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Warren G. Harding

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Warren G. Harding

Warren Gamaliel Harding (November 2, 1865 – August 2, 1923) was the 29th President of the United States (1921–1923), when he became the sixth president to die in while president. He most likely died because of heart disease.

Sourced quotes

  • "America's present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality."[1]
About the quote: Many people think that Harding was the first person to use the word "normalcy" in this speech, but the word was written as early as the 1850s as alternative to "normality"."
Simple: What America needs right now is not people acting like heroes, but healing; not simple medicines, but normality; not big changes, but rebuilding; not pushing hard, but making small changes; not surgery (doctors fixing people by cutting) but calmness; not very emotional things, but without too much emotion; not experiment, but balance; not getting lost in being international, but staying steady in proud nationality.
  • "Practically all we know is that thousands of native Haitians have been killed by American Marines, and that many of our own gallant men have sacrificed their lives at the behest of an Executive department in order to establish laws drafted by the Assistant Secretary of the Navy. ... I will not empower an Assistant Secretary of the Navy to draft a constitution for helpless neighbors in the West Indies and jam it down their throats at the point of bayonets borne by US Marines."[2]
About the quote: Speech during Warren Harding's 1920 presidential campaign, criticizing Woodrow Wilson's Haitian policies.
  • "Let the black man vote when he is fit to vote; prohibit the white man voting when he is unfit to vote."[3]
Simple: Allow people who are black to vote if they are good people; do not allow white people to vote if they are bad.
About the quote: Speech delivered to segregated people at Woodrow Wilson Park in Birmingham, Alabama on the occasion of the city's 50 year anniversary.

References

  1. Speech in Boston, Massachusetts (May 24, 1920)
  2. Democracy at the Point of Bayonets (1999) by Mark Penceny, p. 2
  3. Birmingham Post (October 27, 1921) quoted in Political Power in Birmingham, 1871-1921 (1977) by Carl V. Harris (1977) University of Tennessee Press, ISBN 087049211X

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