Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, and Franklin D. Roosevelt
Available from Carroll & Graf, Fall 2006
1920 Presidential
Election Chronology
  • Jan. 1 -- 18th Amendment goes into effect.
  • Jan. 2-6 -- Palmer raids; over 6,000 radicals arrested.
  • Jan. 2 -- Franklin D. Roosevelt privately writes than there would be “none
    better" than Herbert Hoover for president.
  • Jan. 3 -- FDR writes in Army & Navy Journal re: Navy prison policies
  • January- Trial of Rev. Samuel N. Kent on morals charges; Kent acquitted.
  • Jan. 4 -- James Reynolds assumes leadership of Calvin Coolidge campaign.
  • Jan. 6 -- Rhode Island and Kentucky ratify the 19th amendment.
  • Jan. 6 -- William Gibbs McAdoo quits as United Artists general counsel.
  • Jan. 7 -- Calvin Coolidge says he will not actively seek the presidency.
  • Jan. 7 -- Governor Alfred E. Smith urges New York State Legislature to rescind
    ratification of 18th Amendment.
  • Jan. 8 - Democrats' Jackson Day Dinner. William Jennings Bryan blasts Wilson.
    James Gerard praises Herbert Hoover.
  • Jan. 8 -- Democrats decide on San Francisco as convention site.
  • Jan. 8 -- Louis B. Wehle confers with Angus McLean re: a Herbert Hoover-
    FDR ticket.
  • Jan. 9 -- Wehle confers with Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer and Vance
    McCormick re: a Hoover-FDR ticket.
  • Jan. 10 -- House of Representatives refuses to seat Wisconsin Socialist
    Congressman Victor Berger.
  • Jan. 10 -- Louis Wehle confers with FDR regarding a Hoover-FDR ticket.
  • Jan. 10 -- League of Nations convenes.
  • Jan. 12 -- Oregon ratifies the 19th Amendment.
  • Jan. 15 -- Wehle confers with House re: a Hoover-FDR ticket.
  • Jan. 15 -- Carter Glass leaves as Secretary of the Treasury.
  • Jan. 16 -- Indiana ratifies the 19th Amendment.
  • Jan. 16 -- Wehle confers with Hoover.
  • Jan. 17 -- Court of Naval Inquiry appointed to review Newport scandal.
  • Jan. 18 -- Providence Journal publisher John Rathom telegraphs Senate
    Committee on Naval Affairs regarding Newport scandal.
  • Jan. 19 -- Special Senate Committee on Naval Affairs Subcommittee appointed
    to investigate Newport scandal.
  • Jan. 20 -- New Jersey Governor Edward Edwards introduces bill legalizing 5%
    beer.
  • Jan. 22 -- John Rathom telegraphs FDR re: Newport navy scandal.
  • Jan 24 -- FDR writes Captain Taussig re: homosexuals being returned to the
    service.
  • Jan. 24 -- Calvin Coolidge sworn in to second term as Governor of
    Massachusetts.
  • Jan. 25 -- Coolidge says he is not a candidate.
  • Jan. 26-- Wyoming ratifies the 19th Amendment.
  • Jan [date unknown] -- Grayson advises Wilson to resign.
  • Jan. 27 - Hitchcock reservation to Article 10 rejected by Republicans.
  • Jan. 28 -- South Carolina rejects the 19th Amendment.
  • Jan. 30 -- Bureau of Internal Revenue issues regulations for medicinal alcohol.
  • Feb. 1 -- FDR speech at Brooklyn Academy of Music.
  • Feb. 1 -- Ohio governor James M. Cox announces his candidacy.
  • Feb. 1 - England and France declare they would accept the Senate's reservations.
  • Feb. 7 -- Wilson writes Secretary of State Robert Lansing re: cabinet meetings.
  • Feb. 7 – Nevada ratifies the 19th Amendment.
  • Feb. 10 - Dr. Hugh Young of Johns Hopkins announces Wilson was "organically
    sound, able-minded and able-bodied"
  • Feb. 10 -- Senate Foreign Relation Committee approves of Treaty with Lodge
    reservations.
  • Feb. 10 -- New Jersey ratifies the 19th Amendment.
  • Feb. 11 -- Idaho ratifies the 19th Amendment.
  • Feb. 12 -- Arizona and New Mexico ratify the 19th Amendment; Virginia rejects
    it.
  • Feb. 12 -- FDR's former mistress Lucy Mercer marries Winthrop Rutherford.
  • Feb. 13 -- Secretary of State Robert Lansing resigns.
  • Feb. 14-16 -- League of Women Voters founded, Chicago
  • Feb. 19 - Frank Petroni found not guilty by Hammond, Indiana jury, after
    shooting Frank Petrich for yelling, "To hell with the United States."
  • Feb. 19 -- Republican National Committee announces it will accept to donations
    of over $1,000.
  • Feb. 23 -- Hoover says he must no more about the parties' platforms before
    choosing between them.
  • Feb. 24 – Herbert Hoover opts out of Georgia Democratic primary.
  • Feb. 24 – Maryland rejects the 19th Amendment.
  • Feb. 25 – Woodrow Wilson names Bainbridge Colby Secretary of State.
  • Feb. 26 – Herbert Hoover says he is not a candidate.
  • Feb. 28 – Oklahoma ratifies the 19th Amendment.
  • Feb. 29 – New York Times presents Daugherty’s prediction on the GOP
    convention.
  • Mar. 1 – A. Mitchell Palmer formally announces, enters Georgia primary.
  • Mar. 6 -- Hoover declines to compete in the California Democrat primary.
  • Mar. 6 -- The Philippine Assembly rejects woman suffrage.
  • Mar. 9 -- Gen. Leonard Wood and Herbert Hoover win New Hampshire
    primaries.
  • Mar. 10 -- West Virginia ratifies 19th amendment after State Senator Jesse A.
    Bloch races back from California to vote.
  • Mar. 12 -- Seven IWW members found guilty in Centralia Massacre.
  • Mar. 14 -- Eugene V. Debs says he accept Socialist Party presidential
    nomination.
  • Mar. 15 - Leonard Wood wins Minnesota primary, beating Harding and Hoover.
  • Mar. 15 - Senate defeats treaty with 15 Lodge reservations 49-35.
  • Mar. 16 -- Senator Hiram Johnson runs unopposed in North Dakota primary.
  • Mar. 17 -- Illinois Gov. Frank O. Lowden captures Virginia Republican
    convention.
  • Mar. 19 -- U. S. Senate again rejects Treaty of Versailles (with Lodge
    reservations), 49-35.
  • Mar. 22 -- Washington ratifies the 19th Amendment.
  • Mar. 22 -- Bainbridge Colby confirmed by the Senate.
  • Mar. 23 -- Leonard Wood wins South Dakota primary.
  • Mar. 24 -- Capt. J. F. Lucey announces a conference of Hoover supporters will
    be held in Chicago.
  • Mar. 25 -- Delaware rejects the 19th Amendment.
  • Mar. 25 -- Woodrow Wilson confides to Grayson that he will accept a draft.
  • Mar. 26 -- New York World charges excessive spending in Wood race.
  • Mar. 29 -- Mississippi rejects the 19th Amendment.
  • Mar. 30 -- Herbert Hoover wires the California Hoover Club that he will accept
    the GOP nomination under certain conditions.
  • Mar. -- Charles Scribner's & Sons publishes Lothrop Stoddard's The Rising
    Tide of Color Against White Supremacy.
  • April 1 -- New York State Assembly expels five Socialist members.
  • Apr. 3 -- Leonard Wood endorses women's suffrage.
  • Apr. 6 -- Daughter born to Mr. & Mrs. William Gibbs McAdoo.
  • Apr. 6 -- Senator Robert La Follette sweeps Wisconsin primary.
  • Apr. 6 -- Uninstructed slate wins New York State GOP Primary.
  • Apr. 6 -- Herbert Hoover fails in attempt to register in California.
  • Apr. 7 -- Hoover wins Michigan Democratic primary; Palmer finishes last.
    Johnson wins Michigan Republican primary.
  • Apr. 14 -- Wilson presides over Cabinet for the first time since September 2,
    1919.
  • Apr. 15 -- South Braintree, Massachusetts payroll robbery and murder.
  • Apr. 18 -- Helen Hughes, daughter of Charles Evans Hughes, dies of tuberculosis.
  • Apr. 20 -- Senators Hiram Johnson and Gilbert Hitchcock win Nebraska
    primaries.
  • Apr. 22 -- Illinois, Wisconsin primaries. Frank O. Lowden wins Illinois primary.
  • Apr. 23 -- Hoover and Harding fare badly as Johnson wins Montana primary.
  • Apr. 27 -- Unpledged delegates win Massachusetts GOP primary.
  • Apr. 27 -- Wood narrowly defeats Johnson in New Jersey primary. Governor
    Edward Edwards unopposed in Democratic primary.
  • Apr. 27 -- Senator Warren G. Harding narrowly defeats Leonard Wood in Ohio
    primary. Harry M. Daugherty loses as delegate. James M. Cox unopposed in
    Democratic primary.
  • Apr. 27 -- Oscar W. Underwood of Alabama becomes new Senate Minority
    Leader.
  • May 1 -- Radical unrest predicted by A. Mitchell Palmer fails to materialize.
  • May 2 -- Brooklyn anarchist Andrea Salcedo leaps to his death, while in federal
    custody.
  • May 3 -- Leonard Wood defeats Hiram Johnson in Maryland primary.
  • May 4 -- Hiram Johnson defeats Herbert Hoover in California primary.
  • May 5 -- Wood wins Indiana primary. Harding finishes a poor fourth.
  • May 5 - Nicola Sacco and BartolomeoVanzetti arrested in Bridgewater,
    Massachusetts for South Braintree robbery.
  • May 6 -- Calvin Coolidge vetoes 2.75% beer bill.
  • May 8 -- Dunn Court of Inquiry resumes hearings.
  • May 13 -- Socialist Party nominates Eugene V. Debs for president.
  • May 14 -- The Socialist Party votes to align itself with Lenin's Third International.
  • May 14 -- Harding delivers "normalcy" speech in Boston.
  • May 18 -- Governor Sproul delegates win GOP Pennsylvania primary.
  • May 18 -- Calvin Coolidge's stepmother, Carrie Brown Coolidge, dies.
  • May 19 -- Leonard Wood wins non-binding Vermont primary.
  • May 20 -- Senate authorizes investigate on campaign finances.
  • May 20 - Congress ends state of war by joint resolution (vetoed by Woodrow
    Wilson).
  • May 21 -- Hiram Johnson defeats wood in Oregon primary.
  • May 22 -- First installment ("The Jew in Character and Business") of ninety-one
    part series, "The International Jew: The World's Problem" begins in Henry Ford's
    Dearborn Independent.
  • May 24 -- Sen. Howard Sutherland defeats Gen. Leonard Wood in West
    Virginia primary.
  • May 29 -- Woodrow Wilson pardons Kate Richards O'Hare.
  • May 29 -- Socialist Party presidential notification of Eugene Debs.
  • May 30 -- New York Labor Party (Farmer-Labor Party) nominates Rose
    Schneiderman for United States Senate and Mrs. William J. Fink for Comptroller.
  • June 1 -- United States Supreme Court rules state referenda not part of the
    federal constitutional amendment process.
  • June 3 -- American Jewish Committee telegraphs Ford protesting "The
    International Jew."
  • June 5 -- Literary Digest poll puts Warren G. Harding eighth among Republican
    presidential candidates, below even Calvin Coolidge and William Howard Taft.
  • June 7 -- Harding visits mistress Nan Britton in Chicago.
  • June 8 -- Republican National Convention opens; Senator Henry Cabot Lodge
    delivers keynote address.
  • June 8 -- Louisiana Senate rejects the 19th Amendment.
  • June 12 -- Republican Party nominates Warren G. Harding for president.
  • June 13 -- Socialist Vice Presidential candidate Seymour Stedman opens his
    campaign in Chicago.
  • June 17 -- New York World publishes interview with Wilson.
  • June 18 -- McAdoo announces "irrevocable" decision not to seek presidency.
  • June 20 -- Grover Cleveland Redding of the Star Order of Ethiopia shoots police
    officer and ignites a Chicago race riot.
  • June 21 - Suffragette Alice Paul visits Harding.
  • June 22 -- Ed Scobey announces Harding slogan will be "Back to Normal."
  • June 22 -- New York World publishes a photo of Wilson at work.
  • June 23 -- Tammany boss Charles F. Murphy indicted.
  • June 25 -- Calvin Coolidge says he won't pressure Vermont and Connecticut to
    ratify the 19th Amendment.
  • June 26 -- Dearborn Independent begins serializing "The Protocols of The
    Learned Elders of Zion. "
  • June 27 -- Republican National Committee Chairman Will Hays meets with
    Carrie Phillips.
  • June 27 -- William Gibbs McAdoo says he will accept a nomination.
  • June 28 -- Democratic National Convention opens; FDR grabs New York
    delegation standard.
  • July 29 -- Dudley Field Malone nominated by New York State Farmer-Labor
    Party for Governor.
  • June 30 -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt places Al Smith in nomination.
  • June [date unknown] -- KKK engaged two professional fundraisers: Edward
    Young Clarke and Mrs. Elizabeth Tyler.
  • July 1 -- BartolomeoVanzetti convicted of Bridgewater robbery.
  • July 1 -- Louisiana rejects the 19th Amendment.
  • July 1 -- Jim Philips and Harding confer in Washington.
  • July 1 -- Judson Welliver writes to Senator Borah, complaining of Harding.
  • July 4 -- Harding and Coolidge campaign phonograph records released.
  • July 5 -- Democratic Party nominates James M. Cox for president.
  • July 6 -- Democratic Party nominates Franklin D. Roosevelt for vice-president.
  • July 14 -- Farmer-Labor Party nominates Parley Christensen for president and
    Max Hayes for vice president.
  • July 14 -- Single Tax Party nominates Robert C. MacAuley for president.
  • July 10 -- Warren G. Harding announces Calvin Coolidge will sit in cabinet.
  • July 12 -- Vermont Governor Percival Clements declines to call a special
    legislative session to ratify the 19th Amendment.
  • July 16 -- Vice President Thomas Marshall telegraphs congratulations to
    Coolidge.
  • July 18 -- James M. Cox and FDR confer with Wilson at the White House.
  • July 20 -- George White of Ohio replaces Homer Cummings as Democratic
    National Chairman.
  • July 22 -- Prohibition Party, meeting at Omaha, nominates Aaron S. Watkins for
    president and D. Leigh Colvin for vice-president.
  • July 22 -- Warren G. Harding notified of nomination at Marion, Ohio.
  • July 27 -- Calvin Coolidge notified of nomination at Northampton, Massachusetts.
  • Aug. 6 -- Franklin D. Roosevelt retires from the Navy Department.
  • Aug. 6 -- Former Massachusetts Senator Murray Crane falls into a coma.
  • Aug. 8 -- Cox official notified of nomination; Cox refuses FDR's request to sit in
    on cabinet.
  • Aug. 10 -- Marcus Garvey apologizes to New York District Attorney Swann to
    avoid a libel suit.
  • Aug. 9 -- Franklin D. Roosevelt officially notified of nomination at Hyde Park
  • Aug. 11 -- J. E. Ferguson and W. J. Hough nominated by American Party at Fort
    Worth.
  • Aug. 11 -- Aaron S. Watkins receives notification of Prohibition Party nomination.
  • Aug. 17 -- Marcus Garvey elected provisional president of Africa.
  • Aug. 17 -- The North Carolina Senate votes to delay action on suffrage until
    1921.
  • Aug. 18 -- FDR boasts of writing Haiti's constitution.
  • Aug. 18 -- Delegation from the Society of American Indians meets separately
    with Harding and Cox.
  • Aug. 20 -- Harding campaign announces Lillian Russell will campaign for the
    ticket.
  • Aug. 21 -- FDR praises Centralia incident.
  • Aug. 24 -- Al Jolson and "Harding and Coolidge Theatrical League of America"
    visit Marion, Ohio.
  • Aug. 28 -- Tennessee ratifies the 19th Amendment.
  • Aug. 28 -- Harding declares himself in favor of "an association of nations."
  • Aug. 28 -- Secretary of State Colby ratifies the 19th Amendment.
  • Aug. 30 -- Socialist-Labor Party nominates William W. Cox and August Gillhaus.
  • Sept. 2 -- Chicago Cubs visit Marion.
  • Sept. 7 -- Warren Harding begins first campaign swing.
  • Sept. 8 -- Harding addresses crowd of 40,000 at Minnesota State Fair.
  • Sept. 11 -- Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti indicted for South Braintree
    robbery.
  • Sept. 14 -- Connecticut ratifies the 19th Amendment.
  • Sept. 14 -- James Wadsworth Jr. defeats Ella A. Boole for the Republican
    nomination for United State Senate in New York; Lt. Gov. Harry C. Walker
    defeats Schenectady Mayor George Lunn in the Democratic primary.
  • Sept. 16 -- Wall Street bombed by Sacco and Vanzetti associate Michael Buda.
  • Sept. 18 -- "Foreign Voters Day" in Marion.
  • Sept. 21 -- Three Socialist members again expelled from New York State
    Assembly.
  • Sept. 23 -- Two seated Socialists resign from New York State Assembly.
  • Sept. 28 -- Seven White Sox players indicted for throwing the 1919 World
    Series.
  • Oct. -- William Estabrook Chancellor's handbills begin circulating re: Harding
    ancestry.
  • Oct. 2 -- Senator Murray Crane dies.
  • Oct. 4 -- Funeral of Murray Crane; Coolidge refuses to be photographed with
    Lodge.
  • Oct. 7 -- Harding in Des Moines calls not for "interpretation but rejection" of the
    league.
  • Oct. 7 -- Journalist John Reed dies at Moscow.
  • Oct. 9 -- Prof. Irving Fisher organizes pro-League League Independents.
  • Oct. 14 -- Statement of the 31 (pro-League Republicans) endorses Harding.
  • Oct. 24 -- Republican National Committee reveals Rathom letter to FDR re:
    Newport navy scandals.
  • Oct. 25 - FDR sues John Rathom for $500,000 for criminal libel.
  • Oct. 26 - Archibald MacLeish and Hoover League of Harvard question Hoover:
    Harding and League.
  • Oct. 28 -- Woodrow Wilson makes first statement of campaign, doesn't mention
    Cox.
  • Oct. 28 -- Calvin Coolidge campaigns in Manhattan; Grace Coolidge leads a
    torchlight parade in Boston.
  • Oct. 29 -- Wooster College fires William E. Chancellor.
  • Oct. -- Widespread nightrider raids on black-owned cotton gins reported in
    Georgia and Alabama.
  • Oct. -- G. H. Putnam & Son announced plans to issue a volume called The
    Cause of World Unrest, treating the Protocols of Zion as genuine.
  • Oct. -- Henry Ford issues a 25-cent, 250-page paperback version of The
    International Jew.
  • Nov. 1 -- Dayton Journal sues Chancellor for libel.
  • Nov. 2 -- Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge elected in landslide.
  • Nov. 2 -- Pittsburgh's KDKA broadcasts election returns.
  • Nov. 2 -- New York Governor Alfred E. Smith and Tennessee Governor Albert
    H. Roberts defeated for re-election.
  • Nov. 2 -- Second woman elected to Congress, Oklahoma's Alice Robertson.
  • Nov. 2 -- Texas elects its first Republican congressman, Harry McLeary
    Wurzbach.
  • Nov. 2 -- Champ Clark, Victor Berger, and Cordell Hull defeated for Congress.
  • Nov. 2 -- California referendum approves alien land bill.
  • Nov. 2 -- Ocoee, Florida burned to ground after two black men attempt to vote.
  • Nov. 3 -- Nan Britton meets with Harding in Marion.
  • Nov. 20 -- Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Woodrow Wilson.
  • Nov. 26 -- Oklahoma Republican leader Jake Hamon dies of gunshot wound.
  • Dec. 16 -- Calvin Coolidge agrees to attend Cabinet meetings.
  • Dec. 19 -- Anti-Cigarette League asks President-Elect Harding not to use
    cigarettes.----