November 5, 2024: The 1924 Election: Three VP Nominees

[This hasbeen a particularly crazy last year/decade/eternity, but it’s not the firstnutty presidential campaign and election. 100 years ago wascertainly another, so this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of 1924 electioncontexts, leading up to some reflections on this year’s electoral results!]

On howthree Republican nominees for the Vice Presidency exemplify electoral chaos.

1)     Frank Lowden: Up until the ratificationof the 25th Amendment in 1967, if wasn’t required for a formerVice President and newly sworn-in President like Calvin Coolidge to nominate anew Vice President, and so Coolidge didn’t do so when he ascended to thepresidency in August 1923. That meant that for much of 1923 and 1924 Coolidgewas seeking the Republican nomination and reelection to the presidency with noVice Presidential nominee, and thus that the 1924Republican National Convention in Cleveland needed to name such a nomineealongside Coolidge. Coolidge’s choice was Frank O. Lowden, aformer U.S. Representative from and Governor of Illinois who had himself soughtthe presidency in 1920. But perhaps because he had lost that nomination tothe Harding-Coolidge ticket, or perhaps because he had his own futurepresidential ambitions (and did run again in the1928 Republican primaries), Lowden turned down the nomination.

2)     Charles Dawes: With Coolidge’s own choice forVP out of the running, the convention delegates as a whole settled on a newnominee, the lawyer and businessman, WorldWar I officer, and Harding administration official (in the role of the first director ofthe Bureau of the Budget) CharlesDawes. During his time as Coolidge’s VP Dawes would become best known for draftinga WWI reparations plan, known as the Dawes Plan,for which he received the 1925Nobel Peace Prize. But Coolidge clearly never warmed to Dawes as his VP, asillustrated by the president’s failure to support Dawes’ signature domesticachievement: Dawes championed the McNary-HaugenFarm Relief Bill and helped it pass Congress, but Coolidgevetoed the bill not once but twice (in 1926and 1927). And when Coolidge announced he would not seek reelection in 1928and Dawes was rumored as a possible candidate, Coolidge told delegates that hewould consider any nomination of Dawes as a personal insult.    

3)     Charles Curtis: Herbert Hoover ended up the Republicanpresidential nominee in 1928, and Dawes was likewise passed over as a VicePresidential nominee despite his continued interest in the role. Instead, the RepublicanNational Convention in Kansas City chose Kansas Senator CharlesCurtis as Hoover’s VP nominee. The choice of Curtis reflected a second consecutiveRNC with a contested vice presidential nomination process that was separate from,and perhaps even more combative than, the presidential nomination. But at thesame time, Curtis was a hugely significant symbolic choice—as an enrolledmember of the Kaw Nation, he was (and remains to this day) theonly Native American ever to serve as Vice President. Another way that thechaos of these 1920s elections mirrors some of the factors that have made ourown current campaign and election unusual and groundbreaking!

Next 1924contexts tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Other crazy elections you’d highlight, or thoughts on this oneyou’d share?