Aftermath of WWI:

Reactions in the U.S. followed The War:

• Reaction to Change
   
  • KKK rose in numbers
     
    • Resented small advances made by blacks
    • Felt moral values were being attacked by urban intellectuals (evolution, changing roles for women)
    • Feared job competition from foreigners
    • Convinced foreigners were going to overthrow American way of life (communism and other radical movements)
   
• Reaction to Communism and Other Radical Ideas
   
  • Communist attempts to overthrow Germany and Hungary in 1919
  • Meeting of Communist International (Comintern) in Moscow
    • Made up mostly of delegates from the Russian Communist Party
    • Encouraged worldwide revolutions and advocated the overthrow of the capitalist system and the abolition of private property and free enterprise
  • Unusual amount of strikes in 1919
    • Boston policemen
      • Broken by Governor Calvin Coolidge who became a hero as a result
    • Steel workers
      • Ended in violence with 18 workers being killed
    • Coal miners
      • John L. Lewis and the miners won
    • Unionism became associated with communism
  • Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer began conducting raids against radical sounding groups in 1919
    • Disregarded civil rights
      • No search warrants
      • People kept in jail for long periods without seeing a lawyer
      • Many arrested based on friendships with "suspicious people"
      
    • Kept claiming there would be riots
      • When they never came he lost credibility
  • Sacco and Vanzetti
    • Two anarchists who evaded the draft during WWI
    • Accused of committing a payroll robbery in Massachusetts in which two men were killed
  • The Sacco-Vanzetti Case: An Account - 1921
  • Only circumstantial evidence
  • Found guilty and sentenced to death
  • Electrocuted in 1927

Presidential Election of 1920
 

• Warren G. Harding - Republican
  • Calvin Coolidge - VP candidate
• James Cox - Democrat
  • Franklin Roosevelt - VP candidate
• Coolidge won with 60.3% of popular vote
   
• Anti-Progressive
  • Opposed federal government being involved in the economy
  • Disapproved of most social reforms
  • Disapproved of Wilson's ideas about the League of Nations
• Mixed Cabinet
  • Charles Evans Hughes
    • Secretary of State
    • Well respected member of the Supreme Court
  • Herbert Hoover
    • Secretary of Commerce
    • Popular because of his handling of food supplies and refugee problems during WWI
  • Andrew Mellon
    • Secretary of Treasury
    • Served for 12 years
  • Henry C. Wallace
    • Secretary of Agriculture
  • Ohio Gang
    • President's friends from home
• Policies
  • Washington Naval Conference
    • Five Power Treaty
      • U.S., Great Britain, Japan, France, and Italy agreed to naval force reductions
    • Four Power Treaty
      • U.S., Great Britain, France, and Japan agreed to respect one another's interests in the Pacific
    • Payment of war debts
      • Allies had borrowed over $10 billion from the US to help finance WWI
      • Britain and France expected part to be forgiven as a contribution to the war effort
      • U.S. demanded full payment
      • Allies had two ways to repay debt
        1. Reparations from Germany
        2. Exporting more goods to US
      • U.S. opposed both options
        • Urged France and Britain not to press Germany
        • Increased tariffs to extremely high levels
      • Dawes Plan
        • American investors lent money to Germany
        • Germany paid reparations to Britain and France
        • Britain and France paid U.S.
        • Led to bitterness between Britain and France and the U.S.
  • Limits On Immigration
    • Emergency Quota Act of 1921 and the Immigration Act of 1924
      • Each European country given a quota of 2% of the number of people from that country living in the U.S. in 1890
        • Discriminated against eastern and southern Europeans who did not start immigrating until after 1890
      • Excluded Japanese immigrants entirely
        • Destroyed any good will created by previous treaties
• Scandals
  • Many of the Ohio Gang were caught accepting bribes
  • Tea Pot Dome
    • During the Progressive era oil rich land in Teapot Dome, Wyoming and Elk Hill, California had been set aside for use by the navy
    • Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall was able to get this land transferred to his control
    • Fall leased the land to oil companies
    • Suddenly Fall, who had been having financial problems, was found to have $325,000 in cash and bonds and a herd of cattle in his possession
    • By 1923 Harding was aware of the scandal and knew it would soon be made public
    • Harding went to Alaska and got sick on the return trip to San Francisco
• Harding died in San Francisco of a heart attack on August 3, 1923
  • Calvin Coolidge sworn in as President