The sordid contemporary events that will forever be a lamentable chapter of American history strongly remind us of a similar lamentable chapter in our own state’s history.
This year is the 80th anniversary of the attempt by majority Democrats to steal the governorship from Republican Forrest Donnell, who had won the governorship by the narrowest margin in state history. Here is how it went down:
Forrest Donnell, a Sunday-school teacher and lawyer from St. Louis officially defeated one of the pupils in his church class, Lawrence McDaniel, by 3,613 votes. McDaniel was backed by St. Louis Mayor Bernard Dickmann’s political machine that Donnell attacked as a potential successor of the infamous Pendergast Machine of Kansas City, badly weakened because “Boss Tom” had been sent to federal prison for violating tax laws.
Shortly after the election, State Democratic Committee Chairman C. Marion Hulen of Moberly announced the committee would investigate reports of “election irregularities.” Committeeman Frank H. Lee of Joplin announced he had evidence that McDaniel had actually won by 7,500 votes.
In those days, the Speaker of the House, not the Secretary of State, made the official announcement of winning candidates. The legislature convened on January 8, 1941 but Speaker Morris Osborn made no pronouncements. At a joint session on the tenth, Osborn certified the Democratic candidates for statewide office as winners but refused to certify Donnell.
Traditional inaugural ceremonies on January 13th were cancelled. Lt. Governor Frank Harris took his oath for a third term in the Missouri Senate, where the Lt. Governor is the chamber President. The other statewide office holders took their oaths at the Supreme Court. Donnell refused to be sworn by a Justice of the Peace and, instead, asked the court to order Osborn to declare him the winner. A second lawsuit asked the court to forbid a legislative committee from starting a recount.
Two days later, an angry Stark to a joint legislative session,
Your every thought and every effort should be to prove to the people of this great commonwealth that their faith in democracy is not misplaced, that democracy does and will work in Missouri. Nothing should be done at any time to shake the faith of our people in their democratic form of government. In these perilous times, it is doubly necessary that every public official in the state and in the nation should lean backward in an effort to serve the people strictly according to the constitution and the laws of the land without partisan bias and with only the welfare and the safety of our democratic form of government in mind.
Democrats started a recount anyway. February was half-gone when the Supreme Court ordered Osborn, under the Constitution, to declare Donnell elected, allowing McDaniel to file a notice contesting the election, triggering a legal recount. The Joplin Globe editorialized, “Larry McDaniel has at once forfeited the moral support of thousands of Democrats who from the first have been nauseated from the stench from the original office-stealing effort.”
Donnell (left) finally was sworn in on February 26, much to the delight of Lloyd Stark who said he was tired of “living out of a suitcase” while his fellow Democrats tried to overturn the election.
McDaniel’s 226-page contest petition was filed March 4, citing fraud, erroneous tabulations, irregularities, and vote-buying in 56 counties. He claimed that a complete would show that 24,263 votes cast for him were “wrongfully rejected” by election officials and that he was the real winner—by 30,000 votes. Donnell’s 50,000-word response filed about three weeks later threw McDaniel’s claims back at him claiming problems in 91 counties such as irregular registrations, voting by minors, non-residents, and wards of the government. He claimed he should have an additional 9,000 votes.
The recount started in mid-April and by May had turned into a disaster for McDaniel. Checked returns from St. Louis City and 81 counties had inflated Donnell’s victory margin by four-thousand votes. A new joint legislative session was called after McDaniel had arranged for hastily-drawn letters withdrawing his contest. He said he had become convinced that reports by his party leaders and others that there had been massive fraud were “greatly exaggerated” and that he was convinced “beyond question of doubt” that Donnell had been elected. Because the recount was never completed, Donnell’s victory margin remains in our history books and in the official record as 3,613 votes, the second-closest race for governor in state history (Frederick Gardner defeated Henry Lamm by 2,263 votes in 1917).
Forrest Donnell was elected to the U. S. Senate, succeeding Democrat Harry Truman. He served until 1951 and returned to St. Louis and his law practice. He was the last Republican Governor until Christopher Bond took office in 1973. Donnell, then 88 years old, attended Bond’s inauguration and took part in the celebration late into the night. He died in 1980 at the age of 95.
Democrats paid a price for their 1941 shenanigans. Republicans took control of the House in the 1942 elections by a large margin.
One of the other casualties was St. Louis Mayor Bernard Dickmann who was heavily criticized by winner William Becker for trying to use the election contest of 1941 to establish St. Louis machine control of state government.
A new constitution drafted during Donnell’s term in office took away the power of the Speaker of the House to declare election winners and placed it in the hands of the Secretary of State, the top Missouri elections official, where it resides to this day.
(Photo credit): Bob Priddy Collection