United States presidential election, 1904
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| United States presidential election, 1904 |
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| November 8, 1904 | ||||
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| Nominee | Theodore Roosevelt | Alton Brooks Parker | ||
| Party | Republican | Democratic | ||
| Home state | New York | New York | ||
| Running mate | Charles Warren Fairbanks | Henry Gassaway Davis | ||
| Electoral vote | 336 | 140 | ||
| States carried | 32 | 13 | ||
| Popular vote | 7,630,457 | 5,083,880 | ||
| Percentage | 56.4% | 37.6% | ||
 Presidential election results map. Blue denotes states won by Parker/Davis, Red denotes those won by Roosevelt/Fairbanks. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state. |
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The United States presidential election of 1904 was held on November 8, 1904. Incumbent President Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican who had succeeded to the Presidency upon William McKinley's assassination, easily won a term of his own, thus becoming the first "accidental" president to do so.
Contents |
[edit] Nominations
[edit] Republican Party nomination
Republican candidates
- Charles W. Fairbanks, U.S. senator from Indiana
- Mark Hanna, U.S. senator from Ohio
- Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States from New York
[edit] Democratic Party nomination
Democratic candidates
- Alton B. Parker, judge from New York
- William Randolph Hearst, U.S. representative from New York
- Francis M. Cockrell, U.S. senator from Missouri
- Richard Olney, former Secretary of State from Massachusetts
- Edward C. Wall, delegate from Wisconsin
- George Gray, former U.S. senator from Delaware
- John S. Williams, U.S. representative from Mississippi
- Robert E. Pattison, former Governor of Pennsylvania
- George B. McClellan, Jr. Mayor of New York City
- Nelson A. Miles, retired Commanding General of the United States Army from Massachusetts
- Charles A. Towne, U.S. senator from Minnesota
- Bird Sim Coler, New York City Controller
 New York City Controller Bird Sim Coler of New York |
With Roosevelt's popularity nearing its peak, William Jennings Bryan, the nominee of 1896 and 1900, had decided to sit this one out, leaving what was considered the most worthless Democratic nomination since 1872 wide open. With former President Grover Cleveland refusing to come out of retirement as well, the Democrats met in Saint Louis in a surly and depressed mood. The only candidate who really wanted the nod was William Randolph Hearst, but the delegates instead nominated an unknown Bourbon Democrat named Alton B. Parker, a judge on New York state Court of Appeals, who accepted after he demanded, and got, an endorsement of the gold standard in the party's platform. 81-year-old millionaire industrialist Henry G. Davis of West Virginia was nominated as his running mate, ostensibly to pay for the campaign with his own funds. During the campaign, he contributed $185,000 ($3.7 million in 2002 dollars), which was over a third of the very small election fund.
| Presidential Ballot | Vice Presidential Ballot | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Alton B. Parker | 679 | Henry G. Davis | 654 |
| William Randolph Hearst | 181 | James R. Williams | 165 |
| Francis M. Cockrell | 42 | George Turner | 100 |
| Richard Olney | 38 | William A. Harris | 58 |
| Edward C. Wall | 27 | Abstaining | 23 |
| George Gray | 12 | ||
| John S. Williams | 8 | ||
| Robert E. Pattison | 4 | ||
| George B. McClellan, Jr. | 3 | ||
| Nelson A. Miles | 3 | ||
| Charles A. Towne | 2 | ||
| Bird Sim Coler | 1 |
Source: Keating Holland, "All the Votes... Really," CNN [1]
[edit] Socialist Party nomination
 Eugene Victor Debs, U.S. union leader and socialist from Indiana |
The Election of 1904 was the first election in which the Socialist Party participated. The Socialist Party of America was a highly factionalized coalition of local parties based in industrial cities and usually was rooted in ethnic communities, especially German and Finnish. It also had some support in old Populist rural and mining areas in the West. Prominent socialist Eugene Victor Debs was nominated for President and Benjamin Hanford was nominated for Vice President.
[edit] General election
[edit] Campaign
The lackluster Judge Parker made little headway against the wildly popular Roosevelt, who had already adopted popular reform positions such as increased regulation of the large corporations and conservation of natural resources, not to mention the "winning" of Panama, the Northern Securities suit, Conquest of the Philippines, the Venezuela affair, and so on and so forth. With the whole country cheering TR's campaign screeching "Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead!" There was little Parker could do to avoid being run over.
There was a ray of hope for the Judge, however. Joseph Pulitzer's New York World carried a full page story about alleged corruption in the Bureau of Corporations. TR admitted certain payments had been made, but denied any "blackmail." Roosevelt was so beloved that the issue didn't have traction and Parker carried only the southern states, and the charismatic Roosevelt won the most decisive victory since 1872.
[edit] Results
Theodore Roosevelt won in a landslide, taking every Northern and Western state. He also picked up Missouri.
| Presidential candidate | Party | Home state | Popular vote | Electoral vote |
Running mate | Running mate's home state |
Running mate's electoral vote |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Count | Pct | |||||||
| Theodore Roosevelt | Republican | New York | 7,630,457 | 56.4% | 336 | Charles Warren Fairbanks | Indiana | 336 |
| Alton Brooks Parker | Democratic | New York | 5,083,880 | 37.6% | 140 | Henry Gassaway Davis | West Virginia | 140 |
| Eugene Victor Debs | Socialist | Indiana | 402,810 | 3.0% | 0 | Benjamin Hanford | New York | 0 |
| Silas Comfort Swallow | Prohibition | Pennsylvania | 259,102 | 1.9% | 0 | George W. Carroll | Texas | 0 |
| Thomas Edward Watson | Populist | Georgia | 114,070 | 0.8% | 0 | Thomas Henry Tibbles | Nebraska | 0 |
| Charles Hunter Corregan | Socialist Labor | New York | 33,454 | 0.2% | 0 | William Wesley Cox | Illinois | 0 |
| Other | 1,229 | 0.0% | – | Other | – | |||
| Total | 13,525,002 | 100% | 476 | 476 | ||||
| Needed to win | 239 | 239 | ||||||
Source (Popular Vote): Leip, David. 1904 Presidential Election Results. Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections (July 28, 2005).
Source (Electoral Vote): Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996. Official website of the National Archives. (July 31, 2005).
[edit] See also
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: United States presidential election, 1904 |
[edit] Further reading
- Blum, John Morton (1954). The Republican Roosevelt.
- Series of essays that examine how Roosevelt did politics
- Gould, Lewis L. (1991). The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt.
- Harbaugh, William Henry (1963). The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt.
- Morris, Edmund (2001). Theodore Rex.
- Biography of Roosevelt during the years 1901–1909
- 1904 popular vote by counties
- How close was the 1904 election? - Michael Sheppard, Michigan State University
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