PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN FACTS #29: WARREN G. HARDING

Описание: Warren Gamaliel Harding (November 2, 1865 – August 2, 1923) was the 29th president of the United States, serving from 1921 until his death in 1923. A member of the Republican Party, he was one of the most popular sitting U.S. presidents while in office. After his death, a number of scandals were exposed, including Teapot Dome, as well as an extramarital affair with Nan Britton, which tarnished his reputation.

Harding lived in rural Ohio all his life, except when political service took him elsewhere. As a young man, he bought The Marion Star and built it into a successful newspaper. Harding served in the Ohio State Senate from 1900 to 1904, and was lieutenant governor for two years. He was defeated for governor in 1910, but was elected to the United States Senate in 1914—the state's first direct election for that office. Harding ran for the Republican nomination for president in 1920, but was considered a long shot before the convention. When the leading candidates could not garner a majority, and the convention deadlocked, support for Harding increased, and he was nominated on the tenth ballot. He conducted a front porch campaign, remaining mostly in Marion and allowing people to come to him. He promised a return to normalcy of the pre–World War I period, and defeated Democratic nominee James M. Cox in a landslide to become the first sitting senator elected president.

Harding appointed a number of respected figures to his cabinet, including Andrew Mellon at Treasury, Herbert Hoover at Commerce, and Charles Evans Hughes at the State Department. A major foreign policy achievement came with the Washington Naval Conference of 1921–1922, in which the world's major naval powers agreed on a naval limitations program that lasted a decade. Harding released political prisoners who had been arrested for their opposition to World War I. In 1923, Harding died of a heart attack in San Francisco while on a western tour, and was succeeded by Vice President Calvin Coolidge. U.S. presidents during the decades after his term in office, Harding was often rated among the worst. In the subsequent decades, some historians have begun to reassess the conventional views of Harding's historical record in office.

Harding was inaugurated on March 4, 1921, in the presence of his wife and father. Harding preferred a subdued inauguration without the customary parade, leaving only the actual ceremony and a brief reception at the White House. In his inaugural address, he declared, "Our most dangerous tendency is to expect too much from the government and at the same time do too little for it."

After the election, Harding announced that no decisions about appointments would be made until he returned from a vacation in December. He traveled to Texas, where he fished and played golf with his friend Frank Scobey (soon to be director of the Mint) and then sailed for the Panama Canal Zone. He visited Washington when Congress opened in early December, and he was afforded a hero's welcome as the first sitting senator to be elected to the White House.[e] Back in Ohio, Harding planned to consult with the country's best minds, who visited Marion to offer their counsel regarding appointments.

The two Harding cabinet appointees who darkened the reputation of his administration by their involvement in scandal were Harding's Senate friend Albert B. Fall of New Mexico, the Interior Secretary, and Daugherty, the attorney general. Fall was a Western rancher and former miner who favored development. He was opposed by conservationists such as Gifford Pinchot, who wrote, "it would have been possible to pick a worse man for Secretary of the Interior, but not altogether easy." The New York Times mocked the Daugherty appointment, writing that rather than selecting one of the best minds, Harding had been content "to choose merely a best friend." Eugene P. Trani and David L. Wilson, in their volume on Harding's presidency, suggest that the appointment made sense then, as Daugherty was "a competent lawyer well-acquainted with the seamy side of politics ... a first-class political troubleshooter and someone Harding could trust.

Harding spoke out against lynchings of African-Americans. He also ordered desegregation in the White House and the District of Columbia.

Harding was a strong opponent to the League of Nations, an organization that was part of the Treaty of Paris that ended World War I. Because of Harding's opposition the treaty was not ratified, which meant that World War I had not officially ended. Early in his term, a joint resolution was passed to officially end the war.

The U.S. entered a number of treaties with foreign nations during Harding's time in office. Three of the major ones were the Five Powers Treaty, which dealt with halting battleship production for 10 years; the Four Powers Treaty, which focused on Pacific possessions and imperialism; and the Nine Powers Treaty, which codified the Open Door Policy while respecting China's sovereignty.