January – November 1936: The Presidential Election – Part III
On June 9 1936, Democratic delegates from across the country gathered in Cleveland, Ohio for the four-year ritual of selecting the candidate for president. As they were the ‘out-party’ this time around, the convention began before the Republicans'. The primary season had been a remarkably interesting one, sharply contested all the way to the end. Though most states deigned to do without primaries, it still stood as an effective gauge for the mood of the Democratic Party. Many of the delegates, arriving amidst boos and protests from crowds of Syndicalist sympathizers, expressed their uncertainty to a receptive press.
Indeed, the Democratic Party was facing the complete erosion of its principal base, the South, which had consistently voted Democrat since the Civil War. Many politicians had outright defected to the America Firsters, sensing the winds of change. Many loyal Democrats voiced concerns that regions that had voted overwhelmingly in their favor for generations might be seriously contested at all levels.
In this environment, three major contenders for the presidential nomination emerged: John Nance Garner, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Henry A. Wallace. Born in Texas, Garner enjoyed the support of Southerners and the party 'Old Guard.' Wallace, formerly a liberal Republican who had defected after Hoover's disastrous economic policy, was popular among more reform-minded Democrats and disaffected Republicans, and seemed to be the most likely candidate to blunt the populist appeal of Long and Reed. Roosevelt, the closest to a 'dark horse' option, stood squarely between the two. Connected to the Roosevelt dynasty and untainted by President Smith's legacy of corruption, Roosevelt had miraculously managed to defeat incumbent Republican Governor Charles Tuttle on the promise to clean up Tammany Hall corruption.
Of the three, Garner was the frontrunner, with Roosevelt in second and Wallace in a close third. The first two ballots proved indecisive; Garner did not have the majority to clinch the nomination. Garner's agents approached Wallace to broker a deal on the night of the 11th. Once the two of them came together, the nomination would soon follow suit. The meeting, however, took an unexpected turn when Wallace suggested that he, not Garner, ought to be the presidential candidate, with the Texan becoming his vice-president. Perhaps it was the sweltering summer heat in the stuffy Cleveland rooms, but Garner grew incensed, railing that the vice-presidency was ‘not worth a bucket of warm piss!’ Taken aback, and with a clear picture of his role in any Garner administration, Wallace terminated the negotiations and approached Roosevelt. The two quickly came to an understanding.
The next day, the convention was startled by the announcement of a Roosevelt-Wallace ticket. More than a few questioned if the names had been reversed on accident. The assembled delegates were shocked by the results of the third ballot as all remaining delegates shifted their votes in response to the development: Roosevelt gained a majority. Out of nowhere, the Democrats had their candidate.
Roosevelt's nomination surprised many Americans.
On the final day of the convention, Roosevelt stepped to the podium to make his acceptance speech. After expressing a short thanks to the party and commending Wallace, as well as Garner for his dignified acceptance of the inevitable, Roosevelt spent several minutes condemning the Syndicalists and Nationals for their radicalism and the division their implacability was creating in the United States. He assured Americans that his nomination was a symbolic act by the Democratic Party to its commitment to reformation. Revitalizing the economy and reuniting the country, he promised, would be the administration's top priority.
'The great social phenomenon of this period, unlike any experienced by our forefathers, cannot be met by reaction. To meet by reaction that danger of radicalism is to invite disaster. Reaction is no barrier to the radical. It is a challenge, a provocation. The way to meet that danger is to offer a workable program of reconstruction, and the party to offer it is the party with clean hands. Let us pledge before this assembly to bring renewed leadership, a new deal, to America. Give me your help, not to win votes alone, but to win in this crusade to restore America to its own people.'
The Democratic Party was impressed.
The Republican delegates who arrived in Oklahoma City on June 23 had little time to react to this unexpected development in Cleveland. Like the Democrats, the Republicans were met in Oklahoma by third-party supporters, 'Firsters' that tempted Republicans to defect with prospects of populist mass-support. The Republican Party had already been badly hurt by the undermining of their influence over unions by Syndicalists and farmers by Long's Nationals. Worse, President Hoover was fighting desperately to actually gain the party nomination, something that seemed less and less likely as more primary results came in. Unprecedented in modern politics though denying an incumbent president the nomination was, Republicans, and Americans in general, had little confidence in the man that had precipitated the worst economic and social crisis in national memory. More shocking still, it was Vice-President Charles Curtis of Kansas who emerged as the front-runner. In third place was Frank Knox, identified as a Progressive Republican. Desperately, Hoover argued behind closed doors with the party elite to renominate him. Not doing so, he assured them, would doom the party's chances of reelection. Mindful of the growing influence of the third-parties and the surprise nomination of Roosevelt, the leadership was unswayed. Humiliated and beaten, Hoover was forced to bow to the party wishes. On the second ballot, Curtis and Knox were nominated.
Charles Curtis clinched the Republican nomination.
The outcome of both major parties' national conventions demonstrated aptly the growing crisis facing the United States. On the Democratic side, a 'dark horse' candidate had emerged from the rupture in the embryonic Garner-Wallace coalition, one only possible thanks to the siphoning of Southern Democrats away by Long. On the Republican side, President Hoover made the precedent of being unseated in favor of his Vice-President, largely for being blamed for the crisis the nation was in. As the process wound down to its final phase, the country had its four candidates. The 1936 election was finally set in full motion.