Download - Unit 4—Chapter 7
Unit 4—Chapter 7The Roaring Twenties
CSS 11.5
Part TwoThe Business of Government
11.5.1 - Discuss the policies of Presidents Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover. 11.5.2 - Analyze the international and domestic events, interests, and philosophies that prompted
attacks on civil liberties, including the Palmer Raids,… the Ku Klux Klan, and immigration quotas and the responses of organizations … to those attacks.
EQ: How did domestic and foreign policy change direction under Harding and Coolidge?
Return to Normalcy
• Warren G. Harding• called for a return to “normalcy”• this meant isolationism and
laissez-faire• critics said that this basically
wiped out the reforms of the Progressive Era
• Harding was immensely popular• wrote his own speeches and often
made up words in them: normalcy, bloviating
• Harding died of a heart attack halfway through his presidency
• criticized for allowing his poker buddies to rip off the country
(1921 – 1923)
Return to Normalcy
• Andrew Mellon, Sec. of the Treasury• argued that lower taxes would
stimulate business investment which creates jobs
• served under Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover
• cut the top income tax rate from 77% to 25%
• cut taxes on low incomes • cut back programs begun during
WWI• reduced national debt from $18 billion
to $16 billion
Return to Normalcy
• Teapot Dome Scandal, 1921• Albert Fall (Sec. of the
Interior) asked for control of the navy’s oil reserves which he leased to private buyers
Return to Normalcy
• Calvin Coolidge (1923 – 1929)• “Silent Cal” was seen as
honest and frugal • Laissez-Faire returns!• he refused to spend
government money to buy farm surplus
• critics say his refusal to help farmers and his pro-business policies helped lead to the Great Depression
• supporters called the 1920s Coolidge Prosperity
“The chief business of the American people is business.”
Isolationism
• the US refused to join the League of Nations• the US raised its taxes on imports
• Washington Naval Disarmament Conference, 1921• reduced the sizes of the US, Japanese, and
British navies in the Pacific
• Kellogg-Briand Pact, 1928• 62 nations signed a pledge to outlaw war
Isolationism
• Dawes Plan, 1924• the US loaned money to
Germany so it could pay reparations to Britain and France
• Britain and France then paid the US money they had borrowed during WWI• Dawes won the Nobel Prize• the German economy was
stable until 1929• When US loans stopped so did
German reparations and Europe went into its own depression