Great story in today’s Charlotte Observer about how an Asheville man almost became governor 100 years ago:
The talk about the Barack Obama-Hillary Rodham Clinton race possibly being settled at the national convention reminds me of the mother of all North Carolina Democratic conventions.
In 1908, when candidates were still picked in smoke-filled rooms by men wearing straw boaters, 6,000 Democrats gathered in Charlotte to pick their nominee — and the certain winner, in the days of the one-party South — for governor.It took four days, meeting day and night, and 61 ballots to choose a nominee.
In those days, U.S. Sen. Furnifold Simmons, North Carolina’s powerful political boss, ran the state as much as any Tammany Hall hack in New York.
Simmons chose Locke Craige, an Asheville lawyer and one of his political lieutenants, to be the next governor.
But Simmons faced a rebellion from William Kitchin, a popular six-term Democratic congressman from Roxboro and a member of a famous political family. (His brother Claude Kitchin became U.S. House majority leader during World War I.)
Kitchin had gone to Simmons and said he wanted to be governor. Simmons said it wasn’t his turn. Kitchin said he was through taking orders.
Game on.
Emotions were running high when the delegates gathered in Charlotte’s city auditorium amid more than 10,000 yards of red, white and blue bunting, streamers, pennants, banners and Japanese lanterns.
There were impassioned speeches by leading Democratic politicians, both for and against candidates.
Kitchin led the early balloting, with Craige placing second, and another candidate, Ashley Horne, third. The balloting began Wednesday and continued until early Thursday morning. After a recess, the balloting continued through Thursday night, through Friday and into Friday night. But no candidate could gain a majority.
Women fainted, horns were blown, and men traded tobacco.
“Before the 30th ballot was reached, the impasse of the awful night vigils and mealless days of irregular hours and oppressive heat was left on the haggard faces of hundreds of delegates,” according to an account in The News & Observer.
The impasse was broken Saturday morning when Horne withdrew his candidacy. On the 61st ballot, Kitchin won.
Kitchin’s triumph spelled trouble for Simmons. Kitchin replaced the senator as party chairman and took over the state’s election machinery and state government patronage powers.
But Simmons bounced back.
When Kitchin challenged Simmons for his Senate seat in 1912, Kitchin was defeated — his political career over. Simmons installed Craige in the governor’s mansion.
Simmons would continue to control state politics until 1930.
“Power was used to advance power,” wrote journalist W.J. Cash.
“Every Democratic politician came to be embraced within the machine; any attempt to operate outside it began to be political suicide. It named governors, passed on all appointments, framed all legislative programs. Simmons was merciless in destroying those who opposed him. To those who served him well, he gave commensurate rewards.