The Harding Debate

D. offers some dissent from recent pro-Harding revisionism in the blogosphere, arguing that there's less than meets the eye about Harding's progressive record on race. I wouldn't, however, quite be so dismissive of Harding's efforts to rollback the Wilson-era crackdown on civil liberties:

Most of all, Harding's administration could afford to be less demagogic because (a) the Great War was over, and thus the rationale for anti-civil libertarian wartime measures was reduced; and (b) its support for restrictive immigration laws allowed the party in control of the government to claim that it was taking action to prevent "alien radicals" from entering the country in the first place (and thus making emergency deportations unnecessary).

The implication here that Presidents are typically loathe to aggregate power to themselves and their appointees, making the relevant variable whether or not they can "afford to be less demagogic" seems backward to me.

Comments

So anyway, can you BELIEVE what happened on The Hills on Monday night? I can't believe that Heidi had the nerve to talk to Audrina, and then Lauren was all, "What do you think you're doing I just am looking out for you" and then Audrina was all "Whatever, I can be friends with whoever I want" and OMG it looks like Lauren and Whitney are going to be working together again1!!

Posted by How Insane Is John McCain? | April 9, 2008 2:48 PM

So anyway, can you BELIEVE what happened on The Hills on Monday night? I can't believe that Heidi had the nerve to talk to Audrina, and then Lauren was all, "What do you think you're doing I just am looking out for you" and then Audrina was all "Whatever, I can be friends with whoever I want" and OMG it looks like Lauren and Whitney are going to be working together again1!!

Posted by How Insane Is John McCain? | April 9, 2008 2:49 PM

I was going to make a joke about Tonya Harding, but unfortunately the previous commenter is impossible to follow.

Posted by James Gary | April 9, 2008 2:52 PM

By which I mean, as in "a hard act to follow," and not in the sense of "I didn't understand what he wrote."

Posted by James Gary | April 9, 2008 2:55 PM

Matt:

Did you actually mean to use "aggregate," or were you trying for "arrogate"?

Posted by blah | April 9, 2008 3:02 PM

Just as wars lead to tightening of civil liberties, in the aftermath, politician often advocate for a return to... dare I say it... "normalcy." That's what D's referring to here; rolling back of Wilson's wartime measures was in keeping with Harding's whole campaign message. I think it's a mistake to consider Harding's actions as an abstract political problem rather than as actions shaped by the individual and the historical moment. Historians are not generally interested in implying that "Presidents are typically loathe" to do one thing or another; that's what political scientists do. We're not in search of general laws, we like to define the particular circumstances of each time and place.

Posted by Philly | April 9, 2008 3:52 PM

Let's not lose sight of the fact that Harding also ran the only administration which might, might, be more corrupt than the current one. Which some of us happen to feel is not a recommendation for classification outside the 10-worst-ever category.

Posted by wj | April 9, 2008 6:04 PM

I dunno, depends how you define corruption. Sure Harding had some money hungry crooks working for him, but Harding himself was just clueless. And anyways he didn't segregate the federal work force, praise Birth of A Nation (the movie that motivated the resurgence of the KKK) and lead us into an unnecessary world war oh and ignore the constitution to imprison his political enemies.

Harding won in 1920 by a landslide not because he was a great man (he clearly was not) but because he wasn't Thomas Woodrow Wilson.

Posted by beowulf | April 9, 2008 7:03 PM

The second Wilson Administration marked the highpoint of hysteria in American public life, whether for good or bad -- Prohibition, the culture war against everything German including Beethoven, the Red Scare, suffragism, WWI, deep recession of 1919-20, etc. Harding campaigned on a return to normalcy, and in large measure, the country was much calmer and less over the top by the time of his death.

Harding's image in the history books has little if anything to do with his actual accomplishments, and everything to do with the status and biases of who writes history books. History is written less by the victors than by the writers of history books.

Posted by Steve Sailer | April 9, 2008 8:26 PM

lead us into an unnecessary world war

We caught the Germans plotting with the Mexicans to take Texas back for Mexico. Now, by itself, maybe that wasn't enough to justify particpation in the war, but they also planned to take New Mexico and Arizona back as well . . .

Posted by rea | April 10, 2008 7:48 AM