“You Got to Debate With Somebody Before This Dog Fight Ends in November”: Mock Presidential Candidate and Humorist Will Rogers in LIFE Magazine, 9 August 1928

by Paul R. Spitzzeri

It hasn’t quite been three weeks since President Joseph Biden dropped his reelection campaign effort after a disastrous debate performance at the end of June and the aftermath has been stunning on several fronts since Vice-President Kamala Harris took the baton and has run with it (including during the Olympic Games, which are nearly over in Paris).

After some posturing, it looks like a debate previously scheduled between Biden and former President Donald Trump will be held on 10 September after all and we’ll see what else is in the cards for future faceoffs between the Democratic and Republican party nominees prior to the 5 November election. Given all of the drama, it is interesting and, perhaps, instructive to travel back 96 years and 24 presidential campaigns ago to 1928 and the 9 August issue of LIFE, the magazine that touted the mock campaign of humorist Will Rogers.

As we’ve noted here in prior posts, Rogers announced his “Anti-Bunk” (anti-nonsense) effort and utilized his formidable comedic talents and his superstardom (stage, screen, radio and print) to elevate his satirical platform during an election season that pitted Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover against New York Governor Al Smith. Notably, there were slurs and smears directed against the Democrat for being the first Roman Catholic to seek the highest office in the land, though Hoover remained above the fray in that regard.

The problem ultimately was that the G.O.P. was utterly dominating in national politics during the Roaring Twenties, storming to presidential wins in all three campaigns (1920, 1924 and 1928) as part of a general swing of the pendulum to conservatism and riding the wave of a strong national economy that, to many, seemed all but certain to continue into the next decade. Hoover, in fact, large relied on prevailing perceptions of prosperity, especially given his role as Commerce secretary, as his meal ticket to win the White House.

With Hoover formally accepting his party’s nomination at the Republican National Convention in Kansas City in mid-June, while Smith did the same for the Dems shortly afterward in Houston, Rogers took the opportunity in this issue of LIFE to offer his facetious invitation to the G.O.P.’s standard-bearer to a debate under the heading of “OUR CANDIDATE CHALLENGES HOOVER” and the subheading of “To Join Debate—in Any Joint You Name.” Given Hoover’s reticence to actually take to the campaign trail or say much of anything at all, the physical address of the candidate was “Being informed, somewhere in California” and Rogers began with his typical homespun style,

Herbert I kinder hate to send you this challenge, For you are a good fellow and I think a lot of you, But it just looks like the only way we can get the “Issues” of the day straightened out is on the Platform in a Joint debate.

You know the American custom is when you can’t beat a man at anything why the last straw is to Debate him . . .

Now I am not one of those promiscuous Debaters . . . I just won’t debate with anything, or anyone, I am kinder exclusive in my selections.

There is just millions of Guys I wouldent waste a Debate on, But in the natural course of events it looks like I am going to have to take you and Al on before the voters are in the can this fall.

So I thought I would start in with you and see how I made out, and if I had any luck against you why then I would take on Al.

You know Al will debate you, Where al comes from all you need to do to start a Debate is drop a Hat.

Hearkening back to the somewhat open question of Hoover’s residency, Rogers continued that, “now as to the place, as neither one of us seem to have any home, why we are just as liable to meet accidentally some place as we would be on purpose.” Given the Republican’s world travels for business, World War I food administration and other projects, while Rogers made his way around America for his entertainment empire, it is amusing that latter mused that “while you know China, and India, I know Oklahoma, and Texas.”

The comedian added that “if you think you have been to the far corners of the earth you ought t try to get back home from Seattle some time,” going on to contrast Hoover’s wide travels mining for gold in South Africa and building dams in India, and observing, “you hunted Diamonds in Kimberly” in South Africa, “while I found a Democrat in North Dakota.” Moreover, while Hoover was overseeing food administration in Belgium after the late war, “I was throwing Corn bread and bacon to famished little Rogerses in Beverly Hills,” though making fun of postwar starvation was, to say the least, an interesting choice by the humorist.

As for the formalities of the theoretical debate, Rogers offered that “the rules . . . are as follows, the first half of the debate is to settle on what the ‘Issues’ are that we are to debate on, and the last half of the Debate is just to Debate on ’em.” If, however, no issues could be identified, “like it would be if you was debating with some Democrat,” why then of course there would be no use holding the last half.”

After slyly observing that “you are a man and so is Al that has got by without a lot of Bunk,” Rogers commented that “the debate might be that you both ought by rights to be in my Party, ‘the Anti-Bunks,” and then tossed out that “you both have let yourself be hitched to a Platform that is nothing but Bunk.” Following the assertion that “I will show you that now that you have entered Politics that you will be mixed up with more Bunk than you ever thought existed,” the humorist offered some pertinent examples.

Namely, Hoover’s core idea was that “you will try and show that we are prosperous, because we HAVE MORE,” but Rogers countered that “I will show where we are NOT prosperous because we havent PAID for it YET.” On the matter of the 18th Amendment concerning alcohol, the comedian continued, “you say that ‘Prohibition is a Noble Experiment.’ I would say that it was an ‘Amusing’ or ‘Exciting’ experiment. But it has hardly reached the ‘Noble’ stage up to now.” Other of the “Usual Bunks” that could be debated, included farm relief and import tariffs.

An important point for Rogers, however, was that “the debate is not to be Gratis, We will charge admission and the money goes to a good Charity.” As presidential debates did not begin for another eight elections, until Vice-President Richard Nixon and United States Senator from Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy held their famous televised one in 1960 in which the former fared poorly and the latter, by contrast, benefited highly from the technology, Rogers looked back 70 years to the most famous debate in American political history to date.

In a series of seven debates in Illinois lasting from August to October 1858, Abraham Lincoln took to platforms across the state against the formidable “Little Giant,” Stephen A. Douglas. Rogers observed that “they say Douglas won it [the series,]” but then joked that, even if I lose and just become as well known as Lincoln why it wont be so bad.” Consequently, the “Candidate of the Anti-Bunk Party, without Platform, Convention, Campaign Fund, or Slogan,” closed with this choice exhortation,

Now Herbert you got to Debate with somebody before this Dog fight ends in November and it might as well be me, You better let me meet you and then I will meet Smith, and that will show you how good he is and give some line on whether to tackle him or not.

Henry Ford is to be the Judge that I pick, He can tell when either one of us is missing.

In a separate piece, LIFE offered that “They’re All Imitating Will Rogers” and that “Both Hoover and Smith Are Joining the Anti-Bunks.” Cited were instances in which the latter was asked to pose for the press as a bricklayer because it would purportedly show his solidarity with workers and the former was pressed to kiss a baby to garner the support of women. Smith reportedly called the stunt offered to him as “baloney,” while Hoover intoned that “I am not going to stage emotional antics for publication purposes,” and the magazine summarized that “it is understood that Mr. Hoover’s refusal was heartily indorsed by the baby.”

These examples were cited by LIFE as “evident to the most thoroughly naked eye that the great Anti-Bunk Campaign is sweeping the country” but also as proof positive that “when even the regular Republican and Democratic Candidates attempt to establish their bunklessness, they betray their fear of Will Rogers and the enormous influence that he wields.”

It then averred that Republicans tried to convince Ford to join the G.O.P. and, thereby, it joked, start a trade war between Ford’s car company and General Motors, but Ford remained steadfast as a member of the Anti-Bunk Party, so readers were invited to “join Henry Ford, and all other great independents” and “send in your name to Rogers Campaign Headquarters” at LIFE’s offices.

LIFE’s cover displayed its four core topics of Amusement, News, Personalities and Sport and so there are interesting and sometimes amusing commentaries on the theatre by Robert Benchley, who rose to fame for his columns in the Twenties and, later, a notable film career (his son, Peter, was a speechwriter for President Lyndon Johnson before achieving fame as the author of Jaws); boxing by John Kiernan; and the strange world of radio blurbs by Agnes Smith. Robert E. Sherwood, who went to win three Pulitzer Prizes for Drama, one for Biography and an Academy Award for Best Screenplay offered his review of new films, the baseball picture, “Warming Up” and the energetic romance, “Forbidden Hours.”

Henry Suydam in his “The Political Front” column piece on “The Women’s Vote,” noted that, since the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920, “several abortive attempts have been made to ‘organize’ the women voters of the country, but a satisfactory formula is yet to be discovered.” It was further observed that, “the women have remained Republican or Democratic, in most cases simply following the political preferences of the male members of the family” and the journalist believed that, for 1928, “a tremendous effort will be made to line up the women voters for Herbert Hoover.”

Suydam was doubtful of such a concept’s success, but if such were to actually work, he continued, “fair-haired Herbert is the man to do the job,” even if it was readily understood that the plan was not to be one that “any self-respecting candidate can afford to know about.” Cited were unspecified attacks against Smith’s wife, calculated “to antagonize women voters” from the so-called “Happy Warrior” and “to entice them into the cold embrace of Mr. Hoover.” Rural women, in particular, were targeted “to defend their homes against a return of the saloon, to elect a gentleman of ‘graceful outward manner,” and to stand up for Protestantism.”

On the other hand, Suydam wrote, Republican primary challenger, Missouri Senator James A. Reed launched “ill-advised assaults,” also left unmentioned against Hoover and which were personal if not about the nominee’s personal life. Yet, he continued, “the cheapest and most unjust criticisms of Mr. Hoover came from Republican sources at Kansas City just prior to the convention . . . just as the least legitimate opposition to Gov. Smith to date has originated among Democrats.” Of course, the election still had about three months to go.

After expressing sympathy for American diplomats who had to explain the political scene and machinations overseas, Suydam concluded with some noteworthy tart and trenchant commentary, though with a bit of a surprising twist at the end:

Out of the mouthing of patriotic dogmas and the vociferous expression if opinions oftener synthetic that real, through an expensive process of “organization” more than occasionally either unnecessary or futile, a President emerges, cast up on a wave of sentiment or of supposed self-interest by an indifferent and not very intelligent electorate. Yet this same President, as [incumbent] Mr. Coolidge has truly said, is the most powerful and most important functionary in the world.

It is no wonder that most Presidents, after they get in the White House and discover the real significance of their office, look back upon the manner of their election with some chagrin. It is at that point that Presidents begin, in a spirit of humility, to assert that Divine Providence is guiding the destinies of the United States.

Advertisements are always interesting to peruse in these publications and a few examples are provided here. As for the election, it was held on 6 November and Hoover swamped Smith with a margin of victory in popular votes of more than 17% and taking 444 electoral votes to just 87 for the Democrat, who won just eight states, six in the South as well as Massachusetts and Rhode Island, but failed to carry his own home state.

With respect to Suydam’s comment, however, Hoover had no idea what he was in for not quite eight months after he was sworn in as president (this was in early March at the time) as the Great Depression followed the crash of the stock market in October 1929 and his administration foundered in response. The political pendulum starkly swung in the opposing direction and it would be another five election cycles, during the Depression, Second World War and the latter’s aftermath, before a Republican (Dwight Eisenhower in 1952) would again capture the White House.