November 5 1924
WITH fair weather and moderate temperatures prevailing virtually everywhere, the great American electorate early this morning began balloting for the President, the Vice-President, the members of Congress, and the State Governors.
It is stated that before sunset, when the polls close, a perfect avalanche of votes will have been cast.
The chief candidates for the Presidency, Mr Calvin Coolidge (Republican) and Mr John Davis (Democrat), yesterday evening, by means of an intricate technical wireless arrangement, delivered their last pleas to invisible audiences, numbering many millions, in all parts of the country. Each appealed for support. Neither made direct reference to the other.
Meanwhile Senator [Robert] La Follette, the Progressive candidate, was journeying homewards to vote, and on his arrival he made a statement ridiculing the Republican threat that the party’s defeat would mean industrial depression, and urging progressive voters to go to the polls and give the lie to the assumption “that this country no longer boasts of a free, incorruptible and courageous citizenry”.
The representatives of the chief candidates, when the polls were opened this morning, still predicted victory for their favourites.
Whilst in no way gauging the result of the Presidential race before the returns are known those who back judgement with money offered yesterday to lay as much as 11 to 1 on Mr Coolidge over the field, the odds having considerably lengthened during the latter part of last week, when they ranged from 6 to 7 to 1.
There are still some political wiseacres who are of the opinion that with thirty million men and women eligible to vote, and the adherents of each candidate being so numerous, there is a possibility of neither candidate obtaining sufficient electoral votes to decide the issue, which would then go before Congress for settlement.
None of the Party leaders will express an opinion as to how the new Congress will stand. This is due to the fact that the Progressives in various places have nominated both Republicans and Democrats on their ticket in the Governorship contests.
Apart from the Presidential race, two Governorship contests are attracting wide attention. These are New York and Texas.
In New York, Governor [Al] Smith and Mr Theodore Roosevelt, son of the late President, have been waging a hot contest, into which considerable acrimony has entered.
In Texas, Mrs [Miriam A] Ferguson, known as “Ma”, is the Democratic candidate for the Governorship, from which her husband was ousted last year, through the instrumentality of the Ku Klux Klan under an impeachment for alleged misuse of State funds.
100 years ago, as with today, Americans went to the polls to elect a president, with Calvin Coolidge widely tipped to win.
