Warren G. Harding: Bad President!

March 4, 1921 – August 2, 1923, one term

With Harding, who is widely considered the worst U.S. President of all the U.S. Presidents (well, yeah, until Bush, Jr.) it was all about a promise of “A Return to Normalcy” – (not to be confused with the Lifetime TV For Women movie with Denise Richards and Stephen Baldwin “A Return to Mediocrity”) which, after the horrors of The Great War, seemed like a dandy idea. The world came out of WWI completely changed, politically, topographically, socially – in many ways it was the actual turn of the Twentieth Century. But for Harding it was really only a campaign slogan masking his desire to open wide the doors of government to Big Business and hand them a cigar.

Here’s another Harding slogan: "Less government in business and more business in government" and as soon as he was elected he began to make good on that and other conservative Republican agendas: he approved legislation that eliminated wartime price controls and regulations, he slashed taxes, he established a Federal budget system, he restored the high protective tariff, and he imposed tight limitations upon immigration. He also pursued a rather xenophobic course when he reneged on a promise to push for America’s entry into the League of Nations, declaring against U.S. membership. (He also declared against U.S. membership in the Justice League and the Avengers)

Have I mentioned how corrupt his administration was yet? Wowee wow wow! Like most Presidents, Harding appointed his pals and cronies to positions of political power – unlike most Presidents, Harding’s pals were almost unabashedly corrupt. There were bribes, illegal no-interest personal loans in exchange for oil leases, profit-skimming, kickbacks, fraud – you name it, Harding’s “Ohio Gang” indulged in it. The results were scandal, prison terms, suicides – it was a soap opera of misconduct that defined Harding’s time in office and lasted well beyond his death. If you want to know how real government outrages were orchestrated in the Roaring 20’s, all you have to do is look up “Teapot Dome Scandal”. Whether or not Harding was in on the hijinks is up for historical debate, but he certainly knew about it. In his own pithy words, he put it this way: "I have no trouble with my enemies, but my damn friends, they're the ones that keep me walking the floor nights!

And O what a pithy phrase-turner he was!

Run your eyes over one of the best known examples of his waterboarding of the English tongue: "I would like the government to do all it can to mitigate, then, in understanding, in mutuality of interest, in concern for the common good, our tasks will be solved."

Here’s what H. L. Mencken (the acerbic, widely admired and yikes, horribly anti-Semitic literary critic) said about Harding’s speech writing and speech making: "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 the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash." The 20’s were a wonderful time for language!

Or as E.E. Cummings put it, announcing Harding’s death: "The only man, woman or child who wrote a simple declarative sentence with seven grammatical errors is dead."

Aside from his struggles with English, Harding was apparently very likable – affable, gregarious, charming, especially with women, and by now women had the right to vote, nationwide – the problem was that he was out of his depth as a leader. Another compromise choice by the Republican party turns out to be a crappy President – what have we learned here? Anybody? Anybody? McCain?

Fun Facts: Harding had at least two extra-marital affairs. One of them, with the wife of his friend James Phillips, eventually resulted in the Republican National Committee making a monthly payment to Mr and Mrs Phillips in return for their silence. The other, Nan Britton, has been disputed, but still it’s wonderfully juicy and certainly sounds like our boy: a so-called "niece" 30 years younger than him, was sometimes pursued in a large cupboard near the president's White House office – and resulted in a daughter whom Harding never saw. Lifetime TV Movie For Women indeed!

Harding loved to play poker, and apparently he once gambled away, on a single hand, an entire set of White House china dating back to the presidency of Benjamin Harrison.

Harding died while in office, on a cross-country “Voyage of Understanding”, I’m guessing to explain the twisted wording of some of his speeches so that ordinary people could understand them. He was on his way back down the west coast from Alaska (first President to visit!) when he became ill, dying a few days later in San Francisco, in mid conversation with his wife. The reported cause of death was all over the map, including food poisoning, a heart attack, a “stroke of apoplexy”, respiratory illness, or maybe his wife did him in with poison. Rumors ran rampant, books were written, and people speculated endlessly. Disappointingly, it was probably simply a heart attack -Harding had been sick for a few days into the trip.

Harding and JFK – they actually had something in common other than rumors of mistresses – they were the only two Presidents to predecease their fathers.