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“He has shown by his messages and his letters to societies and to individuals that the Presidency has fallen into ignorant hands, that he cannot write English that is understandable, that the American political system is so rotten as to permit the election by an enormous majority of a person not competent to speak authoritatively about public questions. His mental furniture, too, is that of a school boy. Europe and Asia now have us in contempt. (Warren Gamaliel Harding. William Estabrook, Chancellor. The Sentinel Press, 1922). “The Harding Administration has done but little in domestic affairs except to raise a moderate tariff to the highest in our history, and at a time when our people are struggling with war taxes and the high cost of living . . . It has relinquished our world leadership and has substituted a weak, vacillating and timid attitude which by no stretch of the imagination can be called a policy at all, and at a time when our moral influence and potential help were needed as never before." (Colonel Edward M. House, unofficial advisor to Wilson. “After Two Years of Republican Rule.” The Literary Digest. March 17, 1923). “One cannot conceive of the American Electorate tolerating four years more of the utter ineptitude, inefficiency, economic folly and diplomatic stupidity of the Harding regime . . . It was a cruel thing to place Mr. Harding in the White House; it would be still more cruel to him and the country to re-elect him." (“Mr. Harding and Second Term.” The Nation, Volume 116, April 4, 1923). “The thing is too awful to even think about. His election is an insult to the white women of the South. He ought to be impeached; but who can start it when the Senate and House are his political friends? We must take to the woods and try to survive." (Response to the contention that Harding was an octroon—1/8 negro blood. Warren Gamaliel Harding). Quotes compiled by Sushila Nayak. Thanks to Andrew Plenge for his transcription help. |
Warren
G. Harding During the presidency of Richard Nixon, Senator Roman Hruska defended Nixon's nomination of Judge Carswell to the Supreme Court by saying that the mediocre had a right to be represented as well. It is generally thought that in the pantheon of presidents Harding was the personification of mediocrity. Yet there was within him an aspiration or yearning which caught the spirit of the future with regard to civil rights. At the University of Alabama, he spoke to a large segregated audience, saying that the nation could not go on with the nation divided and with Blacks not enjoying the fruits of full citizenship. He was unable to effect this humane sensibility into lasting policy, for he suffered from personal flaws and poor judgment about advisors and cronies, which cost him his place in history. He could not rise above the social system which created him or the one which he took for granted and personally protected. Harding's handsome physical appearance was one of "gravitas." That is, he looked like the sort of person one would trust with the keys to the nation. In fact, Harding was weak, given to emotional depression and inattentive of governing. On one level, he was easy going, which allowed him to accept the principle that government had little role to play in the domestic life of the nation. And since the nation was recovering from Wilson's national mobilization in the first world war, it was ready for what Harding called "normalcy", a new word in the lexicon of American politics that apparently meant the sort of plunder that politicians in President Grant's coterie and other White House favorites had followed in the 19th century. The shady businessman and the reckless entrepreneur had nothing to fear from the Harding administration, for its purpose was not to regulate but to encourage this class in its efforts to accumulate or steal from the public. There was a kernel of political rationalization behind this exercise in greed. It was claimed that new wealth would be created and all would benefit. Harding was easy going and he would not challenge the citizenry to any public pursuits. For Harding, it was the time to "take it easy". This sentiment helped Harding in his campaign against James Cox, the Democratic candidate, and win in a landslide -- 61% to 35%, with 3% going to Eugene Debs. Much has been written about whether Harding was responsible for the thievery which went on in his administration. There is little that points directly to Harding. The exercise in primitive privatization known as the Teapot Dome scandal, in which some of the Navy's oil reserves were sold and turned over to private investors with a kickback to the Secretary of the Interior, was part of a belief that the federal government for the public should divest itself of real property and never compete with private enterprise. Harding's term was marked by two suicides of high government officials who were part of the thievery process. One such official took to robbing the Veterans Bureau through kickbacks; another took Veterans drugs and sold them as narcotics to underworld dealers. Other officials took bribes from those who wanted to obtain alien property. Harding had his own personal problems with regard to affairs of the heart. He had an unsuccessful marriage to Mabel Kling De Wolfe, the daughter of a banker who had substantial business sense. She managed Harding's newspaper, the Marion Star, but was thought of as a schemer who relied heavily on astrology to make decisions. Had Harding been a modern French politician like Francois Mitterand, no one would have batted an eye at the fact that he had an illegitimate daughter with Nan Britton, a woman a generation younger than he who entertained the nation with a book about the affair. In current America it would not be particularly surprising for those who watch daytime TV talk shows and "soap operas" to learn that Harding had a long standing affair with the wife of a close friend. He used a small room off his White House office for his affairs. These were matters which came to light after his death. Not surprisingly, some historians complained that he and his family demeaned the White House by their activities. Warren Harding was more than these activities. It is in this context that Harding should be re-evaluated. The assumption about him was that besides being mediocre, he was weak and reckless in his approach to politics. But this is not the whole story. While he opposed the American entrance into the League of Nations, reflecting the position of the Republican party, he set out a position which still echoes in national elections at the end of the 20th century. The United States would never bend its knee to supergovernment. Like other conservatives of the time they did not believe in government spending even for military activity. He devised a sophisticated position regarding arms limitation as a means of maintaining a relatively stable peace. Whether this position was his, or that of Charles Evans Hughes, his gifted straight-laced Secretary of State, is beside the point. At the Washington Naval Conference in 1921-22, the United States led a world wide program for a naval holiday in the production of battleships and limitations on the construction of other warships. He called for trade expansion while arranging for high tariffs on industries that might compete with our nascent industries. While he pursued the course of injunctions against railway labor unions with his allegedly corrupt Attorney General, Harry Daugherty, he also released from prison the pacifist socialist leader Eugene Debs, who had also been a railway union leader. As president, Harding signed into law the Budget and accounting act of 1921, setting up the Bureau of the Budget, the precursor to the Office of Management and Budget. This act now gave the executive a way to present a whole budget to Congress and to monitor its own expenditures and priorities. This part of the executive office of the President has become the single most important domestic agency. The original idea was not Harding's; it seemed to be the idea of Wilson, who later vetoed because it had provision for a Comptroller-General which was outside of the reach of the Executive. Harding had no such qualms. There are various versions of Harding's death, including the notion that he was poisoned by his wife. The official version is that he died of heart disease, high blood pressure and food poisoning on a trip to San Francisco. Warren Gamaliel Harding was born November 2,1865, at Corsica, Ohio. His parents were both doctors, an unusual situation for a woman in the 19th century. His own education was spotty. He graduated from Ohio Central College in 1882. Harding entered into a career as a newspaper editor but by the time he was 35 his attention turned to politics. He was elected to the Ohio State senate where he served for four years, from 1899-1903. He was part of the Ohio "gang of politicians" who had learned their politics and the system of favors from Mark Hanna, the most powerful politician in the state and this group pushed him forward. He first became lieutenant governor, from 1903-1905, and then United States senator from 1915-21. He was seldom seen in the Senate and voted only 65% of the time. He could not have been taken very seriously by his colleagues, yet he became the Republican nominee in 1920, again proving that a party's most obvious and capable leaders will often be overlooked for the mediocre. Harding postured as if he supported the women suffrage movement. He also supported Prohibition. His was a dark horse candidacy dependent on a deadlock. And one, in fact, occurred. Harding was chosen on the tenth ballot, but the deal had been cut the night before in a "smoke-filled room" a phrase which began to apply to any boss-dictated secret meeting. Harding's nomination and election proved the old adage that anyone could become president. |
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