United States presidential election, 1920

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United States presidential election, 1920
United States
1916 ←
 November 2, 1920
 → 1924
  Warren G Harding portrait as senator June 1920.jpg James M. Cox 1920.jpg
Nominee Warren G. Harding James M. Cox
Party Republican Democratic
Home state Ohio Ohio
Running mate Calvin Coolidge Franklin D. Roosevelt
Electoral vote 404 127
States carried 37 11
Popular vote 16,144,093 9,139,661
Percentage 60.3% 34.1%

ElectoralCollege1920.svg
Presidential election results map. Red denotes states won by Harding/Coolidge, Blue denotes those won by Cox/Roosevelt. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state.
President before election

Woodrow Wilson
Democratic

 Elected President

Warren G. Harding
Republican

The United States presidential election of 1920 was dominated by the aftermath of World War I and a hostile response to certain policies of Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic president. The wartime economic boom had collapsed. Politicians were arguing over peace treaties and the question of America's entry into the League of Nations, which produced an isolationist reaction. Overseas, there were wars and revolutions. At home, 1919 was marked by major strikes in the meatpacking and steel industries, and large-scale race riots in Chicago and other cities. Terrorist attacks on Wall Street produced fears of radicals and terrorists. The Irish Catholic and German communities were outraged at Wilson's foreign policy, and his political position was critically weakened after he suffered a severe stroke in 1919 that rendered him unable to speak on his own behalf.

Former President Theodore Roosevelt had been the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, but his health collapsed in 1918. He died in January 1919, leaving no obvious heir to his Progressive legacy. Both major parties turned to dark horse candidates from the electoral-vote-rich state of Ohio. The Democrats nominated newspaper publisher and Governor James M. Cox; in turn, the Republicans chose Senator Warren G. Harding, another Ohio newspaper publisher. To help his campaign, Cox chose future President Franklin D. Roosevelt (a distant cousin of Theodore) as his running mate. Harding virtually ignored Cox and essentially campaigned against Wilson, calling for a return to "normalcy". With an almost 4-to-1 spending advantage, he won a landslide victory. Until Lyndon Johnson received 61.1% in his landslide win in the election of 1964, Harding's victory remained the largest popular-vote percentage margin (60.3% to 34.1%) in Presidential elections after the so-called "Era of Good Feelings" ended with the unopposed election of James Monroe in 1820.

This election was the first since the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment on August 18, 1920, and thus the first in which women had the right to vote in all 48 states. As a result, the total popular vote increased dramatically, from 18.5 million in 1916 to 26.8 million in 1920.[1]

Contents

[edit] Nominations

[edit] Republican Party nomination

Main article: 1920 Republican National Convention

Republican candidates:

On June 8, the Republican National Convention met in Chicago. The race was wide open, and soon the convention deadlocked between Major General Leonard Wood and Governor Frank Orren Lowden of Illinois.

Others placed in nomination included Senators Warren G. Harding of Ohio, Hiram Johnson of California, and Miles Poindexter of Washington, Governor Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts, Herbert Hoover, and Columbia University President Nicholas Murray Butler. Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin was not formally placed in nomination, but received the votes of his state delegation nonetheless. Harding was nominated for president on the tenth ballot, after some delegates shifted their allegiances. The results of the ten ballots were as follows:

Presidential Balloting, Republican National Convention 1920
Ballot 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Before
shifts		 10
After
shifts
Warren G. Harding 65.5 59.0 58.5 61.5 78.0 89.0 105.0 133.0 374.5 644.7 692.2
Leonard Wood 287.5 289.5 303.0 314.5 299.0 311.5 312.0 299.0 249.0 181.5 156.0
Frank Orren Lowden 211.5 259.5 282.5 289.0 303.0 311.5 311.5 307.0 121.5 28.0 11.0
Hiram Johnson 133.5 146.0 148.0 140.5 133.5 110.0 99.5 87.0 82.0 80.8 80.8
William Cameron Sproul 84.0 78.5 79.5 79.5 82.5 77.0 76.0 76.0 78.0 0 0
Nicholas Murray Butler 69.5 41.0 25.0 20.0 4.0 4.0 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0
Calvin Coolidge 34.0 32.0 27.0 25.0 29.0 28.0 28.0 30.0 28.0 5.0 5.0
Robert M. La Follette 24.0 24.0 24.0 22.0 24.0 24.0 24.0 24.0 24.0 24.0 24.0
Jeter Connelly Pritchard 21.0 10.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Miles Poindexter 20.0 15.0 15.0 15.0 15.0 15.0 15.0 15.0 14.0 2.0 0
Howard Sutherland 17.0 15.0 9.0 3.0 1.0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Herbert Hoover 5.5 5.5 5.5 5.0 6.0 5.0 4.0 5.0 6.0 10.5 9.5
Scattering 11.0 9.0 7.0 9.0 9.0 9.0 6.0 6.0 5.0 5.5 3.5

Harding's nomination, said to have been secured in negotiations among party bosses in a "smoke-filled room", was engineered by Harry M. Daugherty, Harding's political manager who became United States Attorney General after his election. Prior to the convention, Daugherty was quoted as saying, "I don't expect Senator Harding to be nominated on the first, second, or third ballots, but I think we can afford to take chances that about 11 minutes after two, Friday morning of the convention, when 15 or 12 weary men are sitting around a table, someone will say: 'Who will we nominate?' At that decisive time, the friends of Harding will suggest him and we can well afford to abide by the result." Daugherty's prediction described essentially what occurred, but historians Richard C. Bain and Judith H. Parris argue that Daugherty's prediction has been given too much weight in narratives of the convention.

Once the presidential nomination was finally settled, the party bosses and Sen. Harding recommended Wisconsin Sen. Irvine Lenroot to the delegates for the second spot, but the delegates revolted and nominated Coolidge, who was very popular over his handling of the Boston Police Strike of the year before. The Tally:

Vice Presidential Balloting,
Republican Nat'l Convention 1920
Calvin Coolidge 674.5
Irvine Lenroot 146.5
Henry Justin Allen 68.5
Henry Anderson 28
Asle Gronna 24
Hiram Johnson 22.5
Jeter Connelly Pritchard 11
Abstaining 9

Source for convention coverage: Richard C. Bain and Judith H. Parris, Convention Decisions and Voting Records (Washington DC: Brookings Institution, 1973), pp. 200–208.

[edit] Democratic Party nomination

Main article: 1920 Democratic National Convention

Democratic candidates:

[edit] Candidates gallery

Guest pass for convention in San Francisco

Although William Gibbs McAdoo (Wilson's son-in-law and former Treasury Secretary) was the strongest candidate, Wilson blocked his nomination in hopes a deadlocked convention would demand Wilson run for a third term. (Wilson at the time was physically immobile and in seclusion.) The Democrats, meeting in San Francisco between June 28 and July 6, nominated another newspaper editor from Ohio, Governor James M. Cox, as their presidential candidate, and 38 year-old Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt, a fifth cousin of the late president Theodore Roosevelt, for vice-president.

Early favorites for the nomination had included McAdoo and Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer. Others placed in nomination included New York Governor Al Smith, United Kingdom Ambassador John W. Davis, New Jersey Governor Edward I. Edwards, and Oklahoma Senator Robert Latham Owen.

[edit] General election

[edit] Return to normalcy

See also: Normalcy

Warren Harding's main campaign slogan was a "return to normalcy", playing upon the weariness of the American public after the social upheaval of the Progressive Era. Additionally, World War I and the Treaty of Versailles proved deeply unpopular, causing a reaction against Wilson, who had pushed especially hard for the latter.

[edit] Ethnic issues

Main articles: Irish Race Conventions and Hindu–German Conspiracy Trial
Poster for the 1920 Democratic presidential ticket

Irish Americans were powerful in the Democratic party, and groups such as Clan na Gael opposed going to war alongside their enemy Britain, especially after the violent suppression of the Easter Rising of 1916. Wilson won them over in 1917 by promising to ask Britain to give Ireland its independence. Wilson had won the presidential election of 1916 with strong support from German-Americans and Irish-Americans, largely because of his slogan "He kept us out of war" and the longstanding American policy of isolationism. At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, however, he reneged on his commitments to the Irish-American community, and it vehemently denounced him. His dilemma was that Britain was his war ally. Events such as the anti-British 1916 rebellion, the Black Tom and Kingsland Explosions on American soil (in part the result of wartime Irish and German co-ordination), and the Irish anti-conscription crisis of 1918 were all embarrassing to recall in 1920.[2][3]

Britain had already passed an Irish Home Rule Act in 1914, suspended for the war's duration, and was to pass another in late 1920, by which Ireland would be self-governing within the British empire. This satisfied Wilson. The provisions of these were inadequate to the supporters of the self-recognized Irish Republic, claiming full sovereignty, that was supported in 1920 by most of the Irish electorate and by many Irish Americans. The American Committee for Relief in Ireland was set up in 1920 to assist victims of the Irish War of Independence of 1919-21.

Wilson in turn blamed the Irish Americans and German Americans for the lack of popular support for his unsuccessful campaign to have the United States to join the League of Nations, saying, "There is an organized propaganda against the League of Nations and against the treaty proceeding from exactly the same sources that the organized propaganda proceeded from which threatened this country here and there with disloyalty, and I want to say -- I cannot say too often -- any man who carries a hyphen about with him [i.e., a hyphenated American] carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this Republic whenever he gets ready."[4]

Of the $5,500,000 raised by supporters of the Irish Republic in the United States in 1919-20, the Dublin parliament (Dáil Éireann) voted in June 1920 to spend $500,000 on the American presidential election.[5] How this was spent remains unclear. Ironically, the lawyer who had advised the fundraisers was Franklin D. Roosevelt, the losing vice-presidential candidate. In any case, the Irish American city machines sat on their hands during the election, allowing the Republicans to roll up unprecedented landslides in every major city. Many German-American Democrats voted Republican or stayed home, giving the GOP landslides in the rural Midwest.

[edit] Campaign

Roosevelt and Cox at a campaign appearance in Washington, D.C.

Wilson had hoped for a “solemn referendum” on the League of Nations, but did not get one. Harding waffled on the League, thereby keeping the “irreconcilables” like Senator William Borah in line. Cox also hedged. He went to the White House for Wilson's blessing and apparently endorsed the League, but—discovering its unpopularity among Democrats—he said that he wanted the League only with reservations, particularly on Article Ten, which would require the United States to participate in any war declared by the League. (That is, he took the same position as Republican Senate leader Henry Cabot Lodge.) As reporter Brand Whitlock observed, the League was an issue important in government circles, but was unimportant to the electorate. He also noted that the campaign was not being waged on issues: “The people, indeed, do not know what ideas Harding or Cox represents; neither do Harding or Cox. Great is democracy.”[6] False rumors circulated that Harding had "Negro blood," but this did not greatly hurt Harding's election campaign.

Cox made a whirlwind campaign that took him to rallies, train station speeches, and formal addresses, reaching audiences totaling perhaps 2 million. Harding relied upon a “Front Porch Campaign” similar to that of William McKinley in 1896. It brought thousands of voters to Marion, Ohio, where Harding spoke from his home. GOP campaign manager Will Hays spent about $8,100,000, nearly four times the money Cox spent. Hays used national advertising in a major way (with advice from adman Albert Lasker). The theme was Harding's own slogan “America First”. Thus the Republican advertisement in Collier's Magazine for October 30, 1920 demanded, “Let's be done with wiggle and wobble.” The image presented in the ads was nationalistic, using catch phrases like “absolute control of the United States by the United States,” “Independence means independence, now as in 1776,” “This country will remain American. Its next President will remain in our own country,” and “We decided long ago that we objected to foreign government of our people.”[7]

On election night, November 2, 1920, commercial radio broadcast coverage of election returns for the first time. Announcers at KDKA-AM in Pittsburgh read telegraph ticker results over the air as they came in. This single station could be heard over most of the Eastern United States by the small percentage of the population that had radio receivers.

Harding's landslide came from all directions except the South. Irish-American and German-American voters who had backed Wilson and peace in 1916 now voted against Wilson and Versailles. “A vote for Harding,” said the German-language press, “is a vote against the persecutions suffered by German-Americans during the war.” Not one major German-language newspaper supported Cox.[8] The Irish Americans, bitterly angry at Wilson's refusal to help Ireland at Versailles, sat out the election. Since they controlled the Democratic party in most large cities, this allowed the Republicans to mobilize the ethnic vote, and Harding swept the big cities.

Clifford Berryman's cartoon depiction of Eugene V. Debs' campaign from prison

This was the first election in which women from every state were allowed to vote, following the passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution in August 1920 (only in time for the general election, however).

Tennessee's vote for Warren G. Harding marked the first time since the end of Reconstruction that one of the 11 states of the Confederacy had voted for a Republican. The state had last been carried by a Republican in 1868.

Despite the fact that Cox was defeated badly, his running mate, Franklin D. Roosevelt, became a well-known political figure because of his active and energetic campaign. In 1928 he was elected Governor of New York, and in 1932 he was elected president. He remained in power until his death in 1945, as the longest-serving president ever.

[edit] Other candidates

Election results by county.
  Warren G. Harding
  James M. Cox
  James E. Ferguson

Socialist Party candidate Eugene V. Debs received 913,664 popular votes (3.4%), despite the fact that he was in prison at the time for advocating non-compliance with the draft in the war. This was the largest amount of popular votes ever received by a Socialist Party candidate in the United States, though not the largest percentage of the popular vote. (The 19th Amendment had dramatically increased the number of people eligible to vote.) Debs received double this percentage in the 1912 election.[9] The 1920 election was his fifth and last attempt to become president.

Parley P. Christensen of the Farmer-Labor Party took 265,411 votes (1.0%), while Prohibition Party candidate Aaron S. Watkins came in fifth with 189,339 votes (0.7%), the poorest showing for the Prohibition party since 1884. Since the Eighteenth Amendment, which initiated the period of Prohibition in the United States, had passed the previous year, this single-issue party seemed less relevant.

[edit] Results

Presidential candidate Party Home state Popular vote Electoral
vote		 Running mate
Count Pct Vice-presidential candidate Home state Elect. vote
Warren G. Harding Republican Ohio 16,144,093 60.3% 404 Calvin Coolidge Massachusetts 404
James M. Cox Democratic Ohio 9,139,661 34.1% 127 Franklin D. Roosevelt New York 127
Eugene V. Debs Socialist Indiana 913,693 3.4% 0 Seymour Stedman Illinois 0
Parley P. Christensen Farmer-Labor Illinois 265,411 1.0% 0 Max S. Hayes Ohio 0
Aaron S. Watkins Prohibition Indiana 188,787 0.7% 0 D. Leigh Colvin New York 0
James E. Ferguson American Texas 47,968 0.2% 0 William J. Hough New York 0
William Wesley Cox Socialist Labor Missouri 31,716 0.1% 0 August Gillhaus New York 0
Robert Colvin Macauley Single Tax Pennsylvania 5,750 0.0% 0 Richard C. Barnum 0
Other 27,746 0.1% — Other —
Total 26,765,180 100% 531 531
Needed to win 266 266

Source (Popular Vote): Leip, David. 1920 Presidential Election Results. Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections (July 28, 2005).Source (Electoral Vote): Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996. Official website of the National Archives. (July 31, 2005).

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections, accessed Jan. 2012.
  2. ^ Landrich's 1937 book on sabotage incidents
  3. ^ Essay by M. Plowman (2009) on the complexities of the "Indo-Irish-German" conspiracy in the USA during the war.
  4. ^ American Rhetoric, "Final Address in Support of the League of Nations", Woodrow Wilson, delivered September 25, 1919 in Pueblo, CO.
  5. ^ Dáil vote, 29 June 1920
  6. ^ Sinclair, p. 168
  7. ^ Sinclair, p. 162
  8. ^ Sinclair, p. 163
  9. ^ Presidentelect.org

[edit] References

  • Bagby, Wesley M. (1962). The Road to Normalcy: The Presidential Campaign and Election of 1920. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. 
  • Boller, Paul F., Jr. (2004). Presidential Campaigns: From George Washington to George W. Bush. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 212–217. ISBN 0195167163. 
  • Cooper, John Milton (2001). Breaking the Heart of the World: Woodrow Wilson and the Fight for the League of Nations. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521807867. 
  • Duff, John B. (1970). "German-Americans and the Peace, 1918–1920". American Jewish Historical Quarterly 59 (4): 424–459. ISSN 0002-9068. 
  • Duff, John B. (1968). "The Versailles Treaty and the Irish-Americans". Journal of American History (Organization of American Historians) 55 (3): 582–598. doi:10.2307/1891015. ISSN 0021-8723. JSTOR 1891015. 
  • McCoy, Donald R. (1971). "The Election of 1920". In Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr.; Israel, Fred L.. History of American Presidential Elections. New York: Chelsea House. ISBN 0070797862. 
  • Morello, John A. (2001). Selling the President, 1920: Albert D. Lasker, Advertising, and the Election of Warren G. Harding. Westport, CT: Praeger. ISBN 0275970302. 
  • Pietrusza, David (2007). 1920: The Year of the Six Presidents. New York: Carroll & Graf. ISBN 0786716223. 
  • Sinclair, Andrew (1965). The Available Man: The Life behind the Masks of Warren Gamaliel Harding. New York: Macmillan. 
  • "The Presidential Election of 1920". American Leaders Speak: Recordings from World War I and the 1920 Election. Library of Congress. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/nfhtml/nfexpe.html. Retrieved November 16, 2002. 

[edit] External links

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