Reminisce: Election night in Lima, 1920

It was a raw day with temperatures in the 40s and occasional rain showers raking the streets — and then it got worse. As darkness descended, temperatures fell, and a biting wind rose.

Despite the dismal weather on that November evening 104 years ago, thousands of Lima residents abandoned the warmth of home to find somewhere where reports on the 1920 presidential election were coming in.

“Election night in Lima was staged to an overture of wintry winds which early drove the crowds to the shelter of clubs, theaters and other places where the news could be heard,” the Lima Republican-Gazette wrote November 3, 1920, the day after election day.

“Checking their nervousness under a veil of cheerfulness, thousands gathered wherever returns were coming in,” the newspaper continued, “Every seat at Memorial Hall was taken at a late hour last night and the majority of the crowd were firm in their determination to stick until the last return was in.”

One spot where returns were coming in was outside. “The greatest crowd to gather anywhere in the city collected at the corner of High and Main streets to watch returns flashed on a screen hung high above the streets. Here too enthusiasm ran high and cheer after cheer greeted returns,” the Republican-Gazette reported, adding that a delegation of high school boys led cheers for each candidate as results came in.

The 1920 presidential election had piqued public interest. It was the first presidential election after World War I, the first presidential election after the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, and the first after the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment, which took away everyone’s option to have a legal drink. It was also the first presidential election to have its results broadcast by radio.

And, to top it off, the election featured two dark-horse candidates from Ohio, a swing state with a trove of electoral votes. U.S. Senator Warren G. Harding, of Marion, was nominated by Republicans and Ohio Governor James M. Cox, of Dayton, won the Democratic nomination. Neither were among the frontrunners when their conventions began. It was the third time both candidates were from the same state.

Harding’s nomination came after 10 ballots at the party’s mid-June convention in Chicago. Marion, according to a wire story published in the Republican-Gazette on June 13, the day after the nomination, “went wild with joy and enthusiasm tonight when it was learned that one of its citizens, Warren G. Harding, had been nominated for the presidency by the Republican national convention.” Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge was chosen to run with Harding, who was seen as a compromise candidate between the progressive and conservative factions of the party.

The day after Harding’s nomination, the Lima News & Times-Democrat beamed. “Not in the sense of partisan bias, but in the light of state pride must Ohio people of both parties rejoice in the nomination at Chicago yesterday of Warren G. Harding, of our sister-city of Marion,” the newspaper wrote, adding, “Harding started at scratch; he finishes in a bid for the Presidency of his nation, making true the axiom of the school room that any American boy has as good a chance to become chief executive as any other American boy.”

Cox won the Democratic nomination after a marathon 44 ballots at the party’s convention in San Francisco in late June and early July. In the estimation of the Republican-Gazette, Cox’s nomination produced “no big thrill” in Dayton. When news of his nomination came July 6 over the Associated Press wires, according to a July 7 story in the Republican-Gazette, Cox was sitting in a room at his Dayton newspaper with the wire operator. Cox, like Harding, was a newspaper publisher.

“The governor remained perfectly still, as though overwhelmed, for a space of almost a minute after he received the ‘flash’ of his victory,” the Republican-Gazette wrote. “Then he crossed the room, stooped and kissed his wife – the first act after his selection as presidential candidate of the Democrats.” For a running mate, the Democrats chose Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt, of New York.

Although Cox may have remained “perfectly still” after receiving news of his nomination, he was soon in motion, launching a whirlwind campaign that took him to rallies, train station speeches and formal addresses across the country. It was estimated Cox spoke to about two million people.

During the campaign, it was Harding who stayed still, relying on a “front porch campaign” like the one that worked for another Ohio presidential candidate, Republican William McKinley, two decades earlier. Thousands would make the pilgrimage to Marion to hear Harding.

“Lima women, determined to be not behind their sisters of other communities, are making preparations for the pilgrimage to the shrine of republicanism at Marion Friday, when woman’s and mothers’ day, a national affair, will be observed at the Harding front porch,” the Republican-Gazette wrote September 30. The crowd which heard Harding, the News-Gazette noted after the event, “was one of the largest of the front porch campaign,” with rally-goers arriving on special trains and marching to the Harding home in “martial order with bands playing and with standards bearing the names of numerous cities …”

On October 14, 1920, Cox came to Lima for a speech at Memorial Hall. “The reception in Lima was wonderfully inspiring,” the News & Times-Democrat wrote. “Hundreds were assembled at the Pennsylvania station to greet the Governor, waiting patiently, as the train was an hour late on the trip to this city from Van Wert. … At Van Wert, Delphos and Lima the big crowds cheered and applauded the Governor and hundreds of women crowded forward to shake his hand and pledge their support.”

At a speech the same day in Wapakoneta, according to the Republican-Gazette, boys “bearing large lithographs of Senator Harding and shouting for the senator” interrupted Cox’s speech, prompting Cox “to declare that he had discovered a new ‘contemptible’ plan of the opposition.”

Finally, election day arrived. “Lima today was in a ‘political frenzy’ and the voting populace seemed to be more deeply stirred over the outcome of the election than in any years previous,” the News wrote November 2. “Hundreds of voters over Allen County arose at the break of day and were early hieing (hastening) to the polls to cast their ballots for their pick of party candidates. It was a common sight to see husbands and wives enter voting places together.”

Among those early morning voters was Lila Graham Gamble, who cast her vote in the pre-dawn darkness in a garage on the corner of Market Street and Kenilworth Avenue, becoming the first woman in Lima to vote in a national election.

Besides the presence of women, the News noted the absence of drunkenness among “those who thought that it was not an election day if they were not on a ‘spree.’ Few intoxicated men were seen on the streets during the day and usual rowdy demonstrations at night are not expected tonight.”

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SOURCE

This feature is a cooperative effort between the newspaper and the Allen County Museum and Historical Society.

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See past Reminisce stories at limaohio.com/tag/reminisce

Reach Greg Hoersten at [email protected].