Warren G. Harding

B

Election of 1920

Late in 1919, Daugherty, then the Republican leader in Ohio, started a well-planned Harding-for-president movement. Harding's name was entered in presidential primaries, and the senator from Ohio made speeches around the country. On May 14, 1920, Harding announced that the nation needed “not nostrums but normalcy.” The slogan “return to normalcy” expressed the yearning of some Americans for the unrestrained free enterprise, the untaxed incomes, and the high import tariffs of the past. It also meant a nation isolated from troublesome world affairs or, as Harding put it, “not submergence in internationality but sustainment in triumphant nationality.” The Democrats naturally disagreed with Harding's views. William Gibbs McAdoo, secretary of the treasury from 1913 to 1918, summed up their reaction by calling Harding's speeches “an army of pompous phrases moving over the landscape in search of an idea.”

Harding did poorly in the Republican primaries. He did not even win all the votes of the Ohio delegation. As a result, Harding felt no confidence about being named the Republican candidate. He would have pulled out of the race to assure himself reelection to the Senate, where he found life very pleasant, had not his wife and Daugherty persuaded him that he would win the nomination.

At the Republican National Convention in Chicago in June 1920, the Republicans went through four votes without deciding upon a candidate and adjourned until the next morning. A series of predawn meetings took place in suite number 404 in the Blackstone Hotel. The phrase “smoke-filled room,” used to describe the suite is still used to refer to a meeting where political deals are made. The meeting in the original smoke-filled room was controlled by Republican senators, including Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, Charles Curtis of Kansas, and James E. Watson of Indiana. After consulting with state leaders, the group agreed that Harding should be nominated. The next day the convention proceeded as planned, and on the tenth ballot, Harding received 692.5 votes and was nominated for president.

With Governor Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts as his vice-presidential running mate, Harding faced the Democratic slate of Governor James M. Cox of Ohio for president and Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt for vice president. Heeding the advice of his managers, Harding conducted a front-porch campaign from his home in Marion, a technique that had been successfully employed by his fellow Ohioans and Republican U.S. presidents Benjamin Harrison, in the presidential election of 1888, and William McKinley, in 1896.

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In his few campaign speeches, Harding relied mainly on the political effectiveness of bland generalities. Sometimes his statements were deliberately confusing. For example, he promised internationally minded voters that he would support an “association of nations,” while at the same time he promised “America first!” to isolationists. In this way he won the support of influential Republicans who believed in the League of Nations as well as those who opposed it. Harding's inoffensive stand on the league and other issues attracted many voters to the Republican Party. Many other voters, who blamed Wilson for entering the war and for high postwar prices, probably voted against the Democrats, rather than for Harding (see Isolationism).

Harding won the election by a record-breaking margin of 7 million votes over Cox, an amazing total of more than 60 percent of all votes cast. He received 404 electoral votes to Cox's 127 and carried every state except those in the solidly Democratic South.

IV

President of the United States

A

Harding's Appointments

Three of the men whom Harding appointed to his Cabinet were very well qualified. Charles Evans Hughes, a former associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and the Republican presidential candidate in 1916, was an outstanding appointment as secretary of state. Henry Cantwell Wallace, an agricultural expert of irreproachable character, was a fine choice for secretary of agriculture. Future President Herbert Clark Hoover (1929-1933), a capable and dedicated man who had been serving as the chairman of the American Relief Administration and the European Relief Council, was named secretary of commerce. Several other appointees, if less distinguished than these three, were experienced and respected men.

A few important posts were given to untrustworthy men to pay political debts. In this category were the appointments of Daugherty as attorney general, Senator Albert B. Fall of New Mexico as secretary of the interior, and former representative Edwin Denby of Michigan as secretary of the navy. For positions of less than Cabinet rank, Harding often chose personal associates. His group of friends, who came to be known as the Ohio Gang, included Charles R. Forbes, the head of the Veterans Bureau, and E. Mont Reily, the governor of Puerto Rico. Although there is no proof that Harding himself was corrupt, his good nature and self-indulgent character seem to have blinded him to corruption in others.

B

Domestic Affairs

In domestic legislation, Harding followed his usual conservative course. He supported the repeal of the wartime tax on excess profits and the reduction of income taxes on the wealthy. He signed the high tariff Fordney-McCumber Act of 1922 and proposed measures to relieve an agricultural depression that began in 1920. He also approved the Immigration Restriction Act of 1921, which first established an immigration quota system. Each European nation was assigned an annual number of immigrants equal to 3 percent of the number from that country residing in the United States in 1910. Most Asians were already barred. Harding disapproved of radicalism of any sort and the four justices he appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States were able but very conservative men.

C

Foreign Affairs

The president called a special session of Congress in April 1921, soon after his inauguration. The two major items for consideration were the peace with Germany and a treaty with the Republic of Colombia. By joint resolution of the houses of Congress the war with Germany was declared at an end. The resolution claimed for the United States all “rights and advantages” obtained by the Allies in the Versailles Treaty. However, it rejected any responsibilities assumed in the treaty by the Allies.

The treaty with Colombia proposed a payment to that country of $25 million for the loss of Panama. Panama had won its independence from Colombia in 1903 with the help of the United States. Senator Lodge, who oversaw such issues as the chairman of the powerful Committee on Foreign Relations, urged adoption of the treaty to soothe Colombia and to obtain drilling rights there for U.S. oil companies. The treaty was ratified by the Senate in April 1921.

The best-known accomplishment of the Harding administration in foreign affairs was an international disarmament meeting, the Washington Conference, held in Washington, D.C., in 1921 and 1922. The conference resulted in several treaties. The Five-Power Treaty established limits on the number of tons of ships and aircraft carriers that the United States, Britain, Japan, France, and Italy might maintain. In the Four-Power Pact the United States, Britain, France, and Japan agreed to respect one another's island possessions in the Pacific. The United States also signed the Nine-Power Treaty, which promised that the independence and territory of China would not be violated and that the Open Door Policy, which promised equal commercial opportunities in China to all nations, would be respected by those who signed the treaty.

C

1

Corruption

In March 1923 the first scandal of the Harding administration was revealed. A month earlier, Harding's friend Forbes, the head of the Veterans' Bureau, had resigned his post and left the country. An investigation found that he and his accomplices had robbed the government of $200 million. The Veterans' Bureau chief was soon brought back to the United States and, in 1925, was sentenced to prison.

Other scandals followed the Veterans' Bureau scandal. It was rumored that officials of the Justice Department were taking bribes to protect violators of the Prohibition laws. A Senate investigation revealed that Attorney General Daugherty had illegally made a profit by allowing alcohol to be taken from government supplies. There was also corruption in the office of the Alien Property Custodian. The president appeared unnerved and despondent as the scandal involving his administration came to light in the spring of 1923.

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