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Woodrow Wilson
The son of a Presbyterian minister, Woodrow Wilson was born in Virginia in 1856. He would later ascend into a leader of the Progressive Movement, following the mantra, “Make the world safe for democracy,” as he directed the American entrance into World War I.
Wilson was a highly educated president, graduating from Princeton (then the College of New Jersey) and the University of Virginia Law School.
He then earned his doctorate at Johns Hopkins University and entered a career in academia before marrying Ellen Louise Axson in 1885. The 28th President of the United States Born: 1856 Died: 1924 Served: 1913 to 1921
Wilson was a professor of political science and became president of Princeton in 1902. A group of conservative Democrats noticed Wilson and persuaded him to run for Governor of New Jersey in 1910.
He endorsed and carried out a progressive platform as governor — offering some foreshadowing on his presidential policies.
Major Policy
Near the middle of Wilson’s presidency, he made the biggest decision of his tenure. On April 2,1917, he asked Congress for a declaration of war on Germany.
His other major efforts included: • Guiding three major pieces of legislation through Congress: the Underwood Act (a lower tariff), the Federal Reserve Act and the establishment of the Federal Trade Commission to prohibit unfair business practices; • Law prohibiting child labor; and • Law limiting railroad workers to an eight-hour day.
Along with his major policies, Wilson also suffered a dramatic defeat in 1918. After the Germans signed the Armistice, Wilson presented to the Senate the Versailles Treaty, containing the Covenant of the League of Nations.
But the treaty failed by seven votes in the Senate, dealing Wilson a major blow in his efforts to mobilize Americans for peace and unity.
The treaty was so important to Wilson that he nearly died for it, organizing a national tour to capture public sentiment for it, even against the orders of his doctors. He became so overcome with exhaustion that he suffered a stroke and nearly died.
Wilson would recover but eventually passed away in 1924.
Warren G. Harding
Warren G. Harding was the 29th President of the United States. Though his term in office was fraught with scandal, including Teapot Dome, Harding embraced technology and was sensitive to the plights of minorities and women.
Before his nomination, Warren G. Harding declared, “America’s present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality….”
A Democratic leader, William Gibbs McAdoo, called Harding’s speeches “an army of pompous phrases moving across the landscape in search of an idea.” Their very murkiness was effective, since Harding’s pronouncements remained unclear on the League of Nations.
Thirty-one distinguished Republicans had signed a manifesto assuring voters that a vote for Harding was a vote for the League. But Harding interpreted his election as a mandate to stay out of the League of Nations.
Harding, born near Marion, Ohio, in 1865, became the publisher of a newspaper. He married a divorcee, Mrs. Florence Kling De Wolfe. He was a trustee of the Trinity Baptist Church, a director of almost every important business, and a leader in fraternal organizations and charitable enterprises.
Harding’s undeviating Republicanism and vibrant speaking voice, plus his willingness to let the machine bosses set policies, led him far in Ohio politics. He served in the state Senate and as Lieutenant Governor, and unsuccessfully ran for Governor. In 1914 he was elected to the Senate, which he found “a very pleasant place.”
An Ohio admirer, Harry Daugherty, began to promote Harding for the 1920 Republican nomination because, he later explained, “He looked like a President.”
Thus a group of Senators turned to Harding. He won the Presidential election by an unprecedented landslide of 60 percent of the popular vote.
Republicans in Congress easily got the President’s signature on their bills. They eliminated wartime controls and slashed taxes, established a Federal budget system, restored the high protective tariff, and imposed tight limitations upon immigration.
By 1923 the postwar depression seemed to be giving way to a new surge of prosperity, and newspapers hailed Harding as a wise statesman carrying out his campaign promise–“Less government in business and more business in government.”
Behind the facade, not all of Harding’s Administration was so impressive. Word began to reach the President that some of his friends were using their official positions for their own enrichment.
Looking wan and depressed, Harding journeyed westward in the summer of 1923, taking with him his upright Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover. “If you knew of a great scandal in our administration,” he asked Hoover, “would you for the good of the country and the party expose it publicly or would you bury it?” Hoover urged publishing it, but Harding feared the political repercussions.
He did not live to find out how the public would react to the scandals of his administration. In August of 1923, he died in San Francisco of a heart attack.
Calvin Coolidge stepped into the presidency during a time of rapid economic growth and American prosperity in the 1920s. Maybe he foresaw the possibility of the upcoming Great Depression, as his focus was said to have been centered on the preservation of morals and stingy spending.
Coolidge was America’s 30th president. His swearing-in ceremony was modest and conveyed what kind of president he hoped to be.
According to the White House Historical Association, Coolidge received word at 2:30 a.m. on Aug. 3, 1923 that he would be the next commander-in-chief. By the light of a kerosene lamp, the association reports, his father, who was a notary public, administered the oath of office as Coolidge placed his hand on the family Bible.
Calvin Coolidge
Before He Was President
Coolidge was born in Plymouth, Vt., on July 4, 1872. The son of a popular village storekeeper, he graduated from Amherst College with honors and entered law and politics in Northampton, Mass.
His career in politics was methodical and progressive, as he climbed the ladder from councilman in Northampton to governor of Massachusetts as a Republican. During his political ascent, he came to represent a staunchly conservative voice in American politics.
Coolidge married Grace Goodhue Coolidge, who often recounted one of the most telling tales of her husband’s dry personality and status quo presidency. According to the White House Historical Association, Grace recalled a young woman sitting next to Coolidge at a dinner party proclaiming she could get at least three words of conversation from him. “You lose,” he quietly replied.
Major Policy
Coolidge held tight to his conservative values from the oval office. Here are some landmark moments and policies from his presidency: • He refused to apply federal economic power to check the growing economic boom. • He often called for isolation in foreign policy and for tax cuts. • In 1924, as the beneficiary of what was becoming known as “Coolidge prosperity,” he polled more than 54 percent of the popular vote. • On Feb. 22, 1924, Coolidge became the first president to make a public radio address to the American people and later helped create the Federal Radio Commission (now the Federal Communications Commission).
Coolidge died suddenly from coronary thrombosis at his retirement home in 1933 and is buried in Plymouth Notch, Vt.
