JUNE 23 — ELECTIONS: Cleveland nominated for presidential front-runner at 1892 DNC; 1972 Nixon passes Title IX; 1980 David Letterman Show debuts on NBC daytime
JUNE 23
1892 DNC nominates Cleveland.
Yes friends, there was a lot going on during the 1892 presidential election. The Republicans wanted to dump Harrison, James Blaine was running again, woman’s suffrage movements started seeing a little glimmer of shine, coinage of silver and the Mormons were in the hot seat. Uncle Jumbo had already been president once before, so this was basically a rematch of 1888.
Back then he beat Benjamin the Human Iceberg Kid Gloves Harrison in the popular, but Kid Gloves won the electoral. And in a republic like the United States of America, you got to get the 270 to win. This time it would be different. The American economy was hurting during the 1880s, and Kid Gloves Harrison was feeling the heat as his own party considered dumping him at the Republican National Convention.
At first Harrison didn’t even look like he wanted to run again, but when James Blaine from Maine started taking a shot, Harrison started campaigning. Blaine was already served in the House from 63-76, was Speaker of the House and ran for president several times. Harrison’s very own vice president, Levi Morton, was supposedly caught supporting Blaine, so Kid Gloves would do the dumping and replace Morton with his buddy from Miami University of Ohio Whitelaw Reid, the editor for the New York Tribune. Good choice!
With that, team Harrison and Reid would come out ahead in the RNC, and became the Republican nominee. For the 1892 election women would…..not be allowed to vote, much to the chagrin of Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the National Woman’s Suffrage movement. In Utah in particular, that was not necessarily the case, as the men were standing up to women’s right to vote. Not because they wanted women to vote, but because they were Godbeites. Godbeites were members of the Church of Zion, which was an offshoot of the Church of Latter Day Saints, and they didn’t believe in polygamy.
Frankly I don’t get anyone who does.
One wife is more than enough, really. But that’s just me I guess.
I don’t say Yes Dear to my wife, I answer boldly and loudly Sir! Yes Sir!
And do a bunch of pushups in addition to whatever she tells me to do. Cheaper to keep her, right?
Anyway where was I. Oh yes! Polygamy. So U.S. troops were literally sent out to squash this plural marriage nonsense. Utah would not be granted statehood until 1896, but when they would, the right for women to vote would actually be written in their state constitution. Of course it would be another 30 years or so before the 19th amendment would be passed, allowing women to vote. But the main issue was the same reruns we often see to this day: the economy.
Former Iowa Rep James B. Weaver and Virginia Attorney General James Field would be nominated by the People’s Party, or the Populist Party to address the issue of coining silver to help the economy. This would be the merging of the Grange, uh how howhow, the Farmer’s Alliance and the Knights of Labor.
The fact that since Uncle Jumbo had left office, Kid Gloves imposed a bunch of very unpopular tariffs, and Cleveland ran on the camping of ending them. In the Alternate Universe, it’s one of these men. Alfred Mayer mahan, historian and naval officer, would defeat socialist Edward Bellamy. But here in this section of the multiverse, if was Cleveland trying to get his old seat back from the man who had been sitting in it for the last four years. Ding, ding, it was on. The votes came in November 8th, and Big Steve Uncle Jumbo Grover Cleveland would be the first U.S. president, and to this day the only one, to serve non-consecutive terms.
The only Democrat in post-Civil War era who won the presidency did it again easily, 277 electoral, 5.5 and a half million popular. Harrison, His Obstinacy, won 145 electoral and 5.17 million popular. Weaver didn’t do too bad representing a third party. The Populist, or People are party, garnered 22 electoral, and an impressive over a million votes.
The Republicans would take back the presidency after Cleveland’s term in 96.
1927 – Silent Cal dons a headdress.
…The Sioux County Pioneer newspaper on North Dakota reports June 23 in 1927 that President Calvin Coolidge will be “adopted” into a Sioux tribe at Ft. Yates on the south-central border of North Dakota.
In anticipation of the president’s upcoming visit to the Black Hills region of North Dakota, the Sioux County Pioneer reported that a Sioux elder named Chauncey Yellow Rob, a descendant of Sitting Bull and an Indian school administrator, suggested that Coolidge be inducted into the tribe. The article stated that Yellow Robe graciously offered the president a most sincere and hearty welcome and hoped that Coolidge and his wife would enjoy rest, peace, quiet, and friendship among us. According to hrc.utexas.edu, Coolidge’s Indian Citizen Act of 1924 granted automatic US citizenship to all American tribes, and he personally felt a kinship and responsibility for the well-being of Native Americans.
However, or perhaps as a result of this, the official policy of forced assimilation, including forced attendance at all-English boarding schools for Native American children, continued unabated throughout his administration.
1888 – Frederick Douglass is nominated for VP of the US.
…Born in February 1818, Douglass was an African American social reformer, orator, abolitionist, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining note for his dazzling oratory, incisive antislavery writing.
He stood as a living counter-example to slaveholder’ arguments that slaves lacked the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens. Many Northerners also found it hard to believe that such a great orate had been a slave. On June 23 1872, Douglass became the first African American nominated for the BP of the USA as Victoria Woodhull’s running mate on the Equal Rights Party ticket.
He was nominated without his knowledge. Dougless neither campaigned for the ticket nor acknowledged that he had been nominated.
1972 – Nixon passes Title IX.
… It requires gender equity for boys and girls in every7 educational program that receives federal funding. Not just sports, all facets of education.
According to titleix.info, these include Access to higher education, career education, education for pregnant and parenting students, employment, learning environment, math and science, sexual harassment, standardized testing and technology. Unfortunately to this day, thousands of schools across the country are not in compliance with the law, more information on titleix.info.
1980 – David Letterman shows debuts on NBC daytime.
…Since then Letterman surpassed friend and mentor Johnny Carson as the longest-serving late night talk show host in TV history, at 31 years. His last episode was May 20, 2015. His night show featured Stupid Tricks, Stupid Human Tricks, dropping stuff off a five story building, the Monkey Cam, plenty of other crazy stuff.