Creature From Jekyll Island by G. Edward полностью

However, when Teddy Roosevelt returned from his latestAfrican safari, he was persuaded by Morgan's deputies, GeorgePerkins and Frank Munsey, to challenge the President for theParty's nomination. When that effort failed, he was then persuadedto run against Taft as the "Bull Moose" candidate on the Progressive Party ticket. It is unclear what motivated him to accept such aproposition, but there is no doubt regarding the intent of hisbackers. They did not expect Roosevelt to win, but, as a formerRepublican President, they knew he would split the Party and, bypulling away votes from Taft, put Wilson into the White House.

Presidential campaigns need money and lots of it. The Republican Party was well financed, largely from the same individualswho now wanted to see the defeat of its own candidate. It wouldnot be possible to cut off this funding without causing too manyquestions. The solution, therefore, was to provide the financialresources for all three candidates, with special attention to the needsof Wilson and Roosevelt.

Some historians, while admitting the facts, have scoffed at foeconclusion that deception was intended. Ron Chernow says: "By1924, the House of Morgan was so influential in American politicsthat conspiracy buffs couldn't tell which presidential candidate wasmore beholden to the bank."1 But one does not have to be aconspiracy buff to recognize the evidence of foul play. FerdinandLundberg tells us:

1. Chernow, p. 254.

THE CREATURE SWALLOWS CONGRESS 453

J.P. Morgan and Company played the leading role in the national election of 1912.... Roosevelt's preconvention backers were George W.

Perkins and Frank Munsey. These two, indeed, encouraged Roosevelt to contest Taft's nomination Munsey functioned in the newspaper field for J.P. Morgan and Company—buying, selling, creating, and suppressing newspapers in consonance with J.P. Morgan's shifting needs.... Perkins resigned from J.P. Morgan and Company on January 1,1911, to assume a larger political role....

The suspicion seems justified that the two were not over-anxious to have Roosevelt win. The notion that Perkins and Munsey may have wanted Wilson to win ... is partly substantiated by the view that Perkins put a good deal of cash behind the Wilson campaign through Cleveland H. Dodge. Dodge and Perkins financed, to the extent of $35,500, the Trenton True American, a newspaper that circulated nationally with Wilson propaganda....

Throughout the three-cornered fight, Roosevelt had Munsey and George Perkins constantly at his heels, supplying money, going over his speeches, bringing people from Wall Street in to help, and, in general, carrying the entire burden of the campaign against Taft....

Perkins and J.P. Morgan and Company were the substance of the Progressive Party; everything else was trimming.... Munsey's cash contribution to the Progressive Party brought his total political outlay for 1912 to $229,255.72. Perkins made their joint contribution more than $500,000, and Munsey expended $1,000,000 in cash additionally to acquire from Henry Einstein the New York Press so that Roosevelt would have a New York City morning newspaper. Perkins and Munsey, as the Clapp [Senate Privileges and Election] Committee learned from Roosevelt himself, also underwrote the heavy expense of Roosevelt's campaign train. In short, most of Roosevelt's campaign fund was supplied by the two Morgan hatchet men who were seeking Taft's scalp.