John W. Davis
July 9, 1924, 100 years ago: The Democratic Party nominates a candidate for President -- on the 103rd ballot. That's right: One hundred and three ballots. To put that into proper perspective: Neither they nor the Republican Party have even needed a 2nd ballot since 1952.
In 1920, Senator Warren Harding of Ohio led a Republican landslide, and won the Presidency. In 1923, the Teapot Dome scandal broke out, and it looked like it might damage Harding as he ran for re-election. Shortly after it broke out, Harding died, and was replaced by his Vice President, Calvin Coolidge.
It soon became clear that Coolidge would run for a term of his own in 1924, and the Democrats were confident: Except for Theodore Roosevelt in 1904, no "accidental President" had gone on to be elected in his own right, and the Republicans were tarred with scandal.
But unlike Harding and a few members of his Cabinet, Coolidge was not involved in Teapot Dome, or in any other scandal. And, under Republican leadership, the economy had recovered from the post-World War I depression. The slogans for 1924 were "Coolidge Prosperity" and "Keep Cool and Keep Coolidge."
That's the uphill fight that the Democrats had as they gathered for their Convention at Madison Square Garden in New York. This was the 2nd building with the name, built in 1891. It would be replaced the following year by the building that would eventually be known as "the Old Garden." That one hosted many political events, but never the National Convention of either major party. It was replaced in 1968 by the current building bearing the name, which has hosted the Democratic Convention in 1976, 1980 and 1992; and the Republican Convention in 2004.
Madison Square Garden II
Unlike the Republican Party, which only required a majority of its Delegates to nominate candidates for President and Vice President, the Democratic Party needed a two-thirds supermajority. This enabled the Southern States, which made up about one-third of the Democratic Delegates, to effectively have a veto over any candidate they felt insufficiently conservative, or too favorable to civil rights.
As a result, even after the American Civil War, most Democratic nominees for President turned out to be not all that liberal. Grover Cleveland was nominated in 1884, 1888 and 1892, and would be considered conservative by post-New Deal standards. William Jennings Bryan was nominated in 1896, 1900 and 1908, and while he was liberal on many issues, his support for farmers and his silence on civil rights made him acceptable to the South.
Woodrow Wilson was nominated in 1912 and 1916, and while he was progressive on many issues and had been Governor of a Northern State, New Jersey, he was a Southern native, and turned out to be the most regressive President this nation has ever had on the issue of race. Even Donald Trump didn't end up going as far backward on that issue as Wilson.
But by 1924, the Democratic Party had changed. Its youth, its energy, and its ideas were coming from big cities, from the labor movement, and from Catholic voters and the candidates they were electing. One of these was the Governor of New York, Alfred Emanuel Smith. Going into the 1924 Convention, the 50-year-old Al Smith had the support of the Northeastern and Midwestern cities, both big ones like New York and Chicago and smaller ones like Scranton, Pennsylvania and Akron, Ohio.
Alfred E. Smith
He projected an image of joy and optimism. In giving the speech nominating him, a fellow New Yorker, Franklin D. Roosevelt, called him "The Happy Warrior of the Political Battlefield." A former State Senator, a former Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and the Party's 1920 nominee for Vice President, FDR had seemingly been taken out of the Party's line of succession due to contracting polio in 1921, and made his way to the podium on crutches on this occasion. (The term "Happy Warrior" would also be applied to a later Democratic nominee for President, Hubert Humphrey.)
But Smith was too progressive for the South's taste. He was connected with the Democratic machine in the State of New York, Tammany Hall, long considered one of the most corrupt political organizations in the country. He was in favor of repealing the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, making it once again legal to produce, transport, sell and buy alcoholic beverages in America. (Pro-Prohibition people, as most Southerners and most Republicans were at the time, were called "drys"; and pro-repeal people, as Smith and most Catholics were, were called "wets.")
Smith had worked with black leaders, and was favorable to civil rights. The Southern States' individual Democratic Parties -- and even the Republican Party in the Northern, but Southern-bordering, States of Indiana and Illinois -- were then dominated by the Ku Klux Klan.
Most people from the 1950s onward, hearing of the Klan, have tended to think of their hatred and persecution of black people. But in the 1920s, most of their actions seemed to be against Catholics, the argument being that they bowed to a "foreign dictator" -- which, by the definition of each word, the Pope was, and remains. The Klan were also terribly anti-Semitic, although Jews had yet to become a significant voting bloc in America.
At that point, the Klan had never been stronger: It had over 3 million members, and regularly had well-attended parades down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. So they could have prevented the North's candidate from being nominated.
Klan Rally, Washington, August 9, 1925
Their candidate was William Gibbs McAdoo. At 60, McAdoo was a Southerner, born in Georgia, raised in Tennessee. He had run the company that built what's now known as the PATH subway train system in New York City and New Jersey. He had married Wilson's daughter Eleanor, and had served as Wilson's Secretary of the Treasury. So, at the least, he was qualified.
William G. McAdoo
He was now based in California, so he seemed to have the support of both the South and the West. His name had been put in nomination at the 1920 Convention, where the nomination was won by Governor James M. Cox of Ohio, so he had a solid base of support. Cox had been clobbered by Harding in the general election, and was not seriously considered for a 2nd nomination. So, if there were a "line of succession," this would seem to have moved McAdoo up to 1st in it.
The 1924 Convention's 1st ballot was held on June 30. McAdoo got 39.4 percent of the Delegates, Smith 22.0 percent. Most of the remaining ballots went to various "favorite son" candidates put up by the State delegations.
Ballot after ballot was taken on that first day, until it reached a 15th ballot: McAdoo 43.6, Smith 27.8, with some of the favorite sons having drifted away, and their supporters having chosen McAdoo or Smith. Big demonstrations were held during the 10th ballot, when Governor Jonathan M. Davis of Kansas dropped out, freeing his delegation to vote for McAdoo; and Governor George Silzer of New Jersey dropped out, freeing his delegation to vote for Smith.
The prevailing belief among the delegates was that the impasse could only be broken by the elimination of both McAdoo and Smith, and the selection of one of the other contenders. McAdoo told his supporters that he was willing to drop the 2/3rds rule, but, being Protestant and South-heavy, they preferred to keep their veto over Smith. At no point in the balloting did Smith receive more than a single vote from the South, and scarcely more than 20 votes from the States west of the Mississippi River.
After 20 ballots, the vote was McAdoo 39.5, Smith 28.0. Coming in 3rd, with 11.3 percent of the Delegates, was John William Davis. At 51, he was a conservative lawyer for Wall Street firms. In 1910 and 1912, he was elected to Congress from West Virginia. In 1913, Wilson appointed him Solicitor General of the United States. In 1918, Wilson appointed him U.S. Ambassador to Britain. Certainly, he was qualified for the Presidency, but he was hardly a star, capable of generating big national support on his reputation alone. But, to an increasing number of Delegates, he seemed like a reasonable compromise candidate.
Through the next 10 ballots, the percentages for McAdoo, Smith and Davis didn't change much. Daniel C. Roper, a South Carolina Delegate and formerly the nation's Commissioner of Internal Revenue, went to FDR, to ask him to talk Smith into dropping out and accepting the Vice Presidential nomination on McAdoo's ticket.
The New York delegation, controlled by Tammany, tried what might be called a "dirty trick": They tried to prolong the convention until the hotel bills were beyond the means of the Delegates who had traveled to New York, thus giving the advantage to the pro-Smith Northeastern delegates. The Smith backers also attempted to stampede the Delegates by packing the galleries with noisy rooters, the idea being to fool the other Delegates into thinking Smith had more support than he actually did. This had worked at a Convention before, and would again.
To counter these tactics, McAdoo and Bryan, the latter booed by the New York delegation when he tried to speak on McAdoo's behalf, both tried unsuccessfully to adjourn and then reconvene in another city. The Democrats hadn't done that since 1860, and the result that time was a Party split 3 ways, and Abraham Lincoln being elected with a majority of the Electoral Votes, but only 39 percent of the popular vote, a record low for any Presidential election winner.
By the 42nd ballot, Davis had faded to 6 percent, and McAdoo was gaining support, leading Smith 45.7 to 28.9 -- but still not a majority, let alone 2/3rds. McAdoo supporters introduced a motion to eliminate one candidate on each ballot until only five remained, but Smith Delegates, and those still supporting the hopeless candidacies of favorite sons, voted this down.
Smith countered by suggesting that all Delegates be released from their pledges. McAdoo agreed to this, on the condition that the 2/3rds rule be eliminated, and Smith was fine with that. But, as before, McAdoo's own supporters balked at that idea.
Senator David Walsh of Massachusetts, Smith's fellow urban Irish Catholic, said, "We must continue to do all that we can to nominate Smith. If it should develop that he cannot be nominated, then McAdoo cannot have it, either." A record 61st ballot was held, and the tide had turned back: McAdoo 42.6, Smith 30.5, Davis down to 5.4, and everybody else combined at 21.5. McAdoo still had the Solid South and what political columnist William Safire would one day name the Winning West.
A new name was placed in nomination: Samuel Moffett Ralston, Senator and former Governor of Indiana. Bryan's brother, Charles Bryan, at this point Governor of Nebraska, had written, "Ralston is the most promising of the compromise candidates." In 1922, Ralston had written an attack on parochial schools, gaining some support from the KKK. And McAdoo had previously voiced appreciation for him. Furthermore, like Davis, Ralston seemed to have few enemies: Previous compromise choices, in both parties, had gotten the nomination not because they were loved by many, but because they were hated by few.
Samuel Ralston
It seemed possible that McAdoo might drop out, throw his support to Ralston, and then enough supporters of Smith, Davis and the favorite sons might draw upon their memories of the 3 Bryan campaigns to make the difference and nominate Ralston. On the 52nd ballot, Ralston passed Davis for 3rd place.
But still, the deadlock was not broken. Ralston had taken votes away from McAdoo. On July 8, the 87th ballot showed Smith back in the lead: 32.8 percent, to McAdoo's 30.3, Ralston's 18.0 and Davis' 6.0. Thomas Taggart, Chairman of the Democratic Party of Indiana, later said, "We would have nominated Senator Ralston if he had not withdrawn his name at the last minute. It was a near certainty as anything in politics could be. We had pledges of enough delegates that would shift to Ralston on a certain ballot to have nominated him."
But Ralston, 66, was over 300 pounds, and both his wife and his son were ill. He was not willing to leave their sides to campaign for the Presidency. He sent the Convention a telegram, saying that he would not accept the nomination. As it turned out, he would be dead within a year and a half.
However brief, Ralston's candidacy broke McAdoo's. On July 9, a 100th ballot was taken. Smith led with 32.4, Davis had jumped to 2nd with 18.7, and McAdoo had fallen to 17.5. At this point, both Smith and McAdoo dropped out, although they still held some Delegates. Davis took the lead on the 101st ballot, with 28.7. Finally, on the 103rd ballot, Davis got 844 of the 1,098 Delegates, or 76.8 percent. He was nominated. Charles Bryan was, considerably more easily, nominated for Vice President.
In his acceptance speech, Davis made the perfunctory statement that he would enforce the Prohibition laws, but his conservatism prejudiced him in favor of personal liberty and home rule, and he was frequently denounced as a wet. After the Convention, he tried to satisfy both factions of his party, but his support came principally from the same city elements that had backed Cox in 1920.
By taking 103 ballots, and picking the qualified but colorless Davis, the Democrats ended up looking like a gang that couldn't shoot straight. They had all those chances to pick somebody good, and they picked somebody who wouldn't even be thought of as a Democrat within 10 years.
Occasions like this made Will Rogers, America's leading humorist, to say, "I don't belong to any organized political party. I'm a Democrat."
Complicating things was a 3rd-party candidacy, that of Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin, a former Republican who was the nominee of the Progressive Party. He picked up a lot of votes that would have gone to Smith had he been nominated. Of course, had Smith been nominated, the South might have nominated their own 3rd-party candidate, in an attempt to sabotage the liberal Democratic nominee. (They would later try that against Harry Truman in 1948, unsuccessfully; and Hubert Humphrey in 1968, successfully.)
The general election was held on November 4, and it was no contest. Popular vote: Coolidge 54, Davis 29, La Follette 16. Davis' 29 percent remains the lowest any Democratic nominee for President has ever gotten. States won, out of the 48 then in the Union: Coolidge 35, Davis 12, all in the South; La Follette 1, his home State of Wisconsin. Electoral Votes: Coolidge 382, Davis 136, La Follette 13.
Garland S. Tucker III, an investment manager, published a book about this election in 2010, titling it The High Tide of American Conservatism. His point was that both major party candidates campaigned for limited government, reduced taxes, and less regulation. By contrast, La Follette called for the gradual nationalization of the railroads and increased taxes on the wealthy. And so, the 2 conservative candidates got 84 percent of the popular vote, 47 out of 48 States, and 518 out of 531 Electoral Votes. Oddly, the cover of the book has a bigger photograph of Davis than it does of Coolidge.
Coolidge served out his 1 full term, and, in 1927, famously told the press, "I do not choose to run for President in 1928." Smith tried again, and became the 1st Catholic nominated for President by a major party. But he got clobbered by the Republican nominee, Herbert Hoover, because the country wasn't ready to step away from the Republicans' policies that had brought prosperity, or to elect a Catholic President, or to elect a President who wanted to repeal Prohibition. Despite the Republican landslide of that year, Roosevelt was narrowly elected Governor of New York.
In 1929, the stock market crashed. "Republican prosperity" was no more, and their Party was blamed for the Great Depression. In 1932, Smith tried again, but Roosevelt was nominated on the Democratic Convention's 3rd ballot. He annihilated Hoover in November.
Then he had the Democratic National Committee do away with the 2/3rds rule. As a result of this, only once since have the Democrats needed a 2nd ballot, or more, to nominate a candidate for President: 1952, in Chicago, needing 3 ballots to nominate Adlai Stevenson. The Republicans last needed to do so in 1948, in Philadelphia, needing 3 ballots to nominate Thomas E. Dewey.
Like Samuel Ralston, "Fighting Bob" La Follette and William Jennings Bryan died in 1925. Charles Bryan left the Governorship of Nebraska that year, but was elected to it again in 1930. Calvin Coolidge died in 1933, 2 months before his 2nd full term, had he won it, would have ended. Upon being told that the famously taciturn and nap-taking Coolidge had died, writer Dorothy Parker said, "How can you tell?"
Al Smith became terribly embittered at his 1928 loss and his eclipse by Franklin Roosevelt as the Democrats' leading light. He nominated FDR's 1936 opponent, Alf Landon, to no avail, and died in 1944. Charles Bryan died the next year. A few weeks later, so did FDR.
William G. McAdoo was elected a U.S. Senator for California in FDR's 1932 landslide, but lost renomination for the office in 1938, and died in 1941. Charles Dawes, elected Vice President on Coolidge's ticket in 1924, lived until 1951.
John W. Davis went back to the practice of law, and became increasingly conservative, and the Democratic Party, fully in line with FDR's New Deal, turned its back on him, as a former nominee both hopelessly unsuccessful and out of step with where the Party had gone. It has been alleged that he -- and Smith as well -- was a participant in the "Business Plot" that sought a military coup that would have removed FDR from power and installed a fascist President.
He argued many cases before the Supreme Court of the United States. He had previously done so as Solicitor General. Unfortunately, his 140th and last such case was for the side of public school segregation in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, which he deservedly lost. He died the next year.
The last major participant of the 1924 election was Burton Wheeler: As a Senator from Montana, he briefly left the Democratic Party to be La Follette's running mate, and lived until 1975.
In 1927, the Ku Klux Klan held a rally in Queens, New York City. The police broke it up, and arrested a few members. One of them was a 22-year-old aspiring real estate executive named Fred Trump, later to be the father of Donald Trump.
In 2016, the Southern Poverty Law Center estimated that the KKK's membership was between 3,000 and 8,000. Despite the Presidency of Donald Trump, and the growth of other hate groups, there is no reason to believe that the KKK's numbers have significantly increased.
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