Coolidge, Harding, Effects of
WWI
Mr. Williams
10th Grade U.S. History
•What does it mean to be a
Conservative Politician?
•What party is this usually
associated with?
•Any examples that you
know of that were
conservative-minded?
Conservative President
• “Less government in business
and more business in
government.”
• Cut federal budget and reduced
taxes on wealthiest Americans
• Taxing them less would help
business grow
What about Farmers?
• Fordney-McCumber Tariff
• Raising cost of foreign-grown
products
• Helped in short term, but also
hurt European market
• “America’s present need is not
heroics, but healing; not nostrums,
but normalcy; not revolution, but
restoration; not agitation, but
adjustment; not surgery, but serenity;
not the dramatic, but the
dispassionate; not experiment, but
equipoise; not submergence in
internationality, but sustainment in
triumphant nationality.”
–Warren G.Harding 1920
• “My best judgment of America’s needs is to
steady down, to get squarely on our feet, to
make sure of the right path. Let’s get out of
the fevered delirium of war, with the
hallucination that all the money in the world
is to be made in the madness of war and the
wildness of its aftermath. Let us stop to
consider that tranquility at home is more
precious than peace abroad, and that both
our good fortune and our eminence are
dependent on the normal forward stride of all
the American people.” –Warren G. Harding
Teapot Dome Scandal
• Ohio Gang: Lower-Level
government agents that were
convicted of taking bribes
• Secretary of Interior Albert Fall
accepted bribes in return for
allowing oil companies to drill
federal oil reserves in Wyoming
Calvin Coolidge
• Became President after
Harding’s Death in 1923
• “Those who build a factory
build a temple of worship.
Those who work in the factory,
worship there.”
• Government did not produce
value, and took away resources
business could use
• Lowering taxes, and reducing the
federal budget which did not
increase from 1923-29
• Vetoed a bill for a bonus for WWI
veterans, did not want to use
Govt. to help farmers
Indian Citizenship Act 1924
• All Indians born in the U.S.
were granted citizenship
Immediate Effects of WWI
• Nation desired “Normalcy”
• Farmers struggle to recover
• European countries unable to
pay war debts
• Desire to avoid future war
Long-Term Effects
• Harding and Coolidge elected
• Fordney-McCumber Tariff:
European market unable to pay
war debts
• U.S. becomes “banker” to Europe
• U.S. sponsors Naval Conference
and signs Kellogg-Briand Pact
War Debt
• Europeans had trouble selling
their farm goods because of
tariff
• This in turn did not allow them
revenue to pay back debt to
the U.S.
• Countries in turn demanded
that Germany pay back their
reparations
• Inflation/Unemployment
• Unable to pay these back, so
U.S. began to loan Germany
money
Washington Naval Conference
• Arms Race: competing nations
build more and more weapons
in order to avoid one nation
gaining a clear advantage
• To solve this, Conference was
called in 1921
• Major naval powers of the
world were invited
• Nations agreed to cut back on
the sizes of their navies
• Also agreed to plans to avoid
competition over China
• “The High Contracting Parties
solemnly declare in the names of
their respective peoples that
they condemn recourse to war
for the solution of international
controversies, and renounce it,
as an instrument of national
policy in their relations with one
another.”
Kellogg-Briand Pact
• More than 60 nations signed
this agreement
• Renounced war as an
instrument of national policy
• Held together only by promise
•How did the effects of WWI
impact United States
domestic and/or foreign
policy during the 1920s?
•At least three examples and
explanation of each.