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Era V · 1920–1952

Republicanism Between the World Wars

Republicans returned to power promising “normalcy,” presided over the prosperity of the 1920s, were blamed for the Great Depression, and spent two decades in opposition—divided over the New Deal and America’s role in the world.

Overview

The election of 1920 was a landslide. Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio, promising “not nostrums, but normalcy” and campaigning on the theme of “America First,” won 404 electoral votes and about 60 percent of the popular vote in the first presidential election after the Nineteenth Amendment. His administration convened the Washington Naval Conference, which produced a landmark treaty limiting the battleship fleets of the major naval powers; signed the Budget and Accounting Act, which gave the president a unified executive budget for the first time; and, under Treasury Secretary Andrew W. Mellon, began cutting wartime taxes. It was also marred by scandal. In the Teapot Dome affair, Interior Secretary Albert B. Fall leased naval oil reserves to private oilmen while secretly taking money from them; he was later convicted of bribery and became the first cabinet secretary imprisoned for crimes committed in office.

Calvin Coolidge, who succeeded Harding on his death in August 1923, embodied a restrained view of federal power. At Mellon’s urging, revenue acts in 1921, 1924 and 1926 cut the top income-tax rate from 73 percent to 25 percent, while the government ran budget surpluses and reduced the national debt. In 1924 Coolidge signed the Indian Citizenship Act, extending citizenship to all Native Americans born in the United States, and the Immigration Act of 1924, which imposed national-origins quotas favoring northern and western Europe and barred immigration from Asia. He twice vetoed the McNary–Haugen farm-price bills. Coolidge won a full term in 1924 over the Democrat John W. Davis and the Progressive Robert M. La Follette, and in 1928 Herbert Hoover, the celebrated engineer and commerce secretary, won a landslide over Alfred E. Smith.

Less than eight months into Hoover’s term the stock market crashed, and the Great Depression followed. Hoover urged business leaders to maintain wages, signed the Smoot–Hawley Tariff in 1930, expanded federal public works and in 1932 won a Reconstruction Finance Corporation to lend to banks, railroads and other institutions, while resisting direct federal relief to individuals. Democrats won the House in 1930, and in 1932 Franklin D. Roosevelt carried all but six states. For two decades Republicans were the opposition, losing five straight presidential elections—with Hoover in 1932, Alf Landon in 1936, Wendell Willkie in 1940 and Thomas E. Dewey in 1944 and 1948—while Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio became the leading conservative critic of the New Deal’s expansion of federal power.

Foreign policy divided the party most deeply. In 1940 and 1941 the nonpartisan America First Committee, with members from both parties, led opposition to aid for Britain and entry into the war until Pearl Harbor united the country. After the war Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg of Michigan, a former noninterventionist, led Republicans into a bipartisan foreign policy, helping to pass the Marshall Plan and win Senate approval of the North Atlantic Treaty. The Republican 80th Congress, elected in 1946, enacted the Taft–Hartley labor law over President Truman’s veto and proposed the Twenty-second Amendment limiting presidents to two terms. In 1950, as Senator Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin accused the State Department of harboring Communists, Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine and six other Republicans issued a “Declaration of Conscience” against the politics of smear.

Timeline

  1. “Not nostrums, but normalcy”

    In a Boston address, Senator Warren G. Harding captures the national mood after war and upheaval, calling for “healing” rather than “heroics”—a theme that carries him to the nomination and a landslide victory in November.

    Primary Source

  2. Washington Naval Conference opens

    Convened by Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes, the conference produces the Five-Power Treaty of 1922, fixing ratios of capital-ship tonnage for the United States, Britain, Japan, France and Italy.

    Historical Record

  3. Coolidge sworn in by his father

    Harding dies in San Francisco on August 2. Vice President Calvin Coolidge, visiting his family’s Vermont farmhouse, takes the oath of office by lamplight from his father, a notary public.

    Historical Record

  4. Teapot Dome hearings begin

    A Senate committee inquiry pressed by Democratic senator Thomas J. Walsh of Montana reveals that Interior Secretary Albert B. Fall had leased naval oil reserves in Wyoming and California to private oilmen while taking money from them. Fall is later convicted of bribery.

    Opposing View / Debate

  5. Immigration Act of 1924

    Coolidge signs the Johnson–Reed Act, setting quotas at two percent of each nationality’s population in the 1890 census and excluding immigrants from Asia—restrictions that remained largely in place until 1965.

    Primary Source

  6. Indian Citizenship Act

    Coolidge signs a law extending U.S. citizenship to all Native Americans born in the United States. Voting remained a matter of state law, and some states continued to bar Native Americans from the polls for decades.

    Primary Source

  7. The stock market crash

    Five days after “Black Thursday,” the market collapses on “Black Tuesday,” beginning a slide that deepens into the Great Depression.

    Historical Record

  8. Smoot–Hawley Tariff

    Hoover signs the Tariff Act of 1930, raising duties on many agricultural and industrial imports despite a petition from more than a thousand economists urging a veto. Scholars still debate how much it deepened the Depression.

    Historical Record

  9. Reconstruction Finance Corporation created

    Hoover signs legislation creating the RFC to lend government funds to banks, railroads and other institutions—an unprecedented peacetime federal intervention that the New Deal would later expand.

    Historical Record

  10. America First Committee founded

    The nonpartisan committee, chaired by Robert E. Wood of Sears, Roebuck, quickly becomes the country’s most influential organization opposing entry into the war. Its reputation suffers when its most famous speaker, Charles Lindbergh, accuses Jewish Americans, among others, of pushing the nation toward war in September 1941; it dissolves after Pearl Harbor.

    Historical Record

  11. Vandenberg’s “speech heard round the world”

    In the Senate chamber, Arthur H. Vandenberg of Michigan renounces his prewar isolationism and calls for American leadership in the postwar world, opening the way to bipartisan support for the United Nations.

    Primary Source

  12. Taft–Hartley Act passes over Truman’s veto

    The Republican 80th Congress overrides the president to enact the Labor Management Relations Act, which restricts certain union practices, bans the closed shop and lets states adopt right-to-work laws.

    Primary Source

  13. Marshall Plan enacted

    With Vandenberg leading support in the Senate, the Republican Congress passes the Economic Cooperation Act, which Truman signs; over the next four years Congress appropriates $13.3 billion for European recovery.

    Primary Source

  14. Declaration of Conscience

    Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine, joined by six Republican colleagues, condemns the tactics of Senator Joseph McCarthy without naming him, urging her party not to ride to victory on “Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear.”

    Primary Source

People

  • Secretary of the Treasury, 1921–1932

    Andrew W. Mellon

    Architect of the income-tax cuts of the 1920s under Harding, Coolidge and Hoover.

  • Secretary of state (1921–1925) and chief justice (1930–1941)

    Charles Evans Hughes

    Convened the Washington Naval Conference.

  • Senator from Kansas; vice president, 1929–1933

    Charles Curtis

    A member of the Kaw Nation and the first vice president of acknowledged Native American ancestry; earlier Senate majority leader.

  • Representative from Illinois, 1929–1935

    Oscar De Priest

    The first African American elected to Congress in the twentieth century and the first from a Northern state.

  • Senator from Ohio, 1939–1953

    Robert A. Taft

    Known as “Mr. Republican,” the leading conservative critic of the New Deal and co-author of the Taft–Hartley Act; sought the presidential nomination in 1940, 1948 and 1952.

  • Senator from Michigan, 1928–1951; chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, 1947–1949

    Arthur H. Vandenberg

    A former noninterventionist who became the Republican architect of bipartisan postwar foreign policy.

  • Republican presidential nominee, 1940

    Wendell Willkie

    A former Democrat and utility executive who supported aid to Britain and, after his defeat, championed internationalism in One World (1943).

  • Governor of New York, 1943–1954; Republican nominee, 1944 and 1948

    Thomas E. Dewey

    Leader of the party’s internationalist eastern wing.

  • Representative (1940–1949) and senator (1949–1973) from Maine

    Margaret Chase Smith

    The first woman elected to both houses of Congress; author of the 1950 Declaration of Conscience.

  • Senator from Wisconsin, 1947–1957

    Joseph R. McCarthy

    His charges of Communist infiltration of the government, beginning in 1950, gave his name to an era; the Senate condemned his conduct in 1954.

Documents

Elections

YearElectionResultElectoral votes
1920Election of 1920In the first presidential election in which women could vote nationwide, Harding won about 60 percent of the popular vote, one of the largest landslides of the century.Warren G. Harding (R) defeats James M. Cox (D)404 of 531
1924Election of 1924Coolidge won a clear majority of the popular vote. La Follette carried only his home state of Wisconsin but won about 17 percent of the vote.Calvin Coolidge (R) defeats John W. Davis (D) and Robert M. La Follette (Progressive)382 of 531
1928Election of 1928Hoover won about 58 percent of the vote and carried several traditionally Democratic Southern states against Smith, the first Catholic nominee of a major party.Herbert Hoover (R) defeats Alfred E. Smith (D)444 of 531
19301930 Midterm ElectionsIn the first elections of the Depression, Republicans lost heavily. After deaths and special elections, Democrats organized the House in 1931, while Republicans narrowly held the Senate.Democrats win the House—
1932Election of 1932Hoover carried only six states as voters turned against the party in power amid the Depression, and Democrats won large majorities in Congress.Franklin D. Roosevelt (D) defeats Herbert Hoover (R)472 of 531
1936Election of 1936Kansas governor Alf Landon carried only Maine and Vermont, the most lopsided electoral result since 1820.Franklin D. Roosevelt (D) defeats Alf Landon (R)523 of 531
19381938 Midterm ElectionsAfter the recession of 1937–1938 and Roosevelt’s failed effort to enlarge the Supreme Court, Republicans gained dozens of House seats, and a conservative coalition of Republicans and Southern Democrats began to check the New Deal.Republicans rebound—
1940Election of 1940Willkie, an internationalist newcomer to politics, won about 45 percent of the vote as Roosevelt broke the two-term tradition.Franklin D. Roosevelt (D) defeats Wendell Willkie (R)449 of 531
1944Election of 1944Wartime voters gave Roosevelt a fourth term; Dewey, the governor of New York, won about 46 percent of the vote.Franklin D. Roosevelt (D) defeats Thomas E. Dewey (R)432 of 531
19461946 Midterm ElectionsCampaigning on the slogan “Had enough?” amid postwar strikes, shortages and inflation, Republicans won control of Congress for the first time since the early 1930s.Republicans win both houses of Congress—
1948Election of 1948Though polls had predicted a Dewey victory, Truman won after campaigning against the Republican “do-nothing” 80th Congress, and Democrats regained both houses.Harry S. Truman (D) defeats Thomas E. Dewey (R), Strom Thurmond (States’ Rights) and Henry A. Wallace (Progressive)303 of 531

Policies

  • 1921–1928

    Tax cuts and budget surpluses

    At Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon’s urging, revenue acts in 1921, 1924 and 1926 cut the top income-tax rate from 73 percent to 25 percent, while the government ran surpluses and paid down the national debt.

    Historical Record

  • 1921

    Budget and Accounting Act

    Required the president to submit a single executive budget to Congress, created the Bureau of the Budget, and established the General Accounting Office to audit federal spending.

    Historical Record

  • 1921–1924

    Immigration restriction

    The emergency quota law of 1921 and the Immigration Act of 1924 sharply reduced immigration through national-origins quotas that favored northern and western Europe and excluded immigrants from Asia.

    Historical Record

  • 1929–1932

    Hoover’s response to the Depression

    Hoover created the Federal Farm Board, pressed business to maintain wages, expanded public works and in 1932 won the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and the Federal Home Loan Bank system, but opposed direct federal relief to individuals as a threat to self-reliance and local responsibility.

    Historical Record

  • 1936

    The case against the New Deal

    The 1936 platform opened “America is in peril,” charging that the New Deal threatened political liberty, constitutional government and the rights of the states, while affirming that the necessities of life must be provided for the needy.

    Official GOP Position1936 Republican Platform

  • 1947

    Taft–Hartley Act

    Sponsored by Senator Robert A. Taft and Representative Fred A. Hartley Jr., the Labor Management Relations Act amended the Wagner Act to restrict certain union practices, ban the closed shop, allow state right-to-work laws and provide cooling-off periods in national-emergency strikes.

    Primary Source

  • 1947–1951

    Two-term limit for presidents

    Proposed by the Republican 80th Congress after Franklin Roosevelt’s four elections, the Twenty-second Amendment limits presidents to two elected terms; it was ratified in 1951.

    Primary Source

  • 1945–1949

    Bipartisan foreign policy

    Led by Vandenberg, most congressional Republicans supported the United Nations, the Marshall Plan and the North Atlantic Treaty, which followed the Senate’s 1948 Vandenberg Resolution endorsing regional security arrangements consistent with the U.N. Charter.

    Historical Record

Speeches

  • May 14, 1920

    Readjustment (“Return to Normalcy”)

    Warren G. Harding

    Delivered in Boston while Harding was a senator seeking the Republican nomination.

    “America’s present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration”
    Primary Source

  • July 5, 1926

    Address on the 150th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence

    Calvin Coolidge

    Speaking in Philadelphia, Coolidge argued that the Declaration’s principles were final truths that later theories could not improve upon.

    “If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final.”
    Primary Source

  • October 22, 1928

    Principles and Ideals of the United States Government

    Herbert Hoover

    In the closing days of the 1928 campaign, Hoover contrasted the American system with the wartime expansion of government and warned against a return to it.

    “We were challenged with a peace-time choice between the American system of rugged individualism and a European philosophy of diametrically opposed doctrines—doctrines of paternalism and state socialism.”
    Primary Source

  • January 10, 1945

    American Foreign Policy

    Arthur H. Vandenberg

    Vandenberg’s Senate speech acknowledging that prewar isolationism had been mistaken and calling for postwar cooperation with the Allies.

    Primary Source

  • June 1, 1950

    Declaration of Conscience

    Margaret Chase Smith

    Smith’s Senate speech defending the right to criticize and to hold unpopular beliefs, delivered as Senator McCarthy looked on.

    “the Four Horsemen of Calumny—Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear”
    Primary Source

Criticism & Debate

A historical institution earns trust by recording disagreement. It does not rewrite history around what a movement believes today. Each perspective below is stated in terms its own proponents would recognize.

Opposing View / Debate

Noninterventionism or internationalism?

From the League of Nations fight to NATO, Republicans argued over how far the United States should commit itself abroad.

Noninterventionists

Senators such as William E. Borah, Hiram Johnson, Gerald Nye and Robert A. Taft argued that the Constitution gave the war power to Congress, that Europe’s quarrels were not America’s, and that hemispheric defense and neutrality would keep the nation free. In 1940 and 1941 the nonpartisan America First Committee opposed Lend-Lease and intervention; its cause was badly damaged when its most famous speaker, Charles Lindbergh, blamed Jewish Americans, among others, for pushing the country toward war—remarks widely condemned as antisemitic.

Internationalists

Republicans such as Henry L. Stimson and Frank Knox, who joined Roosevelt’s cabinet in 1940, and the party’s 1940 nominee, Wendell Willkie, supported aid to Britain. After Pearl Harbor, and especially after Vandenberg’s 1945 speech, most Republicans embraced collective security through the United Nations, the Marshall Plan and NATO.

Historians

Historians note that “isolationist” was often used as a term of criticism: many noninterventionists favored trade and diplomacy abroad and opposed only alliances and war. The tension between the two traditions has recurred in Republican politics ever since.

Sources

  1. American Isolationism in the 1930s · Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State
  2. America First Committee (1940–1941) · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Opposing View / Debate

Did Hoover do too little, or too much?

Hoover’s response to the Great Depression has been judged very differently by his New Deal critics, his defenders and free-market economists.

New Deal critics

Roosevelt and the Democrats argued that Hoover’s faith in voluntary cooperation and balanced budgets, his 1932 tax increase, the Smoot–Hawley Tariff and his refusal of direct federal relief left millions without help. The Army’s eviction of the Bonus Army of unemployed veterans from Washington in July 1932 came to symbolize that view.

Hoover’s defenders

Defenders note that Hoover intervened more actively than any previous president—creating the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, expanding public works and urging employers to keep wages up—and that several New Deal programs built on his initiatives. They add that the Depression was well under way before Smoot–Hawley passed.

Free-market critics

Economists in the classical-liberal and Austrian traditions, such as Murray Rothbard, argued that Hoover intervened too much—propping up wages and prices and raising tariffs and taxes—and so prolonged the slump.

Sources

  1. Herbert Hoover: Domestic Affairs · Miller Center, University of Virginia
  2. Protectionism in the Interwar Period · Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State
Opposing View / Debate

How should Republicans have answered McCarthy?

Senator Joseph McCarthy’s charges of Communist infiltration, beginning in 1950, divided the party until the Senate condemned his conduct in December 1954.

McCarthy’s supporters

Supporters argued that Soviet espionage had reached into the government—pointing to the perjury conviction of former State Department official Alger Hiss in January 1950 and the atomic-spy cases—and that the Truman administration had been slow to act. Decoded Soviet cables released decades later through the Venona project confirmed that Soviet espionage had been extensive.

Republican critics

Margaret Chase Smith and six colleagues warned in 1950 that reckless accusations endangered civil liberties and the party’s integrity. In 1954 Senator Ralph Flanders of Vermont, a Republican, introduced the censure resolution, and the Senate voted 67 to 22 to condemn McCarthy’s conduct.

Historians

Historians generally agree both that Soviet espionage was a real problem and that McCarthy’s specific charges were largely unsubstantiated and harmed many innocent people.

Sources

  1. A Declaration of Conscience · U.S. Senate
  2. The Censure Case of Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin (1954) · U.S. Senate

Images

Archival image collections. Rights are checked item by item before anything is reproduced on this site.

Sources

  1. An Era of Investigations: 1921–1940 · U.S. Senate
  2. Senate Investigates the “Teapot Dome” Scandal · U.S. Senate
  3. Calvin Coolidge: Domestic Affairs · Miller Center, University of Virginia
  4. Herbert Hoover: Domestic Affairs · Miller Center, University of Virginia
  5. The Immigration Act of 1924 (The Johnson-Reed Act) · Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State
  6. Arthur Vandenberg: A Featured Biography · U.S. Senate
  7. Was the Taft-Hartley Act a Good Bill? · Harry S. Truman Library and Museum
  8. A Declaration of Conscience · U.S. Senate

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