FDR Presages the New Deal and American Opposition to Fascism: In 1920, after losing his vice presidential run, he has the foresight to predict that the American people will yet “insist upon getting back to our high principles of progress, both national and international.”

He rightly attributes the loss “to the frame of mind the people have gotten after the strenuous efforts of the war”

The 1920 presidential election pitted Republicans Warren G. Harding (candidate for president) and Calvin Coolidge (candidate for vice president) against Democrats James Cox (candidate for president) and Franklin D. Roosevelt (candidate for vice president). Well before the campaign was officially under way, it became apparent that the 1920 election would be a referendum on the policies of outgoing President Woodrow Wilson. Wilson’s second term as president had attracted much criticism, beginning with the reversal of his 1916 campaign promise to keep the country out of World War I. His failure to involve congressional voices in his negotiation of the Treaty of Versailles - the postwar peace settlement - irritated members of both parties. His desire for the U.S. to join the League of Nations established under that treaty was vigorously opposed by the Republicans, which led to a bitter fight and the failure of the treaty’s ratification. The Roaring Twenties was just around the corner. Furthermore, in 1919–20 the Wilson administration raised the ire of progressives by siding against labor in several high-profile strikes and leading mass deportations of suspected radicals. The nation was sick of the war, sick of internationalism, sick of witch hunts, and sick of the status quo.

Harding ran a “front porch” campaign from his home in Marion, Ohio, during which he advocated lowering taxes and limiting immigration. He famously issued a call for a return to “normalcy” amid the social and political upheavals of the time. He firmly rejected membership in the League of Nations. His platform argued that it was possible to preserve peace “without the compromise of national independence, without depriving the people of the United States in advance of the right to determine for themselves what is just and fair when the occasion arises, and without involving them as participants and not as peacemakers in a multitude of quarrels, the merits of which they are unable to judge.” Harding also was highly critical of both the war effort and the peace negotiations, charging that the Wilson administration had been “unprepared” either for the war or for winning the peace.

Cox and Roosevelt, meanwhile, toured the country to promote the Democratic platform, which officially endorsed progress and a bevy of progressive causes. The Democrats were, however, in disarray, and experienced internal dissension over Prohibition and other issues. More significantly, perhaps, the Democratic platform was simply out of step with the war-weary, disillusioned mood of the country in 1920. In contrast to the Republicans, the Democratic platform advocated membership in the League of Nations “as the surest, if not the only, practicable means of maintaining the permanent peace of the world and terminating the insufferable burden of great military and naval establishments.” Late attempts by Cox to paint Harding as corrupt and Harding voters as unpatriotic were unsuccessful.

The presidential election was held on November 2, 1920, and Harding won the election handily, tallying 404 electoral votes to Cox’s 127. The margin in the popular vote was 60.3 percent to 34.1 percent, a huge differential. A defeated candidate, Roosevelt went home to New York to resume his life. And what a life it would be! He would be governor of New York during the Depression and then serve as President of the United States from 1933-1945. The measures he took to fight the Depression were the epitome of progress, and his policies that would bring the U.S. into World War II and then fighting that war through to victory, were the best kind of Americanism. At the end of World War II, the United States was the strongest and most prosperous nation in the world.

Typed letter signed, on his letterhead, November 9, 1920, to M.J. Murray of Oswego, New York, showing that at the very nadir of Democratic Party prospects, he understood the reason and predicted that the future had progress and patriotism in store. “Now that I am back from the campaign I want to send you this line to express my very sincere thanks and appreciation for all the splendid work you have done for the cause of high principles and the right kind of Americanism.

“Even though the majority vote went so strongly in favor of a complete change in our government, I ascribe it in general to the frame of mind the people have gotten after the strenuous efforts of the war. The day will soon come, however, when the average voter will insist upon getting back to our high principles of progress, both national and international.

“I feel very strongly that, as far as the Democratic organization is concerned, steps must be taken in the near future to perfect plans for the congressional and state campaign of 1922. I expect to resume the practice of law at 42 Wall Street early in December, and shall hope to have the pleasure of seeing you sometime this winter.”

Thus in 1920 did FDR presage the New Deal and American opposition to Fascism.