Since the World War

In an attempt to persuade citizens to endorse the League of Nations, President Wilson started to make a speaking tour of the West. Before he had completed it, however, he was stricken by an illness that kept him from his usual activity during the rest of his second term. He died in 1924.

It was during Wilson's second term that the eighteenth and nineteenth amendments were added to the Constitution. The eighteenth prohibited the sale of intoxicating liquors, and the nineteenth provided for woman suffrage in all the states, some of which had already adopted it for themselves. The census of 1920 brought out many interesting facts about our country. It showed that the population of the nation at that time was 106,418,175 and that of this number 13,712,754 were foreign-born.

Warren G. Harding, the Republican candidate, went into the election of 1920 with the promise that he would bring the country back to a "state of normalcy," and he was elected President. During his term several important events took place. Arrangements were made for the gradual payment of our enormous war debt, and a separate treaty of peace was finally made with Germany. President Harding invited the leading nations of the world to meet at Washington in a conference on the limitation of armaments. Here a treaty was made limiting the strength of the battleships of the large nations. Regulations were also drawn up regarding the use of submarines and of poison gas.

During the war, inventors all over the world were at work devising equipment for fighting, such as tanks, Zeppelins, airplanes, and machine guns. They made many ingenious devices to promote more efficient manufacturing, and to aid those who were crippled in the war. Radio is among the best known of the recent inventions; from broadcasting stations, since the war, concerts, lectures, and various other forms of entertainment have been sent over the air every day.

A BROADCASTING STATION IN LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA.

In the summer of 1923 Harding, on whom the burdens of the presidency had begun to tell heavily, made a trip to Alaska. He was taken ill while he was there, and died on the return trip, in San Francisco. Vice President Calvin Coolidge succeeded him and took up the task of governing the United States.

One of the problems to which the World War aroused us, was that of immigration. At various times in our history attempts had been made to deal with the question. In Wilson's administration, all immigrants over sixteen years of age who could not read English, or one other language, were excluded. In 1924 a new law provided that the number of immigrants from a country should he limited to two percent of the people from that country who were here in 1890. This same law also provided that foreigners who are not eligible to American citizenship should be prohibited from coming to this country to live. This really means that Chinese and Japanese are excluded, because they cannot become citizens of the United States under the present naturalization laws.

CONTROL BOARD AT A BROADCASTING STATION.

In the same year, 1924, came another election. Coolidge was chosen to succeed himself as President of the United States. Under his leadership, the government expenses were reduced, and large payments were made on the war debt.

Although Americans have accomplished much in the last few years, a great task still lies before us,—to heal the war wounds and to bring about a state of affairs in which war will cease to destroy civilization.