So I was in the library yesterday looking at books on Warren G. Harding. Just need a few good quotes, you know, to patch together some background information. I came across this book published in 1920, edited by Will Hays called Rededicating America: Life and Recent Speeches of Warren G. Harding. In other words, it was as much a publicity piece for the Republican candidate as it was a historical document. Hays was chair of the Republican National Committee, and after the 1920 election, Harding rewarded Hays with the job of Postmaster General.
If you have someone besides George W. Bush in the running for "Worse President Ever," then Harding has to be at the top of the list. Aside from being inducted into the KKK in the White House's "Green Room," Harding surrounded himself with other criminals. His Attorney General, Harry Daugherty, used the Justice Department to run bootlegging and intimidation rackets, as well as to funnel blackmail payoffs to Harding's numerous mistresses. His Secretary of the Interior, Albert Fall, is most notorious for the Teapot Dome scandal. Harding, Nixon, and Bush. A corruption trifecta.
Anyway, this book of Harding's speeches, compiled by Hays, really lays out the isolationism and xenophobia inherent in Harding's political outlook. Harding rolls out the whole "America First!" wagon on every occasion, and it's fairly clear that his vision of America excludes the poor huddled masses that the Statue of Liberty supposedly beckons. A very disgusting man, and reading his words leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth.
Thankfully, I only need about three good quotes and I can quit him.
5 comments:
Just saying "no, thank you!" to graft transcends time.
Wow. I didn't know about the KKK and Warren Harding. Wow.
The evidence supporting Harding's Klan involvement is dubious at best. He even spoke out against lynching.
It may be true that Harding paid lip service to anti-lynching, his administration did nothing about it. It shouldn’t be forgotten that even FDR, seen by many as a progressive, hemmed and hawed and twiddled his thumbs over the lynching question more than a decade later (and it was his predecessor, Democrat Woodrow Wilson, who’d enforced segregation in the federal government). However, W.E.B. Du Bois saw through Harding’s rhetoric and denounced both the major parties as worthless on race. Evidence for Harding’s involvement in the Klan is, like most history, not ironclad, but Wade’s The Fiery Cross (1987) makes that claim, as does the Klan itself (not that I really trust the KKK as an honest source – it’d be a feather in their cap to have a Klansman as President). Also, it shouldn’t be forgotten that Senator Byrd of W.V. was a Klansman in his youth.
I've been a lazy blogger lately, but whenever I read you, it makes me want to come back into the fold.
Check your email. I want to tell you something.
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