666 Chapter 25 From “Normalcy” to Economic Collapse: 1921–1933
Warren G. Harding looked presidential, and his voice was suitably
deep and resonant. Yet he lacked mental agility and discipline.
Republican Senator Frank Brandegee explained Harding’s nomination
by proclaiming him “the best of the second-raters,” and thus the
natural compromise between contending factions in the party.
Harding and “Normalcy”
Warren G. Harding was a newspaperman by trade,
publisher of the Marion Star, with previous political
experience as a legislator and lieutenant governor in
his home state, Ohio, and as a U.S. senator. No presi-
dent, before or since, looked more like a statesman;
few were less suited for running the country.
Harding’s genial nature and lack of strong convic-
tions made him attractive to many of the politicos
after eight years of the headstrong Wilson. During the
campaign he exasperated sophisticates by his igno-
rance and imprecision. He coined the famous vulgar-
ismnormalcyas a substitute for the word normality;
referred, during a speech before a group of actors, to
Shakespeare’s play Charles the Fifth; and committed
numerous other blunders.“Why does he not get a pri-
vate secretary who can clothe... his ‘ideas’ in the lan-
guage customarily used by educated men?” one
Boston gentleman demanded of Senator Lodge, who
was strongly supporting Harding. Lodge, ordinarily a
stickler for linguistic exactitude, replied acidly that he
found Harding a paragon by comparison with Wilson,
“a man who wrote English very well without ever say-
ing anything.” A large majority of the voters, untrou-
bled by the candidate’s lack of erudition, shared
Lodge’s confidence that Harding would be a vast
improvement over Wilson.
Harding has often been characterized as lazy and
incompetent. In fact, he was hardworking and politi-
cally shrewd; his major weaknesses were indecisiveness
and an unwillingness to offend. He turned the most
important government departments over to efficient
administrators of impeccable reputation: Charles
Evans Hughes, the secretary of state; Herbert Hoover
in the Commerce Department; Andrew Mellon in the
Treasury; and Henry C. Wallace in Agriculture. He
kept track of what these men did but seldom initiated
policy in their areas. However, Harding gave many
lesser offices, and a few of major importance, to the
unsavory “Ohio Gang” headed by Harry M.
Daugherty, whom he made attorney general.
The president was too kindly, too well-intentioned,
and too unambitious to be dishonest. He appointed
corrupt officials like Daugherty, Secretary of the
Interior Albert B. Fall, Director of the Mint “Ed”
Scobey, and Charles R. Forbes, head of the new
Veterans Bureau, out of a sense of personal obligation
or because they were old friends who shared his taste
for poker and liquor. Before 1921 he had enjoyed hold-
ing office; he was adept at mouthing platitudes, a loyal
party man who seldom questioned the decisions of his
superiors. In the lonely eminence of the White House,
whence, as President Harry Truman later said, the buck
cannot be passed, he found only misery. “The White
House is a prison,” he complained. “I can’t get away
from the men who dog my footsteps. I am in jail.”“The Business of the United States is Business”
Secretary of the Treasury Mellon, multimillionaire
banker and master of the aluminum industry, domi-
nated the administration’s domestic policy. Mellon set
out to lower the taxes of the rich, reverse the low-tariff
policies of the Wilson period, and reduce the national
debt by cutting expenses and administrating the gov-
ernment more efficiently.
In principle his program had considerable merit.
Tax rates designed to check consumer spending in time
of war and to raise the huge sum needed to defeat the
Central Powers were undoubtedly hampering eco-
nomic expansion in the early 1920s. Certain industries
that had sprung up in the United States during the
Great War were suffering from German and Japanese
competition now that the fighting had ended. Rigid
regulation necessary during a national crisis could well
be dispensed with in peacetime. And efficiency and
economy in government are always desirable.
Yet Mellon carried his policies to unreasonable
extremes. He proposed eliminating inheritance taxes
and reducing the tax on high incomes by two-thirds,
but he opposed lower rates for taxpayers earning less