Today -100: November 6, 1912: As Vermont goes, so goes Utah

Woodrow Wilson wins 41% of the vote nationally, Roosevelt 27%, Taft 23%, and Socialist Eugene Debs 6% (almost a million votes). Wilson won 40 states, TR 6, Taft won Utah & Vermont (and Vermont just barely).

Debs got more votes than Taft in Arizona, California (where Taft wasn’t on the ballot and fewer than 4,000 people wrote in his name), Florida, Louisiana, and Nevada.

Wilson won with far fewer votes than William Jennings Bryan got in 1908. But he will have the largest electoral college victory (435 to TR’s 88 and Taft’s 8) since Grant beat a dead guy 40 years ago.

In Congress, the Democrats take 291 seats, up from 230, the Progressives (who ran, er, I’m not sure how many candidates, but they managed to run full congressional slates in only 14 states) get 9, Republicans 134. And D’s have taken enough state legislatures (even traditionally Republican New Hampshire and Massachusetts) that they will also now have a majority in the Senate.

The powerful Republican House Speaker until two years ago, Uncle Joe Cannon, loses his seat (Illinois).

Victor Berger, the only Socialist member of the US Congress, loses his seat (Wisconsin).

The income tax amendment to the US Constitution has been ratified by 34 states, needing just 2 more. Evidently Louisiana and Ohio ratified a while back but failed to tell anyone and no one noticed. 4 state legislatures have rejected the amendment: New Hampshire, Utah, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

The British Parliament votes down an amendment for women’s suffrage in the Irish Home Rule Bill. Many shop windows are broken in protest. Proportional representation is also rejected.

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