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Delegates to the 1940 Republican presidential convention singing in the lobby of the Benjamin Franklin Hotel, Philadelphia, PA, June 27, 1940.
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Men in overalls and miners hats with lights, hold signs that read James for President

Credit: Courtesy of Temple University, Urban Archives, Philadelphia, Pa

In 1940, Pennsylvania Governor Arthur H. James, who had worked as a breaker boy in a bituminous coal mine when young, was nominated as a dark horse candidate at the Republican presidential convention. After six ballots, James withdrew this name. "I was convinced that we were going to have a war," James would later explain. "I didn't want to be a war President."

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