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 * Government in the 1920s**

**US after WWI** Following World War I, the United States government returned to some of its old policies. In spite of President Woodrow Wilson 's determined efforts, the Senate refused to ratify (approve) the Versailles Peace Treaty that ended World War I, and the U.S. did not join the League of Nations. We wanted to be isolated. Early in the 1920s the U.S. raised tariffs (taxes) on goods from other countries (imported goods), and we limited the number of immigrants welcome in the US- we resorted back to isolationism.

** Elected president in 1920, Warren G. Harding promoted a "return to normalcy," which meant a return to isolationism and the end of the progressive era. Overall, Harding's policies reflected a conservative, laissez-faire attitude. His administration was ruined by scandals, but most of them did not surface until following his death of a stroke in office in 1923. One of the most famous of them was the Teapot Dome Scandal, which shocked the public for years after Harding's death.
 * President Warren G. Harding's Return to Normalcy

Harding brought back the practice of cronyism. This put crooked men in positions of power and lead to a huge scandal. Harding gave his friend Albert B. Fall the job of Secretary of the Interior. Fall was given money (bribed) to make secret deals with rich oilmen. Fall gave these men the right to drill for oil on Navy oil fields in Teapot Dome, Wyoming and Elk Hills, California. The oilmen would have made millions of dollars and the government would have gotten very little in return. Fall and the oilmen went on trial for their crimes. The oilmen were found not guilty but Fall was sentenced to 9 months in prison. This case lead to the U.S. government being more careful with its business deals.
 * Teapot Dome Scandal **

Calvin Coolidge was Harding's vice president (1921-23) and became president when Harding died in office and won election in 1924. While he would choose not to run again in 1928, his administration created a lot of higher taxes on imported goods and big businesses (monopolies) gained more power. The return to normalcy politics of Harding and Coolidge reversed a lot of progressive reforms by allowing child labor and longer work days for employees (government is laissez faire). At the time, these contributed to the growth of the 1920s, but will be part of the problem when our nation went into a depression in the 1930s.
 * President Calvin Coolidge **

**The Kellogg-Briand Pact** After World War I, nations agreed that they needed to take whatever measures possibly to prevent another world war. The United States and 15 other nations signed this pact (or agreement) that outlawed war. The Kellogg-Briand Pact made war illegal. It sounded great in theory, the only problem was how to enforce a law that made using violence illegal? This law was challenged many times in the 1930s, most notably by when Hitler started to militarize and colonize.

One problem the U.S. faced after World War I was collecting the money other countries owed from the war (war debts). The U.S. insisted that Britain and France repay what they owed. For this to happen, Germany had to pay what they owed Britain and France. This would be very difficult. President Coolidge believed that a debt was a debt and had to be paid. In 1924, the Dawes Plan arranged for the U.S. to loan Germany money to pay Britain and France. Britain and France paid their debts to the U.S. with the money the U.S. loaned Germany. Once the stock market crashed in 1929 the U.S. had no more money to loan. Germany stopped making their payments to Britain and France. Britain and France stopped paying the U.S. In the end, this made the U.S. look bad to the rest of the world because we were more concerned with war debts than with the human costs of the war (people who were injured or died).
 * The Dawes Plan **

Having served as secretary of commerce under Harding and Coolidge, Herbert Hoover was elected to the presidency in 1928. Hoover was elected because of the country's prosperity. His campaign slogan was “A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage.” This lead the American people to believe that he would provide everything with what the need (food) and what they want (cars, technology). His popularity with the public did not last for long. Hoover had been in office just a few months when the Great Depression began to wreck the nation's economy. His early efforts save the economy did not do enough. A banking crisis had seized the nation and in 1932, he lost the presidential election to Franklin D. Roosevelt.
 * President Herbert Hoover **




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