As a professor, a writer on historical and political subjects, and the president of Princeton University, Mr. Wilson had become widely known in public life.  As the governor of New Jersey he had attracted the support of the progressives in both parties.  With grim determination he had “waged war on the bosses,” and pushed through the legislature measures establishing direct primaries, regulating public utilities, and creating a system of workmen’s compensation in industries.  During the presidential campaign that followed Governor Wilson toured the country and aroused great enthusiasm by a series of addresses later published under the title of The New Freedom.  He declared that “the government of the United States is at present the foster child of the special interests.”  He proposed to free the country by breaking the dominance of “the big bankers, the big manufacturers, the big masters of commerce, the heads of railroad corporations and of steamship corporations.”

In the election Governor Wilson easily secured a majority of the electoral votes, and his party, while retaining possession of the House of Representatives, captured the Senate as well.  The popular verdict, however, indicated a state of confusion in the country.  The combined Progressive and Republican vote exceeded that of the Democrats by 1,300,000.  The Socialists, with Eugene V. Debs as their candidate again, polled about 900,000 votes, more than double the number received four years before.  Thus, as the result of an extraordinary upheaval the Republicans, after holding the office of President for sixteen years, passed out of power, and the government of the country was intrusted to the Democrats under the leadership of a man destined to be one of the outstanding figures of the modern age, Woodrow Wilson.

=General References=

J.B.  Bishop, Theodore Roosevelt and His Time (2 vols.).

Theodore Roosevelt, Autobiography; New Nationalism; Progressive
Principles.

W.H.  Taft, Popular Government.

Walter Weyl, The New Democracy.

H. Croly, The Promise of American Life.

J.B.  Bishop, The Panama Gateway.

J.B.  Scott, The Hague Peace Conferences.

W.B.  Munro (ed.), Initiative, Referendum, and Recall.

C.R.  Van Hise, The Conservation of Natural Resources.

Gifford Pinchot, The Fight for Conservation.

W.F.  Willoughby, Territories and Dependencies of the United States (1905).

=Research Topics=

=Roosevelt and “Big Business."=—­Haworth, The United States in Our Own Time, pp. 281-289; F.A.  Ogg, National Progress (American Nation Series), pp. 40-75; Paxson, The New Nation (Riverside Series), pp. 293-307.

=Our Insular Possessions.=—­Elson, History of the United States, pp. 896-904.