Return to Normalcy 1919 - 1929

1. Return to Normalcy1919 - 1929

2. Objectives: • Return to Normalcy • The Postwar Reaction • Allied intervention in Russia • Labor Life • Urban Riots • Bomb Scares • Mitchell Palmer Pursues the Bolsheviks • The “new” Klan • Saco and Vanzetti • Women’s Suffrage

3. In the 1902’s the sound of radios and phonographs began to fill the air • For the first time motion pictures opened fantastic vistas for the millions • Women’s skirts which had once been thought dangerously high when they revealed a glimpse of the ankle now shot up to the knee • Long hair had been called a woman’s “Crowning Glory” • Women now cut their hair short in a “boyish bob” and actually wore lipstick; some even smoked cigarettes in public • In this and other ways the twenties was an age of conflict, confusion, excitement, and experiment • After this never was the nation more Return to Normalcy

4. The cease-fire in Europe did not bring a quick end to the problem of war • Instead of the war benefiting any nation it created new problems • It left a trail of starvation and death and opened the floodgates of revolution • Peace on the battlefield brought another sort of warfare – in parliaments and factories • In the United States there was worry that the virus would infect Americans The Postwar Reaction

5. March 1917 a revolution in Russia toppled the government of Czar Nicholas ІІ • The new liberal Provisional Government led by Alexander Kerensky fell in November before radical Bolsheviks (Communist) • They promptly took Russia out of the war hoping to keep German troops from moving to the western front • Which was to help Russia establish a stable government • Japan for its part hoped to secure control over eastern Siberia • In 1918 the armistice came in many American troops stayed in Europe • Earlier that year the United States joined Britain, France, and Japan Allied intervention in Russia

6. They sent troops into northern and eastern Russia • The allies lifted the hopes of the enemies of the Bolsheviks within Russia and so prolonged the “Great Russian Civil War” of 1918-1920 • The new Russia was now called the “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics” • During World War Іthe mysterious Communists seemed to threaten to overturn the government of Europe • They had even formed a party in the United States • It was small and harmless, but many Americans were still jittery Allied intervention in Russia (Cont.)

7. This is the cover of a 1926 issue of the original Life magazine was done by John Held, Jr. whose drawing captured the flavors of the 1920’s

8. Within the United States the truce between employers and workers came to an end as soon as the war was won • In 1919 some 4 million workers went on strikes costing $2 billion in lost sales and wages • In the same year after the Boston police walked out in a labor dispute, looting and violence spread across the city • Governor Calvin Coolidge called out the National Guard to keep order • He declared that there was “no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, anytime.” • With his statement and prompt action against the striking policemen brought him the Rebulican vice-presidential nomination in 1920 • A strike against United States Steel, during which eighteen workers were killed, failed • A coal strike, which President Wilson called “not only unjustifiable but unlawful” was broken by a court injunction • These defeats forecast the decline of the unions during the 1920’s • Opposed by business, government, the courts, and popular opinion, union membership fell from 5 million in 1921 to 4.3 million in 1929 • In these same years total nonfarm employment rose by nearly 7 million Labor Life

9. The end of the war was also marked by an increase in racial friction • Though blacks had served bravely on the battlefield and skillfully in factories, anti-black feeling had increased • During the year of the armistice 70 blacks, including at least 10 soldiers in uniform were lynched • “Lynching” was named after a Colonel Charles Lynch of Virginia • It was the barbarous act of a mob that hanged a person without legal rights to do so • In the summer of 1919 there was more than 25 race riots • The worst occurred in Chicago where a dispute at the beach set off six days and nights of rioting • Hundreds were injured, and 15 whites and 23 blacks were killed Urban Riots

10. In Seattle early in 1919 Mayor Ole Hanson had taken measures to break a general strike • Then on April 28 he received a bomb in the mail • The next day Senator Hardwick of Georgia received a package that was opened by his maid, who had both her hands blown off • 36 similar packages were found that had not been delivered because they lacked sufficient postage • Addressed to people as Attorney General Palmer, the Postmaster General, the Secretary of Labor, J.P. Morgan, and John D. Rockefeller • Only a month later other parts of the country were shaken by a series of explosions • The bombings came to a climax at noon on September 16, 1920 • In New York the busy lunchtime crowds were blasted without warning killing 38 and injuring hundreds Bomb Scares

11. Bomb that exploded at lunchtime on Wall Street on September 16, 1920. The 38 dead and the hundreds of victims needing medical care had been removed by the time the picture was taken

12. Mitchell Palmer said the whole country was infested by Bolsheviks and anarchists • If Palmer could make himself the nations savior he might eventually move into the white house • In November 1919 he had 250 members of the Union of Russian Workers arrested • In December 249 aliens, whose only crime in a majority of cases was that they were anarchists • Those accused were herded aboard the transport Buford called the “Soviet Ark” and shipped to the Soviet Union • On January 2, 1920 he ordered raids on Communist meetings all over the country • Everyone who was present communist or not were rounded up and thrown into jail • Over 4000 were thrown into jail • In all over 556 aliens were deported • His illegal arrests were doing more harm to American institutions than were the small groups of real “Reds” in the country Mitchell Palmer pursues the Bolsheviks

13. A 1920 cartoon of an angry Uncle Sam reflects the hysterical fear of "Reds" and anarchists then sweeping the country

14. While Immigration Restriction League used the laws, another group was using terror and violence to enforce their prejudices • A new Ku Klux Klan appeared in the South and the West • It pretended to be in the old southern tradition to defend the rights of the “best” people • The new Klan was lead by a collection of roughnecks and human dregs • The Ku Klux Klan harassed black, Jews, Roman Catholics, and all “foreigners” • 4.5 million native born, white, gentile Americans were enrolled into the new group • These included many who wanted someone to blame for lack of jobs and the turmoil of postwar Europe • The “new” Klan whipped and killed innocent citizens, burned buildings and brought terror to whole communities • Because they bullied sheriffs and judges they were never arrested for their crimes • The conviction in 1925 marked the beginning of the end of the “new” Klan The “new” Klan

15. John Brown was a willing martyr of the flight against slavery • In this later age Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two Italian born immigrants, became unwilling martyrs in the struggle for equal justice for all • In 1920 a holdup took place at a South Braintree, Massachusetts shoe factory in which a paymaster and guard were killed • Shortly afterward Sacco and Vanzetti were arrested both with no criminal record • Because they believed in the philosophy of anarchy they were tried, found guilty, and sentenced to die • Many people believed Sacco and Vanzetti were innocent so in 1927 the governor of Massachusetts finally had to appoint a committee to review the fairness of their trial • The committee was loaded with prejudice • Therefore it was not surprising that the committee reported that the trial had been fair • When Sacco and Vanzetti were executed millions of Americans mourned their deaths Sacco and Vanzetti

16. Women’s suffrage was a successful by-product of World War І • Similar to the temperance campaign, the move to give women the vote had long been a goal of reformers • The services of women during the supreme crisis have been the most signal usefulness and distinction • President Woodrow Wilson in 1919 helped the suffrage amendment pass Congress with little opposition • Only 14 months later, the thirty-sixth state ratified the 19th amendment • At last women finally became first-class citizens Women’s Suffrage

17. Objectives: • Warren G. Harding • Foreign Affairs • Harding’s domestic program • The bonus bill • The war debts • The Harding scandals

18. He was the owner of a weekly newspaper in the small town of Marion, Ohio • With his newspaper growing around town he became a power in state politics • He served in Ohio’s senate as lieutenant governor and had just completed a term as a United States Senator • He was picked up by the Republicans because the party was badly divided between its able men General Leonard Wood and Governor Frank Lowden • Warren G. Harding became the 29th president of the United States of America in 1921 Warren G. Harding

19. A 1929 picture of Warren G. Harding was the first president to address the American people over the radio

20. At the call of President Harding delegates from nine great powers with interests in the far east met in Washington in 1921 • From their meetings three treaties emerged in 1922 • In the Five Power Treaty, Great Britain, Japan, United States, France and Italy agreed to their limit the number of their capital ships • They would scrap 2 million tons of ships • United States and Great Britain were allowed to keep 500,000 tons, Japan 300,000 tons, and France and Italy 175,000 tons • In addition the power agreed not to build any more forts or naval bases on their possessions in the pacific • After this the western powers feared that they had given Japan a free hand in the Pacific Foreign Affairs

21. They managed to obtain the so-called Nine Power Treaty • To free Great Britain from its military alliance with Japan, a Four Power Treaty was signed • The Four Power Treaty was signed between the United States, Great Britain, Japan, and France • With the treaty it helped provide a decade of peace and allow Japan the time to organize and to become a great Asian power without interference Foreign Affairs (Cont.)

22. The way back to “normalcy” as Harding found, was a rocky road • A sharp decline in business began in 1920 • To deal with the problems of depression and conversion of peacetime, the President called Congress into a session in 1921 • Harding asked for higher tariffs, lower taxes, less government spending, and aid to disabled soldiers and to farmers • He asked Congress to create a bureau to sift the money demands of each department • Congress later passed the Budget and Accounting Act, which set up the Bureau of the Budget • An emergency tariff raised duties on 28 farm products • In 1921 Congress repealed the wartime excess profits tax on industry • This also reduced the top level of taxes on the wealthy from 65 % to 50 % • Congress also lowered taxes for middle and lower-income people Harding’s domestic program

23. Dignitaries who posed for their picture at the opening of the Washington Conference in November 1921

24. When a war veteran was discharged he received a “bonus” of $60 • Veterans’ organizations were demanding that those who served received special treatment • Harding argued that serving was only their patriotic duty • He vetoed the “bonus” bill and Congress easily passed it over his veto • In 1924 Calvin Coolidge had become president, a new “bonus” bill was passed • This gave a veteran an insurance policy totaling in value $1.25 for every day spent overseas and $1 a day for service in the United States • Veterans’ could borrow up to 25 % of the value of their policies • Coolidge vetoed the bill, but Congress easily passed it over the veto The Bonus Bill

25. The $9 billion in war debts owed to the United States by its former allies created a problem • The United States owed money to Great Britain, France, and Italy • The money was mostly spent to finance the war against Germany • The money came from the huge reparations the Versailles Treaty forced Germany to give the victorious European nations to repair damaged cause by the war • The only way Germany could pay was by borrowing from the United States • With the depression of the 1930’s, this whole merry-go-round stopped • Only Finland paid its entire debt The War Debts

26. Harding attempted theft of the national oil reserves • Oil had taken the place of coal to power ships of the navy • It had become a prime need for commerce and national defense • The government in 1912-1915 set aside three promising oil fields as reserves for the nation’s future • Harding’s secretary leased two of these to private interest in return for $325,000 in “gifts” and “loans” • His secretary ended up in prison and the leases were later canceled by the Supreme Court The Harding scandals

27. Objectives: • President Coolidge • The election of 1924 • The farm problem • The election of 1928

28. Coolidge was reticent, plain, and thrifty • A man of few words “Silent Cal” was not one to warm the cockles of your heart • He naturally tempted comedians to make jokes about his quiet manner and his immobile face • Similar to Harding he too was an admirer of business • His best known utterance was: “The business of America is business” • Like Harding he was anxious not to trouble business with government rules • In the 1900’s Calvin Coolidge still shared Thomas Jefferson’s belief that the government is best which governs least President Coolidge

29. After Coolidge had been thrown into the White House the Republicans chose him to run in the next election • When the democrats met in their convention, the party was deeply divided • The split in the party mirrored a split in the nation • Between Al Smith of New York and William G. McAdoo of California the convention deadlocked • After 102 ballots, the delegates settled on the safe John W. Davis • John W. Davis was a conservative New York corporation lawyer • For Vice-President the Democrats chose William Jennings Bryan’s brother Governor Charles W. Bryan of Nebraska • The Republicans like the Democrats would also suffer from the division between the city and the country The election of 1924

30. “Battling Bob” La Follete of Wisconsin broke with his party and later ran for President of a new progressive group • Both Republicans and Democrats attacked La Forlette as a dangerous radical • After the votes Coolidge received 15 million votes to Davis’s 8.5 million and La Forlette’s surprisingly large 4.8 million • During the election 123 women won seats in state legislatures • Miriam A. Ferguson of Texas and Nellie T. Ross of Wyoming were elected governors of their states The election of 1924 (Cont.)

31. The textile, leather, and soft coal industries were weak • Blacks, Indians, and Mexican Americans still had little share in American prosperity • Farmers were growing poorer while much of the rest of the country was becoming richer • It seemed like the more they produced the less they were paid for their crops • Farmers taxes also started to rise • Senate McNary of Oregon and Representative Haugen of Iowa devised a scheme to use government money to save farmers • Their idea was to keep the price up for staple crops regardless of what happened to other prices • The McNary-Haugen bill failed to pass through Congress in 1924 and 1926 • In the next 2 years the bill finally passed The Farm Problem

32. Towards the end of his fourth year in office Calvin Coolidge announced he will not run for office • The Republicans named the able ambitious Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover • The Democrats nominated the “Happy Warrior” Alfred E. Smith • City people liked Al Smith because his call on the repeal of Prohibition and the return of liquor control laws to the states • Hoover on the other hand stood for big business, for small town and rural America, and for Protestantism and Prohibition • Prohibition and Smith’s Catholic religion were the chief issues of the campaign • Smith’s nomination stirred up much prejudice and fear because of his Catholic faith • Hoover was made popular by his policies in the Department of Commerce The election of 1928

33. The “Happy warrior” Al Smith addressing his supporters who line the streets of New York

34. Objectives: • Life in the Jazz Age • New Products for Living • Health and Education • The Roaring Twenties

35. During the 1920’s the United States seemed a land of miracles. Never before were factories making so many new things. Never before had the daily life of a nation been so quickly transformed. Life in the Jazz Age

36. At the opening of the 1900’s the automobile was still such an oddity • By 1918 there were nearly 7 million cars on the road • Auto and truck production topped the 2 million mark in 1922 and climbed to more than 5 million in 1929 • Americans could now live farther away from work and shop in areas too far of a distance for walking • The first “shopping center” for the newly mobile American was built in Kansas City in 1922 • Back in the 1900 the closest thing to a movie was the crude “nickelodeon” • In 1929 one hundred million tickets were being sold to the movies every week • The first broadcasting station –KDKA in Pittsburgh- did not open until 1920 • By 1929 the annual turnout of radio sets numbered 4 million New Product for Living

37. The phonograph was a commercial success by 1905 • By 1921 production had reached 100 million a year, and a music new to many Americans was sweeping the land • Blacks moving North during World War І brought with them their jazz and blues • During the 1920’s everyone began to want a refrigerator to replace the inconvenient old ice box • At the start only 5000 mechanical refrigerators were made each year • By 1931 over a million a year were being produced by the nation’s factories • This allowed city people to keep milk, fresh fruits, and vegetables in all seasons New Product of Living (Cont.)

38. With advancing medical knowledge at last typhoid, diphtheria, and measles were under control • Americans were healthier and living longer than ever before • They were also making the highest wages in history while working shorter hours • Education in the United States was better and reached a larger proportion than any other country • By 1928 the money Americans spent a year for education was more than the money spent by the rest of the world put together • In European countries only a grade school education was free • In the United States a free high school education was normal • This also made it possible for millions to go to college Health and Education

39. The 1920’s was referred to as “The Roaring Twenties” • There were the speakeasies (the illegal bars) and the flappers (young women with short hair and short skirts) • Jazz, ragtime, and blues suddenly blared out of millions of phonographs and radios • Live sporting events started to grow as 50,000 fans cheered Babe Ruth as he was breaking all records with his home runs • 145,000 paid $2.6 million to watch the second fight between Gene Tunney and Jack Dempsey • The climax of national pride and excitement came May 21, 1927 • That night Charles A. Lindbergh “Lucky Lindy” made the first solo nonstop flight from New York to Paris in 33 ½ hours The Roaring Twenties

40. 1902- sound of radios and phonographs began to fill the air • 1912-1915- set aside three promising oil fields as reserves for the nation’s future • 1917- a revolution in Russia toppled the government of Czar Nicholas ІІ • 1918- the armistice came in many American troops stayed in Europe • 1918- there were nearly 7 million cars on the road • 1919- some 4 million workers went on strikes costing $2 billion in lost sales and wages • 1919- 250 members of the Union of Russian Workers arrested • 1920- A sharp decline in business began • 1920’s- decline of the Union • 1920’s- nonfarm employment rose by nearly 7 million Timeline

41. 1921- Opposed by business, government, the courts, and popular opinion, union membership fell from 5 million • 1921- Warren G. Harding became the 29th president of the United States of America • 1922- three treaties emerged • 1922- Auto and truck production topped the 2 million mark • 1922- first “shopping center” for the newly mobile American was built in Kansas City • 1924- Calvin Coolidge had become president, a new “bonus” bill was passed • 1924- During the election 123 women won seats in state legislatures • 1924- Miriam A. Ferguson of Texas and Nellie T. Ross of Wyoming were elected governors of their states • 1928- the money Americans spent a year for education was more than the money spent by the rest of the world put together Timeline (Cont.)

42. Image of “flappers” and “flaming youth” in the 1920’s created by John Held Jr.

43. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVOflzLGKCc Video