By Mark Rhoads
Frank O. Lowden was a widely-respected, hard-working, honorable, decent, and effective governor of Illinois during World War I who won a national following in the Republican Party. A former U.S. Congressman from Oregon, Illinois, he was married to the daughter of Chicago rail car company president George Pullman. Lowden was born in Minnesota in 1861. He graduated from Union College of Law (now Northwestern University School of Law) in 1887 and he taught law at Northwestern University for three years from 1889 to 1902. He moved to Oregon, Illinois in Ogle County and represented a northern Illinois district in Congress from 1907 to 1911.
Frank Lowden was elected governor in 1916 and took office only weeks before America's entry into World War I in April 1917 when his first duty became raising troops for the Illinois National Guard. The ground where the state fair is now located outside of Springfield was then called Camp Lowden for the training of Illinois National Guard troops who joined the 33rd Division in Europe. Camp Grant was located near Rockford. Among the officers of the Illinois National Guard who went to Europe in 1917 with the 33rd Division were Col. Robert H. McCormick, publisher of the Chicago Daily Tribune and later founder of WGN Radio and TV. An enlisted man in the First Illinois Cavalry, Marshall Field III, was promoted to Captain when the unit became the 122nd Field Artillery in Europe. In addition to the department store company, Field would later own the Chicago Daily News and the Chicago Sun-Times.
The 1920 Republican National Convention was held at the Chicago Coliseum from June 8 to June 12. Because of its central location and rail hub, Chicago has played host to more national political conventions than any other American city. They included 14 Republican National Conventions from 1860 to 1960 and 11 Democratic National Conventions with the last one in 1996. The Bull Moose Conventions of 1912 and 1916 were also in Chicago. From 1900 to 1952, Chicago often played host to both major conventions in the same summer. But this particular Republican convention in 1920 became a legend in American politics because it popularized the phrase "smoke-filled room" in American political folklore. The deal made in the smoke-filled room was also predicted weeks in advance. Gov. Frank Lowden made a very serious bid for the presidential nomination, not just as a favorite son of Illinois, but with broad national support.
On the first ballot, Gen. Leonard Wood of Missouri led with 287.5 votes or 29.3 percent of the delegates. Gov. Lowden was in second place with 211.5 delegate votes or 21.5 percent. Gov. Hiram Johnson of California, who ran as the Bull Moose nominee for Vice President with Teddy Roosevelt in 1912, was in third place with 133.5 votes or 13.6 percent. Among the other famous names with small delegate support were three future presidents including Sen. Warren G. Harding of Ohio, Herbert Hoover of Iowa, and Gov. Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts (who grew up in Vermont). Other candidates were Sen. William Borah of Idaho (who grew up in Illinois), and Sen. Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin. By the time of the Sixth Ballot, Gov. Lowden and Gen. Wood were tied with 311.5 votes each.
On the Eighth Ballot, Gov. Lowden was in first place leading Gen. Wood by eight votes but there was a visible shift to Sen. Warren Harding as a compromise choice in third place with 133.5 votes. Harry Dougherty, the campaign manager for Harding, began selling Harding as the least offensive second choice to delegates who were tired of the seeing little movement in the deadlock between Lowden and Wood. Between the Eighth and Ninth Ballots, a deal was made in the classic smoke filled room and the second choice strategy worked. Harding surged into a big lead with Lowden support dropping to third place and Wood back in second place. On the tenth and final ballot. Lowden and other candidates threw their support in a delegate stampede to Harding who won almost 70 percent of the votes and the nomination.
The deal that focused on Warren Harding as a compromise choice turned out to be a disastrous bargain for the GOP and the nation. The war was over. It had been eight years since the party split between the stand pat and Bull Moose reform wings. President Wilson had been sick most of his second term and his dream of the League of Nations was rejected by the Senate. But Warren Harding was a very bland candidate and GOP managers thought that was his charm, that he represented "a return to normalcy" after eight years of tumult and war under Wilson. In reality, Harding was bad candidate who won anyway and he was a terrible president who could not control the scandals of his administration, the most famous of which was The Teapot Dome oil reserves scandal. On their worst day, Lowden, Wood, Hiram Johnson, or several other GOP candidates all would have been far superior presidents to Harding, but none could get the nomination because of a stalemate with the others. Calvin Coolidge was the Vice President and he succeeded to office in August 1923 when Harding had a fatal heart attack on a visit to San Francisco. The Harding funeral train rolled through Illinois on the way back east to Ohio and thousands lined the tracks as it passed through towns such as Elmhurst in Du Page County.
Frank Lowden left the Illinois Governor's mansion in January 1921 to return to private business. President Coolidge offered Lowden the GOP Vice Presidential nomination in 1924 but Lowden turned down the nomination because he thought he would be happier in private business than in the mostly ceremonial office of Vice President. Still wanting a good candidate from Illinois because of the state's electoral college importance, the convention turned to banker and former Gen. Charles Dawes of Evanston to run with Coolidge in a successful campaign. The name of Dawes was not well known on the national level but he had a long pedigree of outstanding accomplishments in his life of private business and public service. See previous Illinois Hall of Fame on Charles Dawes by clicking on the Famous Illinoisans department at right. Frank Lowden never ran for office again after 1921 and he remained active in business as a director of several corporations. He was a founder and principal benefactor of The Farm Foundation along with International Harvester President Alexander Legge of Hinsdale. Lowden served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Farm Foundation for the last ten years of his life from 1933 to 1943 when he died at age 82. In his will he left 21,000 acres in Arkansas to the Farm Foundation.
