THE NATION THIS MORNING
Wednesday, May 27, 1925 – Final Edition
“Coolidge Keeps Cool, Ford Speaks Plain, and Flappers Still Don’t Care”
By Staff Writers of the United American Press Syndicate
WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Calvin Coolidge, ever the silent sentinel of Republican restraint, continues to steer the nation through a season of prosperity with a steady hand and a famously tight lip. At the Capitol yesterday, Mr. Coolidge assured business leaders that “America’s growth lies in peace, thrift, and enterprise,” as he endorsed the pending tax reductions before Congress. Critics on the left muttered about favors to the rich, but the stock tickers on Wall Street told a different story—climbing steadily like a Model T on a clean stretch of highway.
Speaking of which—Henry Ford himself has declared in no uncertain terms that he will not run for president, despite recent murmurings from both parties. The industrial titan told The Detroit News that “the business of America is not just business—it’s movement,” and he’d rather be “under a hood than behind a podium.” Rumors that he plans to launch a line of airplanes for personal use were neither confirmed nor denied.
In the South, the Scopes Trial inches closer to the national stage. Tennessee teacher John T. Scopes, accused of violating the newly minted Butler Act by teaching evolution in a Dayton classroom, will soon face the courtroom—and a national spotlight. Legal lions Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan are sharpening their claws for what promises to be a cultural spectacle. The Chicago Tribune predicts it could become “the trial of the century—or at least the season.”
Meanwhile, the cities hum with jazz and motion. In New York, bootleggers dance just one step ahead of Prohibition agents, while speakeasies blossom like spring violets in the boroughs. On Broadway, George Gershwin’s latest compositions pack theaters, while young ladies in beaded dresses and bobbed hair thumb their noses at last year’s fashion.
In Chicago, Mayor Dever’s crackdown on crime hits new fervor after yet another headline-grabbing raid on South Side breweries. “It’s a dry town,” he insists, although the scent of gin on Wabash Avenue says otherwise.
The economy continues its merry climb. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed yesterday at a hearty 147 points, buoyed by booming steel, autos, and an ever-growing appetite for consumer goods. Unemployment is low, radios are flying off shelves, and Americans from Tulsa to Boston are dreaming in electric light.
But not all is carefree in the American landscape. Labor unions grumble over stagnant wages in the textile and rail sectors, farmers feel the squeeze of postwar deflation, and the Ku Klux Klan’s rise in political influence in several states is drawing fierce opposition from civic leaders and editorial pages alike.
Still, as the sun sets on May 27, 1925, Americans dance to the Charleston, debate Darwin, sip something strong in backrooms, and wonder what’s next for a nation that never stops moving—even when the president barely does.
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