1928 Republican National Convention

The 1928 National Convention of the Republican Party of the United States was held at Convention Hall in Kansas City, Missouri, from June 12 to June 15, 1928.

Because President Coolidge had announced unexpectedly he would not run for re-election in 1928, Commerce Secretary Herbert Clark Hoover became the natural front-runner for the Republican nomination. Former Illinois Governor Frank Lowden and Kansas Senator Charles Curtis were candidates for the nomination but stood no chance against the popular and accomplished Hoover. Chicago Mayor William Hale Thompson considered himself a candidate, but without the support of Ruth Hanna McCormick, his candidacy was unsuccessful. [cite web|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,882358,00.html|title=Thompson v. McCormicks|accessdate=2008-05-02|date=1930-11-03|publisher=Time, Inc.|work=Time]

The future President Hoover was nominated on the first ballot with 837 votes to 72 for Lowden and 64 for Curtis and the rest scattered. John L. McNab delivered Hoover's nomination address. In his acceptance speech he said that "We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty ever before in the history of any land"; this and other optimistic remarks about the country's future were held against him in the 1932 election, which he lost to Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Platform

The platform praised the Coolidge administration for the prosperity of the mid-1920s, and also promised reduction of the national debt, tax reduction, retention of the protective tariff, opposition of cancellation of foreign debts, settlement of claims from World War I from foreign governments, continuation of the Coolidge foreign policy, support of arbitration treaties, civil service protection, a tariff for agricultural protection and continued farm exports, aid to the coal-mining industry, continued appropriations for highway construction, the right to collective bargaining, regulation of railroads, a continued independent American merchant marine, government supervision of radio facilities, construction of waterways to help transportation of bulk goods, support for war veterans, federal regulation of public utilities, conservation, vigorous law enforcement, honest government, continued reclamation of arid lands in the West, improvement of air-mail service, restricted immigration and naturalization of foreign immigrants in America, continued enforcement of the Washington Naval Treaty, continued status of territory status for Alaska and Hawaii and called for more women in public service, right of the President to draft defense material resources and services, creation of an Indian Commission, an Anti-Lynching Law and promised continued Home-Rule for the American Citizen.

Candidates for the Presidential Nomination

*Herbert Hoover (Iowa)
*Frank Lowden (Illinois)
*Charles Curtis (Kansas)

Candidates for the Vice Presidential Nomination

*Charles Curtis (Kansas)
*Chase Osborn (Michigan)

ee also

*1928 Democratic National Convention
*United States presidential election, 1928

Notes

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Chicago, Illinois