodore Roosevelt speaking to supporters at a campaign rally in San Francisco, California on September 6th, 1914.
The 1916 Presidential Election was one of the closest and most vicious in American history. It is also one of the most frequently discussed and widely documented, with several European and American films portraying the hectic and fraught election. In both America and Britain, it has become a popular subject for “Alternate history”, with many believing that it was Bryan’s victory in 1916 which led to the so-called “loss of Europe”.
By 1916, Bryan and his supporters had successfully side-lined the conservative, “Bourbon” element of the Democratic Party, and there was therefore little question of his renomination. In the Republican Party, the fear of Roosevelt mounting another third party bid and the desire to defeat Bryan had been sufficient to forge an at least temporary pact between the business wing and Roosevelt. Consequently, the Presidential “campaign” had begun in earnest long before the conventions met and formally nominated the candidates. This led to a campaign that was significantly longer than normal.
Despite each candidates’ attempts to differentiate themselves from their opponent on domestic policy, the average voter could see little daylight between the two candidates. Roosevelt repeatedly refused to offer substantive criticism of Bryan’s domestic legislation, much of which was already in Roosevelt’s 1912 New Nationalism platform. Instead, much to the chagrin of Republican donors, he focused on the specifics of policy implementation, arguing that his administration would be more competent in actually running the economy. While this argument was widely accepted by Roosevelt’s own voters, and even by some of Bryan’s, it won him relatively little support. Bryan, meanwhile, attempted to attack Roosevelt’s plans for economic cartelization and planning, arguing that the former President planned to give control over the economy to Rockefeller and Morgan Stanley. These arguments, too, did not sway many actual voters outside of Bryan’s own base: for many who remembered Roosevelt’s trust-busting initiatives, the attacks seemed somewhat absurd.
Mid-way into the campaign, both candidates began spending increased time discussing foreign policy, and what for lack of a better term might be called the personal character of their opponents. Roosevelt tried to paint Bryan as a backwoods, country bumpkin out of place in the modern world and too illiterate and inexperienced in Washington politics to run an actual presidential administration. In return, Bryan’s campaign sought to portray Roosevelt as both a distant, out-of-touch elite and as a narcissist too enamored with himself to properly govern the country. The former did not find much resonance with voters, though the latter stuck a good deal more.
Roosevelt could not directly attack Bryan for keeping America out of the war, since the majority of voters did not support America entering the conflict. Bryan’s success in negotiating for the end of unrestricted submarine warfare - despite repeated charges from Roosevelt that it continued in one form or another - also closed off another line of attack. Instead, Roosevelt had to critique Bryan’s “Pro-German” diplomacy. In this, he found ready ears from many voters of Anglo-Saxon descent across the Mid-Atlantic and New England who felt that Bryan had taken an overly harsh line on England. He was also able to land blows on the Mexican Revolution, particularly after a series of raids by Pancho Villa’s soldiers led to the deaths of over 50 American troops in New Mexico.
Throughout the campaign, Theodore Roosevelt was considered the clear favorite. His campaign was financed by both Wall Street and the largest American industrial firms, and received support from a number of dissident conservative Democrats. The Republicans were still the default national party in the country, and held edges in voter registration in almost all of the key states. Furthermore, in the wake of a series of leaks which disclosed government funding of Villa early in Bryan’s term, his popularity ratings began to plummet.
Bryan’s oratorical abilities, however, as well as his laser-focus on Roosevelt’s past statements in support of American intervention, had the effect of making the election a referendum on American entry into the war. This was a referendum that Roosevelt would not win. Despite his insistence that he did not intend to bring America into the conflict, his consistently bellicose rhetoric and his history of private meetings with British diplomatic staff made it easy for the Democrats to pin a pro-war position to him.
On November 7, voters went to the polls. A little over 74% of eligible voters participated in the election, giving it the highest voter turnout since Bryan ran for president 20 years ago against William Mckinley. Roosevelt went to bed that night feeling he had won the campaign: The World, The Sun, the New York Times, and Chicago Tribune had erroneously called a series of Western states for Roosevelt. By Wednesday evening, it was clear that this picture was false. Bryan had won almost all of the Western states and secured 249 electoral votes out of the 266 needed to win. The uncalled states were New Hampshire, Minnesota, North Dakota, West Virginia, and Missouri. On Thursday, Democrats declared victory in Minnesota and Missouri, prompting Roosevelt to make an official concession speech.
In the final tally, Bryan won 276 electoral votes to Roosevelt’s 255. Despite the relatively close electoral college result, Bryan won the popular vote by a bit under five points, and did better than expected in states with a strong organized labor presence, such as Illinois, Michigan, and New York. It was in the Senate and the House that Bryan suffered the largest setbacks, as Democrats lost three senate seats and 49 house seats, substantially increasing Bryan’s dependence on progressive republicans to pass legislation.
Roosevelt’s loss and the Republican failure to retake the House and Senate quickly prompted recriminations in the Republican party. In concert with more moderate progressives unaligned with Roosevelt, the business wing forced out the “two-time loser” Roosevelt and began to prepare for the long war against Bryan. This was made easier by the growing unpopularity of both Roosevelt and Bryan, both of whom had their images and reputations sullied by the relentlessly negative campaign. Despite growing evidence of wariness toward his agenda, Bryan himself felt vindicated by the “miraculous upset”, and swore that he would use the “new popular mandate” he had received to take on the money power “Straight-on, without delay, compunction, or hesitation”. It would be the beginning of one of the most polarized and troubled half-decades in American history.
Electoral Map and Table of Results
| Candidate | EC | Popular Vote | Popular Vote Pct | States Carried |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| William J. Bryan | 276 | 11,290,759 | 50.8 | 30 |
| Theodore Roosevelt | 255 | 10,246,142 | 46.1 | 18 |
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