Florence Harding if only because her husband was the most maligned president by the Progressive Left and Right before George W. Bush. He was despised because he wasn't Wilson or Roosevelt and uprooted their programs when he was elected. Florence invited black women to the White house after segregationist Wilson brought Jim Crow to the US Army and the District of Columbia. Harding released Wilson's political prisoners, including Eugene Debbs imprisoned for expressing opposition to WW I (And invited him to the White house for a chat and presumably a drink. Drinking alcohol wasn't a crime under Prohibition.). He cut taxes and ended the depression of 1920, far worse than 1932 or 2008. He invented the press conference, the OMB and pushed the Washington Naval Conference which prevented the sort of Battleship building programs that increased tension between Germany and England pre WW I and presumably prevented similar tensions between England and the US.
The scandals, tea pot dome, veterans bureau and Nan Briton associated with his administration can be dismissed as either the result of other's actions, insignificant by the standard of previous and future administrations or fiction. Basically Harding was clobbered by TR's daughter Alice (Who blamed Harding for causing her father to lose the Republican nomination in 1912), HL Menken and William Allen White (Two newspaper editors, full of themselves and surprised that another news paper editor had been elected president.) and the Historical Academy has followed their lead, portraying him as a clod and buffoon.
Harding was no saint but his character compares favorably with the icons of Progressivism.
Florence Harding if only because her husband was the most maligned president by the Progressive Left and Right before George W. Bush. He was despised because he wasn't Wilson or Roosevelt and uprooted their programs when he was elected. Florence invited black women to the White house after segregationist Wilson brought Jim Crow to the US Army and the District of Columbia. Harding released Wilson's political prisoners, including Eugene Debbs imprisoned for expressing opposition to WW I (And invited him to the White house for a chat and presumably a drink. Drinking alcohol wasn't a crime under Prohibition.). He cut taxes and ended the depression of 1920, far worse than 1932 or 2008. He invented the press conference, the OMB and pushed the Washington Naval Conference which prevented the sort of Battleship building programs that increased tension between Germany and England pre WW I and presumably prevented similar tensions between England and the US.
The scandals, tea pot dome, veterans bureau and Nan Briton associated with his administration can be dismissed as either the result of other's actions, insignificant by the standard of previous and future administrations or fiction. Basically Harding was clobbered by TR's daughter Alice (Who blamed Harding for causing her father to lose the Republican nomination in 1912), HL Menken and William Allen White (Two newspaper editors, full of themselves and surprised that another news paper editor had been elected president.) and the Historical Academy has followed their lead, portraying him as a clod and buffoon.
Harding was no saint but his character compares favorably with the icons of Progressivism.