A Time for Parting: the Negro during the Coolidge Years

John L. Blair

doi:10.1017/S0021875800008112

A Time for Parting: the Negro during the Coolidge Years

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 January 2009

John L. Blair

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John L. Blair: Affiliation:
Richard Bland College of the College of William and Mary

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Calvin Coolidge became President on the morning of 3 August 1923. He was to hold that office for five years, six months, and thirty days, during which time he would have a splendid opportunity to secure the destiny of his party. Some of the activities of several of the more seedy characters of the Harding Administration were about to become public knowledge, while the one-interest basis on which Republican power rested was becoming increasingly obvious. In the scandals which followed his accession, Coolidge acquitted himself well, the ‘anti-propaganda’ technique he adopted in fighting the revelations bringing him, it might be argued, an even greater victory at the polls in 1924 than he otherwise would have received. But the party's destiny went well beyond the Twenties, and the success, or lack of it, which would greet the Republicans in the decades beyond depended in large fashion on Coolidge's efforts to pry his party from the rut in which it had firmly planted itself. For by the time Coolidge entered the White House the Republicans had violated a basic canon of practical politics by allowing themselves to become the spokesmen of one interest, to the neglect of those others which, if they ever got together, could easily put an end to Republican dominance. More broadly, the party by this time was a rather exclusive vehicle in which, oblivious to others around them, serenely rode whites, Anglo-Saxons, and Protestants. There were others in this vehicle but by the post-war period they were mostly in the rumble seat, and none too happy about it.

Type: Research Article
Information: Journal of American Studies , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , December 1969 , pp. 177 - 199

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021875800008112 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1969

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References

^{page 178 note 1} Crisis, 14 (05 1922), 11Google Scholar.

^{page 178 note 2} The Messenger, 5 (09 1923), 805Google Scholar.

^{page 179 note note 1} Walter White to Calvin Coolidge, 22 August 1923. Coolidge Papers, file 93, reel 63.

^{page 179 note note 2} New York Times, 7 10 1923, p. 2Google Scholar.

^{page 179 note note 3} New York Times, 16 12 1923, pp. 1–2Google Scholar.

^{page 179 note note 4} New York Times, 17 08 1923, p. 2Google Scholar.

^{page 179 note note 5} New York Times, 20 08 1923, p. 2Google Scholar. For further newspaper coverage of the disputes raised by the appointments of Slemp and Sherrill, see the Washington Herald, 19 08 1923, p. 5Google Scholar; and the Washington Eagle, 18 08 1923, p. 1Google Scholar.

^{page 179 note note 6} Nahum Brasher to Edward T. Clark, 16 August 1923. Coolidge Papers, file 93, reel 63.

^{page 180 note 1} B. M. McKay to Henry Cabot Lodge, 22 August 1923. Coolidge Papers, file 93, reel 63.

^{page 180 note 2} Clark to Lodge, 1 September 1923. Coolidge Papers, file 93, reel 63.

^{page 180 note 3} Zangrando, Robert L., The Efforts of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to Secure Passage of a Federal Anti-Lynching Law, 1920–1940. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1964Google Scholar.

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^{page 181 note 1} New York Times, 7 12 1923, p. 4Google Scholar.

^{page 181 note 2} James W. Johnson to Coolidge, 12 November 1923, Coolidge Papers, file 93, reel 63. New York Times, 14 02 1927, p. 10Google Scholar.

^{page 182 note 1} DuBois, W. E. B., Dusk of Dawn (New York, 1940), p. 266Google Scholar.

^{page 182 note 2} New York Times, 26 01 1922, p. 6Google Scholar.

^{page 182 note 3} For President Coolidge's 1926 message to Congress see New York Times, 8 12 1926, p. 14Google Scholar; and 1927 message, 7 December 1927, p. 24.

^{page 182 note 4} Johnson to Coolidge, 25 September 1923, Coolidge papers, file 93, reel 63.

^{page 183 note 1} C. Bascom Slemp to Johnson, 27 September 1923, Coolidge Papers, file 93, reel 63.

^{page 183 note 2} William M. Trotter to Coolidge, 10 June 1926, Coolidge Papers, file 93, reel 64; Maurice W. Spencer to Clark, 3 July 1926, file 93 C, reel 64.

^{page 183 note 3} James J. Davis to Coolidge, 12 September 1924, Coolidge Papers, file 93, reel 63. A brief breakdown of these figures is found in Crisis, 35, (11 1928), 377Google Scholar.

^{page 183 note 4} Memorandum, June 1926, Coolidge Papers, file 93 C, reel 64.

^{page 184 note 1} Trotter to Coolidge, 1 August 1927, Coolidge Papers, file 93 C, reel 64; Sanders to Winfield Scott, 2 August 1927, file 93 C, reel 64.

^{page 184 note 2} Neval H. Thomas to Coolidge, 8 August 1927, Coolidge Papers, file 93 C, reel 64; Edward G. Finney to Saunders, 3 August 1927, file 93 C, reel 64.

^{page 184 note 3} Perry W. Howard to Slemp, 23 May 1924, Coolidge Papers, file 93, reel 64.

^{page 185 note 1} John W. Weeks to Slemp, 26 May 1924, Coolidge Papers, file 93, reel 63.

^{page 185 note 2} Hallie Q. Brown to Coolidge, 6 May 1925; Coolidge to Davis, 9 May 1925; Davis to Coolidge, 16 May 1925, Coolidge Papers, file 93, reel 64.

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^{page 185 note 4} Johnson to Coolidge, 3 July 1928, Coolidge Papers, file 93 C, reel 64.

^{page 186 note 1} R. R. Moton to Coolidge, 14 September 1923, Coolidge Papers, file 93, reel 63; Slemp to Moton, 22 September 1923, file 93, reel 63.

^{page 186 note 2} J. Silas Harris to Coolidge, 29 August 1923, Coolidge, Papers file 93, reel 63; Harris to Slemp, 20 September 1923, file 93, reel 63.

^{page 187 note 1} Brasher to Coolidge, 6 November 1923, Coolidge Papers, file 93, reel 63.

^{page 187 note 2} New York Times, 11 12 1923, p. 3Google Scholar; 13 December 1923, p. 1.

^{page 187 note 3} New York Times, 9 06 1924, p. 2Google Scholar.

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^{page 188 note 3} New York Times, 21 10 1924, p. 6Google Scholar.

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^{page 188 note 5} New York Times, 7 10 1924, p. 7Google Scholar.

^{page 189 note 1} Davis to Coolidge, 12 September 1924, Coolidge Papers, file 93, reel 63; Slemp to Davis, 15 September 1924, file 93, reel 63.

^{page 189 note 2} Messenger, 6 (10 1924), 314Google Scholar; New York News, 27 September 1924; Baltimore Afro-American, 27 September 1924; Pittsburgh Courier, 27 September 1924.

^{page 189 note 3} William C. Matthews to Coolidge, 31 October 1924, Coolidge Papers, file 93, reel 63.

^{page 189 note 4} Emmett J. Scott to Coolidge, 15 October 1924, Coolidge Papers, file 93, reel 63; Scott to James B. Reynolds, 18 October 1924, file 93, reel 63; Clark to Scott, 31 October 1924, file 93, reel 63.

^{page 190 note 1} 28 October 1924, Coolidge Papers, file 93, reel 63.

^{page 190 note 2} Messenger, 6 (10 1924), 313Google Scholar.

^{page 191 note 1} New York Times, 12 08 1924, p. 1Google Scholar.

^{page 192 note 1} Johnson, James Weldon, Along This Way (New York, 1954), p. 374Google Scholar.

^{page 193 note 1} ‘Three Achievements and their Significance’, Crisis, 34 (09 1927), 224Google Scholar.

^{page 194 note 1} New York Times, 26 06 1925, p. 16Google Scholar.

^{page 195 note note 1} New York Times, 7 10 1925, p. 2Google Scholar.

^{page 195 note note 2} Sanders to Frank W. Stearns, 20 October 1925, Coolidge Papers, file 587, reel 137.

^{page 195 note note 3} New York Times, 25 10 1925, p. 20Google Scholar.

^{page 195 note note 4} Johnson, James W., ‘The Gentlemen's Agreement and the Negro Vote’, Crisis, 28 (10 1924), 262Google Scholar.

^{page 196 note note 1} Arthur Froe to Slemp, 15 November 1923, Coolidge Papers, file 93, reel 63.

^{page 196 note note 2} J. Silas Harris to Coolidge, 26 November 1923, Coolidge Papers, file 93, reel 63.

^{page 196 note note 3} Solomon P. Hood to Slemp, 27 August 1924, Coolidge Papers, file 93, reel 63.

^{page 196 note note 4} Walton, Lester A., ‘The Negro in Polities’, Outlook, 137 (23 07 1924), 472–3Google Scholar.

^{page 196 note note 5} Ovington Weller to Clark, 15 January 1924, Coolidge Papers, file 93, reel 63.

^{page 197 note note 1} New York Times, 31 01 1925, VIII, p. 12Google Scholar.

^{page 197 note note 2} Crisis, 37 (07 1928), 239Google Scholar.

^{page 197 note note 3} Crisis, 18 (07 1924), 104Google Scholar.

^{page 197 note note 4} Crisis, 35 (10 1928), 346Google Scholar.

^{page 198 note 1} Moton to Coolidge, 17 December 1924, Coolidge Papers, file 93 C, reel 64.

^{page 199 note 1} Somewhat along the same line of this simple faith, Coolidge in a letter to Dr Moton expressed his belief that full political rights for the Negro ‘will be won through the inevitable logic of their position and rightfulness of their claims’. New York Times, 22 08 1924, p. 3Google Scholar.

^{page 199 note 2} Borah, William E., ‘Negro Suffrage’, Crisis, 33 (01 1927), 132Google Scholar.

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