Deck 24: The Reactionary Twenties

Question 1

Calvin Coolidge was determined NOT to be an activist president.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

The Kellogg-Briand Pact was the most successful peace treaty the United States had ever
signed in terms of preventing future conflicts.

Answer 2

False

Question 3

Fundamentalists argued that the Bible ought to be taken literally rather than interpreted.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

Calvin Coolidge was notorious for his love of whiskey, poker, and women.

Question 5

To what extent did the policies of the Republican party dominate the federal government during the twenties? In what ways were these policies a rejection of progressivism?

Question 6

The biggest scandal under President Hoover was the Teapot Dome scandal of 1930.

Question 7

In what ways did Hoover fail to address the human distress caused by the Great Depression?

Question 8

Following the Great War, most Americans felt that they owed Europeans and, thus, insisted on forgiving their war debts.

Question 9

The second Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s was mainly a southern rural organization.

Question 10

The Scopes "Monkey Trial" was an example of the cultural conflict in the 1920s of tradition
versus modernity.

Question 11

Following Wilson's presidency, progressivism eventually disappeared in American politics
in the 1920s.

Question 12

The McNary-Haugen plan revived the idea of a political alliance between the rural South
and West.

Question 13

Prohibition had the consequence of increasing organized crime in the United States.

Question 14

How did the Great Depression impact the American people?

Question 15

What were the major causes of the Great Depression?

Question 16

How did the reactionary conservatism during the 1920s manifest itself in social life and governmental policies?

Question 17

The national struggle over Prohibition was, in part, due to cultural tension amid the influx of immigrants.

Question 18

In the 1920s, many investors bought stocks on margin-that is, with borrowed funds.

Question 19

Al Smith's candidacy in 1928 represented the strong unity between rural and urban America.

Question 20

As president, Warren Harding was actually more progressive than Woodrow Wilson in his
attitudes and policies toward African Americans.

Question 21

Which of the following was a result of the Scopes Trial?

A) Tennessee's anti-evolution law was declared unconstitutional.
B) The fundamentalist movement disappeared.
C) William Jennings Bryan's political career was revived.
D) John T. Scopes was found guilty of teaching evolution.
E) Clarence Darrow's legal career faded into obscurity.

Question 22

Who was the "Ohio gang"?

A) a group of actors who rivaled Charlie Chaplin in box office receipts
B) Herbert Hoover's closest advisers, who directed his rise to the presidency
C) progressive activists who ensured a minimum-wage law for women
D) the beloved hosts of the first national radio program
E) a group of President Harding's friends who were named to political office

Question 23

The result in the presidential election of 1920 might be attributed to the

A) smear campaign directed against Democratic candidate H. L. Mencken a matter of weeks beforehand.
B) conservative postwar mood in which Americans were "tired of issues" and "sick at heart of ideals."
C) pro-Wilson and pro-internationalism tone of Harding's campaign as well as his tendencies for heroics.
D) lack of women voters in the election, as women had not yet been granted the right to vote in most states.
E) lack of African American voters in the election, as they had not yet been granted the right to vote in most states.

Question 24

Which amendment to the Constitution is known as the Prohibition amendment?

A) Seventeenth
B) Eighteenth
C) Nineteenth
D) Twentieth
E) Twenty-first

Question 25

When not able to convict Al Capone on bootlegging charges, the federal government convicted him of

A) illegal immigration activities.
B) drug trafficking.
C) contempt of Congress.
D) tax evasion.
E) prostitution.

Question 26

Which of the following was true of William Jennings Bryan?

A) He believed evolution should be taught in science classes and made a compelling case for why it was lawful.
B) He transformed fundamentalism into a popular crusade and prosecuted John Scopes for teaching evolution.
C) He was a progressive pastor at New York City's First Presbyterian Church who dismissed biblical fundamentalism as "immeasurable folly."
D) He was a vocal supporter of the Ku Klux Klan and only rose to political prominence during the mid-1920s.
E) He was a staunch progressive within the Republican party who shaped much of the legislation of the 1920s.

Question 27

Which of the following directly led to the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924?

A) broken western alliances and betrayal during the Great War
B) the slowing levels of immigration into the United States after the Great War
C) many Americans' fears of foreign ideas such as socialism, communism, and anarchism
D) nineteenth-century policies such as the Monroe Doctrine regarding Latin America
E) the onset of the Great Depression and the lack of resources to house immigrants

Question 28

During the 1920s, how did the majority of the nation respond to the self-indulgent excesses of the Lost Generation and Jazz Age?

A) Most enthusiastically threw their support toward the progressivism of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.
B) Most instead became increasingly preoccupied with reform, as the middle class was quickly decreasing in number.
C) Most were supportive of the cultural rebelliousness of the time and took advantage of the current climate to call for unprecedentedly liberal legislation.
D) Most began to lead secular lives and became defiant modernists, growing more unified in their positions on culture.
E) Most instead led traditional lives and defended established values, which contributed to the backlash in national politics against modern city life.

Question 29

What was the state of progressivism by 1920?

A) It lost ground in the White House, but was promoted by members of Congress and by legislators at the state and local levels.
B) It lost ground in Congress but remained influential in the White House, inspiring many of Harding's economic policies.
C) It continued to inspire liberal intellectuals who were encouraged by the passage of the Prohibition amendment.
D) It inspired Warren Harding to campaign for the presidency as a reformer, much as Wilson and Roosevelt had done before him.
E) It was effectively over and without support at the national, state, and local levels, thanks to the results of the Great War.

Question 30

Which of the following was true of the immigration laws passed in the 1920s?

A) They favored immigrants from northern and western Europe.
B) They encouraged Asians to immigrate to America.
C) They focused on setting strict limits on immigration from Mexico.
D) They were formed in direct opposition to the ideas of nativism.
E) They were the most welcoming and nondiscriminatory in American history.

Question 31

Which of the following helped drive the reactionary conservatism of the 1920s?

A) a rise in anti-discrimination policies and the number of voting African Americans due to the end of the Jim Crow laws
B) the growth of the progressive political coalition that had reelected Wilson and the economic hardship the country faced for much of the decade
C) the ongoing war effort during the 1920s that led to widespread rationing and urgent, rapid industrialization across the country
D) prejudice toward immigrants from outside western Europe and a strong Protestant movement for a return to the primacy of traditional Christian morality
E) the sense of safety that most Americans felt domestically and abroad since relations with other countries had drastically improved since the Great War

Question 32

In his 1920 campaign for president, Warren Harding famously said the country needed a return to

A) energetic government.
B) patriotism.
C) normalcy.
D) experimentation.
E) progressivism.

Question 33

What did the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921, pushed through Congress by Andrew Mellon, create?

A) chaos in the federal budget process due to its extremely partisan nature
B) a series of economic changes totally at odds with the progressive desire for efficiency
C) an end to states' budgets in favor of federal budgets alone
D) sweeping tax increases in such a way that severely hurt the working poor
E) a new Bureau of the Budget to streamline the process of preparing an annual federal budget

Question 34

Who were Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, and what was their significance to the reactionary conservatism of the 1920s?

A) They were two fundamentalists who, like many at the time, embraced liberal beliefs and sought to do away with "old-time religion."
B) They were two Italian-born anarchists whose execution for robbery and murder, despite some doubt as to their guilt, is often used as an example of nativism.
C) They were two communists whose defecting to eastern Europe led a number of like-minded Americans to follow them in leaving the country.
D) They were two activists who led the civil rights movement of the 1920s but were murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan in an unprecedented display of open violence.
E) They were two second-generation immigrant congressmen whose popularity led to the passage of legislation that was more beneficial to immigrants than in previous years.

Question 35

What did Andrew Mellon favor?

A) the continuation of the high wartime level of taxation in order to build up the public treasury
B) a reduction of the high wartime level of taxation as well as a reduction in federal spending
C) an increase of the low wartime level of taxation for the benefit of the poor and middle class
D) the removal of long-standing Republican tariffs on imported goods
E) little economic policy because the Harding administration had inherited a booming economy

Question 36

What was one of the factors that contributed to the passage of the Prohibition amendment?

A) Beer consumption per capita was at an all-time low in the years before the amendment was passed, so the law finally seemed viable to politicians.
B) An overabundance of crops in the United States during the war allowed Americans to end their dependency on alcoholic beverages.
C) Many leaders of the Prohibition movement saw it as a way to draw greater numbers of immigrants to the United States and grow the workforce.
D) The amendment would help police the activities of corrupt business leaders and, thus, turn policing efforts away from African Americans and the working poor.
E) The majority of beer brewers were German, and a great deal of ethnic and social prejudice was directed toward them in the wake of the Great War.

Question 37

What did the Immigration Act of 1924 do?

A) It closed immigration from Latin America into the United States until 1945 since Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover caused increased tensions with this part of the world.
B) It targeted and limited the number of immigrants from northern and western European countries, most of all due to strained relationships with these countries after the Great World War.
C) It reversed the Chinese Exclusion Act to allow Asian immigrants to enter the United States and otherwise was blind to ethnic or cultural factors.
D) It reduced the number of immigration quotas of each nationality's population as of 1890 to especially limit the number of southern and eastern Europeans entering the country.
E) It opened the United States to nearly unlimited immigration because industrialization and urbanization had opened up far more jobs than current American citizens could fill.

Question 38

One major cause of the Depression was that manufacturers were producing more products
than people were willing or able to buy.

Question 39

Which of the following was a tactic of the Ku Klux Klan?

A) only accepting members who were extremely wealthy
B) rejecting ideas of righteous Protestant morality and embracing Catholicism
C) directing anger at whatever prejudices were dominant in a certain area
D) supporting the efforts of labor unions and progressive legislation
E) promoting immigration from most areas of the world

Question 40

Which of the following statements accurately describes the second Ku Klux Klan?

A) It was accepting of certain groups, such as Roman Catholics and Jews, but unaccepting of others, such as African Americans.
B) Wilson condemned the organization and almost eradicated it as the 1920s began, but the organization discovered legal loopholes that allowed it to continue.
C) It was a group that gained public acceptance because it refused to engage in real-life physical violence even though it promoted it in theory.
D) It attracted members because it made membership, uniforms, and other services entirely free and remained a prominent organization through the 1930s.
E) It was a nationwide organization with millions of members in the mid-1920s, dedicated to white supremacy and "100-percent Americanism."

Question 41

Which of the members of Harding's cabinet was jailed for his role in the Teapot Dome Affair?

A) Charles Evans Hughes
B) Andrew Mellon
C) Henry Wallace
D) Calvin Coolidge
E) Albert Fall

Question 42

What was the "American plan" concept of employment?

A) It guaranteed equal pay for men and women.
B) It established closed shops where the employer could only hire union workers.
C) It established open shops where the employer could hire anyone.
D) It guaranteed workers an eight-hour workday and weekends off.
E) It honored the progressive promise of a cleaner, safer working environment.

Question 43

Which of the following statements is true of the McNary-Haugen bill?

A) It called for surplus crops to be sold on the world market in order to raise domestic prices.
B) It failed to pass Congress in 1922 but passed in 1927 with the support of President Coolidge.
C) It effectively raised domestic commodity prices by slowing the mechanization of agriculture.
D) It was viewed with derision by American farmers and led to widespread protests.
E) It ushered in a new golden age of American agriculture after the Great War.

Question 44

Over the course of the 1920s, what was the state of labor unions?

A) Labor unions won a number of important victories in the Supreme Court that ensured they would remain a major force throughout the Great Depression.
B) Labor union membership drastically increased, as closed shop policies became the new norm and the Harding administration increased ties with unions.
C) Amid soaring industrial production levels, decreasing unemployment, and anti-union efforts by business owners, labor union membership significantly decreased.
D) Although labor union membership remained stagnant, members greatly benefited from the prosperity of the decade and the drastic rise in the standard of living.
E) Although Democratic presidents had sought to end labor unions, the labor unions of the 1920s enjoyed the support of Republican presidents.

Question 45

Which of the following statements accurately summarizes the tariff policy of the early 1920s?

A) It made it easier for other nations to sell to the United States.
B) It made it harder for other nations to sell to the United States.
C) It made it easier for other nations to repay their war debts.
D) It led Americans to cut back on loans and investments abroad.
E) It had virtually no effect on the average American but significantly limited businesses.

Question 46

What was a consequence of the Smoot-Hawley tariff?

A) It lowered tariffs for more than a thousand goods, encouraging international trade and expanding the money supply.
B) It led to a rise in stock market values as investors gained confidence in trade and delayed the onset of the Great Depression for a number of years.
C) It caused the power of corporate lobbyists to decrease, as they were kept from interacting with Congress during the deliberations surrounding the bill.
D) It raised tariffs and as a consequence boosted the sale of goods made domestically and helped prevent further layoffs in the early 1930s.
E) It raised tariffs and provoked foreign countries to raise retaliatory tariffs and, as a consequence, made it harder for American farms and businesses to sell abroad.

Question 47

Of the following presidents, which tied government and business closer together than at any other time in the twentieth century?

A) Warren Harding
B) Calvin Coolidge
C) Herbert Hoover
D) Franklin Roosevelt
E) Woodrow Wilson

Question 48

What was the Teapot Dome Affair?

A) It led to an attempt to impeach Harding that fell just four votes short of success in the House of Representatives.
B) It concerned a corrupt U.S. customs official who had regularly allowed Chinese imports into the country duty-free.
C) It was the impeachment of the attorney general for fraudulent handling of German assets seized after the First World War.
D) It involved the revelation that Harding had fathered a child out of wedlock and had been unfaithful to his wife.
E) It involved the leasing of government-owned oil deposits to private companies, as the secretary of the Interior took bribes from an oil tycoon.

Question 49

Despite the many well-founded criticisms of Warren Harding as president, he was a visionary for his era in the field of

A) civil rights.
B) economic development.
C) government oversight.
D) business regulation.
E) bank development.

Question 50

Who declared himself a Republican "progressive conservative," sought to increase efficiency as secretary of commerce, and created the Federal Radio Commission?

A) Herbert Hoover
B) Robert La Follette
C) Warren Harding
D) Calvin Coolidge
E) John Rockefeller

Question 51

Why did farm prices drop so drastically in the 1920s?

A) New methods of farming and an increased demand for American crops in Europe caused a boom in production that pushed prices down.
B) Federal laws restricted prices from rising above established levels, and Coolidge as well as the general public showed little interest in the "farm problem."
C) Competition from overseas was keeping prices down, as European farms produced far more than American farms, especially in the western plains.
D) The end of the Great War led to a dramatic decrease in the demand for crops, though production levels remained high, with surplus crops.
E) The most successful farms had become far simpler and less mechanized due to the emphasis on military technology over farming technology.

Question 52

Which of the following occurred during the 1924 presidential election?

A) Robert M. La Follette barely won the nomination of a faction-ridden Republican party.
B) The Democratic candidate almost upset the Republican candidate.
C) Calvin Coolidge swept both the popular and electoral votes by decisive majorities.
D) Urban progressives helped unite both political parties.
E) Herbert Hoover challenged Coolidge for the Republican nomination.

Question 53

Democratic presidential nominee Alfred Smith was hurt in the 1928 election by the fact that he was a(n)

A) "wet" on Prohibition and a Catholic.
B) boring public speaker.
C) member of the Ku Klux Klan.
D) supporter of Prohibition.
E) actor.

Question 54

In 1924, with which political party did Robert La Follette campaign for the presidency?

A) the Mugwump party
B) the American Socialist party
C) the Republicans
D) the Progressive party
E) the Democrats

Question 55

Which of the following was part of the reason for the stock market crash?

A) the high rate of deflation in the 1920s
B) the tax policies of the 1920s that hurt the wealthy, who might otherwise have bought more stocks
C) the buying of great amounts of stock on margin and the resulting bubble
D) the low tariff, which allowed imports to corner several important American markets
E) the remarkably poor returns on government bonds in 1929

Question 56

Although there were many factors that contributed to the Great Depression worsening, what combination of factors led to a growing recession in the months before the 1929 Great Crash?

A) overproduction and underconsumption
B) flexible money policies and low taxes
C) low tariffs and laws protecting labor unions
D) low interest rates and high wages for workers
E) inflation and low unemployment

Question 57

Which of the following was true of yellow-dog contracts?

A) Employers used them to restrict union membership.
B) They required membership in a labor union in order to work in certain trades.
C) They benefited workers through a closed shop system.
D) They restricted the ability of a company to control its workers.
E) They increased union membership by millions.

Question 58

Which of the following did Calvin Coolidge do as president?

A) He continued to promote Harding's progressive views on civil rights as well as many other progressive views in general.
B) He faced the Great Crash of 1929 and the early crisis of the Great Depression, establishing a vigorous program meant to repair the economy.
C) He vetoed many bills from Congress and sought to reduce both federal spending and regulation of business and industry.
D) He promised Americans a "return to normalcy" and greatly strengthened the Democratic party by unifying its warring factions.
E) He increased the federal government's role in regulating business and industry while adjusting income taxes to tax the wealthy more than the poor.

Question 59

Harding's administration is MOST remembered for

A) the fact that he served many terms.
B) the poor state of the economy while he was president.
C) his promotion of the arts and culture.
D) the scandals that plagued it.
E) its overwhelming popularity with the American people.

Question 60

Which of the following was one of the contributing causes of the stock market crash of October 1929?

A) For years, Americans were far too cautious in their spending and investments.
B) The gap decreased between production levels and the ability of the public to consume.
C) Decline of labor unions removed a check on rapid business growth.
D) Competition from foreign companies drove businesses under and lost many people their jobs.
E) The agricultural industry was by far the most stable, while other industries had stagnated.

Question 61

Herbert Hoover's initial response to the growing social crisis of the Great Depression was to

A) use federal power to provide direct relief for the people worse affected.
B) blame Congress for not heeding his warnings about high tariffs and causing the Depression.
C) promise a New Deal for Americans that would provide jobs to rebuild the economy.
D) resign from the presidency ahead of the 1932 election.
E) remain upbeat and trust in the voluntarism of charities and individuals to provide relief.

Question 62

Which of the following was a challenge Hoover faced during the Great Depression?

A) He was far more successful fixing the economic issues in the South than in the North because the programs he designed aligned better with the political climate in the South.
B) He was far too eager to give speeches, express emotion, and be in the limelight, even when he had made little real progress on issues related to the Depression.
C) He remained incredibly popular throughout his presidency, but would have risked losing this popularity had his attempts to resolve the Depression been more extensive.
D) He ultimately lost the respect of most Americans because he failed to grasp or acknowledge the seriousness of the economic issues and hardship many Americans faced.
E) He was near poverty himself due to the onset of the Depression and, thus, had limited resources and stamina to devote to tackling the problem.

Question 63

What factors led to the decline of labor unions in the 1920s?

Question 64

Evaluate the factors that contributed to the onset of the Great Depression.

Question 65

In the election of 1932, which candidate promised a "new deal" for the American people?

A) Alfred Smith
B) Herbert Hoover
C) Franklin Roosevelt
D) Eugene Debs
E) Calvin Coolidge

Question 66

Describe Herbert Hoover's attempts at recovery in the first three years of the Depression.
Which of his policies were effective, which were ineffective, and why?

Question 67

How did the public view the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, Hoover's first and biggest effort at relief?

A) It was met with enthusiasm because although the Depression persisted, it ended widespread hunger.
B) Most Americans resented the fact that it benefited Europeans, and U.S. business was unaffected.
C) It was seen as helping only banks and other big businesses rather than individuals in need.
D) Americans were overwhelmingly grateful and convinced that it would help improve recovery.
E) It led to massive riots because it caused an unprecedented number of foreclosures and job losses.

Question 68

How might the decade of the 1920s be called "the decade of prosperity"?

Question 69

Why did progressivism decline in the years leading up to the 1920s, and how did that decline
help set the stage for the policies and social currents of the 1920s?

Question 70

What was part of Europe's role in the Great Depression?

A) The German economy had come out the strongest after the Great War, taking competition away from American industry and forcing the United States to borrow from German banks.
B) Nations such as Great Britain, France, Spain, and Italy drastically increased their purchases of American goods as their economies began recovering after the Great War.
C) As a means of generating growth, the Federal Reserve Board only expanded the money supply, which thereby increased the amount of American money going abroad to Europe.
D) European nations who had been part of the Allies during the Great War proved unable to pay their war debts, and after the crash, American banks could no longer prop up their economies.
E) Because the United States had consistently refused to lend the Allies money during the Great War, European nations refused to lend the United States money as it plunged into its own financial crisis.

Question 71

Which of the following statements accurately describes the impact of the Great Depression on African Americans?

A) Whereas African Americans who had left the South to take factory jobs in the North remained unaffected by the Depression, those who remained in the South were hit hard by the Depression.
B) African Americans were among the hardest hit by the Depression, as racial discrimination meant they had the lowest-paying jobs in the South and were among the first fired in the North.
C) Because the Jim Crow laws had been lifted, most African Americans avoided discrimination during the Depression and, thus, tended to experience the same degree of hardship as white Americans.
D) Because the southern economy had been faring better than the northern economy before 1929, African Americans who lived in the South were better off than many white Americans.
E) Because most African Americans at the time lived in the North, they often benefited from state government aid programs that were widespread and successful in the North.

Question 72

What happened to members of the Bonus Expeditionary Force?

A) They were violently confronted by federal troops under Douglas MacArthur.
B) They left Washington after Congress rejected their demands.
C) They left Washington after Congress accepted their demands.
D) Congress gave them employment in the Park Service and Capitol Police.
E) Congress ignored their presence until they dispersed.

Question 73

In what ways was the Scopes "Monkey Trial" illustrative of the larger social, political, and
cultural conflicts of the 1920s?

Question 74

Discuss how corruption during the Harding administration got so widespread. Survey the
various scandals and show the effects they had on the administration.

Question 75

Why did the Ku Klux Klan see a rebirth in the 1920s? What made this new Klan different from
its post-Civil War version?

Question 76

What did Warren
G. Harding mean by "normalcy"? To what extent did the nation succeed in
bringing about a return to normalcy in the 1920s, and to what extend did it fail?

Question 77

Which of the following statements regarding the effect of the Great Depression on many women is true?

A) Because the few women who were afforded the opportunity to work often held the highest paying jobs, they usually were the first to lose those jobs across the board.
B) Because it was still against the law for women to hold even service jobs or secretary jobs in the 1920s, women suffered the most and relied entirely on men in their lives to make ends meet.
C) For the duration of the Depression, single white women had the most difficult time keeping jobs because they were viewed as not having a family to support and not needing the money as badly.
D) As the Depression worsened, married women became some of the primary targets of layoffs due to the thinking that they'd be "stealing" jobs from men and already had husbands supporting them.
E) Most women remained relatively unaffected by the Depression because men tended to refuse to share their financial situations with their wives, and they managed to live in a state of denial.

Question 78

Which of the following occurred as conditions during the Great Depression worsened?

A) Government officials called for the deportation of Mexican-born Americans to avoid the cost of providing them with government services.
B) There was no longer any competition for jobs, especially between impoverished whites in western states and Latino and Asian farmhands.
C) Birth rates soared, as couples sought to have more children to be able to work the fields and provide for their families.
D) More immigrants entered the United States than ever before because the Depression had distracted nativist efforts.
E) Because there were so many homeless, state governments outlawed arresting homeless people for harmless activities such as "idling."

Question 79

In what ways did the name "Roaring Twenties" suit the decade, and in what ways did it fall short?

Question 80

Which of the following statements accurately describes the toll of the Great Depression?

A) Because the Great Depression had been caused by decisions made by the business elite, the hardships of the depression predominantly affected them.
B) The Great Depression only affected those who were active participants in the stock market at the time and, because of this, groups such as farmers actually benefited.
C) The sense of shame cut across class lines, but the hardest hit were already the most disadvantaged groups, such as immigrants, women, the elderly, and migrant workers.
D) Although unemployment surged, government programs prevented the rates of homelessness and hunger from significantly increasing from average levels.
E) Adults were greatly affected by the Depression, but children felt few repercussions and were protected by government programs.