CHAPTER 22: NEW ERA

Objectives: o We will examine prohibition,

nativism, religious

fundamentalism, and presidential

politics of the 1920s.

o We will see how these factors

contributed to government

aloofness in the economy.

Ecc_4:8 There is one alone, and there

is not a second; yea, he hath neither

child nor brother: yet is there no end

of all his labour; neither is his eye

satisfied with riches; neither saith he,

For whom do I labour, and bereave my

soul of good? This is also vanity, yea, it

is a sore travail.

o Prohibition of the sale of

manufactured alcohol went into

effect in January 1920, it had

the support of most of the

middle class and most of those

who considered themselves

progressives.

A CONFLICT OF CULTURES:

o It was not working well.

o Illegal alcohol became rampant.

o In Chicago, Al Capone built a criminal empire based largely on illegal alcohol.

o Gang wars with federal agents occurred throughout major cities.

o Federal agents had little help from the police.

PROHIBITION

o Many middle-class progressives

who had originally had

supported prohibition soon

soured on the experiment.

o But an enormous constituency of

provincial, largely rural

Protestant Americans continued

vehemently to defend it.

PROHIBITION

o Opponents of prohibition or “wets”

as they came to know gained

steady influence until 1933 when

the Great Depression added

weight to their appeals, and they

finally able effectively to challenge

the “drys” and win repeal of the

Eighteenth Amendment.

PROHIBITION

o There was a growing sense of

nativism after the first world war,

following the war many old-stock

Americans began to associate

immigration with radicalism.

Nativism and the Klan:

o In 1921, Congress passed an emergency immigration act, establishing a quota system by which annual immigration from any country could exceed 3 percent of the number of persons of the nationality who had been in the United States in 1910.

o The new law cut immigration from 800,000 to 300,000 in any single year, but nativists remained unsatisfied.

Nativism and the Klan:

o The National Origins Act of 1924

strengthened the exclusionist

provision of the 1921 law.

o It banned immigration from east Asia

entirely.

o It favored Northwestern Europeans

people of “Nordic” stock.

Nativism and the Klan:

o A new iteration of the Ku Klux Klan

came on the scene.

o It also held sway in cities in the

Midwest and Northwest with the

largest membership in the State of

Indiana.

THE NEW KLAN:

o The aim of this version of the Klan was not only to harass African Americans but also Jews, Catholics, immigrants, and foreigners.

o The Klan was in the heyday from 1915 to 1925 but declined after David Stephenson, head of the Indiana Klan was involved in the rape, kidnapping of her young secretary and watched her die when she swallowed poison and did nothing to help her.

THE NEW KLAN:

o As society became more secular American Protestants by 1921 was divided into two warring camps.

o On one side stood the modernists, mostly urban, middle-class people who had attempted to adapt religion to the teachings of science and the realities of their modern secular society.

Religious Fundamentalism:

o On the other side stood the defenders of traditional faith: provincial, largely rural men and women, fighting to maintain the centrality of traditional religion in American life.

o The epicenter of this conflict was in Tennessee where the legislature adopted a measure making it illegal for an public school teacher to teach any theory that denies the divine creation of man is taught in the Bible.

Religious Fundamentalism:

o A biology teacher in the town of Dayton, John T. Scopes agreed to have himself arrested.

o Scopes was defended by the ACLU, the prosecution was assisted by William Jennings Bryan where he would assist the prosecution

o Journalists from across the country flocked to Tennessee to cover what became known as the “Monkey Trial.”

Religious Fundamentalism:

o Although Scopes was found guilty, which would be dismissed at a higher court because of a technicality.

o Scopes defense attorney Clarence Darrow scored an important victory for modernists.

o Bryan himself stood to testify as an expert of the Bible and was made foolish and finally tricked Bryan to admit the possibility that not all religious dogma was subject to one interpretation.

Religious Fundamentalism:

o The Scopes Trial was traumatic

experience for many

fundamentalists.

o It isolated and ultimately excluded

them from many mainstream

Protestant denominations.

o It helped put an end to much of their

political activism.

Religious Fundamentalism:

o But it did not change their religious

convictions.

o Even without connection to

traditional denominations,

fundamentalists continued to

congregate in independent churches

or new denominations of their own.

Religious Fundamentalism:

o As a result of urban and rural factions, more than the Republicans, Democrats were a diverse coalition of interest groups linked to the party by local traditions.

o Among those interest groups were prohibitionists, Klansmen, and fundamentalists on one side and Catholics, urban workers, and immigrants in the other.

Democratic Party:

o When Al Smith an Irish Catholic was

nominated as presidential candidate

for Democrats in 1928, the anti-

Catholic sentiments of Southern

Democrats doomed him from

mounting a challenge to the

Republicans.

Democratic Party:

o For 12 years starting in 1921, both the presidency and the Congress was in the hand of the Republican party.

o A party in which the power of reformers had greatly dwindled since the heyday of progressivism before the war.

o For most of those years the Federal Government enjoyed a warm and supported relationship with the American business community.

Republican Party:

o Warren G. Harding was elected in the presidency in 1920.

o He rose to the presidency being picked by party leaders that he would be a good yes man for the party.

o He appointed capable men to most important Cabinet offices and he attempted to stabilize the nation’s troubled foreign policy.

Harding and Coolidge:

o But even as he attempted to rise to his office he seemed baffled by his responsibilities as if he recognized his own unfitness.

o Harding intellectual limits were compounded by personal weaknesses: his penchant for gambling, illegal alcohol, and attractive women.

Harding and Coolidge:

o The Harding administration was known most for the Teapot Scandal.

o Where Harding’s Attorney General, and Albert Fall his Secretary of Interior collaborated in having Harding transfer oil reserves from Teapot Dome Wyoming and Elk Hills CA from the Navy to the Interior Department.

Harding and Coolidge:

o It is at the Interior Department where Fall secretly leased them to wealthy businessmen and received half a million dollars in loans to help Fall’s private financial troubles.

o Fall was ultimately convicted of bribery and sentenced to a year in prison.

o Harding died after two major heart attacks.

Harding and Coolidge:

o Calvin Coolidge succeeded Harding and he was honest to a fault.

o He was not tolerant of corruption.

o Coolidge was even less active as president than Harding, partly as a result of his conviction that government should interfere as little as possible in the life of the nation.

o He could have won reelection but he decided to walk away.

Harding and Coolidge:

o This was the passive new era presidents.

o The federal government was working effectively and efficiently during the 1920s to adapt public policy to widely accepted goal of the time:

o Helping business and industry operate with maximum efficiency and productivity.

Government and Business:

o The close relationship between the private sector and the federal government that had been forged during World War I continued.

o Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, a wealthy steel and aluminum tycoon, devoted himself to working for substantial reductions in taxes on corporate profits personal incomes, and inheritances.

o Largely because of his efforts Congress cut them all by more than half.

Government and Business:

o The most energetic member of the

cabinet was Commerce Secretary

Herbert Hoover who considered

himself and was considered by others

a notable progressive.

o Hoover encouraged voluntary

cooperation in the private sector as the

best avenue to stability.

Government and Business:

o But the idea of voluntarism, he

believed, did not require that the

government remain passive;

o On the contrary, public institutions,

Hoover insisted should play an active

role in creating the new cooperative

order.

Government and Business:

o Above all, Hoover became the champion of the concept of business “associationalism” a concept that envisioned the creation of national organizations of businessmen in particular industries.

o Through these trade associations, private entrepreneurs could stabilize their industries and promote efficiency in production and marketing.

Government and Business:

o Hoover easily won the election of

1928, but he would be faced with

the greatest economic crisis in the

history of the nation.

o And his new era would crash down

leading to the unprecedented social

innovation and reform.

Government and Business: