1918 Congressional Elections
Senate
Democratic: 42 (+5)
Progressive: 29 (-3)
Republican: 22 (-4)
Socialist: 3 (+2)
House
Democratic: 131 (+5)
Progressive: 127 (-29)
Socialist: 93 (+62)
Republican: 84 (-31)
Civic League: 0 (-6)
Independent: 0 (-1)
Senate Leadership
Senate President Hiram W. Johnson (P-CA)
President pro tempore John H. Bankhead (D-AL)
Caucus Chairman Robert L. Owen (D-OK)
Conference Chairman Robert La Follette (P-WI)
Conference Chairman Warren G. Harding (R-OH)
Caucus Chairman Ashley G. Miller (S-NV)
House of Representatives Leadership
Speaker Champ Clark (D-MO)
Minority Leader Wesley L. Jones (P-CA)
Minority Leader Meyer London (S-NY)
Minority Leader James R. Mann (R-IL)
A great deal had changed in the United States since the previous congressional election. It was just two years ago, in an election season that corresponded with the tension-raising presidential cycle, when Theodore Roosevelt and his Progressives sailed to victory on a platform of reformism, patriotism, and an unmitigated triumph in the Great War. In November of 1918, Roosevelt had withered away, taking with him any remnant of positivity within the Progressive establishment. Only a few short months passed since the ascension of Hiram Johnson, but in that time his influence on the party was felt far and wide. Candidates for political office from the president's party championed the legacy of the recently departed leader to the highest degree, but their collective messaging stemmed more from a place of anti-socialism and xenophobic nationalism than anything resembling the original Chicago Platform. "Drive The Wooden Stake Through The Bolshevik Devil," read a flyer sponsored by the Ohio Progressive Party.
As it turned out, an indeterminate prewar normalcy was not as enticing to American voters in 1918 as was the promise of a government responsive to the demands of its citizens. Despite exhaustive sympathy to the incumbent leadership following Roosevelt's death, public discontent with the ruling party far outweighed any favorability spike. Johnson, and too Roosevelt, had blatantly ignored domestic reform since the breakout of war. Their demonization of an ill-defined treason seemed to supersede all pledges to enact progressive legislation. Very few Columbians running for office even cared to mention universal suffrage or the eight-hour working day. Now more than ever, and especially after the tumultuous Red Summer and the rise of exuberant fearmongering, your average American had come to identify the Columbians as a party of antagonizers and militants. True, the people desired restoration and order, but not a tyrannical order categorized by workplace massacres. Therefore, voters turned to other options.
In dozens of states, such voters looked to the Socialist Party as a viable alternative. The SP endured as the sole vehicle of the grassroots labor movement all throughout the rollercoaster-like year. Its leaders attained the spotlight whenever and wherever possible, counteracting the Johnson Administration's anti-IWW narrative to instill their own points of view. It was not uncommon for city councils to have a handful of Socialist officeholders, and success stories like that of Mayor Seidel repeatedly disproved federal propaganda claiming fiscal irresponsibility. In the eyes of the typical worker, representatives like Meyer London who fought on Capitol Hill for pro-labor legislation were not frightening Bolsheviks, and in the words of a contemporaneous voter survey were termed more "patriotic" than their Democratic, Republican, and Progressive counterparts. For any and all workers familiar with the organizing structure of the IWW and scarred by the extreme repression of the labor uprising, the pros of voting Socialist eclipsed the cons.
Under these conditions, the Socialists managed to win a spectacular sixty-two new seats in the House of Representatives (predominantly in their upper Midwest strongholds and in industrialized, urban districts), setting their grand total to 93. Firebrand activists Scott Nearing (S-NY) and Edmund T. Melms (S-WI), and famed authors John S. Reed (S-NY) and Oscar Ameringer (S-WI), were a part of that gigantic class joining the diverse Socialist contingent in Congress: One which stretched from devout unionists like Representative Fiorello La Guardia (S-NY) to the business-oriented Victor Berger (S-WI). The latter figure opted in 1918 to run for Senate in the special election to succeed the late Senator Isaac Stephenson (P-WI), eventually winning by the skin of his teeth. Alongside State Senator Matthew S. Holt (S-WV), Berger was the latest entry of the SP to the upper chamber in Washington. The House delegation, though far from the slightest sniff of genuine power over the legislature, could no longer be outright ignored as a faction when fostering voting coalitions. On that note, once a bargain was struck pertaining to an end to all discussion regarding future anti-socialist sedition bills, Champ Clark of the Democrats won a majority vote for House Speaker. If not for the Socialists, Jones may have held onto his position.
The Democratic Party, buoyed by national exhaustion over the Progressives, fared well in the congressional and gubernatorial elections of 1918. In spite of regional divisions, unhidden sectionalism, and the fairly recent presidential defeat of William J. Bryan, Democrats bolstered their numbers in the Senate and accumulated a net gain of five House seats. Some historians cite their profound luck this cycle as a simple side-effect of growing distaste with the uproarious chaos of the Roosevelt-Johnson regime, but credit should be partially attributed to the rise of a younger class of Northern Democrats painstakingly shedding the stench of the Bryan and Hearst eras. Senator John Fitzgerald of Massachusetts pioneered the concept of post-Bryan liberalism with his 1916 shock win as his brand appeared to resonate with Democratic and independent voters alike. David I. Walsh (D-MA), similarly an Irish-Catholic reformer, toppled the seemingly invulnerable John W. Weeks (R-MA) to deliver the GOP yet another surprise blow in the Bay State. Attorney John B. Jameson accomplished the same in a New Hampshire special election.
In Michigan, a state often considered a bellwether in the never-ending game of political tug-of-war, maritime safety advocate William A. Smith (R-MI) suffered the most high-profile defeat out of any this cycle. Smith was a standard Republican moderate in the Senate and naturally did not attract controversy, but his Democratic challenger could hardly say the same. Following a hotly contested primary election, motor vehicle magnate Henry Ford captured the party's nomination. House Leaders Champ Clark and Woodrow Wilson prompted the insatiable Ford to run for office in the belief that no other stood a chance against the affable Smith, and that may have proven true if the businessman declined that offer. However, he did run, and immediately stole the thunder from fellow challenger Marcus J. Cassidy (P-MI). Ford's controversial statements kept his name on the front-page of near-all Michigan newspapers, courtesy of the Michigan Republican Party, and the state's residents were well-aware of the industrialist's rabid antisemitism, pacifism, and union-busting practices when they voted him in: 40% to Smith's 35%.
Missouri Senator William J. Stone, a titan of Democratic politics and President Bryan's Secretary of State, died in April, 1918, and was temporarily replaced by a St. Louis city commissioner named Xenophon Wilfley (D-MO). Stone owned the seat since 1902, and various other Democratic politicians sat in that same chair since the 1870s. Nonetheless, the Progressives and Republicans managed to make some inroads in local politics over the previous four years, and Senator Reed (D-MO) winning a lukewarm 50% of the statewide vote in 1916 indicated a potential weak point in the Solid South. John A. Henderson, the incumbent Columbian mayor of Kansas City, mounted a much-hyped campaign for the Senate while the isolationist conservative Selden P. Spencer (R-MO) did likewise. Yet, the final tally showed not a weakened Democratic electorate, but rather one severely underestimated by the available polling. Former Governor Joseph "Holy Joe" Folk, a reformist Democrat and proponent of governmental transparency and morality, utterly clobbered the competition. For now, the Solid South appeared unbreakable.
Progressive mainstays faced a handful of notable, perhaps preventable, primary defeats in these midterm elections. Sensing their chance to pounce on a political organization with its identity and purpose in flux, and additionally inspired by Governor Charles E. Hughes' (R-NY) ability to win cross-party support, conservative nationalists flowed into statewide Progressive Party chapters. Hughes himself belonged to this community but remained focused on his own re-election as opposed to directing a national initiative, and indeed secured a third term despite a hearty challenge by Assemblyman Alfred E. Smith (D-NY). This group, starting in the postwar period, began taking positions of authority in these state parties, and soon thereafter promoted challenges to incumbent officeholders they deemed unsuitable. Their plan counted on eradicating all Columbians wholly unable to gain the endorsement of the Republican Party, thus awarding a new breed of Nationalist Progressives the opportunity to capitalize on Roosevelt's name without abandoning their conservative policies. Among the victims were Frank H. Funk (P-IL), E.M. Thompson (P-ME), Franklin Murphy (P-NJ), and well over twenty others. In their place were men far to their right on virtually all issues. Freshman Senator Bert M. Fernald (P-ME), for example, strongly criticized the existence of the Federal Trade Commission and voted in favor of supplanting Conference Chairman La Follette with Republican leader Warren Harding.
Senators Elected in 1918 (Class 2)
John H. Bankhead (D-AL): Democratic Hold, 91%
John N. Heiskell (D-AR): Democratic Hold, 68%
John F. Shafroth (D-CO): Democratic Gain, 39%
L. Heisler Ball (R-DE): Republican Hold, 42%
William J. Harris (D-GA): Democratic Hold, 88%
William E. Borah (P-ID): Progressive Hold, 51%
Medill McCormick (P-IL): Progressive Hold, 44%
William S. Kenyon (P-IA): Progressive Hold, 43%
Charles Curtis (P-KS): Progressive Hold, 40%
Edwin P. Morrow (R-KY): Republican Hold, 41%
Joseph E. Ransdell (D-LA): Democratic Hold, 92%
*Walter Guion (D-LA): Democratic Hold, 87%
Bert M. Fernald (P-ME): Progressive Hold, 42%
David I. Walsh (D-MA): Democratic Gain, 38%
Henry Ford (D-MI): Democratic Gain, 40%
Knute Nelson (P-MN): Progressive Hold, 44%
Pat Harrison (D-MS): Democratic Hold, 80%
Joseph M. Dixon (P-MT): Progressive Hold, 37%
George W. Norris (P-NE): Progressive Hold, 36%
John H. Bartlett (R-NH): Republican Hold, 44%
*John B. Jameson (D-NH): Democratic Gain, 39%
Walter E. Edge (P-NJ): Progressive Hold, 41%
William B. Walton (D-NM): Democratic Gain, 42%
*Joseph W. Folk (D-MO): Democratic Hold, 58%
Furnifold Simmons (D-NC): Democratic Hold, 63%
Robert L. Owen (D-OK): Democratic Hold, 40%
Charles L. McNary (P-OR): Progressive Hold, 43%
LeBaron B. Colt (R-RI): Republican Hold, 50%
Nathaniel B. Dial (D-SC): Democratic Hold, 95%
Peter Norbeck (P-SD): Progressive Hold, 40%
Albert H. Roberts (D-TN): Democratic Hold, 55%
John Morris Sheppard (D-TX): Democratic Hold, 72%
Thomas S. Martin (D-VA): Democratic Hold, 79%
Matthew S. Holt (S-WV): Socialist Gain, 34%
*Victor L. Berger (S-WI): Socialist Gain, 35%
Frank W. Mondell (P-WY): Progressive Hold, 43%
* Special Election