Were the Republican administrations the most important factor in bringing about an economic boom in the 1920's?

Answer 1

Yes and no.

The Republicans had been the party of the common people until Teddy Roosevelt took office. He changed the party into an Anglophile imperial party, much like the Democrats had long been. So both parties became tools of the ruling class. His cousin, Franklin Roosevelt later changed the Democratic Party into a party of the common people, so the parties switched roles by the 1930s.

So the Republicans had promoted policies up to 1901 and somewhat beyond that improved the economy tremendously, starting with Lincoln's administration. Up until Lincoln, the economy had been declining badly for several decades. Some of the policies that contributed to economic prosperity were: 1. high import tariffs, which made it profitable for domestic businesses to pursue major manufacturing with mass production, which lowered prices; 2. low or no taxes on American citizens; 3. large-scale infrastructure projects, like the intercontinental railroad, which greatly increased the size of the market place and made improved conditions for trade across the country.

Such policies made the U.S. the world's most prosperous nation up until at least the early 1970s. Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy had promoted such policies, but most other administrations since 1901 rolled back such policies in favor of policies promoted by the British ruling class.

The boom of the 1920s was partly a result of the previous prosperity policies and partly due to market manipulation by the Anglophile Wall Street, which promoted speculation, building a large economic bubble, which began to burst in 1929. Similar bubbles have been building since the 1970s, which are now bursting.

Answer: They weren't important at all. Even today people exaggerate the influence that the federal government has over the economy and in the 1920's it had far less power and financial influence than it does now. Besides that, in the 1920's the presidency was comparatively less important in the government than it is now. Congress tended to shape legislation and policy with much less input from the president than is common now.