Calvin Coolidge was a very popular President. Yet he chose not to run in 1928. “It is necessary for the head of the nation to differ with many people who are honest in their opinions. As his term progresses, the number of people who are disappointed accumulates. Finally, there is so large a body who have lost confidence in him that he meets a rising opposition which makes his efforts less effective.”
When Coolidge’s successor lost his bid for re-election in 1932, some asked Coolidge if he would consider running in 1936. They should have anticipated his answer, because he had already essentially stated it in the next paragraph of his 1929 autobiography.
“In the higher ranges of public service men appear to come forward to perform a certain duty. When it is performed their work is done. They usually find it impossible to readjust themselves in the thought of the people so as to pass on successfully to the solution of new public problems.”
Almost four years later Coolidge had not changed his mind. In a conversation with a friend, Coolidge said: “I hear talk of nominating me for President in 1936. That cannot be… We are in a new era to which I do not belong, and it would not be possible for me to adjust myself to it.” Then, in an obvious reference to the New Deal, Coolidge continued: “These new ideas call for new men to develop them. That task is not for men who believe in the only kind of government I know anything about.”
Coolidge respected those who would guide the future, but he did not apologize for the past. What did he know that has long since been forgotten?
“History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who weren’t there.” Such was the assessment of philosopher George Santayana. He could have added that this pack of lies is retold by lazy people who simply accept the prevailing narrative, and that such people are often called historians.
Even diligent historians are biased. They have political views. They have notions about the direction of history. They have opinions on public finance, war and peace, and what makes a good leader.
What happens if most historians, even the diligent ones, all think the same way? They may find it easier to be lazy about challenging the prevailing narrative regarding Presidents who don’t strike their fancy. Such has been the case with Calvin Coolidge.
As President, Coolidge favored the reduction of taxes. This has caused many to think of him as a sort of one-trick wonder. Few are familiar with the somewhat progressive Governor Coolidge, who believed “the sick, the insane, and the unfortunate” must be adequately cared for, even if that meant increasing state taxes.
Coolidge was a very popular President. Yet he chose not to run in 1928. “It is necessary for the head of the nation to differ with many people who are honest in their opinions. As his term progresses, the number of people who are disappointed accumulates. Finally, there is so large a body who have lost confidence in him that he meets a rising opposition which makes his efforts less effective.”
When Coolidge’s successor lost his bid for re-election in 1932, some asked Coolidge if he would consider running in 1936. They should have anticipated his answer, because he had already essentially stated it in the next paragraph of his 1929 autobiography.
John W. Davis, the former one-term Congressman, was chosen by the Democrats as their 1924 Presidential nominee. Some of the others who received votes during the balloting were Charles W. Bryan, Charles’s older brother William Jennings Bryan, and James M. Cox. Charles became Davis’s running mate. William had received the nomination in 1896, 1900, and 1908, and lost the general election all three times. Cox was the Democratic nominee in 1920. He lost to President Harding.
Some other interesting names appear on the list of candidates: Cordell Hull, who served as FDR’s Secretary of State; Thomas Marshall, who had been Vice President during the Wilson years; and humorist Will Rogers, who received one vote on the 68th ballot. Of course, we must also mention the two chief rivals who fought it out for 16 days: Governor Al Smith, who was FDR’s mentor; and Secretary William McAdoo, who was the son-in-law of the late President Wilson.
Franklin Roosevelt also received votes during the balloting. In 1920 he had been Cox’s running mate. Although the electorate voted for the man at the top of the ticket, one could say that FDR lost to Harding’s running mate Calvin Coolidge. If FDR had received the Democratic nomination in 1924, he probably would have lost to Coolidge again.
Many other men of substance were among the 58 candidates who received votes over 103 ballots. Many were experienced orators, administrators, or legislators. Yet any one of them would have probably lost to the shy and undemonstrative incumbent President.
President Coolidge was an enigma to many in his day. Many have attributed his electoral success to “Coolidge luck.” Yet luck does not adequately explain his record of accomplishment or his popularity with the voters.
The Democratic candidate was a compromise choice who won the nomination on the 103rd ballot. In other words, he was nobody’s first choice and probably not even everybody’s second choice. He was simply an acceptable candidate who could unite the Party for a season.
He also seems to have been an honest and competent man. His only elective office had been a single term in Congress during the Taft Administration. He was the only Democrat for whom the Republicans in his district would vote. At the conclusion of that single term President Wilson appointed him Solicitor General of the United States.
On the first ballot of the 1924 Democratic Convention, he received less than 3% of the vote. He did not take the lead until the 101st ballot. Fifty-eight candidates had received votes during the 16 days of balloting at this Convention. He was chosen over two former Presidential nominees, two future nominees, and one future President.
His running mate was the younger brother of William Jennings Bryan. This association might have attracted the populist vote, but in 1924 there was a third party candidate who appealed to many Democratic voters.
In 1924 the Democrats failed to leverage the opportunity given them by the Teapot Dome scandal. The Republican President was re-elected, and the Republicans increased their majorities in both the House and the Senate. Electoral majorities for the Democratic candidate were confined to the eleven states of the former Confederacy plus the state of Oklahoma. The Democratic candidate even failed to win the vote of his birth state and his adopted home state. Neither did he win the home state of his running mate.
That’s just how it was for Presidential candidate John W. Davis.
In 1924 Al Smith was already Governor of New York. He had been Governor longer than either Grover Cleveland or Theodore Roosevelt. Each of those New Yorkers became President. Why shouldn’t Al Smith follow in their footsteps?
Unfortunately, former Treasury Secretary William McAdoo was the frontrunner for the first 85 ballots of the Democratic Convention. On the 86th ballot Smith became the leader. On the 94th ballot McAdoo regained the lead. Smith led on the 99th and 100th. It was important for Smith to persist, because McAdoo was the candidate of the Ku Klux Klan. Finally, Smith asked to have his name withdrawn from consideration so the Party could select a compromise Presidential nominee. That candidate was trounced in the general election, but Smith was re-elected Governor.
In 1928 Smith ran for President again and was rewarded with the nomination. This time it was he who got trounced in the general election. However, the man who had nominated him for President in 1924 and 1928 got elected Governor of New York. His name was Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Now suppose Smith had lost the Governorship in 1924. That would have made Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. the Governor of New York and a prospective candidate for President in 1928. Since 1928 was a Republican year, TR Jr. could have been elected President.
But that did not happen. TR Jr. did not become President because he was never the nominee of his Party. Neither did he ever become Governor of New York. His progress to the Presidency was stopped in 1924 because, despite his personal integrity, he was too late in recognizing the corruption that crossed his path in the Teapot Dome scandal.
Al Smith tried to get the Democratic nomination for President in 1924 but had to settle for seeking re-election as Governor of New York. As a Presidential candidate, one of his chief supporters was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was FDR who made the nominating speech. It was FDR who was authorized by Smith to withdraw his name so the Party could seek a compromise candidate. Four years later FDR would once again nominate Smith for President, and this time Smith would finally become his Party’s standard-bearer.
Regarding FDR’s dedication to Smith, humorist Will Rogers joked: “Franklin Roosevelt, a fine and wonderful man, who devoted his life to nominating Al Smith, did his act from memory. You could wake him in the middle of the night, and he would start to nominate Al.”
In 1924 FDR’s cousin Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. sought to unseat Governor Smith. TR Jr. was gaining ground until he blundered by pretending to know the latest football results while making a speech at Colgate University. Realizing his error, TR Jr. turned to his aides and asked: “Who told me that?”
One might imagine a candidate could save face by making a tongue-in-cheek remark that gets a laugh, but whether anyone in the Colgate audience laughed didn’t matter. TR Jr.’s question became not an endearing self-effacing remark but rather the basis for a catchphrase used by the Smith campaign.
Smith and his surrogates now delivered speeches where after each recitation of a perceived TR Jr. error in judgment, the speaker would then ask the audience: “Who told Teddy that?” By the end of each speech the audience would anticipate the catchphrase and recite it in unison with the speaker.
Smith was re-elected by more than one hundred thousand votes.
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. was a popular figure in New York. On August 28, 1924, while attending a Yankees baseball game, he was applauded by the spectators. He wrote in his diary, “…the whole grandstand recognized me and cheered and clapped.” He had not made a grand entrance. He was simply moving from one section to another during the fourth inning. The applause was spontaneous.
His positions on the two wedge issues of the day were in line with much of the electorate. He was vehemently against the Ku Klux Klan. Regarding Prohibition, although he proclaimed it was foolish to have ratified such policy, he was duty bound to uphold the U.S. Constitution, the state constitution, and the laws of the United States and New York state. This was not the policy endorsement the Drys in upstate New York were hoping for, but since the Democratic candidate was a Wet, TR Jr.’s position was good enough.
During the general election campaign TR Jr. demonstrated energy and grasp of the issues. The Teapot Dome scandal was now behind him, or at least it seemed to be. He was speaking at numerous venues to enthusiastic crowds. He was gaining ground on his opponent who happened to be the incumbent Governor.
Making ten speeches a day had it advantages and disadvantages. It put the candidate before the public, but it also gave TR Jr. the opportunity to blunder. This is what happened at Colgate University. He congratulated their football team for their recent win against intrastate rival Cornell. Unfortunately, Colgate had lost the previous week,… to Nebraska!
But that was only the beginning of the trouble. Upon discovering his error, TR Jr. tried to save face by turning to his aides and asking, “Who told me that?”
In 1905 President Theodore Roosevelt stood in for his late brother and gave his niece Eleanor to his fifth cousin Franklin in marriage. Franklin, although a Democrat, admired the Republican President. Just like Uncle Theodore, Franklin became a member of the New York state legislature. Just like Uncle Theodore, Franklin became Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Just like Uncle Theodore, Franklin was nominated for Vice President.
Franklin did not win the Vice Presidency. The incumbent Democratic President was so unpopular in 1920 that no Democrat had a chance to succeed him. In New York even the popular incumbent Democratic Governor lost.
Democrat Al Smith had been elected Governor in 1918, lost in 1920, and won again in 1922. He ran for re-election in 1924. That was the year Republican President Calvin Coolidge was elected to a term of his own. Coolidge received more than 70% of the Electoral College vote. He won almost 56% of the popular vote in New York. Surely one might have expected Smith to lose the Governorship a second time.
Smith’s Republican opponent was Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. Cousin Franklin was recuperating from polio in Florida, but Cousin Eleanor was actively supporting Governor Smith. At first, Smith said nothing about the Teapot Dome scandal. It was Cousin Eleanor who ensured the electorate would be reminded of TR Jr.’s poor judgment.
Eleanor and two other individuals constructed a papier-mâché teapot large enough to envelop a truck. Everywhere TR Jr. went, the “TEAPOT DOME” truck went. Despite this reminder, TR Jr. continued to gain ground. Then, while campaigning at Colgate University, he said something which enabled the Democrats to ridicule him even more and with greater effect.
Like his father, Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. had been a state assemblyman, an officer in the U.S. Army during wartime, and Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He hoped to retrace his father’s path to the Presidency by becoming Governor of New York.
According to one biographer, TR Jr. was “a man who in many ways was more righteous than his father.”[1] Achieving this high standard prevented any credible indictment of his actions regarding the Teapot Dome scandal. His political opponents would have to attack not his integrity but his judgment.
In 1921 President Harding issued an executive order to transfer the Teapot Dome oil reserves from the Navy to the Interior Department. Wildcatters had been illegally taking oil from this area, and since the Interior Department had more experience in dealing with wildcatters, it might make sense for them to control the oil reserves. TR Jr. did not like the idea of the transfer, but when Secretary Denby told him the decision was final, he dutifully acquiesced.
However, he should have become more suspicious when the Interior Department asked the Navy Department to send in the Marines. If the Interior Department was so good at handling wildcatters, why did they need military support?
TR Jr. sent only a handful of Marines. These had a gentlemanly discussion with the wildcatters, after which the wildcatters dispersed. Neither the transfer nor the deployment of troops was illegal, but when Congress discovered that Secretaries Denby and Fall had colluded with Sinclair Oil to enrich themselves, the optics became very bad for the Assistant Secretary.
His Democratic opponent in the 1924 gubernatorial race did not speak of the scandal, but Cousin Eleanor cleverly publicized it.
[1] His Father’s Son by Tim Brady, New American Library, 2017, p. 154.
Democratic Congressman William Stevenson celebrated his 62nd birthday in late 1923. By mid-March 1924 he had exceeded the normal male life expectancy for that era by four years. By that standard he was an old man. He had given a speech about Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. which was defamatory, lacking in essential facts, and which mischaracterized the Assistant Secretary’s actions. TR Jr. was determined to settle the issue with his fists until he became aware that Stevenson was an old man who wore glasses.
Still, he could not let the issue pass. Taking his pen, he wrote the following statement for the press. “Every crook [who profited from the Teapot Dome scandal] should be punished regardless of politics or position. Equally crooked, however, with those who take bribes is he who, cloaking himself in Congressional immunity, misrepresents facts in an endeavor to injure an innocent man. Regardless of politics, such a man should be held to strict account, and such a man is Congressman Stevenson of South Carolina. I call on all Americans, Democrat or Republican, who stand for honor, fair play and Americanism, to make it their business to drive from public life slanderers of this type.”
The pen proved to be mightier than the fist, at least among the political class in Washington. There had been a resolution in the upper house which called for TR Jr. to resign. When the vote was taken, it lost by a wide margin.
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. did resign from the Navy Department later that year, not in disgrace, but in order to run for Governor of New York. Meanwhile, his cousins Eleanor and Franklin were considering how they might keep him from getting elected.
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