Politics of the Roaring Twenties

A Return to “Normalcy”

• Warren G. Harding• 1920 election

promised a “Return to Normalcy” life as it was before WWI.

• Wanted to return America to simpler days before the Progressive Era

Harding Administration

• He surrounded himself with friends

• Most appointment came from Ohio – became known as the “Ohio Gang”

Harding Cabinet

• Secretary of State• Charles Evans Hughes• Later became Chief

Justice of the Supreme court

Harding Cabinet

• Secretary of Commerce • Herbert Hoover• Later President Hoover• Hoover masterful job

handling food distribution and refugee problems during WWI

Harding Cabinet

• Secretary of the Treasury

• Andrew Mellon• Wished to reduce

national debt by cutting income taxes and reducing public spending

• Debt fell by about 1/3 by 1923

The Ohio Gang

• Harding former Ohio Senator

• Cabinet included rowdy, poker playing cronies

• As Director of the Mint he named a small-town sheriff from Ohio

• His brother-in-law became Superintendent of Federal Prisons

The Ohio Gang

• A boyhood friend was appointed head of the Federal Reserve System

• Attorney General Harry Daugherty

• Became involved in a number of questionable deals that lead to his forced resignation

Ohio Gang

• Charles R. Forbes - he met on vacation in Hawaii

• Head of the Veterans Bureau

• Allowed operators of veterans’ hospitals to overcharge the government by $250 million

Ohio Gang

• Colonel Thomas W. Miller

• Head of the Office of Alien Property

• Sold seized German chemical patents

Teapot Dome Scandal

• Secretary of the Interior

• Albert B. Fall• A close friend of

various oil executives• Chief figure in the

Teapot Dome scandal

 

  

 

  

 

  

New Mexico Historical Society

 

  

Teapot Dome Scandal

• Two oil promoters gave Fall $400,000 in loans and bribes

• Fall helped them secure leases on naval oil reserves in Elk Hills, Ca and Tea Pot Dome, WY

Teapot Dome Scandal

• Fall claimed actions were in the best interests of the govt.

• Fall accepted huge bribes, caught, tried, found guilty

• 1st cabinet member to be sent to prison

Harding Administration

• Harding's administration was marked by corruption and scandal, although most of the scandals did not become public knowledge until after he died of a stroke in office in August 1923.

Collection of War Debt

• Britain and France borrowed more than $10 billion from American bankers during WWI

• Difficulty repaying loans and rebuilding war torn country

War Debts

• UK and France demanded Germany pay promised reparations

• Germany defaulted on payments because of bad economy

War Debts

• 1922 French occupy the Germany’s main industrial region

Dawes Plan

• To avoid war, US became involved in the situation

• American banker, Charles G. Dawes was sent to negotiate loans from American investors to Germany

Dawes Plan

• Dawes Plan: US banks loaned Germany $2.5 billion

• Allies were to evacuate Germany's industrial heartland and allow German industry to redevelop

Dawes Plan

• Germany paid reparations to UK and France

• UK and France paid war debts to the US

Dawes Plan

Working for Peace

• In the 1920’s the US promoted world peace and disarmament

Kellogg-Briand Pact

• 1928 US Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg and French Foreign Minister Aristide Braind met in Paris to sign a treaty outlawing war

• Included nearly every nation of the world

Kellogg-Briand Pact

• Problem - No way to enforce the pact

• Kellogg-Briand Pact is an example of US Isolationist

• US tried to keep away from foreign entanglements

Limiting Immigration

• Broad based movement to limit the number of people from Europe

• Many people thought the immigrants were revolutionaries and communists

Emergency Quota Act of 1921

• Congress passes an emergency immigration act.

• Quota System• Restricting immigration

Emergency Quota Act of 1921

• Amended in 1924• Limited immigration

from each European nation to 2% of the number of its nationals living in the US in 1890

Normalcy and IsolationismDaily Quiz

What was established to limit the number of immigrants into the

US?

Quota System

What is the policy to avoid entanglements with other

nations?

isolation

Which scandal involved the Albert Fall selling oil on public

land?Teapot Dome

Scandal

Whose inability to recognize corruption among his associates

led to his death?

Warren G. Harding

Business of America

Business of America

• How did the nation's lasting love affair with the automobile affect American society? The American economy?

Business of America

• President Calvin Coolidge stated, “The chief business of America is business…The man who builds a factory builds a temple- the man who works there worships there.”

Calvin Coolidge

• He assumed the presidency after Harding's death, he acted quickly to repair the damage of the Harding administrations scandals and to secure the 1924 presidential nomination.

• Coolidge thought that a government that governs the least is best

American Standard of Living

• American business was transforming American society, and the automobile led the way

American Standard of Living• United States economy

experienced steady growth and expansion during the 1920s. Three factors fueled this economic growth:

1. Machines 2. Factories 3. The Process of

Standardized Mass Production

American Standard of Living

These factors created a

self perpetuating cycle:• standardized mass

production led to • better machinery in

factories, which led to • higher production and

higher wages, which led to

American Standard of Living

• more demand for consumer goods

• which led back to more standardized mass production

• This upward spiral continued until 1929

                                                            

Impact of the Car

• Henry Ford (1863-1947) was the chief figure in this expanding industry

• promote the car by developing more efficient and cheaper means of production

Impact of the Car

• Two factors led to the rising popularity of cars:

1. Cost-- The price of automobiles declined steadily so that many well-paid working families could now afford to purchase a car.

• The Model T Ford, cost just $290 in 1926.

Impact of the Car

2. Credit-- In 1925, Americans made 75% of all automobile purchases on the installment plan.

• The installment plan, which encouraged Americans to build up debt in order to buy consumer goods.

Economic Effects of the Automobile

1. Promoted growth of other industries. Especially petroleum, rubber, and steel.

2. Helped fuel the creation of a national system of highways.

Economic Effects of the Automobile

3. Created new service facilities. Filling stations, garages, and roadside restaurants

• Motels catering to the needs of motorists began to replace hotels.

Social Effects of the Automobile

1. Created a more mobile society.

• Cars broke down the distinctions between urban and rural America.

• "Sunday drive," many city folks got their first chance to tour the rural countryside.

Social Effects of the Automobile

• Rural Americans, on the other hand, drove into cities to shop and to be entertained.

2. Broke down the stability of family life.

• Now it was far easier for individual family members to go their own way

Social Effects of the Automobile

3. Broke down traditional morality.

• Children could escape parental supervision

• Middle Town Study 1924- 1925: found that people of every income level considered the automobile a necessity rather than an luxury

Superficial Prosperity

• Most Americans thought prosperity would go on forever

• Factory production increased 50%

• National income continued to grow

Superficial Prosperity

• Prosperity masked problems

1. The business scene was not completely healthy

• Production out paced consumption

2. Consumer debt rose to alarming levels

Business of America

Daily Quiz

Business of America

1. How did the nation's lasting love affair with the automobile affect American society? The American economy?

Coolidge believed which government governs best?

The government that governs

least.