A presidential election was held in the United States on November 4, 1924. The Republican ticket of incumbent President Calvin Coolidge and former Director of the Bureau of the Budget Charles G. Dawes defeated the Democratic ticket of former ambassador John W. Davis and Nebraska Governor Charles W. Bryan and the Progressive ticket of Senator Robert M. La Follette and Senator Burton K Wheeler. Coolidge was the second vice president, after Theodore Roosevelt, to ascend to the presidency and then win a full term.
Coolidge had been vice president under Warren G. Harding and became president in 1923 upon Harding's unexpected death. Coolidge was given credit for a booming economy at home and no visible crises abroad, and he faced little opposition at the 1924 Republican National Convention. The Democratic Party nominated former Congressman and ambassador to the United Kingdom John W. Davis of West Virginia. Davis, a compromise candidate, triumphed on the 103rd ballot of the 1924 Democratic National Convention after a deadlock between supporters of William Gibbs McAdoo and Al Smith. Dissatisfied by the conservatism of both major party candidates, the newly formed Progressive Party nominated Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin.
The election has been characterized as marking the "high tide of American conservatism", as both major-party candidates campaigned for limited government, reduced taxes, and less regulation. By contrast, La Follette called for the gradual nationalization of the railroads and increased taxes on the wealthy, policies that foreshadowed the New Deal.
Coolidge won a landslide victory, taking majorities in both the popular vote and the Electoral College and winning almost every state outside of the Solid South (while still making headway by winning Kentucky). La Follette won 16.6% of the popular vote, a strong showing for a third-party candidate, while Davis won the lowest share of the popular vote of any Democratic nominee in history. This is the most recent election to date in which a third-party candidate won a non-Southern state, and the last time a Republican or any major-party nominee won the presidency without winning any of the former Confederate states. It was also the US election with the lowest per capita voter turnout since records were kept. Also, it was the only election from 1868 to 1952 in which none of the candidates were from New York or Ohio.
Nominations
Republican Party nomination
Republican candidates
The Republican Convention was held in Cleveland, Ohio, from June 10 to 12, with the easy choice of nominating incumbent President Coolidge for a full term of his own. Coolidge won with only token competition from Senators Robert M. La Follette and Hiram Johnson, both members of the party's progressive wing; an attempt to have Coolidge's nomination declared unanimous failed when La Follette's delegates refused to support Coolidge.
Former Illinois Governor Frank Orren Lowden was nominated as Coolidge's running mate, but he declined the honor, a unique event in 20th-century American political history. Charles G. Dawes, a prominent Republican businessman, was nominated for vice-president instead.
Democratic Party nomination
Democratic candidates:
While the Democratic Party had been largely able to unite around strong leaders including Grover Cleveland, William Jennings Bryan, and Woodrow Wilson during the previous four decades, the party had become increasingly fragmented and factionalized during the first half of the 1920s. By 1924, Cleveland and Wilson were both dead, and Bryan had largely left politics in favor of religious activism. Franklin D. Roosevelt, the party's vice-presidential candidate at the previous election had been looked at as a potential unifying figure able to appeal to all sides of the party, but he had fallen severely ill and been left paralysed in 1921. Though his health had generally recovered by 1924, he believed he could still eventually regain full use of his legs and resolved not to put himself forward as a presidential candidate until he had done so.
The 1924 Democratic National Convention was held in New York City from June 24 to July 9. The two leading candidates were William Gibbs McAdoo of California, former Secretary of the Treasury and son-in-law of former President Woodrow Wilson, and Governor Al Smith of New York. 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 1920s, 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. Most of the ensuing ballots followed a pattern of having McAdoo leading, Smith second, Davis third, and 1920 candidate James M. Cox fourth, followed by various favorite son candidates.
Due to the two-thirds rule governing nominations, neither McAdoo, who briefly got a majority of the votes halfway through the balloting, nor Smith was 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. Cox withdrew after the 64th ballot, only for his support to split relatively evenly between the three frontrunners, leaving the situation no closer to being resolved. Eventually the convention would go to over 100 ballots, becoming the longest-running political convention in American history. Humorist Will Rogers joked that New York had invited the Democratic delegates to visit the city, not to live there. As the convention approached the hundredth ballot, a movement to draft Indiana senator Samuel M. Ralston gained traction and began to look like it might break the deadlock; Ralston, who had been content for his name to be put forward purely as a favorite son candidate, quickly sent the convention a message stating that due to his poor health, he could not accept the nomination.
Due to the great divide in the Democratic Party, the convention could have gone on for a great deal longer. However, with some state delegations running low on money and unable to stay in the city any longer, on the 100th ballot both Smith and McAdoo mutually withdrew as candidates. This allowed the convention's delegates to search for a compromise candidate acceptable to both Smith and McAdoo supporters. Finally, on the 103rd ballot, the exhausted convention turned to John W. Davis, a former Congressman from West Virginia, former Solicitor General of the United States, and former United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom, as the presidential nominee. The Democrats' disarray prompted Will Rogers's famous quip: "I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
Governor of Nebraska Charles W. Bryan, William Jennings Bryan's brother, was nominated for vice-president in order to gain the support of the party's rural voters, many of whom still saw Bryan as their leader.
Progressive Party nomination
Senator Robert M. La Follette, 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 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 American Federation of Labor (AFL) labor unions, and Socialists, La Follette 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.
Prohibition Party nomination
By 1924, the Prohibition Party was increasingly being regarded as an irrelevant single-issue party. With there still being little serious opposition to Prohibition in either of the main parties, the Prohibitionists had resorted to increasingly extreme rhetoric in an effort to distinguish themselves from the Republicans and Democrats, including advocating harsh punishments for people caught drinking or selling alcohol. They attempted to branch out into other, socially conservative policy areas in this election, including anti-immigrant sentiment, and advocating for religious instruction in public schools.
At the party's nominating convention, party treasurer Herman P. Faris was nominated over Presbyterian minister A.P. Gouthey. Gouthey was then proposed as Faris' running-mate and led on the first round of balloting for the vice-presidential nomination, but withdrew in favor of party activist Marie C. Brehm. Brehm became the first woman to run on a national party's presidential ticket since the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which made it definitively possible for women to serve in the office of President or Vice-President.
Workers (Communist) Party nomination
The Communist Party USA, who had been founded in 1919, ran their first presidential ticket at this election, officially under the guise of the Workers Party of America. While there had been some initial suggestions that the party might endorse La Follette's candidacy, any prospect of this was ended when La Follette publicly repudiated the party and communism more generally.
Going into the party's first nominating convention the favorites for the nomination were C. E. Ruthenberg, the party's executive secretary, along with William Z. Foster and James P. Cannon, who were both prominent trade unionists and party activists. With Ruthenberg ultimately deciding not to put himself forward for the nomination, and Cannon withdrawing to become the party's candidate for governor of New York, Foster was left as the clear choice, and was formally declared the party's candidate for the presidency at the party's convention on July 10. Benjamin Gitlow, a former New York state assemblyman who had been jailed for pro-Communist activities in 1919 and was still serving the remainder of his sentence on parole, was chosen as Foster's running-mate. Foster's campaign put forward a platform based heavily on the policies that were then being used by the Soviet government of Joseph Stalin.
General election
Keep Cool with Coolidge
Backers of Coolidge incorporated the political stability of the era into the president's catchphrase for the campaign. The image of the quiet competence of Coolidge was seen as a strong positive in a time where Americans wanted to move past the destruction of the First World War and achieve "plenty" for themselves and their families. The era which began in 1920 with "Return to Normalcy", was seen as continuing through Coolidge and the pace of inventions of new comfort goods which increased the quality of life of middle class Americans were seen as signs that a Republican administration was a safe bet for 4 more years. A stark example of this is that in 1920 virtually no households owned a radio and by the end of the republican era of Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover more than 60% did.
The Nativism movement reached its highest influence during the campaign of 1924. The issue caused the most divided Democratic convention in history and divided the party into two main factions, the Nativist faction being led by William McAdoo. Contrast the democratic party's implosion with the Immigration Act of 1924 going into law just months before, Coolidge represented Americanism in the eyes of voters.
Results
This was the first presidential election in which all American Indians were recognized as citizens and allowed to vote. The total vote increased by 2,300,000 but, because of the great drawing power of the La Follette candidacy, both the Republican and Democratic totals were less. Largely because of the deep inroads made by La Follette in the Democratic vote, Davis polled 750,000 fewer votes than were cast for Cox in 1920. Coolidge polled 425,000 votes less than Harding had in 1920. Nonetheless, La Follette's appeal among liberal Democrats allowed Coolidge to achieve a 25.2 percent margin of victory over Davis in the popular vote (the second largest since 1824, and the largest in the last century). Davis's popular vote percentage of 28.8% remains the lowest of any Democratic presidential candidate (not counting John C. Breckinridge's run on a Southern Democratic ticket in 1860, when the vote was split with Stephen A. Douglas, the main Democratic candidate), albeit with several other candidates performing worse in the electoral college.