Some fun facts about the 1920 election
- It was the first time that women got to vote for President of the United States
- United States citizens were exhausted just 2 years after the end of World War I and the flu pandemic
- The United States was entering a short post-war economic depression
- Warren Harding’s campaign stressed a Return To Normalcy: the ad mentions the Treaty of Versailles and promises peace and security for American women
- Harding & Coolidge won by a historic landslide
- Republicans also swept Congress
How did it all work out?
- During a 4-day war in 1921, 100 miners and 30 strike busters died for the American worker’s right to fair wages and job safety. Harding deployed federal troops, who used MB-1 bombers to break up the strike
- Harding tried to get manufacturers to agree to reduce the workweek from 12 hours/day to 8 hours/day, 6 days per week, but was not successful
- Harding and Congress built highways to get the country out of the recession
- Congress created the General Accounting Office. Federal spending and personal and corporate tax rates were slashed
- Harding created the Veterans Bureau which later became the Veterans Administration
- America came roaring out of the depression but the economy suffered several setbacks during the 1920s
Worst President ever. Almost!
- The guys that Warren G. Harding appointed to run the country set the bar for government corruption
- The head of the Veterans Bureau, the Attorney General, the Secretary of the Interior, the Prohibition Commissioner, the Chairman of the Shipping Board (Merchant Marine) and others took major bribes, kickbacks, and peddled their influence
- Despite it being Prohibition, the White House was reported to have the best liquor and the best parties in DC
- Mrs. Harding destroyed as many official and unofficial Presidential papers as she could after Harding died in 1923. The remaining papers have never been published.
- Aperture: ƒ/11
- Focal length: 46mm
- ISO: 200
- Shutter speed: 1/10s