United States elections, 1918
United States Senate elections, 1918
The 1918 midterm elections were, for the Liberal Party, an unusually fierce disaster, a generational wipeout rivalling the 1902 debacle - which occurred before the popular election of Senators - perhaps best represented by the "Massachusetts Massacre," or "Massachusetts Miracle" as Democrats preferred to call it, as both seats of Liberal bedrock Massachusetts were won not just by Democrats, but two of the most prominent Irish Catholic politicians of that state, in former one-year Governor David Walsh (Massachusetts still elected Governors for one-year terms) and Boston Mayor John F. "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald. That this would occur in one of the party's two firmest Senatorial strongholds, with one of the two seats opened up early due to Henry Cabot Lodge - the very symbol of Brahmin WASPiness - leaving the Senate to serve as Secretary of State, typified the disaster. The wealthy patriarch of the du Pont family was narrowly beaten in Delaware, a state trending Liberal for well over a decade; Medill McCormick, heir to a Chicago newspaper empire and a progressive reformer, was knocked out by Barratt O'Hara. Former Senator and one-term governor Woodbridge Nathan Ferris returned to claim Michigan's
other Senate seat, and the flamboyant populist Governor of Oregon, Oswald West, took his colorful style to Philadelphia after defeating Jonathan Bourne.
A number of old hands passed on or retired in 1918 as well, meaning that the first true postwar elections represented a real, genuine generational shift in the composition of the upper house; perhaps O'Hara, a veteran of both the Boxer and Great American Wars who had been wounded in both, represented the coming sea change in Congress over the next decade the best. In all, eight seats fell from Liberal to Democrat and none the other way; it was a rout, and sent a clear message to the Root administration exactly what the public even in "safe" states in New England thought of their management of the Republic.
CO: John Shafroth (D) Re-Elected
DK: Fountain L. Thompson (D) Re-Elected
DE: Henry Algernon du Pont (L) DEFEATED; Albert F. Polk (Democrat) Elected
(D+1)
ID: Fred Dubois (D) Re-Elected
IL: Medill McCormick (L) DEFEATED; Barratt O'Hara (Democrat) ELECTED
(D+2)
IN (special): Harry New (L) DEFEATED; Samuel Ralston (Democrat) Elected
(D+3)
IA: William Darius Jamieson (D) Re-Elected
KS: Dudley Doolittle (Democrat) Re-Elected
ME: Frank Guernsey (L) Re-Elected
MA: John W. Weeks (L) DEFEATED; David I. Walsh (Democrat) Elected
(D+4)
MA (special): Fred Gillett (L) DEFEATED; John Fitzgerald (Democrat) Elected
(D+5)
MI: William Alden Smith (L) Retired; Woodbridge Ferris (D) ELECTED
(D+6) [2]
MN: Knute Nelson (D) Re-Elected
MT: Thomas Walsh (D) Re-Elected
NV (special): Francis Newlands (D) Died in Office; Charles Henderson (Democrat) Appointed and Elected (Democrat Hold)
NE: Gilbert Hitchcock (D) Re-Elected
NH: William E. Chandler (L) Died in Office; Rolland Spaulding (L) Appointed and RETIRED; Henry W. Keyes (Liberal) ELECTED (Liberal Hold)
[1]
NJ: Mahlon Pitney (L) DEFEATED; Edward I. Edwards (Democrat) Elected
(D+7)
NM: Octaviano A. Larrazola (D) Re-elected
OR: Jonathan Bourne (L) DEFEATED; Oswald West (Democrat) Elected
(D+8)
RI: George Wetmore (L) Retired; LeBaron Colt (Liberal) ELECTED (Liberal Hold)
[1]
WA: George Turner (D) Re-Elected
WV: John J. Davis (D) Re-Elected
WY: Frank Houx (D) Re-Elected
United States House elections, 1918
The House elections of 1918 were an unmitigated disaster for the Liberals as well, while falling a bit short of the shock of 1902 (in which Democrats benefitted from the expansion of the House in a census cycle. Liberals lost, in total, 62 seats, the majority to Democrats, while their chief opposition gained 52, picking up fifty-nine Liberal seats but losing seven in turn to Socialists in the Mine Belt where most Liberal candidates struggled to break out of single digits. It delivered for the Democrats their best result, at 248 seats, in a decade, and one of the best returns for Socialists in history, all while badly ravaging the Liberal caucus; several prominent committee chairmen were defeated, including Harold Knutson, Horace Mann Towner, and Caleb Layton, and even James Mann, the Speaker of the House, saw his reelection margin slip to just over a thousand votes in his traditionally Liberal, wealthy South Chicago 1st District. It was a full-throated rejection across the country, which saw Liberals denied any House seats in every state west of the Mississippi save California and Minnesota, and saw Democrats prevail in urban Massachusetts in a way they never had before.
United States State elections, 1918
The 1918 elections saw Democrats largely hold and expand upon their gains of 1914 and 1916, building up larger majorities in state legislatures and flipping the California Governorship, after Congressman Marion de Vries, deducing that he would never be Speaker, returned home to win by a decisive margin. Other Democratic incumbents, like Ohio's James M. Cox, were reelected, and Democrats did not lose a single Governorship to the Liberals anywhere in the country in 1918 as they ran wild up and down the ballot in a triumphant night, even flipping Massachusetts and defeating Lieutenant Governor Calvin Coolidge with John Jackson Walsh, an otherwise obscure member of the Boston planning board and an ally of former Mayor John F. Fitzgerald, thus completing the so-called "Massachusetts Miracle."
66th United States Congress
Senate: 39D-25L/FL
President of the Senate: James Garfield (L-OH)
Senate President pro tempore: George Turner (D-WA)
Chairman of Senate Democratic Conference: John E. Osborne (D-WY)
Chairman of Senate Liberal Conference: Boies Penrose (L-PA)
California
1. Hiram Johnson (L) (1917)
3. James D. Phelan (D) (1903)
Colorado
2. John Shafroth (D) (1913)
3. John Andrew Martin (D) (1915)
Connecticut
1. George P. McLean (L) (1911)
3. Henry Roberts (L) (1911)
Dakota
2. Fountain Thompson (D) (1901)
3. John Burke (D) (1915)
Delaware
1. J. Edward Addicks (L) (1905)
2. Albert F. Polk (D) (1919)
Idaho
2. Fred Dubois (D) (1907)
3. Moses Alexander (D) (1905)
Illinois
2. Barratt O'Hara (D) (1919)
3. Richard Yates Jr. (L) (1909)
Indiana
1. James E. Waston (L) (1917)
3. Samuel Ralston (D) (1918)
Iowa
2. William D. Jamieson (D) (1913)
3. Claude R. Porter (D) (1909)
Kansas
2. Dudley Doolittle (D) (1913)
3. George H. Hodges (D) (1909)
Maine
1. Frederick Hale (L) (1911)
2. Frank Guernsey (L) (1911)
Maryland
1. John W. Smith (D) (1908)
3. Blair Lee (D) (1913)
Massachusetts
1. John Fitzgerald (D) (1918)
2. David I. Walsh (D) (1919)
Michigan
1. Charles E. Townsend (L) (1911)
2. Woodbridge Ferris (D) (1919)
[2]
Minnesota
1. John Lind (D) (1911)
2. Knute Nelson (D) (1901)
Missouri
1. James A. Reed (D) (1905)
3. James T. Lloyd (D) (1903)
Montana
2. Thomas Walsh (D) (1913)
3. Henry L. Myers (D) (1915)
Nebraska
1. Richard Lee Metcalfe (D) (1905)
2. Gilbert Hitchcock (D) (1913)
Nevada
1. Denver Sylvester Dickerson (D) (1911)
3. Charles Henderson (D) (1917)
New Hampshire
2. Henry Keyes (L) (1919)
3. Winston Churchill (L) (1909)
New Jersey
1. Joseph Sherman Frelinghuysen (L) (1911)
2. Edward Edwards (D) (1919)
New Mexico
1. Henry Ashurst (D) (1917)
2. Octaviano Larrazola (D) (1901)
New York
1. Bainbridge Colby (L) (1911)
3. James Wolcott Wadsworth Jr. (L) (1915)
Ohio
1. Frank Monnett (L) (1911)
3. Newton Baker (D) (1909)
Oregon
2. Oswald West (D) (1919)
3. Walter Lafferty (FL) (1915)
Pennsylvania
1. Philander Knox (L) (1905)
3. Boies Penrose (L) (1897)
Rhode Island
1. William Sprague V (L) (1915)
2. LeBaron Colt (L) (1919)
Vermont
1. Carroll S. Page (L) (1908)
3. George H. Prouty (L) (1909)
Washington
2. George Turner (D) (1889)
3. Ole Hanson (FL) (1915)
West Virginia
1. Thomas S. Riley (D) (1905)
2. John W. Davis (D) (1916)
Wisconsin
1. Francis McGovern (L) (1911)
3. Robert La Follette (L) (1903)
Wyoming
1. John Eugene Osborne (D) (1905)
2. Frank Houx (D) (1913)
House: 248D-171L-16S (+52D)
Speaker of the House: Champ Clark (D-MO)
House Majority Leader: John J. Fitzgerald (D-NY)
House Majority Whip: Thomas Gallagher (D-IL)
House Democratic Caucus Chair: Edward T. Taylor (D-CO)
House Minority Leader: Thomas S. Butler (L-PA)
House Minority Whip: Charles Mann Hamilton (L-NY)
House Liberal Caucus Chair: John Q. Tilson (L-CT)
Socialist House Leader: Victor Berger (S-WI)
Socialist House Whip: Ed Boyce (S-ID)
[1] Some of the last "Clique" Liberals from the 1890s die or retire here, further wiping out that region's longstanding seniority and shifting Senate power further from a seniority standpoint to well-tenured Western Democrats, and leaving George Turner and Boies Penrose as the last Senators first appointed or elected in the 19th century
[2] A former Senator for the Class I seat, meaning that he got to serve in both Michigan Senate seats
and be Governor ITTL.