[Rockingham]

Harding was a popular and better President than is commonly credited. He appointed Mellon to Treasury, reduced spending, and pursued deregulation and low taxes and tariffs that sparked a long boom and much material progress.

A newspaper publisher and a pro-business conservative, Harding's schooling in political issues was as a speaker and in writing editorials. With an easy going nature, he was inclined toward conciliation instead of controversy. Harding recoiled from the Wilson administration's “Palmer raids” against real and suspected radicals and pardoned Socialist Eugene Debs.

Harding was not a party to the corruption in his administration, felt deeply betrayed by it, and acted against it when it came to his attention. In one instance, a visitor came upon Harding throttling his Secretary of Veteran's Affairs in anger at the man's corruption. If Harding had not died in office, he would have cleaned house.

As for Harding's supposed Black lineage, the issue is unresolved.

[AdvisorB]

I agree with you completely. I think that historians have overlooked the record of the Harding Administration. When Harding was elected in the 1920 General Election, America was in the doldrums, coming out of the Great War (WWI). The economy was in the tank, and the economy that Harding inherited was similar to the economy that Ronald Reagan faced some 60 years later.

Harding was a reform Conservative who initiated the Bureau of the Budget in order to get a handle on federal expenditures. He was also courageous in limiting government spending, cutting some one billion dollars in spending during his short time as POTUS, and going so far as to oppose the bonus to the WWI veterans which was a very unpopular thing to do on his part. Yet his selection of Mellon to the Treasury, as you mentioned, and his fiscal hawk stance on federal spending helped put the roar into the Roaring Twenties.

I visited the Harding House in Marion, Ohio last year, and I saw the pictures of the Harding family, and the picture of his paternal grandfather was very interesting. I believe that anyone viewing that picture would conclude that Harding's grandfather was indeed, black. JMHO.