Chicago politics
I found this old email and thought it was so fascinating I wanted to share it again.
Ever heard of Frank Orren Lowden or Leonard Wood?
Neither had I, except that I am distantly related to Mr. Lowden. He was a Congressman from 1906 to 1910, and Governor of Illinois from 1917 to 1921.
A couple of interesting things about him. Frank Lowden was nominated to be Vice President in 1924, but he refused to accept it. He would have been Coolidge's running mate, which would have made him Vice President assuming the general election had the same ending. Lowden won the nomination on the 2nd ballot, which means there was a first vote that was inconclusive. I am not sure how many ballots it took to elect Charles Dawes who was the eventual nominee.
However, I found out that in the 1920 Republican convention that Lowden was tied with Leonard Wood on the 8th ballot. The 8th!! And we think our primaries are contentious. Of course, in spite of being tied on that 8th ballot, neither of them won the nomination, which was won by Warren Gamaliel Harding. The team of Harding-Coolidge pretty much shellacked the Democratic team of James Cox and an obscure vice presidential canidate named Franklin Delano Roosevelt winning 60% of the popular vote and 76% of the electoral college. Of course, Convict 9653 was also running that year and pulled 3.41% of the vote from his prison cell, including 11.5% in Wisconsin. An obscure candidate named Parley Christiansen of the Farmer-Labor party got 1% of the vote, coming within 2% of beating the Democratic ticket in Washington state.
The other thing I cynically notice is the seeming reason for Lowden's political career. He was married to Florence Pullman, daughter of the railroad tycoon George Pullman.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
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