The Politics of the 1920s
“I don't know much
about Americanism,
but it's a damn good
word with which to
carry an election.”
“You can't know
too much, but
you can say too
much.”
“Blessed are the
young for they shall
inherit the national
debt.”
Warren G. Harding “Winnie”
• From Ohio.
– Earned a BA degree at the age of 17 from
Ohio Central College.
– Served in the Ohio state legislature.
– Ran for Ohio governor but lost.
• Both parents were doctors.
• Family owned a newspaper.
– Harding bought and ran a newspaper: The
Marion Daily Star
• Chaired the Republican convention in
1916.
• Established the Veterans Bureau.
1920-1922 (died in office)
Warren G. Harding “Winnie”
• Harding's principle opponent in the newspaper world was Amos Kling,
the financier of Marion's most popular newspaper, the Marion
Independent.
• Competition between these two newspapers got so heated that one
argument was, apparently, settled at gunpoint.
• Harding, however, ultimately got the best of his rival - he married
Kling's estranged daughter, a divorced woman named Flossie Kling
DeWolfe.
• Her father was so upset he didn't speak to either of them for eight years.
• Winnie and Flossie never had children, but Flossie brought a young son
to the marriage, who was raised, in part, by the Hardings.
• Named Marshall DeWolfe, he eventually married and had children of
his own, but died of alcoholism in his early 30s, in 1915.
– When Harding later came to the White House, the fact that he had a stepson who
had died of alcoholism was not widely known or reported by the contemporary
media.
“I don't know what to do or where to turn
in this taxation matter. Somewhere there
must be a book that tells all about it, where
I could go to straighten it out in my mind.
But I don't know where the book is, and
maybe I couldn't read it if I found it.”
Warren G. Harding “Winnie”
• During the 1920 campaign, Harding revolutionized political campaigning.
• For the first time, newsreels and photo-ops became the norm in presidential
campaigning, and campaign results were broadcast on the radio for the
first time.
• Harding brilliantly marketed his own quaint home in rural Ohio as his
primary podium, instituting what he called a "front porch" campaign, in
which he was routinely depicted in photographs on his front porch, and
gave numerous speeches there to enormous audiences.
“I have no trouble with my enemies. I can
take care of my enemies in a fight. But my
friends, my goddamned friends, they're the
ones who keep me walking the floor at
nights!” - Harding
Calvin Coolidge
• John Calvin Coolidge, Jr., was born in
Vermont in 1872, the only U.S. president born
on the Fourth of July.
• After attending Amherst College and then
studying law, he opened his own law practice
in Northampton, Massachusetts in 1898.
• In 1905, Coolidge married Grace Anna
Goodhue.
– They had first met several years earlier after Grace
caught site of Calvin shaving in front of a window in
nothing but long underwear and a hat.
– Together they had two sons.
– At the age of 16, and while his father was president,
the younger son, Calvin, developed a blister on his
foot after playing tennis and died a week later from
sepsis.
– The other son, John, became a successful
businessman and died in 2000.
Calvin Coolidge
• Coolidge was a moderate Republican: fiscally
conservative, but supporting women's suffrage
and opposing prohibition.
• He gained national prominence among Repubs
in 1919 when he helped put down a strike, with
subsequent riots, in Boston involving police
officers who were attempting to unionize.
• It was during his time as vice-president that
Coolidge earned the nickname "Silent Cal."
– Though he was known for being an eloquent
public speaker, in private he was withdrawn and
quiet, typically deferring to his wife, who was
equally known for her outgoing personality. His
tendency to withdraw from social situations
intensified after the death of his son in 1924.
Calvin Coolidge
• President Harding died suddenly in August of 1923, while Coolidge
happened to be visiting his father in Vermont.
• By that time, his father was a notary public, so in the presence of
gathered reporters around 2:30 in the morning, he administered the
oath of office to his son, after which the unexcitable Coolidge went
back to bed.
• There was some concern over whether a state notary public had the
authority to administer the oath, so it was re-administered after
Coolidge returned to Washington.
Calvin Coolidge
• After finishing Harding's term, Coolidge was
easily nominated for president in 1924, and
despite a third-party candidate who effectively
split the Republican Party, Coolidge still won in a
landslide, thanks largely to a booming, post-war
economy.
• His inaugural speech that year was the first in
history to be broadcast on the radio.
• Though he had been associated with the
Progressive faction of the Republican Party early
in his career, as president he moved toward the
right by:
– Embracing low taxes
– Deregulation of industry
– Decreased government spending
• Famously stating that His Secretary of Commerce
was Herbert Hoover.
“The chief
business of the
American
people is
business."
Calvin Coolidge
• He ran under the slogan "Keep Cool with Coolidge".
• He also wanted to keep the country somewhat isolated and did not
want to join the League of Nations that formed after World War I.
Calvin Coolidge
• A woman at a party once told him that she bet a
friend she could get him to say three words. He
replied "You lose."
• He also had the nickname "Red" for his red hair.
• Coolidge was not a fan of his successor Herbert
Hoover. He said of Hoover that "for six years that
man has given me advice. All of it bad."
• A man of few words until the end, his last will and
testament was only 23 words long.
• He was the first president to appear in a talkie, a
movie with sound.
• His real first name is John, which he dropped in
college.
• He signed the Indian Citizenship Act, which gave
full U.S. citizen rights to all Native Americans.
Politics of the 1920s
• Republicans of the 1920s sought to serve the public good by less
direct government action and more through cooperation with
big business.
• WYNTK…This time was about retreating from international
issues and resuming a traditional foreign policy of military
unpreparedness and political isolationism.
Harding’s Republicans
• WYNTK…Harding was not a intelligent man. Weak-willed but
well-intentioned. He tolerated corruption and trusted his friends
blindly.
– He attempted to offset this by surrounding himself with people who
knew what they were doing.
• Ohio Gang- Poker-playing cronies from Harding’s home state
who contributed to the morally loose and corrupt atmosphere in
his administration.
– Like leeches, these ‘friends’ of Harding capitalized off his weakness of
not being able to say no.
Harding’s Republicans
• Charles Evans Hughes- SOS
– Smart, conservative, authoritative
• Andrew Mellon-SOT
– Extremely wealthy,
• Herbert Hoover-SOC
– Famous for food administration during WWI.
– Good at drumming up foreign trade for U.S. manufacturers.
Harding’s Republicans
• All the ‘good minds’ were offset by the following:
– Albert Fall- SOI
• Scheming anti-conservationist
– Harry Daugherty- Attorney General
• WYNTK...These two men where the most corrupt members of
Harding’s admin.
Taft’s Court
• WYNTK…Laissez-Faire under this administration=
government keeps hands off business and helps guide business
along the path to profits.
• Harding appointed 4 judges to the Supreme Court in his 3 year
run as President.
– Ex-president Taft for Chief Justice.
– Axed progressive legislation.
• Federal child labor law
• Tried to restrict government intervention in the economy.
• WYNTK… The Supreme Court of the 1920s was often seen as
anti-progressive thanks to ultra-conservative Chief Justice Taft.
Adkins v. Children’s Hospital
• 1923, the court reversed Muller v. Oregon.
– Louis Brandeis persuaded the Supreme Court
to accept the constitutionality of limiting the
hours of women workers.
– Invalidated a minimum wage law for women.
• 19th Amendment changes things…
– Women were now legal equals to men and could
no longer be protected by special legislation.
• Debated for decades:
– Were women sufficiently different from men
that they merited special legal and social
treatment?
– Were they effectively equal in the eyes of the law
and therefore undeserving of special protections
and preferences?
Corporations
• WYNTK…Antitrust laws were often ignored by Harding’s
admin and/or feebly enforced by friendly prosecutors in the
AG’s office.
WWI Veterans
• One of the few groups to reap long-lasting benefits from the war.
– Congress created the Veterans Bureau in 1921, which was authorized to
operate hospitals and provide vocational rehab for the disabled.
• Veterans organized into groups.
– The American Legion had been founded in Paris in 1919 by Teddy
Roosevelt, Jr.
– They became notorious for lobbying for veteran’s benefits.
• Doughboys wanted their ‘dough.’
• They demanded “adjusted compensation” to make up for the wages they
had lost when they turned over their jobs to leave for war.
– Congress passed a bonus bill in 1922 but Harding vetoed it.
– Congress tried again to pass the Adjusted Compensation Act which gave
every soldier a paid-up insurance policy due in twenty years.
• Coolidge vetoed this bill.
• Congress overrode the veto.
Veteran’s Bureau Scandal
• Colonel Charles Forbes, head of the Veteran’s Bureau resigned due to
scandal.
– He looted the government of $200 million, which was supposed to be used
for veteran’s hospitals.
– He was sentenced to two years in prison.
Bonus Army
• Once the depression hit the veterans wanted their bonus early.
• Thousands of veterans marched on to D.C. to get Congress’ attention in
1932.
– Bonus Expeditionary Force consisted of 20,000.
– They camped out, making the area unsanitary and full of shacksHooverville. They were thought to be a menace to public health.
• Hoover sent in the army to evacuate the unwanted guests.
– This eviction was carried out by General Douglas MacArthur with bayonets
and tear gas.
• WYNTK… Hoover’s harsh use of the army to rid D.C. of the “Bonus
Army” brought him widespread condemnation.
Teapot Dome
• Naval oil reserves located in Elk Hills, CA and Teapot Dome, WY.
• SOI, Albert Fall told the Sec. of Navy to transfer the oil to the Interior
Dept.
– Harding signed the order. Rubberstamping.
• Fall leased the reserves to old men Harry Sinclair and Edward Doheny,
but not until he received a bribe of $100,000 from Doheny and $300,00 0
from Sinclair.
• The three men were indicted a year later.
– Fall was found guilty and sentence to one year in jail.
– Sinclair and Doheny were acquitted, which undermined faith in the courts.
– Sinclair served several months in jail for “shadowing” jurors and for
refusing to testify before a Senate committee.
• WYNTK…The central scandal of Teapot Dome involved members of
Harding’s cabinet who took bribes for leasing federal oil lands.
More Scandal…
• AG Harry Daugherty prompted a Senate investigation in 1924 for the
illegal sale of pardons and liquor permits.
– He was forced to resign.
– He was tried but two juries failed to convict.
Benefits without Burdens
• Harding wanted to remain isolated
but could not ignore the League of
Nation’s world health program.
– He sent ‘unofficial observers’ to
Geneva to check things out.
• He knew he couldn’t completely
turn America’s back on the outside
world.
– Issue between U.S. and Britain in
the Middle East over oil-drilling.
– SOS Hughes eventually secured U.S.
oil companies the right to share in
the region’s oil.
Disarmament
• Washington Disarmament Conference 1921-1922.
– Invitations were sent to all the major naval powers, except Russia, because
the U.S. refuse to recognize their government.
• SOS Hughes laid out a concrete plan for limiting construction of
warships and even scrapping some of the dreadnoughts in existence.
• Battleship and aircraft carriers parity = U.S. 5, GB 5, Japan 3.
• WYNTK… The proposed ratio in the conference referred to allowable
ratio of battleships and carriers among the U.S., BG, and Japan.
• WYNTK… The two terms that best describe both the Harding and
Coolidge administrations’ approach to foreign policy is isolationism and
disarmament.
Alaska
• To get away from the scandals of D.C., Harding embarked on a speechmaking trip across the country.
• He died in San Francisco on August 2, 1923 of pneumonia and heart
issues.
• Millions of Americans mourned, but they were not fully aware of the
corruption about to be made known.
Kellogg-Briand Pact
• Americans wanted to outlaw war.
– They believed that if only quarreling nations would take the pledge to swear
off war as an instrument of national policy, then world wars would be a
thing of the past.
• Coolidge’s SOS = Frank Kellogg, who went on to win the Nobel Peace
Prize for his role in Pact.
• The Pact was ratified by 62 countries.
Tariff Hike
• Why raise a tariff? Businesspeople feared a flood of cheap goods from
recovering Europe into U.S. markets.
• 1922, Congress passed the Fordney-McCumber Tariff Law which raised
the tariff to 38.5% from 27% under Wilson.
• Europe needed to sell its manufactured goods to the U.S., particularly if
it hoped to achieve economic recovery and to pay its huge war debt to
the U.S.
– America needed to forgive the debts so that the European countries could
turn a profit.
• The tariff hike led to retaliation from European countries, which
weakened the world economy.
• WYNTK…The high tariffs crippled international trade and Europe’s
economic recovery from WWI.
• WYNTK… The high tariff rates had the primary effect of causing the
Europeans to increase their own tariff barriers and therefore severely
reduce international trade.
Silent Cal
• Quiet, honest, moral, frugal, painfully shy, dry wit in private, nasal
voice, boring, liked the status quo, cautious, hands-off.
• “The man who builds a factory builds a temple and that the man who
works there worships there.”
• Favored reducing taxes and debts.
• Cleaned out Harding’s Cabinet.
• WYNTK…Coolidge’s honesty and thrift helped restore public
confidence in the government after the Harding scandals.
Farmers
• WYNTK…One of the few sectors of the American economy that did not
prosper in the 20s was agriculture.
• A bipartisan “farm bloc” from the agricultural states met in Congress in
1921 and succeeded in making a difference.
– Capper-Volstead Act = exempted farmers’ marketing cooperatives from
antitrust prosecution.
– WYNTK… McNary-Haugen Bill = Sought to keep prices high by
authorizing the government to buy up surpluses and sell them abroad.
Government losses were to be made up by a special tax on the farmers.
• Coolidge vetoes the bill and farm prices stayed down while political tempers
stayed high.
Dawes Plan
• Charles Dawes- Coolidge’s running mate in the 1924 election.
• Germany was not paying reparations to the Allies, therefore making
them angry.
• WYNTK… Britain and France vigorously protested U.S. demands for
repayment of loans made during WWI.
• WYNTK… this was partially resolved by private American bank loans
to Germany that enabled Germany to pay war reparations.