1 of 10

The Politics of the 1920s (#51)

Chapter 7, Lesson 1

2 of 10

Compare & Contrast

Draw chart in your Notebook : )

How was the government corrupt (taking advantage of someone) in the 1920s? Give at least 3 examples.

  1. ​

2)

3)

​

Cite an evidence of government corruption today (anything from the last 10-20 years). Be specific, who was involved, when did it happen, what was the outcome?

​

​

​

3 of 10

Harding, 1920

Speech to Home Market Club Dinner

There isn’t anything the matter with world civilization, except that humanity is viewing it through a vision impaired in a cataclysmal war. Poise has been disturbed, and nerves have been racked, and fever has rendered men irrational…

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…

The world needs to be reminded that all human ills are not curable by legislation, and that quantity of statutory enactment and excess of government offer not substitute for quality of citizenship...

4 of 10

  1. Our 29th President
  1. Warren G. Harding
    1. Senator in 1914
    2. President 1921-1923
    3. Slogan “return to normalcy”

What do you think he meant by “return to normalcy?”

5 of 10

Cont’d

B. Return to Normalcy

  1. End to progressive experimentation
  2. End to high taxes on wealthy
  3. End to government intervention in the economy

6 of 10

II. Teapot Dome and Other Scandals

  1. Gave cabinet posts & high-level jobs
    1. to friends & political allies from Ohio
    2. Called “Ohio Gang”

A typical evening in the White House was described as “The air would be heavy with tobacco smoke, trays with bottles containing every imaginable brand of whiskey...cards and poker chips at hand--a general atmosphere of waistcoat unbuttoned, feet on desk, and spittoons alongside.”

7 of 10

Cont’d II

B. Corruption

  1. Colonel Charles R. Forbes
    1. Sold hard to find medical supplies from veterans’ hospitals & kept the $
    2. Made $250 million off government

​

8 of 10

C. Teapot Dome Scandal (1922)

  1. Secretary of Interior-Albert B. Fall
    1. Allowed private interests to lease lands containing US Navy oil reserves at Teapot Dome, Wyoming & Elk Hills, CA
    2. Fall would then get bribes from these private interests totaling $300,000
    3. Wall Street Journal finds out & publishes
    4. Senate investigates, takes almost 7 years
    5. Fall is the first cabinet secretary to go to jail!!

9 of 10

D. Results of Teapot Dome Scandal

  1. Cause American distrust in fed. Gov. & political leaders
  2. Thus, if gov. Is corrupt, we should reduce its power (definitely different from progressive era)

10 of 10

III. Harding Dies!

  1. June 1923
    1. Harding becomes ill (probably heart attack)
    2. Died in August
  2. Vice President Coolidge
    • Becomes president