October Surprises: Hoover vs. Smith (1928)
In 1928, President Calvin Coolidge decided not to seek re-election. Coolidge became President in August of 1923 upon the death of President Warren Harding. He completed Harding's term and was elected in his own right in 1924. He probably could have won another term, but decided that, having been President for almost 6 years, that was enough.
The presumptive Republican nominee was Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, a very popular cabinet member. Former Illinois Governor Frank Orren Lowden and Senate Majority Leader Charles Curtis. A draft-Coolidge movement began, but failed to gain traction. Coolidge himself was not interested. Hoover did not perform as well as expected in the primaries, and it was thought that the Republican convention might be more of a contest because of this, but Lowden withdrew just as the convention was about to start. The Republican Convention was held in Kansas City, Missouri, from June 12 to 15. Hoover was nominated on the first ballot by a large margin. He received 874 votes on the first ballot, compared to 74 for Lowden and 64 for Curtis. Hoover left the selection of his running mate to the delegates. Party leaders were inclined to give incumbent Charles Dawes a second term, but when Calvin Coolidge learned of this, he sent an angry telegram saying that he would consider a second nomination for Dawes, whom he disliked, a "personal affront." The party chose Senator Curtis of Kansas because he was seen as providing balance to Hoover's pro-business orientation.
In his acceptance speech a week after the convention, Hoover said: "We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of this land. We shall soon with the help of God be in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this land."
With the economy healthy and the memory of the scandals of the Harding administration forgotten, most of the major Democratic leaders did not see the party's chances for victory as good. But New York Governor Al Smith, who had tried twice before to secure the Democratic nomination, thought that the time was right for him to be come president. At the 1928 Democratic National Convention, held in Houston from June 26 to 28, Smith was nominated on the first ballot also by a large majority. He received over 849.17 votes, compared to second place finisher Cordell Hull, with just over 71.84 (Fractional ballots were allowed). Senator Joseph Taylor Robinson of Arkansas was nominated for vice-president.
Smith was the first Roman Catholic to gain a major party's nomination for president, and his religion became an issue during the campaign. Curtis, Hoover's running mate, was of 3/4 Native American ancestry and was raised on the Kaw Reservation in Kansas by his grandmother. He became a successful lawyer and later a Congressman, State Senator and United States Senator from Kansas. He was the Senate Majority Leader at the time he was selected as Hoover's running mate, and had finished third in the running for the GOP nomination in 1928, behind Hoover and Lowden. The racism that was more prevalent in that era did not seem to affect Curtis's electability either in Kansas, within his party or nationally. Any prejudice that electoral season seemed directed at Smith. Many Protestants expressed concern that Smith would take his orders from the Pope about decisions affecting the country. The same arguments would be made against President John F. Kennedy 32 years later.
Anti-Catholicism was a significant problem for Smith. Protestant ministers claimed that the pope would move to the United States to rule the country if Smith won. A survey of 8,500 Southern Methodist Church ministers found only four who supported Smith, and the northern Methodists, Southern Baptists, and Disciples of Christ were also mostly opposed to Smith's election. A statement issued in September 1928 by the National Lutheran Editors' and Managers' Association opposed Smith's election. The statement, written by Dr. Clarence Reinhold Tappert, warned about "the peculiar relation in which a faithful Catholic stands and the absolute allegiance he owes to a 'foreign sovereign' who does not only 'claim' supremacy also in secular affairs as a matter of principle and theory but who, time and again, has endeavored to put this claim into practical operation." The message claimed that the Catholic Church was hostile to American principles of separation of church and state and of religious toleration. Anti-Catholic groups circulated a million copies of a counterfeit oath claiming that fourth degree Knights of Columbus members swore to exterminate Freemasons and Protestants and use violence if the church so ordered.
Smith's opposition to Prohibition, a key reform promoted by Protestants, also lost him votes, as did his association with the corrupt Tammany Hall. Smith lost several southern states which had voted Democrat since Reconstruction. However, in many southern states, it was believed that Hoover supported integration, or at least was not committed to maintaining segregation. Mississippi Governor Theodore G. Bilbo claimed that Hoover had met with a black member of the Republican National Committee and danced with her. Hoover's campaign quickly issued a denial, calling this an "untruthful and ignoble assertion".
Smith's religion helped him with Roman Catholic New England immigrants (especially Irish-Americans and Italian-Americans). He won victories in what were then traditionally Republican states of Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
In the end however, Hoover won the election overwhelmingly, winning 444 electoral votes compared to 87 for Smith. This election was the first time in history when Texas had gone Republican. Hoover had even won in Smith's home state of New York. He had campaigned on a promise to continue the economic prosperity of the Coolidge years. Voters obviously had no idea what was in store for them in the next four years. There was negativity in the campaign from both sides. Smith's Catholicism hurt him in the South, where several states were won by the Republicans for the first time since Reconstruction.