Category History

Calvin Coolidge was the 30th president. In 1923 President Harding died while on a trip to Alaska. Harding’s administration had been full of corruption and scandal. Fortunately, Coolidge had not been a part of the corruption and immediately cleaned house. He fired corrupt and inept officials and hired new reliable staffers.

His first message to Congress in December 1923 called for isolation in foreign policy, tax cuts, economy, and limited aid to farmers. Coolidge soon became popular due to his policies. In 1924, the voters chose him for another four years.

Calvin Coolidge’s quiet, but honest personality seemed to be just what the country needed at the time. By cleaning up the scandals and showing support for businesses, the economy thrived. This period of prosperity became known as the “Roaring Twenties”. In his second term, he ran under the slogan “Keep Cool with Coolidge”.

As president, Coolidge was for small government. He also wanted to keep the country somewhat isolated and did not want to join the League of Nations that was formed after World War I. He was for tax cuts, lower government spending, and less aid to struggling farmers.

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It is interesting how Harding came to power. As senator, he was a responsible man and hardly had any enemies. This was because he never voiced his opinions regarding any issue. In 1920, when the Republican Party could not decide on the candidate for president, Senator Harding was selected as a surprising compromise. He won the elections as well. However, Warren G. Harding’s tenure did not end with a clean chit.

Harding’s cabinet hosted an array of outstanding leaders and tough politicians. He was a poor judge of character; to his disappointment, his officers did not repay him with integrity as he expected. What he got in return was scandal after scandal. A lot of his officers were involved in taking bribes. Matters came to a head when the Teapot Dome Scandal broke.

One of Harding’s advisors took a bribe in return for allowing an oil company to drill on in Teapot Dome, Wyoming. This land had been set aside for the U.S. Navy. This event became known as the Teapot Dome Scandal. The scam almost ended his political career.

He was advised to stay away from Washington for a while. While returning, he suffered a severe abdominal pain and died soon either of a heart attack or a stroke. His wife Flossie destroyed many of Harding’s personal papers and his letters after his death, hoping to avoid even more gossip and scandal.

Though there were many scandals during his tenure, Harding embraced technology and was sensitive to the plights of minorities and women. He also hosted the Washington Naval Disarmament Conference in 1921. This conference succeeded in getting the world’s major powers to agree to stop the race in production of large naval vessels.

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Woodrow Wilson was nominated for president at the 1912 Democratic Convention. His presidential campaign was known as the New Freedom, and revolved around banking reforms, business reforms and tariff reductions. Though he received only 42 per cent of the popular vote, he received an overwhelming electoral vote that assured his victory.

Woodrow Wilson was first noted by the Democrats due to his growing national reputation. He first ran for the governor of New Jersey. Before beginning a career in politics, he worked as a professor and practiced law.

Wilson did a good job with the Congress; he helped bring about shorter work days, and made it possible for farmers to get loans. He was against child labour and kept children from working in dangerous jobs. However, his hope to keep America out of the First World War did not bear fruit.

The war got worse. After a policy of neutrality at the outbreak of World War I, Wilson led America into war. Wilson stated American war aims known as the Fourteen Points. It was a plan to end secret agreements between nations; it would also establish a general association of nations that would make way for mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to all states alike.

Wilson fought for the creation of the League of Nations. It was an organization of countries that would find peaceful solutions to conflicts. The League later led to the formation of the United Nations.

Wilson suffered a severe stroke in October 1919 and was incapacitated for the remainder of his presidency.

Wilson retired from public office in 1921 and died in 1924. Scholars have generally ranked Wilson as one of the most effective U.S. presidents.

William Howard Taft succeeded to the office of president from Theodore Roosevelt. A few years after his tenure, he became the tenth Chief Justice of the United States, making him the only former president to become Chief Justice. Taft is the only person to have served in both of these offices. Taft was a president who disliked politics. In fact, he once said, “Politics, when I am in it, makes me sick.” He was never good at pleasing his voters with words.

Taft’s presidency is linked to Roosevelt; Theodore Roosevelt and Taft were good friends and they admired each other’s talent. During Roosevelt’s tenure, he made Taft his Secretary of War. And when Roosevelt decided not to run again in 1908, he asked his supporters to choose Taft. It was his wife who convinced Taft to accept the nomination.

Taft disappointed Roosevelt’s expectations. His policies differed from that of his political guru. Things took a turn when he fired Gifford Pinchot. Pinchot was the head of the Bureau of Forestry and an ardent conservationist who was a friend of Roosevelt. With this incident, the Republicans withdrew their support. When Roosevelt came back from a safari in Africa, they urged him to publicly oppose his political successor. Though Roosevelt was initially against this idea, what followed was a merciless conflict between two friends at the end of which, the Republicans lost to the Democrats.

Taft taught law after retiring from office. Years later, he was named chief justice of the Supreme Court by President Harding. It was a dream-come-true moment for him. Taft held this position until just before his death in 1930. To Taft, this appointment was his greatest honour. He once wrote, ‘I don’t remember that I ever was president.’

When Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in as the president in 1901, he was just 43, thus becoming the youngest president of the country till then.

Before joining politics, he was a war hero. His performance on the battlefield paved the way for his political career. He certainly brought new excitement and power to the office. He led the Congress and the American public towards progressive reforms and a strong foreign policy, Roosevelt expanded the powers of the presidency and the federal government in support of the public interest. His policies were successful in dealing with the conflicts between big business and labour forces. He used his power as the president to force businesses to follow rules of fairness in dealing with workers.

Roosevelt played a seminal role in shaping America as a superpower in world politics, particularly in Europe and Asia. It was Roosevelt who secured the route and began construction of the Panama Canal. He won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1906 for mediating an end to the Russo-Japanese War.

President Roosevelt also cared about the environment. During his tenure, large areas were added to the national forests in the West. He also reserved lands for public use, and fostered great irrigation projects.

Roosevelt was popular amongst his people and won the office for a second time too. Though he enjoyed being the president, he felt that too many terms would eventually give way to dictatorship. Therefore, he did not run for president the third time.

In 1912, the political circumstances forced him to run for president once again, representing the newly-formed Progressive Party. A fanatic shot him while campaigning in Milwaukee. But he recovered soon. He did not win the election, however.

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“…every one admires Captain McKinley as one of the bravest and finest young officers in the Army.” This was written by Rutherford Hayes, 19th American president about a smart William McKinley who went on to become the 25th president of the country.

William McKinley was the last president to have served in the American Civil War. He was also the only one to have started the war as an enlisted soldier. He became a brevet major by the time the war ended. He became the Republican Party’s expert on various issues. In 1896, he ran as the Republican Party’s candidate for president and won.

McKinley’s Administration strived to develop and improve foreign policy. It did not care much about the prosperity of the country. It was a time when America was affected by the stalemate between Spanish forces and revolutionaries in Cuba. There was pressure on McKinley to call for a war. Though McKinley tried for a neutral intervention in April 1898, he later had to declare war after the Spanish blew up the U.S. battleship Maine in the harbour of Havana, Cuba.

What followed was a war that lasted 100 days. The United States destroyed the Spanish fleet, seized Manila in the Philippines, and occupied Puerto Rico. The war established the U.S. as a world power. McKinley was elected again in 1900. However, his second term ended tragically in September 1901; he was shot by Leon Czolgosz, a deranged anarchist.

He died eight days later and was succeeded by his vice president, Theodore Roosevelt.

Benjamin Harrison’s knowledge about politics dated back to a very young age. He was born into a political family. His great grandfather was a signatory of the Declaration of Independence. His grandfather was William Henry Harrison, the ninth president of the U.S. His father was a U.S. congressman. No wonder, Benjamin followed the path of his ancestors.

During the Civil War, Harrison served as an officer in the Union army. After the war, he resumed the career of a lawyer. He established himself as a prominent politician in Indiana. Though he lost the governorship of Indiana in 1876, he was elected to the United States Senate in 1881. Failures precede success and this held true for Harrison. He lost one presidential election to Cleveland, but was victorious in 1888.

As president, Harrison worked to pass the Sherman Antitrust Act. This law was passed to protect people from high prices charged by big companies who did not have competition. He also organized the first Pan American Congress in Washington in 1889 and established an information centre which later came to be known as the Pan American Union. By the end of his tenure, he had submitted a plan to annex Hawaii. This however, did not bear fruit immediately.

Though he was nominated again in 1892, Harrison was defeated by Cleveland. He spent his retirement years in Indianapolis and died of pneumonia in 1901.

Harrison was a much sought-after public speaker; a series of his lectures delivered at Stanford University was published in 1901 as Views of an Ex-President.

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Grover Cleveland, the 22nd president, was also the 24th president of the United States. Cleveland is also the only president to serve two terms that were separated by another president’s term. He was also the first Democrat elected after the Civil War.

Cleveland was against the idea of high taxes. He felt there shouldn’t be high taxes, or tariffs on goods brought in from other countries. Though he tried to reform the tariff laws, he failed at it. He also ordered an investigation into the lands held by the railroads and forced them to return 8,10,00,000 acres, something that made them very angry. In addition to this, Cleveland signed the Interstate Commerce Act, the first law attempting Federal regulation of the railroads.

Though Cleveland lost the 1888 election to Benjamin Harrison, he was back as president in 1892. The economy was in bad shape when he was sworn in for the second time. It got much worse during his tenure. The public perceived Cleveland as one of the most unpopular U.S. presidents, mainly because of these economic problems.

Let us now talk about Cleveland’s early years. He was born in New Jersey in 1837. After studies, Cleveland went on to become a lawyer. He was noted for his single-minded concentration upon whatever task he was given.

Later Cleveland became the mayor of Buffalo, New York, and then governor of the state.

In 1876, the Republicans nominated Rutherford B. Hayes for the president. He won through the Compromise of 1877, an agreement that officially ended the ‘Reconstruction’ by leaving the South to govern itself.

Hayes was accused of fraud during the election of 1876 against his opponent Samuel Tilden. At first it looked like Hayes had lost. He had fewer electoral votes than Tilden. However, several electoral votes were in dispute. Congress had to decide who these votes would go to. They picked Hayes. The Democrats from the southern states were not happy with this. They said Hayes and the Republicans had cheated. In order to work out a compromise, Hayes and the Republicans agreed that federal troops would be removed from the South. In return, the South agreed to accept Hayes as president. This signalled the end of the Reconstruction.

Hayes wanted to restore the trust of citizens in the government that was lost during the term of President Grant. During his tenure, Hayes implemented modest civil-service reforms. It was Hayes who vetoed the Bland-Allison Act of 1878 which sought to put silver money into circulation. Hayes insisted that the maintenance of the gold standard was essential to economic recovery. He also advocated equal education of African-American children.

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James Garfield, the 20th president of the United States was also shot dead, just like Abraham Lincoln. Garfield was elected as the president in 1881. He was an impactful leader and a worthy successor to Abraham Lincoln. But he did not rule America for more than 200 days.

James Garfield was born in Ohio in 1831. His father died when he was two. He was raised by his single mother and had a tough childhood. He drove canal boats to earn money for education.

James Garfield joined politics after graduating from Williams College, Massachusetts in 1856. Later, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Garfield repeatedly won re-election for 18 years, and became the leading Republican in the House before becoming the president.

During his tenure, Garfield wanted to make the U.S. economy stronger. He wanted to put an end to the spoils system. According to the spoils system, the members of the winning political party could get government jobs even if they weren’t qualified. Garfield was against this practice.

It was Charles J. Guiteau, an embittered attorney who shot the president on July 2, 1881, in a Washington railroad station. Garfield’s condition was fatal and after suffering much pain, he died from an infection and internal haemorrhage on 19 September, 1881, just six months after taking office.