Info on 1920 election, and link to audio recording of Warren Harding's famous plea for “normalcy” speech during the campaign. POLITICS IN THE 1920S
Copyright © 2005-6, Henry J. Sage
The 1920 Election: Harding and Coolidge defeat Cox and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Info on 1920 election, and link to audio recording of Warren Harding's famous plea for “normalcy” speech during the campaign.
Grover Cleveland and Woodrow Wilson were the only Democratic presidents elected between Abraham Lincoln in 1860 and Franklin Roosevelt in 1933. It is likely that a Republican would have won in 1912 in stead of Wilson had not the party divided between Taft's conservative Republicans and Roosevelt’s Progressives. Wilson defeated New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes in 1916 largely on the fact that he had managed to keep the United States out of the European conflagration known as the great war, or World War I.
During Wilson's second term, of course, the United States did enter the war, President Wilson went to France to help negotiate the treaty of Versailles, and a bitter fight erupted between Wilson and a Republican Senate over ratification of the treaty. Wilson's stroke, which he suffered on a campaign to drum up support for the treaty, incapacitated him, and his presidency ended on an unfortunate note.
The election of 1920, therefore, was as much about Wilson as about anything. The Republican candidate, Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio, called for a return to “normalcy,” a word he invented for the occasion. His vice presidential candidate was Governor Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts, who was best known for ending the Boston police strike of 1919. During the strike Coolidge sent a telegram to Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, saying: “There is no right to strike against the public safety by anyone, anywhere, any time.”
1920 Results:
Harding/Coolidge: 16,152,200 popular votes, 404 electoral
Cox/Roosevelt: 9,147,353 populat votes, 127 electoral
Most memorable about the election of 1920 is that for the first time women had the right to vote. On the Democratic side another interesting note is that Franklin Roosevelt, President Wilson's Assistant Secretary of the Navy, was the Vice-Presidential candidate alongside Governor James M. Cox of Ohio, a former newspaperman.
Harding’s Presidency is not one of the high points in the history of that office. Phrases used to describe the handsome man from Ohio included, “harmless but incompetent,” “pompous” and a “see nothing president.” He had some good cabinet officials, but his administration was tainted by corruption, as was his personal conduct. Upon his death in 1823 he was initially mourned, but as the scandals emerged, people found Calvin Coolidge a pleasant relief.
The presidency of Calvin Coolidge has been identified by the phrase “Coolidge prosperity.” Although the 20s themselves were a raucous decade, in one sense things were returning to normal after the activism of Theodore Roosevelt and the international involvement of the idealistic Woodrow Wilson. Led by pioneering businessmen such as Henry Ford, the American economy move forward vigorously, and President Coolidge was credited with doing little or nothing which, as Will Rogers remarked, was exactly what the American people wanted.Although Coolidge ’s White House was open to visitors, Coolidge himself, known as “Silent Cal,” was known for having little to say. On one occasion a woman visitor gushed, “Mr. President, I bet a friend that I could get at least three words out of you!” Coolidge’s response: “You lose.”
The 1924 Election was notable for several things. The Democratic Party was in some disarray and needed 103 ballots to nominate their candidate, Governor John Davis of West Virginia at the 1924 Convention in New York City. The Progressive Party, still alive and well, nominated Robert LaFollette, who wound up with a respectable 4.8 million votes in the general election President Coolidge ran on an essentially conservative platform, promising to maintain the status quo.
1924 Results: Republican Coolidge 15.7 million votes, 382 Electoral Votes
Democrat Davis: 8.4 million votes, 136 Electoral votes
Progressive La Follette: 4.8 million votes, 13 Electoral Votes
Note: The Communist Workers Party received 33,000 votes.
As the 1928 election approached, President Coolidge announced that he did not choose to run for reelection. The nomination went to easily to Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, a self-made millionaire and businessman whose managing of food relief for Europeans during the First World War had gained him much public admiration. Although he had never held elective office, his fundamental honesty and calm demeanor made him an attractive candidate.
On the Democratic side, Governor Al Smith of New York was nominated following a rousing nomination speech by Franklin Roosevelt. Governor Smith was Roman Catholic and “wet,” that is, he favored repeal of Prohibition. The election saw the forces of intolerance out in full, as many Americans were not ready to see a Catholic elected president. In addition, Governor Smith was thought to be a machine politician from New York, and his New York City accent sounded strange to many during his radio addresses. The voice of the Ku Klux Klan, which had reemerged during the 1920s, is believed to have been a factor in opposition to Governor Smith.
An interesting side note is that although Governor Smith lost the election by a wide margin, Franklin Roosevelt, politically resurrected following his bout with polio, was comfortably elected governor of New York.
1928 Results:
Republican Hoover: 21 million votes, 444 Electoral Votes
Democrat Smith: 15 .4 million votes, 87 Electoral Votes
Note: Hoover cracked the so-called “solid South,” which is since Reconstruction had voted almost exclusively Democratic. Hoover won some southern states because of the religion issue.