Published October 25, 2020
By Joseph Newkirk
As Democrats
convened in New York City during the summer of 1924 to select a presidential
candidate, delegates remained sharply divided over Prohibition, publicly
denouncing the politically powerful Ku Klux Klan, and a graduated income tax to
aid struggling farmers and the less fortunate. Opposing forces of the 20
candidates whose names had been placed into nomination clashed and tussled
through 102 ballots without deciding on a winner.
Finally, on the
103rd ballot—the longest in American history—a majority nominated
compromise candidate John W. Davis, a scholarly conservative senator from West
Virginia and a Wall Street lawyer who did not actively pursue his party’s nod. Quincy
Sheriff Ernest J. Grubb served as a sergeant-at-arms and local Democratic Party
leader Floyd E. Thompson as one of the vice-chairmen at this convention. Quincyan Emery Lancaster was the only
delegate to cast all 103 of his ballots for Davis and he became a close friend
and confidant of the nominee.
Davis chose Nebraska Governor Charles
Bryan, brother of famed attorney and three-time presidential candidate William
Jennings Bryan, as his running mate. This Democratic joint-ticket began a
lackluster campaign against sitting President Calvin Coolidge, whose motto
“Keep Cool and Keep Coolidge” promised to steer the country on a steady course.
Many people in
both the Democratic and Republican Parties believed that Davis and Coolidge’s
platforms were too similar to represent the country’s growing liberal views.
Wisconsin Republican Senator Robert M La Follette, vowing to end the “orgy of
corruption,” formed his own Progressive Party and began a vigorous campaign
that undermined support from the two major party candidates.
Soon after the
Democratic convention, political leaders in Quincy began plans to bring Senator
Davis to town. They formed committees
and established a headquarters at 508 Hampshire, which also housed a
Davis-Jones Club to support the presidential candidate and Judge Norman L.
Jones of Ottawa for Illinois governor. Davis
accepted an invitation to speak at Baldwin Park on October 15, 1924, the first
presidential candidate to visit Quincy since William Jennings Bryan campaigned
here in 1896.
Although Davis had
not supported the 19th amendment to the U. S. Constitution granting
women suffrage in 1920, planners reserved 100 seats at Baldwin Park for females
attending the speech. The
new medium of radio had provided live broadcasts of the Democratic convention.
Campaign workers for Davis required local radio coverage of his speech and
amplifiers at Baldwin Park. Quincy electrician Russell Williams furnished them.
City Alderman Louis F. Fuelbier formally welcomed the senator and Mayor William
B. Smiley proclaimed it “John W. Davis Day.” Former Quincyan Fred Haskins, who
lived in Washington D. C. and worked as a correspondent for local papers,
provided readers with detailed reports.
Following a
luncheon at the Hotel Quincy, a parade escorted Davis through downtown and then
to Baldwin Park, where a crowd estimated at 12,000 people had assembled. This
number included an entourage of reporters and photographers from major
newspapers around the country and trainloads of spectators from surrounding
counties in Missouri, Illinois, and Iowa.
Many local stores closed and allowed employees to attend this
once-in-a-lifetime event. The Eagles Club Band of Quincy and the Illinois State
Band of Springfield played patriotic music, while vendors and political groups
handed out literature and curios.
Davis’ speech
differed significantly in a couple of ways from his standard campaign oration.
Because of Prohibition’s unpopularity in this area, he did not mention his
endorsement of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution enacted five years
earlier that banned the sale, manufacture, and consumption of alcohol and now
sharply divided the country between “wets” and “drys”. Also, aware of strong
local support for the Ku Klux Klan, he did not openly condemn this organization
as he had during most other campaign stops. President Coolidge, though, fearful
of a backlash, never publicly censured the KKK by name during the entire 1924
political season.
Senator Davis
stated that national and local politics are inextricably bound. A transcript
published in the Quincy Daily Herald of October 16, 1924, included this
passage: “You cannot have good government in Washington, unless you have it in
Adams County. You cannot have good government in Adams County unless you have
it in Quincy. Government in the United States hails from the bottom up, and not
from the top down.”
In his one-hour
speech, Davis said that the Teapot Dome scandal of the previous Harding
administration had shocked the country. He warned that several of the “corrupt”
cabinet members and officials embroiled in that notorious crime still served in
Coolidge’s current administration. In response to the growing divide between
urban and rural America, he assured local farmers that he would help them, and
vowed to bring fairness, honesty, and integrity back to Washington.
On November 4,
1924, voters went to the polls. Results surprised few observers: President
Coolidge won in a landslide, with 15.7 million votes (382 electoral votes) to Davis’
8.4 million votes (136 electoral votes). La Follette garnered 4.8 million votes
and 13 electoral votes from his home state of Wisconsin. The president’s
coattails extended to the state level, where Illinois Republicans won the
governor’s race and the 20th Congressional District.
The tally in
Quincy proved even more lopsided than the national numbers. In the lowest
percentage turnout of eligible voters for a presidential election in local
history, Coolidge received 1,223 votes to only 52 for Davis. Democrats running
for Quincy offices, though, split the ticket. They revamped their forces and
looked to the future.
In 1928, Democrats
won three out of every four local elections, the same year that Republican
Herbert Hoover entered the White House. One year later, the stock market
crashed and the Great Depression began. Hoover would be the last Republican
president until 1952. During that 24-year span, Quincy voters elected four
consecutive Democratic mayors and strongly supported—with the endorsement of
John W. Davis—every Democratic presidential candidate.
Sources
“Coming to
Quincy.”
Quincy Daily Herald
, Oct.
11, 1924, 1.
“Democratic
Party in Adams County,” in
People’s History of Quincy and Adams County.
Rev. Landry Genosky O. F. M, ed. Quincy,
IL: Jost & Kiefer Printing Co., 1973, pp. 274-80.
“Democrats
Will Split, Says Illinois Delegates to Convention.”
Quincy Daily Herald
, June 26, 1924, 1.
“Extend
Formal Greetings to John W. Davis.”
Quincy
Daily Journal
, Oct. 14, 1924, 12.
“John W.
Davis Pleased With Quincy Reception, Candidate’s Busy Life.”
Quincy Daily Herald
, Oct. 16, 1924, 1.
Murray,
Robert.
The 103rd Ballot: The Legendary 1924 Democratic
Convention That Forever
Changed Politics.
New York: Harper & Row, 1976.
“Nomination
of Davis Brings Joy to Most Democrats of Quincy.”
Quincy Daily Herald
, July 10, 1924,14.
