1908 - Taft vs. Bryan
Taft campaigns in 1908; Courtesy of the Library of Congress
President Theodore Roosevelt, keeping his earlier pledge not to seek a second term of his own, selects William Howard Taft, his Secretary of War, to be the Republican presidential nominee. Taft is a reluctant candidate — he would prefer that Roosevelt appoint him Chief Justice of the United States instead — and he quickly shows his discomfort with the unseemly realities of campaign fundraising.
Taft’s first big dilemma is a $50,000 campaign contribution from William Nelson Cromwell, the attorney-lobbyist for a company that had conspired with the Roosevelt administration to stage a 1903 revolution in Panama, thereby clearing the way for U.S. construction of a canal there. Taft writes to Cromwell that “the size of the subscription will be misunderstood and the inferences drawn from it will not be just or kind to either you or me” and actually asks for a smaller amount instead. In a letter, Roosevelt chides the candidate: “Really, I think you are being oversensitive.”
In the end, Taft accepts a $10,000 contribution from Cromwell, but he becomes similarly squeamish about taking money from representatives of Standard Oil and other companies that might conceivably face federal prosecution for wrongdoing. (He is, however, happy to accept $20,000 from steel baron Andrew Carnegie, since he is retired from the business.) As Taft tells Roosevelt, “I would like to have an ample fund to spread the light of Republicanism, but I am willing to undergo the disadvantage to make certain that in the future we shall reduce the power of money in politics for unworthy purposes.” When Taft suggests relying on larger numbers of small donors, George Sheldon, the treasurer of the Republican National Committee, protests that there’s no way to win the election “without going to the rich men who are directors of the so-called trusts or railroad companies.”
Taft’s campaign manages to raise just $1.6 million — a significant step down from the $2.2 million that Roosevelt squeezed out of corporate America four years earlier. Even so, Taft can outspend Democratic nominee William Jennings Bryan, who on his third try for the White House attempts to make campaign finance an issue. Bryan refuses individual contributions of more than $10,000, and even discloses a list of his donors. In a speech, Bryan explains that, despite the new ban on corporate contributions, “in many cases, individual stockholders in the big corporations have so large a personal interest that they can afford to subscribe the funds necessary for the purchase of an election.” Bryan challenges Taft to join him in urging Congress to mandate public disclosure of contributions. Taft, in turn, says that he too favors such disclosure — but only after an election is over.
In the end, Taft wins comfortably, taking the popular vote 51.6 percent to 43.1 percent (with socialist Eugene V. Debs getting 2.8 percent) and amassing 321 electoral votes to Bryan’s 162.
SOURCES: Interview with historian Walter LaFeber, PBS, American Experience: The Presidents; Henry F. Pringle, William Howard Taft: A Biography (New York: Farrar and Rinehart), 1939; Gil Troy, “Money and Politics: The Oldest Connection,” The Wilson Quarterly, Summer 1997; Speech by William Jennings Bryan, “Publication of Campaign Contributions,” July 21, 1908; “The Campaign and Election of 1908,” Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia.
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Next year: 1974
Next election year: 1904 - Roosevelt vs. Parker