American History - Part 167 - Coolidge - Reelected in 1924
Channel: ListenAndReadAlong
Date: 2013-08-06

Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION -- American history in VOA Special English.
Coolidge moved quickly after becoming President to gain control of the Republican Party. He named his own advisers to important jobs. And he replaced a number of officials with people whose loyalty he could trust.
Most Republicans liked Coolidge. They felt his popular policies would make him a strong candidate in the Presidential election. For this reason, Coolidge faced only 1 serious opponent for the Republican Presidential nomination in 1924.
Coolidge's opponent was the great automobile manufacturer, Henry Ford of Michigan. Ford had been a candidate for Congress in 1918. He lost that election. 
Ford himself put an end to his chances by telling the nation that it was "perfectly safe with Coolidge."
Calvin Coolidge won the Presidential nomination easily at the 1924 Republican convention in Cleveland, Ohio. The Republican delegates chose Charles Dawes of Illinois to run with him as the Vice Presidential candidate.
The Democratic Party was much more divided. Many of the groups that traditionally supported Democratic candidates now were fighting against each other. For example, many farmers did not agree on policies with people living in cities. The educated did not agree with uneducated people. And many Protestant workers felt divided from Roman Catholic and Jewish workers.
These differences made it hard for the Democratic Party to choose a national candidate. There was little spirit of compromise.
The Democratic delegates finally chose John Davis to be their Presidential nominee. Davis was a lawyer for a major bank. He had served briefly under President Wilson as ambassador to Britain. The delegates also chose Charles Bryan to be the vice Presidential candidate. Bryan was the younger brother of the famous Democrat and populist leader, William Jennings Bryan.
Coolidge won the 1924 election easily. He won the electoral votes of 35 states to just 12 for Davis of the Democrats. LaFollette won only Wisconsin, his home state. Coolidge also won more popular votes than the other 2 candidates together.
The American people voted for Coolidge partly to thank him for bringing back honesty and trust to the White House following the crimes of the Harding administration. But the main reason was that they liked his conservative economic policies and his support of business.
LaFollette's Progressive Party died following the 1924 election. Most of his supporters later joined the Democrats. But the reform spirit of their movement remained alive through the next 4 years.
They were difficult years for Progressives. Conservatives in Congress passed laws reducing taxes for corporations and richer Americans.
Progressives fought for reforms in national agriculture policies. Most farmers did not share in the general economic growth of the 1920s. Instead, their costs increased while the price of their products fell. Many farmers lost their farms.
Farmers and progressives wanted the federal government to create a system to control prices and the total supply of food produced. They said the government should buy and keep any extra food that farmers produced. And they called for officials to help them export food.
Coolidge and most Republicans rejected these ideas. They said it was not the business of a free government to fix farm prices. And they feared the high costs of creating a major new government department and developing export markets.
Coolidge vetoed 3 major farm reform bills following his election.
The debate over farm policy was, in many ways, like the debate over taxes or public controls on power companies. There was a basic difference of opinion about the proper actions of government.
More conservative Americans believed the purpose of government was to support private business, not to control it. But more liberal Americans believed that government needed to do more to make sure that citizens of all kinds could share the nation's wealth more equally.
Coolidge and the Republicans were in control in the 1920s. For this reason, the nation generally stayed on a conservative path. The Democrats and Progressives would have to wait until later to put many of their more liberal ideas into action.