hey met at
Baltimore the next week, with Bryan present and active, but not himself
a candidate. They had to choose among Clark, the Speaker, Underwood, the
chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, and Governors Harmon, of
Ohio, Marshall, of Indiana, and Woodrow Wilson, of New Jersey.

The last of these had risen into national politics since 1910. He had
long been known as a brilliant essayist and historian. He was of
Virginian birth, and had left the presidency of Princeton University to
become Democratic candidate for Governor of New Jersey in 1910. He had
shown as governor great capacity to lead his party in the direction of
the progressive reforms. He differed in these less from Roosevelt and
LaFollette than he or they did from the reactionaries in their own
parties. "The President is at liberty, both in law and conscience," he
had written long ago, "to be as big a man as he can. His capacity will
set the limit.... He has no means of compelling Congress except through
public opinion." Unembarrassed by previous attachment to any faction of
the Democratic party, with a clear record against special privilege and
corporation influence in politics, and supported obstinately by Bryan
and the young men who had urged his candidacy, Woodrow Wilson was
nominated on the forty-sixth ballot, with Governor Thomas Marshall for
Vice-President. The conservative nomination by the Republicans had
thrown the Democrats into the hands of their radical wing.

The Progressives held a convention in Chicago on August 5, and nominated
Theodore Roosevelt and Governor Hiram Johnson, of California. Their
platform included every important reform seriously urged, and was built
around the idea of social justice and human rights. They denied that
either of the old parties was fitted to carry on the work of progress.
In the campaign their candidates and speakers revealed the vigor and the
bitterness of the former Insurgents.

The schism threw the election into the hands of the Democrats, who
retained the House, gained the Senate, and elected Wilson, though the
latter received fewer votes than Bryan had received in each of his three
attempts. The struggle was one of personalities, since few openly
attacked the avowed aim of progressive legislation. The popularity of
Roosevelt detached many Democratic votes from Wilson, but his
unpopularity among Republicans who feared him and Progressive
Republicans who resented his return to politics, drove to W