Describe why harding’s policy of “normalcy” differed from the progressive era and the scandals that plagued harding’s administration

Progressivism lost its appeal after the Great War. Reformers still actively worked for good and efficient government at the local level, but overall the drive was for a “return to normalcy” conformity and moral righteousness. Many Americans, particularly people in rural areas and members of the middle class, wanted a return to a quieter, more conservative way of life after World War I, and Warren G. Harding’s landslide Republican victory allowed just that. The policies of Harding’s pro-business cabinet were reminiscent of those of the McKinley White House more than two decades earlier. Union membership declined in the 1920s as workers’ rights were rolled back by a conservative Supreme Court and in response to fears of Communist subversion.

Members of President Harding’s “Ohio Gang,” however, used White House connections to line their own pockets. Early in 1923, for example, Harding learned that the head of the Veterans Bureau was systematically looting medical and hospital supplies. A few weeks later, the legal adviser to the Veterans Bureau committed suicide. More questionable incidents occurred in quick succession. Not long afterward a close friend of Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty, who had set up an office in the Justice Department from which he peddled influence for a fee, shot himself. Finally, the attorney general himself was implicated in the fraudulent handling of German assets seized after the war. Teapot Dome became the catchphrase for the climate of corruption surrounding the Harding administration. The Teapot Dome was a government-owned oil field in Wyoming. It had been set aside as an oil reserve for ensuring fuel for warships. Harding decided to move administrative control of Teapot Dome from the Department of Navy to the Department of Interior. Thereafter, his secretary of the interior, Albert B. Fall, a former Republican senator from New Mexico, began signing sweetheart contracts with close friends who were executives of petroleum companies that wanted access to the oil field. It turned out that he had taken bribes of about $400,000 (which came in “a little black bag”) from an oil tycoon. Fall was convicted of conspiracy and bribery and sentenced to a year in prison, the first former cabinet official ever to serve time as a result of misconduct in office.

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