1924 Democratic National Convention

thumb|446x446px

The 1924 Democratic National Convention, held at the Madison Square Garden in New York City from June 24 to July 9, 1924, was the longest continuously running convention in United States political history. It took a record 103 ballots to nominate a presidential candidate. It was the first major party national convention that saw the name of a woman, Lena Springs, placed in nomination for vice president. John W. Davis, a dark horse, eventually won the presidential nomination on the 103rd ballot, a compromise candidate following a protracted convention fight between distant front-runners William Gibbs McAdoo and Al Smith.

Davis and his vice presidential running-mate, Governor Charles W. Bryan of Nebraska, went on to be defeated by the Republican ticket of President Calvin Coolidge and Charles G. Dawes in the 1924 presidential election.

Site selection

New York had not been chosen for a convention since 1868, and its selection as the site for the 1924 convention was based in part on the state party's recent success. Two years earlier, thirteen Republican congressmen had lost their seats to Democrats. Wealthy New Yorkers, who had outbid other cities, declared their purpose "to convince the rest of the country that the town was not the red-light menace generally conceived by the sticks". Though "dry" organizations that supported continuing the prohibition of alcohol opposed the choice, in the fall of 1923 it won the grudging consent of McAdoo, a dry, before McAdoo's connection to the Teapot Dome scandal made Smith a serious threat. (McAdoo's candidacy was hurt by the revelation that he had accepted money from Edward L. Doheny, an oil tycoon implicated in Teapot Dome.) McAdoo's adopted state, California, had played host to the Democrats in 1920.

Logistics

The convention was the first Democratic National Convention to have its proceedings broadcast on radio. Millions across the United States heard the broadcasts.

Despite very heated disputes arising among delegates to the convention, political violence was mostly averted. The New York Herald Tribune reported, "there was no bloodshed only because 1,000 New York policemen had been sent there to preserve order in a convention, the leaders of which believed was going to become a riot." Nevertheless, there were some instances of violence, such as convention floor fistfight in which Colorado Governor William Ellery Sweet was knocked to the ground and stepped on. Amid this fight, the convention chairman pounded his gavel so furiously in attempting to call for order, that he accidentally caused the head of his gavel to break off and fly into the head of a man (who consequentially suffered a concussion).

The Ku Klux Klan had surged in popularity after World War I, due to its leadership's connections to passage of the successful Prohibition Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This made the Klan a political power throughout many regions of the United States, and it reached the apex of its power in the mid-1920s, when it exerted deep cultural and political influence on both Republicans and Democrats. Its supporters had successfully quashed an anti-Klan resolution before it ever went to a floor vote at the 1924 Republican National Convention earlier in June, and proponents expected to exert the same influence at the Democratic convention. Instead, tension between pro- and anti-Klan delegates produced an intense and sometimes violent showdown between convention attendees from the states of Colorado and Missouri. Klan delegates opposed the nomination of New York governor Al Smith because Smith was a Roman Catholic and an opponent of Prohibition, and most supported William Gibbs McAdoo. Non-Klan delegates, led by Sen. Oscar Underwood of Alabama, attempted to add condemnation of the organization for its violence to the Democratic Party's platform. The measure was narrowly defeated, and the anti-KKK plank was not included in the platform.

Roosevelt comeback

Smith's name was placed into nomination by Franklin D. Roosevelt, in a speech in which Roosevelt dubbed Smith "The Happy Warrior". Roosevelt's speech, which has since become a well-studied example of political oratory, was his first major political appearance since the paralytic illness he had contracted in 1921. The success of this speech and his other convention efforts in support of Smith signaled that he was still a viable figure in politics, and he nominated Smith again in 1928. Roosevelt succeeded Smith as governor in 1929, and went on to win election as president in 1932.

Results

Presidential candidates

Image:James M. Cox 1920.jpg|

Image:William Gibbs McAdoo, formal photo portrait, 1914.jpg|

Image:AlfredSmith.png|

Image:John William Davis.jpg|

Image:Charles_Wayland_Bryan.jpg|

Image:Oscar W. Underwood.jpg|

File:E.T. Meredith, ggbain.16011u.jpg|

File:Senator Carter Glass of Virginia.jpg|

File:Homer Cummings, Harris & Ewing photo portrait, 1920.jpg|

</gallery>

thumb|[[Franklin D. Roosevelt placing Al Smith's name into nomination]]

The first day of balloting (June 30) brought the predicted deadlock between the leading aspirants for the nomination, William G. McAdoo of California and Gov. Alfred E. Smith of New York, with the remainder divided mainly between local "favorite sons". McAdoo was the leader from the outset, and both he and Smith made small gains in the day's fifteen ballots, but the prevailing belief among the delegates was that the impasse could only be broken by the elimination of both McAdoo and Smith and the selection of one of the other contenders; much interest centred about the candidacy of John W. Davis, who also increased his vote during the day from 31 to 61 (with a peak of 64.5 votes on the 13th and 14th ballots). Most of the favorite son delegations refused to be stampeded to either of the leading candidates and were in no hurry to retire from the contest.

In the early balloting many delegations appeared to be jockeying for position, and some of the original votes were purely complimentary and seemed to conceal the real sentiments of the delegates. Louisiana, for example, which was bound by the "unit rule" (all the state's delegate votes would be cast in favor of the candidate favored by a majority of them), first complimented its neighbor Arkansas by casting its 20 votes for Sen. Joseph T. Robinson, then it switched to Sen. Carter Glass, and on another ballot Maryland Gov. Albert C. Ritchie got the twenty, before the delegation finally settled on John W. Davis.

There was some excitement on the tenth ballot, when Kansas abandoned Gov. Jonathan M. Davis and threw its votes to McAdoo. There was an instant uproar among McAdoo delegates and supporters, and a parade was started around the hall, the Kansas standard leading, with those of all the other McAdoo states coming along behind, and pictures of "McAdoo, Democracy's Hope", being lifted up. After six minutes the chairman's gavel brought order and the roll call resumed, and soon the other side had something to cheer, when New Jersey made its favorite son, Gov. George S. Silzer, walk the plank and threw its votes into the Smith column. This started another parade, the New York and New Jersey standards leading those of the other Smith delegations around the hall while the band played "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys are Marching".

First ballot

{| class="wikitable" style="font-size:95%;"

! colspan="6" | Democratic National Convention presidential vote, 1st ballot

! style="width: 17em" |Candidate

! style="width: 5em" |Votes

! style="width: 7em" |Percentage

| William G. McAdoo

| style="text-align:right;"| 431.5

| style="text-align:right;"| 39.4%

| Alfred E. Smith

| style="text-align:right;"|241

| style="text-align:right;"|22.0%

|James M. Cox

| style="text-align:right;"|59

| style="text-align:right;"|5.4%

|Pat Harrison

| style="text-align:right;"|43.5

| style="text-align:right;"|4.0%

|Oscar W. Underwood

| style="text-align:right;"|42.5

| style="text-align:right;"|3.9%

| George S. Silzer

| style="text-align:right;"|38

| style="text-align:right;"|3.5%

|John W. Davis

| style="text-align:right;"|31

| style="text-align:right;"|2.8%

|Samuel M. Ralston

| style="text-align:right;"|30

| style="text-align:right;"|2.7%

|Woodbridge N. Ferris

| style="text-align:right;"|30

| style="text-align:right;"|2.7%

|Carter Glass

| style="text-align:right;"|25

| style="text-align:right;"|2.3%

| Albert C. Ritchie

| style="text-align:right;"|22.5

| style="text-align:right;"|2.1%

| Joseph T. Robinson

| style="text-align:right;"|21

| style="text-align:right;"|1.9%

|Jonathan M. Davis

| style="text-align:right;"|20

| style="text-align:right;"|1.8%

|Charles W. Bryan

| style="text-align:right;"|18

| style="text-align:right;"|1.6%

|Fred H. Brown

| style="text-align:right;"|17

| style="text-align:right;"|1.6%

|William Ellery Sweet

| style="text-align:right;"|12

| style="text-align:right;"|1.1%

|Willard Saulsbury

| style="text-align:right;"|7

| style="text-align:right;"|0.6%

|John Kendrick

| style="text-align:right;"|6

| style="text-align:right;"|0.5%

| Houston Thompson

| style="text-align:right;"|1

| style="text-align:right;"|0.1%

Fifteenth ballot

{| class="wikitable" style="font-size:95%;"

! colspan="6" | Democratic National Convention presidential vote, 15th ballot Advanced by Indiana party boss Thomas Taggart, Ralston's candidacy might attract support from the Bryans, given that Charles Bryan had written, "Ralston is the most promising of the compromise candidates." Ralston was also a favorite of the Klan and a second choice of many McAdoo delegates.

{| class="wikitable" style="font-size:95%;"

! colspan="3" | Democratic National Convention presidential vote, 70th ballot Bryan had been chosen by a group of party leaders, including Davis and Al Smith.

Among the clergy who spoke to the convention:

Catholics included Patrick Joseph Hayes, Archbishop of New York, and Francis Patrick Duffy, Chaplain of the New York National Guard.
Episcopalians, such as Thomas F. Gailor, Bishop of Tennessee, and Wythe Leigh Kinsolving, Chaplain of the Virginian Society of New York. and Charles Francis Potter, a Unitarian Modernist.
Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise, founder of the Free Synagogue, who was also a delegate from New York.
Dr. Frederick Hermann Knubel, president of the United Lutheran Churches in America.

Legacy

In his acceptance speech, Davis made the perfunctory statement that he would enforce the prohibition law, but his conservatism prejudiced him in favor of personal liberty and home rule and he was frequently denounced as a wet. The dry leader Wayne Wheeler complained of Davis's "constant repetition of wet catch phrases like 'personal liberty', 'illegal search and seizure', and 'home rule'". After the convention Davis tried to satisfy both factions of his party, but his support came principally from the same city elements that had backed Cox in 1920. The last surviving participant from the convention was Diana Serra Cary, who as a five-year-old child film star was the convention's official mascot; she died on February 24, 2020, at the age of 101.

The convention featured the first seconding address by a woman in either national political parties was given by Izetta Jewel at this convention, seconding John Davis, and Abby Crawford Milton, seconding McAdoo.
During his 1960 campaign, John F. Kennedy cited the dilemma of the Massachusetts delegation at the 1924 Democratic National Convention when making light of his own campaign problems: "Either we must switch to a more liberal candidate or move to a cheaper hotel."
Both Franklin D. Roosevelt and Al Smith were filmed during the convention by Lee de Forest using his Phonofilm sound-on-film process. These films are in the Maurice Zouary collection at the Library of Congress.

"Klanbake" meme

In 2015, conservative blogs and Facebook pages started circulating a photo of hooded Klansmen, marching at the 1924 DNC. In early 2017, a pro-Donald Trump Facebook group called "ElectTrump2020" turned the photo into a meme which was shared more than 18,000 times on Facebook alone. Author Dinesh D'Souza shared the photo and the meme on Twitter in September 2017. In fact, the widely circulated photo depicted a December 1924 march by Klansmen in Madison, Wisconsin, and had no connection to any political convention. In 2000, a Daily News reporter included the term in an historical article about the 1924 convention, stating erroneously that "newspapers" referred to the convention as the Klanbake, when in fact Cowan was the only writer to use the term.