Sam Haselby wrote in the Boston Globe:
The phrase would not be coined until the 20th century, by Warren G. Harding. Accepting the 1920 nomination for the presidency, the Ohio Republican said, “It was the intent of the founding fathers to give to this Republic a dependable and enduring popular government.’’
The Red Scare was still weighing on American hearts and minds. Fathers founding sounded better than revolutionaries, who might be overthrowing. Harding, who liked alliteration, had unleashed one of the great acts of phrasemaking in US history.
I'd never heard that before, but then you almost never hear anything good about Warren G. Harding. You only hear he invented "normalcy" and "that's not even a word!" Indeed, much of received history consists of which bits of contemporary snark get passed on into the history books.
Paul Johnson inserted an impassioned defense of Harding in his Modern Times. I'm not sure I'd go as far, but I would point out that America appeared to be undergoing a nervous breakdown during the second Wilson administration, but by the time of Harding's death, was enjoying a period of solid accomplishment.
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It was a clear black night, a clear white moon
It makes sense, projection-wise, that a black man like Harding would be concerned about such deep-seated paternity issues.
Since Woodrow Wilson got us into WWI to satisfy his own immense ego (he could be at the post-war peace table, dictating terms to the rest of the world, only if the USA was actually in the war) it's hard to imagine a worse presidency than his second term.
I know little of Harding's intellectual roots, but it's hard to imagine he was not deliberately harkening back to Lincoln's "our Fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation . . ."
Of course, back then, presidents could actually recite such things.
The best history I've read of that time was Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s, by Frederick Allen. It was written in '31, right at the twilight of the Jazz Age, still fresh enough to remember most of what had happened, and not so far gone that the results would be a caricature of a past culture that could no longer defend itself.
It covers politics, economics, marriage and courtship, sports, fashion, music, etc.
The Harding administration was most well remembered at the time, maybe for awhile after, for all the political-economic scandals, such as the Teapot Dome scandal.
From how they made it out to be at the time, it sounds like the Watergate-through-Iran-Contra period of politics. Were they really more corrupt, or was the public just more vigilant and detected such things more easily than in more naively complacent / hopelessly cynical times? I don't know.
Great read, if you can find it. Really solidified the hunch I had that the Roaring Twenties were re-born as the Go-Go Eighties, in all sorts of ways.
Financial writer Jim Grant wrote about the depression of 1920-21 in which Harding refused to take any action and it cleared itself up quickly and gave rise to the Roaring 20s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depression_of_1920%E2%80%9321
"by the time of Harding's death, was enjoying a period of solid accomplishment"
It had nothing to do with what Harding did though.
"Since Woodrow Wilson got us into WWI to satisfy his own immense ego"
The failure of what happened afterwards must be mostly blamed on intransigent Europeans who lacked Wilson's larger vision.
Though Germans had been worse in WWII, Europeans gained by listening to Americans instead of insisting on doing things their way.
Following WWI, Britain and France were still major powers. But after WWII, only UK was a major Western European power, but even it was spent as a major player. So, Americans had more power to dictate events after WWII and things worked out fine. Instead of trying to punish Germany--the heart of European economy--to death, Europeans accepted a situation in which Germany would be given a productive role to play as long as it behaved.
Post-WWI Europe could have been successful IF UK and especially France had NOT been so adamant on punishing Germany. If Germany had been allowed to prosper under a democratic regime after WWI, Germans would never have supported communism or National Socialism in huge numbers. Also, German economic recovery would have been good for the overall economy of Europe. But, France and UK didn't listen to Wilson, and they punished Germany as harshly as possible, and that not only undermined the economic recovery of Europe as a whole but led to the rise of radical politics in the most populous nation of Western Europe.
After WWI, Europeans were too arrogant and didn't want to take advice from an upstart nation like the United States. But after WWII, Europeans, after so much devastation and with the threat of the USSR hanging over them, had no choice but go along with American demands. So, Wilsonianism succeeded after WWII in a way it failed to after WWI.
Though it failed the first time around, it laid the ground for the American policy of Europe after WWII, and it succeeded. So, we gotta him some credit.
Also, Wilson was a great man for being a great admirer of BIRTH OF A NATION.
From Modern Times:
Harding can be described as the only president in American history who actually brought about massive cuts in government spending, producing nearly a 40 percent saving over Wilsonian peacetime expenditure. Nor was this a wild assault. It was part of a considered plan which included the creation of the Bureau of the Budget under the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921, to bring authorizations under systematic central scrutiny and control. Its first director, Charles Dawes said in 1922 that, before Harding, “everyone did as they damned pleased”; cabinet members were “commanches,” Congress a “nest of cowards.” Then Harding waved the axe and said that anybody that didn't co-operate, his head would come off; the result was “velvet for the taxpayer.”
My comment: This is why Harding is trashed by the whole class of people who want a parasite-host relationship with the taxpayers.
Is Harding disliked for what he did or because he didn't do nothing?
Maybe Bush II hoped to do a lot to counter the image of a do-nothing small government republican... but he now ranks below Harding.
What happened to Warren Harding was HL Mencken. Its worth quoting Mencken's description of Harding's speeches:
"I rise to pay my small tribute to Dr. Harding. Setting aside a college professor or two and a half dozen dipsomaniacal newspaper reporters, he takes the first place in my Valhalla of literati. That is to say, he writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up to the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash."
To be fair, this could be said of lots of contemporary politicians. Bill Clinton's speeches always put me in mind of this quote. And Mencken's opinion of Woodrow Wilson was even lower.
Actually I agree that Harding is ranked too low. The bad things about Harding, that he was stupid, that his administration was corrupt, and that he kept a mistress, are pretty much standard for American pols. Actually, though Harding was stupid he appointed some smart people to his administration, and the story about corruption is that he was personally honest but trusted his friends too much.
The Harding administration released the political opponents that Wilson had jailed, notably Eugene Debs, finally got the peace treaty with Germany signed, and in contrast to the standard historical line was pretty heavily involved in international diplomacy, and constructively.
All the Republican 1920s administration are retrospectively tarred with doing nothing while the speculation that was one of the reasons for the Great Depression got out of control, but this is hindsight (its rare in US economic history for speculation to be kept in control), and if any administration was at fault it was the Coolidge administration; Coolidge seems to have suffered from clinical depression for most of his presidency and the perception that he did nothing during his tenure is probably literally accurate.
Harding was probably exactly what the country needed at the time and his administration was reasonably competent. For what its worth, his popular vote percentage in 1920, 60%, still holds the record for a candidate not running for re-election as President and is third overall. And his death was the occasion of national mourning that can be compared to when JFK was assassinated.
I was going to suggest a post on the dumbest presidents in history, in honor of the holiday. If you search the web, you find absurdities like Clinton having a 180 IQ.
I know it is not an easy task, especially considering modern presidents don't write anything. Wilson was dyslexic, yet he was considered a genius. The founding fathers were prolific writers who at least offered an insight into how their minds worked. When you judge a modern Prez by his work, you're really judging his speech writers. BO has even cut off his college transcripts - a practice which I'm sure will become precedent. The Office is now more powerful than ever, but have there ever been more men behind The Man?
I get a kick out of the ridicule the Pope gets, when the average Pope has an intellect which dwarfs our democratic Statesmen. The Pope has little power (Italy has one of the highest abortion rates in Europe) while our mediocrities decide the fates of millions, if not billions.
American of today has
Nagging Nannies
Brawling Brothas
Frightful Fruits
Right, but Mencken's criticisms of FDR aren't repeated.
We remember the story of America through Hysterical Historians.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/07/04/transgender-student-named-prom-queen-at-ontario-high-school/
Liberalism just jumped the shark.
Of Coolidge I've heard the remark (attributed usually to Will Rogers) along the lines, "He did nothing, but that was what the people wanted done"
http://www.suntimes.com/news/crime/13577384-418/10-people-shot-in-city-since-5-pm.html
Daaaaaaaang.
US is now run by Funding Funsters.
Off topic, but James Flynn is talking about the Flynn Effect/race & IQ on live radio with Milt Rosenberg on WGN radio Chicago.
He'll be answering listener questions in the 2nd hour.
Audio link here.
It figures that the comments here would feature contorted compliments to Wilson's foreign policy realism in the Walt/Mearsheimer mold. He was Anglophile to the core and did not gainsay the treaty terms they wanted (just breeze by this noble Southern Patriot imposing himself either way) although Clemenceau was least reasonable of all. The idea that Mr. 14 Points was counter-intuitively trying to inhibit subsequent ethno-national bloodshed is humorous enough on its own, presumably not written by a female stand-up comic.
"The Red Scare was still weighing on American hearts and minds."
It's always a "scare" in the minds of the journalistic left. Never a "menace". Despite the fact that cynical, amoral killers flying the red banner had seized control over an the largest country on earth (I mean, killers even more cynical, amoral, and deadly than the kind of people who typically ran governments), they deem it completely irrational to be fearful of reds.
Would they use the term "influenza scare" to describe the 1918 pandemic, or "economic scare" to describe the great depression, or "carbon-dioxide scare" to describe anthropogenic global warming?
The fact that I can not think of a single far-reaching initiative associated with the Harding administration indicates to me that he really was a great President.
Was Mencken gay? I got no hits on google, but there were a lot suggesting G.W. Bush is. I thought at least some gay group would claim him. His Wikipedia profile certainly leaves room for the question.
Harding's speechwriter coined "founding fathers.". There was a book a few years ago about the history of speechwriters, from which I learned thayHarding was the first President to employ one. The writer of said book noted that Harding's scribe coined a number of familiar phrases,with "founding fathers only the most used one. The book's author noted, however, that "you simply cannot say 'in the immortal words of Warren G Harding."
Lately I've heard more about fondling fathers.
If the term was "invented", it wasn't much of an invention. Not Edison-like, anyway. Coined might be a better word.
These days you couldn't get away with saying 'founding fathers' in a speech - you'd have to add that qualifier 'founding fathers and mothers'.
The other day I saw a news report commemorating fallen RAF aircrew of World War 2. The PC news reporter, of course, had to say the 'fallen men and women of bomber command'.
Sorry, but no female ever served on an RAF bomber command combat mission, although hundreds of thousands of men did.
America appeared to be undergoing a nervous breakdown during the second Wilson administration, but by the time of Harding's death, was enjoying a period of solid accomplishment.
Replace Wilson with Bush and Harding with Obama and history repeats itself?
Perhaps not coincidentally Harding supposedly had partial african ancestry, and he championed black civil rights.
http://amren.com/news/2012/07/why-the-progeny-of-slaves-will-strike-gold-at-the-olympics/
It's due to West African genes, not slavery. If whites had enslaved Vietnamese and chosen only the toughest, they would not still amount to much athletically. Also, diseases wiped out 90% of indigenous people of the Americas and only the toughest survived but they are not great athletes.
The real danger is not in sports but in the streets. Because blacks are tougher, they will beat up white boys in the streets, schools, etc. And white guys will lose white women to black men because white women will see black men as racially-sexually superior to slow flabby white men. It will be humiliating for the white male.
Interracism or mixed-racism is unequal in that black males will lord over soft and dweeby white boys. For every black athlete, there are 100,000 black thugs in the streets and they see white boys as wussy cowards and see white women as sexual prizes. Anti-racism will destroy the UK.
"Harding supposedly had partial african ancestry." 'Supposedly' just won't do: get his hairbrush or toothbrush and do a DNA test.
Christ, Wilson was a great man for admiring Birth of a Nation? These comment boards always are ridiculously cartoonish compared to Sailer's actual racial disposition.
I just read Mencken's Wikipedia entry and had a hard time finding evidence there that he was gay, even in the paragraph about his marriage.
"Sorry, but no female ever served on an RAF bomber command combat mission, although hundreds of thousands of men did."
Russian women did though. I read a fascinating book about them some years ago. Don't recall how many.
O/T, Mr iSteve, but I think that this guy really ought to have mentioned your book on O. Shame on him for the omission.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100169248/barack-obamas-life-story-contains-myth-not-truth-says-biographer-so-why-did-the-media-report-it-as-truth/
Also, Wilson was a great man for being a great admirer of BIRTH OF A NATION.
Hardly enough to make him a great man. If you want a truly great man of the 20th Century who was also a White Supremacist, look to James K. Vardaman:
(...)
It thus begs to question why Vardaman, in the face of overwhelming public support of the war, would so ademately defy it and seal his political fate. The answer to a complex question is equally complex. Vardaman was anti-business from the time he began his political career. To him, the most active pro-war agitators were businessmen whose only "object in having war and in preparing for war is to make money." Vardaman further stated that he "was not going to be a party to a measure which I believe may possibly bring on war . . . in order that a few men may grow rich and richer still in carrying on commerce between New York and London." To Vardaman, and like-minded individuals like La Follette, their opposition to the war was a manifestation of their anti-business, populist/progressive stance.
Political ideology alone does not serve to explain Vardaman's actions. Vardaman, by all accounts, genuinely felt the entry into the war was wrong. Despite his friends' insistence that he vote for war, Vardaman was resolute. "I cannot compromise," he siad, "with that which I am convinced is wrong." Another possible insight into Vardaman's psyche may be seen in his own personal history. Vardaman, a veteran of the Spanish-American War, was familiar with the experience of war. Thus, the Senator may have been reluctant to rush to send American boys into battle, knowing what awaited them
(...)
If it weren't for his over-the-top anti-black racism, Vardaman would today be a hero of the anti-interventionists like Raimondo:
World War I: Loyalty and Dissent in Mississippi During the Great War, 1917-1918
(...)
James Kimble Vardaman, however, not only voted against the declaration of war, but he resisted the administration's call for selective conscription and went on to oppose other measures that the Wilson administration deemed essential for the war effort.
(...)
Meanwhile, Williams's junior colleague and bitter political rival cast one of only six Senate votes against the declaration of war. Rather than glorifying the Lost Cause, Vardaman and his predominantly rural constituents recalled the horrors of the Civil War, characterizing it as a “rich man's war and a poor man's fight” in which the latter had suffered the heaviest losses. Vardaman suggested that, once again, the United States was being drawn into war by privileged economic interests, such as bankers and munitions makers. He argued that most ordinary Americans had no desire to join the European conflagration, and suggested that “the great toiling masses of America” who would pay the heaviest price in lives and treasure ought to have a voice in any decision for war. While recognizing that he held a minority view, he argued that his conscience required him to oppose the declaration of war. His words were of no avail. The Senate voted for war on April 4, 1917.
(...)
Again, Vardaman saw things differently. Anticipating that military service would fall most heavily on the backs of the rural and urban poor, he threw his support behind efforts to amend the administration's bill to require that the War Department seek an all-volunteer army first, and only resort to conscription if enlistments proved to be inadequate.
(...)
So far, no poster has noted one of the most important and valuable things Harding did as president: He campaigned actively and effectively against the rather popular idea of imposing new post-War tariffs, a la Smoot-Hawley, to give the economy a jump start. For this alone he deserves to be recognized as one of our better presidents.
"Replace Wilson with Bush and Harding with Obama and history repeats itself?"
Except for the "solid accomplishment" part of course- oh right the mini me dream act how could I have forgotten
"Fathers founding sounded better than revolutionaries"
This is itself a Leftist canard. The American War of Independence was NOT a revolution as it did not seek to re-order the nature of society (as did the French and Bolshie revolutions, among many others). Labeling it as the "Revolutionary War" was an illegitimate appropriation by the Left in order to accrue the prestige and greatness of the "Founding Fathers" to the Leftist cause.
Nearly everyone now incorrectly says "Revolutionary War," but we still, for now, say "Independence Day." It would not surprise me that sooner or later someone tries to re-name it as "Revolution Day."
Ben Hecht described Wilson in Paris as "a long-faced virgin trapped in a bawdy house and calling in valiant tones for a glass of lemonade."
I'm not even sure what that means, but it's funny.
Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn wrote of Wilson:
Needless to say, Wilson suffered from the Great American Malady, the belief that people the world over are "more alike than unlike"; in other words, that non-Americans are nothing more than inhibited, underdeveloped, could-be Americans with the misfortune of speaking a different language.
This statement pretty much describes both Dems and Repubs today.
Wilson was an ignorant ass. The Italians rolled him in Paris by showing him a fake map with a non-existent Italian named mounting showing up in the middle of Austria. As a result, the Italians were given portions of Austria.
Finally, Leddihn writes:
Wilson's greatest guilt lay in his attitude during the war, in his flat refusal to cooperate in any peace efforts and in his determination to carry the war to the bitter end, thus laying the foundation for the next one... Had WWI been terminated earlier, the old Germany with certain modifications would have survived.
This would of course have changed the world we live in today drastically. We can't know how, but I suspect in very good ways. Without WWII we do not get the easy triumph of Cultural Marxism, and eugenics and pro-nationalist policies do not get tossed into the CrimeThink category. Without the aftermath of WWII, America and Europe would likely be strong majority white nations still.
Harding should have been rehabilitated years ago, but the Arthur Slesinger-led crusade against him, Taft, Coolidge and Eisenhower has been going on since 1932, and very hard to overcome.
The Harding administration was by no means devoid of really significant accomplishments. Commenters have already mentioned the Bureau of the Budget (previously, each department simply submitted its projected expenses without reference to an
overall plan) and the stellar non-intervention response to the 1920-21 Depression, but there were many others: the Washington Conference (which helped stop a naval arms race, broke up the Anglo-Japanese alliance, and proved that the US, though not a member of the League of Nations, was by no means as "isolationist" as is often thought); the freeing of Eugene Debs and other political prisoners; the conclusion of separate peace treaties with the Central Powers, support for anti-lynching laws and removal of Wilson's petty Jim Crow rules, etc.
Three of Harding's cabinet appointees--Hoover at Commerce, Hughes at State, and Mellon at the Treasury, whether or not you agrees with all their policies, were among the best picks for those portfolios in US History. Some people have argued that any accomplishments of the administration were due solely to his cabinet and not to Harding personally, but historians like Murray showed for example that Harding kept in touch with the Washington Conference, helped overcome military resistance to arms cuts, etc.
Yes, there were the scandals. But Harding was never *personally* corrupt--for example, he never knew what Albert Fall was up to on Teapot Dome. (And even on Teapot Dome, Murray argued that the actual terms of the oil leases were good for the US, even
if the way they were negotiated was corrupt.)
It is absurd for historians to put Harding on the bottom of their lists of presidents as the "worst president" (another stunt originally dreamed up by Slesinger) Worse than Pierce or Buchanan, who helped bring about the friggin' Civil War?
I knew an old man who was born in DC came of age in the Harding era, and even went to the inauguration parade. He said Harding was very handsome, and that the women loved him. Sounds like some aspiring young men did too.
His speeches were probably no better or worse than the standard speechifying of the time.
Harding's reputation suffers partly because of liberal historians but also because he died suddenly in office at a time when the Republicans needed a scapegoat for a series of corruption scandals.
Liberals trashed him but conservatives didn't defend him.
If Reagan had died suddenly during the Iran Contra affair his reputation would have suffered a similar fate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwjgmCS3hYM&feature=related
If men say 'vagina' and 'slut', it's sexual harassment. If women say them, it's empowerment. Fluke, Brown, and their vagina-mania... so this is what rich privileged college girls get from higher education today? It's a hysterical puritanical form of anti-puritanism, i.e. there's nothing natural about this form of sexuality which has been turned into an ideology. Even the strained humor is humorless. Instead of hammer and sickle, beaver and pickle?
Oleannology. Pitiful, pathetic, and bratty.
OT What, Steve, no comment on this yet?
If say TR or Taft had won in the place of Wilson, the outcome: US entry into WWI, would have been the same. The American public did not want it (neither did it want WWII) but it got it just the same, the US was not about to let Germany under either the Kaiser or Fuhrer dominate Europe and thus the Atlantic. US intervention was guaranteed at some point, to keep the Eastern shores of the Atlantic under friendly hands and away from unfriendly hands (no repeat of Napoleon's "Continental System.")
The War of 1812 taught the wages of isolation and naval weakness. The Civil War the importance of having friendly not hostile European powers. A Europe closed to American manufacturing (back then we still mostly made stuff not junk services and marketing) by a hostile Germany in the same business? Perish the thought.
As for Harding, he came in at an incredibly corrupt time: Prohibition. The WASPy Temperance crowd got the periodic urge for national moral improvement of everybody (embodied DEEP within Protestantism and Calvinism in particular, but also Quakerism) passed with the object being general improvement of drunken Protestant men, all Catholics, particularly the Irish, and just a good dose of feminine moral improvement (though the real leader William Wheeler was male).
And naturally everyone simply ignored the law and found general contempt for all law as a result. The similarities between the Civil Rights movement, Affirmative Action, and heck Alcoholics Anonymous are up to the individual to interpret as they will.
I should of been more explicit about why I question Mencken's orientation. He married late. He married an admirer - not exactly a sexual conquest. He mocked marriage and married anyway - for appearances? He had a twelve year relationship and had no children. Was he sterile? Was he financially unprepared? Did he feel genetically inferior? Was he eusocially(a term I learned from a commentor here - thanks commentor!) sterile? Was the world unworthy of his offspring? Or was he just plain gay?
Mencken wrote short stories about prostitutes: I suspect he did first hand research.
The press didn't have to sweat to produce news copy from blacks who disdain July 4; though I presume they mean "blacks descended from slaves," else the inchoate resentment notion falls apart (can't work out whether Colin Powell or Eric Holder Jr. should be disdainful, neutral, or maybe appreciate it for kitsch value).
I expect that in the interest of objectivity and journalistic standards they'll questionnaire some kids in the banlieues next week
You know, there's a case to be made that other newspapermen should have at least *considered* emulating Mencken's mating habits:
O’Rourke’s
(...)
O’Rourke’s was a dirty word in our house,” David told me. “O’Rourke’s was the place where we knew Dad was, or if not that the Goat, or Riccardo’s, or the Boul Mich, one of those places, and they were where he was and not at home. Ninety percent of the time that was the life, and it was really, really miserable for my mother. It was everything that comes with that scene and I fucking hated those places.
(...)
In fact, let's not mince words: Harding was a really good President. Not "great", but really good. The scandals were no worse than those that invariably occur under any Administration, but like Watergate, they have been puffed up beyond their import into more than the banal background corruption that is the ambient noise of all politics.
Political analysts and strategists these days are wont to say that an Administration's success is really dependent on the economy and its performance ("It's the economy, stupid"). And by that standard Harding stands tall: venerators of St. Woodrow de Staunton in particular, and liberals in general, like to sweep the fact under the rug, but the situation in 1920-21 was one of the most severe depressions the nation has seen, and that was what Harding inherited. By his death two and a half years later, the economy was firing on all cylinders and going gangbusters.
Anonydroid at 1:11 said: If men say 'vagina' and 'slut', it's sexual harassment.
Hunsdon clarifies: Unless it's about Sarah Palin. I'm no Palin fan, but I am embittered, incensed, and appalled at the language used about her. When I was younger, that sort of language was, quite frankly, regarded as fighting words (if not a killing offense).
Here's a strong defense of Harding in Reason from a generation ago.
Of course, no praise of Harding's immigration accomplishments would ever appear in Reason!
Harding was quite progressive on race issues for his time and spoke in the South about the need for change.
I've reread "Shadow of Blooming Grove" a couple of times and its always entertaining read. Author Francis Russell is pretty well forgotten, though this book was a cause celebre in the mi-60's, over the publication of Harding's love letters.
Steve Sailer said...
"Mencken wrote short stories about prostitutes: I suspect he did first hand research."
It's cheaper to rent than to buy and you get variety...
In Russia Today and Yesterday (1930), E. J. Dillon wrote:
It never occurred to the most iconoclastic of the French revolutionists to do away with the conception of the family or of the wide-ranging power of the father as head of the family, to abolish marriage, to modify the current idea of property, or the many implications of these principles. The French Revolution was careful to preserve intact all these institutions, and to strengthen and spread them, and even to religion itself, which at first was jibed and scoffed at, certain important functions were allotted in the regenerate state.
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