On this date in history, party bosses gathered in a suite at the Blackstone Hotel to choose the President of the United States. And a new phrase entered the political dictionary.
In 1920, Democrat Woodrow Wilson was finishing up eight years in the White House. The Republican Convention was being held at the Chicago Coliseum that June, and it looked like a good year for the party. The country was in the mood for change.
The political conventions of today are nothing more than media events--by the time the opening gavel is banged, one candidate has locked up the nomination. That wasn't the case in 1920. Back then local party bosses controlled things. Several roll-call ballots were usually needed to pick a nominee.
When the Republicans gathered, there were two front-runners--General Leonard Wood and Illinois Governor Frank Lowden. The balloting began. Neither man could get a majority. The party elders called a recess, then met behind closed doors at the Blackstone to work out a compromise.
Warren G. Harding was a Senator from Ohio. He was one of the minor candidates, and few people outside his state had ever heard of him. His main selling point seemed to be that he "looked like a President."
"He looks like a President."
Harry Daugherty, Harding's campaign manager, had predicted the convention deadlock. Then, he said, at about 2 in the morning, 15 or 20 men would be sitting around a table in a smoke-filled room, bleary-eyed from heat and lack of sleep. The men would be looking for the best presidential candidate.
"At that decisive time," Daugherty declared, "the friends of Senator Harding will suggest him."
Daugherty was quite a prophet. After several hours of wrangling, the party bosses summoned Harding to the power suite at the Blackstone. It was just after 2 a.m.
Harding was asked if there were anything in his past that might embarrass the party. He said there was not. He didn't mention that he'd fathered a child outside his marriage--a big no-no in 1920.
So the bosses annointed Harding. He was quickly nominated, and won the November election in a landslide. When he died in office in 1923, he was one of the most popular presidents in history.
And today--even with all the restrictions on smoking--we still call a private gathering of political fixers a "smoke-filled room."
UNKNOWN CHICAGO SOURCE: Moos, The Republicans (1956
10 Jun, 2011--
Source: http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/unknown-chicago/2011/06/the-smoke-filled-room-6-10-1920.html
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