'A return to normalcy' (1920)
His campaign promise of a return to peacetime stability
US Presidents · 20th century
Warren G. Harding
1865–1923 · American
Republican
In office: 1921–1923
Warren G. Harding, an Ohio newspaper publisher and senator, won a landslide in 1920 by promising a "return to normalcy" after the First World War. The 29th president hosted the Washington Naval Conference, but his administration became notorious for corruption by cronies known as the "Ohio Gang", above all the Teapot Dome scandal. He died suddenly in San Francisco in 1923, before most of the scandals came to light.
How to spot them
- ▸'A return to normalcy' (1920)
- ▸The Teapot Dome scandal and the 'Ohio Gang'
- ▸Died in office in San Francisco in August 1923
- ▸Owner and publisher of the Marion Star newspaper in Ohio
In office
The Teapot Dome scandal (1922–1923)
Interior Secretary Albert Fall leased naval oil reserves in exchange for bribes
The Washington Naval Conference (1921–1922)
Produced treaties limiting the size of the major powers' navies
Commuting the sentence of socialist Eugene V. Debs (1921)
Debs, jailed for opposing the First World War, was released at Christmas
Quick-fire facts
- •The 29th President of the United States
- •Born in Blooming Grove, Ohio
- •The first sitting US senator to be elected president
- •Albert Fall became the first cabinet member imprisoned for crimes committed in office
- •DNA tests in 2015 confirmed he fathered a daughter with his mistress Nan Britton
- •Died on 2 August 1923 at the Palace Hotel, San Francisco; succeeded by Calvin Coolidge
Drill it — 5 cards
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Sources
- Miller Center, University of Virginia — Warren G. Harding