United States presidential election, 1924

Infobox Election
election_name = United States presidential election, 1924
country = United States
type = presidential
ongoing = no
previous_election = United States presidential election, 1920
previous_year = 1920
next_election = United States presidential election, 1928
next_year = 1928
election_date = November 4, 1924

nominee1 = Calvin Coolidge
party1 = Republican Party (United States)
home_state1 = Massachusetts
running_mate1 = Charles G. Dawes
electoral_vote1 = 382
states_carried1 = 35
popular_vote1 = 15,723,789
percentage1 = 54.0%

nominee2 = John W. Davis
party2 = Democratic Party (United States)
home_state2 = West Virginia
running_mate2 = Charles W. Bryan
electoral_vote2 = 136
states_carried2 = 12
popular_vote2 = 8,386,242
percentage2 = 28.8%

nominee3 = Robert M. La Follette, Sr.
party3 = Progressive Party (United States, 1924)
home_state3 = Wisconsin
running_mate3 = Burton K. Wheeler
electoral_vote3 = 13
states_carried3 = 1
popular_vote3 = 4,831,706
percentage3 = 16.6%

map_

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map_size = 350px
map_caption = Presidential election results map. Red denotes states won by Coolidge/Dawes, Blue denotes those won by Davis/Bryan, Green denotes those won by La Follette/Wheeler. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state.

title = President
before_election = Calvin Coolidge
before_party = Republican Party (United States)
after_election = Calvin Coolidge
after_party = Republican Party (United States)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. Coolidge's 25.2-point victory margin in the popular vote is the second largest ever, after Warren Harding's 26.2-point victory margin in 1920.

Nominations

Republican Party nomination

Republican Candidates

The Republican Convention was held in Cleveland from June 10 to June 12, with the easy choice of nominating incumbent President Coolidge for a full term of his own.

Former Illinois Governor Frank O. Lowden was nominated for Vice-President, but he declined. Charles Dawes, a prominent Republican businessman was nominated instead.

Democratic Party nomination

Democratic Candidates

Secretary of War Newton D. Baker of Ohio
George L. Berry of Tennessee
Governor Fred H. Brown of New Hampshire
Governor Charles W. Bryan of Nebraska
Governor and 1920 nominee James M. Cox of Ohio
Josephus Daniels of North Carolina
Former_Solicitor General and Ambassador to the United Kingdom John W. Davis of West Virginia
Senator Woodbridge Nathan Ferris of Michigan
Former_Ambassador to Germany James W. Gerard of New York"'

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Senator Carter Glass of Virginia
Senator_Pat Harrison of Mississippi

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Former_Secretary_of_Treasury_David F. Houston of Missouri
John B. Kendrick of Wyoming
William Gibbs McAdoo of California
Secretary of Agriculture Edwin Meredith of Iowa
Robert L. Owen of Oklahoma
Samuel M. Ralston of Indiana
Governor Albert Ritchie of Maryland
Senate Minority Leader Joseph Taylor Robinson of Arkansas
Senator_Willard Saulsbury, Jr. of Delaware
Governor George Sebastian Silzer of New Jersey
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Governor Al Smith of New York
Governor William Ellery Sweet of Colorado
Senator_Oscar W. Underwood of Alabama
Thomas J. Walsh of Montana

The 1924 Democratic National Convention was held in New York from June 24 to July 9. 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, West, and small-town Midwest 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 urban 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 Party

Senator 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. A longtime 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 election

The Fall Campaign

With 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 PV source 2| year=1924| as of=July 28, 2005

Source (Electoral Vote): National Archives EV source| year=1924| as of=July 31, 2005

ee also

*President of the United States
*United States Senate election, 1924
*History of the United States (1918-1945)
*Progressive Era

References

* Hicks, John Donald. "Republican Ascendancy 1921-1933" (1955)
* K. C. MacKay, "The Progressive Movement of 1924" (1947)
* Donald R. McCoy, "Calvin Coolidge: The Quiet President" (1967)
* Murray, Robert K. "The 103rd Ballot: Democrats and Disaster in Madison Square Garden" (1976),
* Nancy C. Unger. "Fighting Bob LaFollette: The Righteous Reformer" (2000)

External links

* [http://geoelections.free.fr/USA/elec_comtes/1924.htm 1924 popular vote by counties]
* [http://www.msu.edu/~sheppa28/elections.html#1924 How close was the 1924 election?] - Michael Sheppard, Michigan State University

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