Download POLITICS IN THE 1920S ELECTION OF 1920 THE GOP RESUMES

3/3/2015
ELECTION OF 1920
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POLITICS IN THE 1920S
APUSH Chapter 32
HUSH Chapter 23
THE GOP RESUMES CONTROL
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Hoped to crush the reforms of the progressive era
Hoped to improve on the old business doctrine of laissezfaire
 They simply wanted the government to keep its hands off
business,
 But for the government to guide business along the path to
profits
 They achieved their purpose by putting the courts and
administrative bureaus in safekeeping of fellow standpatters
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Corporations could once more relax and expand:
Antitrust laws were often ignored, circumvented, or feebly
enforced by friendly prosecutors
 The Interstate Commerce Commission came to be
dominated by men who were personally sympathetic to the
managers of the railroads
 Big industrialists strived to reduce the rigors of competition
 Associations that ran counter to the spirit of existing
antitrust legislation, their formation was encouraged by
Hoover
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Harding won with the
largest popular vote
landslide in presidential
history – 60% to 34%
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Electoral vote was 404 to
127
Harding lived less than three years as president:
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New Old Guards:
THE GOP RESUMES CONTROL
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THE GOP RESUMES CONTROL
Harding was a perfect “front” for enterprising
industrialists:
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This was the first
election in which women
could vote nationwide.
James Cox (and
Franklin Roosevelt)
urged the adoption of
the League of Nations
Warren Harding (and
Calvin Coolidge) was
focused on a “return to
normalcy” but never
really defined what that
meant.
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But appointed four of the nine justices:
His fortunate choice for chief justice was ex-president Taft,
who performed his duties ably but was more liberal than
some of his cautious associates
The Supreme Court axed progressive legislation:
It killed a federal child-labor law
Stripped away many of labor’s hard-won gains
 Rigidly restricted government intervention in the economy
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BENEFITS WITHOUT BURDENS
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Making peace with the fallen foe:
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The United States, having rejected the Treaty of
Versailles, was technically at war with Germany,
Austria, and Hungary:
In July Congress passed a simple joint resolution that
declared the war officially over
Isolation was enthroned in Washington
 Continued to regard the League as an unclean thing
 Harding at first even refused to support the League’s world
health program
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BENEFITS WITHOUT BURDENS
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BENEFITS WITHOUT BURDENS
Secretary Hughes secured for American oil
companies the right to share in oil exploitations
Disarmament was an issue for Harding:
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France and Italy were also part of the 5 power treaty,
receiving a still smaller allotment of ships.
No real enforcement power.
Had businessmen to finance the ambitious naval building
program during the war
 Washington “Disarmament Conference” 1921-1922:
 Invitations went out to all but Bolshevik Russia
 The double agenda included naval disarmament;
 The situation in the Far East
 Hughes declared a ten-year “holiday” on the construction
of battleships
 He proposed scaled-down navies of America and Britain:
ratio 5:5:3. The third was for Japan.
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BENEFITS WITHOUT BURDENS
A Four-Power Treaty –the pact bound Britain, Japan,
France and the United States to preserve the status quo
in the Pacific.
 Gave China—“the Sick Man of the Far East”—the NinePower Treaty (1922), whose signatories agreed to nail
wide-open the Open Door in China
 No restrictions:
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Fordney-McCumber Tariff Law:
Lobbyists wanted to bust the average from 27% to 38.5%,
almost as high as Taft’s Payne Aldrich Tariff of 1909 (see
Appendix.)
 Duties on farm produce were increased
 Flexibility: the president could increase or decrease duties
as much as 50%
 Harding was more friendly to increases than reductions.
 In six years they authorized 32 upward charges
 During this same time, the White House ordered only 5
reductions
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The new parchment peace was delusory:
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Defensive wars were still permitted
The pact was a diplomatic derelict and virtually
useless
It reflected the American mind (1920s):
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Kellogg-Briand Pact:
 Secretary of state Frank B. Kellogg won the Nobel Peace
Prize for his role; Kellogg signed the Pact with the
French foreign minister.
 It effectively outlawed the use of war as a diplomatic
policy but there was still no means of enforcement.
Businesspeople sought to keep the market to
themselves by throwing up tariff walls:
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Placed on small warships
Congress made no commitment to the use of armed force.
A NEW ERA FOR BUSINESS
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BENEFITS WITHOUT BURDENS
Willing to be lulled into a false sense of security
This same attitude showed up in the neutralism of the
1930s.
A NEW ERA FOR BUSINESS
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The high-tariff course set off a chain reaction:
European producers felt the squeeze
Impoverished Europe needed to sell its manufactured goods
to the United States
 America needed to give foreign countries a chance to make
a profit
 International trade, Americans were slow to learn, is a twoway street.
 They could not sell to others in quantity unless they bought
from them in quantity—or lent them more U.S. dollars
 Erecting tariff walls was a game that two could play
 The whole European-American tariff situation further
deepened the international economic distress, providing one
more rung on the ladder by which Adolf Hitler scrambled to
power.
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ADDITIONAL DOMESTIC POLICY
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He also signed the
Federal Highway Act
of 1921 to give federal
aid to states for
highway building.
Part of the justification
was for military
transport since
railways alone might
not be sufficient.
 Eventually more than
78,000 miles of roads
would be constructed.
 **NOTE – This is NOT
the Interstate Highway
System**
ADDITIONAL DOMESTIC POLICY
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Harding did little more than sign into law
measures that were passed by the isolationist
and business friendly Congress
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SCANDALS
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Loose morality and get-richquickism of the Harding era
resulted in a series of scandals:
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Veterans Bureau:
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1923 Colonel Charles R. Forbes,
caught with hand in the till, was
forced to resign as head of the
Veterans Bureau
 Looted the government of $200
million, chiefly in the building of
veterans’ hospitals
 He was sentenced to two years in
a federal penitentiary
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He approved a reduction in the income tax – for all
income classifications but the wealthiest received the
biggest benefits
He established a Bureau of the Budget which placed
all government expenditures in a single budget for
Congress to review and vote on.
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He also slashed federal spending and reduced the national
debt by one third.
He also signed the Federal Highway Act of 1921 to
give federal aid to states for highway building.
SCANDALS
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Teapot Dome
scandal:
Involved priceless naval
oil reserves at Teapot
Dome (Wyoming) and
Elk Hills (California)
 Secretary of the interior
Albert B. Fall induced
his careless colleague,
the secretary of the
navy, to transfer these
valuable properties to
the Interior
Department
 Harding indiscreetly
signed the secret order
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SCANDALS
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Teapot Dome scandal:
Fall quietly leased the lands to
oilmen Harry F. Sinclair and Edward
L. Doheny,
 But not until he received a bribe
(“loan”) of $100,000 from Doheny and
about three times that amount in all
from Sinclair
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SCANDALS
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In June 1923, Harding set out on a cross-country
“Voyage of Understanding” to reconnect with the
people and explain his policies.
 Before the trip, Harding
had looked very ill and
tired, even complaining
of chest pains, and it was
thought getting away from
the stress of Washington
would do him some good.
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Scandal of Attorney
General Daugherty:
A Senate investigation (1924)
of illegal sale of pardons and
liquor permits
 Forced to resign, tried in 1927,
but released after the jury
twice failed to agree.
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HARDING’S DEATH
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Upon arrival to San
Francisco, he was
taken ill with and died
suddenly on August 2,
1923.
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It is believed that he
died from congestive
heart failure and
either a heart attack
or stroke.
He even traveled throughout Alaska (above)!
SILENT CAL BECOMES PRESIDENT
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Teapot Dome finally came to a
whistling boil
 Fall, Sinclair, and Doheny were
indicated 1924
 Case dragged on until 1929
 Fall was found
guilty of taking
a bribe, sentenced
to one year in jail
 Doheny was acquitted
twice of offering
the bribe that Fall
was found guilty of
accepting.
HARDING’S DEATH
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SCANDALS
Teapot Dome scandal:
SILENT CAL BECOMES PRESIDENT
Vice President Coolidge was sworn into office by
his father:
He embodied the New England virtues of honesty, morality,
industry, and frugality
He otherwise seemed to be commonplace, with mediocre
powers of leadership and gave invariably boring speeches
 True to Republican philosophy, he became the “high priest
of the great god Business”
 His philosophy was a hands-off temperament
 His thrifty nature caused him to sympathize with Secretary
of the Treasury Mellon’s effort to reduce taxes and debts
 Coolidge slowly gave the Harding regime a badly needed
moral fumigation
 Coolidge was not touched by the scandals.
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A THREE WAY RACE
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A THREE WAY RACE
Election of 1924:
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The Democrats failed by one vote to pass a resolution
condemning the Ku Klux Klan
 Deadlocked for an unprecedented 102 ballots, the
convention turned to John W. Davis
 Now wide-open for a liberal candidate:
 Senator Robert (“Fighting Bob”) La Follette sprang forth
to lead a new Progressive party
 He gained the endorsement of the American Federation
of Labor
 He enjoyed the support of the shrinking Socialist party,
 But his majority constituency were the price-pinched
farmers
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Nominated “Silent Cal” at their convention in
Cleveland in the summer of 1924
Democrats had more difficulty choosing a candidate
in their convention in New York:
The party was split between “wets” and “drys”
Urbanites and farmers
 Fundamentalists and Modernists
 Northern liberals and southern stand-patters, immigrants
and old-stock Americans.
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A THREE WAY RACE
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La Follette’s new Progressive party:
A THREE WAY RACE
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Election returns:
Fielding only a presidential ticket, with no candidates for
local office
 Proved only a shadow of the robust Progressive coalition of
prewar days
 Its platform called for government ownership of railroads
and relief for farmers
 It lashed out at monopoly and antilabor injunctions
 Urged a constitutional amendment to limit the Supreme
Court’s power to invalidate laws passed by Congress.
La Follette polled nearly 5 million votes
“Cautious Cal” and the oil-smeared Republicans overwhelmed Davis, 15,718,211 to 8,385,283
 The electoral
count stood at
382 for Coolidge,
136 for Davis, and
13 for La Follette,
all from his home
state of Wisconsin
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COOLIDGE FOREIGN POLICY
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Isolation continued to reign in the Coolidge era:
The Senate would not allow America to adhere to the World
Court
 Coolidge only halfheartedly and unsuccessfully pursued
further naval disarmament
 American outward looking:
 The armed interventionism in the Caribbean and Central
America
 American troops were withdrawn (after an eight-year
stay) from the Dominican Republic in 1924
 They remained in Haiti (1914-1934).
 America was in Nicaragua intermittently since 1909;
Coolidge briefly removed them in 1925; in 1926 he sent
them back where they stayed until 1933
 American oil companies clamored for a military
expedition to Mexico in 1926
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COOLIDGE FOREIGN POLICY
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Overshadowing all other foreign-policy problems in
1920s was the issue of international debts:
Complicated tangle of private loans; Allied war debts and
German reparations payments (see Figure 32.2)
 In 1914 America had been a debtor nation to the sum of $4
billion
 By 1922, it had become a creditor nation to the sum of $16
billion.
 American investors loaned some $10 billion to foreigners in
the 1920s
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COOLIDGE FOREIGN POLICY
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The key knot in the debt tangle was the $10 billion that the
U.S. Treasury had loaned to the Allies
 Uncle Sam held their IOUs—and he wanted to be paid
 The Allies protested that the demand for repayment was
grossly unfair
 The French and the British pointed out, with much
justice, that they had held up a wall of flesh and bone
against the common foe, until the Americans were ready
to enter
 America, they argued, they should write off its loans as
war costs
 The real effect of their borrowed dollars had been to fuel
the boom in the already roaring wartime economy in
America, where nearly all the purchases had been made
 Final straw, protested the Europeans, was that
America’s postwar tariff walls made it almost impossible
for them to sell their goods to earn the dollars to pay
their debts.
WAR DEBT CRISIS
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WAR DEBT CRISIS
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Germany’s war debts:
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Some statesmen wanted the debts to be scaled down or even
canceled
 Calvin Coolidge turned aside any suggestions of debt
cancellation.
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WAR DEBT CRISIS
The Dawes Plan (1924):
When that well dried up after the great crash of 1929, the
jungle of international finance quickly turned into a desert
 President Herbert Hoover declared a one-year moratorium
in 1931—
 except “honest little Finland,” which struggled along
making payments until the last of its debt was
discharged in 1976
 The United States never did get its money, but it harvested
a bumper crop of ill will.
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Was largely negotiated by Charles Dawes, about to be
Coolidge’s running mate
 It rescheduled German reparations payments
 And opened the way for further American private loans to
Germany
 The whole financial cycle now became still more
complicated:
 As U.S. bankers loaned money to Germany,
 Germany paid reparations to France and Britain,
 And the former Allies paid war debts to the United
States.
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ELECTION OF 1928
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1928 presidential race:
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Coolidge decided not to run again
Herbert Hoover became the candidate:
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Nominated on a platform of both prosperity and prohibition
Democrats nominated Alfred C. Smith
“Al(cohol) Smith,” soakingly and drippingly “wet” when the
country was devoted to the “noble experiment” of
prohibition
 He seemed to be abrasively urban
 He was Roman Catholic
 This would hurt him in the Protestant dominated South
and rural areas
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America insisted on getting its money back
The French and British demanded $32 billion in
reparations payments
The Allies hoped to settle their debt with the United
States
Debt cancellations:
ELECTION OF 1928
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Radio played prominently in this campaign for the
first time:
It helped Hoover more than Smith
Hoover decried un-American “socialism”
 And preached “rugged individualism”
 Never having been elected to public office , he was thinskinned in the face of criticism
 He did not adapt readily to necessary give-and-take of
political accommodation
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ELECTION OF 1928
ELECTION OF 1928
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His real power lay in
his integrity
 His
humanitarianism
 His passion for
assembling the facts
 His efficiency
 His talent for
administration
 His ability to inspire
loyalty in close
associates
 They called him “the
Chief.”

He was the best businessperson’s candidate:
 Self-made millionaire, he recoiled from anything
suggesting socialism, paternalism, or “planned economy,”
 Yet as secretary of commerce, he had exhibited some
progressive instincts:
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He endorsed labor unions
He supported federal regulation of the new radio
broadcasting industry
He flirted with the idea of government-owned radio.
Indications of low-level campaigners:
Religious bigotry against Smith’s Catholicism
The White House would become a branch of the Vatican—
complete with “Rum, Romanism, and Ruin”
 The South shied away from “city slicker” Al Smith
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ELECTION OF 1928
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Election returns:
Hoover triumphed in a landslide:
He bagged 21,391,993 popular votes, to 15,016,169 for
Smith
 Hoover electoral count of 444 to Smith’s 87.
 Big Republican
victory; Hoover
swept five former
Confederacy states
and all Border States
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