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1920s Politics

1920, 4, 8 Republicans -Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover

Conservative Shift after WWI

Stock Market Crash

Harding 1920s

o Ohio Gang surrounded himo Charles Evans Hughes Sec of State

o Andrew Melon Treasury

o Hoover Commerce

o New Mexico Albert Fall Interior Secretary and Harry Dougherty Attorney General both in

scandal

Big Business Lassiez Faire

Supreme Court, 4 of 9 choices including Taft

1920s Taft Court

o Whittled away progressivism

o

Federal Child Labor law dismissed- should be state dealto Atkins vs Childrens Hospital reversed Muller vs Oregon

Women should be treated as equals since vote, so no minimum wage law forwomen

Dismantling the WWI Machine

o Govt out of industry

o Esh-comings 1920- railroads given to private companies, encouraged consolidation

o Merchant Marine Act 1920, WWI fleet sold for low prices

o Veterans Bureau 1921

Veterans 1919 American Leget Bonuses by Roosevelt, but Harding Vetoed in

1922

Adjusted Compensation Act gave soldiers insurance claimable in 20 years,

congress overrode Hardings Veto

o July 1921 Congress Joint Resolution declaring WWI over

Post War Neutrality

o 1921-2 Washington Disarmament Conference, all but Germany included

Charles Evans Hughes offered 10 year holiday to stop building battleships

Ratio system 5-5-3 Britain US Japan ships

Fivepower Treaty, US and Britain- no bases in far east to be built

Fourpower-pacific status quo with Japan, France, US, GB

9power- like open door, all at conference keep equal trading rights with china

Scandal in 1920so Charles Forbes, head of Veterans bureau, robbed federal government of 200 million 1923

o 1924 Liquor permits and pardons scandals small

o teapot dome scandal 1921- sec of interior albert fall wanted to take land from navy to have

in interior- elk hills California and teapot dome Wyoming, oil rich areas

Harding signed and allowed

Fall leased land to Harry Sinclair and Edward Dehoney in oil business- 1923 all

indicted and acquitted

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Tariff and Dawes Plan

o Concern over cheap Europe goods and recessions of 1920 and 21 led to high tariffs

o Fording-mccumber 1922 tariff from 27% to 39%

o Harding and Coolidge, big business friends, supported tariffs

o Farmers pained, surpluses up

Capper bulstead act- farmers cooperatives exempt from anti trust acts Mcnary haughten bill tried to keep prices high with subsidies, vetoed by Coolidge

o German reparation payments had US loans wrapped up, German inflation

o Charles Dawes- US lend money to Germany to pay to other Europeans, for Europe to pay

back US

Died with 1929 stock market crash