"The least appreciated president in American history"
This was the conventional evaluation of Warren G. Harding, but it turned out that he has actually made considerable achievements such as halving the unemployment rate during his tenure, and he is also the president who has been reviewed in recent years.
Warren G. Harding before becoming president
Warren G. Harding was also born in Ohio in 1865, like successive Republican presidents after the Civil War.
His father was originally a teacher, but at one point he became a manager since he took control of the magazine Argos. Harding studied newspaper publishing and management at Ohio Central University, and after graduating he acquired "Marion Daily Star", a member of the Ohio State Assembly in 1899, a Deputy Governor of Ohio in 1903, and 1915. From then on, he continued his career with a member of the Ohio parliament, running for the presidential election in 1921, and was elected by an overwhelming margin.
As with all Republican presidents after the Civil War, Harding is particularly corrupt in the campaign, and there is a sponsorship group called "Ohio Gang" in the back, and among these members are ministers. It has been issued, and later those members are arrested for corruption.
Harding was also enthusiastic about poker and other gambling and playing with women, and was buying a grudge against his wife.
It can be said that the low evaluation of Harding is largely due to the circumstances around here.
29th President of the United States
Harding is truly a typical Republican president.
When he became president, he weakened the progressive tax system and revealed tax incentives for the wealthy. He also raised tariffs, like the Republican president, and gave preferential treatment to the wealthy. Behind him, of course, there were adhesions and corruption.
On the diplomatic side, he held a Washington Conference for post-World War I post-war treatment and succeeded in reducing Japan's naval power, which was growing in the name of disarmament. Furthermore, this will abolish the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, opening the door to China since McKinley and aiming for US hegemony in the Pacific Ocean.
However, such corruption of his own camp was discovered one after another.
In particular, the "Teapod Dome Incident" is known as a scandal in American history that is on par with the "Watergate Incident."
The content is that Albert B. Fall was leasing a government-owned oil field to an adhesion company at a low rent without bidding, which led to an unprecedented scandal in which active ministers were arrested, guilty and imprisoned. became.
Not only Albert, Thomas Miller, director of foreign asset management, was guilty of bribery, Jess Smith, personal aide to the Justice Secretary, committed suicide after the evidence was destroyed, and Charles Forbes, director of the Veterans Affairs Bureau, embezzled and He took a large amount of rebate and used the money to sell liquor and trade drugs, and he was guilty of embezzlement, and his personal secretary committed suicide.
In 1923, he died of a stroke during a speech to Alaska. He was 57 years old.
Harding has been constantly black rumors since his lifetime, and he is said to have had a banquet at the White House despite being in the middle of Prohibition. In a sense, he was the worst president in terms of private life, but he prevented Japan from growing and the unemployment rate was declining during his reign.
However, it is certain that Japan was stalled due to the tightening of Japan, including this military contraction, and eventually the United Nations withdrew and teamed up with Germany during World War II to engulf the world in a whirlpool of turmoil. It is also certain that, although temporarily reduced, it gave too much preferential treatment to the wealthy during the Harding era and created the cause of the Great Depression.
Furthermore, involvement with racist groups such as the KKK has been pointed out, and it is certain that discrimination against blacks in the south increased during that reign.
With all these aspects in mind, it makes sense for Warren G. Harding to be one of the worst presidents in American history.