The rise and decline of Republicanism to 1933
The situation in 1917-21
Woodrow Wilson, a progressive Democrat, was re-elected president in 1916 and served a second term from 1917 to 1921. In 1917, Wilson took the USA into the First World War. The end of the war did not leave the USA impoverished and in turmoil as it did much of Europe. Yet it seemed to have resulted in a mood of disillusionment. By 1920, Wilsonian zeal, whether for domestic reform or a new world order, was out of fashion. Incapacitated by a stoke in September 1919, Wilson himself proposed no further reform measures during his last two years in office.
The 1920 election
Republican bosses chose Warren Harding, a conservative, as their presidential candidate. The Democrats nominated James Cox. Cox tried to make membership of the League of Nations the main campaign issue, but voters were more concerned about rising prices and industrial strife, which they blamed on the party in power. Harding said little about anything. In a typically bland speech, he declared that ‘America’s present need is not heroics but healing, not nostrums but normalcy.’ Whatever ‘normalcy’ was supposed to mean, it was apparently what Americans wanted. Harding triumphed, winning 61 per cent of the popular vote.