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The Campaign and Election of 1924
After a year in the office he inherited from Harding, the tall and lean man from Vermont was ready to assume the presidency in his own right. The Republican delegates at the convention in Cleveland saw little reason to change horses. Calvin Coolidge had emerged unharmed from the charges of corruption in the Teapot Dome Scandal that had tarnished Harding's name and sent several of his lieutenants to jail.
"Silent Cal," as Coolidge was becoming known because of his disdain for making small talk at social affairs, was honest, nonmanipulative, direct, and hardworking. The Republicans gave him the nomination on the first ballot, with only a handful voting for his chief rivals, Robert M. LaFollette and Hiram Johnson, progressive senators from Wisconsin and California, respectively. Coolidge hoped to balance the ticket with Senator William E. Borah as his running mate from Ohio. Borah was midwestern, a firm isolationist, and a strong progressive on the domestic front. When Borah declined the offer, the party turned to Charles G. Dawes of Illinois -- director of the Bureau of the Budget under Harding, the U.S. purchasing agent for American forces during World War I, and the author of the Dawes Plan. Their Republican platform emphasized tax reduction, collection of foreign debts, the protective tariff, nonparticipation in the League of Nations, opposition to farm subsidies for crop prices, the eight-hour workday, a ban on child labor, and a federal antilynching law.
In New York, the Democrats engaged in a suicidal struggle for control of the party, pitting the forces of former Treasury Secretary William G. McAdoo of California -- President Wilson's son-in-law -- against Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York. McAdoo represented the interests of the West, the rural South, and "Drys"-meaning those who supported the prohibition of alcohol. He also was favored by the Ku Klux Klan, which had become a national organization following the screening of the racist but popular film Birth of A Nation. The film glorified the Klan's role during the Reconstruction era following the Civil War. The still politically powerful but aging William Jennings Bryan, three-time presidential candidate, supported McAdoo and almost single-handedly defeated a move to put an anti-Klan plank in the Democratic platform with his convention-delivered speech. On the other side, Tammany Hall (the New York political machine), representatives from eastern cities, and the "Wets" -- those opposed to prohibition -- cheered with great enthusiasm when the young Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was attempting a political comeback after being stricken with polio, electrified the convention in a lively nomination speech depicting Smith as the "Happy Warrior."
For the next one hundred ballots, the longest deadlock at any major party convention in U.S. history, neither McAdoo nor Smith could gain the necessary two-thirds majority. Finally, on the one-hundred-and-first ballot, the convention nominated a compromise candidate, Wall Street lawyer John W. Davis of West Virginia. Davis had served as solicitor general and as ambassador to Great Britain under twenty-eighth President Woodrow Wilson. In a nod to Bryan, the Democrats selected his brother, Governor Charles W. Bryan of Nebraska, for their vice presidential candidate. The Democratic platform favored a reduction in the tariff, a graduated income tax, farm relief with easier credit and farm subsidies for crop prices, independence for the Philippines, a national referendum on the League of Nations, strict enforcement of antitrust laws, and public works projects to reduce unemployment.
The Progressive Party, which represented independents unhappy with both major parties, met in Cleveland to nominate Senator Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin and Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana to head their third-party ticket. In the best traditions of Wilsonian reformism, the Progressive platform read like a laundry list of reform measures promoted by various liberal organizations since the Civil War. It included legislation using the powers of the federal government to crush privately owned industrial monopolies, public ownership of water resources and the national railroads, a substantial increase in the inheritance tax, an excess-profits tax, debt relief for farmers and government subsidies to support crop prices, abolition of court-ordered or government-decreed (labor injunctions) bans on strikes, election of all federal judges, laws and constitutional amendments ending child labor and supporting the equality of the sexes at work and in wages, multinational agreements to outlaw war, disarmament, and a federally constructed deep waterway channel from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean.
In the election campaign, the Republicans urged the nation to "Keep Cool With Coolidge," a popular slogan that reflected the public's sense of optimism. President Coolidge delivered only one major speech in the race, while Davis waged an aggressive campaign attacking the Republicans as the party of corruption. Davis hurt his chances with his rural constituency, however, when he denounced the Ku Klux Klan. LaFollette, understanding that he had little chance for victory, campaigned moderately. In the end, Coolidge won 54 percent of the vote compared to 28.8 percent for Davis and a surprising 16.6 percent for LaFollette. LaFollette's strong showing for a third-party candidate was helped by the endorsement of the Socialist Party and the American Federation of Labor, but his support was so widely scattered that he won only the thirteen electoral college votes of his home state, Wisconsin. Davis won the electoral votes of twelve states (136 votes), all within the so-called "Solid South." Coolidge, on the other hand, compiled 382 electoral votes in thirty-five states.
After a year in the office he inherited from Harding, the tall and lean man from Vermont was ready to assume the presidency in his own right. The Republican delegates at the convention in Cleveland saw little reason to change horses. Calvin Coolidge had emerged unharmed from the charges of corruption in the Teapot Dome Scandal that had tarnished Harding's name and sent several of his lieutenants to jail.
"Silent Cal," as Coolidge was becoming known because of his disdain for making small talk at social affairs, was honest, nonmanipulative, direct, and hardworking. The Republicans gave him the nomination on the first ballot, with only a handful voting for his chief rivals, Robert M. LaFollette and Hiram Johnson, progressive senators from Wisconsin and California, respectively. Coolidge hoped to balance the ticket with Senator William E. Borah as his running mate from Ohio. Borah was midwestern, a firm isolationist, and a strong progressive on the domestic front. When Borah declined the offer, the party turned to Charles G. Dawes of Illinois -- director of the Bureau of the Budget under Harding, the U.S. purchasing agent for American forces during World War I, and the author of the Dawes Plan. Their Republican platform emphasized tax reduction, collection of foreign debts, the protective tariff, nonparticipation in the League of Nations, opposition to farm subsidies for crop prices, the eight-hour workday, a ban on child labor, and a federal antilynching law.
In New York, the Democrats engaged in a suicidal struggle for control of the party, pitting the forces of former Treasury Secretary William G. McAdoo of California -- President Wilson's son-in-law -- against Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York. McAdoo represented the interests of the West, the rural South, and "Drys"-meaning those who supported the prohibition of alcohol. He also was favored by the Ku Klux Klan, which had become a national organization following the screening of the racist but popular film Birth of A Nation. The film glorified the Klan's role during the Reconstruction era following the Civil War. The still politically powerful but aging William Jennings Bryan, three-time presidential candidate, supported McAdoo and almost single-handedly defeated a move to put an anti-Klan plank in the Democratic platform with his convention-delivered speech. On the other side, Tammany Hall (the New York political machine), representatives from eastern cities, and the "Wets" -- those opposed to prohibition -- cheered with great enthusiasm when the young Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was attempting a political comeback after being stricken with polio, electrified the convention in a lively nomination speech depicting Smith as the "Happy Warrior."
For the next one hundred ballots, the longest deadlock at any major party convention in U.S. history, neither McAdoo nor Smith could gain the necessary two-thirds majority. Finally, on the one-hundred-and-first ballot, the convention nominated a compromise candidate, Wall Street lawyer John W. Davis of West Virginia. Davis had served as solicitor general and as ambassador to Great Britain under twenty-eighth President Woodrow Wilson. In a nod to Bryan, the Democrats selected his brother, Governor Charles W. Bryan of Nebraska, for their vice presidential candidate. The Democratic platform favored a reduction in the tariff, a graduated income tax, farm relief with easier credit and farm subsidies for crop prices, independence for the Philippines, a national referendum on the League of Nations, strict enforcement of antitrust laws, and public works projects to reduce unemployment.
The Progressive Party, which represented independents unhappy with both major parties, met in Cleveland to nominate Senator Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin and Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana to head their third-party ticket. In the best traditions of Wilsonian reformism, the Progressive platform read like a laundry list of reform measures promoted by various liberal organizations since the Civil War. It included legislation using the powers of the federal government to crush privately owned industrial monopolies, public ownership of water resources and the national railroads, a substantial increase in the inheritance tax, an excess-profits tax, debt relief for farmers and government subsidies to support crop prices, abolition of court-ordered or government-decreed (labor injunctions) bans on strikes, election of all federal judges, laws and constitutional amendments ending child labor and supporting the equality of the sexes at work and in wages, multinational agreements to outlaw war, disarmament, and a federally constructed deep waterway channel from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean.
In the election campaign, the Republicans urged the nation to "Keep Cool With Coolidge," a popular slogan that reflected the public's sense of optimism. President Coolidge delivered only one major speech in the race, while Davis waged an aggressive campaign attacking the Republicans as the party of corruption. Davis hurt his chances with his rural constituency, however, when he denounced the Ku Klux Klan. LaFollette, understanding that he had little chance for victory, campaigned moderately. In the end, Coolidge won 54 percent of the vote compared to 28.8 percent for Davis and a surprising 16.6 percent for LaFollette. LaFollette's strong showing for a third-party candidate was helped by the endorsement of the Socialist Party and the American Federation of Labor, but his support was so widely scattered that he won only the thirteen electoral college votes of his home state, Wisconsin. Davis won the electoral votes of twelve states (136 votes), all within the so-called "Solid South." Coolidge, on the other hand, compiled 382 electoral votes in thirty-five states.