The ugliness of the big man: the most mediocre president - Harding

Harding

It is simply appalling for a mediocre person to be president. However, this is a fact after all.

In the 1920 US election, the famous "mediocre president" warren Harding (1865-1923) was put on the presidency. As a politician, Harding did not have any outstanding character and ability. The most important reason why he became president is simply because he is an authentic mediocre person.

Current events make heroes. Originally, mediocre people will also change their personal life trajectory and become "heroes" due to some kind of luck. From the appearance, Harding is tall, handsome, has a loud voice, is well dressed, and has a "big man" demeanor. Unfortunately, the golden jade is out there, and the defeat is in it. Before he became president of the United States, he was a senator for several years. He was an insignificant figure in the Senate, often absent from meetings. He was clearly uninterested in politics, and what attracted him was playing golf, playing cards, drinking alcohol, and engaging in various social activities. For him, his interest in hanging out with the drinkers and cards was far greater than attending the boring meeting of the Senate. He's also a playboy who's used to getting into trouble. During his tenure as a senator, he had an illicit relationship with two women. In 1917 he seduced a young girl 30 years younger than himself, Nam Britton, who gave birth to an illegitimate daughter 2 years later. Harding even fooled around with the woman in his senatorial office because Harding said he wanted to see and get Nan Bridgen at work. Earlier, in 1905, Harding had become the lover of his good friend Philip's wife, Carrie. Harding and Carrie's affair lasted at least until the 1920 election. To avoid the ties in his presidential campaign, Republican leaders gave her $27,000 in benefits and arranged for her and her husband to travel to the East for free.

The domestic situation before the 1920 election provided a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Harding's lucky election: the majority of American voters at that time were extremely dissatisfied with the ambitious domestic and foreign policies of the former president Democrat Wilson, they hated the unstable life brought about by Wilson dragging the United States into the world war, and they longed for the new president to promote the post-war resumption of work and the re-establishment of normal social life, bringing stability to national life. Harding's Republican Party is adapting to the demands of voters, hoping to select an inactive presidential candidate within the party. At the Republican party's decision on the presidential nomination, the original two candidates with comparable status were deadlocked, so some people pushed Harding out. As a "dark horse," Harding was overjoyed by his nomination as a presidential candidate, and in order to cater to the preferences of American voters, he proposed a campaign slogan back to "normalization." He declared: "What the United States needs right now is not heroic acts, but healing wounds; Not social reform, but restoration; Not incitement, but adjustment; Not surgery, but rest; Not exciting, but calm and not experimental, but stable; Not involved in international affairs, but at home success ... ,,... · This less spectacular "grand theory" had an "astonishing" effect in the 1920 election, and most voters were willing to support the inactive presidential candidate, which earned him the most popular vote since 1820 - 60.4% of the votes cast by him, and he was overwhelmingly elected the twenty-ninth president of the United States. This result is a backlash against the United States, which has a typical Western democracy, and will inevitably drag American politics into a dark period.

After coming to power, Harding repeatedly and religiously expressed his desire to be a good president. "I don't want to be a great president, but maybe I can be the most beloved president and stay in people's memory," he said. But he soon found himself incapable of lifting the heavy burden of the president. He privately admitted that he was "a man of limited ability from a small town" and that he "went to jail and couldn't escape" when he became president, and had to stay in this position and suffer. At one point he lamented to White House Secretary Jude: "You're college-educated, right?" I don't know how to deal with the taxation problem, who will deal with it. There must be a book in the world that deals with this problem, and reading it there will give me a score in my heart. But I don't know where the book is. If I find it, I may not understand it. We must find a man on our land who can weigh the pros and cons while at the same time grasping the facts. Maybe he wasn't at that university, he was at that university. But I don't know where to find him, or who he is or how I met him. My God, for someone like me, this is hell. "

Ascending to a high position, had a panicked mood determined to fully "embody the will of the voters." He did not allow the United States to get too deep into European affairs and not to join the "League of Nations"; he no longer monopolized power, as Wilson did, but left the power to the cabinet members to do their own thing. On the one hand, he allowed the agents of monopoly capital such as the automobile and oil industries to occupy important positions in his own government, appointing Charles Evans Hughes, an agent of Mobil Oil Company, as Secretary of State, John Wicks, an agent of Morgan Company, as Secretary of War, Herbert Hoover, a big capitalist who has close ties with the Morgan Electric Trust, as Minister of Commerce, and Andrew Mellon, the owner of the Alcoa Trust and a financial oligarch, as Secretary of the Treasury, and vigorously took care of the interests of monopoly capital groups in the general policy. On the other hand, he also said that he did not forget his old friends, and pulled some of his drinking friends into the government, such as the appointment of Albert Fore as minister of the interior, Harry Doherty as minister of justice, and Charles Forbes as the director of the veterans bureau.

As a mediocre president, the power group set up by Harding is naturally nepotism, unclear governance, corruption and darkness, and endangering the people. Soon after, Harding regretted his unambitious approach. He found that his unsuccessful friends, after gaining power, had frantically engaged in private fraud, and thus became the object of investigation and prosecution.

Cases of corruption and malfeasance among officials in the Harding administration are alarming, and some were exposed during the reign of President Harding. Forbes, the director of the Veterans Bureau, was charged with embezzling military supplies, stealing medicines from anarchists, and taking kickbacks in trading transactions, and was forced to resign, and was soon shot and killed by his assistants; Attorney General Doherty uses his power to embezzle public funds and accept bribes; Doherty's personal aide, Jesse Smith, was prosecuted for accepting bribes on behalf of Thomas Miller, the head of U.S. foreign property. The bribery case of Interior Minister Faure, which was exposed after the death of President Harding, is even more infamous. In 1922, Fowl took advantage of his position to illegally lease an oil field in Wyoming called "Teapot Lid" to The Mammoth Oil Company, from which he received a bribe of $300,000. He also took a $100,000 bribe by selling the oil fields in Elka Hills, California, to Pan American Oil. Fore was later sentenced to 10 years in prison by the Supreme Court, becoming the first cabinet member in U.S. history to be imprisoned during his tenure.

These "friends of the day" made President Harding restless. In order to get rid of the mental stimulation that came from it, Harding decided to travel to the western region. In August 1923, President Harding, who was on a trip, died suddenly due to a simultaneous attack of cerebral hemorrhage and myocardial infarction. His death was caused not so much by illness as by concerns about the scandals in his government.

Most Americans believe that making Harding, a completely incompetent man, president is a tragedy for The United States and for himself. For the United States, Harding's rule led to the "great moral collapse" of the 20s; For Harding himself, a two-and-a-half-year presidency brought tension, fear and early death. In the United States today, it is recognized that Harding is the "worst president" of the 45 presidents in American history. It can be said that this is a tragedy of American democracy.