President Coolidge, John Davis, Senator La Follette Make Final Pleas to Voters Via Radio, Nov. 4, 1924

Heaviest Vote in History Expected to be Cast Today. . . Problem Before People One of Most Tangled That Has Ever Faced the Voters of America. . . Hard Campaign Waged by All. . . President Coolidge and John W. Davis Made Final Pleas to the People by the Use of the Radio

By the Associated Press

Washington, Nov. 4—The largest electorate that ever cast a vote in any nation undertook today the task of unraveling the most puzzling angle of modern American political history.

With three major candidates in the field for President; with a full membership of the House to be chosen; with 34 Senators and 34 Governors to be elected; and with thousands of lesser offices to be filled, the ever-increasing millions of qualified voters of the nation began their march to the polls at dawn and throughout the length and breadth of the country, under generally fair weather conditions, they continued all day to record their will.

Four months of fervid oratory, charges, recriminations, accusations, claims, predictions and warnings were stored in the thoughts of the voters as they marked their decisions on their ballots.

President Coolidge’s plea was one to urge every qualified citizen to vote today. “We shall always have with us,” he said, “an element of discontent, an element inspired with more zeal than knowledge. They are greatly in the minority. But their number is large enough to be a decisive factor in many elections unless it is offset by the sober second thought of the people who have something at stake, whether it be earnings from investments or from employment, who are considering not only their own welfare, but the welfare of their children and coming generations.”

Mr. Davis again recited the policies to which he has devoted a fighting campaign.

“Every one of us,” he said, “if we will but listen to the voice of conscience, can say what is right and what is wrong. We owe it to ourselves and to our country; we owe it to our children and those who shall come after us, to vote accordingly. Will the fathers of the country be satisfied to set before their children who are to take up the burden of citizenship any lesser standard than one of common hosenty? (honesty?)

Senator La Follette challenged again “this time-honored threat of industrial depression as a factor in the election,” and charged that President Coolidge had authorized the Republican national committee to run and “elect me or starve the campaign.”

“The American people,” he said, “have learned their lesson and will not be whipped into line with this stone-age propaganda. Neither will they permit the boodling of the election by a huge slush fund.”

From the front page of the Concord Daily Tribune, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 1924

newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073201/1924-11-04/ed-1/seq-1/