Manifest Destiny, Progressivism, War, and the Roaring Twenties 213tion, everyone seemed to be making money, one way or another. The
stock market soared; investors found all sorts of ways to increase their
wealth, including buying on margin, that is, putting down only a frac-
tion of the cost of a stock with the idea of selling when the price rose
and reaping a tidy profit. It seemed so easy.
Only farmers were excluded from this rich harvest. They continued
to experience economic depression. Farm prices went into a steady de-
cline following World War I, and conditions on the farm became dire.
This should have been a warning of what might happen to the rest of
the country. Farmers appealed to the government for help but received
little. They formed a farm bloc and demanded subsidies to underwrite
the unloading of farm surpluses overseas. But what few bills passed in
Congress were quickly vetoed by Coolidge on the ground that the
measures constituted price fixing for a special interest. Still, the linger-
ing farm depression might easily spread to the industrial and commer-
cial sectors of the country, and that could produce a major catastrophe.
It came soon enough.
In the presidential election of 1928 the Republicans chose
Herbert Hoover to head their ticket, along with Charles Curtis, while
the Democrats fielded Alfred E. Smith and Joseph T. Robinson, a
senator from Arkansas. During the campaign Hoover promised to pro-
vide relief for the despairing farmers, and this promise undoubtedly
helped him to win the election overwhelmingly. He captured forty of
the forty-eight states for a total of 444 electoral votes while Smith won
the remaining eight states with 87 electoral votes. This election also
brought the fi rst African-American from outside the south to Con-
gress. Republican Oscar S. Priest of Illinois took a seat in the House of
Representatives and served with distinction from 1929 to 1935. Because
Washington was so racially segregated, he was forced to dine in the
basement of the Capitol next to the kitchen rather than in the all-white
dining room for congressmen on the fi rst fl oor.
Hoover called Congress into special session to deal with the eco-
nomic problems facing farmers and suggested raising the tariff on all
imported agricultural products. Despite many problems, which took
more than a year to resolve, Congress finally enacted the Smoot-Hawley