From the PBS series American Experience:
"Warren Harding took office promising to undo many of the progressive policies of Woodrow Wilson's administration. Ushering in an era of conservative Republicanism, Harding wasted little time in cutting taxes on higher incomes and raising tariff rates."
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Sounds like a good President to me!
As for Harding's ancestry, pictures are an imperfect guide since many who are indisputably white with Mediterranean lineage can be said to have vaguely Black features in some respect. The better sense of the matter is to recognize that claims of Harding as being of mixed race are of uncertain truth and were generated by his adversaries and widely circulated in a racially charged historical context.
In the 1920 election, Republicans and Harding successfully courted the Black vote with appeals for racial equality and moderation. As President, Harding facilitated two modest reforms of interest to Blacks: anti-lynching legislation and withdrawal of the Marines from Haiti.
An academic essay available online points out that attacks on Harding's lineage were part of a Democratic campaign effort in the 1920 election that deliberately stirred white backlash:
“I believe in equality before the law. You can't give rights to the white man and deny them to the black man. But while I stand for that great, great principle, I do not mean that the white man and the black man must be forced to associate together in the acceptance of their rights.”
Harding address in Oklahoma City, October 9, 1920, as reported in The Daily Oklahoma, October 10, 1920.
"The greatest indignity suffered by Harding in his career was the allegation made during the campaign of 1920 that he had Negro forebears. This was part of the white backlash reactions that were aroused by the moderate concessions made by Harding and the Republicans to the rising Negro-rights movement. To be attacked for racial reasons was not a new experience for either Harding or the Republicans. The whites, especially Democratic ones, had been backlashing ever since anti-slavery days. The Hardings had been punished with "nigger talk" ever since they espoused anti-slavery sentiments in a Democratic section of Ohio in pre-Civil War times. It has been standard treatment in certain sections of society, especially in the Civil War and Reconstruction periods, for Republicans to be called "nigger worshippers" because of their interest in civil rights."
From: NEGRO RIGHTS AND WHITE BACKLASH IN THE CAMPAIGN OF 1920, by RANDOLPH C. DOWNES
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I saw the picture of his paternal grandparents, and the grandfather was black. And I think that any objective observer, having looked at the picture, would conclude the same. I agree that pictures are an imperfect guide, but what I saw, on the wall on the second floor of the Harding house, led me to believe that Warren Harding was of mixed race. Yes, pictures are an imperfect guide, but alas, that is all we have.
And just because the rumors regarding his race, were spread around by his political enemies, including his father-in-law, Amos Kling, who was opposed to his daughter marrying into the Harding family, doesn't mean the rumors were without merit. And Harding, when asked about the rumors of black blood in the Harding family, replied, and I'm paraphrasing, that he didn't know if there was someone in the woodpile somewhere in the Harding lineage.
I appreciated your comments about Harding. I learned a great deal from what you had to say. As you stated, the Harding record on race had some modest achievements, but I think that Harding showed a great deal of courage when he made the famous speech in Birmingham Alabama in 1921, where he called for political and social equality for black people in America. Pointing to the white section of the segregated Woodrow Wilson Park, Harding said, "Whether you like it or not, unless our democracy is a lie, you must stand for equality." That was a pretty gutsy thing to do in the deep south in 1921. So gutsy that the head of the Tuskegee Institute said of Harding's address before the segregated crowd in Birmingham, that Harding's words were the most important utterance on race since Abraham Lincoln.
