#1920 election

[newyorkthegoldenage]

The city's welcome to the Democratic National Convention delegates was inaugurated on June 22, 1924, when 25,000 colored lamps were turned on on Fifth Avenue.

Photo: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images/Fine Art America

[deadpresidents]

"Please accept my sincere sympathy."

-- Vice President Thomas R. Marshall, jokingly "congratulating" Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge via telegram upon Coolidge's nomination as Vice President at the 1920 Republican National Convention.

[today-in-wwi]

Democrats Nominate James Cox For President, FDR for Vice President

The Democratic National Convention in progress in San Francisco.

July 6 1920, San Francisco--A few weeks after the Republicans’, the Democrats convened their national convention in San Francisco on June 28.  Just like the Republicans, the Democrats had no clear nominee going into the convention, and had three major contenders.  The first was William McAdoo, Wilson’s Treasury Secretary until December 1918, and also his son-in-law from May 1914.  The second was Wilson’s Attorney General, A. Mitchell Palmer, who had tried to make a name for himself as a crusader against anarchists and Bolsheviks after his house was bombed by an anarchist in June 1919.  The Palmer Raids of November 1919 and January 1920 arrested thousands of suspected anarchists and communists, and deported over 500 of them, among them Emma Goldman.  Palmer’s star had faded somewhat since his prognostications (informed by intelligence from J. Edgar Hoover) of attacks and unrest on May Day 1920 proved to be unfounded. The third was James Cox, the Governor of Ohio.  Also running were New York Governor Al Smith (who would receive the 1928 nomination), Ambassador to the UK John W. Davis (who would receive the 1924 nomination), along with other hopefuls and favorite sons.

Not directly running, but waiting in the wings, were two giants of the Democratic Party.  William Jennings Bryan hoped to be nominated for a fourth time, and President Wilson believed that an unprecedented third term could be necessary to secure America’s entry into the League of Nations, despite all evidence to the contrary and his continuing infirmity since his stroke.  While Wilson did not enter the race directly, his refusal to rule himself out left his son-in-law, McAdoo, in an awkward position, thus preventing McAdoo from taking active steps to secure the nomination.

Bryan attempted to lead a fight for the platform, but was repeatedly checked.  A proposed plank to adopt the Treaty of Versailles with reservations, along with a Constitutional amendment to reduce the necessary Senate vote for treaty ratification to a simple majority, was rejected; the delegates were loyal to Wilson’s position on this matter.  Another proposal, a “bone-dry” plank on Prohibition (which had already been in force since January), was similarly defeated.

The balloting for the Presidential nomination began on July 2.  After the second ballot, McAdoo led with 289 votes (out of a total of 1097), with Palmer close behind with 264, followed by Cox with 149 and Al Smith with 101 (90 of which were from New York).  As the Democrats required a two-thirds majority to pick a nominee, no candidate was even close.  Another twenty ballots were held on July 3.  Cox had a major surge on the seventh ballot as Smith and other favorite sons dropped out of contention and many New York and New Jersey delegates switched to him; the totals were then 384 McAdoo, 295.5 Cox, and 267 Palmer.  On the twelfth ballot, Cox took the overall lead (404-375.5-201), but hit a peak of 468.5 delegates on the 15th ballot and made no additional progress until the convention recessed just before midnight after the 22nd ballot.

Wilson’s man at the convention, Secretary of State Colby (Lansing having been sacked in February for supposed disloyalty), hoped the deadlock would lead to an opportunity for Wilson, who was still beloved among the delegates in San Francisco.  At the right moment, a motion to suspend the rules and nominate Wilson by acclamation might just pass.  He had been warned off such a plan by DNC leadership, but after 22 ballots thought the opportunity might soon present itself.  A journalist warned Wilson’s private secretary, Joe Tumulty, however.  Tumulty, who had been busy hiding the President’s condition since October, was decidedly opposed to his renomination, and warned Edith Wilson that such a motion was unlikely to succeed and that the President would be humiliated and perhaps blamed for the deadlocked convention.  Colby backed down, and the balloting resumed on July 5.  McAdoo retook the lead on the 30th ballot, and still held it when the convention recessed briefly after the 36th ballot.

After the 38th ballot, Palmer released his delegates and Cox once again had the lead.  However, it still took until the 43rd ballot for Cox to secure a majority, and then finally on the 44th ballot Cox, at 1:39 AM on July 6, was nominated by acclamation once it was clear he had secured two-thirds support.  The next morning, after Cox was consulted, former Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Delano Roosevelt was chosen as the Vice Presidential nominee.  Charismatic, young (this was several years before his polio), from the critical state of New York, and with an ideal last name, Roosevelt was quickly approved by an exhausted convention.

Sources include: Patricia O’Toole, The Moralist.

[deadpresidents]

How many sitting congressman have been elected President? The only ones I can think of off the top of my head is Obama & possibly Kennedy?

While many Presidents had Congressional experience at some point in their careers, only four were elected President directly from Congress -- three from the Senate and just one member of the House of Representatives. Oddly enough, of the four sitting members of Congress directly elected to the Presidency, only one -- Barack Obama -- completed a full term as President. The other three died in office, one (Warren G. Harding) of natural causes and two (James Garfield and John F. Kennedy) who were assassinated: 

U.S. House of Representatives•James Garfield -- Nineteen Presidents served in the House of Representatives during their political careers, including James K. Polk, who is the only President to have also served as Speaker of the House. But Garfield, who represented Ohio in Congress from 1863-1880, is still the only sitting member of the House of Representatives to be elected President. As an interesting side note, the Ohio State Legislature had actually elected then-Rep. Garfield to the U.S. Senate in 1880, as well (prior to 1913 there was no direct election of U.S. Senators by the public; they were chosen by their state legislature). Congressman Garfield had been elected to the Senate on January 13, 1880, but the Senate term was scheduled to begin on March 4, 1881. However, at the 1880 Republican National Convention in June, Garfield was surprisingly nominated as President -- Garfield was perhaps the most surprised of all at the turn of events because his expected role at the convention was to ensure the Presidential nomination of fellow Ohioan John Sherman -- and won the election on November 2, 1880. Garfield resigned his House seat a week after his election as President and also declined to accept his election as Senator. Instead of joining the Senate on March 4, 1881, Garfield spent the day being inaugurated as President.

U.S. Senate•Warren G. Harding -- Sixteen Presidents served in the U.S. Senate at some point during their political careers, but Harding was the first sitting Senator to be elected President. Harding represented Ohio in the U.S. Senate from 1915-1921.•John F. Kennedy -- Kennedy was the only U.S. Senator nominated for President by a major party in the 40 years between Harding’s 1920 Republican nomination and JFK’s nomination by the Democrats in 1960. However, in 1924 the Progressive Party nominated Senator Robert M. La Follette, Sr. of Wisconsin as their Presidential candidate and actually ended up winning Wisconsin’s 13 electoral votes.•Barack Obama -- The 2008 election between Obama and John McCain was the first -- and, to this day, only -- time in American history that both major party nominees were sitting U.S. Senators. Obama represented Illinois in the Senate from 2005 until his resignation a week-and-a-half after being elected President in November 2008. McCain had been representing Arizona in the U.S. Senate since 1987 after two terms in the House of Representatives.

[deadpresidents]

I know Coolidge and Roosevelt both ran as VP in 1920, but did Coolidge ever comment on FDR? Did he comment on his election in 1932?

Coolidge and FDR actually had some interaction with each other on an official basis even before the 1920 election when Coolidge was Governor of Massachusetts and FDR was Assistant Secretary of the Navy in the Wilson Administration. We know that they definitely met in person, as well, because then-Governor Coolidge held a welcoming ceremony in Boston for President Wilson, who was accompanied by Assistant Naval Secretary Roosevelt, when Wilson returned to the United States from the Paris Peace Conference. 

They didn’t really speak about each other very much during the 1920 campaign because the records of Vice Presidential candidates weren’t prominent or meaningful aspects of campaigns until decades later. While both Coolidge and Roosevelt traveled widely during the campaign, their focus was on promoting their party’s Presidential nominee (Warren G. Harding and James M. Cox, respectively) or taking shots at the other party’s nominee. 

FDR was never impressed with Coolidge’s intellect or vision, but he did recognize that Coolidge had some unique characteristics and valuable political instincts that helped him succeed despite his eccentric, aloof personality. After President Harding died in office and Coolidge assumed the office, Roosevelt wrote an associate, “I cannot help feeling that Harding’s unfortunate taking off has helped rather than hurt the Republican Party. Coolidge, as you know, is not a world beater, but in his past career he has been clever enough to take advantage of situations after the other fellow had done all the work.” 

When Coolidge sought election as President in his own right in 1924, Roosevelt understood perhaps better than most that Coolidge’s reticence and taciturn style made him a more difficult candidate to oppose than he might seem. “To rise superior to Coolidge will be a hard thing,” Roosevelt said, “as Coolidge is inarticulate to the extent of being thought a mystery. To stick the knife into ghosts is always hard, but I trust that the voters as a whole will come to realize that there is nothing behind Coolidge’s silence and mystery except a spectre.”

Coolidge’s Presidency was ending just as FDR took over as Governor of New York, so there wasn’t much official interaction between the two once Roosevelt was an elected official. In 1932 Coolidge’s successor, President Herbert Hoover, was extremely unpopular due to the Great Depression and there were many Republican leaders who hoped to dump Hoover from the GOP ticket and draft Coolidge as their nominee to face Roosevelt in the Presidential election. Coolidge had no interest in the idea, but he remained a popular figure to Republicans and he gave a big speech in support of President Hoover at Madison Square Garden in New York City shortly before the election. But despite the positive reception to Coolidge and Coolidge’s speech, the former President turned down repeated requests from Hoover to campaign more frequently, partly because he was truly relieved to be out of politics but partly because he was in poor health. Coolidge did speak out against FDR in his campaign speech, but his main goal was to spotlight the differences between the two parties rather than directly attacking Roosevelt’s qualifications for the Presidency or vision as a candidate.

FDR, of course, defeated President Hoover in a landslide in November 1932, but Coolidge didn’t get an opportunity to observe or comment on what Roosevelt was going to do as President. On January 5, 1933, Coolidge’s wife, Grace, returned from a trip to the grocery store to find the former President dead in an upstairs bedroom of their home in Northampton, Massachusetts. Coolidge was only 60 years old when he died, and FDR was inaugurated as President two months later. 

[deadpresidents]

James Cox and FDR ran on the same ticket in 1920(and lost badly), and FDR of course eventually was elected POTUS in 1932. I learned recently that Cox died on July 15, 1957, nearly a quarter century after Roosevelt defeated Hoover. Since you've read up on this shit as a historian I was wondering, are there any records of interactions made between Cox and Roosevelt after Roosevelt became president, or even when he was president-elect?

Governor Cox stayed active for most of the rest of his long life and campaigned for FDR in all four of Roosevelt’s Presidential campaigns. President Roosevelt also found various commissions or positions that he appointed Cox to, like sending him to the London Economic Conference as part of the American delegation in the early months of FDR’s term. I’d recommend checking out Cox’s autobiography A Journey Through My Years for more on his life and career.

[blackandredblog]

Chasing Shadows: The Illusion of the American Dream

Photo by Pittigrilli on Wikimedia Commons The realization that the country I was raised to love was a lie didn’t happen because of one particular event. It wasn’t even a single string of events. Equality and freedom for all never had and never could exist because of corrupt foundations. The American Dream has remained just that, an ethereal mist blown over a sleeping populace. It was all…

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[oberlinsciencelibrary]

Inspiration for all voters! Heard on NPR's Morning Editon today. Listen and share.