Category: Politics
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Soviet Smoke Screen and the Hague
A June 1922 international conference at the Hague aimed to settle Soviet Russia’s economic issues. For example, should the nation be absolved of its WWI debts? Although more than 30 nations participated, primarily from Europe, the U.S. refused: The Russian memorandum of May 11… set forth that Russia of the Soviets was not bound to…
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Our All-American Aliens
From 1907 to 1931, an American woman would lose her citizenship if she married a non-American man, taking the husband’s nationality instead — even if she’d never visited the country in question or spoke the language. This 1922 New York Times Magazine article explained the situation: Few people realize that there is in this country a…
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Free Union of Hughes and Harding
After President Warren G. Harding publicly contradicted his Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes on an issue related to Japan, rumors swirled of bad blood between the two men: Why should Mr. Harding interpret the pact one way when Mr. Hughes had more than once interpreted it the other way, unless the president wished to…
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The Un-Solemn Irish Free State
A new country was created in December 1921: the Irish Free State. This article asked whether it might become “the first demonstration of government with a sense of humor.” Instead, the country was almost immediately plunged into civil war. Whatever the Irish Free State does, it will not be the usual or conventional thing. A…
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The League and the Washington Conference
As the first multinational arms control conference in history approached in fall 1921, this preview article asked: Will the spirit that defeated the work of Mr. Wilson [the U.S. Senate’s failure to ratify the country’s entry into the nascent League of Nations] also defeat the plans of Mr. Harding? After the disillusionment and reaction that…
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Next in Power to Harding
Ironically, this 1921 New York Times Magazine profile called Charles G. Dawes “the most powerful man, excepting the president, in Washington today” four years before he actually became vice president. At the time, Dawes was the first director of the Treasury Department’s Bureau of the Budget, now known as the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).…
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Thirty Years of International Copyright
The Chace Act of 1891 gave copyright to non-U.S. works in return for international copyright protections for American authors. On the law’s 30th anniversray, Brander Matthews wrote that he considered the law a smashing success. It remains the least adequate [such law] now in force of any of the civilized nations; but, improvable as it…
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Enjoying the Presidency
A few months into office in 1921, Warren Harding had returned fun to the White House, resurrecting the Easter Egg Roll, the presidential tradition of throwing the baseball season’s opening pitch, and corresponding with letter writers on apolitical topics. The Easter Egg Roll had been cancelled in 1918 due to wartime egg shortages, but President…
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Martin Van Buren’s Autobiography
Martin van Buren’s autobiography wasn’t published until 1920: 60 years after his death and 80 years after he was last president. That’s like if FDR’s or Herbert Hoover’s memoirs were only published now. 80 years ago in 1941, FDR was president. Excluding JFK, the president who died closest to 60 years ago (of natural causes)…
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Woodrow Wilson’s Administration: Eight Years of the World’s Greatest History
During Wilson’s last week as president, his reputation was already trending upward, due to blunders by President-elect Harding. As this March 1921 New York Times Magazine article noted: The President’s unpopularity had been so violently expressed by the election of Nov. 2 that it was bound to be mitigated soon after, and this natural reaction was…
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