NATIONAL POLITICS: THE 1928 DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION RACE

The Obvious Candidate

As Democrats prepared for the 1928 presidential campaign, divisions within their party were as deep as they had been in the previous presidential election. Once again the party was divided into rural versus urban, wet versus dry, and Catholic versus Protestant. Increasingly Democrats depended on the recent ethnic voters who resided primarily in large urban areas. The necessity of maintaining the loyalty of these voters made New York a must-win state for the Democrats, and this reality boosted the candidacy of Alfred E. "Al" Smith, the governor of that state. A leading contender in 1924, Smith used the recognition he had gained in that loss to launch a four-year campaign for the 1928 nomination. Smith organized his urban, wet, liberal forces early, working to avoid another 103-ballot, dead-locked convention. Smith was not unchallenged, but the opposing rural, dry, conservative forces lacked leadership. Many drys hoped William McAdoo would run, but the bitter McAdoo announced in December 1927 that he would not seek the nomination. Democrats who disapproved of Smith's wet connections turned to weaker favorite sons, whose organizations lacked the strength to compete with Smith's forces.

The Wet/Dry Conflict

Democrats gathered on 26 June in Houston, Texas, a city carefully selected to placate southerners who did not want Smith. Business moved more quickly than at the 1924 convention. The absence of William Jennings Bryan, who had died in 1925, probably contributed to a lower level of tension. Claiming to represent a million voters from the southern states, Smith's opposition expressed its antagonism toward the New Yorker with a protest petition against any candidate who favored the repeal of Prohibition. While the convention took no action on the petition, it exposed a growing cleavage in the party over the alcohol issue. The platform acquiesced to the dry delegates with a plank that pledged "an honest effort to enforce the eighteenth amendment," but Smith openly defied the party's declaration by campaigning for modification of Prohibition, which he considered a sham that encouraged public corruption and disrespect for the law.

A First-Ballot Victory

For the third consecutive convention Franklin D. Roosevelt nominated Smith to be the Democratic presidential nominee. On the first roll call Smith fell ten votes short of the two-thirds he needed for the nomination, but many delegates quickly changed their votes, putting Smith over the requisite number on the first ballot.

A Southern Running Mate

In selecting a running mate Smith had to reach out to the rural, dry forces for balance. The convention chairman, Sen. Joseph T. Robinson of Arkansas, seemed the obvious choice, and he secured the nomination by a comfortable margin on the first ballot, becoming the first resident southerner to run on a national presidential ticket since the Civil War. As a dry, Protestant, rural southerner, Robinson's presence on the ticket was essential.

Sources:

Richard C. Bain and Judith H. Parris, Convention Decisions and Voting Records, second edition (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1973);

Lawrence H. Fuchs, "Election ot 1928," in History of American Presidential Elections 1789-1968, edited by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., volume 3 (New York: Chelsea House/McGraw-Hill, 1971), pp. 2585-2704;

"National Affairs," Time, 12 (2 July 1928): 9-10.