FRANK P. VAZZANO
Martin Davey, John Bricker and
the Ohio Election of 1936
"There's something wrong in
Columbus." With those words John W.
Bricker, the Republican nominee for
governor of Ohio, opened the 1936 cam-
paign against his Democratic opponent,
Martin L. Davey. Bricker's declara-
tion, more an accusation than a
challenge, initiated a contest destined to be-
come one of the meanest in the history
of Ohio. But the campaign did more
than that; it generated a bitter
personal feud between two of the state's politi-
cal giants, a feud that lasted long
after the election itself faded from memory.
Such a canvass seemed appropriate to the
times. Nineteen-thirty-six was
also a presidential election year, and
one of the most curious of those. First,
Ohio dominated the nominating season.
Not only had the Republicans held
their national convention in Cleveland,
but so too had several fringe groups:
the Townsendites, the Socialist National
Party and the National Union for
Social Justice, blocs born out of the
despair, anger and occasional zaniness of
the Great Depression.
This was also the election in which Al
Smith, the Democrats' failed presi-
dential candidate of 1928, stood before
an audience of Republicans in Carnegie
Hall and proclaimed, "I firmly believe
that the remedy for all the ills that we
are suffering from today is the election
of Alfred M. Landon."l Certainly
many Americans could appreciate Smith's
disappointment over his party's
snubbing in 1932, but the Happy
Warrior's apostasy must have caused a few
Tammany sachems to rumble in their
graves.
No less curious was Literary Digest magazine's
misreading of the political
auguries of 1936. A scant two months
before the presidential election, a
Digest poll showed Landon leading Franklin D. Roosevelt by
fifty-six to
thirty-seven percent.2 Democrats
could rightly scoff on election night when
their man gave the Republican nominee
one of the worst drubbings in the
Frank P. Vazzano is a Professor of
History at Walsh University in North Canton, Ohio.
1. The Ravenna (Ohio) Evening Record
and Daily Courier-Tribune, October 2, 1936.
2. "Through a Century in Repository
Files," Canton (Ohio) Repository, September 2, 1986.
The remaining seven percent of those
polled chose William Lemke of the Union Party.
Literary Digest selected names and addresses from old telephone books.
Most of the
people who could afford phones and had
not been forced to move during the Great Depression
supported Landon. Consequently, the Digest
poll was badly skewed. See Frank Friedel,
America in the Twentieth Century, 3d ed., Alfred A. Knopf (New York, 1970), 339.
6 OHIO HISTORY
history of American electoral politics.
Whatever the presidential contest may
have lacked in high drama was more
than made up for in the Ohio
gubernatorial campaign. Davey, just finishing
his first term as governor, ran on his
record of a balanced budget, adequately
funded old-age pensions and relief
programs and the promise of no new taxes.3
But Bricker knew that there was more to
Davey's first term than budgets,
pensions, relief allotments and freedom
from new taxes. He hammered Davey
with charges of corruption involving
shakedowns and a million-dollar slush
fund.4 Anybody doing business
with the state had to, in Bricker's opinion,
"lay it on the line" in order
to get a contract.5
Anyone who knew Martin L. Davey
recognized that Bricker was now in for
the political fight of his life. When in
good humor Davey was petulant and
pugnacious; when in bad humor he was
mean, vengeful and utterly unforgiv-
ing. For instance, in his January 1935
inaugural address, a speech Ohioans
might reasonably expect to be
conciliatory to the defeated Republicans, Davey
proclaimed that he was going to make
partisan appointments.6 Claiming po-
litical spoils at a time when the victor
should as a matter of form extend an
olive branch to his vanquished foe was
unnecessary, ungracious and mean.
Yet among his friends he was the picture
of charm. On one occasion, dur-
ing a Columbus rally in the middle of
the 1936 campaign, the governor de-
layed his speech until he had personally
greeted several hometown supporters
from Kent. After seeing to their
comfort, he insisted that they meet him
right after his address. Davey finished his remarks and then invited
the
Kentites to ride with him in his private
car to dinner and music at Columbus'
Neil House.7
His local newspaper, the Ravenna-Kent Evening
Record and Daily
Courier-Tribune, described him as a "master showman," acutely
aware of
the art of keeping his name on the
public's lips. In 1939, the year he left the
governorship, he mailed Christmas cards
to nearly 180,000 people.8 Ever the
cultivator of image, he dressed
meticulously, drawing from an extensive
wardrobe he carried even on trips. And,
whenever traveling on official
business, the governor screeched off in
sleek automobiles accompanied by
two state highway patrol motorcycles,
sirens screaming.9
Bricker paled next to the flamboyant
Davey. While Davey strutted like a
3. Martin L. Davey to William D.
Overman, October 19, 1936, VFM 412, Martin L. Davey
Papers, Ohio Historical Society,
Columbus, Ohio.
4. Karl B. Pauly, Bricker of Ohio:
The Man and His Record, G. P. Putnam's Sons (New
York, 1944), 80.
5. Cleveland Plain Dealer, November
4, 1936.
6. Ibid., April 1, 1946.
7. Ravenna Evening Record and Daily
Courier-Tribune, October 19, 1936.
8. Ravenna-Kent Evening Record and
Daily Courier-Tribune, April 1, 1946.
9. Cleveland Plain Dealer, April
1, 1946.
Ohio Election of 1936 7 |
barnyard rooster, Bricker was subdued. Davey, with his slick pompadour and sartorial resplendency, had the look of a speakeasy owner; Bricker, with a shock of white hair and mild temperament, appeared courtly, even presiden- tial. His friends, and some foes, called him "Honest John." No one ever called Davey "Honest Martin." And, while Davey enjoyed fast cars and mo- torcycle escorts, Bricker eschewed them. Once, during his second term as governor, Bricker's chauffeur followed a motorcycle policeman into the Ohio State Fair. When the escort turned on his siren and flashed his lights the crowds parted, leaving a path for the governor's car. Bricker, embarrassed by it all, ordered his driver to turn away from the throng. The police motorcycle continued ahead, clearing the way for no one.10 Such behavior was typical of Bricker. After winning the governorship later in 1938, he would practice the austerity he had preached during the campaign. Because Ohio was twenty million dollars in debt in 1939, Bricker refused any elaborate inaugural ceremonies, opting instead for a quiet swearing-in without
10. Columbus Dispatch, March 26, 1986. |
8 OHIO HISTORY
even an honor guard present.11 Noble
though the gesture may have seemed,
there was at least a hint of the
political in it. During his first week in office,
Bricker fired more than a thousand state
workers.12 Discharging a thousand
employees on the heels of an elaborate
inauguration would have been callous
and impolitic in the extreme.
Bricker may have been less flamboyant
than Davey, but he too knew the art
of politics. Chalmers Wylie, a
Republican congressman from Columbus, re-
called in 1986 the advice Bricker had
offered him in 1953: "Shake hands with
as many people as you can," the
sixty-year-old Bricker told the younger man
scarcely half his age. "That is
something I still do-doorbell campaign-
ing."13 Wylie never
forgot Bricker's advice and used it to forge his own
successful political career.
Bricker and Davey followed separate
paths to their nominations in 1936.
Bricker, who had earlier won a number of
local and state offices, including the
state attorney generalship, had scaled
the political ladder without controversy.
He was an easy choice for the
Republicans in 1936 and was unopposed in the
primary election. Davey, on the other
hand, fought bitterly for the nomina-
tion with fellow Democrat Stephen Young,
an Ohio congressman, who had
attacked Davey as "Ohio Democracy's
Public Liability No. 1."14 In Davey's
first year of office, Young charged,
government costs rose $19,200,000, with
more than a million of that in the Tax
Commission office alone.15 So
much, Young claimed, for Davey's boast
of economy in office.
What angered Davey the most, however,
were Young's attacks where the
governor was most vulnerable-in matters of
integrity. On May 4, 1936,
only eight days before the gubernatorial
primary, Young and Davey clashed in
Cleveland during a noontime meeting of
the Women's City Club and the
League of Women Voters. There, before
that politically sophisticated audi-
ence, Young charged Davey with running a
partisan machine fueled by forced
contributions from state employees.
Young then dared Davey to defend his
record in debate at any time in any
place. Davey ignored the challenge.16
Davey seethed through the rest of the
day and by evening could no longer
contain himself. In a speech broadcast
over Cleveland radio station WHK,
Davey struck back at Young. Obviously
trying to deride his opponent, the
governor proclaimed, "There is no
contest of any consequence in the pri-
maries; in fact, there is not the
slightest reason or excuse for the existence of
any opposition at all." Davey said
his opponent had sunk to the mudslinging
11. Cleveland Plain Dealer, March
23, 1986.
12. Ibid.
13. Columbus Dispatch, March 23,
1986.
14. Cleveland Plain Dealer, May
13, 1936.
15. Ibid., May 5, 1936.
16. Ibid. As an example, Young declared
that many state workers in Toledo were forced to
buy at least four tickets at fifty cents
each to a Davey rally in that city.
Ohio Election of 1936
9
tactics of a demagogue and later that
night predicted he would be renominated
by a five-to-one margin in the primary.17
Young's challenges could be sloughed off
as typical campaign rhetoric, but
Davey faced others as well. On May 4,
the same day that Young charged
Davey with extorting contributions from
state workers, the Consumers
League of Ohio blasted the governor's
staff, particularly Ora B. Chapman, di-
rector of the State Industrial Relations
Department, and Elaine Sheffler, super-
intendent of the department's minimum
wage division, for failing to enforce
Ohio's industrial minimum wage law for
women and minors. The
Consumers League quickly linked Davey to
the accusations by claiming the
governor had broken his promise to
enforce the law and had fired an able min-
imum wage superintendent in order to
provide a job for the unqualified
Sheffler.18
None of the imputations mattered,
though. Davey won renomination, al-
though by nowhere near the boastful
five-to-one margin he had predicted.
Davey beat Young by little more than a
hundred thousand votes, an easy win
for the governor but a creditable
showing for the Ohio congressman who had
entered the primary late. By the time he
did, most of the Democratic machin-
ery had already lined up behind Davey.19
Late on election night, with the
outcome no longer in doubt, a gracious
Young urged Democrats to unite be-
hind Governor Davey.
Bricker opened the general campaign with
a radio broadcast from
Cincinnati. In it he announced that
newspapers across the state, including
traditionally Democratic ones, were
universally calling for Davey's defeat.
That was true even for the Cleveland Plain
Dealer, which Bricker gladly
pointed out had for the past ninety-one
years endorsed Democrats for gover-
nor.20 The press' aversion to
Davey was easy to understand, Bricker claimed,
because "they [the press] are the
first to detect hypocrisy in public officials. . .[,]
and they know that the hope for honest,
efficient and good government in
Ohio demands the present governor's
defeat."21
17. Ibid. It was not surprising that
Davey used the radio to attack Young. He liked the
medium, employing it for years to
promote his family's business in Kent, Ohio, the Davey Tree
Expert Company. In the general election,
Bricker tried to nullify Davey's broadcasting skill by
claiming that the governor had spent
$66,000 on radio campaigning, with most of the money
coming from contractors, other firms
doing business with the state and from civil service em-
ployees. See Cleveland Plain Dealer, October
21, 1936.
18. Cleveland Plain Dealer, May
5, 1936.
19. Ibid., May 14 and 13, 1936.
20. The Plain Dealer in 1935
exposed serious irregularities in the Davey administration's
handling of relief. A series of
sensational Plain Dealer articles in March attracted the attention
of Federal Emergency Relief
Administration chief Harry Hopkins in Washington, D.C.
Hopkins' attempts to bring Davey into
line precipitated a bitter feud between the two men.
Davey hated the Plain Dealer for
its role in the dispute, and the Cleveland paper had no affec-
tion for Davey.
21. Cleveland Plain Dealer, October
4, 1936.
10 OHIO HISTORY
Nothing energized Davey like an attack
on his integrity, and Bricker's
broadcast had done exactly that. Davey
devised an interesting strategy; if
Bricker attempted to capitalize on
Davey's disfavor in the press, he would re-
turn the favor by claiming his opponent
was a mere minion of Harry P.
Wolfe, publisher of the Columbus Dispatch
and the Ohio State Journal.
Never one to mince words when affronted,
Davey in a broadcast of his own
claimed that Wolfe owned Bricker
"body and soul." "He controls my oppo-
nent," Davey continued, "just
as completely as though he had a ring in his
nose." It was Wolfe, Davey claimed,
who told Bricker he could not run for
governor in 1934 but could do so in
1936. Wolfe's influence was so vast,
Davey contended, that he and a few other
Republican bosses had ensured
Bricker's uncontested nomination as the
party's standard bearer in 1936.
Davey asserted that Wolfe's
"ownership" of Bricker was the "most important
issue" in the campaign.22
Later in the campaign, Davey broadened
his charges. Bricker was not sim-
ply in Wolfe's hip pocket but was also
beholden to a slew of political bosses
who would collect their IOUs after they
maneuvered their man into the gover-
norship. Heading the list of political
bosses manipulating Bricker, according
to Davey, were Maurice "Boss"
Maschke, a long-time Republican national
committeeman and Cuyahoga County party
boss, and Ed Schorr of
Cincinnati, the state Republican
chairman.23 Such men, Davey contended,
served their own selfish interests and
let the public be damned. Bricker would
let them have their way because he was a
"first class yes-man."24
Davey's accusations rang hollow because
the governor had one of the most
questionable alliances in Ohio politics
himself-with Francis Poulson, the
Ohio Democratic Party chairman in the
1930s. Nothing involving Martin L.
Davey passed unnoticed on Poulson's
watch, particularly where fund raising
was concerned. Bricker claimed that
Poulson was the power behind the throne
in Ohio and extracted kickbacks for the
Davey machine from every contractor,
supplier and liquor dealer doing business with the state.25 In a series of ad-
dresses in Cleveland four days before
the election, Bricker predicted the people
of Ohio would vote out of office these
two "princes of public plunder."26
Bricker's comment was remarkable because
Poulson was not an elected of-
ficial. Yet the relationship between
Davey and Poulson was so strong that
22. Ibid., October 7, 1936.
23. Ibid., October 28, 1936; Inventory
of the Maurice Maschke Papers, Ohio Historical
Society, Columbus, Ohio; Ravenna Evening
Record and Daily Courier-Tribune, October 16,
1936. Others on Davey's list were Rees
H. Davis, a Cleveland lawyer; Nolan Boggs and
Walter Brown of Toledo; Dan Brower from
Dayton; and D. C. Pemberton of Columbus, whom
Davey described as the "greatest
lobbyist in Columbus." See Cleveland Plain Dealer, October
28, 1936.
24. Cleveland Plain Dealer, October
27, 1936.
25. Ibid., October 28 and November 4,
1936.
26. Ibid., October 29, 1936.
Ohio Election of 1936
11
voters could hardly think of one without
the other. The New York Times had
described them as "Damon and
Pythias" in 1935, and although both men de-
nied so close a relationship, it was
common knowledge in Ohio that anyone
wanting to do business with the state
had to "see Poulson."27 But Poulson
was not solely responsible for the Davey
administration's unsavory reputa-
tion. The governor, too, was accused of
questionable dealings. In December
1934, for example, Davey, in his suite
in Cleveland's Hollenden Hotel,
pulled $500 from his pocket to reward
one of his myrmidons, Lee Bradley, al-
legedly for arranging kickbacks from
companies doing business with the
state.28
Davey was especially vulnerable to
attacks on his integrity in two Ohio de-
partments, highway and liquor. Early in
the campaign he tried to defuse
Bricker's accusations of rampant
corruption in the Highway Department. In a
radio broadcast heard over several
stations, Davey protested his innocence
against charges that he had politicized
the State Highway Department. It
would be impossible to do that, the
governor claimed, because funds for the
department were so protected by
competitive bidding and civil service laws
that only four percent of the
department's monies were available to hire so-
called "friends" of the
administration. Rather than turning the highway de-
partment into a partisan auxiliary,
Davey argued that he had exercised consid-
erable restraint over it. Because of
Davey's frugality, the State Highway
Department was now saving $2,500,000 a
year.29 Furthermore, the depart-
ment was an exemplar of excellence. It
had developed a new low-cost method
of resurfacing roads, created an award
winning new bridge design and re-
sponded most notably in keeping the
roads clear during the heavy snows of
1935-36.30
Davey's response, intended to disarm
Bricker and other critics who were cer-
tain that the governor indeed had turned
the State Highway Department into a
partisan auxiliary, skirted the real
issue. Bricker was not concerned that
Davey favorites had been hired en masse
by the department. What angered
Bricker was that Francis Poulson and other
Davey operatives could use the
department's vast purchasing power to
"shakedown" contractors wanting to do
business with it. According to Bricker,
the Davey administration smartly
avoided outright extortion by asking
vendors to subscribe to the Ohioan, a
27. New York Times, March 18,
1935; Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 31, 1936.
28. Transcripts of Proceedings Before
the Sub-committee of the Senate Investigating
Committee in the Cleveland Public
Auditorium, Thursday, February 17, 1938, MSS 3799,
Container 22, Marvin C. Harrison Papers,
Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland,
Ohio. Charges and accusations were one
thing; hard evidence was another. Without concrete
proof of criminality, there could be no
indictments. See Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 1, 1946.
29. Ravenna Evening Record and Daily
Courier-Tribune, October 7, 1936; Cleveland Plain
Dealer, October 7, 1936.
30. Cleveland Plain Dealer, October
7, 1936.
12 OHIO
HISTORY
Democratic party newspaper.31 Vendors
knew how the game was played-if
they wanted to do business with the
state, they had to subscribe to the
Ohioan. Subscription monies would then, of course, be funneled
to the
Davey machine.
Equally repugnant to Bricker was Davey's
practice of asking thousands of
state highway department workers for
campaign donations. The Cleveland
Plain Dealer claimed that the State Democratic Committee received
more
than $80,000 in
"contributions" from state employees in 1936. Of that total,
almost $32,000 had come from highway
department workers.32
Bricker's insinuations of impropriety
enraged Davey. In 1940, while
locked in another gubernatorial campaign
against his old foe, Davey protested
his innocence in a letter to now
governor Bricker. Never, Davey said, did we
tell "our people" to
"solicit any of the poorly-paid employees, such as high-
way laborers." In the same letter,
Davey accused Bricker of doing the very
same thing that Bricker had accused him
of doing-getting state employees to
contribute to a reelection campaign.
Davey's anger was evident: "What a
sanctimonious pretender you have turned
out to be! Like a sneaky little boy,
you have falsely charged that the other
boy was naughty, and now you are
caught with your own fingers in the
jam."33
Bricker felt that he had Davey by the
throat in matters of integrity and re-
fused to let go. If charges of
corruption in the State Highway Department
were true, Davey was even more
vulnerable to similar accusations involving
the state liquor department. Herbert S.
Duffy, Davey's own party candidate
for state attorney general in 1936,
described a typical liquor department sce-
nario under the governor: In 1935,
Duffy, a lawyer, sought a liquor license
for a Cleveland client. His client was
directed to Democratic state chairman
Francis Poulson, who in turn sent the
man to the governor's office. After
four more visits to Columbus, the
applicant was told by a Davey spokesman
that he would have to "see
Poulson" and pay a "sizable fee" if he wanted the
license.34
Bricker continued his attacks. On
October 23, before a cheering throng of
1200 crammed into the Ashtabula High
School gymnasium, the attorney
31. Ravenna Evening Record and Daily
Courier-Tribune, October 24, 1936.
32. Cleveland Plain Dealer clipping,
July 8, 1937, enclosed in Marvin C. Harrison to Harry
Hopkins, July 8, 1937, General
Correspondence, 1933-1940, Container 89, Harry Hopkins
Papers, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library,
Hyde Park, New York.
33. Martin L. Davey to Governor John W.
Bricker, August 2, 1940, VFM 1491, Martin L.
Davey Papers, Ohio Historical Society.
Seething with derision and spite, Davey concluded his
letter with, "When you have
finished with this one, we will have a few other sweet morsels for
the attention of Your Excellency."
34. Cleveland Plain Dealer, October
25, 1936. Such reports were so common that the Ohio
House of Representatives in 1935
considered a resolution to investigate the liquor department.
The measure failed only because of the
fierce opposition of Davey loyalists. In March 1936,
the Ohio Senate entertained a similar
resolution, but it suffered the same fate. See Ibid.
Ohio Election of 1936 13
general challenged Davey to authorize a
criminal investigation of the Ohio
Department of Liquor Control. To
underscore his determination, Bricker held
aloft an affidavit signed only three
days earlier by the manager of a Cleveland
area state liquor store. The manager
swore the supervisor of state liquor
stores in the Cleveland district had
telephoned him demanding that he con-
tribute four percent of his salary to
Davey's campaign fund. His employees
were expected to make similar donations.
Failure to comply, Bricker claimed,
would cost the man his job. To prove he
was telling the truth, Bricker
showed the affidavit to reporters in the
audience.35
The attorney general leveled more
specific charges six days later.
Campaigning in Lakewood, he claimed
cronyism was rampant in the depart-
ment and named the favored liquor
dealers. The Plain Dealer reported that
the Davey administration had bought
$1,975,000 worth of liquor from the
governor's friend Samuel Ungerleider;
$2,900,000 worth was purchased
through Jack McCombe, formerly the
campaign fund collector for Poulson;
$440,000 from still another Poulson
friend, Colby Hubbard; $347,000 worth
came from Poulson crony Bill Goggin, and
$1,600,000 from a Democratic ward
heeler in Cleveland, Edward C. Jakab.
Taking care of the administration's
friends so generously, Bricker averred,
tied up state monies that were supposed
to go to old age pensions. Instead,
state liquor stores were so overstocked
with some brands that it would be years
before they could clear their shelves.
The state's generosity toward
"friendly" liquor dealers was easy to explain,
said Bricker. It had generated a
half-million-dollar slush fund for the Davey
campaign.36
After Bricker's October 23 accusations,
the governor shot back from
Columbus: ". . . the attorney
general made the reckless and malicious charge
that it cost $3 a case to sell liquor to
the state. [I] demanded proof....
What was the attorney general's reply?
He says he doesn't have any .. ."37
Bricker's charges were nothing more than
a "political fishing expedition."
The liquor department, Davey insisted,
was run honestly and efficiently. Its
profits, Davey contradicted Bricker,
paid Ohio's old age pensions. Given the
lack of hard evidence of corruption from
the attorney general, Davey refused to
authorize an investigation of the state
liquor department.38
To his enemies, Davey's indignation was
a classic example of "the gentle-
man doth protest too much." Rumors
about his iron-fisted control of the
state liquor department were too rampant
not to raise some suspicions. Even
national Works Progress Administration
agent Lorena Hickok, from far out in
the field, complained to her boss Harry
Hopkins in Washington that Davey
35. Cleveland Plain Dealer, October
24, 1936.
36. Ibid., October 29, 1936.
37. Ibid., October 26, 1936.
38. Ibid.
14 OHIO
HISTORY
was forcing liquor dealers to buy
licenses to sell in Ohio. All this had larger
implications, Hickok explained, because
Davey was sabotaging the entire
Democratic organization in the state,
and that boded ill for Roosevelt in the
election of 1936. Because of Davey's
foul reputation, Hickok speculated that
Roosevelt's chances of carrying Ohio
were only fifty-fifty.39
Indeed, suspicions of corruption in the
Department of Liquor Control were
so pervasive that a dozen Democrats
joined five Republicans in the Ohio
Senate to conduct an official
investigation in 1938. Their conclusion reeked
of despair: ". . . it is the
judgment of this committee that the entire situation
[in the state liquor department] is so
shot through with forgery, corruption,
graft, false reports, faked statistics,
pretended 'buys' and maladministration as
to be hopeless of cure."40 Driving
right to the heart of long-standing accu-
sations that the state liquor department
was little more than an extension of
Davey's political machine, the
commission added, ". . . there appears to be a
general feeling that if political
service is rendered to the [Davey] administra-
tion, that is all that is really
required ...."41 The committee's recommenda-
tion was draconian: "The only
possible remedy-as it appears to this com-
mittee-is to wipe the slate clean and
rebuild anew."42
Despite the Ohio Senate's assessment,
suspicions and feelings were not
hard evidence, so Davey escaped
indictment. However, when Bricker finally
captured the governorship in 1938,
housecleaning in the state liquor depart-
ment began immediately. Bricker had
scarcely warmed the governor's chair
when he replaced Davey's liquor chief,
George Eppley, with Jacob B.
Taylor.43 The Ohio Senate in
a day confirmed the new governor's choice.
Although political changes ordinarily
accompany a new administration, it was
probably no accident that Taylor's name
headed the list of new cabinet mem-
bers.44
Certainly Bricker's charges against
Davey were politically motivated, but
they were nonetheless substantive.
Ohioans had only to examine the gover-
nor's record to recognize his instinct
for politicizing any bureau, department
39. Lorena Hickok to Harry Hopkins,
October 10, 1935, Lorena Hickok Reports to Harry
Hopkins, 1935, Box 11, Lorena Hickok
Papers, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park,
New York.
40. Preliminary Report of Senate
Investigating Committee Appointed by Senate Resolution
104, February 28, 1938, MSS 3799,
Container 22, Folder 468, Harrison Papers, Western
Reserve Historical Society.
41. Ibid.
42. Ibid.
43. John W. Bricker to the Ohio Senate,
January 9, 1939, MSS 340, Appointments File 1939,
Box 12, John W. Bricker Papers, Ohio
Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio. Eppley was
Davey's assistant relief director during
the governor's first term. Charles C. Stillman, the
Federal Emergency Relief
Administration's midwest liaison, fired him in 1935 during Harry
Hopkins' investigation of corruption in
Ohio's relief system.
44. Thomas E. Bateman [Clerk of the Ohio
Senate] to John W. Bricker, January 11, 1939,
MSS 340, Senate Approvals 1939, Box 12,
Bricker Papers, Ohio Historical Society.
Ohio Election of 1936 15 |
|
or commission. He even saw Ohio's relief program as a convenient target, quickly moving to make the administration of a public dole an extension of the Davey machine. Simply put, Governor Davey tried through patronage to turn Ohio's relief organization into a partisan auxiliary. What better way to control Ohio's massive relief machinery than through the appointment of Davey favorites throughout the vast relief network. Davey's politicization of Ohio relief stirred powerful men in Washington. Harry Hopkins, the director of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, responded to the governor's action by firing Davey operatives and turning over control of Ohio relief to federal agents. The dispute between Davey and Hopkins stigmatized the governor and commanded the attention of the na- tion's press in the spring of 1935. At one point, Davey even swore out a warrant for Hopkins' arrest, charging the FERA director with criminal libel for his criticisms.45
45. Frank P. Vazzano, "Harry Hopkins and Martin Davey: Federal Relief and Ohio Politics During the Great Depression," Ohio History, 96 (Summer-Autumn 1987), 133. |
16 OHIO
HISTORY
Although the two men patched up their
quarrel, neither ever really liked the
other. In Hopkins' mind, Davey was
nothing more than a slippery, selfserv-
ing politician, and to Davey, Hopkins
was simply a Washington bureaucrat
whose relief programs were rife with
inefficiency and fraud. Davey had re-
ceived reports of widespread corruption
in Ohio work relief as early as 1934,
and Ohio Democratic Senator Robert J.
Bulkley's files were full of similar
complaints about unruly and underworked
WPA laborers.46 Even the relief
system's defenders recognized how bad
its image was. The whole program
and its undergirding philosophy would
have to be "re-sold to the public,"
commented one.47
Bricker knew he had a campaign issue in
relief. Citing Davey's problems
with Hopkins, Bricker called the
administration of relief in Ohio a "miserable
failure." Governor Davey's claims
of economical relief administration were
patently false. While Davey wanted to
saturate the relief system with his
own hacks, Bricker promised a network
operated by employees protected under
civil service.48 Such reform,
of course, would undo the patronage that helped
sustain the governor's political
machine.
On this issue Bricker received help from
a surprising source, a staunch
Democrat, Marc J. Grossman, former
chairman of the Cuyahoga County re-
lief committee. Speaking on Cleveland's
WGAR radio, Grossman called the
Davey administration's handling of Ohio
relief "a program of political vandal-
ism unparalleled in Ohio history."
Only the federal government's direct in-
tervention in Ohio relief in 1935 saved
one-million Ohioans from starvation,
Grossman charged. While claiming to save
millions of dollars through effi-
ciency, all Davey had done was dump
responsibility for relief on the counties.
That policy had failed miserably and
forced federal intervention in Ohio's re-
lief program.49 Davey had
done nothing more than perpetrate a cruel account-
ing trick at the expense of Ohio's
destitute.
46. B. I. Susong to Martin Davey,
November 20, 1934, MSS 339, Box 5, File 14, Davey
Papers, Ohio Historical Society; E. L.
Pucel and 16 other Cleveland city councilmen to Senator
Robert J. Buckley [sic], February 4,
1936, MSS 3310, Box 22, Folder 1, Robert J. Bulkley
Papers, Western Reserve Historical
Society, Cleveland, Ohio; William F. Thompkins [Chief
Regional Engineer for the Lakefront
Boulevard Project, Cleveland, Ohio] to Wayne Coy
[Works Progress Administration Field
Representative], January 16-17, 1936, MSS 3310, Box
34, Folder 4, Bulkley Papers, Western
Reserve Historical Society; Waldo F. Walker [Director,
District Six WPA in Ohio] to Robert J.
Bulkley, February 6, 1936, MSS 3310, Box 22, Folder 1,
Bulkley Papers, Western Reserve
Historical Society.
47. Waldo F. Walker to Maurice L. Klynn
[Director, Ohio Division of Employment],
February 3, 1936, MSS 3310, Box 34,
Folder 4, Bulkley Papers, Western Reserve Historical
Society.
48. Cleveland Plain Dealer, October
13, 1936.
49. Ibid., October 29, 1936. Years later
Davey continued to dispute relief issues with
Bricker. In an angry letter to now
Governor Bricker, Davey contended that his administration,
operating with far less revenue, spent
more on relief in 1936 than Bricker had in 1939 and
1940. See Martin L. Davey to John W.
Bricker, August 10, 1940, VFM 1491, Davey Papers,
Ohio Historical Society.
Ohio Election of 1936 17
In Davey's defense, it was hard to
administer any multi-million-dollar pro-
gram involving so many people, ranging
all the way from recipients to case
workers to relief bureaucrats in
Columbus and Washington. Clearly the pro-
gram was unwieldy. The Roosevelt
administration was constantly tinkering
with ways to aid America's unemployed,
and to Davey's credit, so was he.
On May 12, 1935, the Ohio General Assembly
had passed Governor
Davey's measure calling for county
relief bonds which were to be financed by
a one-percent excise tax on public
utilities.50 But this plan proved only par-
tially successful because the relief
problem was so vast. Davey's next ap-
proach allowed Ohio's counties to levy
their own taxes for relief. The gover-
nor believed this grass roots approach
would prove more efficient and eco-
nomical.51 Yet nothing
stemmed the tide until World War II revived the na-
tional economy, and Bricker had plenty
of ammunition to fire against Davey
during the campaign of 1936.
The challenger's strategy seemed to be
one of setting several brushfires that
Davey would have to douse, thereby
keeping him constantly on the defensive.
Consistent with that strategy, Bricker
assailed Davey's system of school fund-
ing. In a speech in Youngstown, Bricker
claimed the Ohio public school sys-
tem was in financial crisis. Because
Governor Davey had no plan for paying
Ohio's annual school bills, the public
school system faced an immediate
$12,000,000 deficit. Adding to Ohio's
woes, the interest on that debt was
$351,000 a year.52
Davey, naturally, disputed the claim.
The schools were efficiently run, the
governor rejoined, and were so without
the imposition of new taxes. The
public school foundation law, a plan
drawn up and administered by the Davey
administration, had worked miracles in
Ohio education. Prior to the law,
Davey argued, 10,000 teachers were not
paid and many schools were closed or
curtailing their operations. The Davey
administration's school foundation
law had corrected that. Despite his
confidence, Davey hedged a bit; if there
were a shortfall in the school fund, the
governor told a packed house in
Lima's Allen County Memorial Hall, it
could be easily covered by shifting
state funds to meet the need. The
governor was confident that Ohio's econ-
omy would improve and extra monies could
then be diverted to schools.
Cleverly, Davey linked Bricker with the
failed school funding plan of
Governor Alf Landon in Kansas. Bricker's
demands for a balanced budget
conjured up images of Landon's fiscal
problems in Kansas. Landon had bal-
anced his budget at the expense of
teachers' salaries, currently at $25 a month
50. Carl Wittke, ed., The History of
the State of Ohio: Ohio in the Twentieth Century, 1900-
1938 (Columbus, 1942), VI, 80.
51. Ibid., 81.
52. Cleveland Plain Dealer, October
23, 1936; Ravenna Evening Record and Daily Courier-
Tribune, October 29, 1936.
18 OHIO
HISTORY
in the Sunflower state. What more could
one expect from a state that pro-
vided eighty-four cents for each pupil
in its schools? Even that eighty-four
cents, Davey claimed, came from a dog
license tax.53
There seemed to be no end to the twists
and turns of this campaign. Not
even race was spared. In mid-October, as
Bricker campaigned in the north-
western part of the state, he learned
that Davey forces had circulated letters
charging that he wanted Negroes driven
out of the Republican party.54
Fuming over the accusation, Bricker
challenged the authors to "come out into
the open." The letters, he said,
were "lying and cowardly." He quickly
blamed Davey and Poulson for instigating
them.55
Davey's introduction of race into the
campaign may have been mean-spir-
ited, but it revealed his political
acumen. Bricker was potentially vulnerable
on the issue, and Davey was quick to
smell blood, particularly that of a man
who by now had become more an enemy than
a mere political rival.
Specifically, in 1933, as attorney
general, Bricker had supported the Ohio
State University's trustees in a
controversial decision involving one Doris
Weaver. Weaver, a black student, had
sued the trustees to get them to let her
live with white classmates in the home
economics management house at
Ohio State. Influenced by misguided
notions against racial mixing, the
trustees had refused. Bricker supported
their decision on the technical grounds
that as attorney general he was sworn to
defend state officials in their conduct
of official business, and the Ohio
Supreme Court unanimously upheld the
trustees' action.56 Republican
campaign managers defused the situation by
claiming that Weaver, now on the faculty
at Wilberforce University, intended
to vote for Bricker.57
Ordinarily, tactics even so despicable
as race baiting might be explained
away in a heated campaign. In Bricker's
case, his response to the Weaver
"problem" could have been an
overreaction. But he was in the fight of his
life. Davey was obviously willing to use
every ploy to win in November.
His political ingenuity and his capacity
for scheming seemed boundless.
53. Cleveland Plain Dealer, October
22, 1936. Davey claimed too much credit for the
school foundation bill. He disliked its
provisions calling for consolidating small school districts
and tried to get the legislature to
alter the measure. It refused and sent the bill to the governor.
Many thought he would refuse to sign it,
but he did. See Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 28,
1936.
There were allegations that Davey had
even politicized the State Department of Education.
Those charges surfaced when school board
members and teachers throughout Ohio received
letters from E. L. Bowsher, state
director of education, praising Davey's school funding.
Bowsher denied the allegations. See
Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 12, 1936.
54. Ravenna Evening Record and Daily
Courier-Tribune, October 16, 1936.
55. Ibid.; Cleveland Plain Dealer, November
3, 1936. Davey campaigners also claimed that
Bricker was anti-Catholic and
anti-Jewish. See Ravenna Evening Record and Daily Courier-
Tribune, October 16, 1936 and Cleveland Plain Dealer, October
19, 1936.
56. Cleveland Plain Dealer, October
26, 1936.
57. Ibid.
Ohio Election of 1936 19
An excellent case in point occurred in
late October. Under cover of dark-
ness, trucks from the Davey Tree Expert
Company backed into loading docks
at the state sales tax office in
Columbus and carted off four tons of addresso-
graph plates to company offices in
Cleveland. The plates, worth $30,000,
contained the names and addresses of
Ohio sales tax vendors. There was no
better way to have at the ready full
lists of people who could be hit with a fi-
nal hour electioneering pitch. Speaking
in several Cleveland wards on
October 29, Bricker charged that the
removal of state property demonstrated
that Davey had sunk to a new low.58
Davey tried to explain away the episode,
but his excuse was lame. The
plates, he said, were being "used
to address some envelopes."59 The governor
squirmed: "I have been out
campaigning all the time and cannot be expected
to handle the details of the campaign
..." Then, as if this excused the sin,
he continued, "No state employees
were used to operate the addressing equip-
ment and state trucks were not used to
transport [it] to Cleveland. The state
hasn't lost a thing and has not been
harmed."60
Bricker, speaking at Cincinnati's Music
Hall, derided Davey's explanation:
"I suspect that if any ordinary
citizen of Ohio backed some trucks up to the
State Office Building and started to
move out $30,000 worth of equipment
under the cover of darkness, he would be
thrown into jail for burglary and
larceny."61 Never
before, Bricker added, had he "known of a political cam-
paign waged on such a low plane of
deceit and with such a wanton disregard
of truth and decency .. ."62
Davey's reprehensible tactics indicated
that he was in deep political trouble.
But the governor had another card to
play. He had been strengthening his
hand by linking his political fortunes
to those of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Apart from the Literary Digest's faulty
forecast, most Americans expected
Roosevelt to sweep to victory in 1936.
Certainly the president's coattails
would be wide, and no one could better
profit from a Roosevelt triumph than
Martin L. Davey. This was especially
true because Ohio's presidential and
state tickets were printed on a single
ballot.63 Voters would have to make a
special effort to split their tickets
between president and governor, and many
erroneously feared that doing so would
negate their votes for Roosevelt, a
concern that Davey capitalized on during
the campaign.64
58. Ibid., October 30, 1936.
59. Ravenna Evening Record and Daily
Courier-Tribune, October 29, 1936.
60. Ibid.; Cleveland Plain Dealer, October
30, 1936.
61. Cleveland Plain Dealer, October
31, 1936.
62. Ibid.
63. Wittke, History of Ohio, VI,
48; Pauly, Bricker of Ohio, 80.
64. Pauly, Bricker of Ohio, 80-81;
Daniel E. Morgan to William A. Mason, January 8, 1937,
MSS 3069, Container 1, Folder 2,
Correspondence 1933-1949, Daniel E. Morgan Papers,
Western Reserve Historical Society,
Cleveland, Ohio.
20 OHIO HISTORY
Davey's marriage to Roosevelt was no
eleventh-hour strategy. The gover-
nor had plotted it long in advance. At
the Democratic nominating convention
in June, Davey delivered the Ohio speech
seconding Roosevelt's nomination.
And an impressive speech it was. Davey's
voice resonated through
Philadelphia's Convention Hall:
Just go back three and a half years.
Memory is our chief witness, bitter, an-
guished, pleading memory. Just let
memory take you back. Fifteen millions
walking the streets, seeking work.
Farmers on the verge of bankruptcy. Hundreds
of thousands sold out .... That period
was the darkest in the history of the
Republic. No hope was left. Banks
crashing all around us. Fear gripped the souls
of the American people. Our morale was
gone. And then on the fateful 4th of
March, 1933, 120,000,000 pairs of eyes
turned anxiously to Washington, and on
the shoulders of one man rested the
responsibilities of the nation.
It was stump oratory at its best, and
thousands cheered when Davey con-
cluded with, "Ohio rises gladly to
second the nomination of that great humane
president, Franklin D. Roosevelt."65
Davey did not stop here. When the fall
campaign opened, he continued to
tie himself to Roosevelt. To his critics
who wondered how a governor who
swore out an arrest warrant against
Roosevelt's alter ego, Harry Hopkins,
could now embrace the national administration,
Davey responded: "It was not
necessary to approve everything. . . to
support a man for high public office."
All one had to do was recall his
"high percentage of good results."66
Although it required no special genius
to recognize the wisdom of Davey's
strategy, the governor had to be
applauded for the way he had turned a huge li-
ability, the bitter feud with Hopkins,
into an asset, a healing of the breach
with Roosevelt. When the gubernatorial
campaign began, Davey was a cer-
tain loser; now with only a week to go,
he and Bricker were neck and neck.
The Republicans knew they were in
trouble, and Davey made the best of it.67
Roosevelt was stronger than Davey
everywhere in Ohio. The Cleveland
Plain Dealer speculated that the president would have to carry the
state by
150,000 votes or more for Davey to win:
the president's margin in 1932 was
less than 75,000.68 Consequently, as the
contest wound down, Davey cam-
65. Cleveland Plain Dealer, June
27, 1936. Even the anti-Davey Plain Dealer conceded that
the governor's speech ended the 1935
relief quarrel between Ohio and the national adminis-
tration.
66. Typed copy of a radio speech by
Governor Martin L. Davey, October 8, 1936,
President's Personal File (PPF 4348),
Franklin D. Roosevelt Papers, Franklin D. Roosevelt
Library, Hyde Park, New York; Cleveland Plain
Dealer, October 9, 1936.
67. Lamenting the president's immense
popularity, one Republican commented that he would
like to see Bricker run for governor
when "Santa Claus" [Roosevelt] did not head the opposi-
tion ticket. Claude C. Waltermire to
Daniel E. Morgan, November 19, 1936, MSS 3069,
Container 1, Folder 1, Correspondence
1933-1949, Morgan Papers, Western Reserve
Historical Society.
68. Cleveland Plain Dealer, October
25, 1936.
Ohio Election of 1936 21
paigned harder for Roosevelt than he did
for himself. In the twilight of the
race, Davey's chief foe was not Bricker
but Landon and even Herbert
Hoover.69
Bricker knew that Landon was a liability
and tactfully tried to distance him-
self from the Republican presidential
nominee. That left him, of course, in
the difficult position of campaigning as
a Republican but currying the sup-
port of pro-Roosevelt, anti-Davey
Democrats. Evidently Bricker's tactics
worried Republicans at national campaign
headquarters in Chicago. Their
concern was serious enough to prompt
Daniel E. Morgan, chairman of the
Cuyahoga County Republican central
committee, to assure national
Republican leaders that Ohio Republicans
were "running a campaign for the
whole ticket, emphasizing the head of
the ticket [Landon] .. ." Then, in
minor contradiction of his assurance,
Morgan, knowing Landon's cause was
lost, added: "Be assured that we
shall do what we can for the national
ticket."70 The promise
was less than ringing.
Bricker tried to ignore the national
ticket. While stumping the Akron area
in late October, the attorney general
moved in and out of crowds, shaking
hands with as many as he could. Never
once did he utter the name Alf
Landon. He left the task of promoting
the presidential nominee to others,
thinking certainly that it was best not
to have his own name linked to a sure
loser's. When Bricker finally mentioned
Landon, it was only after the day's
campaigning was almost over, and even
then his praise was for Landon the
Kansas governor, not Landon the
presidential candidate.71 A few days later,
while speaking at Cleveland's City Club,
Bricker averred that he was a
"Republican and for the Republican
ticket from top to bottom." However,
when he was asked, "If Roosevelt
and Bricker are elected[,] will Bricker play
ball with Roosevelt?" the attorney
general, all but acknowledging a Roosevelt
win, replied: "No one is elected to
serve the Republican or Democratic party,
but to serve the people. It shall be my
determined policy to cooperate com-
pletely with. .. whomever the people of
the United States select as their pres-
ident."72
Davey, quick to sense Bricker's fresh
vulnerability, denounced his opponent
for "throwing Landon
overboard" in a desperate attempt to win Democratic
votes.73 Bricker, Davey
charged, was panicking "like a boxer with his eyes
swollen shut," flailing about. In
the very next breath he described him as an-
other Saul of Tarsus finally seeing the
light. After maligning the president,
"he [Bricker] now tells people it's
all right to vote for Roosevelt, it's all right
69. Ibid.
70. Daniel E. Morgan to James L. E. Jappe,
October 15, 1936, MSS 3069, Container 1,
Folder 1, Correspondence 1933-1949,
Morgan Papers, Western Reserve Historical Society.
71. Cleveland Plain Dealer, October
22, 1936.
72. Ibid., October 25, 1936.
73. Ibid., October 24, 1936.
22 OHIO HISTORY
to vote for others on the Democratic
ticket if you want to. But for Heaven's
name, please give me some votes,
too."74 Bricker's tactics would fail, the
governor claimed, because
"Roosevelt will carry Ohio by at least [a] 250,000
majority, and I will not be far
behind."75
Others were not so optimistic. Clearly
worried about the controversial
Davey's possible harm to the national
ticket, Hopkins telephoned Ohio WPA
administrator Carl Watson four days
before the election to gauge the state's
mood. Watson assured Hopkins that Ohio
was safely for Roosevelt and pre-
dicted the margin would be about 75,000
votes.76 Neither Davey's nor
Watson's guess was even close.
Davey's chicanery continued to the end.
On election day itself, November
3, Republican precinct workers in
Cincinnati received telegrams from
Columbus telling them "to forget
Bricker and Landon and concentrate on
county candidates." The telegrams
were signed "Ed Shore," an obvious mis-
spelling of the name of Ed Schorr, the
Republican state chairman. Despite
Republican suspicions, there was no
provable link between Davey and the
telegrams; they had been sent by a
"mysterious stranger." Bricker and Schorr
immediately denounced the wires as
forgeries.77 With the election still in
doubt, Davey strategists were certainly
capable of such bold-faced trickery.78
Those last minute machinations proved
superfluous. Roosevelt swept to a
massive popular and electoral majority,
carrying Ohio by more than 600,000
votes. Davey, riding on the president's
broad coattails, beat Bricker by nearly
127,000. The governor's win was
comfortable but considering the enormity
of the Democratic victory it was
disappointing. Not only had Roosevelt and
Davey won, their party elected
twenty-two of Ohio's twenty-four congress-
men and captured huge majorities in both
houses of the state legislature.79
The results were similar at the national
level. The House of Representatives
went Democratic, 334-89, and so did the
Senate, 75-17. No party had ever
before experienced such an utter
triumph. The Democrats so dominated the
Capitol that some of them had to sit on
the Republican side of the aisle.80
But Bricker had run 300,000 votes ahead
of Landon, meaning thousands of
Ohioans had split their tickets.81 The
implication was clear: Had Roosevelt
74. Ibid., October 29, 1936.
75. Ibid.
76. Transcripts of Telephone
Conversations With State Relief Directors and Other Officials,
Ohio-South Dakota, October 29, 1936,
Container 77, Harry Hopkins Papers, Franklin D.
Roosevelt Library.
77. Cleveland Plain Dealer, November
4, 1936.
78. Davey worried about Bricker's
strength in Cincinnati's Hamilton County. As it turned
out, only Cuyahoga County gave the
attorney general a wider margin than Hamilton County's
ten-thousand votes. See Cleveland Plain
Dealer, November 5, 1936.
79. Wittke, History of Ohio, VI,
84-85. Davey had 1,540,093 votes to Bricker's 1,412,780.
80. Ted Morgan, FDR: A Biography, Simon
and Schuster (New York, 1985), 441.
81. Pauly, Bricker of Ohio, 81.
Ohio Election of 1936
23
not roared through Ohio, Davey would
have lost. The governor's success was
not really his own; it was Roosevelt's.
In a way, Davey's victory was a defeat
and Bricker's defeat was a victory.
Davey's was clearly a descending star.82
Bricker's stock, on the other hand,
was soaring. His remarkable showing
against the Democratic landslide of
1936 promised every success for the
future. Ohio Republicans could hardly
contain their enthusiasm. Cleveland
Mayor Harold Burton virtually gushed:
". . . the vote for John W. Bricker
is a demonstration that there is plenty of
strength in the party when the
candidates are right."83 Daniel E. Morgan, the
Cuyahoga County Republican chairman,
crowed about Bricker, ". . . the re-
sult speaks for itself."84 The
Cleveland Plain Dealer was no less sanguine
in proclaiming that Bricker's popularity
in the face of a Democratic landslide
meant that the gubernatorial nomination
in 1938 was his for the asking.85
He got it, won the governorship that
year and again in 1940 and 1942.
Davey, meanwhile, began an inevitable
slide into obscurity. Impelled by un-
restrainable fighting instincts, he was
a politician too fiery and crafty for his
own good. His own party refused to
renominate him for the governorship in
1938, and he would have to wait until
1940 for another chance at John W.
Bricker.
82. Ohio Democrats nominated Charles
Sawyer over Davey for governor in 1938. Davey
won his party's nomination in 1940 but
was beaten soundly by Bricker. He retired to the family
business in Kent, where he died in 1946.
83. Harold H. Burton to Daniel E. Morgan,
November 15, 1936, MSS 3069, Container 1,
Folder 1, Correspondence 1933-1949,
Morgan Papers, Western Reserve Historical Society.
84. Daniel E. Morgan to Claude C.
Waltermire, November 20, 1936, MSS 3069, Container 1,
Folder 1, Correspondence 1933-1949,
Morgan Papers, Western Reserve Historical Society.
85. Cleveland Plain Dealer, November
8, 1936.
FRANK P. VAZZANO
Martin Davey, John Bricker and
the Ohio Election of 1936
"There's something wrong in
Columbus." With those words John W.
Bricker, the Republican nominee for
governor of Ohio, opened the 1936 cam-
paign against his Democratic opponent,
Martin L. Davey. Bricker's declara-
tion, more an accusation than a
challenge, initiated a contest destined to be-
come one of the meanest in the history
of Ohio. But the campaign did more
than that; it generated a bitter
personal feud between two of the state's politi-
cal giants, a feud that lasted long
after the election itself faded from memory.
Such a canvass seemed appropriate to the
times. Nineteen-thirty-six was
also a presidential election year, and
one of the most curious of those. First,
Ohio dominated the nominating season.
Not only had the Republicans held
their national convention in Cleveland,
but so too had several fringe groups:
the Townsendites, the Socialist National
Party and the National Union for
Social Justice, blocs born out of the
despair, anger and occasional zaniness of
the Great Depression.
This was also the election in which Al
Smith, the Democrats' failed presi-
dential candidate of 1928, stood before
an audience of Republicans in Carnegie
Hall and proclaimed, "I firmly believe
that the remedy for all the ills that we
are suffering from today is the election
of Alfred M. Landon."l Certainly
many Americans could appreciate Smith's
disappointment over his party's
snubbing in 1932, but the Happy
Warrior's apostasy must have caused a few
Tammany sachems to rumble in their
graves.
No less curious was Literary Digest magazine's
misreading of the political
auguries of 1936. A scant two months
before the presidential election, a
Digest poll showed Landon leading Franklin D. Roosevelt by
fifty-six to
thirty-seven percent.2 Democrats
could rightly scoff on election night when
their man gave the Republican nominee
one of the worst drubbings in the
Frank P. Vazzano is a Professor of
History at Walsh University in North Canton, Ohio.
1. The Ravenna (Ohio) Evening Record
and Daily Courier-Tribune, October 2, 1936.
2. "Through a Century in Repository
Files," Canton (Ohio) Repository, September 2, 1986.
The remaining seven percent of those
polled chose William Lemke of the Union Party.
Literary Digest selected names and addresses from old telephone books.
Most of the
people who could afford phones and had
not been forced to move during the Great Depression
supported Landon. Consequently, the Digest
poll was badly skewed. See Frank Friedel,
America in the Twentieth Century, 3d ed., Alfred A. Knopf (New York, 1970), 339.