American History - Election of 1904

Election of 1904

On November 8, 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt won the election over the Democratic nominee Alton B. Parker. Roosevelt had already succeeded William McKinley after he was assassinated. "Teddy Roosevelt was a unanimous nomination by the Republican party" (Mowry 1958) and won the election quite easily winning 56% of the vote, which made Roosevelt, become the "first president to assume presidency after the assassination of another president and then win an election to a full term directly following the first term"(Mowry 1958). Only three times since 1904 has this happened.

The campaign of 1904 was not as aggressive as it had been in recent years. It is actually surprising that Roosevelt won the election in such a dominating fashion because the political views of the candidates were so similar that it was hard for anyone to find any significant differences between the two. The only reason the Teddy defeated Parker so easily is because the nation had already been introduced

to Roosevelt as there president since he had been in office for almost a full term before the 1904 election took place

Although President Theodore Roosevelt won the election in dramatic fashion there were actually a few times during the campaign that Teddy was seen as a "vulnerable candidate" (Beschloss 2007). To begin there was alleged corruption in the Bureau of Corporations. Teddy admitted to the allegations but he said there was no blackmail. Also, it was disclosed in 1907 that insurance companies had donated a large sum of money to the Roosevelt campaign and that the reasoning was that the President had actually come to them and begged for every last dime. "We bought the son of a b****" (Mowry 1958)said Henry Clay Frick. However there were large amounts of donated insider money to both campaigns, "Parker receiving support from Morgan Banking"(Mowry 1958), so the allegations were dropped and Roosevelt won in a landslide victory and was the first Republican President to carry Missouri since the election of 1868. He won by over "2.5 million"(Beschloss 2007) and 20% of the votes with 56.4% of the votes being for Roosevelt.

Even though Roosevelt may have had some allegations thrown his way he was still one of our best presidents we have ever had if not