Posted on 04/09/2016 5:31:12 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Donald Trump and his supporters are crying foul at the very mention of a contested convention. Despite their contention that the majority-vote requirement is “totally arbitrary,” it seems pretty obvious that, in a democratic republic like America, a majority vote is the norm, and it is indisputable that both parties have always required at least a majority vote to secure their nomination. While it has been several decades since we last saw a contested convention, it is definitely not uncharted waters. The parties have not only survived contested conventions, but these contested conventions have often nominated good candidates. However, there are some serious warning signs, and the GOP, as it comes face to face with the probability of a contested 2016 convention, should heed them.
Many historic precedents of contested conventions can be cited, but the most contested of all was without question the Democratic Convention of 1924. By the time convention delegates convened in New York City on June 24, there was ample evidence that the Democratic party was deeply divided. As the leading quipster of that day, Finley Peter Dunne (“Mr. Dooley”), wrote, “The Dimmycratic Party ain’t on speakin’ terms with itself.” Former president Woodrow Wilson’s son-in-law (and Treasury secretary), William Gibbs McAdoo, and the governor of New York, Al Smith, had squared off over the main issues, with a generous portion of personal animosity thrown in. Each held enough delegate votes to prevent the other from being nominated. At that time the Democratic party labored under the requirement of a two-thirds nominating majority, and it was clear neither Smith nor McAdoo could achieve it.
To make matters worse, the hot-button social issues of the day were enmeshed in religion and evoked a white-hot fervor on all sides. Prohibition, immigration, and the KKK were the issues, and there appeared to be no room for compromise. The convention opened with an explosive floor fight over the party’s platform. Record-setting temperatures outside produced what reporters called “furnace-like air in the draped hall that kept fans and straw hats waving vigorously.” By the third day the Washington Post was reporting “Delegates in Fist Fights on Floor Over Klan.”
Al Smith and his anti-prohibition forces had the whiskey flowing, while McAdoo and his pro-prohibition delegates piously called for divine retribution against the “big city wets.” Former secretary of the Navy and veteran Democratic warhorse Josephus Daniels wrote from the convention to the folks back home in North Carolina: “This convention is chock full of religion. It eats religion, dreams it, smokes it.” He warned the Democrats not to forsake “the denunciation of Republicans for religious warfare among themselves.”
After endless wrangling and grandstanding, the convention staggered to the adoption of a platform that was noteworthy only for its failure to confront the big issues. Nothing of substance was said about prohibition, immigration, the League of Nations, or the KKK. It did make a gracious acknowledgement of President Harding’s recent death; but even that was contested. The original wording stated, “Our Party stands uncovered at the bier of Warren G. Harding. . . . ” But the prohibitionists insisted on substituting “grave” for “bier,” lest some of their supporters back home take offense.
Then the primary task of nominating a candidate — and the real fireworks — began. Seizing his home-court advantage, Al Smith packed Madison Square Garden with his supporters and practically blew off the roof with what newspapers called “terrifying pandemonium.” Other nominations, of McAdoo and a string of favorite-son candidates, followed until after 4:00 a.m. The following day, June 30, the balloting began. The first-roll call vote had McAdoo with 431, Smith with 241, and the rest far behind. The total number of delegates was 1,089, meaning that 726 were needed to secure the nomination. By July 1, 15 ballots had been cast with hardly any movement among the candidates: McAdoo 479, Smith 305. By July 3, the convention sailed past old Democratic record of 57 ballots, set in the calamitous year of 1860, and on the 70th ballot it was still McAdoo 415, Smith 323.
The acrimony was pervasive. In historian David Burner’s words, “The deadlock that developed might as well have between the Pope and the Imperial Wizard of the KKK, so solidly did the Catholic delegates support Smith and the Klan delegates support McAdoo.” Some reporters claimed that even the prohibition forces were drunk by this point.
Finally, on July 9, Smith and McAdoo released their delegates (the latter very grudgingly), and a compromise candidate, John W. Davis of West Virginia, won the nomination on the 103rd ballot. The longest and bitterest convention in American history had mercifully come to an end.
What can be learned from all this? Three points:
First, America does indeed have a history of contested conventions. While we haven’t had one in a while, it’s nothing new — and the Republic and the parties have survived them.
Second, it’s possible in the midst of bitter acrimony and division for a party to nominate a good candidate. The leading columnist of that day, Walter Lippmann, wrote about the 1924 Democratic convention that “in this case men who had looked into a witches’ cauldron of hatred and disunion yielded to a half-conscious judgment which was far more reliable than their common sense. For they turned to the one candidate who embodied those very qualities for lack of which the party had almost destroyed itself.”
Third, although John W. Davis was as fine a man as has ever been nominated by either party, his general-election prospects were ruined by the convention. As Franklin Roosevelt wrote to a friend in the fall of 1924, “We defeated ourselves in New York in June.” With party divisions running so deep and with severe personal animosities between McAdoo and Smith, it was impossible for the Democrats to rally around Davis and win the election.
This final point should be sobering to the GOP as it faces a contested convention in 2016. Contested conventions have not usually been as bitter as the 1924 Democratic convention. But if the 2016 Republican convention is allowed to degenerate into internecine warfare, the Democratic party will be the big winner.
— Garland S. Tucker III is the chairman of Triangle Capital Corporation and the author of The High Tide of American Conservatism: Davis, Coolidge and the 1924 Election (Emerald Books, 2010) and Conservative Heroes: Fourteen Leaders Who Shaped America — Jefferson to Reagan (ISI Books, 2015).
Good article. The Demorat convention of 1924 has been on my mind ever since Wisconsin. This is going to be a very hotly contested convention. The fight between the candidates has become personal and deeply acrimonious. And if their respective supporters are to be believed, they will not support any other candidate in the general election other than their guy.
We might as well save the country a lot of money by canceling the election and declare the wicked witch to be the winner right now.
You seem to be rather ignorant. Canot you express a thought without sounding like a child who just learned the dirty words?
If voting made such a difference, it would not be allowed.
No one wants to explain to his pals in the cabal how he was voted out.
What fun is being a titan if you can’t stay up on Mount Othrys?
Poor Ted, just not very well liked, and way behind in the accumulation of delegates.
How’d that Christian vote in the South go Ted?
That’s a neat story!
-JT
I’m ignorant? You are the one who made a ridiculous claim that doesn’t pass the laugh test.
My grandfather, from the same old neighborhood as Al Smith, became one of Smith’s NYPD bodyguards for the new governor of New York. Alas I did not know my grandfather but of the many stories passed down in the family by my grandfather on being a detective during the roaring twenties, the ‘24 convention was legend. The heat, the visceral excitement in the garden contrasted with the normal guarding of the Governor which my grandfather said was boring.
Except this time.
What Trump may show is that it is not possible to do a hostile takeover of a political party where the party if fundamentally dishonest and corrupt. That includes Cruz. In the business world, this kind of behavior would land a board of directors in jail. The rules of a takeover are clear and enforced by courts. Not for political parties.
And so, the end result is that instead of taking over the Republican party, it must simply be killed. Great damage may occur to the country in the meantime.
JFK was not a Conservative, not in 1960 (save perhaps for his notions on cutting the absurdly high income tax rates of the time). The party was already Socialist by then and would not brook someone not of the left. His views on expansionist and activist government would not make him “Conservative” by today’s standards, either.
In 1928, he was an average “Progressive” Democrat. The big question is whether he would’ve pursued the same agenda as FDR had he been elected in 1932. Because of his animosity to FDR’s radical agenda, he was already casting his lot with the GOP in 1936 and 1940 (he died before the 1944 elections), although he never officially became one. He’d probably be revolted by their social positions today, most sane folks of that era would (except, of course, for Eleanor Roosevelt - she’d be at the vanguard of the radical sodomite movement today).
FK was not a Conservative, not in 1960 (save perhaps for his notions on cutting the absurdly high income tax rates of the time). The party was already Socialist by then and would not brook someone not of the left. His views on expansionist and activist government would not make him “Conservative” by today’s standards, either.>>> actually he was the last president to issue real money. i think he was killed for it.
1924 is 1924. A contested convention means GOP goes into minority, probably forever.
There is no party loyalty anymore, because the the GOP is as a party has ceased to have a platform.
I personally believe Patton knew what was going on and it cost him his life.
Al Smith would be a conservative by today’s standards. He opposed FDR’s reelections.
With 20/20 hindsight I rather wish he would have won in ‘28. He’d likely not have been any worse than RINO Hoover and the GOP wouldn’t have gotten the blame. I wonder though if maybe some left-wing RINO like Senator Borah would have gotten elected in 1932 then. That would have been bad.
I never would have voted for Smith at the time of course. Coming from a Catholic family I’d probably have been gungo against him. My mom’s parents were the among the only ones in her Catholic school who were for Nixon. When the teachers asked the kids who their parents were for only one other hand in her class went up for Nixon, besides hers. I don’t know much about her grandparents (all Catholic) but one Grandpa would have cut his own arm off before voting for a democrat. Especially after FDR made him trade in his gold.
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