Warren G. Harding :: essays research papers

Before his nominating address, Warren G. Harding declared, "Americas present need is non heroics, but healing not nostrums, but normalcy not revolution, but restoration not agitation, but adjustment not surgery, but serenity not the dramatic, but the dispassionate not experiment, but equipoise not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality...." A Democratic leader, William Gibbs McAdoo, called Hardings speeches "an army of pompous phrases moving crosswise the landscape in search of an idea." Their very murkiness was effective, since Hardings pronouncements remained unclear on the League of Nations, in contrast to the impassioned crusade of the Democratic candidates, Governor crowd together M. Cox of Ohio and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Thirty-one distinguished Republicans had signed a manifesto assuring voters that a vote for Harding was a vote for the League. But Harding interpreted his election as a mandate to stay out of the League of Nations. Harding, born near Marion, Ohio, in 1865, became the publisher of a newspaper. He married a divorce, Mrs. Florence Kling De Wolfe. He was a trustee of the Trinity Baptist Church, a director of almost every important business, and a leader in fraternal organizations and charitable enterprises. He organized the Citizens trump card Band, available for both Republican and Democratic rallies "I played every instrument but the slide trombone and the E-flat cornet," he once remarked. Hardings undeviating Republicanism and vibrant language voice, plus his willingness to let the machine bosses set policies, led him far in Ohio politics. He served in the state Senate and as Lieutenant Governor, and successfully ran for Governor. He delivered the nominating parcel out for President Taft at the 1912 Republican Convention. In 1914 he was elected to the Senate, which he found "a very pleasant place." An Ohio admirer, Harry Daugherty, began to promote Harding for the 19 20 Republican nomination because, he later explained, "He looked like a President." Thus a group of Senators, taking control of the 1920 Republican Convention when the principal candidates deadlocked, turned to Harding. He won the Presidential election by an unprecedented landslide of 60 percent of the popular vote. Republicans in Congress easily got the Presidents signature on their bills. They eliminated wartime controls and cut taxes, established a Federal budget system, restored the high protective tariff, and imposed tight limitations upon immigration. By 1923 the postwar depression seemed to be giving way to a new surge of prosperity, and newspapers hailed Harding as a wise statesman carrying out his campaign promise--"Less government in business and more business in government.