Fact Checkers Cover for Democratic Party’s Sordid History With the Ku Klux Klan

Just Facts Daily ^ | July 29, 2022 | Anna Agresti and James D. Agresti

[TBP]

Richard Spencer, the co-organizer of Charlottesville, endorsed Biden “and all the Democrats.”

[Stanwood_Dave]

No Mention of the 1924 "KlanBake," as in KKK-Bake.

The crowd at Democratic National Convention the Klanbake Madison Square Garden New York june july..1924 (103 ballots to determinate who will be the candidate at presidential elections)

A compromise candidate following a protracted convention fight between distant front-runners William Gibbs McAdoo and Al Smith.

Al Davis and his vice presidential running-mate, Governor Charles W. Bryan of Nebraska, went on to be defeated by the Republican ticket of President Calvin Coolidge and Charles G. Dawes in the 1924 presidential election.

[Stanwood_Dave]

An Inconvenient TRUTH The 1924 Democratic National Convention, held at the Madison Square Garden in New York City from June 24 to July 9, 1924 was nicknamed "the klanbake." Google it for yourself.

Ku Klux Klan presence

The Ku Klux Klan had surged in popularity after World War I, due to its leadership's connections to passage of the successful Prohibition Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This made the Klan a political power throughout many regions of the United States, and it reached the apex of its power in the mid-1920s, when it exerted deep cultural and political influence on both Republicans and Democrats. Its supporters had successfully quashed an anti-Klan resolution before it ever went to a floor vote at the 1924 Republican National Convention earlier in June, and proponents expected to exert the same influence at the Democratic convention. Instead, tension between pro- and anti-Klan delegates produced an intense and sometimes violent showdown between convention attendees from the states of Colorado and Missouri. Klan delegates opposed the nomination of New York Governor Al Smith because Smith was a Roman Catholic and an opponent of Prohibition, and most supported William Gibbs McAdoo. Non-Klan delegates, led by Sen. Oscar Underwood of Alabama, attempted to add condemnation of the organization for its violence to the Democratic Party's platform. The measure was narrowly defeated, and the anti-KKK plank was not included in the platform.

Over half of the attendees at the 1924 Democratic National Convention were card-carrying members of the KKK.

[Stanwood_Dave]

In 1924, Democratic prospects in the upcoming presidential election seemed promising. The administration of Republican Calvin Coolidge was rocked by a scandal, the Teapot Dome, which involved secret leasing of the Navy's oil fields to private businesses.

But the Democratic Party was deeply divided. The Democratic Party was an uneasy coalition of diverse elements: Northerners and Southerners, Westerners and Easterners, Catholics and Jews and Protestants, conservative landowners and agrarian radicals, progressives and big city machines, urban cosmopolitans and small-town traditionalists. On one side were defenders of the Ku Klux Klan, prohibition, and fundamentalism. On the other side were northeastern Catholics and Jewish immigrants and their children. A series of issues that bitterly divided the country during the early 1920s were on display at the 1924 Democratic Convention held at Madison Square Garden in New York City from June 24 to July 9, 1924. These issues included prohibition and religious and racial tolerance. The Northeasterners wanted an explicit condemnation of the Ku Klux Klan.

The two leading candidates symbolized a deep cultural divide. Al Smith, New York's governor, was a Catholic and an opponent of prohibition and was bitterly opposed by Democrats in the South and West. Former Treasury Secretary William Gibbs McAdoo, a Protestant, defended prohibition and refused to repudiate the Ku Klux Klan, making himself unacceptable to Catholics and Jews in the Northeast.

Newspapers called the convention a "Klanbake," as pro-Klan and anti-Klan delegates wrangled bitterly over the party platform. The convention opened on a Monday and by Thursday night, after 61 ballots, the convention was deadlocked. The next day, July 4, some 20,000 Klan supporters wearing white hoods and robes held a picnic in New Jersey. One speaker denounced the "clownvention in Jew York." They threw baseballs at an effigy of Al Smith. A cross-burning culminated the event.

Al Smith and William Gibbs McAdoo withdrew from contention after the 99th ballot. On the 103rd ballot, the weary convention nominated John W. Davis of West Virginia, formerly a US Representative from West Virginia, Solicitor General for the United States, and US Ambassador to Britain under President Woodrow Wilson. The nomination proved worthless. Liberals deserted the Democrats and voted for Robert La Follette, a third party candidate. Apathy and disgust kept many home, and just half of those eligible went to the polls. The Democrat candidate, John Davis, received 8 million votes. The Republican candidate, incumbent president Calvin Coolidge, received 15 million votes.

[NetAddicted]

Rd later.