The Problems that face Warren G. Harding on Winning the 1920 Election
THE BIGGEST TASK that ever fell to the lot of a
new Administration," exclaims the Republican
Buffalo Evening News, contemplating the staggering
array of problems, domestic and foreign, political, financial, industrial, and commercial, that is President Harding's heritage.
"With the single exception of Lincoln, probably
no President in our national history has taken
office with as pressing a
burden of unsolved questions," avers the liberal
New York Nation; and
the independent Newark
News, declaring that Mr.
Harding "must meet, and
overcome, obstacles
greater than ever Roosevelt surmounted," assures
him he "need never fear
that history will tint his
Administration with
drab." The New Republic
(Ind.) dwells on the "truly awful" nature of
his task, and the New
York Globe (Ind.) characterizes his responsibilities as "appalling." "No thinking person
will try to belittle the magnitude of the task that confronts
Mr. Harding," declares the Philadelphia Public Ledger (Ind.);
and it adds:
"He will inherit from the passing Administration a legacy that is the greater for the sad fact of Mr. Wilson's protracted invalidism. Never has any President come to the tremendous office with so much unfinished business and so many fresh problems of moment awaiting his mind and hand. Our international relationships were never so far-reaching nor so complicated, and the expression of benevolent intention is not the formulation of a policy, much less the performance of an energetic salvatory action. The whole great question of the part we are to play in world affairs with other nations remains to be determined. How are we to deal with Russia and with Germany, in fidelity to the trust imposed on us alike by the dead and by the unborn?"
Nor has Congress, remarks the Springfield Republican (Ind.), done anything since November 2 to clear the way. In the matter of such complex questions as "government finance, taxation, disarmament, immigration, and our relations with Europe and the Orient," says this Massachusetts paper, "the United States Government has been stalled for four months." It is veritably "a sea of troubles" upon which President Harding has embarked, declares the New York Herald (Ind. Rep.), which goes on to say of the financial snags in the channel:
"The new Administration comes into office facing an interest charge of $1,000,000,000 a year. This nation, which once gasped when it discovered that the machinery of government was costing a billion a year, now has to pay that amount yearly on its debt alone, so long as the foreign Powers default on their share of it, not to mention the regular costs of running the Government.
"In addition to this huge burden of debt, the man who follows the war President has to battle with the more elusive problems which result from the extravagances of war—the problems of unemployment, of living costs, of the depression that has to follow inflation, of the various miseries that come after a de- bauch of extravagance. Of all the Presidents who succeeded war-Presidents, Mr. Harding will face the most appalling mess.
"It embraces, besides the heritage of debts, unsound and destructive taxation which harries industry and business. There are as well the threatening floods of imports which will submerge our home markets if not dammed out, but without which we can not expect to have our foreign loans paid. There are the inflated costs of production which menace our export trade and expose our domestic trade to cheap labor competition from abroad. There are the difficulties and dangers of the unsettled exchanges. There are the clamor for colossal bonus payments and the national transportation system hamstrung by labor working conditions established under ruinous government operation. There are the injuries which the Powers collecting indemnity from the German people would inflict upon our rights and interests, the ill-feeling that is exprest against us because we are unwilling to be taxed to help pay that indemnity, the intrigues that are aimed at us, the charges that are directed against us."
"Just a few" of the complicated diplomatic problems that Warren G. Harding is facing are listed as follows in a Washington dispatch to the New York Tribune (Rep.):
Most of the above are foreign problems; the domestic ones are not less formidable. "Few men will envy Mr. Harding his job as President of the United States for the next four years," declares The United Mine Workers' Journal, of Indianapolis, and in a sympathetic editorial this conservative labor organ goes on to say:
"He is confronted with problems that will tax not only his own ingenuity and genius, but also the very best that is in his cabinet and his advisers. There are so much unrest, discontent, and depression in the country to-day that the task of ironing it all out and getting the nation and the people back to a normal basis is going to be something tremendous. Business is shot to pieces; industry is stagnant; there is wide-spread unemployment; taxes are high; prices continue at a high level; in fact, there are serious domestic problems that must be worked out at once by the new Administration.
"Just at this time these domestic conditions require first attention—first aid, it might be called. To The Journal it appears that they are more important right now than anything that has to do with our foreign affairs. Until their home affairs are set in order the American people will not be as keen for adjustment of their foreign relations. Thus far no definite policy for dealing with those domestic conditions has been announced, and the people, therefore, are in doubt as to how they are to be handled. What will the new Administration do toward bringing about a resumption of business and industry so that the people may make a living? No other question is half as important as this one at the outset of the new Administration. There is a splendid opportunity for the adoption of a constructive policy that will restore prosperity to the people. And there is also the opportunity for the adoption of a policy leading to further discontent and deeper depression. Which will it be?
"First of all, the rights of the whole people must be safeguarded and protected against any attack by a few. The people demand and expect a fair deal. They will be satisfied with nothing less. It must be kept in mind always that vastly more than half of the people of the United States work for their living. Therefore, more attention must be paid to the welfare of this majority than to the welfare of the small minority that lives without working. Labor asks only for a square deal and absolute justice. It does not and would not demand more. But labor would not be satisfied if the new Administration were to listen exclusively to the demand of the big interests that labor be manhandled and that trade-unions be crusht out of existence. This is what the open-shop advocates are seeking to bring about, and it must be admitted that they are powerful and crafty.
"No man ever became President of the United States with greater opportunity for history-making service than Warren G. Harding."
Peculiarly baffling and fateful journalistic observers agree, are the problems of foreign policy that confront the new President. Europe, remarks The Outlook, turns to America "with mingled envy, fear, and hope," and "it is for the Republican Administration to justify that hope with assistance based upon an understanding of reality, and to sweep aside that fear and envy with justice and good will." "All Europe," says the New York Times (Ind. Dem.), "sees in Mr. Harding the leader of the most powerful and wealthiest nation in the world—a nation which has it in its power to remit debts, extend credits, promise effective support, and in general to alleviate most of the troubles with which Europe is afflicted." "It is literally true that the world hangs upon Mr. Harding's every word," declares The Advocate of Peace. While in domestic affairs the initiative rests generally with Congress, in foreign affairs, as The Nation reminds us, the President is "directly responsible for initiating American policy."
The Providence Evening Bulletin (Ind.) recalls with approval Mr. Harding's armistice-day speech at Brownsville in which he thus defined our foreign policy: "We choose no aloofness, we shirk no obligations, we forsake no friends, but we build on nationality, and we do not mean to surrender it." Mr. Hoover's Washington Herald points out that "the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations are just where the Republican Senate left them," and "if Mr. Harding wishes to go back to November, 1918, and begin over again he can."
Source: Literary Digest - March 5, 1921
"He will inherit from the passing Administration a legacy that is the greater for the sad fact of Mr. Wilson's protracted invalidism. Never has any President come to the tremendous office with so much unfinished business and so many fresh problems of moment awaiting his mind and hand. Our international relationships were never so far-reaching nor so complicated, and the expression of benevolent intention is not the formulation of a policy, much less the performance of an energetic salvatory action. The whole great question of the part we are to play in world affairs with other nations remains to be determined. How are we to deal with Russia and with Germany, in fidelity to the trust imposed on us alike by the dead and by the unborn?"
Nor has Congress, remarks the Springfield Republican (Ind.), done anything since November 2 to clear the way. In the matter of such complex questions as "government finance, taxation, disarmament, immigration, and our relations with Europe and the Orient," says this Massachusetts paper, "the United States Government has been stalled for four months." It is veritably "a sea of troubles" upon which President Harding has embarked, declares the New York Herald (Ind. Rep.), which goes on to say of the financial snags in the channel:
"The new Administration comes into office facing an interest charge of $1,000,000,000 a year. This nation, which once gasped when it discovered that the machinery of government was costing a billion a year, now has to pay that amount yearly on its debt alone, so long as the foreign Powers default on their share of it, not to mention the regular costs of running the Government.
"In addition to this huge burden of debt, the man who follows the war President has to battle with the more elusive problems which result from the extravagances of war—the problems of unemployment, of living costs, of the depression that has to follow inflation, of the various miseries that come after a de- bauch of extravagance. Of all the Presidents who succeeded war-Presidents, Mr. Harding will face the most appalling mess.
"It embraces, besides the heritage of debts, unsound and destructive taxation which harries industry and business. There are as well the threatening floods of imports which will submerge our home markets if not dammed out, but without which we can not expect to have our foreign loans paid. There are the inflated costs of production which menace our export trade and expose our domestic trade to cheap labor competition from abroad. There are the difficulties and dangers of the unsettled exchanges. There are the clamor for colossal bonus payments and the national transportation system hamstrung by labor working conditions established under ruinous government operation. There are the injuries which the Powers collecting indemnity from the German people would inflict upon our rights and interests, the ill-feeling that is exprest against us because we are unwilling to be taxed to help pay that indemnity, the intrigues that are aimed at us, the charges that are directed against us."
"Just a few" of the complicated diplomatic problems that Warren G. Harding is facing are listed as follows in a Washington dispatch to the New York Tribune (Rep.):
- "The Japanese situation growing out of the California land laws, an attempt to smooth over which already has resulted in loud outcries by the California Senators.
- "The discussions which representatives of the British dominions have been holding with Senator Lodge as to some plan of these dominions and the United States presenting a united front to Japan.
- "The Mexican situation, which apparently the Wilson Administration intends to leave on Harding's door-step, just as Taft left it on Wilson's.
- "The disarmament proposal, with its Important relations to Great Britain and Japan.
- "The situation Involved in foreign debts to the United States and the interest thereon, about which whole affair either the British Chancellor of the Exchequer is guilty of an extraordinary blunder or else the Wilson Administration has been concealing the truth from the American people.
- "The peremptory demand by the United States that Japan cease from occupying the other half of Saghalien Island and cease the attempt to set up buffer states in the south of Siberia.
- "The protest against Britain and France restricting development of natural resources of mandate territory, notably in Mesopotamia, to their own nationals.
- "The Cuban situation, which may easily lead at any time to the necessity for intervention.
- "The dispute with Japan over American rights, particularly cable rights, in the island of Yap, and also the general cable situation.
- "The Chinese situation, involving both the consortium and the open-door policy.
- "The Turkish-Armenian dispute, which Wilson has declared involves the whole question of attacks by small states encouraged by larger ones on Russia.
- "The problem about Russian trade and recognition of Soviet Russia.
- "The Irish situation.
- "Panama Canal tolls, involving, if it is raised, as Mr. Harding promised, the reopening of the dispute with Britain over the construction of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty.
- "The problem presented by American occupation or control of Hayti and other small Latin-American states.
- "The dispute with Costa Rica over the purchase of the option on the Nicaragua Canal route, and with Salvador and Honduras over the American purchase of a naval base in Fonseca Bay, both disputes being involved in the Nicaraguan treaty.
- "The Colombian treaty dispute, under which a treaty for the payment of $25,000,000 for alleged injuries in the Panama revolution is still pending.
- "The question of American interest in the fixing of German indemnities.
Most of the above are foreign problems; the domestic ones are not less formidable. "Few men will envy Mr. Harding his job as President of the United States for the next four years," declares The United Mine Workers' Journal, of Indianapolis, and in a sympathetic editorial this conservative labor organ goes on to say:
"He is confronted with problems that will tax not only his own ingenuity and genius, but also the very best that is in his cabinet and his advisers. There are so much unrest, discontent, and depression in the country to-day that the task of ironing it all out and getting the nation and the people back to a normal basis is going to be something tremendous. Business is shot to pieces; industry is stagnant; there is wide-spread unemployment; taxes are high; prices continue at a high level; in fact, there are serious domestic problems that must be worked out at once by the new Administration.
"Just at this time these domestic conditions require first attention—first aid, it might be called. To The Journal it appears that they are more important right now than anything that has to do with our foreign affairs. Until their home affairs are set in order the American people will not be as keen for adjustment of their foreign relations. Thus far no definite policy for dealing with those domestic conditions has been announced, and the people, therefore, are in doubt as to how they are to be handled. What will the new Administration do toward bringing about a resumption of business and industry so that the people may make a living? No other question is half as important as this one at the outset of the new Administration. There is a splendid opportunity for the adoption of a constructive policy that will restore prosperity to the people. And there is also the opportunity for the adoption of a policy leading to further discontent and deeper depression. Which will it be?
"First of all, the rights of the whole people must be safeguarded and protected against any attack by a few. The people demand and expect a fair deal. They will be satisfied with nothing less. It must be kept in mind always that vastly more than half of the people of the United States work for their living. Therefore, more attention must be paid to the welfare of this majority than to the welfare of the small minority that lives without working. Labor asks only for a square deal and absolute justice. It does not and would not demand more. But labor would not be satisfied if the new Administration were to listen exclusively to the demand of the big interests that labor be manhandled and that trade-unions be crusht out of existence. This is what the open-shop advocates are seeking to bring about, and it must be admitted that they are powerful and crafty.
"No man ever became President of the United States with greater opportunity for history-making service than Warren G. Harding."
Peculiarly baffling and fateful journalistic observers agree, are the problems of foreign policy that confront the new President. Europe, remarks The Outlook, turns to America "with mingled envy, fear, and hope," and "it is for the Republican Administration to justify that hope with assistance based upon an understanding of reality, and to sweep aside that fear and envy with justice and good will." "All Europe," says the New York Times (Ind. Dem.), "sees in Mr. Harding the leader of the most powerful and wealthiest nation in the world—a nation which has it in its power to remit debts, extend credits, promise effective support, and in general to alleviate most of the troubles with which Europe is afflicted." "It is literally true that the world hangs upon Mr. Harding's every word," declares The Advocate of Peace. While in domestic affairs the initiative rests generally with Congress, in foreign affairs, as The Nation reminds us, the President is "directly responsible for initiating American policy."
The Providence Evening Bulletin (Ind.) recalls with approval Mr. Harding's armistice-day speech at Brownsville in which he thus defined our foreign policy: "We choose no aloofness, we shirk no obligations, we forsake no friends, but we build on nationality, and we do not mean to surrender it." Mr. Hoover's Washington Herald points out that "the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations are just where the Republican Senate left them," and "if Mr. Harding wishes to go back to November, 1918, and begin over again he can."
Source: Literary Digest - March 5, 1921