31: 7. Harding's Landslide Victory and the Role of Radio David Pietrusza 1920: The Year of the Six Presidents Eugene Debs, the Socialist candidate, ran while imprisoned in Atlanta Penitentiary for speaking against the draft; Wilson refused him clemency. The 1
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
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🗓️ 27 October 2025
⏱️ 11 minutes
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Summary
David Pietrusza
1920: The Year of the Six Presidents
Eugene Debs, the Socialist candidate, ran while imprisoned in Atlanta Penitentiary for speaking against the draft; Wilson refused him clemency. The 1920 election resulted in an overwhelming Republican sweep. Harding's "front porch campaign" was a professional event organized by Albert Lasker, attracting hundreds of thousands of people, including show business figures like Al Jolson. Election results were broadcast via early radio from a Pittsburgh department store roof and by projection onto buildings. Harding won decisively with 15 million votes (60%) and 404 electoral votes. Though deeply mourned when he died in 1923 from a heart attack, Harding had focused on debt reduction and resisted manipulation from advisors. Calvin Coolidge was sworn in by his father in remote Plymouth Notch, Vermont.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm John Batchel with David Petrucia. His book is 1920, the year of the six presidents. |
| 0:05.0 | Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Franklin Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, |
| 0:12.0 | and Herbert Hoover are the six presidents. One man who will not become a president. |
| 0:17.0 | He is, however, a candidate again on the Socialist Party ticket. He's a state senator |
| 0:23.8 | from Indiana. His name is Eugene Debs. He wins less than a million votes in the 1920 election. |
| 0:30.9 | This is the year after a strikes across the country, frightening the nation, frightening both parties. |
| 0:39.3 | It becomes a quest to destroy the radicals associated with the Bolsheviks of Russia. |
| 0:46.3 | America is reading the headlines from Europe that is |
| 0:50.3 | torn apart in Bolshevik revolution or socialist revolution or communist revolution. |
| 0:56.5 | Germany is torn apart and creates the conditions that we know will be the tragedies of the 1930s. |
| 1:03.5 | Where is Eugene Debs running for president, David? |
| 1:07.5 | He's in the pen. He's in Atlanta penitentiary. And the reason is because he had spoken |
| 1:15.5 | out against the war. The mother of the Socialist Party during World War I was anti-war. He had |
| 1:23.9 | spoken out against the draft. And I think they got him on the sedition act uh prosecuted him |
| 1:30.6 | wilson was as i as i said earlier not used to brooking opposition and he was determined that as long |
| 1:39.7 | as he was president uh eugene v devd even though war was over, was never going to be granted clemency |
| 1:46.2 | or be led out of jail. He's pretty popular. Debs is pretty popular with his fellow prisoners. He's |
| 1:53.4 | able to issue statements from his jail cell. The newsreel cameras even come in. |
| 2:04.9 | And the photographers come in for his announcement. |
| 2:10.2 | Candidates used to get notified after the convention. |
| 2:13.1 | Like big surprise, hey, guess what? |
| 2:16.9 | We nominated you, Calvin Coolidge for vice president. And then they would go to North Hampton, |
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