United States presidential election, 1924
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The United States presidential election of 1924 was won by incumbent President Calvin Coolidge, the Republican candidate. Coolidge was given credit for a booming economy at home and no visible crises abroad. He was aided by a split within the Democratic Party. The regular Democratic candidate was John W. Davis, a little-known former congressman and diplomat from West Virginia. Since Davis was a conservative, many liberal Democrats bolted the party and backed the third-party campaign of Wisconsin Senator Robert M. LaFollette, Sr., who ran as the candidate of the Progressive Party. This was the first presidential election in which all American Indians were citizens and thus allowed to vote.
NominationsRepublican Party nominationRepublican Candidates
The Republican Convention was held in Cleveland from 10 June to 12 June, with the easy choice of nominating incumbent President Coolidge for a full term of his own.
Although Coolidge offered the vice-presidential nomination to Idaho Senator William E. Borah, Borah declined the offer. Coolidge's second choice for running mate, former Illinois Governor Frank O. Lowden, became the only nominee to refuse to accept a major party nomination during the 20th century. He was replaced by Charles Dawes, a prominent Republican businessman. Democratic Party NominationDemocratic Candidates
The 1924 Democratic National Convention was held in New York from 24 June to 9 July. The two leading candidates were William G. McAdoo of California, former Secretary of the Treasury and son-in-law of former President Woodrow Wilson; and Governor Al Smith of New York, a popular former mayor of New York City. The balloting revealed a clear geographic and cultural split in the party, as McAdoo was supported mostly by rural, Protestant delegates from the South and West who were supporters of Prohibition (called "drys"). In some cases McAdoo's delegates were also supporters of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), which was at its peak of nationwide popularity in the 1920's, with chapters in all 48 states and 4 to 5 million members. Governor Smith was supported by the anti-Prohibition forces (called "wets"), many Roman Catholics and other ethnic minorities, big-city delegates in the Northeast and Midwest, and by liberal delegates opposed to the influence of the Ku Klux Klan. An example of the deep split within the party came in a brutal floor fight over a proposal to publicly condemn the Klan; most of McAdoo's delegates in the South and West opposed the motion, while most of Smith's big-city delegates supported it. In the end the motion failed to carry by a single vote; William Jennings Bryan, the three-time Democratic presidential candidate, argued against condemning the Klan for fear that it would permanently split the party. Wendell Willkie, who would go on to become the Republican Party's 1940 presidential candidate, was a Democratic delegate in 1924 and he supported the proposal to condemn the KKK. The bitter fight between the McAdoo and Smith delegates over the KKK set the stage for the nominating ballots to come. Due to the two-thirds rule governing nominations, neither McAdoo, who briefly got a majority of the votes halfway through the balloting, nor Smith, were able to get the two-thirds majority necessary to win. However, neither candidate would back down, and so the deadlock continued for days on end, as ballot after ballot was taken with neither McAdoo or Smith getting close to enough delegates to win the nomination. Eventually the convention would go to over 100 ballots, becoming the longest-running political convention in American history. Will Rogers, a popular comedian of the era, joked that New York had invited the Democratic delegates to visit the city, not to live there. Senator Oscar W. Underwood of Alabama, the Democratic leader in the Senate, also had some support, and as this was the first Democratic Convention to be broadcast on radio, Alabama's clarion "...casts 24 votes for Oscar... Dubya!...UNDERWOOD!!!" declaration for ballot after ballot became a symbol of the convention. With neither McAdoo nor Smith able to break the deadlock, on the 103rd ballot the exhausted convention turned to John W. Davis, an obscure former Congressman from West Virginia and Ambassador to the United Kingdom, as a compromise candidate. The disarray prompted Will Rogers's famous quip: "I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!" Charles W. Bryan, William Jennings Bryan's brother and the Governor of Nebraska, was nominated for Vice President, in order to gain the support of the party's rural voters who still saw Bryan as their leader. Progressive PartySenator Robert M. La Follette, Sr., who had left the Republican Party and formed his own political party, the Progressive Party, in Wisconsin, was so upset over both political parties choosing conservative candidates that he decided to run as a third-party candidate to give liberals from both parties an alternative. He thus accepted the presidential nomination of the United States Progressive Party. Long a champion of labor unions, and an ardent foe of Big Business, La Follette was a fiery orator who had dominated Wisconsin's political scene for more than two decades. Backed by radical farmers, the AFL labor unions, and Socialists, LaFollette ran on a platform of nationalizing cigarette factories and other large industries. He also strongly supported increased taxation on the wealthy and the right of collective bargaining for factory workers. Despite a strong showing in labor strongholds and winning over 16% of the national popular vote, he carried only his home state of Wisconsin in the electoral college. General electionThe Fall CampaignWith the disastrous Democratic Convention having badly divided the Democrats, there was little doubt that Coolidge would win the election. His campaign slogan, "Keep Cool with Coolidge", was highly popular. Davis carried only the traditionally Democratic Solid South and Oklahoma; due to liberal Democrats voting for La Follette, Davis lost the popular vote to Coolidge by 25 percentage points. The Republicans did so well that they carried New York City, a feat they have not repeated since. Results
Source (Popular Vote): Leip, David. 1924 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). See also
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