Seth Wolin

Mr. Cotter
USAP
3.5.10
Chapter 25 Outline

A New Cult of Enterprise

Coolidge and the Business Creed
• “Coolidge scrubbed the White House clean of the filth that Harding had left.”
o He subscribed to the creed of America’s business
 Keep business strong!
• “The man who builds a factory builds a temple”
o President worshipped wealth
 He believed there were a superior few business leaders too.
• Dominant values of the time:
o Business
o Materialism
o Elitism
• Gov’t shouldn’t tax the rich to help the poor, though
• Complete devotee of laissez-faire
 Abhorred big government
Productivity and Plenty
• 1920s were extraordinarily prosperous
o cast a mantle of credibility over president for taking no action
• Average incomes rose, as did actual wages
• By 1928 they were 33% higher than in 1914
• Higher wages swelled the industrial market, too, which was good
• HUGE profits came with mechanization
o Invitation for BIG investments
o New plants
o New tools
o Growing nat’l market encourages this
• Mellon succeeded in compelling gov’t to reduce taxes on larger incomes.
• Management was where the money was—mastering the optimization of these
huge systems
o Industrial engineering
o “Scientific management” --- Frederick W. Taylor, w/ Henry Ford
• Ford Motor Company comes out with conveyor belts / awesome stuffs / etc.
o Gravity slides
o Overhead monorails
• Cut prices and increase wages!
• Business executives were interested in more than the science of production
o Professional management was cropping up in 1920s
 Increasing diversification of ownership
 o Control of policy passed to management
 What do we get?? THE NEW BUREAUCRACY!!! YAY!
Republican Symbols: 1924
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One Nation Divisible

Prohibition
• The prohibition, or "dry", movement began in the 1840s, headed by crazy
religious dudes, especially the Methodists.
o The late 1800s saw the temperance movement broaden its focus from
abstinence to all behavior and institutions related to alcohol consumption.
o Preachers such as Reverend Mark A. Matthews linked liquor-dispensing
saloons with prostitution.
 So what?? What is wrong with that??
• A resolution calling for an amendment to accomplish nationwide Prohibition was
introduced in Congress and passed by both houses in December 1917.
o On January 16, 1919, the Amendment was ratified by thirty-six of the
forty-eight states.
o On October 28, 1919, the amendment was supplemented by the Volstead
Act. Prohibition began on January 16, 1920, when the Eighteenth
Amendment went into effect.
 A total of 1,520 Federal Prohibition agents (police) were given the
task of enforcing the law.
o Although it was highly controversial, Prohibition was widely supported by
diverse groups.
 Progressives believed that it would improve society as generally
did women, southerners, those living in rural areas and African-
Americans.
 There were a few exceptions such as the Woman’s Organization
for Prohibition Reform who fought against it.
o It would not be until Roosevelt that prohibition would be repealed (18th
amendment)

Last-Ditch Fundamentalism
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The Election of 1924
• Incumbent President Calvin Coolidge, the Republican candidate, won the United
States presidential election of 1924.
o He had become president in 1923 following the death of then-incumbent
president, Warren G. Harding.
 Coolidge was given credit for:
• booming economy at home
• no visible crises abroad.
• A split within the Democratic Party aided him in winning.
o The regular Democratic candidate was John W. Davis, a little-known
 former congressman and diplomat from West Virginia.
 Davis was a conservative
 Many liberal Democrats bolted the party
• They backed the third-party campaign
of Wisconsin Senator Robert M. LaFollette, Sr., who ran as
the candidate of the Progressive Party.
o Also, this was the first presidential election in which all American
Indians were citizens and thus allowed to vote.
• Coolidge's 25.2-point victory margin in the popular vote is one of the largest
ever.

Grandiose Illusions
The Good Life
• Americans became hedonists!! Freakin’ sweet!!!
• Speakeasies became popular
• AS the Prohibition years progressed they led to the rise of gangsters such as:
o Lucky Luciano
o Al Capone
o Moe Dalitz
o Joseph Ardizzone
o Sam Maceo.
• They operated with connections to organized crime and liquor smuggling.
o U.S. Federal Government agents raided such establishments and arrested
many of the small figures and smugglers
 But rarely managed to get the big bosses
 business of running speakeasies was so lucrative that such
establishments continued to flourish throughout the nation.
• Police were notoriously bribed by speakeasy operators
• Sports became a big deal!
• The Roaring Twenties is seen as the breakout decade for sports in America.
• Citizens from all parts of the country flocked to see the top athletes of the day
compete in arenas and stadiums.
o Their exploits were loudly and highly praised in the new "gee whiz" style
of sports journalism that was emerging
o Grantland Riceand
o Damon Runyon.
• Babe Ruth was the man… etc.
The Image of America Abroad
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Deluded Diplomacy
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Get Rich Quick
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 Nonconformity and Dissent
The Jazz Age
• A uniquely American music form came up
o Roots lay in African expression
• It came to be known as jazz.
• The Jazz Age produced such greats as:
o Louis Armstrong
o Duke Ellington
o Fletcher Henderson
o George Gershwin, Cole Porter and others would bring jazz influences to
Broadway and the concert hall.
o Bessie Smith introduced the Blues on sound recording.
A Literature of Alienation
• The 1920s ushered in a rich period of American writing, distinguished by the
works of such authors such as:
o Sinclair Lewis
o Willa Cather
o William Faulkner
o F. Scott Fitzgerald
o Carl Sandburg
o Ernest Hemingway
 many wrote of individual tribulations and the malevolent effects of
materialism

Progressive Hopes and Failures
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The Election of 1928

• The Election of 1928 was Republican Herbert Hoover against Democrat Al
Smith.
o Republicans were credited for the booming economy of the 1920s.
o Smith sucked as a candidate.
 Anti-Catholic prejudice against him
 His anti-prohibitionist stance
 Legacy of corruption of Tammany Hall that he was associated
with.
• Hoover won a landslide victory.