Hear TR’s Speech “The Liberty of the People”"The 1912 presidential election offered American voters a choice between a conservative and generally unpopular Republican incumbent (William Howard Taft), a moderate governor who won the heavily contested Democratic nomination (Woodrow Wilson), third party candidate former President Theodore Roosevelt, and a Socialist Party candidate running for the fourth time (Eugene V. Debs). Angered over what he felt was a betrayal of his policies by Taft, his hand-picked successor, Roosevelt and others abandoned the Republican party and founded the Progressive or “Bull Moose” Party. Voter interest, already piqued by the unusual campaign and the candidates’ slashing attacks on one another, was further heightened by the availability of sound recordings of campaign addresses and, for the first time, film footage of the candidates on the campaign trail. In this recorded speech, entitled “The Liberty of the People,” Roosevelt took the most openly pro-labor stance of the three major candidates. When the voters went to the polls in November, however, Wilson was the clear victor." GMU History Matters