“I, Warren Gamaliel Harding, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
The new President was sworn in at 1:18 p.m., beginning 881 days as the face of the American republic. His tenure would be one of the shortest in the nation's history - longer only than those of Zachary Taylor, James Garfield, and William Henry Harrison. Administering the presidential oath of office was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Edward Douglass White. Chief Justice White would be dead in just over two months' time; President Harding would be dead in just over two years' time.
Harding swore his oath with a hand over the George Washington Inaugural Bible, which was used for the same purpose by the nation's first president in 1789. Presidents Dwight Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter, and George H.W. Bush would also use the Washington Bible during their ceremonies. President Harding knew the power and promise of the occasion. A reverent Baptist, Harding filled his following inaugural address with appeals to the divine.
The new President faced the assemblage and spoke of the trials of war in years past. The Great War, a peculiar quagmire of aristocracies, had been quelled in part by the interference of the American people, but what was it for?
"We have seen a world passion spend its fury, but we contemplate our Republic unshaken, and hold our civilization secure. Liberty--liberty within the law--and civilization are inseparable, and though both were threatened we find them now secure; and there comes to Americans the profound assurance that our representative government is the highest expression and surest guaranty of both."
Harding provided the congregation with a sermon of civil religion. His was a message of pride, for America had shown that democracy and liberty could win the day. The veil between the New World and the Old had been broken not by invasion by the European empires but by forces from the United States looking, at least in theory, to "make the world safe for democracy."
"In the beginning the Old World scoffed at our experiment; today our foundations of political and social belief stand unshaken, a precious inheritance to ourselves, an inspiring example of freedom and civilization to all mankind. Let us express renewed and strengthened devotion, in grateful reverence for the immortal beginning, and utter our confidence in the supreme fulfillment."
Scholars should note the appearance of the word 'civilization' twelve times within Harding's fairly short address. Harding was not only taking office after a massive conflict but also following a time of great fear regarding the internal stability of modern states. Ideas crossed borders rapidly, and socialism, anarchism, communism, syndicalism, and various other -isms from Europe were influencing minds in America. What most feared regarding the introduction of new peoples, new ideas, and new customs was a decline in healthy civilization and the introduction of rule by the mob. A president had even been assassinated by one of those charlatans in recent memory! Harding served fairly well as that stabilizing voice that Americans craved after so much change, even if they were to risk throwing out good change alongside the bad in the process.
"If revolution insists upon overturning established order, let other peoples make the tragic experiment. There is no place for it in America. When World War threatened civilization we pledged our resources and our lives to its preservation, and when revolution threatens we unfurl the flag of law and order and renew our consecration."
Civilization was also used to speak of world collaboration and the idea of the League of Nations. The challenges that many saw with such international organizations was that it would remove full sovereignty of the people of the United States over their affairs. Conservatives and progressives alike in certain circles agreed that the League of Nations would be a slippery slope toward giving up the independence of the country. As Senator, Harding had not been as vehemently against the League as some of his colleagues, but his rhetoric during the campaign and in his inaugural address served to calm many who expected him to certainly be more cautious than Wilson had been on the matter.
"Our eyes never will be blind to a developing menace, our ears never deaf to the call of civilization. We recognize the new order in the world, with the closer contacts which progress has wrought. We sense the call of the human heart for fellowship, fraternity, and cooperation. We crave friendship and harbor no hate. But America, our America, the America builded on the foundation laid by the inspired fathers, can be a party to no permanent military alliance. It can enter into no political commitments, nor assume any economic obligations which will subject our decisions to any other than our own authority."
What followed were a string of what can now be viewed as successful policy promises. President Harding spoke of "approximate disarmament" between nations, easing the "burdens of military and naval establishments," ending "abnormal expenditures," removing the war taxes, the "omission of unnecessary interference of Government with business," and a "self-reliant, independent, and ever nobler, stronger, and richer" America - the latter a fancy way of saying higher tariffs.
There were multiple points in Harding's address where it was unclear whether he was talking to the capitalist business interests or to organized labor groups. This was most likely the intent behind such obscurities. For instance, he proclaimed:
"My most reverent prayer for America is for industrial peace, with its rewards, widely and generally distributed, amid the inspirations of equal opportunity."
and,
"Ours is a constitutional freedom where the popular will is the law supreme and minorities are sacredly protected."
The context surrounding these quotes reveals much ambiguity. Was Harding's prayer for "industrial peace" a call to the unions and the socialists to calm down, or was it a way of telling the working class that it would be reserved a seat at the table and a fair shake by the new administration? Was protection of minorities a dog whistle to the rich and the privileged elite - using the term minority like a Madisonian, or was it a genuine declaration of change in the air for the treatment of groups like African-Americans, Native American nations, immigrants, or political dissidents? The Harding presidency would go on to show a mixture of both approaches. Business and capital boomed in the 1920s, and the original supply-siders rose to prominence in the deregulated landscape, but Harding would give surprisingly positive pushes for the better treatment of the African-American population, and he was far less oppressive on civil liberties and political dissention than President Woodrow Wilson had been during the Great War.
Probably tiring of the biting cold, though likely also thankful for having the assistance of voice-amplification technology at an inaugural address for the first time in presidential history, Harding closed with his signature humility and piety as follows:
"I accept my part with single-mindedness of purpose and humility of spirit, and implore the favor and guidance of God in His Heaven. With these I am unafraid, and confidently face the future. I have taken the solemn oath of office on that passage of Holy Writ wherein it is asked: "What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" This I plight to God and country."
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