In the election of 1920, Americans handed a landslide victory to the Republicans and their presidential candidate Warren G. Harding, giving them control of both Congress and the White House.
asserted
Americans → hand → Congress
After the moralizing of the Progressive Era and the horrors of World War I and the Spanish flu epidemic that followed it, Americans looked forward to an era of “normalcy.”
asserted
Americans → follow → normalcy
Once in charge, Republicans rejected the Progressive Era notion that the government should regulate business and protect workers and consumers.
asserted
government → reject → workers
Instead they turned the government over to businessmen, believing that only men who had built businesses truly understood how to build the country.
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who → turn → country
Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon—one of the richest men in America—cut taxes on the wealthy to spur investment in industry.
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Mellon → cut → industry
He also gave rebates and tax abatements: between 1921 and 1929 he returned $3.5 billion to wealthy men.
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he → give → men
At the same time, Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover, who had made a fortune as a mining engineer and consultant, expanded his department to fifteen thousand employees with a budget of more than 37 million dollars, working as a liaison between businessmen and the government and helping businesses to avoid antitrust lawsuits.
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businesses → make → lawsuits
He urged European countries to buy American.
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He → urge → American
Their policies seemed to work brilliantly.
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policies → seem → ?
Between 1925 and 1926, more than twenty-two thousand new manufacturing companies formed.
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companies → form → 1925
Industrial production took off.
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production → take → ?
Business profits rose, and if wages didn’t rise much, they didn’t fall, either.
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they → rise → ?
And oh, the changes the new economy brought!
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economy → bring → changes
By 1929, more than two thirds of American homes had electricity, which brought first electric lights, then refrigerators, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, toasters, and radios.
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which → have → lights
Consumers rushed to buy them, along with ready-made clothing, beauty products, and cars, all of which the new advertising industry, which grew out of the government propaganda campaigns of World War I, promised would bring them glamor, sophistication, romance, and power.
asserted
which → rush → glamor
In the Roaring Twenties, it seemed that government and business had finally figured out how to combine government promotion with the efficiency of an industrial economy to benefit everyone.
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government → seem → everyone
Business was booming, standards of living were rising, and Americans were finding the time to read, learn, invent, and improve.
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Americans → boom → time
In 1928, Republicans tapped Hoover for president.
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Republicans → tap → president
He promised that continuing the policies of the last eight years would bring the U.S. “in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this nation.”
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poverty → promise → nation
He won with a whopping 58.2% of the vote.
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He → win → vote
With Hoover in the White House, Americans wanted in on the inevitable growth of the economy.
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Americans → want → economy
They invested in industries producing steel, coal, and consumer goods, and in utilities and transportation.
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They → invest → utilities
Stock prices rose.
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prices → rise → ?
By 1929 the rush to buy stocks had become a rush to speculate in the stock market.
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rush → buy → market
Prices that in spring 1928 had seemed too high to be real were laughably low by fall.
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that → seem → fall
Radio had been at 94½ in March 1928; by September 1929 it was 101 but had split so often that the holdings from 1928 were actually worth 505.
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holdings → split → 1928
And so it went, down the stock lists.
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it → go → lists
Those with less money to burn could get into the market by buying on margin, putting down 10 or 20 percent of the cost of a stock and borrowing the rest from a broker with the promise that the loans would be paid off by the anticipated increase in the stock’s value.
uncertain
loans → burn → value
Those excited by the scene dismissed skeptics who warned that stock prices were a bubble as ignorant, anti-American naysayers.
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prices → excite → naysayers
“Be a bull on America!” boosters urged.
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boosters → urge → America
Heavy trading in the morning slowed the ticker tape that recorded trades.
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that → slow → trades
Brokers fearful of being caught sold more and more heavily.
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Brokers → catch → ?
When the tape finally caught up after 7:00 that night, it showed that an astonishing 12,894,650 shares had changed hands.
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shares → catch → hands
By afternoon, bankers managed to shore up the market, which regained the ground it had lost in the morning.
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it → manage → morning
But those dreadful early hours had wiped out hundreds of thousands of small investors.
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hours → wipe → investors
The market seemed to recover on Friday and Saturday.
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market → seem → Friday
But then, on Monday, October 28, prices slid far in heavy trading.
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prices → slide → trading
And then, on October 29, 1929, it all came crashing down.
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it → come → October
When the opening gong in the great hall of the New York Stock Exchange sounded at ten o’clock, men began to unload their stocks.
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men → sound → stocks
The ticker tape ran two and a half hours behind, but that night it showed that an extraordinary 16,410,030 shares had traded hands, and the market had lost $14 billion.
asserted
market → run → billion
…and 29 more, not listed.
The Aporia
