Charles Curtis

• Vice President to:       Herbert Hoover - Republican, from Iowa.
  
  
  • Hoover served 1929 - 1933. He died in 1964, at the age of 90.
    
    
• Dates Served: Curtis served as Vice President from 1929 - 1933.
  
• Political Party: Curtis was a Republican, from Kansas.
  
• Born: 1860.
  
• Died: 1936, at the age of 76.
  
• The presidential opponent during the 1928 campaign was:
  
  
  • Alfred E. Smith - Democrat - New York Governor
    
    

Campaign issues in 1928:

• The issues this year were Prohibition and Religion. Alcohol had been illegal nationwide now for 9 years and many people viewed the rise in Organized Crime as a sign that Prohibition was just creating a Black Market, not having any real effect on people's drinking habits. Smith was the first Catholic candidate for President and he had to spend a lot of time answering sensational charges that he was a secret tool of the Vatican. Smear campaigns were launched predicting that a President Smith would make the Catholic Church the new state religion and declare all Protestant marriages illegal. The Ku Klux Klan, not known for its religious tolerance, had been growing in large numbers throughout the South in recent years and it played upon anti-Catholic paranoia and stumped for Hoover. The Republicans defended Prohibition as a noble cause and campaigned on the strong economic track-record of the past 5 years, promising voters that a vote for Hoover would guarantee "A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage". The Democrats dug up the scandals of the previous Harding administration as proof of the Republicans' hollow core and their reluctance to pursue the trusts as Teddy Roosevelt had done. But in the end voters went with the status quo and gave the Republicans another 4 years in the White House, with a large margin. It would be the last Republican victory for the next 24 years.
  
  

Notable Facts about Charles Curtis:

• Chuck was the last Vice President with a moustache. All Vice Presidents and Presidents since Curtis have been clean-shaven. (William Taft was the last President with a moustache) That's 68 years without any facial hair in the White House, so far.
  
  
• Religious affiliation: Curtis was a member of the Kansas Avenue Methodist Church in Eugene, Kansas. He taught Sunday School at the church and wrote for the church's newspaper. But this was apparently the full extent of his public religious expression. His adult expressions on religion were as non-existent as his receding hair-line.
  
  
• Charles Curtis was born on Indian land in Kansas and grew up on an Indian Reservation. He was himself one-eighth Indian: his mother was one-quarter Kansas/Osage Indian and part Potawatomie Indian. As a result, Curtis is sometimes called "the first Indian Vice President".
  
  
• When asked about his Indian heritage he liked to reply that he was "one-eighth Indian but one hundred percent Republican".
  
  
• Curtis was able to ride a horse bareback by the time he was 3 years old.
  
  
• He was originally a lawyer and began his political career by being elected County Attorney for Shawnee County, in Topeka Kansas, in 1885. He had all saloons in Topeka shut down within 30 days of being elected.
  
  
• He was later elected to the US House of Representatives, representing Kansas from 1893 - 1907. He also served in the US Senate from 1907 - 1913, and again from 1915 - 1929, becoming Majority Leader in 1924.
  
  
• He was a candidate for President for the Republican party in the 1928 campaign, but when Hoover was nominated by the Party he accepted the nomination for VP. His performance in office was uneventful.
  
  
• Curtis had originally opposed the nomination of Hoover for the Republican ticket, considering him too liberal. But when he was over-ruled, his own Party decided to nominate him as Hoover's Vice, since his anti-Hoover views would supposedly balance Hoover's failings. Curtis graciously accepted.
  
  
• Curtis was the first Vice President to take his oath of office with his hand on a Bible.
  
  
• Curtis was 70 years old when he began his term as VP.
  
  
• Curtis' wife had died 5 years prior to him becoming Vice President, so his sister Dolly Gann took his wife's place as his official hostess, and she demanded the same level of public respect that would have been due his actual wife, which was not eagerly offered by the wives of other politicians, which produced something of a social scandal in Washington.
  
  
• After his term as Vice President he returned to practicing law in Washington.
  
  
• Curtis died of a heart attack while alone in Washington DC on Feb. 8, 1936.
  
  

Notable Events during his Vice Presidency:

• The Stock Market Crash, October 24, 1929. Seven months into Hoover's Presidential term the Roaring 20's came to a sudden end, with the Market crash to end all crashes. Things quickly went from bad to worse. In order to protect the value of the currency, the Federal Reserve actually raised interest rates following the crash, making it harder to get credit. From 1929 to 1932 the Dow-Jones plummeted from a then-record high of 381 down to the dismal value of 41. It was not a good time to be President.
  
  
• The London Naval Treaty, 1930. This pact modified an agreement reached under President Harding's administration that had called on the US, Britain, France, Italy, and Japan to limit the sizes of their Navies. The primary goal was to limit the potential for Japanese aggression against China, which the US was concerned about largely due to business reasons. The treaty was modified in 1930 and allowed for Japan to increase the size of its Navy relative to those of the US and Britain. However, Japan renounced the treaty 6 years later which led to an arms race, ending with their invasions of China, Korea, and eventually Pearl Harbor.
  
  
• President Hoover's son, Allan, kept 2 pet alligators in the White House, which were occassionally seen to wander the halls of the Executive Mansion.
  
  
• The Twinkie is invented in 1930 by James A. Dewar.
  
  
• Chocolate Chips are invented by Ruth Wakefield, in 1930. She ran the Toll House Inn, located in Whitman, Texas, and she made cookies containing small broken pieces of semi-sweet chocolate. The "Toll House Cookie" was born.
  
  
• The yo-yo was patented by D. F. Duncan in 1932. William Randolph Hearst gave Duncan free advertising in his papers to sell the new toy, which he had become addicted to. The yo-yo had first been mass-produced in the 1920's by a Philippine immigrant living in California named Pedro Flores. He named the toy (which had been used in various forms for 100's of years) "yo-yo" after a Philippine phrase meaning "come-come" or "return-return". Duncan bought the rights to the yo-yo from Flores in 1929 and got rich from it.
  
  
• The Bonus March, 1932. In May of 1932 about 20,000 veterans of World War I marched on Washington demanding to be payed the bonus promised to them by President Coolidge for their service in the war. Even though they weren't technically eligible until 1945, the veterans demanded it be payed to them then, due to the severity of the Depression. Congress voted on it and turned it down. Many of the marchers didn't leave and instead set up camp outside of the White House to wait it out. Hoover responded by sending in the Army on July 28, led by General MacArthur and Majors Dwight Eisenhower and George Patton, who used infantry, cavalry, and tanks to flush out the protesters. Tear gas killed one infant who had been born in the makeshift shanty town, one small boy was bayonetted in the leg, and their encampment was burned to the ground. Not one of Hoover's better PR moves.
  
  1932 was a campaign year and Hoover's attempt to get re-elected wasn't helped by his heavy-handed approach towards the veterans. Only a month after the incident, Vice President Curtis was campaigning for Hoover in Nevada and was met by hecklers. Someone called out asking for an explanation as to why Hoover hadn't fed the hungry veterans. Curtis, showing a similar lack of PR savvy as Hoover, shouted back "I've fed more than you have, you dirty cowards! I'm not afraid of any of you!". The crowd responded by chanting "Hooray for Roosevelt! Hooray for Roosevelt!".
  
  
• The 20th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1933, otherwise known as the "lame-duck amendment". It moved the date of the Presidential inauguration from March 4 to January 20. It also dictated that the new Congress would convene on January 3.