Pundit needs to know that Harding was bold and enlightened on civil rights & civil liberties and ushered in peace, prosperity, bipartisanship, cautious internationalism, and innovative management
Show me the slightest reverence toward Wilson and I will assume nothing coming from you is of any value. Khan will certainly not accept any criticism of his holy idols.
Does the "you" in the first sentence refer to me, specifically, or to "you" as a synonym for "one" or "someone." From the wording, it's ambiguous whether you're criticizing my article or Kahn's or both. I think I know the answer, but let me know.
Just finished Jon Meacham’s bio of Andrew Jackson. Don’t know if Meacham is full of “high-blown gibberish” - could be, or not, nevertheless, I was amazed at the parallels between Jackson and Trump. Both fighting for the people and against the entrenched elite, both determined to dismantle the central bank, and both accused of being uncouth ruffians when what they really were/are are men dedicated to truth, justice and the American way. Supermen!
Well, Jackson is the most frequently cited antecedent for Trump. We'll see how it all turns out four years from now--or at least we'll have a pretty good idea.
Historians who write in the passive voice weaken their argument, especially when they fail to identify the actor. Kahn does this consistently: "three Presidents deemed failures"--by whom? "how it was seen at the time"--by whom? "usually interpreted as"--by whom? It's the historian's equivalent of the politicians' "Mistakes were made."
Fascinating read. Much enjoyed. From a historical perspective, we live in the most interesting of times. If we throw off the New Deal (whether the creation of Hoover or FDR is irrelevant) the US economy may be poised for an astounding run.
It always amazes me how often people gripe about dealing with government bureaucrats, yet don't seem to cotton to the evils of government bureaucrats. I sometimes think they are afraid to admit that government sucks because that would be an admission they are too cowardly and/or busy to confront it. Much easier to just get along and not buck the system. My favorite example is when freeway traffic suddenly slows down to below the speed limit when a cop car enters from an on ramp. It doesn't always happen, just often enough to annoy me.
Well, there are plenty of fantastic people working for the government. But that 's a wholly different question from "How many people ought to be working for the government?"
as a side note, Ben Hecht , who was a foreign correspondent for a Chicago paper, says that when he returned to the US in the mid 20s from Germany, sorry for this run on sentence, He had a meeting with Coolidge. A. he was very surprised to find that Coolidge was following what was going on closely. B. He wanted to know what Hecht thought since he had been there for a number of years. So much for one of our underated Presidents.
Interesting! Sometime, I'll recount a story I was privy to. A Democratic appointee who stayed in office under George W. Bush. Bush had a full day of round-the-globe traveling, followed by a full afternoon and evening of official events upon landing. At bedtime, he apologetically handed a thoroughly exhausted Bush a thick briefing book on a highly technical subject. He said they had a very early meeting with experts in the field and hoped Bush might flip through the book to at least have some familiarity with the topics. When they arrived, Bush appeared to have absorbed the whole book in fine-grained detail. He more or less took charge of the meeting. This appointee--a Democratic Party activist--was bowled over. Afterward, they established a close working relationship for the duration of 43's presidency. I'll have to talk with my source about how much detail I can reveal.
One of the best reviews of the weaknesses of the New Deal is Amity Schlaes's "The Forgotten Man." She argues that the cause of the "depression within a depression" in 1938 was regime uncertainty. No one could make long term plans when FDR and his party kept changing the rules in the middle of the game. She also wrote a fine biography of Calvin Coolidge.
It's amazing how thoroughly Harding's reputation was trashed. I recently read Joe Posnanski's otherwise excellent "The Baseball 100," and in one of his vignettes he takes a gratuitous swipe at "the horrible President Harding" (or words to that effect). Completely irrelevant to the story he was telling, and had an "as we all know" wink to it.
A lot of the success of the Harding and Coolidge administrations were due to Herbert Hoover, we were taught in school. So much of the modern USA was codified and administered in the 1920s: Communications, Highways, Air Transportation. Perhaps when Hoover was elevated to the Presidency he was an example of the Peter Principle: you are promoted until you reach a level where you become incompetent....
My understanding of the early history of radio is that amateurs were allocating the frequency spectrum fairly well in the early days, courts were starting to develop common law around property rights in frequencies, and then the commercial networks started nosing around and found Hoover was happy to oblige them by making it a regulatory interest run by the network boys. I have also read that in Italy, for at least some spell in modern times, had and may still have no or little FM regulation of low power transmitters. One book was (I think) Rebels On The Air by Jesse Walker, but there were some other sources too, long forgotten. I probably have some of the details wrong.
Interesting. I'll have to look into that. The only time I've written about that subject was in the context of the infamous Dr. John Romulus Brinkley, who essentially invented talk radio and made the careers of half the midcentury country music giants to push his particular form of medical quackery. (https://graboyes.substack.com/p/goat-glands-versus-polio-vaccine) As I wrote, "To attract a larger audience, he constructed what was likely the most powerful radio station in American history, with a range stretching from Canada to Mexico—powerful enough to be audible on bedsprings, barbed-wire fences, and dental hardware." When the FCC antecedent shut him down, he moved the station to Mexico.Finally, the State Department, AMA, and FCC managed to shut him down.
Absolutely. He was a successful engineer around the world. And he mobilized massive resources to feed the starving of Europe after WWI. He seems to have originated the parental hectoring technique of telling kids, "Eat your peas, Junior. There are millions of starving people in Europe who would love to have those peas." Coolidge kept him around but found him annoying. Coolidge called him "Wonder Boy." Here's a nice description: https://hoover.blogs.archives.gov/2021/03/03/wonder-boy-herbert-hoover-as-secretary-of-commerce/ When you think of it, it's pretty strange to imagine either party nominating a Secretary of Commerce for President.
Great stuff as usual. I’ve always thought that Warren Harding was unfairly criticized. And his Interior Secretary, Albert Fall, the original ‘fall guy’, and the whole Teapot Dome affair, is worth a column, too.
I read a book about the scandal years ago. As I recall, Sinclair, the oil magnate with those dinosaur-sign gas stations, bankrolled much of the Harding campaign, and the quid pro quo was, he got his man appointed Interior Secretary. When the scandal broke, it turned out that Fall had left a trail of consecutively numbered T-Bills that he had cashed and used for some expensive improvements and new breeding stock on his ranch in Nevada. Hence, they hung the whole thing on him, and he became the original fall guy.
Terrific piece; the idolatry of Wilson over the years is truly baffling. IMO, the single most disastrous foreign policy decision in American history was involvement in WW I.
Amity Schlaes's biography of Coolidge makes similar points re the pre-Hoover '20s.
Very good. Wilson was an evil genius, unfortunately for the country. And would that Teddy Roosevelt had just rested on his laurels and let Taft have a second term. Much bad stuff cold have been avoided.
Yeah, but as Alice Roosevelt Longworth said, Teddy had to be the bride at every wedding, the baby at every christening, and the corpse at every funeral.
Credit where it's due. President Wilson opposed Prohibition and vetoed its original form, the Volstead Act. Congress overrode his veto and proposed the Eighteenth Amendment, a public policy disaster. On the other hand, Wilson supported women's suffrage and lobbied the Senate to pass it.
I wouldn't blame "tenured ideologues." That conjures up the wrong kind of image. The people who fostered the view of American history you're arguing against are mostly dead. This is a fight over what I would call the Arthur Schlesinger Jr. view of American history, which I was taught in high school in the 1970s.
Chris Cox's recent bio of Wilson, which uses women's suffrage as a narrative thread, is a must-read if you're interested in that evil man: https://amzn.to/3F6yazd
Well, I think Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., is alive an well and living inside the brains of most presidential historians. Last year, the ever-predictable, highly publicized rankings came out, and I noted that they kept to that same 90-year-old pattern (https://graboyes.substack.com/p/polls-pols-and-poli-sci). As I noted, the self-described Republican and conservative scholars voting in the poll considered Wilson, Clinton, Carter, and Obama to be greater presidents than Coolidge (or Harding). The Cox book looks interesting.
Show me the slightest reverence toward Wilson and I will assume nothing coming from you is of any value. Khan will certainly not accept any criticism of his holy idols.
Does the "you" in the first sentence refer to me, specifically, or to "you" as a synonym for "one" or "someone." From the wording, it's ambiguous whether you're criticizing my article or Kahn's or both. I think I know the answer, but let me know.
Sorry for the poor wording; if you did adduce Khan, you are correct. If I have a criticism for you, it is that you treated him too kindly.
I'm a kind fellow--much like Warren Harding. :)
Just finished Jon Meacham’s bio of Andrew Jackson. Don’t know if Meacham is full of “high-blown gibberish” - could be, or not, nevertheless, I was amazed at the parallels between Jackson and Trump. Both fighting for the people and against the entrenched elite, both determined to dismantle the central bank, and both accused of being uncouth ruffians when what they really were/are are men dedicated to truth, justice and the American way. Supermen!
Well, Jackson is the most frequently cited antecedent for Trump. We'll see how it all turns out four years from now--or at least we'll have a pretty good idea.
Historians who write in the passive voice weaken their argument, especially when they fail to identify the actor. Kahn does this consistently: "three Presidents deemed failures"--by whom? "how it was seen at the time"--by whom? "usually interpreted as"--by whom? It's the historian's equivalent of the politicians' "Mistakes were made."
It is often seen that way. :)
Fascinating read. Much enjoyed. From a historical perspective, we live in the most interesting of times. If we throw off the New Deal (whether the creation of Hoover or FDR is irrelevant) the US economy may be poised for an astounding run.
It always amazes me how often people gripe about dealing with government bureaucrats, yet don't seem to cotton to the evils of government bureaucrats. I sometimes think they are afraid to admit that government sucks because that would be an admission they are too cowardly and/or busy to confront it. Much easier to just get along and not buck the system. My favorite example is when freeway traffic suddenly slows down to below the speed limit when a cop car enters from an on ramp. It doesn't always happen, just often enough to annoy me.
Well, there are plenty of fantastic people working for the government. But that 's a wholly different question from "How many people ought to be working for the government?"
Glad you enjoyed it. These are interesting times.
as a side note, Ben Hecht , who was a foreign correspondent for a Chicago paper, says that when he returned to the US in the mid 20s from Germany, sorry for this run on sentence, He had a meeting with Coolidge. A. he was very surprised to find that Coolidge was following what was going on closely. B. He wanted to know what Hecht thought since he had been there for a number of years. So much for one of our underated Presidents.
Interesting! Sometime, I'll recount a story I was privy to. A Democratic appointee who stayed in office under George W. Bush. Bush had a full day of round-the-globe traveling, followed by a full afternoon and evening of official events upon landing. At bedtime, he apologetically handed a thoroughly exhausted Bush a thick briefing book on a highly technical subject. He said they had a very early meeting with experts in the field and hoped Bush might flip through the book to at least have some familiarity with the topics. When they arrived, Bush appeared to have absorbed the whole book in fine-grained detail. He more or less took charge of the meeting. This appointee--a Democratic Party activist--was bowled over. Afterward, they established a close working relationship for the duration of 43's presidency. I'll have to talk with my source about how much detail I can reveal.
One of the best reviews of the weaknesses of the New Deal is Amity Schlaes's "The Forgotten Man." She argues that the cause of the "depression within a depression" in 1938 was regime uncertainty. No one could make long term plans when FDR and his party kept changing the rules in the middle of the game. She also wrote a fine biography of Calvin Coolidge.
Shlaes's books are masterpieces. And, yes, she also focused on Hoover's proto-New Deal and the havoc it caused.
It's amazing how thoroughly Harding's reputation was trashed. I recently read Joe Posnanski's otherwise excellent "The Baseball 100," and in one of his vignettes he takes a gratuitous swipe at "the horrible President Harding" (or words to that effect). Completely irrelevant to the story he was telling, and had an "as we all know" wink to it.
I'd have torn out the page, but it was an e-book.
Yup. People do that.
A lot of the success of the Harding and Coolidge administrations were due to Herbert Hoover, we were taught in school. So much of the modern USA was codified and administered in the 1920s: Communications, Highways, Air Transportation. Perhaps when Hoover was elevated to the Presidency he was an example of the Peter Principle: you are promoted until you reach a level where you become incompetent....
My understanding of the early history of radio is that amateurs were allocating the frequency spectrum fairly well in the early days, courts were starting to develop common law around property rights in frequencies, and then the commercial networks started nosing around and found Hoover was happy to oblige them by making it a regulatory interest run by the network boys. I have also read that in Italy, for at least some spell in modern times, had and may still have no or little FM regulation of low power transmitters. One book was (I think) Rebels On The Air by Jesse Walker, but there were some other sources too, long forgotten. I probably have some of the details wrong.
Interesting. I'll have to look into that. The only time I've written about that subject was in the context of the infamous Dr. John Romulus Brinkley, who essentially invented talk radio and made the careers of half the midcentury country music giants to push his particular form of medical quackery. (https://graboyes.substack.com/p/goat-glands-versus-polio-vaccine) As I wrote, "To attract a larger audience, he constructed what was likely the most powerful radio station in American history, with a range stretching from Canada to Mexico—powerful enough to be audible on bedsprings, barbed-wire fences, and dental hardware." When the FCC antecedent shut him down, he moved the station to Mexico.Finally, the State Department, AMA, and FCC managed to shut him down.
Absolutely. He was a successful engineer around the world. And he mobilized massive resources to feed the starving of Europe after WWI. He seems to have originated the parental hectoring technique of telling kids, "Eat your peas, Junior. There are millions of starving people in Europe who would love to have those peas." Coolidge kept him around but found him annoying. Coolidge called him "Wonder Boy." Here's a nice description: https://hoover.blogs.archives.gov/2021/03/03/wonder-boy-herbert-hoover-as-secretary-of-commerce/ When you think of it, it's pretty strange to imagine either party nominating a Secretary of Commerce for President.
Coolidge on Hoover: "That man has offered me unsolicited advice for the past six years, most of it bad".
Great stuff as usual. I’ve always thought that Warren Harding was unfairly criticized. And his Interior Secretary, Albert Fall, the original ‘fall guy’, and the whole Teapot Dome affair, is worth a column, too.
I'll put it on my list of things to look into. I don't know how culpable or not Fall was.
I read a book about the scandal years ago. As I recall, Sinclair, the oil magnate with those dinosaur-sign gas stations, bankrolled much of the Harding campaign, and the quid pro quo was, he got his man appointed Interior Secretary. When the scandal broke, it turned out that Fall had left a trail of consecutively numbered T-Bills that he had cashed and used for some expensive improvements and new breeding stock on his ranch in Nevada. Hence, they hung the whole thing on him, and he became the original fall guy.
Terrific piece; the idolatry of Wilson over the years is truly baffling. IMO, the single most disastrous foreign policy decision in American history was involvement in WW I.
Amity Schlaes's biography of Coolidge makes similar points re the pre-Hoover '20s.
Amity is the best.
I wonder how many people know much about Calvin Coolidge besides that Lina Lamont made more money than him. ("PUT TOGETHER!")
I didn't even have to look that up. :)
Very good. Wilson was an evil genius, unfortunately for the country. And would that Teddy Roosevelt had just rested on his laurels and let Taft have a second term. Much bad stuff cold have been avoided.
Yeah, but as Alice Roosevelt Longworth said, Teddy had to be the bride at every wedding, the baby at every christening, and the corpse at every funeral.
Credit where it's due. President Wilson opposed Prohibition and vetoed its original form, the Volstead Act. Congress overrode his veto and proposed the Eighteenth Amendment, a public policy disaster. On the other hand, Wilson supported women's suffrage and lobbied the Senate to pass it.
And we have our curmudgeon award for the evening. :)
I wouldn't blame "tenured ideologues." That conjures up the wrong kind of image. The people who fostered the view of American history you're arguing against are mostly dead. This is a fight over what I would call the Arthur Schlesinger Jr. view of American history, which I was taught in high school in the 1970s.
Chris Cox's recent bio of Wilson, which uses women's suffrage as a narrative thread, is a must-read if you're interested in that evil man: https://amzn.to/3F6yazd
Well, I think Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., is alive an well and living inside the brains of most presidential historians. Last year, the ever-predictable, highly publicized rankings came out, and I noted that they kept to that same 90-year-old pattern (https://graboyes.substack.com/p/polls-pols-and-poli-sci). As I noted, the self-described Republican and conservative scholars voting in the poll considered Wilson, Clinton, Carter, and Obama to be greater presidents than Coolidge (or Harding). The Cox book looks interesting.
What a fascinating essay - learned so much. Thank you.
Thank YOU! Happy to abide.
Thank you for these detailed and very fair comparisons of these Presidents.
President Harding had many policies that Americans should be proud of.
His response to the Russian Famine of 2019 is an excellent example:
https://www.stateoftheunionhistory.com/2015/09/1921-warren-g-harding-russian-famine-of.html
His speech in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1921, where he spoke out for racial equality in the center of tghe Deep South:
https://voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/warren-g-harding-address-at-birmingham-speech-text/
https://www.politico.com/story/2009/10/president-harding-condemns-lynching-oct-21-1921-028512
There are many more examples.
Great examples. I had never seen his statement on the Russian famine before. Thanks.