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Abstract

In the wake of President Warren G. Harding's death and the entry of Calvin Coolidge in the White House as chief executive in August, 1923, blacks, like the bulk of ordinary white Americans, were uncertain of what to expect. Nonetheless, those close to the prior presidential administration, whether black or white, had clear reason to believe that Coolidge was preeminently qualified to carry on in the fashion of his predecessor. They anticipated his continued implementation of Republican policies in accord with political promises which had led to the party's overwhelming electoral victory in 1920. Indeed, Harding's breaking of tradition to allow his Vice President Coolidge to sit with the presidential cabinet ensured that the new chief executive understood and was prepared administratively to deal with tariff issues, tax-reform legislation, measures for the reduction of the public debt, and the host of other political promises Republicans made in 1920. In 1924 Coolidge, however, had to win nomination and election to the office in his own right in order to continue the quest for legislation consonant with the Republican party political mandate received four years earlier.

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