Democrats Accuse Republicans of Coercing Votes of Federal Employees
Democratic Party leaders on this day accused the Republican Party of intimidating and coercing federal employees to vote for Republicans.
Officials at the National Revenue Bureau (forerunner to today’s IRS) were accused of including in mailings to tax payers crediting a recent tax reduction to President Calvin Coolidge and Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon.
Another accusation was that African-American postal workers in Indianapolis were warned that if they did not vote and vote for Republican they would lose their jobs. Reportedly, all 150 African-American letter carriers were told directly to “get right on the Republican ticket.”
Learn more: Alexander Keyssar, The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in America (2000)
Read: Ari Berman, Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America (2015)
Read more: Chandler Davidson and Bernard Groffman, Quiet Revolution in the South: The Impact of the Voting Rights Act, 1965-1990 (1994)