Warren Gamaliel Harding (1865 – 1923)
The 29th President of the United States, 1921 – 1923
AKA: No nicknames found
From: Ohio
College: Ohio Central College
Married to: Florence King
Children: Marshall (a step-son)
Party: Republican
Previous Jobs: journalist, teacher, insurance man, Lieutenant Governor of Ohio, Senator
In His Words: “In the great fulfillment we must have a citizenship less concerned about what the government can do for it and more anxious about what it can do for the nation.”
“Let the black man vote when he is fit to vote; prohibit the white man voting when he is unfit to vote.”
“Our most dangerous tendency is to expect too much of government, and at the same time do for it too little.”
“The black man should seek to be, and he should be encouraged to be, the best possible black man and not the best possible imitation of a white man.”
“I don’t know what to do or where to turn in this taxation matter. Somewhere there must be a book that tells all about it, where I could go to straighten it out in my mind. But I don’t know where the book is, and maybe I couldn’t read it if I found it.”
Not true: A quote frequently attributed to Harding is not his quote; it was actually an exchange between a journalist and Senator Boies Penrose, 1919:
“I don’t know much about Americanism, but it’s a damn good word with which to carry an election.”
“What is Americanism?” “Damn if I know, but it’s going to be a damn good word with which to carry an election.”
True: Harding married the daughter of his political rival … and his father-in-law disowned the couple, and did not speak to them for 8 years.
Nine years later, his father-in-law secretly bought Harding’s debt and tried to call the loans for immediate payment.
Harding was nominated on the tenth ballot at the Republican Convention, and Mrs. Harding was so startled she accidentally stabbed her husband’s campaign manager with her hat pins.
Harding was the first sitting Senator elected President.
Warren G. Harding was the first president to give a speech over the radio.
Some conspiracy theorists believe Harding was killed, or perhaps the victim of medical malpractice. The truth is we don’t know, and his wife insisted on an immediate autopsy, with the President’s body embalmed and on its way to its final rest within hours.
The Official Portrait: Edmund Hodgson Smart painted the official White House portrait of Harding in June, 1922. Smart was famous for painting world leaders, and also painted Kiing Edward VII of Britain, Marshall Foch of France and Admiral William Sims of the US Navy.
