Charles Dawes
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- Vice President to:
Calvin Coolidge
- Coolidge served as President in his own right for one term,
serving from 1925 - 1929.
- Dates Served: Dawes served as Vice President from 1925 - 1929.
- Political Party: Dawes was a Republican, from Illinois.
- Born: 1865.
- Died: 1951, at the age of 86.
- The presidential opponents during the 1924 campaign were:
- Campaign issues in 1924:
- There was little to campaign on this year, since the economy was booming,
the nation was at peace, and the White House was scandal-free since the
death of Harding. The Republican slogan was "Keep Cool With Coolidge" which
many voters agreed with. The Democrats tried to get voters to bite on a
number of issues, ranging from calling for independence for the Phillipines,
lower tariffs, farm relief and a graduated income tax. But they had few
takers. When the economy is strong the incumbent is always sitting pretty.
The Progressive Party campaigned for various Leftist proposals, like
the nationalization of the railroads and water companies, stronger anti-trust
powers by the federal government, and laws against sex discrimination. They
had a pretty good showing, with 13 Electoral votes, but Coolidge slam-dunked
the election.
- Notable Facts about Charles Dawes:
- Religious affiliation: Chuck was a Presbyterian.
- Charles Dawes had 2 college degrees, one in Engineering and another in Law.
Originally a lawyer, he began his political career by being appointed
Currency Comptroller by President McKinley, serving from 1897 - 1901.
- During World War I Dawes served in the military, enlisting as a Major in the
Engineering Corps and rising to Brigadier General. He also served as the Army's
Purchasing Agent for the American Expeditionary Forces under General John
Pershing. After the war, Congress conducted an investigation into alleged
overpayment for military supplies. During questioning, Dawes lashed out at
his questioners saying, "Sure we paid. We didn't dicker. We would have paid
horse prices for sheep, if sheep could have pulled artillery to the front.
Hell and Maria, we weren't trying to keep a set of books, we were trying to
win the war!". He became a popular figure with the public due to his forthright
confidence, and as a result he earned the nickname "Hell and Maria Dawes".
- President Harding appointed Dawes Director of the Budget Bureau in 1921, serving
for one year. In 1924 he was Chairman of the Reparations Committee, overseeing
the financial conditions of post-war Germany. During this time he created the
economic roadmap called the Dawes Plan, which called for a gradually reduced
schedule of punitive payments by Germany. While it stabilized Germany's economy
it didn't eliminate the harmful effect of the payments, and was a key point of
contention that led to World War II fifteen years later. For this effort, Dawes
won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1925, sharing it with British Foreign Secretary Austen
Chamberlain (half-brother of future British Prime Minister Nevil Chamberlain).
Dawes and Teddy Roosevelt are the only 2 Nobel laureate Vice Presidents.
- Dawes and Coolidge didn't get along well. He sent Coolidge a note saying that
he didn't feel like attending Cabinet meetings. (Coolidge had been the first
Vice President to be invited to Cabinet meetings, and he expected his VP to do
the same). Dawes often stole the spotlight from Coolidge in public settings,
and the final insult came one day when Dawes was napping at a hotel in Washington.
Napping on the job was bad enough, but he was supposed to be over in the Capitol
building presiding over the Senate, who was in the process of voting on Coolidge's
nominee for Attorney General. It was a tie-vote and, had Dawes been present, he
could have cast the tie-breaking vote in his favor. Instead he was snoozing and
the nomination lost. Dawes' name was mud, as far as Calvin was concerned.
- Charles Dawes once described the office of Vice President to Alben Barkley, who
would himself occupy the same office under President Truman, "This is a hell of a
job. I can only do two things: one is to sit up here and listen to you birds talk.
The other is to look at newspapers every morning to see how the president's health
is."
- After then end of his term he was appointed ambassador to the UK by President
Hoover, serving from 1929 - 1932.
- In addition to his other talents, Dawes was also a musical composer. He wrote a
well-known piece for violin called "Melody in A Minor" in the 1920's, and later
penned the music to a popular song called "It's All in the Game". He also wrote
2 books, "A Journal of the Great War" and "Notes as Vice President". Chuck was
one talented Veep.
Notable Events during his Vice Presidency:
- The Air Commerce Act, in 1926. This placed civil air traffic under the regulation
of the Commerce department. It approved the nations first 2 air routes: The
Transcontinental Airway from New York to San Francisco via seven intermediate
cities, and the Southwestern Airway from Chicago to Dallas via seven intermediate
cities.
- The Harlem Globetrotters are founded in 1926, known originally as the
"Savoy Big Five."
- The PEZ candy-dispenser is invented by Eduard Haas III, in 1927.
- The Kellogg-Briand Pact, also known as the Pact of Peace, in 1928. This document
involved 15 nations all renouncing war as a method of settling international disputes.
49 additional nations soon added their signature until almost the entire world promised
to never go to war again, with the only abstaining nations being Bolivia, Uruguay,
Argentina, El Salvador, and Yemen. Needless to say, the agreement didn't last long.
- Sliced bread is invented by Otto Frederick Rohwedder in Battle Creek, Michigan, in 1928,
after 16 years of trying to invent a functional slicing machine.
(Bread itself was invented only about 12,000 years earlier, in Egypt).
- The Roaring 20's. Coolidge presided over one of the longest economic booms in US
history. The nation was awash in unprecedented prosperity and the decade was often
compared to one long party. But of course it was a party that would crash, and crash
hard in 1929.