1920S POLITICS Reactions to Change 1

OPENING QUESTIONS  What was the nature of politics and the role of government between 1900 and 1916?  How and why did WWI create a resistance to change? 2

3 QUESTION FOR THOUGHT… How did 1920s politics illustrate a backlash to the War and Progressive Politics?

 19 th Amendment  Women’s organizations  Women’s causes  Jeannette Rankin (1916) I. WOMEN IN POLITICS 4

SHEPPARD-TOWNER ACT 5  Subsidized medical clinics  State welfare  Significantly lowered infant mortality  By late 1920s, program ended

PEACE & FREEDOM  Mobilized during the war, though ignored  WILPF (Peace & Freedom)  Causes: Denounced imperialism Proposed social justics Opposed militarism  Came under fire during the First Red Scare 6

WOMEN VOTERS  Lobbyists: temperance, child welfare, workers’ rights  Difficulty gaining access to positions in either Republican or Democratic parties  Did not vote as a bloc 7

II. REPUBLICAN NORMALCY  Backlash against Progressivism  Hoover’s Commerce Dept Trade assoc. Industry standards Stable prices/wages  Fewer Anti-trust cases (Taft)  Evade international affairs  Isolationist Trade Policies 8

BUSINESS & GOVERNMENT 9 The Business Of America is Business

FAILURE OF GOV’T ASSISTANCE  Farm prices fell  Cut in taxes = cut in government spending  McNary-Haugen farm bills (1927 and 1928) vetoed by Coolidge  States still sought progressive solutions, but federal gov’t resisted 10

 Harding’s Death  Cronyism Ohio Gang  Teapot Dome Scandal  Charles Forbes  Harry Daugherty  Prohibition III. POLITICAL CORRUPTION 11

IV. DOLLAR DIPLOMACY  Private banks made foreign loans  U.S. continues dominance in Latin America—bank loans in El Salvador and Bolivia  U.S. intervened militarily to defend business interests  Dollar Diplomacy questioned by missionary-Samuel Inman  By late 1920s, benefits difficult to recognize=isolationism 12

POLITICS & CULTURE 13