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Actually, no. He was ranked the 2nd worst president. He even said himself, "I am not fit to be here.

That's what historians say, but why?

An ok answer would be that he appointed some corrupt friends to cabinet positions who inflicted embarassing scandals on his administration. He was also a womanizer, a quality shared with far more presidents than is well known.

However, the best answer is, was he really so bad? Consider that his adminstration inherited a horrible recession, with unemployment reaching 12% at the start of his administration in 1921, and began one the greatest periods of economic prosperity in US history, with unemployment dropping to under 3% by the time he died in 1923. It was not accident, Harding and the Republican congress cut taxes and government spending in half.

Harding was also a civil rights advocate. He reversed the Wilson era restrictions on African-Americans in Federal jobs and made a speech advocating fair jobs opportunities for blacks in of all places Birmingham Alabama, stating that democracy would always be a sham until they received full equality in education, employment, and political life.

Why is he consistently ranked near the bottom? While the ostensible reason was his scandals, possibly the real reason was the Democratic party's use of his rumored multi-racial ancestry for political reasons, as he may have had some distant black and Native-American forebears. What is certain is that his family fought for the Union in the Civil War and were longtime Ohio abolitionists. That didn't go over well, especially in the Democratic party's core Southern constituency of the time.

He also balanced the budget, inheriting a multi-million dollar budget deficit from Woodrow Wilson and turning it into a multi-million dollar surplus before his death not even two years after taking office. His lower tax rates also got the country out of the Depression he inherited post-WW1, and began the huge economic expansion known as the "roaring twenties"

Another similar view (more of an addition to above):

I think overall Harding was hardly a bad president. He could probably be considered a good president in comparison to presidents like Woodrow Wilson (signed into law the horrific Federal Reserve Act of 1913), G. W. Bush (signed into law the Patriot Act and started unnecessary wars), and Barack Obama (renewed the Patriot Act and continued unnecessary wars). Harding understood that increasing government spending was NOT the way to get out of a depression, and that is why that depression in the early 1920's was so short lived (unlike the Great Depression of 1929 and our current recession where government spending is used to counter it).

Adding more:

You have to understand the mud flinging contest between business and pro-spending to understand the wide difference in opinion between the debaters. Business wins when you research the numbers.

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10y ago
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13y ago

Certainly. He was one of the first civil rights advocates, which didn't go over well with many of the then-southern democrats. Also, he inherited a huge budget shortfall from Woodrow Wilson and turned the post WW1-depression into a period known as the "roaring twenties"; unemployment fell from 12% to under 3%; considered lower than full employment (3-5%). He cut taxes, which actually increased the amt of revenue in taxes, and got up to a huge surplus before his death in 1923. He guided America from the Forgotten Depression to the Roaring Twenties, and though several scandals were uncovered, they were not severe though many like to blow things out of proportion; Iran-Contra and Lewinsky from making Reagan and Clinton, respectively, two of the most admired presidents in American history, and these are far less severe/extreme

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Q: Was president Warren G. Harding a good president?
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