Headline of the Day -100:
Calvin Coolidge is nominated for president on the first ballot. He’s been listening to every word of the convention on the White House radio, presumably silently.
Former Illinois governor Frank Lowden is selected as his running mate, by acclamation no less. At this point a friend reads a letter from Lowden, written just in case the Convention ignored his repeated statements that he didn’t want the job, saying his refusal is “final and irrevocable.” So a late-night session names Charles G. Dawes, who was a general during the Great War but is mostly known for the Dawes Plan for German reparations, which seems like an odd qualification for vice president, but then Coolidge was known only for breaking a police strike. Dawes was also comptroller of the currency under McKinley, a post currently held by his brother Henry. Dawes evidently had no idea this was coming – a lot of other candidates, some of them even willing, were considered before they worked their way down the list to him. It’s also a surprise to Coolidge, who presumably found out from the radio.
A lot of the drama behind the veepship struggle is caused by resentment of RNC chair William Butler’s heavy-handed attempts to force first Borah and then Judge William Kenyon and then Herbert Hoover on the Convention.
The USS Mississippi blows up in San Pedro Harbor, killing 48.
Italian Socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti is missing. “Mussolini is taking the greatest personal interest in the case”. I’ll bet he is.
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