United States presidential election, 1920

The United States presidential election of 1920 was dominated by the aftermath of World War I. The wartime boom had collapsed. Diplomats and 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 Woodrow Wilson was deeply unpopular: the economy was in a recession, Wilson's prosecution of the war had angered several traditionally Democratic constituencies, and his sponsorship of the League of Nations ran counter to American isolationism which had been strengthened by World War I's butcher bill. Moreover, Wilson's administration had been adrift as Wilson had been disabled by a stroke.

Both major parties turned to dark horse candidates from the elector-rich state of Ohio. The Democrats nominated newspaper publisher James M. Cox to take on Senator Warren G. Harding. Harding essentially campaigned against Wilson, and, with an almost 4-to-1 spending advantage, beat Cox in a landslide.

Nominations

Republican Party nomination

On June 8, the Republican National Convention meeting in Chicago nominated Warren G. Harding, an Ohio newspaper editor and United States Senator, along with Calvin Coolidge, governor of Massachusetts, as his running mate. Harding was a compromise candidate after the convention deadlocked between General Leonard Wood and Governor Frank O. Lowden of Illinois. Harding campaigned as advocating, in his own phrase, “A Return to Normalcy” after the trying times of the World War.

Others placed in nomination included Senator Hiram Johnson of California, Governor Coolidge, Senator Miles Poindexter of Washington, 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'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.

Democratic Party nomination

Although William McAdoo 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 former Treasury Secretary William Gibbs McAdoo (Wilson's son-in-law) 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.

Other nominations

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 265,229 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.

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."American Rhetoric, "Final Address in Support of the League of Nations", Woodrow Wilson, delivered 25 Sept 1919 in Pueblo, CO.

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.”Sinclair, p. 168 Ugly (false) rumors circulated that Harding had "Negro blood," but in the face of his huge landslide it is hard to see who voted against him on that account.

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.”Sinclair, p. 162

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.Sinclair, p. 163 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 all women 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.

Results

Source (Popular Vote):

Source (Electoral Vote):

Notes

References

- 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)

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Elezioni Presidenziali degli Stati Uniti del 1920

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