From Oct. 24 to Oct. 28, 1932, The Student Life conducted a poll to find out Claremont Colleges students’ opinions on the upcoming presidential election. Herbert Hoover (Republican) was running for a second term against Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Democrat) and lost in a landslide due to his inability to thwart the Great Depression. However, at the Claremont Colleges, students overwhelmingly chose Hoover for the presidency, with the second-largest amount of votes going to a Socialist candidate named Norman Thomas. Additionally, 74 percent of students also voted in favor of Prohibition, a stance that seems impossible in today’s Claremont climate. These statistics beg the eternal question: How much of a bubble is Claremont? How can students’ ideologies differ so much from the rest of the nation?
HOOVER VOTE RAKES CAMPUS
In the final results of the Student Life straw vote, Herbert Hoover led in the race for the presidency, with a plurality of 379 votes. His total was 552. Thomas was unexpectedly strong to take second place with 108 votes. Roosevelt was third with 62. The payment of the veteran’s bonus was hopelessly overwhelmed, with 694 votes against it, and only 25 in its favor.
The Claremont Colleges favor the principles of prohibition, according to the ballots, for 382 voted for the retention of the eighteenth amendment, and only 277 against it. Many of those who voted against the retention of the amendment in its present form favored its modification rather than repeal.
Unemployment insurance of some kind was favored by 518 voters and opposed by 277. Although the registered voters who took part in the straw vote were outnumbered by those who were not, the proportion of votes on the various questions within the two groups was largely the same as that of the total vote.
The results given in this article and presented in the box are those received up to four o’clock yesterday afternoon. Although these may be considered, practically, as final results, any ballots returned today or tomorrow will be counted in the official total. A recount of all ballots is to be made by a committee made up of representatives from each of the three major parties is to be made soon [sic]. The results of this recount will be published in tabulated form in the Student Life next week.