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CLASS NOTES
POLITICS OF THE ROARING TWENTIES
“AMERICANS STRUGGLE WITH POSTWAR ISSUES”
I.
Revolution abroad and reaction at home.
A.
WWI left Americans exhausted.
1.
The League of Nations had divided the US.
2.
Americans wanted a breather after the war.
a.
Americans wanted to return to a normal life.
b.
Renewed isolationism.
c.
A resurgence of nativism.
d.
Political conservatism, turning away from Progressivism.
B.
The Russian Revolution.
1.
Causes of the revolution: huge Russian losses in WWI, people
wanted reform, people wanted Russia out of the war and finally
the soldiers mutinied.
2.
Czar Nicholas abdicated on 3-15-17.
3.
Provisional government was set up.
a.
They continued the war.
4.
November, 1917, the Bolsheviks (majority) seized power.
a.
Led by V.I. Lenin.
b.
Withdrew Russia from the war.
c.
Set up a government based on the social and economic
ideas of Communism.
5.
Lenin advocated a worldwide revolution – overthrow the capitalist
system and the abolition of free enterprise and private property.
C.
The red scare in the US.
1.
70,000 radicals joined the newly formed Communist Party of the
United States (CPUSA).
a.
Less than one-tenth of one percent of the entire US
population.
2.
Rash of mail bombs sent in the US.
a.
Attorney General Mitchell Palmer.
1.
Palmer was convinced that the Communists were
undermining American values.
b.
John D. Rockefeller.
D.
The Palmer Raids.
1.
1919, J. Edgar Hoover appointed to become FBI director.
2.
FBI was to hunt down suspected Communists, socialists and
anarchists.
3.
II.
Americans civil rights were being violated.
a.
Raids in private and public places without warrants.
b.
Suspects jailed for weeks without reason.
c.
Deportation of hundreds of alien radicals without trials.
4.
No evidence of revolutionary conspiracy was ever revealed.
E.
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were anarchist immigrants to the
U.S. that evaded the draft in WWI and was accused of murder.
1.
Accused of shooting two men in Braintree, Ma.
2.
Evidence was circumstantial, however they were convicted and
sentenced to death.
3.
Worldwide notoriety as they were electrocuted on 8-3-27.
4.
8-23-77, Ma. Governor, Michael Dukakis declared that Sacco and
Vanzetti had not been given a fair trial.
F.
The Klan became popular again.
1.
Bigots used anticommunism as an excuse to harass anyone
unlike themselves.
2.
The Klan revived in 1915 and really grew in the early 1920’s.
a.
By 1924, its membership rose to 4.5 million “white male
persons, native-born gentile citizens” who believed in
keeping blacks “in their place,” destroying saloons,
opposing unions, and driving Roman Catholics, Jews,
and foreign-born people out of the country.
3.
Racial violence.
4.
In the 1920’s, the Klan dominated the state politics in Arkansas,
California, Indiana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon and Texas.
A time of labor unrest.
A.
Severe postwar conflict between labor and management.
1.
Wages did not keep up with prices.
a.
Employers did not want to give their employees raises.
B.
The Boston police strike happened because the police had not had a raise
since WWI began, and by 1919, prices had doubled.
1.
The police struck and Governor Calvin Coolidge fired the police.
2.
AFL president, Samuel Gompers appealed to Governor Coolidge.
3.
Coolidge: “There is no right to strike against the public safety by
anyone, anywhere, anytime.”
4.
Coolidge gained national attention and Harding picked him as his
running mate in the 1920 presidential election.
C.
The steel mill strike, 1919.
1.
Working conditions were extremely difficult and dangerous.
a.
12 hour work days.
2.
350,000 workers walked off the job.
3.
Steel companies hired strike breakers (scabs) and used force.
4.
President Wilson appealed to the steel workers.
5.
The strike was finally broken in January, 1920.
6.
AFL leader William Foster became a Communist and that did
not help the union’s image in the U.S.
7.
D.
E.
Steel companies agreed to an 8 hour work day, but the workers
never got their union.
The coal miners strike, 1919.
1.
John L. Lewis, new union president called on his members to
strike on 11-1-1919.
2.
They won their battle, obtaining a 27% wage increase.
3.
Lewis got national attention.
4.
Coal miners didn’t get their shorter workday or five day workweek
until the 1930’s.
Labor movement loses appeal.
1.
1920’s hurt the labor movement.
2.
Many Americans believed unions fostered Communism and union
membership declined.
a.
Most union members were immigrants who had to work
in poor conditions.
b.
Unions had difficulty organizing due to the many languages
c.
Farmers who migrated to the cities didn’t unionize because
they were used to relying on themselves (Populism).
3.
82,000 blacks held union memberships by 1929.
4.
1925, A. Philip Randolph founded the Brotherhood of Sleeping
Car Porters to help blacks gain a fair wage.
5.
By the end of the 1920’s, union membership had dropped from 5
million to 3.5 million.
6.
Americans views had changed during the twenties towards unions,
immigrants and our role in the world.
POLITICS OF THE ROARING TWENTIES
““THE HARDING PRESIDENCY”
I.
A return to “normalcy.”
A.
Americans became tired of the push for reforms that marked the
Progressive Era.
1.
Warren G. Harding of Ohio ran for president in 1920.
a.
“looked like a president ought to look” and the
public loved his soothing speeches.
B.
Working for peace.
1.
In 1921, Harding invited four major naval powers and four
smaller nations to Washington for a conference on interests in
the Far East.
a.
Harding: “I can speak officially only for our United
States. Our hundred millions frankly want less of
armament and none of war.”
2.
II.
Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes urged a ten year holiday
from building warships.
a.
Further suggested that the US, France, Great Britain, Japan
and Italy reduce their existing navies.
b.
It was agreed upon and the first time in history that
powerful nations agreed to disarm.
3.
Kellogg-Briand Pact.
a.
64 nations renounced war.
b.
Symbolic – no way to enforce it!
C.
High tariffs and reparations.
1.
The US was following an isolationist foreign policy.
2.
We were trying to avoid trouble in Asia and reduce armaments.
3.
We demanded that war debts be paid.
4.
Fordney-McCumber Tariff raised the tax on imports by 60%.
a.
Designed to protect American businesses.
b.
British and French could not repay their debt to US.
c.
Great Britain and France demanded Germany pay their
reparations but defaulted on their payments.
5.
Dawes Plan was US banks lending $2.5 billion to Germany so they
could pay their reparations and in turn France and Great Britain
could pay their war debts to US. CRAZY!
Limiting immigration.
A.
Nativist sentiments were growing in the U.S. since the 1880’s when
mostly Southern and Eastern Europeans began arriving.
1.
This sentiment was fueled by the fact that most union members
were immigrant anarchists and socialists.
2.
Demand for unskilled labor decreased after WWI.
a.
Nativists believed because of this, fewer immigrants should
be allowed in the U.S.
B.
The Quota System set by the Emergency Quota Act of 1921.
1.
Established limits that the maximum number of people from any
one foreign country that could enter the U.S.
a.
The law limited immigration from each European nation
to 2% of the number of nationals living in the U.S. in 1890.
b.
This discriminated against mostly Catholics and Jews since
most of their immigration from Southern and Eastern
Europe didn’t occur until after 1890.
c.
The National Origins Act of 1929 shifted the base year
from 1890 to 1920, but it reduced the total amount of
total immigrants in any given year to 150,000.
2.
The law excluded the Japanese altogether.
a.
Japanese government expressed anger and insult.
3.
During the 1920’s, about a million Canadians and 500,000
Mexicans immigrated to the U.S.
III.
Scandal hits Harding’s Administration.
A.
Harding’s Administration.
1.
Charles Evans Hughes was Secretary of State.
a.
Later became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
2.
Herbert Hoover was Secretary of Commerce since he did such a
good job in WWI.
3.
Andrew Mellon, one of the richest men in the country, became
Secretary of the Treasury.
4.
So called Ohio Gang – cronies.
a.
Attorney General, Harry M. Daugherty.
b.
Secretary of the Interior, Albert B. Fall.
B.
Scandals plague Harding.
1.
His administration began to unravel, much like 50 years before
with Grant and his friends/cronies.
a.
They became wealthy through graft and corruption.
2.
Charles R. Forbes headed the Veterans Bureau.
a.
Allowed the government to be overcharged by $250 million
3.
Colonel Thomas W. Miller, head of the Office of Alien Property
took German chemical patents the government had seized during
the war and sold them for far less than their worth.
C.
The Teapot Dome Scandal.
1.
Fall secretly leased land to two private oil companies: Harry
Sinclair’s Mammoth Oil Company of Teapot Dome, Wyoming
and Edward L. Doheny’s Pan-American Petroleum at Elk Hills.
2.
Fall suddenly became the owner of $350,000 in cash and bonds.
3.
President Harding died on 8-2-23 of a heart attack on a goodwill
tour.
4.
Calvin Coolidge became president upon Harding’s death.
POLITICS OF THE ROARING TWENTIES
“THE BUSINESS OF AMERICA”
I.
America’s standard of living soars.
A.
Coolidge: “The chief business of America is business…The man who
builds a factory builds a temple-the man who works there worships
there.”
1.
Sought to keep taxes down and business profits up.
2.
Goal to keep government interference in business to a
minimum and allow private enterprise to flourish.
B.
The impact of the automobile.
1.
Construction of paved roads.
2.
Homes being built with garages.
3.
New businesses: gasoline stations, repair shops, public garages,
motels, tourist camps and shopping centers.
First traffic lights were in Detroit in the early 20’s.
The Holland Tunnel, first underwater tunnel connected New York
and New Jersey in 1927.
6.
Woodbridge Cloverleaf, first cloverleaf intersection in New Jersey
constructed in 1928.
7.
Car liberated the isolated rural family.
a.
Gave families the opportunity to vacation far away.
8.
Women and young people became more independent.
9.
Urban sprawl – allowed workers to live further away from their job
10.
Auto industry grew in Detroit, Dearborn, Flint and Pontiac,
Michigan.
11.
Oil producing states like California and Texas began to grow.
12.
By the 20’s, 80% of the world’s autos were registered in the US.
The young airplane industry.
1.
It began by carrying mail for the government.
2.
Henry Ford made a tri-motor airplane in 1926.
3.
Lockheed Company produced a single-engine airplane in 1927.
Electrical conveniences.
1.
Alternating current (AC) made it possible to distribute electric
power through a transformer.
a.
Electrified households grew rapidly.
b.
Electricity transmitted to the suburbs.
2.
New appliances.
a.
Iron.
b.
Refrigerators.
c.
Cooking ranges.
d.
Toasters.
3.
New appliances made housewives jobs easier and quicker so
there is additional leisure time available.
The dawn of modern advertising.
1.
Advertise to sell products.
a.
Hired psychologists to study buyers appeal.
b.
Results were wonderful.
2.
“Say it with flowers” doubled the florist business between 1912
and 1924.
3.
“Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet” had Americans smoking
more.
4.
Advertising helped health and beauty aids: mouthwash,
deodorants, dandruff shampoos and cures for athlete’s foot.
a.
What used to be considered luxuries were now
necessities.
5.
Service organizations sprung up: Kiwanis, Rotary and Lions
Clubs.
a.
Businessmen doing charitable work.
b.
Americans idolized business during these boom times.
4.
5.
C.
D.
E.
II.
A superficial prosperity.
A.
Producing great quantities of goods.
1.
During the 20’s, Americans thought the prosperity would go on
forever.
a.
The average factory worker was producing 50% more than
a decade before.
b.
National income rose from $58 billion in 1921 to $83
billion in 1929.
2.
Business expanded and productivity increased.
3.
New stores: Five and dimes, groceries, drugs, shoes and clothes.
4.
Branch banking was developed.
5.
Income gap between workers and management grew enormously.
6.
Business that was not prosperous: iron and railroads and mining
and farming suffered losses.
B.
Buying many goods on credit.
1.
The installment plan enabled people to buy goods over an extended
period of time.
a.
Banks provided the money at low interest rates.
2.
This was a sign of a careless and superficial prosperity.