It’s a complicated story that Cowan keeps lively, mostly avoiding the he-said-he-said of old-timey politicking, but readers who dive in for a feel-good story of how Americans got to choose their parties’ nominees may end up depressed if enlightened.
There has been a great deal written about Roosevelt ... By focusing on the 1912 primaries, Cowan brings new insight to a well-worn story. His painstaking recounting of each primary, however, can overwhelm the reader, who may have difficulty keeping track of a whirl of delegate counts, party hacks and campaign stops.
Mr. Cowan brings fresh depth and breadth to this sordid tale. Thus do we see, through his research and deft storytelling, how reform movements are often encased in self-interested cant. As he writes: 'Almost everyone in public life has good reason to conflate means and ends and, in some instances, to write rules that favor their cause or try to use existing rules to game the system.’'
The 1912 convention in Chicago was chaos from beginning to end, and Cowan skillfully leads the reader through the complicated, hour-by-hour machinations.
No musty account of top-coated and mustachioed politicians, Let the People Rule: Theodore Roosevelt and the Birth of the Presidential Primary is a lively, relevant primer in the sausage-making of candidate selection ... Few historians have given this shameful chapter in the Progressive Party the attention that it deserves, and Cowan’s documentation, drawn mostly from newspaper accounts from the summer of 1912, is compelling. He presents the facts with an even-handedness that is all the more damning for its absence of judgement or indignation.
