WHO WAS AMERICA’S WORST PRESIDENT?

We have had quite a few bad presidents. There will never be an agreement among historians as to which one was the worst, but my choice for worst U.S. president has always been Warren G. Harding.

Incompetency. First of all, Harding was incompetent. He knew it and said so frequently. While he was running for president. Harding said: “I am a man with limited talents from a small town and should not be president.” That isn’t the sort of thing that a candidate for president normally says at a campaign rally. After becoming president, Harding said: “I am not fit for this office and should never have been here.” At press conferences, Harding told reporters that he did not understand how the federal government worked. When he was asked a question about the income tax, President Harding answered: “I don’t know what to do or where to turn in this taxation matter. Somewhere, there must be a book that tells all about it, where I could go to straighten it all out in my mind. But I don’t know where that book is, and maybe I couldn’t read it if I found it.” Strangely, the more often that Harding said that he was incompetent, the more popular he became. People thought Harding was just being modest.

How Did Harding Get the Nomination?  If Harding was so incompetent, how did he get elected? Most Republicans assumed that their candidate in 1920 would be former president Theodore Roosevelt, but he died suddenly in 1919, and none of the other potential candidates had enough support to get the nomination. The convention was deadlocked. They needed a dark horse candidate, and Harding seemed like a safe choice. His speeches were inoffensive and vague. In 1920, the most controversial issue was whether the U.S. should join the League of Nations. In his speeches on this subject, Harding gave a list of reasons for joining the League and a list of reasons for not joining the League. Harding left people who supported joining the League feeling that he also supported it, and he left people who opposed joining the League feeling that he also opposed it.

Teapot Dome Scandal. Warren Harding was not only incompetent, but he was also corrupt, and he filled his administration with other corrupt politicians. A number of Harding’s appointees were caught taking bribes from oil companies in a scandal known as Teapot Dome. The scandal was exposed in 1921 and by 1923, the Congressional bribery investigation had led to Harding himself. That summer, Harding left Washington for a long trip out West, ostensibly for his health. A few weeks later, President Harding checked into the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. That night, Warren Harding died suddenly in his hotel room. There was no agreement among his doctors as to what was the cause of death. Some people suspected that Harding had been poisoned. He was only 57 years old. Florence Harding, President Harding’s widow, refused to allow an autopsy to be performed. She had the president’s body embalmed one hour after he died, so we will never know what he died from.

Palace Hotel. In addition to President Harding, several other famous people have died in the Palace Hotel’s presidential suite, including King Kalakaua, the last king of Hawaii. I would like to see the inside of this suite, but you have to rent it for a minimum of one night to see it, and it rents for $7,000 to $10,000 a night. Whenever I walk past the hotel, I look at the window of the presidential suite. It’s Room 8064 and faces Market Street.

Prohibition. Warren Harding was a heavy drinker and kept a well-stocked bar at the White House. Prohibition went into effect in 1920, the same year Harding was elected president. Although Harding had run for president as a strong supporter of Prohibition, while he was president, Harding had Prohibition agents bring truckloads of confiscated top-quality liquor to the White House for his ‘examination.’ When Harding’s friends came to visit him at the White House, he gave them liquor to take home for their own ‘examination.’

Poker. Warren Harding was a compulsive gambler and hosted frequent poker games at the White House. One of the people President Harding played poker with was Louise Cromwell Brooks, a Washington socialite. She later married General Douglas MacArthur. At her elegant dinner parties, Miss Brooks often served food to her guests on White House dinnerware. When she was asked how she got the dinnerware, Miss Brooks candidly told people that she won it in a poker game with President Harding. Below is a picture of one of the plates. They sometimes pop up for sale on eBay. Other people who played poker with President Harding told similar stories. After his death, the White House staff started keeping an inventory of White House property, which they still do. It is illegal, of course, for presidents to gamble away White House property. Warren Harding was always popular, but most historians rate him as one of our worst presidents.

HEALTHIER STUFF IN MY CHOCOLATE ROOM.
I am making some changes in my chocolate room. A lot of people have asked for healthier products; products that contain less sugar and that are made with healthier ingredients. This is something that I have been thinking about for a long time. To begin with, I have stopped making chocolate-bottomed Rice Krispie Treats. I’ve had them in my chocolate room for a long time. A lot of people won’t eat them because they contain a number of unhealthy ingredients, including pork by-products. Kellogg’s Rice Krispie Treats are made with marshmallows, and the marshmallows are made with gelatin extracted from pigs. (That’s on Kellogg’s website.) I am not going to tell you what parts of pigs are used to make marshmallows. You might be happier not knowing, but you can find out through an internet search if you want to know. I have replaced the Rice Krispie Treats with chocolate covered Rice Chex. Rice Chex is gluten-free, lactose-free, vegan, and has very little sugar in it. The ingredients list is short and understandable. Even better, chocolate covered Rice Chex is a lot tastier than Rice Krispie Treats. I was surprised at how good it is! Other changes are coming.

THE DESPERATION OF THE WORKING CLASS.
When you look at the history of countries that were taken over by demagogues, you almost always find that the people of those countries were in a state of economic desperation when the demagogues took over. The working class had reached the end of their rope. Does this explain the rise of political extremism in the U.S. today? Just consider these 2 statistics:

1. Almost half of all Americans are broke. Every year, the Federal Reserve conducts a national survey in which they ask people what they would do if they had an unexpected expense of $400. An example of an unexpected expense could be something like a car that stops working and that needs a $400 repair. It could be any expense that is unplanned but that needs immediate attention. 32% said they could not pay an unexpected $400 expense with cash or from savings. An additional 14% said they would be able to pay such an expense, but only by selling something they own or by borrowing the money. That means that nearly half of all Americans have virtually no savings.

2. Half of all the new stores opening in the United States this year will be dollar stores. Half of all the new stores that opened in 2022 and 2021 were also dollar stores. A lot of people find this hard to believe, but it’s true. 1 in 3 new stores opening up in the U.S. in 2023 will be Dollar General stores. Dollar Tree, Five Below, and Family Dollar make up the rest. The rise of dollar stores mirrors the decline of the middle class in America. These stores pay low wages and have little, if any, fresh food. Most of the food they do sell is highly processed and unhealthy, and dollar stores quickly drive local stores out of business in poor neighborhoods as soon as they move in.

History has shown that when the working class of a country becomes economically desperate, they turn to politicians who appeal to people’s fears and passions and offer simple solutions to complex problems. Would Hitler have come to power in Germany if the people weren’t desperate? The same was true when Mussolini seized power in Italy and when Lenin took over Russia. I knew a woman who lived in Germany at the time Hitler came to power. I asked her why so many Germans supported him. Hitler made no secret of what he intended to do. She said that the unemployment rate in Germany at the time was 35%. Her father hadn’t worked in years. Her mother sold her wedding ring and her winter coat to buy food. They thought things couldn’t get any worse. Unfortunately, history has shown that when people are thinking that way, things usually do get worse.

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