History 211: History of US Elections

 http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3b23344/, this photo is a public domain image from the Library of Congress. 

“Wherever one went, it was impossible not to notice the predominance of women voters during the forenoon,” the Boston Daily Globe reported on November 3, 1920.  The previous day, the first Presidential election was held since the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution granted women over the age of 21 the right to vote earlier that year (“Women by Thousands Pour Into Polling Places in the Bay State.” Boston Daily Globe. 3 November, 1920, 20.).

The 1920 Presidential Election, the first since the conclusion of World War One, pitted Ohio Republican Senator Warren G. Harding and his running mate, Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge against Ohio Democratic Governor James M. Cox and former Assistant Secretary of the Navy and future President Franklin D. Roosevelt.  Harding and Cox vied to succeed two term Democratic President Woodrow Wilson (“The Presidential Election of 1920.” United States Library of Congress. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/nfhtml/nfexpe.html).  According to historians William Binning, Larry Esterly, and Paul Sracic, the election was “a referendum on the Wilson administration,” especially in terms of the outgoing President’s ardent support for the nation’s entry into the new League of Nations, the unpopularity of which led many voters to favor Harding’s calls for a return to normalcy (Binning, William, and Larry Esterly and Paul Sracic. Encyclopedia of American Parties, Campaigns and Elections. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999, 66).  Unlike his Democratic opponent, Harding took a firm stand on the other major issue of the campaign when he “pledged to enforce” the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which the previous year prohibited alcohol, according to historian David Kyvig (Kyvig, David. Repealing National Prohibition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979, 29). 

On Election Day, November 2, 1920, many women rushed to exercise their newfound right to vote.  The Boston Daily Globe reported the following day that when the polls opened in the morning in many towns outside the city “women, old and young, married and single, most of them under no compulsion to vote at that daylight hour, had come forward with pride and eagerness to be among the first.”  The Boston Daily Globe also reported that a number of women voters initially failed to grasp the concept of the anonymous secret ballot, as evidenced by a woman asking the warden at a polling place “Do I sign my name on the back of the ballot?” (“Women by Thousands Pour Into Polling Places in the Bay State.” Boston Daily Globe. 3 November, 1920, 20.).   The New York Times reported that “Women showed intense interest in the election.  In many districts, more women than men went to the polling places in the morning.  In the first hour, it was not uncommon to see when on their way either from or to the grocery” (“Thousands Carry Lunches to the Polls.” New York Times. 3 November, 1920, 11). 

This influx of motivated women voters, which was seen throughout the nation, likely contributed to Harding’s landslide victory, the largest since “the Republican landslide of 1904,” in which Theodore Roosevelt won his second term.  (“Cox and League Buried Under Huge Majority.” Chicago Daily Tribune. 3 November, 1920, 1). 

This conclusion is supported by statisticians Malcolm Wiley and Stuart Rice, who studied voting records in the state of Illinois, where male and female ballots “were separately recorded,” in addition to simultaneous local elections where social issues played prominent roles.  Rice and Wiley determined that women voters, “especially in the northern states” trended more Republican than their male counterparts because women tended to be on the “’moral’ and conservative sides in local elections,” and “Harding of the two candidates was widely believed to be the more conservative,” on social issues such as prohibition.  (“Rice, Stuart, and Willey, Malcolm. “A Sex Cleavage in the Presidential Election of 1920.” Journal of the American Statistical Association 19, no. 148, (1924): 519-520.)

“If the Democrats desire even a sporting chance at the next election their policy must be, “any one but Wilson” These words, spoken by Robert Ford, editor of New York Irish World, an influential periodical, pertained to the purported imminent defeat of Wilson at the hand of Irish Democrats.

The source of Irish dismay was the bloody Dublin “massacre,” in which 16 leaders of the Irish revolt against England were massacred on April 29 1916. The reason for the massacre was a revolt led by Irish dissidents in reaction to the passing of the third Home Rule Bill, which gave British Parliament the right to rule every aspect of Irish life.

The source of disdain for Woodrow Wilson branched from his support of Great Britain during World War 1. Roman Catholic Irish also disliked Wilson for his Mexican policies and alleged mistreatment of Mexican Catholics. Robert Ford Was later quoted, “The election of the next president will, in all probability, depend on our vote. There is not a congressional district in which we are without influence.”

the Irish press followed with a “lesser of two evils” approach to the election and chose to endorse GOP cantidate Charles Evan Hughes, claiming, “He surely cannot be as bad as Wilson, For he is at least a man of honor.” In addition, Wilson had been implored, at the mercy of the Irish community to help save the life of an Irish traitor, but the White House failed to act quickly and he was executed.

In late August, the Irish situation had gotten so bad that it had become apparent that the Democratic party had given up on the Irish entirely. When the climate seemed the darkest for the Democrats, one particular slip-up occured that led to the “unraveling” of the Irish anti-Democrat sentiment. Jeremiah O’Leary, president of the American Truth Society sent a cutting telegram to Wilson, claiming Wilson had been “truckling with the British Empire,” and that he had a “dictatorship over Congress.” Wilson’s response simply read, “Your telegram received. I would feel deeply mortified to have you or anybody like you vote for me. Since you have access to many disloyal Americans and I have not, I will ask you to convey this message for me.”

This correspondence was a blessing in disguise, as many Irish publications proudly published it with intent on harming Wilson. Instead, as Wilson’s closest advisor Edward House explained, “At what time will Charles E. Hughes send such a message to the disloyal Americans who cheer him when he utters his careful platitudes.” By publishing the Leary-Wilson correspondence, the Irish media effectively made voting for Hughes un-American.

As the months dragged on towards the election, Hughes began to lose steam in the race, as lackluster editorial pieces done by the Irish media could not prove him to be a good leader at all, just better than Wilson. On November 7th the popular votes had come in; Wilson, 9,129,606, Hughes, 8,538,221. Wilson had won in a popular vote so close, not another would be seen until the 2004 election. Wilson took the election with 277 electoral votes beating out Hughes 254.

While evidence does show that Hughes carried 6 of the 8 states with the highest concentrations of Irish Americans in the country, it does little to explain states the Wilson had won with large populations of Irishmen. Many cite that anti-Democrat Irishmen failed to account for the third and fourth generation Irish-Americans who were pro-American and defended Wilson.

Regardless of the facts surrounding Irish-American voter turnout (as they were not measured at the time) the 1916 election provides ample evidence of what a minority group, when properly organized, can do to swing an election away from a cantidate running from their own party.

On the night of the election of 1948 presidential candidate Thomas Dewey, and the majority of the American public felt sure that Dewey was the new president of the United States. The candidacy of his competitor, Harry S. Truman, who was running for his second term, was cast aside as a long-shot. Newspapers and radios alike endorsed Dewey’s presidency and discussed his inevitable victory in the days and hours before the final election results were announced. According to many contemporaries, “Harry Truman was the only man who truly believed he could win. And he was right.” News of Truman’s victory shocked a nation of non-believers.

Polls leading up to the election showed that Dewey was far ahead of the competition. With the creation of the Gallup Poll in the 1930’s, an effective way of predicting election outcomes and determining public opinion was created. Politicians and the public  relied on Gallup Polls to get an understanding of where the nation stood on important issues. Prior to the election of 1948 Dewey was quoted as saying, “never argue with the Gallup Poll. It has never been wrong and I very much doubt it ever will be”( Thomas E. Dewey 1937-1947: A Study in Political Leadership, Beyer, pg 73).  The American media was just as quick to put all of its faith in pre-election polls. Washington Post journalist Drew Pearson wrote that “Governor Dewey had conducted one of the most astute and skillful campaigns in recent years” and that Truman “cannot possibly win this election.” Another Washington Post article put enormous faith in polling representative voters and said that the likelihood of these representatives being wrong would be a great surprise to the nation. The most famous example of the unquestioning faith the media put in pollsters was the infamous Chicago Tribune headline that read “Dewey Defeats Truman.” 15o,ooo copies of this inaccurate headline were printed.

Americans were shocked at the inaccuracies of the polls that had predicted Dewey overwhelmingly as the favorite candidate. Actual election results showed quite a different story. Dewey was unable to obtain the majority he needed to defeat Truman in key states like Illinois. There are a majority of factors that can account for the inaccuracy of these poll results. First of all, Dewey under-estimated the importance of the African American vote and failed to campaign strongly towards this demographic. In addition, many historians believe that Dewey got lazy in campaigning because of his unwavering faith in the polls, and others believe that the the prediction of an overwhelming victory for Dewey kept some from seeing the need to go out and vote (Simon Topping).

Since then, polling has undergone changes to increase its accuracy. Despite these efforts, the polls often fail to be an accurate indicator of future results. However, no polling innacuracy has ever been quite as dramatic in the eyes of the American public as that of 1948. On November 4, 1948 Truman drove into St. Louis, Missouri after winning the election holding a copy of the mistaken Chicago Tribune headline claiming his defeat. The picture of this event in one of the most iconic photos in the history of American politics and its legacy lives on today.