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