People often forget that Hoover was once persuaded by Democratic insiders, including his future foe Franklin Roosevelt, to be their party's nominee in 1920. What follows is a hypothetical scenario of what might have been...
Herbert Hoover demurred attempts to draft him into the 1920 presidential race, despite praise from Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt and from President Wilson. Instead, he returned to California, joining the boards of several companies including Standard Oil of California and Newmont Mining Corporation. He devoted considerable time to establishing a business school at Stanford University, and was given the honor of serving as its first dean when it opened in 1922.
With the death of Warren G. Harding in office in the fall of 1923, Democrats began to view 1924 with greater optimism, knowing their candidate would likely be facing Calvin Coolidge, who lacked charisma and was already being criticized by journalists for being a "do-nothing." With Hoover carrying the Democratic banner, they believed, the 1924 election would be a choice between the party of optimism, ideas and can-do spirit, versus Coolidge's dour personality and apathetic approach to the role of government. Hoover played coy once again, as he had four years earlier, this time accepting the Democrats' nomination as their vice presidential candidate alongside former solicitor general John Davis.
The Davis-Hoover ticket was a mixed bag from the start. John W. Davis wasn't very well-known, having served most of his career in appointed offices, and his conservative views made some voters feel there was little difference between him and Coolidge. Hoover, meanwhile, was well-received by more progressive-minded Democrats and independents, who felt inspired by his calls for reducing poverty through public-private partnerships and applying engineering concepts to make government more efficient. In November, America heeded the GOP's call to "Keep cool with Coolidge," helped in part by the booming economy. But the Democrats could thank Hoover for helping defuse the third-party candidacy of Robert LaFollette. Convincing progressives to stick with the Democrats, Hoover virtually ensured LaFollette's candidacy was dead in the water, and the Progressive ticket won barely 8 percent of the vote nationwide, failing to carry a single state (though they came close to winning LaFollette's Wisconsin).
In early 1927, the Mississippi River's levees failed, resulting in catastrophic flooding in the South and Midwest. The Coolidge Administration's response was nothing short of disastrous. Coolidge refused to visit affected areas, feeling that doing so would be a public relations stunt at best. Several weeks passed before he finally tasked Agriculture Secretary William Jardine with creating a commission to administer relief to flooded areas. Jardine viewed the crisis more in economic and agricultural terms than in human ones, suggesting that small farmers whose crops had been destroyed be given low-interest loans from the government to help rebuild their operations. Meanwhile, outbreaks of malaria and typhoid in Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas had become rampant, causing thousands of deaths.
Coolidge initially dismissed newspaper articles condemning Jardine's handling of the crisis as "muckraking," but soon found himself on the losing side of a PR war. New York Attorney General Franklin Roosevelt, speaking to a New York Times reporter, bluntly declared,
"Mr. Coolidge has, in his appalling inattentiveness to the crisis at hand, left me and a good many other Americans certain that he does not care about the farmers and the families who reside in places like Percy, Mississippi and Franklin, Louisiana. President Coolidge simply does not care about those people." "President Coolidge simply does not care about those people." -Franklin Roosevelt, New York Attorney General, commenting on the Coolidge Administration's response to the Mississippi River Flood, April 14, 1927
On May 18th, Coolidge asked for and received the resignation of William Jardine. The Commission on Flood Relief was disbanded and Coolidge, after consulting with his advisers and exchanging letters with several state governors, realized the man who just might save him from going down as a failed president was a Democrat. On May 24th, Herbert Hoover left California by train. Having accepted the President's request to form a new task force to provide aid to flooded areas, Hoover went first to Memphis; a relatively large city that had sustained little damage from the flood would be ideal as a base of operations. Keeping with his belief that humanitarian aid was chiefly a private responsibility, Hoover contacted numerous charitable organizations and philanthropists, seeking donations and grants. Doctors and nurses were brought in to contain the infectious disease outbreaks, and Hoover had a group of graduate engineering and business students from Stanford devise a supply chain to more quickly deliver food and clean water to effective communities.
By the end of the year, Hoover was a national hero. Hailed as the Great Humanitarian, newspapers of all political persuasions wondered if he was America's next president. After eight years of stringing the Democratic Party along, Hoover realized the stars had aligned for him. In early 1928, he met with party officials to make clear his intention to seek the nomination. At the 1928 Democratic National Convention in Houston, the pro-Hoover sentiment was nearly unanimous. New York Governor Al Smith was the only other person to contest the nomination, and Hoover won on the first ballot. Cordell Hull, a Tennessee congressman, was chosen as Hoover's running mate.
Hoover giving a speech in El Paso, Texas, August 8, 1928
Hoover embarked on a nationwide whistle-stop tour over the summer and fall, while the Republican candidate, former Illinois Governor Frank Lowden, ran a somewhat anemic campaign that more or less called for maintaining the status quo. Speaking at a railway station in El Paso, Texas, Hoover summed up his candidacy:
"Ladies and gentlemen, Governor Lowden thinks more of the same is good enough for America. Was more of the same good enough when children in Arkansas were dying of typhoid fever? Was more of the same good enough when the current administration sat on its hands in the face of crisis? Governor Lowden is a politician. I have never been a politician. Governor Lowden is for the party of Wall Street and laissez-faire. I stand with Main Street and I don't just believe that together we can achieve great things, I know it. I've seen it myself: engineering students helping devise flood control plans in Louisiana, private companies donating blankets and tent canvas for relief camps in Illinois. Whether it's a millionaire on Park Avenue writing a check to help pay for food for families in need or a small farmer giving one of his chickens to a neighbor, every one of us has something to give. A desire to help our fellow man is alive and well in America; what we need now is a government that can help make that happen, to bridge the gap between those who want and those who have. I believe in the American people, and I'm asking the American people to believe in this campaign."
Hoover was elected with 53% of the electoral vote to Lowden's 46%, and 282 electoral votes to the Illinois governor's 249. He was the first Democrat to win a majority of the popular vote since Samuel J. Tilden (who lost the electoral vote and as such never became president) in 1876. Taking into account only those Democrats who actually became president, Hoover gained the distinction of being the first Democratic president to win more than 50% of the popular vote since Franklin Pierce in 1852.
To be continued...
