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“Don't You Hear all the Railroad Men Squeak?”: William G. McAdoo, the United States Railroad Administration, and the Democratic Presidential Nomination of 1924

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 April 2014

DOUGLAS B. CRAIG
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Abstract

William Gibbs McAdoo is best known as the other half of the great Democratic Party meltdown at the party's national convention in 1924, when he and Alfred E. Smith fought for the presidential nomination over nine days and 102 ballots. We know much about Smith, but much less about what McAdoo stood for and what constituencies he appealed to during his unsuccessful campaign for that nomination. This article puts some flesh on the bones of McAdoo's candidacy in 1924 by looking more closely at his nomination platform and strategy, and by showing how his term as director general of the United States Railroad Administration (USRRA) in 1918 was pivotal in his campaign for the presidential nomination in 1924. At the USRRA McAdoo used federal control not only to rationalize the railroads but also to create an electoral constituency for his presidential ambitions. Although his time at the helm of the USRRA finished at the end of 1918, McAdoo remained prominent in the debate over its fate and then assiduous in his attempts to cash in the political chips he had accumulated through his work with it.

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Articles
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 48 , Issue 3 , August 2014 , pp. 777 - 795
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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References

1 For accounts of the tumultuous Democratic national convention in 1924 see Burner, David, The Politics of Provincialism: The Democratic Party in Transition, 1918–1932 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970)Google Scholar; Craig, Douglas B., After Wilson: The Struggle for the Democratic Party, 1920–1934 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992)Google Scholar; Craig, , Progressives at War: Newton D. Baker and William G. McAdoo, 1863–1941 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013)Google Scholar; and Murray, Robert K., The 103rd Ballot: Democrats and the Disaster at Madison Square Garden (New York: Harper and Row, 1976)Google Scholar.

2 Hines, Walker D., War History of American Railroads (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1928)Google Scholar.

3 Kerr, J. Austin, American Railroad Politics, 1914–1920: Rates, Wages and Efficiency (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1968)Google Scholar.

4 Kennedy, David M., Over Here: The First World War and American Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 253Google Scholar; and Skowronek, Stephen, Building a New American State: The Expansion of National Administrative Capabilities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 279CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 “The Railroads and the Government,” The West at Work, July 1918, 24; Higgs, Robert, Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 129Google Scholar; Kerr, 44–48; Koistinen, Paul A. C., Mobilizing for Modern War: The Political Economy of Modern Warfare, 1865–1919 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1997), 174Google Scholar; and Palmer, Frederick A., Newton D. Baker: America at War (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1931), Volume I, 133Google Scholar.

6 Kerr, J. Austin, “Decision for Federal Control: Wilson, McAdoo and the Railroads, 1917,” Journal of American History, 54 (Dec. 1957), 550–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 557, and Skowronek, 276.

7 For McAdoo's biography before his term as director general of the USRRA see Craig, Progressives at War, 11–196.

8 Ibid., 198. Samuel Untermeyer to William G. McAdoo (hereafter WGM), 14 Dec. 1917, Papers of McAdoo, William(Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC) (hereafter McAdoo MSS), Container 193, File “Dec. 14 1917,” and WGM to Woodrow Wilson, 15 Dec. 1917, in The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, ed. Link, Arthur S. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966–94), 69 vols.Google Scholar, Volume XLV, 304. Theodore H. Price to Woodrow Wilson, 7 Dec. 1917, McAdoo MSS, Container 528, File “Dec., 1917”; Joseph P. Tumulty to Wilson, 7 Dec. 1917, in The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, Volume XLV, 232; Baruch, Bernard M., The Public Years (London: Odhams Press, 1960), 42Google Scholar; Kerr, American Railroad Politics, 69; and WGM to Mary Synon, 26 April 1920, McAdoo MSS, Container 506.

9 New York Times (hereafter NYT), 27 Dec. 1917, 1: 5–8, 2: 1–5; and Kennedy, 254.

10 See Creel, George, Rebel at Large: Recollections of Fifty Crowded Years (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1947), 268Google Scholar, Synon, Mary, McAdoo: The Man and His Times – A Panorama in Democracy (Indianapolis: Bobbs Merrill, 1924), 9Google Scholar; Life, 12 Dec. 1918, 897 McAdoo MSS, Container 215, File “Dec. 14, 1918”; “William Gibbs McAdoo as War Finance Minister,” The West and the World, July 1918, McAdoo MSS, Container 207, File “July 29 1918”; Thomas Randolph to WGM, 31 Dec. 1917; and Bruce Barton to WGM, 31 Dec. 1917, McAdoo MSS, Container 194, File “Jan. 3, 1917.” See also the Springfield (MA) Republican, 31 Dec. 1917 and 2 Jan. 1918, McAdoo MSS, Container 194, File “Jan. 4, 1917.” New and Gillett quoted in NYT, 28 Dec. 1917, 3: 3. McCormick quoted in Chicago Sunday Tribune, 25 Aug. 1918, 8, McAdoo MSS, Container 209, File “Sept. 4, 1918.” WGM, “To All Railroad Officers and Employees,” 8 Jan. 1918, McAdoo MSS, Container 194, File “Jan. 8, 1918”; and WGM, Crowded Years: The Reminiscences of William Gibbs McAdoo (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1931), 460Google Scholar.

11 See Senator Joseph E. Ramsdell to WGM, 22 May 1918 and WGM reply, 23 May 1918, McAdoo MSS, Container 204, File “May 22 1918.” WGM quoted in “To All Railroad Officers and Employees,” 8 Jan. 1918, McAdoo MSS, Container 194, File “Jan. 8, 1918”; and WGM, Crowded Years, 460.

12 “Is Uncle Sam to Keep the Railroads?”, The Independent, 30 Nov. 1918, 286–87, McAdoo MSS, Container 611.

13 Kerr, American Railroad Politics, 78–80.

14 Ibid., 40.

15 WGM, “How the Railroads Saved a Critical Situation in the Great War for the Allies,” 17 May 1919, William G. McAdoo Papers at the Charles E. Young Research Library Department of Special Collections at the University of California at Los Angeles (hereafter UCLA-Mac MSS), Box 12, Folder 1; and WGM to Herbert C. Hoover, 15 March 1918, McAdoo MSS, Container 198, File “Mar. 15, 1918.” WGM to Senator Jos. E. Ransdell, 4 Sept. 1918 and to Josephus Daniels, 24 Oct. 1918, McAdoo MSS, Container 500–1, Part 1, and Synon, 325. WGM, “Report to the President,” 3 Sept. 1918, McAdoo MSS, Container 557, File “Annual Reports”; Carl R. Gray, director of USRRA Traffic Division, to WGM, 20 Jan. 1918, McAdoo MSS, Container 195, File “Jan 20, 1918”; “Is Uncle Sam to Keep the Railroads?” The Independent, 30 Nov. 1918, 286–88, McAdoo MSS, Container 611; Higgs, Crisis and Leviathan, 146; Hines, War History of American Railroads, 124; and WGM, Crowded Years, 479–87.

16 Craig, Progressives at War, 201.

17 Hines, 154–55, and Kennedy, 255. For details on standards and costs of living for workers in 1917 see the Bureau of Applied Economics, Standards of Living: A Compilation of Budgetary Studies, Bulletin 7, preserved in McAdoo MSS, Container 557, File “Railroad Administration.” According to the bureau's studies, an industrial worker in Falls River, Massachusetts needed $1,573.90 per year (or $131.16 per month) to support himself, his wife, and three children younger than 14 “in a standard of health and decency.” A Pacific Coast worker required $1,476.40, or $123.03 per month.

18 Craig, Progressives at War, 202. The equivalent of $250 in 1918 is, on the basis of changes to the Consumer Price Index, $3,810 in 2012; see www.measuringworth.com/calculators/uscompare/result.php.

19 Kerr, American Railroad Politics, 96.

20 WGM to W. H. Workman, 10 April 1923, McAdoo MSS, Container 276, File “Apr 10, 1923.”

21 Julius Gordon to WGM, 20 June 1922, McAdoo MSS, Container 269, File “Oct. 2, 1922.”

22 USRRA, “Railroad Wage Commission,” 18 Jan. 1918, McAdoo MSS, Container 195, File “Jan. 18, 1918”; USRRA, “Report of the Railroad Wage Commission to the Director-General of Railroads,” 30 April 1918, UCLA-Mac MSS, Box 14; WGM, “General Order No. 27: Wages of Railroad Employees,” 25 May 1918, McAdoo MSS, Container 556, File “General Orders Nos 24–27”; NYT, 27 May 1918, 1: 1, 4: 5–7; Hines, 155, 169–70, Kennedy, 255; WGM, Crowded Years, 488 ff.; and Higgs, Crisis and Leviathan, 146.

23 WGM MSS, Container 556, File “General Orders Nos 28–65.”

24 Kerr, American Railroad Politics, 93, 112; and NYT, 27 May 1918, 4: 7.

25 Craig, Progressives at War, 202.

26 WGM to Thomas B. Love, 17 April 1918, McAdoo MSS, Container 201, File “Apr. 17, 1918.”

27 Kennedy, 255, NYT, 1 June 1918, 10: 4; and WGM to Railroad Union Leaders, 28 Aug. 1918, McAdoo MSS, Container 209, File “Aug. 28, 1918.”

28 WGM, “To All Officers and Employees in the Railroad Service of the United States,” 31 Aug. 1918, McAdoo MSS, Container 525, File “W. Wilson to McAdoo, Aug 29 1918,” and [unsigned] “Memorandum for the Secretary,” 23 Sept. 1918, McAdoo MSS, Container 210, File “Sept. 23 1918.”

29 WGM quoted in Higgs, Crisis and Leviathan, 146. NYT, 4 Feb. 1923, I, 8: 1; and Clerks of the Northern Pacific Head of the Bay Freight Office to WGM, 11 May 1918, McAdoo MSS, Container 203, File “May 11 1918.” The capitalisation is the clerks'.

30 Craig, Progressives at War, 204.WGM to Edward M. House, 29 Nov. 1918, WGM MSS, Container 500–2; WGM to Walker D. Hines, 23 Jan. 1919, McAdoo MSS, Container 217, File “Jan. 23, 1919”; and Hines to WGM, 12 March 1919, McAdoo MSS, Container 218, File “Mar 12 1919.”

31 “The Shadow of Government Ownership,” Springfield (IL) Republican, 30 July 1918, McAdoo MSS, Container 208, File “Aug. 15, 1918.”

32 Robert W. Woolley to WGM, 18 Sept. 1919, McAdoo MSS, Container 224, File “Sept. 18, 1919.”

33 See NYT, 18 Dec. 1918, in the Papers of Charles S. Hamlin, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC, Scrapbooks, Reel 57.

34 WGM to Paul W. Brown, 5 Jan. 1918 [1919], McAdoo MSS, Container 216, File “Jan 5 1919.”

35 WGM to Wilson, 25 Nov. 1918, in The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, Volume LXIII, 190; Walker D. Hines to WGM, 26 Nov. 1918, McAdoo MSS, Container 214, File “Nov. 26, 1918”; WGM to Representative T. W. Sims, 11 Dec. 1918, McAdoo MSS, Container 500–2, Pt. 2; and WGM to William Sproule of the USRRA, 14 Dec. 1918, McAdoo MSS, Container 215, File “Dec. 14, 1918.”

36 Craig, Progressives at War, 205; NYT, 4 Jan. 1919, 1: 3, and 5 Jan. 1919, VIII, 3; and WGM to Frank B. Miles, 17 Jan. 1919, McAdoo MSS, Container 217, File “Jan. 17, 1919.”

37 Kerr, American Railroad Politics, 160–64; R. S. Lovett of the USRRA to WGM, “Outline of a Permanent Railroad Policy,” 27 Nov. 1918, McAdoo MSS, Container 214, File “Nov. 27, 1918”; Dawley, Alan, Changing the World: American Progressives in War and Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 283–84Google Scholar; and Thompson, John A., Reformers and War: American Progressive Publicists and the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 256CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 NYT, 13 Dec. 1918, 14: 1. See also the Journal of Commerce, 13 Dec. 1918, McAdoo MSS, Reel 57, Scrapbooks.

39 WGM to Albert Shaw, 31 Dec. 1918, McAdoo MSS, Container 216, File “Dec. 31, 1918”; WGM to Wilson, 25 Feb. 1919, Walker D. Hines to Wilson, 26 Feb. 1919, in The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, Volume LXV, 256–60; WGM to Hines, 25 Feb. 1919, McAdoo MSS, Container 218, File “Feb. 25, 1919”; Walker D. Hines to Wilson, 4 April 1919, in The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, Volume LXVI, 620–23; WGM to Joseph P. Tumulty, 24 Nov. 1919, McAdoo MSS, Container 226, File “Nov. 24, 1919”; and Skowronek, Building a New American State, 279.

40 Skowronek, 279–82; Dawley, 283.

41 See, for example, WGM to Robert W. Woolley, 15 July 1920, McAdoo MSS, Container 238, File “Jul 15, 1920.”

42 See, for example, WGM to C. P. J. Mooney, managing editor of the Commercial Appeal (Memphis), 18 Dec. 1923, McAdoo MSS, Container 288, File “Dec. 18, 1923”; WGM, speech at Indianapolis, 16 Oct. 1920, UCLA-Mac MSS, Box 12; WGM to Prof. Royal Meeker, 28 April 1920, McAdoo MSS, Container 506; and Kerr, American Railroad Politics, 174–78.

43 “McAdoo's Toot,” Telfair Enterprise, 22 Nov. 1923, McAdoo MSS, Container 287, File “Dec. 8, 1923.”

44 Craig, Progressives at War, 206; Hines, War History of American Railroads, 233; Kennedy, Over Here, 255–56; and McGerr, Michael, A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, 1870–1920 (New York: The Free Press, 2003), 303Google Scholar.

45 E. Watkins to WGM, 8 April 1918, and E. Walter Giles to WGM, 18 April 1918, McAdoo MSS, Container 201, Files “Apr. 12, 1918” and “Apr. 18, 1918”; “Goodbye Mr McAdoo,” Macon (GA) Daily Telegraph, 29 Sept. 1920, McAdoo MSS, Container 638; and WGM to John T. Ernhard, 5 March 1921, McAdoo MSS, Container 511.

46 See WGM to Dixon C. Williams, 7 Feb. 1920, McAdoo MSS, Container 501–1; Walter Lippmann, “Two Leading Democratic Candidates,” New Republic, 2 June 1920, McAdoo MSS, Container 236, File “June 2 1920”; WGM to John McMurray, 20 April 1920, McAdoo MSS, Container 233, File “Apr. 20, 1920”; and Craig, After Wilson, 15–21.

47 Craig, Progressives at War, 225.

48 Albert S. Burleson to WGM, 16 May 1920. McAdoo MSS, Container 234, File “May 16, 1920.”

49 WGM to Eleanor McAdoo, 5 May 1920, The Wilson–McAdoo Family Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC, Container 1, File “McAdoo, William G., 1918–23.” The underlining is WGM's.

50 Craig, Progressives at War, 224–30.

51 Craig, After Wilson, 14–18.

52 WGM to Lewis C. Humphrey, 14 Sept. 1923, McAdoo MSS, Container 283, File “Sept. 14, 1923.”

53 WGM to J. W. Rixey Smith, 3 Jan. 1922, McAdoo MSS, Container 259, File “Jan. 3, 1922”; Keene, Jennifer D., Doughboys, the Great War and the Remaking of America (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011), 171–75Google Scholar; and Craig, After Wilson, 16.

54 Craig, Progressives at War, 261–63.

55 WGM to Herbert Croly, 8 Dec. 1923, McAdoo MSS, Container 287, File “December 8, 1923.”

56 WGM to Dixon Williams, 7 July 1922, McAdoo MSS, Container 265, File “Jul. 7, 1922”; and NYT, 10 March 1922, 17: 2.

57 WGM to Byron Newton, 2 Jan. 1922, McAdoo MSS, Container 259, File “Jan. 2, 1922.”

58 WGM to William L. O'Connell, chairman of the Illinois McAdoo Committee, 21 March 1924, McAdoo MSS, Container 298, File “Mar. 21, 1924.”

59 “Back to Honesty,” McAdoo Primary Campaign pamphlet, Tennessee, McAdoo MSS, Container 300, File “Apr. 7, 1924.”

60 WGM, “Jackson Day Address, January 8 1924,” “Fundamentals of Democracy, April 7 1924,” McAdoo MSS, Container 565, File “Speeches, 1924–1926”; and WGM, “Open Letter to William L. O'Connell,” 21 March 1924, McAdoo MSS, Container 565, File “Speeches, 1924–1926.”

61 “Back to Honesty.”

62 David Ladd Rockwell, “McAdoo for President,” McAdoo MSS, Container 292, File “Jan. 15, 1924”; and George Fort Milton, “What Mr McAdoo Stands for,” The Outlook, Jan. 1924, McAdoo MSS, Container 605.

63 Craig, Progressives at War, 262, NYT, 13 and 14 Nov. 1922, 23: 2 and 18: 1. WGM, “The Living Wage,” Labor, Feb. 1923, McAdoo MSS, Container 657, File “Articles, 1910–32”; and NYT, 24 Feb. 1923, 7: 4.

64 Executive Committee of the Southern Pacific Company, letter to shareholders, 11 Jan. 1924, McAdoo MSS, Container 291, File “Jan. 11, 1924.”

65 Craig, After Wilson, 45, WGM to Senator Furnifold Simmons, 11 Jan. 1924, McAdoo MSS, Container 291, File “Jan. 11, 1924”; and WGM, “Privilege vs. Just Tax Reduction,” radio address, 8 Jan. 1924, McAdoo MSS, Container 648, File “FHM, WGM, D. Roper, Income Tax 1925, #3.” See McAdoo MSS, Container 285, for scattered but numerous references to business opinion on WGM's tilt for the 1924 Democratic presidential nomination.

66 New York World, March 1924, McAdoo MSS, Container 299, File “Mar. 28, 1924.”

67 Thomas L. Chadbourne to WGM, 30 Nov. 1923, McAdoo MSS, Container 287, File “Nov. 30, 1923”; Breckinridge Long to Edward M. House, 19 Jan. 1924, Breckinridge Long Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC, Subject File, Container 172, File “1924 (V)”; House to Long, 15 Jan. 1924, Long Papers, Subject File, Container 172; and Craig, After Wilson, 46.

68 WGM to Louis C. Humphrey, 14 Sept. 1923, McAdoo MSS, Container 283, File “Sept. 14, 1923.”

69 Kerr, American Railroad Politics, 89–90.

70 Charles H. V. Lewis to WGM, 8 Dec. 1923, McAdoo MSS, Container 287, File “Dec. 8, 1923.” Burner, The Politics of Provincialism, 130; and Angus Wilson McLean to WGM, 13 Dec. 1923, McAdoo MSS, Container 288, File “Dec. 13, 1923.”

71 WGM to Louis C. Humphrey, 14 Sept. 1923, McAdoo MSS, Container 283, File “Sept. 14, 1923.”

72 George Fort Milton to Brice Clagett, 3 April 1924, McAdoo MSS, Container 301, File “April 23, 1924.”

73 WGM to Edward Keating, 16 March 1931, McAdoo MSS, Container 357, File “Mar. 16, 1931.” The underlining is WGM's.

74 See Craig, After Wilson, 44–50.

75 Craig, Progressives at War, 283.

76 WGM to Charles Edward Russell, 19 July 1924, McAdoo MSS, Container 307, File “July 19, 1924.”

77 Autobiography of Thomas L. Chadbourne, ed. Charles C. Goetsch and Margaret L. Chivers (New York: Oceana Publications, 1985), 189–92.

78 Craig, Progressives at War, 207; Higgs, Crisis and Leviathan, 145–47; Shook, William G. McAdoo, 3, 380; Leuchtenburg, William E., “The New Deal and the Analogue of War,” in Braeman, John et al. , eds., Change and Continuity in Twentieth-Century America (Athens: Ohio State University Press, 1964), 81–143Google Scholar.