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The Politics of Boom and Bust, 1920–1932

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The Politics of Boom and Bust, 1920–1932 32 The Politics of Boom and Bust 1920–1932 We in America today are nearer to the fi nal triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land. We have not yet reached the goal—but . we shall soon, with the help of God, be in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this nation. HERBERT HOOVER, 1928 hree Republican presidents—Warren G. Harding, The Republican TCalvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover—steered the “Old Guard” Returns nation on the roller-coaster ride of the 1920s, a thrill- ing ascent from the depths of post–World War I reces- Warren G. Harding, inaugurated in 1921, looked presi- sion to breathtaking heights of prosperity, followed by dential. With erect fi gure, broad shoulders, high fore- a terrifying crash into the Great Depression. In a re- head, bushy eyebrows, and graying hair, he was one of treat from progressive reform, Republicans sought to the best-liked men of his generation. An easygoing, serve the public good less by direct government action warm-handed backslapper, he exuded graciousness and more through cooperation with big business. Some and love of people. So kindly was his nature that he corrupt offi cials served themselves as well, exploit- would brush off ants rather than crush them. ing public resources for personal profi t. Meanwhile, Yet the charming, smiling exterior concealed a the United States retreated from its brief interna- weak, inept interior. With a mediocre mind, Harding tionalist fl ing during World War I and resumed with quickly found himself beyond his depth in the pres- a vengeance its traditional foreign policy of military idency. “God! What a job!” was his anguished cry on unpreparedness and political isolationism. one occasion. This icon will direct you to interactive activities and study materials on The American Pageant website: www.cengage.com/history/kennedy/ampageant14e 798 Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 1053641_CH_32.indd 798 11/14/08 11:44:20 AM The Harding Administration 799 Harding, like Grant, was unable to detect moral path to profi ts. They subtly and effectively achieved halitosis in his evil associates, and he was soon sur- their ends by putting the courts and the administrative rounded by his poker-playing, shirt-sleeved cronies bureaus into the safekeeping of fellow stand-patters for of the “Ohio Gang.” “A good guy,” Harding was “one of the duration of the decade. the boys.” He hated to hurt people’s feelings, espe- The Supreme Court was a striking example of this cially those of his friends, by saying no, and designing trend. Harding lived less than three years as president, political leeches capitalized on this weakness. The dif- but he appointed four of the nine justices. Several of his ference between George Washington and Warren Har- choices were or became deep-dyed reactionaries, and ding, ran a current quip, was that while Washington they buttressed the dike against popular currents for could not tell a lie, Harding could not tell a liar. He nearly two decades. Harding’s fortunate choice for “was not a bad man,” said one Washington observer. chief justice was ex-president Taft, who not only per- “He was just a slob.” formed his duties ably but surprisingly was more lib- Candidate Harding, who admitted his scanty men- eral than some of his cautious associates. tal furnishings, had promised to gather about him the In the fi rst years of the 1920s, the Supreme Court “best minds” of the party. Charles Evans Hughes— axed progressive legislation. It killed a federal child- masterful, imperious, incisive, brilliant—brought to labor law, stripped away many of labor’s hard-won the position of secretary of state a dominating if some- gains, and rigidly restricted government intervention what con ser va tive leadership. The new secretary of the in the economy. In the landmark case of Adkins v. Treasury was a lean and el derly Pittsburgh aluminum Children’s Hospital (1923), the Court reversed its own king, Andrew W. Mellon, multimillionaire collector of reasoning in Muller v. Oregon (see p. 711), which had the paintings that are now displayed in Washington as declared women to be deserving of special pro tection his gift to the nation. Chubby-faced Herbert Hoover, in the workplace, and invalidated a minimum-wage famed feeder of the Belgians and wartime food admin- law for women. Its strained ruling was that because istrator, became secretary of commerce. An energetic women now had the vote (Nineteenth Amendment), businessman and engineer, he raised his second-rate they were the legal equals of men and could no longer cabinet post to fi rst-rate importance, especially in be protected by special legislation. The contradictory drumming up foreign trade for U.S. manufacturers. premises of the Muller and Adkins cases framed a de- But the “best minds” of the cabinet were largely bate over gender differences that would continue for offset by two of the worst. Senator Albert B. Fall of the rest of the century: were women suffi ciently New Mexico, a scheming anticonservationist, was ap- different from men that they merited special legal and pointed secretary of the interior. As guardian of the social treatment, or were they effectively equal in the nation’s natural resources, he resembled the wolf eyes of the law and therefore undeserving of special hired to protect the sheep. Harry M. Daugherty, a small- protections and preferences? (An analogous debate town lawyer but a big-time crook in the “Ohio Gang,” over racial differences haunted affi rmative-action poli- was supposed to prosecute wrongdoers as attorney cies later in the century.) general. Corporations, under Harding, could once more relax and expand. Antitrust laws were often ignored, circumvented, or feebly enforced by friendly prose- GOP Reaction at the Throttle cutors in the attorney general’s offi ce. The Interstate Well-intentioned but weak-willed, Harding was a per- fect “front” for enterprising industrialists. A McKinley- style old order settled back into place with a heavy thud Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841–1935), wryly at war’s end, crushing the reform seedlings that had dissenting in the Adkins case, said, sprouted in the progressive era. A nest-feathering crowd moved into Washington and proceeded to hoodwink It would need more than the Nineteenth Harding, whom many regarded as an “amiable boob.” “Amendment to convince me that there are no This new Old Guard hoped to improve on the old differences between men and women, or that business doctrine of laissez-faire. Their plea was not legislation cannot take those differences into simply for government to keep its hands off business, account. but for government to help guide business along the ” Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 1053641_CH_32.indd 799 11/14/08 11:44:22 AM 800 Chapter 32 The Politics of Boom and Bust, 1920–1932 Government for Sale This 1924 cartoon satirizing the corruption of the Harding administration shows the sale of the Capitol, the White House, and even the Washington Monument. Commerce Commission, to single out one agency, came to their permanent nationalization. Instead Congress to be dominated by men who were personally sympa- passed the Esch-Cummins Transportation Act of 1920, thetic to the managers of the railroads. Harding reac- which encouraged private consolidation of the railroads tionaries might well have boasted, “We care not what and pledged the Interstate Commerce Commission to laws the Democrats pass as long as we are permitted to guarantee their profi tability. The new philosophy was administer them.” not to save the country from the railroads, as in the Big industrialists, striving to reduce the rigors of days of the Populists, but to save the railroads for the competition, now had a free hand to set up trade asso- country. ciations. Cement manufacturers, for example, would The federal government also tried to pull up anchor use these agencies to agree upon standardization of and get out of the shipping business. The Merchant products, publicity campaigns, and a united front in Marine Act of 1920 authorized the Shipping Board, dealing with the railroads and labor. Although many which controlled about fi fteen hundred vessels, to of these associations ran counter to the spirit of exist- dispose of much of the hastily built wartime fl eet at ing antitrust legislation, their formation was encour- bargain-basement prices. The board operated the re- aged by Secretary Hoover. His sense of engineering maining vessels without conspicuous success. Under effi ciency led him to condemn the waste resulting the La Follette Seaman’s Act of 1915, American ship- from cutthroat competition, and his commitment to ping could not thrive in competition with foreigners, voluntary cooperation led him to urge businesses to who all too often provided their crews with wretched regulate themselves rather than be regulated by big food and starvation wages.
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