Posted on 11/26/2009 12:08:35 PM PST by Clintonfatigued
The real Woodrow Wilson, it turns out, was a far less admirable character than the cardboard hero we learned about in school. In fact, in some ways the boring Midwesterner who succeeded him looks better than him when one compares what the two actually accomplished.
Harding famously said he wanted to restore normalcy to a nation on the verge of a breakdown at the end of the Great War and set about working to heal the wounds that divided the nation. During the war, Wilson attacked those he called hyphenated Americans as disloyal and set about systematically using his power as president to silence opposition to his policies.
Perhaps the most famous of Wilsons domestic critics was Eugene Debs, who had run and was to run again for the presidency as a socialist. Debs opposed what author John Dos Passos always referred to as Mr. Wilsons War, and said so. Never one to take criticism lightly, Wilson had Debs arrested, tried for sedition and shipped off to a federal prison for 10 years.
As he was leaving the White House, Wilsons closest advisers, including Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer, who is not himself remembered as a great champion of civil liberties, urged the departing president to free Debs. Wilson scowled, grabbed the pardon and scrawled denied across it as one final mean-spirited act before turning things over to Harding, whom he dismissed as uncultured, uneducated and hardly fit to be in the same room with him.
As president, Harding unhesitatingly freed Debs and others unfairly persecuted by Wilson; his normalcy was, it seems, built on a respect for the Constitution, and while he craved the good opinion of others as much as any politician, he didnt spend his time dreaming up ways to send his critics to prison.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
This editorial is about a new book which takes a new look at Warren Harding, remembered by most as an incompetent womanizer who accomplished nothing while corruption flourished under his nose. There’s no doubt that Harding had his faults, but he also had some accomplishments, and his over-rated predecessor, Woodrow Wilson, was a much darker figure than history acknowleges.
For those interested in American history.
I find it interesting that the attempted sale of the Elk Hills oil reserve which was such a scandal during Harding`s term, was actually pulled off during the Clinton years. And to top it off, it was sold to a company in which VP Gore was heavily invested.
Well, I think Woodrow Wilson was a bigtime troublemaker. He was responsible for the lousy “peace” arrangements that eventually led to World War II. And he was also responsible for the League of Nations. And he was responsible for authorizing the Federal Reserve System, which has put a gang of criminal statists in charge of our fiat paper money.
But I can’t fault him for arresting Eugene V. Debs, who was essentially a Communist. So, these guys think Woodrow Wilson wasn’t far enough to the left? Personally, I think of him as the forerunner of FDR and LBJ.
Wilson can be said to be the progenitor of a federal government that was ‘changed’ allowing it to be steered ever so slowly and furtively over many decades to the present along a path to which it began to slither towards socialism and wealth redistribution.
1913.
Wilson is so overrated. I also think the Harding adminstration and the Klinton administration were similar in respect to the deep corruption of both.
During his last years, Woodrow Wilson expressed regret over many of the things he did in office. He felt that he had changed the country for the worse. That has been hidden from American history.
Guess they forgot about the Tea-Pot Dome scandal. Not exactly Harding’s proudest moment.
I have long thought that Harding was a very underrated President. Harding restored civil liberties and cut taxes which led to the roaring Twenties. I believe that Ronald Reagan said something similar but I don’t have a link to Reagan’s comments about Harding.
1)raised tariff rates
2)gave the wealthy a tax cut
3)created the Bureau of the Budget which helped reduce government spending by 40%
4)was able to create a huge budget surplus
5)lowered government debt
6)halted further regulatory legislation
Within 6 months of the time his business friendly administration arrived in Washington, the economy was able to recover from a very serious post war business slump and was on the path to prosperity that lasted during the 1920's.It's too bad Obamarx is unable to learn from history.
Harding’s election stymied the Progressives attempts to subvert our Constitution, thus WGH was enemy number one for liberal Republican BullMoose types, and d-RAT progressives.
I think Warren Harding was a good man and a good POTUS, with an impressive list of achievements. Even the liberal/leftist John Dean has written a book that is laudatory of Harding and the policies he pursued in our “Return to Normalcy.”
SHOUT OUT TO WARREN G! MOURN YA TIL I JOIN YA!
Harding gets a very bad rap in history and unfairly so. He was no where near being one of our worst presidents. He looks pretty good compared to the current occupant of the WH. Even Nixon and Ford are looking pretty damn good these days IMHO.
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