1920

34A-1067072

Republican candidate Warren G. Harding capitalized on the disillusionment and resentment of the American people caused by the First World War, advocating "America First" and "Getting Back to Normalcy." (34A-1067072)

The trickiest issue of the campaign was the League of Nations. This cartoon depicts the candidates' attitudes: the Democratic candidate, James M. Cox, who supported the League and Wilson's conduct of the war, wants the issue out in the open, in the parlor, while Harding points to the attic (34B-1067073). This pair of cartoons shows how the candidates supposedly stood on this issue, but Harding's position was ambiguous, and the last cartoon better reflects the picture (34C-1067074, 34D-1067075, 34E-1067076). The question asked in this cartoon is important: "Will it hold?" (34F-1067077) 

34B-1067073

The cartoonists made much of the fact that both Cox and Harding were Ohio newspapermen (34G-1067078). Here we see being conducted the first large-scale poll ever taken of the electorate (34H-1067079). It was directed by the Literary Digest and is caricatured here as "an awkward moment for mother." Mother eventually said "Harding." 

Cartoonists variously assessed the effect of the women's vote (34I-1067080). Both parties claim the credit for the passage of the suffrage amendment, but supposedly "she knows how she got her vote." (34J-1067081) Both views of how the women's vote would go were given by cartoonists (34K-1067082, 34L-1067083). The desire for a return to stability was probably the deciding factor that put Harding in the White House.