Topic 5 The Harding and Coolidge Presidencies, 1920-1928

1. Topic 5 The Harding and Coolidge Presidencies, 1920-1928

2. 1920s Link, Videos #1-5, 7

3. In the 1920 election, Wilson, who remained incapacitated, and his Treaty of Versailles were so unpopular that there was no doubt that the Republicans would win. The only question was who they would nominate, someone who was more conservative and ideologically against government or someone more moderate. They decided on a compromise, the former newspaperman and Ohio senator Warren G. Harding. Women would vote for the first time in the 1920 election and people assumed that Harding’s good looks would win their new vote.

4. Harding was not particularly ambitious and quietly wondered if he was up to the presidency, but he had an ambitious and powerful aide and advisor, Harry Daugherty. Dougherty worked for a deadlocked GOP convention, thus creating the need for a compromise candidate like Harding. Daugherty and others in the Republican Party recognized that the fact that Harding was only of average intelligence and appeared so common might work to his advantage after the brainy Wilson. Harry Daugherty

5. In fact, Harding was a rather fun-loving and relaxed guy who enjoyed drinking, women, and gambling. He had drinking buddies over to the White House for card games.

6. One of Harding’s mistresses, Nan Britton, bore him an illegitimate child. In those days no body talked about it because it reflected poorly on the presidency

7. Also driving Harding’s political assent was his wife Florence Harding. She was considered the ambitious member of the family, pushing on his political career

8. Trying to campaign on the need to return to a time when the government was less active, Harding declared the nation needed to return to “normalty,” which was incorrect grammar for “normality.” The newspapers quoted him as saying “normalcy,” also technically incorrect. Regardless, the misspoken English seemed to suggest that Harding was just a common fellow like you, so Harding’s quote became an unofficial campaign slogan.

9. In 1920 the Democrats nominated the Governor of Ohio James Cox, and, for his vice president, New Yorker Franklin Roosevelt, a distant cousin of Teddy Roosevelt, a fact the Democrats hoped would win votes. The ticket campaigned on endorsing the League of Nations.

10. Realizing that Harding was not a particularly good speaker, his campaign launched what they called the “front porch campaign.” They would call reporters and supporters to his front porch, which quietly harkened back to a day earlier in American history when candidates tried to hide their ambition and project an image of being called to the office.

11. In the end, Harding won 60% of the vote and the Republicans won both houses of Congress, so they were in a good position to carry out their agenda, quite different from the activism of the Progressives.

12. Wilson and the Democrats had worked to lower tariffs. Harding appeared uninterested in the details, so Republicans in Congress led the effort to raise tariffs as a mechanism to protect American big business and manufacturing, They passed the Fordney-McCumberTaiff of 1922 Note effect of Fordney-McCumber Tariff of 1922 Anti-Fordney-McCumber Tariff cartoon --------->

13. Harding remained a decent, compassionate man at his core and as he worked to weaken regulations and lower taxes, part of his Republican agenda, he also pardoned the Socialist Eugene Debs

14. With Republicans in charge, there was not a lot of activist legislation since they tended to see less government as better. What came to define Warren Harding’s presidency was, rather, the many scandals that happened on his watch. None of the scandals involved Harding directly, but rather illustrated his poor management and made his administration increasingly unpopular Cartoon of Harding’s attorney general trying to hide the skeletons in his closet.

15. One of the most famous scandals was the so-called Teapot Dome Scandal, named for a Wyoming mountain that looked like a teapot. During WWI, the government had begun to conserve the oil underneath the mountain and, now that the war was over, the Republicans wanted to sell it to private business interests.

16. Rather than sell the oil to the highest bidder, Secretary of Interior Albert Fall took a personal payoff to sell it to another, lower bid

17. A Special Senate committee was appointed to investigate the scandal. In 1929 Fall was convicted of bribery and went to jail in 1931. He lived the rest of his life in shame.

18. The negative publicity of the Teapot Dome scandal made people wonder about Harding, but Harding’s problems did not end there. There were other scandals as well

19. Harding’s advisor Harry Daugherty was made attorney general, and Daugherty brought a number of his old friends into the Justice Department, including Jesse Smith. It was soon uncovered that Smith was taking bribes from bootleggers and helping them avoid prosecution and income taxes. When it became public in 1923, Harding told Daugherty to fire Smith. Smith returned to his Washington apartment and committed suicide. Jesse Smith

20. Another scandal involved the Veterans Affairs Director Charles Forbes. With the newly created VA after WWI having a lot of money to spend on hospital construction and health care, Forbes took bribes for the construction contracts as well as illegally selling VA supplies for his personal gain. In total, his theft took almost $250 million before it became public. Harding tried to quietly let Forbes resign, but the Senate began an investigation. As a result of that investigation, one of Forbes assistants at the VA committed suicide. Forbes was ultimately sentenced to two year sat Leavenworth prison in Kansas Charles Forbes

21. Since Attorney General Daugherty was so close to many of those guilty, people began to wonder about him. When senators spoke of a possible investigation into him, Daugherty turned the FBI on them. The Senate investigation called Daugherty to testify but Daugherty refused, citing Executive Privilege. In the end Daugherty was forced to resign by political pressure. Daugherty leaving the Senate Committee after refusing to testify

22. While Washington dealt with the economy and scandals, it was not a good time for African-Americans and immigrants. The Progressive Age had codified segregationist policies known as Jim Crow and throughout much of America a new organization was reborn - the Ku Klux Klan (KKK)

23. A History teacher in Stone Mountain Georgia, William J. Simmons, had revived the famous Reconstruction-era group in 1915, but it had remained poorly organized

24. In 1920 Edward Y. Clarke and Elizabeth Tyler joined Simmons’ organization and organized it well. They raised dues, conducted door-to-door campaigns, and held regular meetings. Membership soared throughout the South

25. In 1922 Texas dentist Hiram W. Evans took over the leadership of the KKK. He completely changed the nature of the organization, and in doing so greatly expanded it.

26. During the Progressive Age a new massive wave of immigration largely had come from Southern and Eastern Europe, no longer just from northern and western Europe. They appeared, many believed, not to assimilate and thus posed a threat

27. KKK now saw itself as a pro-American, Christian, and family organization. It depicted all non-white Protestants as anti-American and a threat to the nation. This included not only Africa-Americans, but immigrants, Jews, and Catholics. In doing so the new KKK tried to appeal to all areas of America, not just the South Note: Wisconsin Note: Flag Day Note: Music, dancing, public invited

28. KKK seen by many as patriotic, the decendents of the real, original Americans and upholders of all that made the country great. Others did not understand America

29. The KKK provided many who felt left behind in the changing America a sense of importance, belonging, and direction (ex: “Exalted Knight”, “Grand Klavern”, etc.)

30. During the Harding Presidency, the Klan grew quite powerful. When Oklahoma Governor J.C. Walton put his state under marshal law in 1923 to combat the popularity of the KKK, he was impeached.

31. In 1925 the pro-Klan governor Ed Jackson was elected in Indiana

32. The Klan became hugely popular in the 1920s, reaching its all-time peak in membership and political power, before it began slowly fading.

33. Not surprisingly, the 1920s were violent years for African-Americans with continued high numbers of lynchings, kidnappings, and floggings.

34. The NAACP tried unsuccessfully to enact anti-lynching legislation

35. Marcus Garvey

36. Garvey established the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), which promoted a “Pan-African” movement

38. Garvey’s efforts to transport African-Americans to Africa ultimately proved unsuccessful. The nation of Liberia was not receptive and many African-Americans did not see Africa as their home.

39. Garvey then attempted to form the “Universal African Legion” to seize Africa and proclaimed himself the president of the Empire of Africa. Ultimately, however, he was imprisoned for mail fraud and deported. His movement died.

40. One bright spot for African-Americans was the Ford Motor Company, which integrated its workforce

41. As African-Americans languished, Congress passed with he support of the KKK the first significant restriction on immigration, based on national origins and clearly targeted at the “new” immigrants.. The Immigration Act of 1921 limited the number of immigrants to 3% of the various foreign-born elements living in the United States in 1910. The number of immigrants quickly decreased by over 50%. Note dramatic decrease in immigration

42. Not surprisingly given the reactionary conservative trend in the politics, the women’s movement all but died out after the passage of the 19th Amendment. A few female activists did, however, fight on, proposing an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)

43. Obituary in the 1970s (below) Alice Paul led the ERA fight, but during the 1920s was unsuccessful

44. In international relations, Harding and the Republicans steered a more neo-isolationist foreign policy. While they clearly sought less involvement, they still maintained a presence at the League of Nations, maintaining a group of unofficial “observers” shown above

45. The one area that the government remained involved around the world was facilitating the spread of private American businesses. The government helped bankers form consortiums to fund private projects in foreign countries, such as rubber plantations (above) and oil wells in the new country of Iraq (right)

46. After WWI, a Foreign Debt Commission created by Congress established the total debt owed to the US at $10.3 Billion. It then set up a system of rates and payments based upon a country’s ability to pay

47. Banker Charles Dawes After Germany defaulted in 1924 and produced a crisis, the Dawes Plan (later revised as Young Plan) was created to solve the debt issue

48. The one other area in which the Harding Administration took an interest in foreign policy was the effort at arms control. It hosted the Washington Naval Conference of 1921-1922

49. Four Power Treaty : US, GB, France and Japan agree to settle any disputes over the Pacific Far East peacefully at conventions Five Power Treaty: US, GB, Japan, France and Italy agree to limit the tonnage of new battleships constructed at the ratio of 5: 5: 3: 1.6: 1.6 Nine Power Treaty: The same countries in the 5-Power Treaty along with Belgium, Holland, Portugal and China agree to maintain Open Door Policy in trade with China, but otherwise respect China’s sovereignty

50. On August 2, 1923, President Harding suffered a heart attack in a San Francisco motel room and died suddenly