-Caveat Lector-
I was the one who mentioned my belief that Harding was the best US
president of the 20th century. I should have answered the question of
why I thought he was the best president of the 20th century sooner, but
with the hundreds of e-mails I am getting each day, it fell through the
cracks. First, I should explain that my ranking of Harding as the best
is partly because I consider all the others to have been pretty poor.
Several accomplishments of other president were mentioned such as
leading the country out of the depression, building the interstate, and
pushing civil rights legisilation. I believe that the first refers to
FDR. My studies have lead me to believe that his policies extended the
depression (1937 was the year of the highest unemployment) and did great
harm to our form of government. He put the country into bankruptcy and
instituted emergeny rule which has never been ended. His war record was
not much better. He may have purposely allowed the attack of Pearl
Harbor (at the minimum he did not sufficiently warn the commanders of
the diplomatic situation). Though the enemy was eventually defeated, his
negotiations with Stalin left more people enslaved then were previous to
the war. By your referral to the Interstate, I believe you are writing
about Eisenhower. He was certainly a fine president in many ways.
However, the growth of the CIA and the military complex were troubling
even to him. While the Interstate was a great accomplishment in many
ways, it would have been preferable to me if these had been built by
private interests. Especially troubling about this system is the way it
is used to force states to follow federal dictates through threat of
loss of road money. This was all piggy backed upon the Interstates. As
far as civil rights legislation. You must be referring to Johnson. While
I also have trouble with this legislation because of its federalizing
influence, its relative merits are not necessary for me to disqualify in
my own mind Johnson as a better president. I only have to remind myself
that it was Johnson who expanded the Viet Nam War.
So why do I think so highly of Harding? Primarily it is because of
two aspects of his presidency (and the extension of these under his
successor at his death). First, he reversed the expansion of state
power that had been so great under the Wilson administration. Though he
did not rid the country of the Federal Reserve or the income taxes
introduced by Wilson, he was able to return to their owners many
industries that the federal government had taken over during the war.
This enabled a great recovery of the economy and a return to “normalcy”
at a crucial time. The second, and very much related to the first, was
his ending of a strike which threatened to destroy the US economy. You
need to remember that this was just after the Communist takeover of
Russia and many throughout the world believed that communism was the
wave of the future. Many intellectuals in this country were avowed
communists and there were at the time even several US senators
(primarily out west) who were sympathetic (if not card carrying members)
to the communist economic theories. The strike took place near the
beginning of his brief presidency and caused the deaths of almost a
hundred people, hundreds of injuries, and the loss of much property. It
started as a railroad strike, but spread to other industries. It was
designed to force the government to nationalize the railroads and would
probably have succeeded if it had not been for Harding. His
attorney-general Daugherty filed an injunction with a federal judge in
Chicago which forced the union heads to take responsability for the
violence that was occurring under their auspices. The threat of the
injunction caused a quick end to the strike and soon the country
returned to increasing productivity which lasted until the depression.
It was because of the defeat of their plan that the communists have
turned their hatred towards Harding and why his chief claim to fame is
his supposed sexual philandering and the irregularities of his
administration. (Much of these charges are based upon rumors and several
of those who testified against his administration later reversed
themselves or were proven to have been lying (the author of one of the
popular anti-Harding books of the time even later renounced her own book
when she came to believe that her primary source had been lying).
One other thing that impressed me about Harding was his pardonning of
the head of the Socialist Party (Eugene Debs) who had been put in prison
by Wilson. He had been put in prison for a ten year term for obstructing
the war effort by encouraging draft dodging. Wilson, of course, could
have pardoned him ealier, soon after the war had ended. However, it was
Harding who took an interest in his case and Daugherty who handled it
and recommended his release.
best wishes, Howard Davis
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