1924 Presidential election

[TransfemmeGoreVidal]

Going with Fightin Bob here and I would with or without hindsight. Though I don't know it at the time this would be the last presidential election in which I don't vote for the Democratic nominee.

[TransfemmeGoreVidal]

La Follette>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Coolidge>>Davis

I'd still take Davis as a second choice, albeit a very distant second choice over Coolidge. He was better on immigration.

[TransfemmeGoreVidal]

La Follette, because all Presidents should rock such an impressive pompadour.

YES!!!!!

[TransfemmeGoreVidal]

La Follette>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Coolidge>>Davis

I'd still take Davis as a second choice, albeit a very distant second choice over Coolidge. He was better on immigration.

Davis gets a bad reputation as "one of those conservative Democrats" because of his various positions on issues relating to the South, but on matters of trusts/monopolies, immigration and a number of other issues he was certainly not conservative relative to Coolidge.

Did Davis ever express an opinion on immigration?

Very favorably actually according to this article. Pretty good speech minus the Woodrow Wilson fandom: DAVIS URGES RIGHTS OF THE IMMIGRANTS; He Addresses Groups of Jews, Bohemians and Poles on His Last Night in Chicago: https://www.nytimes.com/1924/10/18/archives/davis-urges-rights-of-the-immigrants-he-addresses-groups-of-jews.html?searchResultPosition=1

[TransfemmeGoreVidal]

I don't really care what the Democratic party claimed to stand for as long as it was the party of the South - the party of Jim Crow, lynchings, and the resurgent Klan. For me, it's impossible to look at the 1924 electoral map and see anything but a Civil War redux. With that backdrop, Davis is clearly to the right of Coolidge. I hate to quote the vile Mencken twice in one thread, but he was one of the more important political commentators of the 1920s, and this is what he had to say about the Civil War:

I am not arguing here, of course, that the whole Confederate army was composed of gentlemen; on the contrary, it was chiefly made up, like the Federal army, of innocent and unwashed peasants, and not a few of them got into its corps of officers. But the impulse behind it, as everyone knows, was essentially aristocratic, and that aristocratic impulse would have fashioned the Confederacy if the fortunes of war had run the other way.

Looking at that electoral map again, I cannot and have no desire to support the candidate of the slaveholding aristocratic Confederate South. Of course it's impossible to know what the electoral map will look like before you vote, but based on the 1920 results I think one could make a pretty close guess. In any case I obviously would've been an enthusiastic La Follette supporter, but if forced to choose between Coolidge and Davis I would easily choose Coolidge.

The Klan had pretty significant growth in the northeast and midwest as well though where it tended to be tied closer to the Republican Party. I don't think either political party in the 1920s or any region of the country was anything but backwards when it came to racism and anti-immigrant nativism.

[TransfemmeGoreVidal]

A very interesting essay that discuses the Indiana Klan's involvement in the 1924 election. Excerpts:

When [Republican state chairman Lawrence] Lyons confessed to being a member of the Klan, he “ripped off the mask,” and drew attention to the Klan’s influence in the Republican Party. This subsequently made “the Klan an issue in the next campaign.” The Huntington Press published an article that acknowledged the Klan had become a pillar of the Republican Party in this election. It was widely known that to be Republican was to cast a vote with the Klan. Both political parties were expected to take a blow in voter support; The Democrats would lose Klan votes and the Republicans would lose African American votes. The divide between parties regarding the Ku Klux Klan was prominent in the campaign platforms of the candidates. Both John Davis and Robert La Follette had condemned the Klan in speeches during the presidential race. Klansmen supported Calvin Coolidge because of his silence on the subject of the Klan. The Fiery Cross claimed that Davis and La Follette were part of the Roman Catholic political machine’s plot to take over America, despite neither of them being connected to the Catholic Church. These false accusations exhibit the Klan’s paranoia towards anyone who opposed them.

Assorted newspapers reported that polls expected Coolidge to win and for a heavily GOP weighted Congress. When the results came in, the Fiery Cross rejoiced with anti-Catholic headlines reading, “Roman Dictators Overthrown,” and the “Protestant Ticket Sweeps State.” The motivation for the emphasis on religion in the headlines was reflective of the Klan’s belief that the Pope secretly controlled the government and sought to corrupt the United States.

Excellent finds, thanks.

I wish we could go back to having the all of the bigots divided by region and not united into a single lunatic political coalition.