1K - Domestic politics: Harding, Coolidge and Republican conservatism
Republicans held the presidency from 1921 to 1933. This lesson explains their ideas about business and federal power, the different leadership of Harding and Coolidge, and why Hoover's response to the Depression transformed an apparent political advantage into defeat.
Republican conservatism and federal power
Republican conservatism in the 1920s favoured private enterprise, lower taxation and restraint in federal spending. Leaders argued that investment and business confidence would generate employment and prosperity. They wished to reduce the exceptional controls associated with the First World War and resist demands for a larger permanent welfare state.
This was an active policy choice, not the absence of government. Protective tariffs sheltered domestic producers; courts and officials defended property and often limited labour organisation; immigration restrictions affected labour supply. Government could support business strongly while rejecting some intervention on behalf of workers or farmers.
Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, who served through all three Republican administrations, encouraged lower tax rates, particularly on high incomes, and reduced federal debt. Supporters argued that lower rates would release capital for productive investment. Critics believed that the benefits were distributed unequally and that prosperity required stronger purchasing power among ordinary consumers. The connection between a policy and growth must therefore be tested rather than assumed from the fact that both occurred during the decade.
Progressive institutions survived. The Federal Reserve and regulatory agencies remained, and Herbert Hoover developed cooperation between business and government while serving as commerce secretary. The central dispute concerned the purpose and extent of intervention: government as a supporter and coordinator of enterprise, or government as a provider of wider social guarantees.
Republican conservatism
In this period, support for private enterprise, limited federal welfare responsibilities, fiscal restraint and protection of established economic and social institutions.
Harding: normalcy and corruption
Warren Harding entered office in March 1921 after a decisive election victory. Normalcy offered stability after wartime disruption, inflation, strikes and the conflict over the peace settlement. His administration reduced taxes and spending, and the Fordney–McCumber Tariff of 1922 raised protection for American producers. These measures reflected the belief that business recovery required supportive conditions rather than extensive federal management.
Harding appointed capable officials, including Mellon and Hoover, but also associates whose conduct damaged his administration. The Teapot Dome scandal concerned the leasing of naval oil reserves to private interests. Interior Secretary Albert Fall accepted payments associated with the leases and was later convicted of bribery. The scandal revealed how public resources could be diverted through private connections.
It is important to assign responsibility accurately. The discovery of corruption within Harding's administration does not establish that Harding personally accepted the bribes. His responsibility concerned appointments, oversight and the political environment in which associates operated. He died in August 1923, before the full scandal had been exposed.
Harding also complicates an entirely negative picture of conservatism. He commuted Eugene Debs's sentence in 1921 and publicly supported greater political and economic opportunity for African Americans, while defending continued social separation. His administration did not secure comprehensive protection for African-American rights. Commutation ended the remaining prison term; it did not pardon the conviction. Statements of principle and practical legislative achievement were different measures. His presidency combined a popular return to stability, a business-friendly direction and failures of administrative supervision.
Coolidge and the politics of prosperity
Calvin Coolidge succeeded Harding in 1923 and won the presidency in his own right in 1924. His reputation for honesty and restrained leadership helped restore confidence after the scandals. Economic expansion strengthened his political position: visible growth in cars, electrical goods and construction made Republican policy appear successful to many voters.
Coolidge supported further tax reductions and spending restraint. His vetoes of the McNary–Haugen farm relief bills in 1927 and 1928 illustrate the limits he placed on federal responsibility. The bills proposed arrangements to dispose of agricultural surpluses abroad and support domestic prices. Coolidge believed that such intervention would distort markets and create further problems. Farmers who had not shared industrial prosperity could regard the vetoes as indifference to their hardship.
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