It is rare to find anything meaningful written about America's 29th president, Warren G. Harding, even on the internet. Rather than spend a nickel worth of time digging for any truth of Harding, he is often the subject of ridicule and conspiracy theories. Today, I aim to address an outrageous falsehood that has stood the test of time.
My main source is John W. Dean's biography, Warren G. Harding. It is a well-written biography that seeks to find the truth about the Harding Administration. It addresses the corruption of bad apples in the administration that gave Harding a bad name, although he had nothing personally to do with any major scandal that arose out of his term.
It turns out that Harding was a beloved president throughout his presidency who fought an inherited economic backlash and lead America back into a peaceful foreign policy. And yet, many historians consider him to be our worst president. On what basis, we may never know. We can speculate that historians hold a high cloud in the sky for almost any president who led us into a bloody war or a a grand government giveaway. It's fair to suggest that by large, historians willfully disregard any president without a New Deal or a World War in mind.
It has been falsely rumored that Florence Harding, his wife, destroyed all of her husband's papers. True, she destroyed many in the name of protecting his legacy, for as laughable as that may seem. The papers that remained were kept by the Harding Memorial Association until the hundredth anniversary of Warren Harding's birth. They were then transfered to the Ohio Historical Society. In 1970, they had been microfilmed. The documents provide solid evidence that contradicts much of what has been propagated by Harding's detractors.
Without evidence, some sources continue to assert that Harding was inducted into the KKK during his presidency. However, many other sources rightfully admit that this claim lacks evidence. There is no reasonable doubt that could suggest otherwise that the revival of the Klan was due to the racism of Woodrow Wilson.
As it turns out, Harding met several times with James Weldon Johnson of the NAACP, which gave black voters hope that their grievances would be addressed. At their meeting on April 4, 1921, the two of them spoke of minority unrest, due to policies that led to such injustices as lynching, disenfranchisement, and peonage (partial slavery to work off debts). In a special address to Congress on April 12, 1921, President Harding called for an end to lynching. The antilynching legislation passed through the House. Sadly, the legislation was stopped in the Senate by a filibuster from Southern Democrats.
Johnson pleaded for Harding to rehire blacks back into government jobs that were thrown out by the Wilson Administration. Wilson relentlessly excluded and segregated blacks from serving in such positions. Harding - the laughably accused "Klansman" - appointed qualified blacks to high-level posts in the Departments of Labor and Interior and a black man as minister to Liberia. He also filled three additional posts with black Americans. Within six months in office, Harding placed 140 additional blacks in lesser posts, not to mention roughly 24% of the District of Columbia's post office employees were black.
In hopes to invite blacks and Southerners into the GOP, Harding gave a daring speech on civil rights on October 26, 1921 at Woodrow Wilson Park in Burmingham, Alabama. The audience was large and segregated between blacks and whites. In Dean's book, it is considered "no doubt the most daring and controversial speech of Harding's political career."
Harding addresses...
"When I suggest the possibility of economic equality between the races, I mean it precisely the same way and to the same extent that I would mean it if I spoke of equality of economic opportunity as between members of the same race. In each case I would mean equality proportional to the honest capacities and deserts of the individual...I would say let the black man vote when he is fit to vote; prohibit the white man voting when he is unfit to vote...Whether you like it or not, unless our democracy is a lie you must stand for that equality."This gutsy speech received mixed reviews. It outraged many white Southerners, while it gained praise from W. E. B. Du Bois and even the "back to Africa" advocate, Marcus Garvey.
An honest look at the history of Harding's administration can produce shocking discoveries, indeed.
When Randolph Downes served as editor of the Northwest Ohio Quarterly, he wrote an article entitled "The Harding Muckfest: Warren G. Harding - Chief Victim of the Muck-for-Muck's Sake Writers and Readers."
He concluded:
"It is saddening to relate this perversion, this poisoning of the wells of American history. There is much that we must unlearn lest we become hypnotized with false learning that is worse than ignorance...It is high time for a painstakingly honest and scholarly appraisal of the life of Warren G. Harding."
