Warren G. Harding Biography Quotes 5 Report mistakes

5 Quotes
Occup.	President
From	USA
Born	November 2, 1865
Died	August 2, 1923
Aged	57 years

Early Life and Education
Warren Gamaliel Harding was born on November 2, 1865, near Blooming Grove, Ohio, to George Tryon Harding and Phoebe Elizabeth Harding. His parents were both involved in healing professions, with his father a physician and his mother a midwife and teacher, and they encouraged their son to read widely and work hard. The family moved within Ohio during his youth, eventually settling near Marion. Harding attended the small Ohio Central College in Iberia, where he edited a student newspaper and learned the craft that would define his early career. From a young age he worked in print shops, acquiring the practical skills of typesetting, editing, and managing a press that later sustained his rise.

Newspaper Publisher and Community Leader
After college, Harding worked as a printer and reporter before joining with partners to purchase a struggling weekly in Marion in 1884. He transformed it into the daily Marion Star, becoming its editor and, in time, sole owner. The Star prospered under his genial leadership and evenhanded editorial tone. On July 8, 1891, he married Florence Kling DeWolfe, a formidable and business-savvy partner who took on circulation and financial management. Florence Harding sharpened the paper's operations and protected it during Harding's frequent absences in politics. The newspaper connected Harding to civic groups and local business leaders and gave him a platform to cultivate a moderate, pro-growth public image that would carry him into elected office.

Rise in Ohio Politics
Harding entered public life as a Republican orator and organizer at the turn of the century. He won a seat in the Ohio Senate in 1899, serving two terms with a reputation for courtesy and coalition building. In 1903 he was elected lieutenant governor and served from 1904 to 1906. A run for governor in 1910 fell short against the Democrat Judson Harmon, but the campaign raised his profile. Harding backed national Republican figures such as William Howard Taft and spoke at party conventions, including the 1912 convention where he supported Taft against Theodore Roosevelt's insurgency. He became known as a loyal party man of moderate temperament who could bridge divides without alienating either faction.

United States Senator
Ohio voters sent Harding to the U.S. Senate in 1914, and he took his seat in 1915. There he aligned with the pro-business wing of the Republican Party and supported protective tariffs and limited federal regulation. During and after World War I he endorsed preparedness and later favored a return to peacetime norms. On the critical question of the League of Nations, he followed Senate Republican leader Henry Cabot Lodge in opposing U.S. entry on the terms demanded by President Woodrow Wilson, while remaining open to international cooperation on American terms. His Senate service was marked less by authored legislation than by collegiality, reliability, and skill at party messaging.

The 1920 Campaign and Return to Normalcy
After Wilson's presidency and the strain of war, Republicans entered 1920 favored to win but divided among several contenders. At the convention in Chicago, party leaders coalesced around Harding as a compromise after a deadlock, a decision in which his confidant Harry M. Daugherty played a prominent role. The ticket paired Harding with Massachusetts governor Calvin Coolidge. They faced Democratic governor James M. Cox, who chose Franklin D. Roosevelt as his running mate. Campaigning largely from his front porch in Marion, Harding called for a return to normalcy, promising stability, limited government, and national healing. With the 19th Amendment newly enfranchising women nationwide, Harding won a resounding popular and electoral victory in November 1920, signaling a public desire for calm after years of turmoil.

Cabinet, Advisers, and Executive Style
Harding assembled a cabinet that mixed eminent national figures with loyalists from Ohio. He appointed Charles Evans Hughes as secretary of state, Andrew Mellon at Treasury, and Herbert Hoover at Commerce, along with Henry C. Wallace at Agriculture and James J. Davis at Labor. Edwin Denby became secretary of the Navy. Harding named William Howard Taft chief justice of the United States, a selection widely praised for its dignity and experience. To modernize fiscal management, he supported the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921, which created the Bureau of the Budget under Charles G. Dawes and the General Accounting Office under Comptroller General John R. McCarl. Harding's leadership style emphasized delegation and consensus. He was affable and accessible, but his preference for trusting subordinates sometimes had unhappy consequences, particularly with Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty and figures on the periphery of his circle such as Jess Smith.

Domestic Policy and the Postwar Economy
Harding and his advisers sought to unwind wartime controls, cut taxes, and revive business. The Revenue Act of 1921 reduced rates and favored investment. Congress passed, and Harding signed, the Fordney-McCumber Tariff of 1922 to protect domestic industry. The Federal Highway Act of 1921 helped states plan and finance road building, an acknowledgment of the automobile's growing importance. He supported the Sheppard-Towner Maternity and Infancy Act, a landmark federal grant program for public health, and the Capper-Volstead Act, which aided agricultural cooperatives. The Emergency Quota Act of 1921 sharply restricted immigration, reflecting strong congressional pressure for limits. Harding promoted balanced budgets and endorsed business-government cooperation championed by Hoover at Commerce. While the economy suffered a sharp postwar recession in 1920-1921, conditions improved during his term, and unemployment fell as industry recovered.

Labor, Law, and Public Order
Harding confronted industrial unrest in coal and rail transport. In 1921 violent conflict in the West Virginia coalfields culminated in the Battle of Blair Mountain; he sent federal troops to restore order. In 1922 the nationwide railroad shopmen's strike prompted the sweeping Daugherty injunction that limited picketing and union activities, a move applauded by business and condemned by labor. Harding tried to broker settlements and publicly urged moderation, mindful of maintaining production amid recovery. He advocated the creation of the Veterans Bureau to care for returning soldiers, a commitment marred by later scandal.

Foreign Policy and the Washington Naval Conference
The centerpiece of Harding's foreign policy was the Washington Naval Conference of 1921-1922, guided by Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes. Major naval powers negotiated limits on capital ships, agreed to respect Pacific territories, and affirmed the Open Door in China through the Five-Power, Four-Power, and Nine-Power agreements. The conference was widely hailed as a diplomatic triumph that reduced tensions and defense spending without entangling the United States in a permanent security organization. Harding also brought the formal state of war with Germany and Austria-Hungary to a close through the Knox-Porter Resolution and separate peace treaties in 1921. He favored aiding European recovery with private loans and trade rather than reparations politics and kept the United States outside the League of Nations while encouraging cooperation on specific issues.

Civil Rights and Social Questions
Harding believed in the rule of law and spoke against racial violence. In an October 1921 speech in Birmingham, Alabama, he called for political equality and educational opportunity for Black Americans and endorsed federal anti-lynching legislation. The House passed the Dyer Anti-Lynching bill, but a filibuster by Southern senators blocked it. Harding condemned intolerance without naming particular groups, and he sought to include African American leaders in White House discussions. He also offered clemency to some prisoners convicted under wartime sedition laws; notably, he commuted the sentence of Socialist leader Eugene V. Debs in 1921 and invited him to the White House, a gesture of reconciliation after the war years.

Scandal and the Limits of Delegation
Even as Harding recorded policy successes, his administration was damaged by corruption among officials he had trusted. The most notorious case was the Teapot Dome affair: Interior Secretary Albert B. Fall secretly leased naval oil reserves at Teapot Dome, Wyoming, and Elk Hills, California, to private companies linked to Harry F. Sinclair and Edward L. Doheny in exchange for personal benefits. Investigations led by Senator Thomas J. Walsh exposed the scheme; Fall later became the first former cabinet officer convicted of a felony for acts in office. The Veterans Bureau, under Charles R. Forbes, became a sink of graft and waste; Forbes resigned in 1923 and was later imprisoned. The Navy Department, led by Edwin Denby, was drawn into the oil scandal, and Denby resigned. Attorney General Daugherty faced allegations about influence peddling and the conduct of his associate Jess Smith, who died in 1923; Daugherty himself resigned under Harding's successor. These events fed public cynicism and overshadowed Harding's achievements.

Personal Style and Relationships
Harding was a gregarious, sociable figure who enjoyed poker, golf, and easy conversation. Critics mocked his rhetorical style and his coinage of the word normalcy, but he connected with audiences through warmth and a promise of steadiness. Florence Harding was a vigilant guardian of his time and reputation, encouraging him to conserve his energy and keep a strict schedule. He had no children with Florence, and aspects of his private life became the subject of public controversy after his death, including his relationships with Carrie Fulton Phillips and Nan Britton. The White House of 1921-1923 reflected Harding's mix of informality and ceremony: a place where cabinet luminaries like Hughes, Mellon, and Hoover hashed out policy, even as less scrupulous hangers-on tarnished the administration's image.

Final Journey and Death
In 1923 Harding embarked on a transcontinental speaking tour he called the Voyage of Understanding, intended to reconnect him with the public and showcase progress across the nation and in Alaska. Accompanied by the First Lady, his physician Dr. Charles Sawyer, and staff including press secretary George B. Christian, he traveled thousands of miles by train and ship. The president grew ill with gastrointestinal symptoms and exhaustion after returning from Alaska. In San Francisco, while resting at the Palace Hotel, he suffered a sudden collapse and died on August 2, 1923, likely from a heart attack or stroke. The country was stunned. Vice President Calvin Coolidge took the oath of office in Vermont and returned to Washington to oversee official mourning. Harding's body lay in state, then traveled back to Ohio, where he was buried in Marion. In the weeks that followed, Florence Harding protected his privacy, and later revelations about corruption hardened public judgment.

Legacy
Warren G. Harding's legacy has been contested. For decades he was ranked near the bottom of presidential evaluations because of scandals that erupted during and after his tenure. Yet historians also note meaningful achievements: the Washington Naval Conference, a modern federal budgeting system, stabilization after wartime upheaval, and an early, if frustrated, call for federal action against lynching. His cabinet included some of the most capable public servants of the era, notably Charles Evans Hughes, Andrew Mellon, Herbert Hoover, and Charles G. Dawes. At the same time, his tolerance for political fixers such as Harry M. Daugherty and the presence of figures like Albert B. Fall, Charles R. Forbes, and Edwin Denby cast a long shadow. Harding's presidency embodied both the promise and the risk of delegation. He sought to restore calm, to reconcile, and to trust talented lieutenants; the success of that project depended entirely on whom he trusted. His life, from small-town editor to the highest office, remains a story at the heart of American politics in the early twentieth century.

Our collection contains 5 quotes who is written by Warren, under the main topics: Witty One-Liners - Friendship - Book - Peace - Fake Friends.

Other people realated to Warren: Marie Curie (Scientist), Charles Curtis (Vice President), B. Carroll Reece (Politician), George William Norris (Politician), David F. Houston (Politician), Samuel Hopkins Adams (Writer), Joseph McKenna (Politician)

Warren G. Harding Famous Works