McLaughlin Uses 1932's "Happy Days" with 1924 Convention

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Today the McLaughlin Group showed a short video of the 1924 Democratic convention in Madison Square Garden as background to a cautionary exchange on the dangers of a brokered convention. The video is accompanied by the 1932 campaign song, "Happy Days Are Here Again." This anachronism must be outed.

McLaughlin's message today was that Democrats should get a move on to avert a brokered convention. Nothing wrong with the idea that the 1924 convention took a long time - 103 ballots over ten days - as the Democrats tried to pick a challenger to incumbent Republican Calvin Coolidge. NY Governor Alfred E. Smith was deadlocked against Californian William G. McAdoo and the convention eventually settled on a compromise candidate, John W. Davis of West Virginia. The November outcome was that Democrats won only the southern states and 28.8 percent of the popular vote. The Progressive candidate got one state (Wisconsin) and 16.6 percent. Coolidge got all the other states and 54 percent.

The problem with McLaughlin's "home video" (as guest Mort Zuckerman described it with a touch of sarcasm) of the 1924 convention is that the background music is the "Happy Days" theme. It couldn't have happened. The music for this song was not written by Milton Ager until 1929. The lyrics by Jack Yellen start: "Happy days are here again, The skies above are clear again, So let's sing a song of cheer again, Happy days are here again."

We must not let the glitter of "Happy Days" be tarnished in this way. "Happy Days" was not actually used politically until the 1932 convention in Chicago, and subsequently in FDR's campaign. It was brilliantly selected, offering an alternative vision to the disaster that the U.S. economy had become under incumbent Republican President Herbert Hoover and to the many failures of Prohibition. The Democratic Party in 1932 became the locus of opposition to Prohibition as Hoover persisted in defending it, calling it a "noble experiment". FDR came out unequivocally for repeal. "Happy Days" had a double meaning - economic recovery and repeal.

I have no reason to believe that whoever put together the video deliberately tried to tar the popular Democratic anthem with the brush of eight-years-earlier electoral failure. But FDR's legacy is too important to let it go by. My father won a spot in FDR's administration via competitive exam in 1933. FDR's name was sacred when I grew up. "Happy Days" was FDR's victory cheer.

A few days ago I was at the 75th anniversary of a dinner founded by Oxford and Cambridge alumni in New York City in spring 1933 because after April 7, 1933 Americans were for the first time in a dozen years allowed to drink anything more intoxicating than half a percent alcohol. I said at the dinner: "We are celebrating today not just the end of Prohibition. We are celebrating our right to celebrate anything at all."

Comments

[MrLion]

The 1924 convention was deadlocked on account of the two-thirds rule, which was passed in order to give the South a de facto veto over the candidates they felt were unacceptable. The two-thirds rule was finally scrapped in time for the 1936 convention.

[dadw5boys]

AHH THATS OK . The Republican do it their way and look what they got. Bunch of weirdo's and the Bushes.
We will do it the hard way let the Republican use cash to buy and sell thier people we will battle just over votes.