The 'United States presidential election of 1920' was dominated by the aftermath of
World War I and the hostile reaction to
Woodrow Wilson, the
Democratic president. The wartime boom had collapsed. Politicians were arguing over peace treaties and the question of America's entry into the
League of Nations. Overseas there were wars and revolutions; at home,
1919 was marked by major strikes in meatpacking and steel, and large race riots in
Chicago and other cities. Terrorist attacks on
Wall Street produced
fears of radicals and terrorists.
Outgoing President Wilson was increasingly unpopular, and as an invalid could no longer speak on his own behalf. The economy was in a recession, the Irish Catholic and German communities were outraged at his policies, and his sponsorship of the
League of Nations produced an
isolationist reaction.
Former President
Theodore Roosevelt was still popular but his health had collapsed in
1918 and he died in January
1919, leaving no obvious heir to his
Progressive legacy.
Both major parties turned to dark horse candidates from the elector-rich state of
Ohio. The Democrats nominated newspaper publisher and Governor
James M. Cox to take on Senator
Warren G. Harding. Calling for "
normalcy", Harding essentially campaigned against Wilson, and, with an almost 4-to-1 spending advantage, beat Cox in a
landslide, and remains the largest popular-vote percentage margin (26.2%) in presidential history, 60.3% to 34.1%.
Nominations
Republican Party nomination
Republican Candidates
★
William E. Borah, U.S. senator from
Idaho
★
Nicholas M. Butler, President of
Columbia University and 1912 vice presidential nominee
★
Calvin Coolidge,
Governor of Massachusetts
★
Warren G. Harding, U.S. senator from
Ohio
★
Herbert C. Hoover, businessman from
California
★
Hiram W. Johnson, U.S. senator from
California
★
Philander C. Knox, U.S. senator from
Pennsylvania
★
Robert M. LaFollette, U.S. senator and candidate for the 1908, 1912 and 1916 nominations from
Wisconsin
★
Irvine L. Lenroot, U.S. senator from
Wisconsin
★
Frank O. Lowden,
Governor of Illinois
★
John J. Pershing, Commander of the
American Expeditionary Force in Europe during
World War I from
Missouri
★
Miles Poindexter, U.S. senator from
Washington
★
Jeter C. Pritchard, former U.S. senator from
North Carolina
★
William C. Sproul,
Governor of Pennsylvania
★
Howard Sutherland, U.S. senator from
West Virginia
★
Charles B. Warren, delegate from
Michigan
★
James E. Watson, U.S. senator from
Indiana
★
Leonard Wood, 2-star General from
New Hampshire
On
June 8, the
Republican National Convention met in
Chicago. The race was wide open, and soon the convention deadlocked between General
Leonard Wood and Governor
Frank O. 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, Sr. 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 shifts. The ten ballots went like this:
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, upon Harding's election, became
Attorney General. 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 eleven minutes after two, Friday morning of the convention, when fifteen or twenty 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:
Source for convention coverage: Richard C. Bain and Judith H. Parris, ''Convention Decisions and Voting Records'' (Washington DC: Brookings Institution, 1973), pp. 200-208.
Democratic Party nomination
Democratic Candidates
★
William J. Bryan, former
U.S. Secretary of State and 1896, 1900 and 1908 presidential nominee
★
James M. Cox,
Governor of Ohio
★
Homer S. Cummings, Chairman of the
Democratic National Committee and candidate for the 1916 nomination
★
John W. Davis, former Ambassador to Great Briton from
West Virginia
★
Edward I. Edwards,
Governor of New Jersey
★
James W. Gerard, former Ambassador to
Germany from
New York
★
Carter Glass,
U.S. Treasury Secretary from
Virginia
★
Francis B. Harrison,
Governor of the Philippine Islands from
New York
★
Gilbert M. Hitchcock, U.S. senator from
Nebraska
★
William G. McAdoo, former
U.S. Treasury Secretary from
California
★
Edwin T. Meredith,
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture from
Iowa
★
Robert L. Owen, U.S. senator from
Oklahoma
★
A. Mitchell Palmer,
U.S. Attorney General from
Pennsylvania
★
Furnifold M. Simmons, U.S. senator from
North Carolina
★
Alfred E. Smith,
Governor of New York
★
Woodrow Wilson,
President of the United States from
New Jersey
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, 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
Teddy Roosevelt, for vice president.
Early favorites for the nomination had included McAdoo and Attorney General
A. Mitchell Palmer. Others placed in nomination included New York Governor
Al Smith, New Jersey Governor
Edward I. Edwards, and former Solicitor General
John W. Davis.
General election
Ethnic issues
Irish Americans were powerful in the Democratic party and opposed going to war alongside their enemy Britain, especially after the violent suppression of the
Easter Rebellion of 1916. Wilson won them over in 1917 by promising to ask Britain to give Ireland its independence. At Versailles, however, he reneged and Irish American community vehemently denounced him. Wilson in turn blamed the
Irish Americans and
German Americans for the lack of popular support for 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 carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this Republic whenever he gets ready."
[1]
In response, 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.
Campaign
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.”
[2] Ugly (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.”
[3]
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 deep 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.
[4] 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.
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.
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.
Despite the fact that Cox was defeated badly, his running-mate, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, became a well-known political figure because of his active and energetic campaign. In
1928 he became
Governor of New York, and in
1932 he was elected President and remained in power until his death in
1945, as the longest-serving President ever.
Other candidates
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. Debs was later pardoned by President Harding. This was the most popular votes ever received by a Socialist Party candidate, though not the largest vote by percentage.
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; as the
Eighteenth Amendment starting
Prohibition had passed the previous year, this single-issue party seemed less relevant.
Results
'Source (Popular Vote):'
'Source (Electoral Vote):'
See also
★
History of the United States (1918–1945)
★
History of the United States Democratic Party
★
History of the United States Republican Party
★
United States Senate election, 1920
Notes
1. American Rhetoric, "Final Address in Support of the League of Nations", Woodrow Wilson, delivered 25 Sept 1919 in Pueblo, CO.
2. Sinclair, p. 168
3. Sinclair, p. 162
4. Sinclair, p. 163
References
:
★
The Road to Normalcy: The Presidential Campaign and Election of 1920, , Wesley M., Bagby, , 1968,
:
★
Presidential Campaigns: From George Washington to George W. Bush, , Paul F., Jr., Boller, Oxford University Press, 2004, ISBN 0-19-516716-3
★ John Milton Cooper. ''Breaking the Heart of the World: Woodrow Wilson and the Fight for the League of Nations'' (2001)
★ John B. Duff, "German-Americans and the Peace, 1918-1920" ''American Jewish Historical Quarterly'' 1970 59(4): 424-459.
★ John B. Duff, "The Versailles Treaty and the Irish-Americans" ''Journal of American History'' 1968 55(3): 582-598. ISSN 0021-8723
★ Donald R. McCoy, "The Election of 1920," in ''History of American Presidential Elections,'' ed Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. and Fred L. Israel, (1971),
★ John A Morello. ''Selling the President, 1920: Albert D. Lasker, Advertising, and the Election of Warren G. Harding'' (2001)
:
★
The Available Man: The Life behind the Masks of Warren Gamaliel Harding, , Andrew, Sinclair, , 1965,
; Web sites
:
★
The Presidential Election of 1920
External links
★
1920 popular vote by counties
★
1920 Election Links
Navigation
العربية
中国
Français
Deutsch
Ελληνική
हिन्दी
Italiano
日本語
Português
Русский
Español
