Lesson plan

Lesson Plan: 1924 Democratic Convention – Tension Over Immigration

Grades 8-12

Immigration has been a defining issue in a campaign before, and the consequences transformed the Democratic Party.

Political conventions are designed to choose presidential candidates, but underneath all the noise they can reveal profound truths about America. That was the case at the 1924 Democratic Convention in New York City, where the party split. New York Governor Alfred E. Smith led a faction of urban Democrats who supported a vision of a nation built on manufacturing, immigrants who provided cheap labor, and sprawling urban centers full of opportunity.

William Gibbs McAdoo represented older Democrats based in the rural South and West, firmly rooted in agrarian values, who had no love for the racial intermingling, political corruption and crime of the big cities. The fight came to a head when Smith Democrats sought a plank in the party platform that condemned the Ku Klux Klan but lost by a single vote.

That set the stage for what would be the longest continuing convention in American history. It took 103 ballots over 16 days to nominate a candidate. That candidate was neither Smith or McAdoo, but a compromise entrant, John W. Davis.

But from the disaster rose Smith’s campaign manager, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was making his first real public appearance since 1921, when he began exhibiting symptoms of polio.

Roosevelt gave a rousing nominating speech for Smith, and demonstrated that despite his illness, he was a viable candidate who could move crowds. That set the stage for his transformative election in 1932.

This six-minute video illustrates the battle between two of the most powerful trends of the 1920s: the increasing political power of urban immigrants, and the increasing influence of the Ku Klux Klan. At the 1924 Democratic Party national convention, these two forces fought to a standstill, leading to the longest convention in the history of American politics. The video is useful to lessons covering the 1924 election, or for lessons focused on the cultural and demographic changes of the 1920s.