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Presidents William Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt battled it out in the election of 1912, even though Roosevelt had handpicked Taft as his successor just four years earlier. What made the Republicans turn on each other? And did the invention of the teddy bear play a role?
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In 1909, just after being elected president
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William Howard Taft took on his biggest opponent yet. And it wasn't big business or some foreign power
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It was the teddy bear. In a year-long battle, Taft's supporters tried to replace the teddy bear with a new stuffed animal
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called Billy Possum. Seriously, it was a pretty huge deal too. So today, we're going to take a look at how President Taft
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tried to make the Billy Possum happen because he was jealous of the teddy bear
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You can't put this possum story in a cage. In November of 1902, Theodore Roosevelt
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who had been elected president of the United States in 1901, went to Mississippi to hunt bears with Governor Andrew H. Longino
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However, while most of the other hunters on the trip were able to bag themselves a bear
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the disappointed president was unable to find any to shoot himself. In an effort to make sure their boss didn't go home disappointed, Roosevelt's assistants
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located an American black bear and had it clubbed and tied to a tree so the president
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could finish it off. However, old Teddy refused. He felt the setup made the hunt unsportsmanlike, and as a sportsman, he wasn't interested in
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that kind of thing. He did, however, have the bear euthanized to end its suffering
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On November 16, 1902, the political cartoonist Clifford Berryman made the incident a subject
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of his work in the Washington Post. Roosevelt didn't particularly love the cartoon
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which originally featured an adult black bear. Berryman eventually altered the picture to show a bear cub
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and it was this version that caught the attention of stuffed animal makers Morris and Rose Mictum
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The image inspired them to design a stuffed bear cub, which they would call Teddy's Bear
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as a product for their shop. Roosevelt was on board with the product, and within the first five years of its release
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nearly a million teddy bears were sold. More than just a stuffed animal, the teddy bear completely supplanted dolls in the toy market
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and it became proof of Roosevelt's undeniable popularity. In fact, at the time, the teddy bear was so closely linked with Roosevelt
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toy makers assumed people would stop buying them once he left office. So as his term ended, they started looking for the next teddy bear
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But what lovable animal could replace the teddy bear? Something really lovable
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A lot of candidates, there's puppies and kittens, bunnies, of course. And there's lots of them if you think about it
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But the supporters of William Howard Taft would latch on to a different and pretty unlikely choice
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The idea for Billy Possum was first hatched at a banquet in Atlanta in 1909
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Apparently unhappy with the choices on the menu, President-elect Taft specifically requested possum and taters
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which is just what it sounds like, a roasted possum on a heap of sweet potatoes
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Possum-licious. Taft loved the dish, and he ate it up so fast that a doctor even had to warn him to slow down
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When talking with the media the next day, Taft said of the experience, Well, I certainly like possum
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I ate very heartily of it last night, and it did not disturb in the slightest my digestion or my sleep
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Now, even though he wasn't paid, it sounded like a paid endorsement
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Picky eaters prefer possum. Less than 24 hours after Taft enthusiastically devoured his possum and taters
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a new company called the Georgia Billy Possum Company was formed. It happened that fast
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You see, after the success of the teddy bear, TAF supporters were looking for a similar gimmick
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and they hoped the Billy Possum would become the next big thing. The Georgia Billy Possum Company wasted no time
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They jumped into gear, making deals with toy distributors to sell the stuffed animal to children across the country
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However, when the Georgia Billy Possum Company first started designing the stuffed toy
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they tried to make Billy Possum a little too much like the real thing
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Unlike the teddy bear, which was just a stuffed animal, the Billy Possum was first made by stuffing the skins of expired possums
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kind of a taxidermy for toddlers thing. Just in time for the holidays
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The extremely spooky result of the process, by most accounts, looked more like a rat than a possum
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The company went back to the drawing board, and eventually, instead of stuffing real possums
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they designed an entirely toy possum. Sounds like a good move. The Billy Possum was expected to be a huge success for some reason
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and many believed it would soon become the next big toy fad. By 1907, Americans had already bought nearly one million teddy bears
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So in 1909, Taft supporters and toy manufacturers were supremely confident that Billy Possum would replace the teddy bear as America's new favorite stuffed toy
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The Los Angeles Times seemed to agree, optimistically declaring, the teddy bear has been relegated to a seat in the rear
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And for four years, possibly eight, the children of the United States will play with Billy Possums
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The Los Angeles Times would be proven very very very wrong All good fads need to be mentioned in a pop song and in 1907 at the height of the teddy bear fandom composer John Bratton wrote The Teddy Bear Two
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which would later become the now famous song The Teddy Bear's Picnic. Not to be outdone, Billy Possum supporters
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apparently incapable of thinking of their own ideas, decided to come up with a tune of their own
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That song turned out to be a ragtime ditty called Possum, The Latest Craze
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Kind of on the nose, isn't it? The song declared that the teddy bear was over
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and Billy Possum had arrived to be its replacement. The lyrics included gems like
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Old teddy bear is a gone one now since Billy Possum's come to town
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and taint no use to make excuse or raise a fuss and frown
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And they kind of get worse from there. Billy Possum fever swept the nation
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Or at least, that's what the advertisements would have had people believe
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One postcard praised Billy Possum in a poem. The verse declared, We love Billy Possum. His coat is so warm
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If even we eat him, he'll do us no harm. Well, it almost rhymes
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Taff made the possum famous by eating one, so the postcard leaned in on the animal's delicious taste
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which I guess toy makers thought would make kids want to play with it. Mmm, this toy's so tasty
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For whatever else one might say about it, The Billy Possum campaign was extremely successful
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at linking William Howard Taft with possums. In fact, the two became so associated
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in the public imagination that people began mailing live possums to the White House
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It became something of an occasional problem, too. For example, in 1909, the Washington Post
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reported, possum chews up mail. The accompanying story detailed how a live possum addressed
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to Taft dined on letters at the post office, where it was dropped off
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In Texas, Taft supporters mailed the president a possum with a letter that read
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Understanding that you are fond of possum, we have secured a white one, a very rare specimen
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and are sending the same to you today by express. Good thing Taft wasn't into rattlesnakes
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When the Georgia Billy Possum Company started selling stuffed possums, they declared to the world
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Goodbye, teddy bear. Hello, Billy Possum. Taft supporters had drummed up a ludicrous stuffed animal rivalry
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unlike anything in American history. But why? Well, the truth is, the Billy Possum
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wasn't just about replacing the teddy bear. It was a proxy for the great political rivalry
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Although Taft and Roosevelt were both Republicans, the two had a complicated relationship fraught with deep competition and punctuated by perceived betrayals The standoff between Billy Possum and the teddy bear was just one aspect of that greater battle When Taft was
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first elected president in 1909, many believed he would continue Roosevelt's political legacy
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Roosevelt himself had anointed Taft as his successor, but the transition between the two
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was not smooth. Taft had different priorities than Roosevelt, and he disagreed with Roosevelt's
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activist approach. In Taft's first year, GOP supporters, still hell-bent on making the Billy Possum happen
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asked if Teddy Bear, why not Billy Possum? Yet before Taft's first year in office was over
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Billy Possum had flopped. It wasn't for a lack of trying. Taft supporters did everything they could
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There were poems, flashy media stories, and even possums on a stick that supporters waved like flags
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Despite all this, or probably because of all that, Billy Possum had outlasted his welcome by the end of 1909
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Journalist John Moallum saw a lesson in Billy Possum's failure to catch on
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The teddy bear simply had a more moving backstory. According to Moallum, the bear was a helpless target roped to a tree
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The president of the United States decided to show it some mercy. Taft, on the other hand, ate his opossum for supper
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When Taft became president, he didn't just usher in the era of Billy Possum
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He also helped make possum a generally popular dish. The New York Times even detailed the president-elect's love for possum in a January 1909 article
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reporting that everyone in Atlanta was asking, Did you see the way the president elected possum and taters last night
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Sounds like a slow news day in Atlanta. The dish quickly swept the nation, and the price of possum meat skyrocketed
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rising from $1 per possum to $10. As sad as it sounds, Billy Possum might have been the high point of Taft's presidency
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Yeah, that's how badly some think it went. During his first year as president, Taft learned that Teddy Roosevelt was a hard act to follow
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and he was haunted by his predecessor's legacy. The same kind of political cartoonist whose work first inspired the teddy bear
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now depicted Taft as a confused child looking for his own teddy bear
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So it's not really surprising that his supporters desperately kept promoting Billy Possum
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as the hip new alternative to the teddy bear. Although Roosevelt had handpicked his successor
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the larger-than-life president turned on Taft. And when Taft was up for re-election
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Roosevelt formed the Bull Moose Party to challenge him. In the end, the only winner in the bitter fight
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between Roosevelt's teddy bear and Taft's Billy Possum was Democratic presidential candidate Woodrow Wilson
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who won the 1912 election and became the 28th president of the United States
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