Although the paper's first six endorsements all went to Republicans, between 1884 and 1936 it gave the nod to every Democratic nominee except the populist William Jennings Bryan. Bryan was nominated three times, occasioning two Republican endorsements, for McKinley in 1900 and Taft in 1908. In 1896 the Times endorsed John Palmer, a Democrat who favored the gold standard and ran under the banner of the National Democratic Party. Palmer got just under 1% nationwide and a whopping 1.33% in New York state, which is why you've probably never heard of him.
The Times endorsed Republican Wendell Willkie in 1940, in part out of discomfort at the thought of giving Franklin D. Roosevelt an unprecedented third term. The Times also faulted FDR for "fostering the idea that there exists a great fund of wealth which has only to be divided more equitably in order to make everyone prosperous" and "permitting important members of his Administration to preach the doctrines of class jealousy and class hatred." Ah, the good old days.
The paper switched back to FDR in the wartime election of 1944, supporting him over Republican Thomas Dewey. It endorsed Dewey over Truman in 1948, then Eisenhower in both 1952 and 1956. In 1960, John F. Kennedy got the nod--and so did every subsequent Democrat, 13 in a row and counting.
A political endorsement is, to some extent, an act of prognostication, and as we read through the old editorials we were amused at some of the predictions that turned out to be quite wrong:
In endorsing Abraham Lincoln in 1860, the Times noted that the Senate was certain to remain under Democratic control, and thus predicted that his tenure would not be all that consequential:
There will be no hostile legislation at Washington--no "overt acts" of aggression which will call for a declaration of independence on the part of the Southern States. Things will go on very much as they have hitherto--except that we shall have honesty and manliness instead of meanness and corruption in the Executive departments, and a decent regard for the opinions of mankind in the tone and talk of the Government on the subject of Slavery.
Other than the Civil War, the prediction was accurate.
In 1872, the Times opined that "[Horace] Greeley's election would mean, so far as New-York State is concerned, the revival of Tammany, and the utter loss of all the positions we won last year.--Grant's re-election would bury Tammany and all its supporters fifty fathoms deep." Grant won, but Tammany Hall, the Democratic political machine, remained formidable until FDR's election in 1932.
Of Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, the Times predicted: "He will be carried to the White House by the force of popular confidence, made all the stronger by his non-participation in the struggle for party victory." In fact, his opponent, Democrat Samuel Tilden, received a majority of the popular vote, and Hayes became president only after a prolonged controversy over four states' electoral votes.
In 1912, the Republicans split. President Taft, the party's nominee, was challenged by former president Theodore Roosevelt as well as Democrat Woodrow Wilson. The Times issued an odd dual endorsement titled "Wilson First, Taft Second":
It is in the interest of the Nation that the Republican Party should be preserved as an organized, coherent opposition. It is of great moment, it is of urgent need, that the Republican candidate should come out second in the poll, second, not third, in the Electoral College and in the popular vote. The party will then be in a position to rebuild, to free itself from the influences that have diminished its estate, to hold again the place in the politics and in the affairs of the Nation to which it is entitled by its historic achievements.
Roosevelt surpassed Taft in both the popular vote (27% to 23%) and the electoral (88 to 8). But the schism did not last. By 1916 the party was unified behind Charles Evans Hughes, and in 1920 it again won the White House, going on to dominate politics until the stock market crash of 1929.
In 1928 the Times endorsed Alfred E. Smith on the strength of a single issue: Prohibition, which Smith opposed:
It is the first opportunity which Americans opposed to prohibition have ever had to register their opinion and make it felt by the politicians. If this opportunity is not grasped, years may pass before it comes again. All the Dry forces are militantly for Hoover. . . . If [Smith] is defeated every fortress will be in the hands of the Drys. Congress will more than ever accept the voice of the Anti-Saloon League as the voice of the American people. . . . If Hoover is elected, every anti-prohibitionist who voted for him should acquiesce in present conditions without further complaint.
Hoover was elected, but political tides turned. Less than two weeks before Hoover left office, Congress, then in Democratic hands, proposed the 21st Amendment, which was ratified by the end of 1933.
In endorsing FDR's 1936 re-election, the Times found reassurance in the calming of political rhetoric:
No responsible Republican any longer froths at the mouth in charging that President Roosevelt is setting out to be a dictator after the style of Stalin or Hitler. The wild assertions that he intends to tear up the Constitution and destroy the Supreme Court are not heard today from any serious speaker.
In 1937, however, Roosevelt proposed legislation that would have expanded the Supreme Court, allowing FDR to nominate six new members immediately. Congress balked at his "court packing" plan. As for the suggestion that FDR was setting out to be a dictator, it did arise again in 1940, when he sought a third term:
The doctrine of one man's indispensability is a new doctrine for the United States. It is a doctrine which less scrupulous men in Europe have used to root themselves in power.
That quotation is from the Times's endorsement of Wendell Willkie.
Endorsing Kennedy over Nixon in 1960, the Times praised his restraint on the then-burning question of Quemoy and Matsu, a pair of Chinese islands under Taiwanese control that the Red Chinese had attempted to conquer:
There are large areas of the world--particularly in Southeastern Asia--where ideological conflict between communism and anti-communism may break out at any moment into local warfare. Are we, as Mr. Nixon suggests, to use American manpower to prevent the loss of "one inch of free territory" in such areas? The choice is not so easy as Mr. Nixon implies. It involves the question of the intrinsic importance of each such area to the security of the United States, the question of allied assistance, the possible cost of American intervention in terms of American lives. The oversimplification of Mr. Nixon's sweeping declarations in these matters is not reassuring.
As it turned out, it was Kennedy and his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, who got America into a shooting war in Southeast Asia.
In 1984 the Times thought Walter Mondale would be a better Cold War president than the incumbent:
Lawyer Mondale offers pragmatic skill at making the best of reality. Ideologue Reagan offers the same tenacity that has brought him out diplomatically empty-handed. Who is likely to do better in arms negotiations in the next term, Walter Mondale or the President who tickles the religious right by reviling the Soviet Union as an Evil Empire?
This was not quite disproved, since Mondale never got the chance, but it's hard to imagine he could have turned out better on this score than Reagan did.
Since we've had some fun at the expense of the Times's errors, we thought we'd compile all of The Wall Street Journal's presidential endorsements and take a look at them as well. Fortunately, our job was easier than the Times guys', for here is the complete list:
- 1928: Herbert Hoover (defeated Alfred E. Smith)
The Hoover endorsement was less than full-throated, and, like many of the Times's endorsements, it cannot be reckoned a prognosticatorial triumph:
The Wall Street Journal has criticized the tariff more than it has ever praised it and regards the device of the Tariff Board as bad in principle and worse in practice. It was opposed to the Eighteenth Amendment. It regards the plea that labor is more efficient under Prohibition as a thoroughly immoral argument for chattel slavery. Nevertheless it advises its readers to vote for Hoover, as the soundest business proposition for those with a financial stake in the country.
Like Mondale and arms control, Smith never got a chance to be tested as a "business proposition." But of course things got bad enough under Hoover that it is difficult to imagine they would have been worse.
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