(Editor's note: This is the final segment in our four part series under title of A Blueprint for America's Future. The prior segment (part three) highlights the psychic interlude which interrupts the weeks leading up to the 1912 general election. ...)
T.R. delivers a final speech in New York City in the days before the general
election.
Occasionally he attempts to
raise his right arm, then winces and drops it.
The pain is intense from the wound as a result of the recent
assassination attempt. Nevertheless, T.R. rises to a memorable occasion:
Friends, perhaps once in a
generation, perhaps not so often, there comes a chance for a people of a
country to play their part wisely and fearlessly in some great battle of the
age-long warfare for human rights. The
doctrines we preach reach back to the Golden Rule and the Sermon on the
Mount. They reached back to the
commandments delivered at Sinai. All
that we are doing is to apply those doctrines in the shape necessary to make
them available for meeting the living issue of our own day.
The end result might
have been a nation of individuals, cooperating intelligently instead of
competing recklessly, with the requisite character to understand duty --- a
democratic society that could reach new heights in both moral and material progress. But it is not meant to be.
In the ensuing
national general election, T.R., now the political third party outsider on
the Republican left, actually outpolls the incumbent president (Mr. Taft) on
the Republican right. But it is to be
little consolation. The Republican Party
vote is thereby split. The election is
thrown to the candidate who commands the center, former president of Princeton University and Gov. of New Jersey,
Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat. [i] Progressivism is to take on the newly
developing image of the Democratic Party.
Twenty years,
one World War and a Great Depression later --- the roots of the New Deal
experiment may be traced here --- to T.R. in 1912. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal agenda of
1932 adopts much of the 1912 Progressive Party platform in what will be the
lynchpin of his four term presidency. The
New Deal conceives the social safety net, a constitutional delegation of power to the general welfare.
Hereafter, people come to expect the help of their government, especially
in time of need. Passage of its landmark
twin pillars, the Social Security Act and National Labor Relations Act,
furnishes the pathway for entry into middle class life for millions of American
citizens, mainly immigrants.
In 1960, President
John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier follows. The torch is passed to a new generation
of Americans. Mr. Kennedy’s vision drives
the important legislation of the day, including the historic Civil Rights Act and
Voting Rights Act of 1964, the Immigration Act of 1965, Medicare/Medicaid and
the onset of the Great Society steered by Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty. With the passage of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, National
Public Radio (NPR) is born, millions of listeners having come to rely upon NPR over the past 50 years.
President Reagan, an ardent New
Deal proponent in his younger days, moves with good intentions to scale back
the size and scope of the federal government. Once again, individual initiative
has its day, unbridled by the constraints of government. But history teaches
that individual initiative works best only within the framework of a collective social responsibility. One for all, and all for one, as the saying goes.
Presidents
Clinton and Obama are direct lineal descendants of these historical figures in
American History. The enactment of President
Obama’s signature 2010 Affordable Care Act, together with meaningful progress
in the environmental battle to arrest the ill effects of global warming, stand
as landmark achievements.
In closing, the accomplishments of the past 100 years have been many and must not be discounted. But some insist we've yet to match the substance and passion of T.R.'s 1912 legacy. With 2017 now upon us, that's worth remembering.
-Michael D'Angelo
Candidate: Party: Popular
Vote: Electoral Vote: Voter Participation:
Woodrow Wilson Democratic 6,293,454 (41.9%) 435 58.8%
Theodore Roosevelt Progressive 4,119,538 (27.4%) 88
William H. Taft Republican 3,484,980 (23.2%) 8
Eugene V. Debs Socialist 900,672 (6%) -
