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David Pietrusza's
1920:
The Year of the Six Presidents
A Selection of the History Book Club
Basic Books ISBN # 0786716223
1920:
The Year of the Six Presidents
A Selection of the History Book Club
Basic Books ISBN # 0786716223
Cast of Characters
Nan Britton—A small town girl with a big crush—on the next president of the United States,
United States Senator Warren G. Harding—and she will bear his child.
Heywood Broun—The Republican New York Tribune's in-house radical. Trenchantly
brilliant observer of the 1920 Democratic and Republican conventions.
William Jennings Bryan—"The "Silver Tongued Orator of the Platte." Legendary voice of
the old agrarian-based populism. Three-time Democratic presidential nominee. Wilson's
disgruntled pacifist Secretary of State. Waiting in the wings in 1920, but the times have passed
him by.
Carrie Chapman Catt—Suffragette leader. Prohibitionist. President of the (for whites only)
National American Woman Suffrage Association. In August 1920, her battle for women's
votes races to conclusion.
Professor William Estabrook Chancellor—The obsessively racist Ohio college professor
whose accusations that Harding is part black tosses the election into last-minute turmoil.
Calvin Coolidge—Silent Cal. The taciturn Vermonter who became Massachusetts' coldly
efficient governor. His words following the September 1919 Boston police strike ("There is no
right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, anytime") make him presidential
timber. In Chicago, the GOP convention stampedes and anoints him its vice-presidential
candidate.
Grace Goodhue Coolidge—Calvin's charming and ever-patient wife. Her husband writes:
"She has borne with my infirmities, and I have rejoiced in her graces." No one disagreed with
the assessment.
Gov. James Middleton Cox—Warren Harding's feisty Democratic twin, a small town Ohio
newspaper editor who dabbles in state politics, has his own marital troubles, and, when no
other candidate proves suitable, wins a presidential nomination.
Josephus Daniels—The North Carolina segregationist and prohibitionist newspaper baron
who becomes Woodrow Wilson's Secretary of the Navy and FDR's long-suffering boss.
Harry Michajah Daugherty—The unsavory Ohio politico and lobbyist who attaches himself
to Warren Harding and rides him all the way to the Attorney Generalship—and ultimately to
disgrace.
Eugene Victor Debs—Imprisoned anti-war Socialist Party ideologue and editor. "Federal
prisoner 9653" campaigns for the presidency from his Atlanta Penitentiary jail cell--and
garners nearly a million votes.
Henry Ford—Hero of the American industrial revolution, father of the burgeoning auto
industry, pacifist, politician, and, as publisher of the Dearborn Independent, the nation's
premier anti-Semite.
Marcus Garvey—Jamaican-born founder of the mass-movement Universal Negro
Improvement Association. Self-proclaimed Provisional President of Africa. Garvey launches a
black owned steamship company, numerous other black businesses—and the back-to-Africa
movement.
Adm. Cary Grayson—Woodrow Wilson's personal physician. With Edith Wilson, Grayson
hides President Wilson's crippling infirmities from the American people.
Florence Kling DeWolfe Harding—"The Duchess." Warren Harding's strong-willed, older
wife. The brains behind his modest newspaper empire. The Duchess prophesizes: "I can see
but one word written above his head if they make [Warren] President, and that word is
Tragedy."
Sen. Warren Gamaliel Harding—Ohio small-town newspaper editor, Republican
politician, and serial adulterer. His strengths: he looks like a president, sounds like a president
(if you don't listen too carefully), and is sufficiently vague on most issues to be nominated.
"America's present need," he intones, "is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums but normalcy."
America agrees.
Col. George B. Harvey—Publisher of Harper's Weekly and The North American Review.
Wilson's earliest political backer. Wilson openly repays Harvey with ingratitude and scorn. At
the 1920 Republican convention Harvey asks Harding if he has anything in his record to
disqualify him from the presidency. Harding will lie.
Will Hays—Chairman of the Republican National Committee. The nation's savviest political
operative. Presidential timber.
William Randolph Hearst—The controversial radical press baron. He opposes the League
of Nations and toys with third party presidential schemes.
Herbert Hoover—The Great Engineer. International gold mining adventurer. Multi-
millionaire. Savior of war-ravaged Europe's starving masses. Political progressive. Member of
the Wilson administration. A national hero. In 1920 Hoover covets the presidency but has one
big problem: he can't decide if he's a Republican or a Democrat.
J. Edgar Hoover—The ambitious, young Justice Department lawyer who orchestrates
Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer's anti-radical crusade.
Col. Edward Mandell House—The brilliant, manipulative little Texan who flatters his way
into Woodrow Wilson's heart. Wilson loved him—until he dumped him.
Sen. Hiram W. Johnson—TR's 1912 running mate hopes to inherit TR's progressive mantel.
His liberalism alienates the right. His "irreconcilable" isolationism alienates the left. His
personality alienates everybody. Johnson looked, said one historian, "like a bad-tempered
baby."
John T. King—Connecticut Republican wheeler-dealer. He manages TR's campaign, then
Leonard Wood's. "John supplies the efficiency," says TR, "and I supply the morals."
Albert D. Lasker—The Texas-born Chicago advertising genius who helps fuel Warren
Harding's 1920 campaign steamroller.
Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge—The quintessential Boston Brahmin. Author. Classical scholar.
Intellectual. Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Lodge's loathing of
Woodrow Wilson ("I never expected to hate anyone in politics with the hatred I feel toward
Wilson") helps fuel his vendetta against Wilson's League of Nations.
Alice Roosevelt Longworth—-TR's daughter, wife of House Speaker Nicholas Longworth,
lover of progressive Idaho Senator William E. Borah. The most deliciously acerbic observer
of Washington's social scene--and of Warren Harding.
Gov. Frank O. Lowden—Illinois's capable, middle-of-the-road Republican reform
governor. A prime contender for the nomination. His presidential ambitions founder on
charges of campaign irregularities.
Dudley Field Malone—-The Wilson crony who quits his lucrative patronage position to
protest the imprisonment of suffragettes. Later, he seeks the presidency on a radical third
party ticket.
William Gibbs McAdoo—Wall Street lawyer and financier. Secretary of the Treasury.
Woodrow Wilson's son-in-law. McAdoo plans to succeed his father-in-law in the White
House. His problem: Wilson has no intention of leaving.
Lucy Mercer—Eleanor Roosevelt's social secretary. In 1917, Eleanor discovers Lucy has
become too social with Franklin. The affair permanently damages the Roosevelt marriage, but
some excuse it. "He deserved a good time," TR's sharp-tongued daughter Alice observes, "He
was married to Eleanor."
A. Mitchell Palmer—Wilson's ambitious Attorney General. After an anarchist bomb
destroys Palmer's home, Palmer transforms himself from Quaker progressive to fierce Red
hunter, jailing 10,000 radicals, deporting 556, and warning of a Red uprising—all on the way
to a run for the presidency. Palmer's chances evaporate when the uprising never occurs.
Alice Stokes Paul—Suffragette leader. Anti-war activist. Hunger-striker. Founder of the
National Women's Party. A vengeful power structure bars her from enjoying suffrage's
triumph.
Mary Allen Hulbert Peck—An engaging, artistically inclined New England widow. Was she
Woodrow Wilson's correspondent, friend, and Bermuda-vacation chum? Or his lover?
Sen. Boies Penrose--Boss of the Pennsylvania Republican Party and unofficial leader of the
national GOP's standpat wing. Is he manipulating the Republican National Convention from his
Philadelphia sickbed?
Carrie Fulton Phillips--Marion, Ohio housewife and friend of Warren and Florence Harding
who became Warren's most dangerous mistress. A German sympathizer during World War,
she blackmails her lover during the 1920 presidential campaign.
William Cooper Procter--Millionaire Ivory Soap manufacturer. An early adversary of
Woodrow Wilson. In 1920, Procter manages Leonard Wood's campaign. His soap floats.
His candidate sinks.
John R. Rathom—The controversial, rotund, Australian-born Providence Journal publisher
who exposes FDR's scandalously inept handling of an explosive homosexual scandal at the
Newport Navy base.
Eleanor Roosevelt—TR's niece. FDR's fifth cousin and wife. By 1920 their marriage is
already seriously damaged by his infidelities. A sheltered child of privilege, her social
conscience is just beginning to emerge.
Franklin D. Roosevelt—The handsome, jaunty, Harvard-educated dilettante who hopes to
parlay his Roosevelt pedigree and charm into the presidency. He's already retraced TR's steps
as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. But is he mature enough to go farther?
Theodore Roosevelt—The Rough Rider himself. President. Historian. Cowboy. Police
Commissioner. Trust Buster. Explorer. Naturalist. Big-Game Hunter. Noble Prize Winner. He
has been president once—and wants the job again. Only the hand of God can keep him from
the White House in 1920.
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti—Italian immigrant anarchists accused of murder
and robbery. Their case explodes into an international cause celebre.
Col. William J. Simmons—Inspired by D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, this failed
ex-preacher creates "The World's Greatest Secret, Social, patriotic, Fraternal, Beneficiary
Order" of them all, the infamous Ku Klux Klan.
William Howard Taft—The seventh president on the scene for the election of 1920. Taft has
learned his lesson and wants no part of the White House. Once derided as a hide-bound
conservative, Big Bill Taft now personifies moderation: pro-League of Nations and anti-
Wilson.
Joseph P. Tumulty—The savvy New Jersey Irish Catholic politico who serves as Wilson's
loyal and efficient personal secretary.
Wayne B. Wheeler—Wily boss of the Anti-Saloon League. He bestows prohibition upon a
thirsty nation.
Edith Bolling Galt Wilson—"America's First Female President." The Washington, D.C.
jeweler's widow who became Woodrow Wilson's second wife. Their whirlwind courtship
provokes scandalous Washington whispers. With her husband incapacitated, she rules the
nation.
Woodrow Wilson—Brilliant, eloquent, progressive, and self-confident. But also bigoted, self-
centered, stubborn, and messianic. He desperately dreams of a League of Nations to prevent
future wars, but can't sell the idea, either at home or abroad. Compromising article after article
of his Fourteen Points, he sows the seeds of another war. "Woodrow Wilson is an exile from
the hearts of his people," says Gene Debs, "The betrayal of his ideals makes him the most
pathetic figure in the world." An October 1919 stroke leaves him too crippled to lead the
nation, but the nation is never told. Fantastically, he hopes for an unprecedented third term.
Gen. Leonard Wood—A law-and-order Man on Horseback. The heir to TR's "Rough
Rider" traditions. The early favorite for the 1920 Republican nomination.
Nan Britton—A small town girl with a big crush—on the next president of the United States,
United States Senator Warren G. Harding—and she will bear his child.
Heywood Broun—The Republican New York Tribune's in-house radical. Trenchantly
brilliant observer of the 1920 Democratic and Republican conventions.
William Jennings Bryan—"The "Silver Tongued Orator of the Platte." Legendary voice of
the old agrarian-based populism. Three-time Democratic presidential nominee. Wilson's
disgruntled pacifist Secretary of State. Waiting in the wings in 1920, but the times have passed
him by.
Carrie Chapman Catt—Suffragette leader. Prohibitionist. President of the (for whites only)
National American Woman Suffrage Association. In August 1920, her battle for women's
votes races to conclusion.
Professor William Estabrook Chancellor—The obsessively racist Ohio college professor
whose accusations that Harding is part black tosses the election into last-minute turmoil.
Calvin Coolidge—Silent Cal. The taciturn Vermonter who became Massachusetts' coldly
efficient governor. His words following the September 1919 Boston police strike ("There is no
right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, anytime") make him presidential
timber. In Chicago, the GOP convention stampedes and anoints him its vice-presidential
candidate.
Grace Goodhue Coolidge—Calvin's charming and ever-patient wife. Her husband writes:
"She has borne with my infirmities, and I have rejoiced in her graces." No one disagreed with
the assessment.
Gov. James Middleton Cox—Warren Harding's feisty Democratic twin, a small town Ohio
newspaper editor who dabbles in state politics, has his own marital troubles, and, when no
other candidate proves suitable, wins a presidential nomination.
Josephus Daniels—The North Carolina segregationist and prohibitionist newspaper baron
who becomes Woodrow Wilson's Secretary of the Navy and FDR's long-suffering boss.
Harry Michajah Daugherty—The unsavory Ohio politico and lobbyist who attaches himself
to Warren Harding and rides him all the way to the Attorney Generalship—and ultimately to
disgrace.
Eugene Victor Debs—Imprisoned anti-war Socialist Party ideologue and editor. "Federal
prisoner 9653" campaigns for the presidency from his Atlanta Penitentiary jail cell--and
garners nearly a million votes.
Henry Ford—Hero of the American industrial revolution, father of the burgeoning auto
industry, pacifist, politician, and, as publisher of the Dearborn Independent, the nation's
premier anti-Semite.
Marcus Garvey—Jamaican-born founder of the mass-movement Universal Negro
Improvement Association. Self-proclaimed Provisional President of Africa. Garvey launches a
black owned steamship company, numerous other black businesses—and the back-to-Africa
movement.
Adm. Cary Grayson—Woodrow Wilson's personal physician. With Edith Wilson, Grayson
hides President Wilson's crippling infirmities from the American people.
Florence Kling DeWolfe Harding—"The Duchess." Warren Harding's strong-willed, older
wife. The brains behind his modest newspaper empire. The Duchess prophesizes: "I can see
but one word written above his head if they make [Warren] President, and that word is
Tragedy."
Sen. Warren Gamaliel Harding—Ohio small-town newspaper editor, Republican
politician, and serial adulterer. His strengths: he looks like a president, sounds like a president
(if you don't listen too carefully), and is sufficiently vague on most issues to be nominated.
"America's present need," he intones, "is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums but normalcy."
America agrees.
Col. George B. Harvey—Publisher of Harper's Weekly and The North American Review.
Wilson's earliest political backer. Wilson openly repays Harvey with ingratitude and scorn. At
the 1920 Republican convention Harvey asks Harding if he has anything in his record to
disqualify him from the presidency. Harding will lie.
Will Hays—Chairman of the Republican National Committee. The nation's savviest political
operative. Presidential timber.
William Randolph Hearst—The controversial radical press baron. He opposes the League
of Nations and toys with third party presidential schemes.
Herbert Hoover—The Great Engineer. International gold mining adventurer. Multi-
millionaire. Savior of war-ravaged Europe's starving masses. Political progressive. Member of
the Wilson administration. A national hero. In 1920 Hoover covets the presidency but has one
big problem: he can't decide if he's a Republican or a Democrat.
J. Edgar Hoover—The ambitious, young Justice Department lawyer who orchestrates
Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer's anti-radical crusade.
Col. Edward Mandell House—The brilliant, manipulative little Texan who flatters his way
into Woodrow Wilson's heart. Wilson loved him—until he dumped him.
Sen. Hiram W. Johnson—TR's 1912 running mate hopes to inherit TR's progressive mantel.
His liberalism alienates the right. His "irreconcilable" isolationism alienates the left. His
personality alienates everybody. Johnson looked, said one historian, "like a bad-tempered
baby."
John T. King—Connecticut Republican wheeler-dealer. He manages TR's campaign, then
Leonard Wood's. "John supplies the efficiency," says TR, "and I supply the morals."
Albert D. Lasker—The Texas-born Chicago advertising genius who helps fuel Warren
Harding's 1920 campaign steamroller.
Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge—The quintessential Boston Brahmin. Author. Classical scholar.
Intellectual. Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Lodge's loathing of
Woodrow Wilson ("I never expected to hate anyone in politics with the hatred I feel toward
Wilson") helps fuel his vendetta against Wilson's League of Nations.
Alice Roosevelt Longworth—-TR's daughter, wife of House Speaker Nicholas Longworth,
lover of progressive Idaho Senator William E. Borah. The most deliciously acerbic observer
of Washington's social scene--and of Warren Harding.
Gov. Frank O. Lowden—Illinois's capable, middle-of-the-road Republican reform
governor. A prime contender for the nomination. His presidential ambitions founder on
charges of campaign irregularities.
Dudley Field Malone—-The Wilson crony who quits his lucrative patronage position to
protest the imprisonment of suffragettes. Later, he seeks the presidency on a radical third
party ticket.
William Gibbs McAdoo—Wall Street lawyer and financier. Secretary of the Treasury.
Woodrow Wilson's son-in-law. McAdoo plans to succeed his father-in-law in the White
House. His problem: Wilson has no intention of leaving.
Lucy Mercer—Eleanor Roosevelt's social secretary. In 1917, Eleanor discovers Lucy has
become too social with Franklin. The affair permanently damages the Roosevelt marriage, but
some excuse it. "He deserved a good time," TR's sharp-tongued daughter Alice observes, "He
was married to Eleanor."
A. Mitchell Palmer—Wilson's ambitious Attorney General. After an anarchist bomb
destroys Palmer's home, Palmer transforms himself from Quaker progressive to fierce Red
hunter, jailing 10,000 radicals, deporting 556, and warning of a Red uprising—all on the way
to a run for the presidency. Palmer's chances evaporate when the uprising never occurs.
Alice Stokes Paul—Suffragette leader. Anti-war activist. Hunger-striker. Founder of the
National Women's Party. A vengeful power structure bars her from enjoying suffrage's
triumph.
Mary Allen Hulbert Peck—An engaging, artistically inclined New England widow. Was she
Woodrow Wilson's correspondent, friend, and Bermuda-vacation chum? Or his lover?
Sen. Boies Penrose--Boss of the Pennsylvania Republican Party and unofficial leader of the
national GOP's standpat wing. Is he manipulating the Republican National Convention from his
Philadelphia sickbed?
Carrie Fulton Phillips--Marion, Ohio housewife and friend of Warren and Florence Harding
who became Warren's most dangerous mistress. A German sympathizer during World War,
she blackmails her lover during the 1920 presidential campaign.
William Cooper Procter--Millionaire Ivory Soap manufacturer. An early adversary of
Woodrow Wilson. In 1920, Procter manages Leonard Wood's campaign. His soap floats.
His candidate sinks.
John R. Rathom—The controversial, rotund, Australian-born Providence Journal publisher
who exposes FDR's scandalously inept handling of an explosive homosexual scandal at the
Newport Navy base.
Eleanor Roosevelt—TR's niece. FDR's fifth cousin and wife. By 1920 their marriage is
already seriously damaged by his infidelities. A sheltered child of privilege, her social
conscience is just beginning to emerge.
Franklin D. Roosevelt—The handsome, jaunty, Harvard-educated dilettante who hopes to
parlay his Roosevelt pedigree and charm into the presidency. He's already retraced TR's steps
as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. But is he mature enough to go farther?
Theodore Roosevelt—The Rough Rider himself. President. Historian. Cowboy. Police
Commissioner. Trust Buster. Explorer. Naturalist. Big-Game Hunter. Noble Prize Winner. He
has been president once—and wants the job again. Only the hand of God can keep him from
the White House in 1920.
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti—Italian immigrant anarchists accused of murder
and robbery. Their case explodes into an international cause celebre.
Col. William J. Simmons—Inspired by D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, this failed
ex-preacher creates "The World's Greatest Secret, Social, patriotic, Fraternal, Beneficiary
Order" of them all, the infamous Ku Klux Klan.
William Howard Taft—The seventh president on the scene for the election of 1920. Taft has
learned his lesson and wants no part of the White House. Once derided as a hide-bound
conservative, Big Bill Taft now personifies moderation: pro-League of Nations and anti-
Wilson.
Joseph P. Tumulty—The savvy New Jersey Irish Catholic politico who serves as Wilson's
loyal and efficient personal secretary.
Wayne B. Wheeler—Wily boss of the Anti-Saloon League. He bestows prohibition upon a
thirsty nation.
Edith Bolling Galt Wilson—"America's First Female President." The Washington, D.C.
jeweler's widow who became Woodrow Wilson's second wife. Their whirlwind courtship
provokes scandalous Washington whispers. With her husband incapacitated, she rules the
nation.
Woodrow Wilson—Brilliant, eloquent, progressive, and self-confident. But also bigoted, self-
centered, stubborn, and messianic. He desperately dreams of a League of Nations to prevent
future wars, but can't sell the idea, either at home or abroad. Compromising article after article
of his Fourteen Points, he sows the seeds of another war. "Woodrow Wilson is an exile from
the hearts of his people," says Gene Debs, "The betrayal of his ideals makes him the most
pathetic figure in the world." An October 1919 stroke leaves him too crippled to lead the
nation, but the nation is never told. Fantastically, he hopes for an unprecedented third term.
Gen. Leonard Wood—A law-and-order Man on Horseback. The heir to TR's "Rough
Rider" traditions. The early favorite for the 1920 Republican nomination.