by Hugh Ambrose
Mrs. Henry Peabody, chairwoman of the Women’s National Law Enforcement Committee, was charged with bringing to the convention the pledge to sustain Prohibition enforcement offered by so many women’s groups. She made women’s influence plain: “There are too many women who stand unequivocally for the Eighteenth Amendment for the politicians to ignore us. We don’t care what else they put in their platforms, but the women’s vote of this country is going to make certain that they insert a dry plank.” Peabody claimed twelve million women behind her petticoats; all were desirous of seeing the Eighteenth Amendment remain the law of the land. Harking back to age-old arguments for Prohibition, one supporter put forth images of “weeping mothers whose sons have taken to drink and of the wives of liquor-wayward husbands,” both of whose cries for help must be heard.48
Pauline Sabin hit the ground running in Kansas City, setting up an impromptu office in the Muehlebach Hotel, reputed to be the fanciest lodgings in the city, using her political connections to pull in support for alternate delegates from Florida and Mississippi, making long-distance phone calls, sending telegrams, and buttonholing delegates in the hallways to secure their votes or proxies. She approached it all “as smiling and pleasant as if she had a holiday ahead,” according to a reporter for the Kansas City Star, rather than as the tough political fight it was.49 Sabin advised, “Above all, [women] should keep their sense of humor and be impersonal in their political activities.”50 The day before the convention began, Sabin’s backroom endeavors yielded fruit when she and her allies elected a slate of delegates favoring Charles Hilles for chairman of the New York delegation, defeating the previous convention’s chairman, Ogden Mills, who had been regarded as being in Hoover’s pocket.51 Sabin and Hilles, her fellow national committeeperson, stated their intention to remain free of the debate over delegates, preferring to advance their calls for a movement to draft President Coolidge while denying they were anti-Hoover.52 It was an important distinction, allowing Sabin, Hilles, and their followers to remain aloof from political squabbling and open to compromises on alternate candidates and divisive issues. Among those issues, Sabin planned to work for the appointment of women from all state delegations to convention committees, stating, “Women themselves must ask for this representation.”53
Mabel Willebrandt made herself available in the week before the convention to any group who asked, so long as they supported Hoover, and flitted from one engagement to another and then back to the Hoover campaign headquarters in the Shriners’ Ararat Temple to coordinate the next day’s activities. Typical of her boosterism was a presentation made to two hundred women who would serve as “Hoover hostesses” during the convention, their job not only to greet delegates but to bring anyone outside the Hoover camp into its sphere. With the assistance of Mrs. Louis Dodson, manager of women’s activities for the Washington Hoover for President Club, Wille-brandt presented a sort of instructional skit wherein a hostess (Willebrandt) greeted a delegate (Dodson) opposed to Hoover, and offered counterarguments for every charge against Hoover presented by the delegate, who soon saw the wisdom of a vote for Hoover. One reporter described the scene: the hostesses listening attentively, “stowing away ‘ammunition’ for use next week along with cold drinks and wafers to win over the visitors to the cause of their candidate.”54
Wrangling for political room and advantage in the southern states comprised an important part of Hoover’s strategy, and one that required Willebrandt to play an even more important role at the Republican National Convention. Before the convention began, members of the Republican National Committee, which included Sabin, met to establish the order of events, designate speakers, and sort out quarrels over the legitimacy of certain delegates to represent their state committees.55 For six days, the committee analyzed appeals, all from southern states except Wisconsin, where forces opposed to Hoover hoped to divide those state delegations.
Willebrandt’s influence grew beyond sideline pep rallies when the party’s national committee elected her chairman of the credentials committee, charged with collecting information on disputed delegates, the circumstances of their selection as delegates, and the legitimacy of their claims. While Sabin probably cheered the appointment of a woman to a prominent position, the choice of Wille-brandt would have been disappointing by virtue of her political leanings. Just days before, she had left no doubt of her allegiance to Herbert Hoover when she chastised “those who attempt to cast foreboding of his nomination through the desire to manipulate the convention to their own personal desires.”56 As the credentials committee assessed the protests of contested delegates one by one, the committee found in favor of delegates pledged to Hoover and against delegates pledging support to other candidates, but not before a final session running eleven hours, extending past midnight. Willebrandt needed several more hours to write a report of findings, leaving her barely any time to change clothes, grab a cup of coffee, and speed onto the convention dais a few minutes late for her presentation.57
Despite her late night, Willebrandt looked “as fresh as a daisy,” according to the Washington Post, and the audience listened “with an intentness due rather to the novelty of feminine participation in its routine work than to any interest in the report itself.”58 Her conclusion and call for adoption of the report were met with applause and an “attaboy” from deep in the convention hall. Before Willebrandt’s recommendations could be seconded, let alone voted upon, Daniel Hastings, a delegate from Delaware, asked for consideration of the minority report of the credentials committee and requested a floor vote on the status of questionable Texas delegates whose credentials had been invalidated in the previous night’s meeting. After lengthy pronouncements from both sides of the debate, with Willebrandt laying the legal foundation for the majority report, a floor vote was called. The “yeas” sounded louder than the “nays,” but those supporting the minority report asked for and received a roll call vote of all 1,089 delegates. Votes against adoption of the minority report and its findings won out by a two-to-one margin, ending the discussion and effectively ending any possibility that someone other than Hoover would win the nomination.59 The New York delegation, including Sabin, had voted by a surplus of twenty-eight votes to support the minority report, voicing their opposition to Hoover, but to no avail. Two days later, the New York delegation begrudgingly agreed to present a united front for the unavoidable nominee, and vote unanimously for Herbert Hoover. Sabin recognized the futility of continuing to advance a movement to draft Coolidge, preferring a Republican victory, regardless of candidate, to a Democratic one, especially as Al Smith loomed as the probable candidate of that party. Sabin “warned” her fellow New York delegates that their state “would be the scene of the hardest battle of the campaign,” suggesting that any opposition to Hoover could be construed as support for Smith.60
With little fanfare, the resolutions committee, which generated the party planks from dozens submitted, endorsed the pledge, verbatim, for “vigorous enforcement” of the Eighteenth Amendment agreed upon by the women’s groups.61 Nicholas Murray Butler of the New York delegation had led an effort to keep the pledge out of the party platform, supporting instead a plank calling for modification of the Volstead Act, but it failed. Butler requested that a minority report concerning the Prohibition argument be presented by the resolutions committee, but the request was denied.62 Unwilling to be silenced, Butler took his resolution to the convention floor, for all delegates to hear; in it he defined the Eighteenth Amendment, by making criminals of a large portion of the citizenry, as adverse to the Bill of Rights, which granted individual freedoms. Endorsing the plank put forth by the women’s groups would be “a declaration for government-made lawlessness,” and one “in support of these nation-wide murders; of the invasion of the right of privacy, of search without warrant, and now of that habit of wire-tapping,” a clear reference to the recent Supreme Court ruling on the Olmstead case. With the fervor of a minister, Butler insisted that his fellow Republicans
rise “from the low places of cowardice and hypocrisy, come up to the heights of courage and vision and constructive leadership which our party has inherited and so often exemplified!” Challenging the delegates’ convictions to Republican principles, Butler pled with them to choose “whom you will serve, the god of the founders of this Republic and the leaders of our party, or the Mammon of cowardice and bigotry and persecution.”63 Despite a fair amount of applause, Butler’s words failed to sway the mood, and his motion was tabled without discussion, but Sabin put forth a resolution, adopted unanimously, to publish “a full and complete report” of the convention’s proceedings, allowing Butler’s pleas access to a wider audience.64
As the convention wound down, Willebrandt stood tall, having secured Herbert Hoover’s nomination, increased her profile, and generated talk that she could climb higher in a Hoover administration. Scuttlebutt around the convention hall suggested Willebrandt would be named attorney general.65 One highly regarded journalist, Herbert Corey, took matters a step further by issuing a “whimpering boom” for Willebrandt to be named Hoover’s running mate, crediting her work to keep anti-Hoover forces at bay in the credentials committee.66 Corey saw little chance for her nomination, but could find no other candidate with her intelligence and devotion to Hoover.
The day after Hoover’s nomination and his acceptance, Willebrandt’s parents, David and Myrtle Walker, could not contain their excitement over Hoover’s triumph and the accolades given their daughter for helping to make it happen. The Walkers had come to Kansas City to watch Mabel work and had marveled at her stamina and celebrated her achievements along with everyone else.67 For all the notice Willebrandt received, one newspaper account noted that her role, while significant, was of no assistance to women anxious to increase their standing in the party. Sixty-eight women had come to Kansas City as delegates, compared with 120 at the 1924 convention, a decline rooted in lingering misogynist attitudes in men, who largely determined the makeup of their respective state delegations.68
Willebrandt, in one of many speeches she made to women’s groups in Kansas City the week before the convention began, seemingly excused the lack of progress for women in politics as their own doing, warning that women had to “earn their place” in one of the political parties if they expected “to give real service in government.” She explained, “Only as they learn tolerance and accept disappointments and their victories with good sportsmanship can they expect to win political achievements on even terms with men.”69 So to women seeking higher roles in the political realm Willebrandt offered little advice beyond that they be patient, but within a year her own patience would be worn-out.
Chapter 11
Pauline Sabin shocked many of her friends and fellow Republicans when she announced, just days after the Republican convention closed, that she no longer supported Prohibition and would work for repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment. She had been a supporter of Prohibition, believing it would safeguard her children, as most mothers did, but enforcement of the Volstead Act increasingly trod upon civil rights, causing her to reassess her position. Closer to home, a recent episode involving a boy she knew, probably a friend of one of her sons, concerned her. Participating in a conference of students discussing the transition from prep school to college, the boy participated in a debate about drinking at college; the two sides discussed the effect drinking might have on athletics, academic standing, and personal reputation, but not once was it mentioned that Prohibition was the law of the land. To Sabin this lack of respect for the law was part of a dangerous trend with grave, long-term consequences. She believed many other women held the same sentiment and would support repeal and a return to a sensible plan of temperance. Women’s participation at the polls and traditional view as the public’s conscience could “do more towards bringing about a change in the conditions which exist today than any organization composed solely of men.”1 She admired the conviction of steadfast “dry” women, who supported candidates based only on the question of Prohibition (accepting, in some instances, officials who voted for Prohibition and its enforcement, but who enjoyed a drink in private company).2 She no doubt hoped to find an opposing group of women who would vote, single-mindedly, for candidates favoring repeal.
Sabin’s new position on Prohibition placed her at odds with the Republican presidential candidate, Herbert Hoover; party leaders; and many women, for whom she had become a role model. If the lack of mention in newspapers is any indication—and it should be, given how many times her name appeared in print in previous elections—Sabin’s change of heart on Prohibition appears to have influenced her involvement in the 1928 campaign, nationally and in New York. Hoover did not come calling for assistance as Coolidge had done in 1924. No candidates for U.S. senator or representative put her on their campaign committees. No state officials employed her talents. Nevertheless, Sabin remained a party loyalist, supporting Republican candidates regardless of their stance on Prohibition, whenever and wherever she was asked—though sometimes she bridled at expectations placed upon her. She began a speech in Newport, Rhode Island, by acknowledging that the “so-called woman speaker” was “expected to talk about the political activities and reactions of her sisters,” not “real issues.” Vowing “to do just what is expected of me,” she described the upcoming election as the “real test as to whether or not the majority of women of this country wanted woman suffrage.” Only 40 percent of women had voted in the 1924 election, the result of poor leadership by women charged with getting their sisters to the polls. She predicted 1928 would be different, that Hoover’s candidacy would produce a women’s vote that would “amaze and astound the masculine element in politics.” Early proof came in the large numbers of women volunteering on behalf of Hoover, many donating money in addition to their time. Sabin extolled Hoover’s accomplishments and those of the Republican Party, comparing them to the wavering, uncertain policies of the Democrats. She provided examples of Republican superiority in handling tariffs, the gold standard, and foreign entanglements, in doing so verging toward the “real issues” she had sworn off at the opening of her speech.3 Sabin had learned well how to circumnavigate expectations of women in politics by sticking to so-called women’s issues in the beginning and concluding with deeper, “masculine” issues and never addressing the elephant in the room, Prohibition and her recent about-face.
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Two weeks after the Republican National Convention, the Democrats met in Houston to select their candidate, and, much like at the Republican convention, there was little suspense. Despite his loss in 1924, the party favored Al Smith again, in the hope that the strength of New York’s sizable electorate would give the party the best chance for victory in November. At a seeming cross-purpose, the convention delegates approved a platform endorsing continued support for the Eighteenth Amendment, which their candidate did not support and for which he did not allow any accommodation.
In the wee hours after Smith accepted his nomination, as New Yorkers rejoiced in their governor’s victory, Assistant Attorney General Mabel Willebrandt directed a series of raids on fifteen speakeasies hidden behind locked doors along Broadway; more than a hundred patrons and employees were arrested. Willebrandt had sent agents of the DOJ’s Intelligence Unit from Washington to New York City to team with Prohibition agents, who had no idea until the appointed time that the raids would occur, Willebrandt hoping to curtail any tip-offs from corrupt agents. To maintain a cloak of secrecy over the raids, Willebrandt had an assistant in her office, rather than the U.S. Attorney in New York, prepare search warrants and had them signed by a federal judge rather than a U.S. Commissioner, the usual procedure.
A Washington Post reporter wondered whether the timing of the raids had been chosen for political significance, to expose the rampant lawlessness allowed under Al Smith’s governance. Willebrandt issued no comment on the raids, but Maurice Campbell, the state’s Prohibition administrator, claimed he “didn�
�t even know there was a political convention in session,” adding, “I didn’t know who was going to be nominated,” an assertion beyond the pale either of stupidity or believability.4 When indictments for conspiracy to violate the Volstead Act were handed to more than 130 people a month later, the public learned that Willebrandt had authorized the expenditure of $75,000 for use by undercover agents, operating since February, posing as “men about town, correctly garbed in evening attire,” purchasing liquor at prices up to $22 for a bottle of wine and $2.25 for a cocktail ($298 and $30, respectively, in 2017 dollars).5 In an effort to collect more evidence and secure convictions, Willebrandt directed issuance of subpoenas to many prominent New Yorkers, in the hope that they would provide additional information on the accused rather than come off as supporting lawbreaking. Her efforts backfired, though, when the district attorney, Charles Tuttle, halted the questioning of New York’s social elite, calling the tactic a “fishing expedition” without foundation. Tuttle sent everyone home, announcing any additional interviews would be conducted without public notice or spectacle.6 Intriguingly, Tuttle left the city unexpectedly two days later, leaving word he had gone to his summer home on Lake George, two hundred miles north of Manhattan, in the serene woods of Adirondack Park. Willebrandt placed one of her assistants in charge and directed him to continue the interviews, now focused upon local police.7 She wasn’t shed of Tuttle yet, though. Advisors to Hoover had given consideration to advancing Charles Tuttle as the Republican nominee for governor, giving the appearance that Willebrandt had pushed around a presumptive candidate.8 Interest in Tuttle for governor soon faded among the party’s state power brokers, but the experience left a bad taste in Willebrandt’s mouth, souring her further on political gamesmanship.