Theodore Roosevelt ran for President in 1904…

The Big Surprise

…but the big surprise was that he was already President.

He had planned to run for POTUS in ’04 some years back. He may have dreamed about running in ’04 a dozen years earlier when he was too young for the position. But the ’04 year was definitely on his youthful agenda.

Meanwhile, as surprises go, with “many a slip,” TR was coerced into the Vice Presidential spot in 1900, following the sudden death of William McKinley’s Vice President Garret Hobart several months earlier. McKinley and Hobart had gotten on extremely well, and had he lived, Hobart would surely have been on the ticket again.

In addition, following the mercifully short War with Spain in 1898, TR, the Colonel of the now legendary Rough Riders, a volunteer unit, had become a national hero. Barely 40, he was elected (with trepidation) as NY’s Republican Governor. The trepidation was real: TR was a bully fellow, but not one to be bullied. The political bosses of NY, while they liked him personally, knew he was a maverick and a political pain. They found the perfect solution: kick him upstairs to a then-toothless role as VPOTUS, and he would be out of everyone’s way.

So he was nominated, and they won. McKinley was very popular, too. Except with Leon Czolgosz, an out-of-work laborer and anarchist, who pumped a couple of bullets into his chest. A week later, Theodore Roosevelt, just 42, was now President.

The Popular TR

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) was the perfect president for the new century: young, ebullient, and with tremendous personal appeal. He also had a gift for publicity, and enjoyed and welcomed journalists. He was always newsworthy, and his young family helped provide the up-front-and-personals for the papers.

Now there was no question who would be the ‘o4 Republican nominee. He was the FIRST “accidental” VP-turned-POTUS” to be nominated for a term of his own. (Four previous holders of that position had all been denied: John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, and Chester A. Arthur).

The big problem was who would be the Democratic candidate. Nobody wanted to run.

The Bryan Spoiler

William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925) was two years younger than TR, and had already run for President TWICE. He lost heavily each time. Now, at only 44, he was at a prime age to try again. His loyal supporters loved him and his populist platform, which leaned heavily toward easing “social” farm and labor conditions, as opposed to the conventional “business-as-usual” interests. In 1904, easing social conditions was a) newfangled, revolutionary and suspect, and b) still in its infancy with only Bryan holding the reins. The conservative Democrats, like Grover Cleveland, were very wary.

WJB was a spellbinder of reasonable, but somewhat narrow and pious thinking. An attorney by discipline, he had relinquished the law early on to devote himself to journalism and politics. And oratory, at which he excelled. Young and aggressive like TR, he had barnstormed the country in both 1896 and 1900 on behalf of his candidacy.

By ’04, Bryan had become a very shrewd politician, and immediately realized that running against the popular and progressive Theodore Roosevelt, who, with his “Square Deal,” favored social issues himself, was a no-win situation. Bryan did not wish to be a loser – again. But he did wish to be the kingmaker. Only he also knew there would no king to make. It was a loser year. The Democrats knew this, too.

Enter Alton Parker

Poor Judge Alton Parker (1852-1926) is a name long lost to history. A New Yorker like TR, Parker was from upstate, and had been an accomplished attorney and jurist. His career was honorable, but unremarkable. Nevertheless, he was considered a fair, honest and competent judge. He supported mild social reform, and had been an ardent campaigner for Grover Cleveland.

There was yet another New Yorker who hoped for the Democratic nod in ’04: William Randolph Hearst (1863-1951). Hearst was a flamboyant gazillionaire newspaper publisher, who gained notoriety for his lurid stories of sex, corruption, crime and innuendo in order to sell papers. But Bryan disliked him, and threw all his support to anybody else. Hearst had no lack of enemies, so his efforts were going nowhere.

With little talent to choose from, the Democrats chose Judge Parker, nice, but generally reluctant and uninspiring, as their “unifying” standard bearer. President Roosevelt, an extremely savvy politician, commented that Parker’s neutrality might be to his advantage, writing that “the neutral-tinted individual is very apt to win against the man of pronounced views and active life”.

The High Road

The Presidential Campaign of 1904 was, as predicted, a walk in the park triumph for Theodore Roosevelt. Parker was a poor campaigner, lacking in the type of pizazz needed to take on the pizazzy TR. His campaign was poorly run, poorly managed and poorly financed. Opting for a front-porch model, a la McKinley, Parker’s front porch was in the middle of remote, and few delegates or visitors came.

The “free silver” (inflationary) coinage issue that had propelled Bryan to fame a decade earlier had run its course by ’04, and the convention did not include it in the platform, to Bryan’s annoyance – and the business interests’ relief. When Judge Parker learned of this, he sent a telegram to the convention to the effect that he considered the gold standard “firmly and irrevocably established” and would decline the nomination if he could not state that in his campaign. In private, TR praised Parker’s telegram as bold, skillful and adroit.

Nevertheless, when Parker chose to go on the attack, as it were, it was too little, too late, too personal, and it fizzled. And TR was presidential, and ever the gentleman toward the Judge.

TR romped to victory in ’04, winning by more than 2 million votes, with Parker only carrying the Solid South.

To this day, there is still no biography about Judge Parker.

Sources:

Morris, Edmund – Theodore Rex – 2002, Random House

Sullivan, Mark – Our Times (Vol. II): America Finding Herself – Charles Scribner’s Sons – 1927

Time-Life Books (Editors) – This Fabulous Century: 1900-1910 – Time-Life Books, 1969

https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/theodore-roosevelt/