I. ELECTION OF 1920: Harding victory; first election in which women voted
A. Republicans: Warren G. Harding and
Calvin Coolidge; "Smoke-filled
room candidate" due to deadlocked
convention. He promised a "Return
to Normalcy".
"America's present need is
not heroics, but healing;
not nostrums, but normalcy;
not revolution, but restoration;
not surgery, but serenity."
His platform opposed U.S.
membership in the League of Nations.
Harding garnered 61% of
the popular vote.
B. Democrats: James M. Cox and Franklin
Roosevelt - supported
membership in League of
Nations
C. Socialists: Eugene V. Debs
II. HARDING ADMINISTRATION
A. Biography:
B. Cabinet: Secretary of State
Charles Evans Hughes; Secretary of
Commerce Herbert
Hoover, Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon,
Secretary of Agriculture
Henry Wallace; Secretary of the Interior
Albert Fall; Attorney
General Harry Daugherty (See Overview)
C. Accomplishments (See Overview)
1. appointed 4 of the 9 supreme court justices including Taft
2. quickly restored status
quo: July, 1921 Congress passes joint
resolution officially ending the war; membership in League of
Nations rejected; end of the War Industry Board;
denationalization of railroads, Esch-Cummins Transportation
Act of 1920 encouraged private consolidation; wartime fleet
sold off via Merchant Marine Act of 1920; Fordney-McCumber
Tariff Act 1922 raised tariffs
3. Federal government continues
to crack down on labor; 1919
steel strike broken ; 1922 railroad strike stopped by federal
injunction
4. Veterans Bureau established 1921
5. a) streamlined
the budget; b) supported antilynching
legislation; c) approved bills assisting farm cooperatives and
liberalizing farm credit; d) tolerant on civil liberties issues
D. Problems: Predatory friends whom
he appointed to office where they
engaged in corruption (like
Grant)
1. Charles Forbes,
director of Veterans Bureau, Scandal 1923,
found guilty of waste and misappropriation of $250 million of
funds; 2 year prison term and $10,000 fine
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2. Attorney General
Harry Daugherty resigned under pressure in
1924 accused of laxity in prosecuting for graft in the Veterans
Bureau and in enforcing prohibition laws; illegal sale of
pardons and liquor permits
3. Secretary of the
Interior Albert Fall accepted bribes in the
Teapot Dome Scandal involving naval oil reserves in Wyoming.
First Cabinet member to be jailed. 1 year sentence and
$100,000 fine. The scandal broke in 1924 after Harding's death.
E. Worn out by the problems, Harding became
ill on a speaking tour
and died in San Francisco,
August
2, 1923. Suicide rumors. He was
succeeded by Vice President
Calvin Coolidge who was sworn in by his
father, a justice of the
peace.
III. COOLIDGE ADMINISTRATION: Firm belief that government
should
interfere as little as possible in the life of the
nation.
A. Biography:
B. Vice-Presidency: He had obtained
the VP nomination in 1920 because
of his stand as governor
of Massachusetts against the Boston
policemen strike
in 1919. He said "There is no right to strike
against the public safety."
C. Accomplishments: 1) balanced
the budget; 2) reduced government
debt; 3) lowered
income tax rates; 4) began construction of a
national highway system
D. Farm Policy: farm prices were falling
so Congress passed bills to
establish government-backed
price supports for staple crops. These
were the McNary-Haugen
Bills (1927, 1928) Coolidge vetoed both.
IV. ELECTION OF 1924: Both candidates were pro-business. Coolidge victory.
A. Republicans: Coolidge ran
on a platform of "Coolidge prosperity".
The slogan was "Keep Cool
with Coolidge."
B. Democrats: after 103 ballots John W. Davis was nominated.
C. Progressive Party: (new one); Robert
LaFollette; platform called
for nationalization of the
railroads, public ownership of utilities
direct election of the president,
right of Congress to overrule SC
decisions
V. ISSUES OF THE 1920'S
A. THE ECONOMY
1. POST-WAR ECONOMIC
DECLINE (1920-1921): In the two years
following the war heavy consumer spending drove up prices. In
1920 people stopped buying and prices dropped. Agricultural
income would decline throughout the decade. Unemployment rose
from 2% in 1919 to 12%+ in 1921. Strikes of 1919-1920: 3600+.
Use of marines, National Guard to put down strikes.
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2. POST-WAR ECONOMIC RECOVERY (1922-1929)
a.
Much of the expansion was related to the increased use of
the assembly line, the boom in service industries, new
methods of credit such as the time-payment plan.
b.
The Twenties, like the 1880's, was a time of the
dominance of Big Business. Oligopoly: the control of a
whole industry by a few large firms. (horizontal
integration)`
B. GOVERNMENT SUPPORT OF BUSINESS:
Business looked to the
government to promote economic
growth. Andrew Mellon, Secretary of
the Treasury 1921-1929,
promoted policies that agreed with this view.
1. 1921 Congress reduced
taxes on corporations and wealthy
individuals.
2. 1922 Congress raised tariff rates: Fordney-McCumber Tariff
3. Presidents Harding, Coolidge,
and Hoover appointed Cabinet
officers who favored policies that supported business.
4. Regulatory commissions
(ICC, FTC) cooperated with rather than
regulated business
5. The Supreme Court, under
Chief Justice William Howard Taft,
became an activist court protecting big business and private
property. It sheltered business from government regulation
while undermining attempts by organized labor to achieve its
goals through strikes and legislation.
a.
Coronado
Coal Company v. United Mine Workers (1922)
ruled that a striking union could be prosecuted for
illegal restraint of trade.
b.
Bailey
v. Drexel Furniture Company (1922) limited
restrictions on child labor.
c.
Adkins
v. Children's Hospital (1923) overturned a
minimum wage law for women because it infringed on liberty
of contract.
d.
Maple
Floor Association v. U.S. (1929) ruled that
trade associations that formed to gather and distribute
antiunion information were exempt from antitrust laws.
C. SUPPRESSION OF LABOR UNI0NS: Organized
labor had gained ground
during the Progressive Era
and the war years. It lost ground in the
1920's and membership fell
from 5.1 million in 1920 to 3.6 million in
1929.
1. Public opinion, influenced
by prosperity and pro-business
rhetoric, turned against workers who disrupted everyday life
with strikes
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2. Federal government stifled
unions: troops and court injunctions
used to end strikes by steel, mine, and railroad workers.
3. Large corporations countered
the unions by providing pensions,
profit sharing, and company-sponsored sporting and social
events. This was called welfare capitalism.
4. Legislation was passed
to ensure open shops (employment of
union members could not be mandatory) as opposed to closed
shops
(where employees must be union members)
D. INDIAN AFFAIRS: Paternalism still
dominated the attitude toward
Indians. Reduced in numbers,
Indians were subject to discrimination
and pressure to be assimilated,
particularly via the boardingschool
route. Severalty,
land allotment to individual Indians, had not
made Native Americans self-supporting.
Under President Hoover, the
Bureau of Indian Affairs
was reorganized and expenditures for health,
education, and welfare increased.
E. WOMEN
1. Suffrage 1920:
Women didn't vote in any greater numbers than
men.
2. Legislation
a.
Sheppard-Towner
(Maternity and Infancy) Act (1921)
allotted funds to the states to set up maternity and
pediatric clinics. It was rescinded in 1929.
b.
Cable
Act (1922) specified that a woman who married a
foreigner retained her U.S. citizenship. However, alien
women did not get automatic citizenship by marrying a
citizen.