Biden, Harding, and a Ray of Hope

Among the treasured books in my collection is Lost Men of American History, compiled by Stewart H. Holbrook — copyright 1946. Say again, 1946. I purchased it for 25 cents at an elementary school fundraising book sale.

One chapter is about the “most corrupt presidential administration in history” (up to that point), that of Warren G. Harding, described (in essence) by the author as an empty suit, an accidental president, controlled by corrupt cronies.

“Nor was Harding elected through any personal merit, for the American people, except for Ohioans, had never heard of him. But that mattered not at all. What elected Harding was the fact that the people were voting against a man who was not a candidate – Woodrow Wilson… So men voted in savage resentment against the memory of Wilson, and Harding was elected.”

In Biden’s case, he ran against a man who was a candidate – Donald Trump. However, Trump had been so vilified by Biden’s party and their ex officio department of propaganda – the American “news” media — that nobody voted for Biden; rather they voted against the bogeyman Trump. Thus, an empty suit controlled by corrupt cronies once again occupies the White House.

“Corruption on such a mighty scale automatically assured the Harding regime of a safe place in any history of the United States. But the historical importance of Harding himself rests on a firmer foundation.  …he seems to have been the only President who neither in private nor public ever gave utterance to anything that could be called an idea.”

Does that sound familiar?

“The Veteran’s Bureau was in disgrace. So was the alien property custodian’s office. So, very soon, was what somebody called the department of easy virtue – meaning the Department of Justice. The department’s FBI, it will be remembered, was headed in the Harding administration by the fragrant William J. Burns. Under Burns the bureau was turned into a smearing weapon, used against senators, congressmen and others who sought to find anything wrong with the administration.”

So, we see, the FBI has been used before (and fairly routinely since) as a smearing weapon, launching “investigations” into anybody who threatened to expose the corruption of the faction that controlled it. Such investigations never went anywhere, but by the time the charges were dropped or disproven, the subject’s life had been ruined, and the threat neutralized.

“That is why I believe the administration of Warren G. Harding to have been one of the most valuable the Republic has ever had. It demonstrated our strength as a nation, our lasting qualities, in a manner that left no doubt. If we Americans could live through that period, and those of Coolidge and Hoover, including the long horror of Prohibition – if we could pass through those trials and find our system still workable, then he is a skeptic indeed who doubts that the United States continues to have a future.”

Just so. If we could get through the Harding administration, then there is at least some hope that we might survive the Biden administration.