Joseph Taylor Robinson

With the memory of the Teapot Dome scandal rapidly fading, and the current state of prosperity making that year's Presidential nomination not worth all that much, most of the major Democratic leaders such as William G. McAdoo were content to sit this one out. One who didn't was NY Governor Alfred E. Smith, who had tried twice before. The party bosses decided that it was safe to give him what would be, for all intents and purposes, an empty honor.

The 1928 Democratic National Convention was held in Houston, Texas, June 26 to June 28 and Smith became the candidate on the first ballot.

The leadership asked the delegates to nominate Sen. Joseph T. Robinson of Arkansas, who was in many ways Smith's political polar opposite, to be his running mate, and he was nominated for Vice-President.

Smith was the first Roman Catholic to gain a major party's nomination for President, and his religion became an issue during the campaign. Many Protestants feared that Smith would take orders from church leaders in Rome in making decisions affecting the country.

The Prohibition Convention was held in Chicago from July 10 through July 12. Although Smith did not openly come out against Prohibition, he was perceived by many as soft in the war against alcohol. Some members of the Prohibition Party wanted to throw their support to Hoover, thinking that their candidate would not win and that they didn't want their candidate to provide the margin by which Smith would win. Nonetheless, William F. Varney was nominated for President over Hoover by a margin of 68–45. Hoover was on the California ballot as the Prohibition candidate.

The election was held on November 6, 1928.

Republican candidate Herbert Hoover won election by a wide margin on pledges to continue the economic boom of the Coolidge years. Smith won the electoral votes only of the traditionally Democratic Southern United States and two New England States. Hoover even triumphed in Smith's home state of New York by a narrow margin.

Smith's Catholicism hurt him in the South, where several states were won by the Republicans for the first time since Reconstruction. At the same time, his religion helped him with New England immigrants, which may explain his narrow victories in traditionally Republican Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Smith achieved one other distinction in this election: the Democrats won a majority of large cities for the first time, including the country's 12 most populous cities, signaling a trend of immense significance.

Senator Joseph Taylor Robinson died in Washington, D.C.. He is buried at the Roselawn Cemetery in Little Rock, Arkansas. His home in Little Rock, the Joseph Taylor Robinson House, was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1994.

Robinson is the namesake of Camp Joseph T. Robinson, Arkansas's primary National Guard base; Robinson Center in downtown Little Rock; and elementary, middle and high schools on the northwestern edge of Little Rock. Robinson's face appears on the front of the United States half dollar produced for the 1936 Arkansas Centennial; he was one of only four living men to appear on a U.S. coin.