ISSN:
0021-8758
Source:
Cambridge Journals Digital Archives
Topics:
English, American Studies
,
History
,
Political Science
,
Sociology
,
Economics
Notes:
Calvin Coolidge became President on the morning of 3 August 1923. He was to hold that office for five years, six months, and thirty days, during which time he would have a splendid opportunity to secure the destiny of his party. Some of the activities of several of the more seedy characters of the Harding Administration were about to become public knowledge, while the one-interest basis on which Republican power rested was becoming increasingly obvious. In the scandals which followed his accession, Coolidge acquitted himself well, the ‘anti-propaganda’ technique he adopted in fighting the revelations bringing him, it might be argued, an even greater victory at the polls in 1924 than he otherwise would have received. But the party's destiny went well beyond the Twenties, and the success, or lack of it, which would greet the Republicans in the decades beyond depended in large fashion on Coolidge's efforts to pry his party from the rut in which it had firmly planted itself. For by the time Coolidge entered the White House the Republicans had violated a basic canon of practical politics by allowing themselves to become the spokesmen of one interest, to the neglect of those others which, if they ever got together, could easily put an end to Republican dominance. More broadly, the party by this time was a rather exclusive vehicle in which, oblivious to others around them, serenely rode whites, Anglo-Saxons, and Protestants. There were others in this vehicle but by the post-war period they were mostly in the rumble seat, and none too happy about it.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0021875800008112
Permalink
