Warren G. Harding: Great Communicator?
Well....perhaps that is taking it a bit too far but this audio of Harding’s signature “normalcy” speech from 1920 shows the work of a polished orator.
The content also includes much common sense. Unlike the more famous great communicator of a later age, Harding not only cut taxes but reduced the national debt and pursued a consistent policy of arms reduction. Speaking in the aftermath of Woodrow Wilson’s war-created hysteria and red scare, Harding forcefully closes by warning about the dangers of big government: The world needs to be reminded that all human ills are not curable by legislation, and that quantity of statutory enactments and excess of government offer no substitute for quality of citizenship. The problems of maintained civilization are not to be solved by a transfer of responsibility from citizenship to government and no eminent page in history was ever drafted to the standards of mediocrity. Nor, no government worthy of the name which is directed by influence on the one hand or moved by intimidation on the other. My best judgment of America's need is to steady down, to get squarely on our feet, to make sure of the right path. Let's get out of the fevered delirium of war with the hallucination that all the money in the world is to be made in the madness of war and the wildness of its aftermath. Let us stop to consider that tranquility at home is more precious than peace abroad and that both our good fortune and our eminence are dependent on the normal forward stride of all the American people.