Michael Kazin
… Chace offers a brisk, consistently entertaining narrative that is alive both to politics and personality … The most affecting passages in the book describe the troubled relationship between Taft and TR.
— The Washington Post
Richard Brookhiser
The presidential election of 1912 was a pro wrestling match among three champions, President William Howard Taft (Republican), former President Theodore Roosevelt (Republican turned Progressive) and future President Woodrow Wilson (Democrat). Throw in Eugene V. Debs, who ran better than any other Socialist in American history, and you have an unbeatable campaign story, which James Chace's lively and engrossing book 1912 fully captures. But Chace, a diplomatic historian, argues that the 1912 election was more than head butts and body slams: it ''introduced a conflict between progressive idealism . . . and conservative values'' that would dominate the politics of the 20th century, even as it recalled ''the great days of Jefferson and Hamilton'' and their fundamental debates over the nature of the Republic.
— The New York Times
Publishers Weekly
Some histories interpret new evidence and add to our store of knowledge. Some, relying on others' research, simply tell a known story. Chace's work is the best of the latter kind: a lively, balanced and accurate retelling of an important moment in American history. Even though the 1912 election wasn't the election that changed the country (there have been several), it was a critical one. It gave us Woodrow Wilson, though only by a plurality of the popular vote (albeit a huge electoral majority) and so gave us U.S. intervention in WWI and Wilsonian internationalism. Because of former president Theodore Roosevelt's rousing candidacy as nominee of the short-lived Bull Moose, or Progressive, Party, the campaign deepened the public's acceptance of the idea of a more modern and activist presidency. Because Eugene Debs, the great Socialist, gained more votes for that party (6% of the total) than ever before or since, the election marked American socialism's political peak. What of the ousted incumbent, William Howard Taft? Chace (Acheson, etc.) succeeds in making him a believable, sympathetic character, if a lackluster chief executive. What made the 1912 campaign unusual was that candidates of four, not just two, parties vied for the presidency. The race was also marked by a basic decency, honesty and quality of debate not often seen again. Chace brings sharply alive the distinctive characters in his fast-paced story. There won't soon be a better-told tale of one of the last century's major elections. Agent, Suzanne Gluck, William Morris. (Apr.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Foreign Affairs
As the United States heads into a bitter presidential election, Chace provides an elegant and useful overview of one of the most crucial such contests in our history: the 1912 race in which Theodore Roosevelt ran as a Progressive, William Howard Taft as a Republican, Eugene V. Debs as a Socialist, and Woodrow Wilson as a Democrat. Wilson won and went on to become the first Democrat since Andrew Jackson to serve two consecutive terms in the White House. For Chace, this was a tragedy. On both foreign and domestic policy, Roosevelt would have made a stronger, more effective leader and, in Chace's view, many of the achievements of the New Deal would have been realized a generation earlier. One is struck, however, by the enduring conservatism of the American electorate. Taking the Taft vote and combining it with the conservative white Southerners who supported Wilson, it is not clear that even the 1912 election, often taken as a high-water mark in Progressive politics, showed a solid electoral majority for radical change.
Library Journal
Bard professor Chace reconstructs yet another controversial race for the presidency. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
School Library Journal
Adult/High School-According to Chace, the election of 1912 was "a defining moment in American history." When Theodore Roosevelt's choice for successor, William Howard Taft, failed to support his reforms, Roosevelt left the GOP convention to run against Taft on the Bull Moose Progressive ticket. This bitter split in the Republican party was ultimately responsible for Woodrow Wilson's unexpected victory. A fourth candidate, Eugene V. Debs, an experienced and influential orator who was later imprisoned for espionage, ran as a Socialist representing labor. Chace makes this election come alive through careful research and clear writing. Describing the primaries, the personalities, the conventions, the campaigns, the issues, the race, and the aftermath, the book often reads like a suspense novel. Readers will be able to make valid comparisons between the 2004 presidential race and the 1912 election. Illustrations include good-quality, black-and-white photos of the candidates, their wives, and their families; several political cartoons; and a campaign poster of Debs. This is a valuable resource for those interested in the American electoral process and for American history and government students.-Pat Bender, The Shipley School, Bryn Mawr, PA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Presidential politics in one crucial year of the Progressive Era-before TV, polls, and consultants: not a horse race so much as a contact sport. Veteran journalist and editor Chace (Govt. and International Affairs/Bard Coll.; Acheson: The Secretary of State Who Created the American World, 1998, etc.) does not present a fresh interpretation of the 1912 election, but he offers a lively recounting of this pivotal, bitter contest that hinged on how to overcome economic inequality and featured significant third-party involvement. The rivals included conservative Republican President William Howard Taft; his predecessor, Theodore Roosevelt, who broke with his old friend over conservation and trust-busting issues, then bolted the GOP to form the Progressive Party; New Jersey governor Woodrow Wilson, whose brilliant oratory called for more stringent antitrust legislation; and fiery socialist Eugene Debs, who preached trade unionism to audiences as large as 100,000. Chace captures the way that rivals' egos could shade into substantive quarrels over the use of presidential power. He conveys a pre-photo-op era of candidates' barnstorming coast to coast by train with messianic zeal, with Roosevelt even delivering one speech after being wounded by a would-be assassin. The nation depicted here seems more divided than the ballyhooed "red" and "blue" America of 2000. Debs took six percent of the vote-the highest proportion ever given to a Socialist candidate. TR split the GOP vote with Taft, helping to usher in the eight-year Wilson administration. With perfectly chosen anecdotes, Chace moves nimbly among the candidates, their advisers, and diehard supporters (at a Michigan GOP meeting, a Taft supporterthrew a body block at a Roosevelt speaker). At the same time, he underscores the race's larger, often enduring, issues (far ahead of their time, the Progressive platform called for limits on campaign spending). Twenty years later, the New Deal incorporated elements of Roosevelt's "New Nationalism" with Wilson's "New Freedom" programs. Yet another consequence of the race was more fateful, Chace notes: TR's loss meant that for the next century, the GOP would be riven between "reform and reaction."Entertaining, insightful history about a defining moment in 20th-century politics. Agent: Suzanne Gluck/William Morris
