Posted on 05/17/2016 11:08:33 AM PDT by statestreet
Nowadays, the “smoke-filled room” is mostly just a metaphor—but there was a real room that started it all. Well, sort of.
The compelling image of the smoke-filled room, a “place of political intrigue and chicanery, where candidates were selected by party bosses in cigar-chewing session,” per William Safire, arose during the 1920 Republican convention. That year, Sen. Warren G. Harding of Ohio was the come-from-behind nominee for president, selected after ten ballots. According to historian David Pietrusza, author of 1920: The Year of the Six Presidents, the room in question is often credited with the phrase “because the people who come out of the room, one of them certainly brags about it, and how they put over Harding.” The storied conference took place in a room in Chicago’s Blackstone Hotel.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
This convention is one that is cited by the “NeverTrump” contested convention folk. The fact is that the delegates were fractured among various candidates. Not the situation this year.
Warren G. Harding....how did THAT work out for them?
I assumed it was a Tammany-connected saloon fiiled with guys who look like William Frawley.
I thought it was initially formed here on FR? ;)
Landslide win and a Conservative President... who actually cut government. Not even Reagan did that.
The cave with the “Ugh for Chief” banner hanging from the stalactites.
I thought it originated just post Civil War and in particular the Grant administration, later proponents of the 17th amendments referenced the period around the Grant administrations. I have no cite, I came across it some years ago while researching the passage of the 17th amendment.
It looked like a pretty decent show but I never got around to seeing the other episodes. Does anybody out there recommend the show?
In 1924 they were beyond fractured!
In fact, I think they are still counting the votes!
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.
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3393
Excellent show.
Good to hear. I have it available on Netflix and will put in my streaming queue.
It's not certain that Harding was chosen by a few men in a "smoke-filled room" -- a lot happened on the campaign floor in full sight of the press as one candidate's total soared and another's fell and Harding surged at just the right moment -- but the label stuck and became even more solidly fixed later, given all the backroom shenanigans during the Harding years.
Harding's opponent, James M. Cox used the "smoke-filled room" in attacks on Harding, but as somebody chosen on the 44th ballot, he wasn't exactly the overwhelming first choice of the people either.
Harding had been a US senator for some time from Ohio. So he was more like Richard Nixon than Donald Trump, and we know how THAT worked out.
Boardwalk Empire was like the Sopranos, if that helps.
Harding is maligned by lib historians but he was a good President.
I’m glad I wasn’t a 1920 party boss, I’d have been frozen out of the process by not being able to take the stench (of the cigars).
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