Coolidge Meets the Progressive Challenge.

Calvin Coolidge had been president only a few months when the 1924 presidential campaign season began. Harding's unexpected death in August 1923 put Coolidge in the White House, but it did not earn him the confidence of the Republican old guard or the party's progressive senators. Coolidge used the presidential primaries as an opportunity to unite his party and solidify support for his nomination. Yet two Republican mavericks, Sen. Hiram Johnson of California and Sen. Robert La Follette of Wisconsin, complicated Coolidge's task. Both progressive senators challenged their party's incumbent president for the Republican nomination. Senator Johnson criticized the administration's tax-reduction plan, advised against involvement in the World Court, and advocated the termination of all immigration from Asia. Johnson's determined efforts, however, delivered him only one primary victory, in South Dakota. Coolidge even prevailed comfortably in Johnson's...