Category: Politics
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False Splendor of Past Inaugurals
Ah, the days before microphones. This 1921 article described how “not a dozen men have ever heard a Presidential inaugural address.” That same year, Warren Harding became the first president with loudspeakers at his inauguration. The people around him do not hear him. The newspaper men have seats nearer than the other invited guests on the…
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Our Japanese Question
In 1921, a Harvard government professor warned that “There has never been a time of such uneasy and hostile feeling between the two nations” of the U.S. and Japan. 20 years later came Pearl Harbor. Albert Bushnell Hart noted that the animosity was a relatively recent development: Can two countries be found with a longer…
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New Forest Chief on Saving Our Forests
In 1921, the U.S. Forest Service director said he wanted to protect America’s forests. He succeeded. The 1920s were the first decade in American history where total forest acres increased (slightly). The number has remained roughly steady ever since. This graph from ThoughtCo., using data from the U.S. Forest Service’s Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) Program,…
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Cox or Harding?: Each Answers the Question for the New York Times
The Sunday before Election Day 1920, the New York Times asked both presidential candidates for a short essay explaining why they deserved the White House. Here’s what they each wrote, and how their promises stack up in 2020. Democratic candidate and Ohio Gov. James M. Cox: There has been no time in the history of the…
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Dead Letters Among the Laws
In 1920, it became illegal to drink alcohol. But during ancient Greek times, at certain celebrations it was illegal to be sober. How far we’d come. From a 1920 New York Times article: Laws which have been nominally enforced for decades have became dead letters, some of them without going through the form of repeal. Is…
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How Woman Goes to Vote
When women could first vote in 1920, the resulting atmospheric changes at polling locations included no more fights, profanity, or smoking. “And no trouble, never no trouble any more,” the Veteran regretted. “In the old days we could always run in a couple of guys, there was always rows. There’s nothing doing any more. Since…
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Changing Fashions in Presidential Campaigns
At some point, the presidential “campaign biography” gave way to the “campaign autobiography.” 1920 fell between those two eras, with this contemporary article noting the demise of the former though the latter hadn’t yet become the norm. From 1920: At least four of these campaign biographies were written by authors of standing. No less a…
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The Anonymous Roosevelt
As an ex-president, Theodore Roosevelt wrote an anonymous monthly column for one of America’s biggest magazines, Ladies’ Home Journal, under the recurring column title “Men.” His authorship wasn’t revealed until 1920, after Roosevelt’s death, by the 30-year editor of Ladies’ Home Journal Edward Bok in his autobiography The Americanization of Edward Bok: The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty…
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Party Allegiance as Good Citizenship
In 1920, Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Robert von Moschzisker argued that America had become too big to govern effectively without political parties. To my mind, the maintenance of the present system and the development of party fealty are matters of prime importance at this time in America. How, with our vast electorate, scattered over a…
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The First Woman President
Weeks after women gained the right to vote, a satirical column predicted a future female president since “Millions of us men will be compelled to vote for her with the threat of losing our home-brewed meals if we don’t.” In 1920, the country was still 12 years away from its first elected female senator, Hattie Wyatt Caraway of…
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