Historian Ryan S. Walters takes on an apologia that few dare to present these days: A President who accomplished in 882 days in office more in substance than JFK did with so many mixed disasters (Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, Berlin Wall, at al) among cosmetic successes in 1,036 days. Yet “Kennedy became an icon; Harding was deemed a failure,” as Walters reminds us. This is an undeserved inversion. Harding deserves much more than he is credited by biased, derelict academics who merely repeat long-removed partisan, parroted opinion instead of careful immersion in primary, contemporary perspective. Harding accomplished a remarkable, historic, and courageous list of achievements, from the conclusion of hostilities to the disarmament policy to an incredible outlook on civil rights and national healing to his irate handling of the scandals that surfaced as certain officials proved their untrustworthiness with federal responsibility. He eclipses the now rising Grant, whose handling of the Credit Mobilier and Whiskey Ring scandals creeping into his administrations, resulted in the incredible defense of his personal secretary Babcock and the timid acceptance of Ben Barstow’s resignation, the one among the minority of administration officers who tenaciously held to an investigation of wrongdoing across the Executive Branch. It was Barstow, not Babcock, who kept on cleaning house, filing over 350 indictments, and acting zealously on what Grant only reluctantly declared in frustration, “Let no guilty man escape if it can be avoided.” If Grant had exerted the same extent of effort to defend his untrustworthy secretary (Babcock) as Harding exerted to confront Charles Forbes and Harry Daugherty’s friend, Jesse Smith, Harding might now be experiencing the rise Grant is now seeing in recent years, interestingly enough. Such is the inequity of biased historians sitting as judges on historical memory. They often get it wrong. Mr. Walters presents an increasingly compelling case, especially as the evidence cumulatively builds in chapters 6-9 of the book. Harding did much more than he is credited with and yet his death silences his legacy on what more could have been done to hold the guilty accountable and cement still more what could have been accomplished in 1923 and 1924. In the Conclusion, however, Mr. Walters overreaches his case by omitting the credit due Calvin Coolidge assigning it instead, with back-handed praise, to Herbert Hoover. It was former President Coolidge who was also present at the Marion dedication in 1931 — after six years of unremitting effort he wrought that followed Harding’s incomplete term to carry out their shared vision of fiscal discipline, media transparency, domestic restoration, international settlement, and civil rights advocacy that prevailed long after Harding was gone. Through the rigorous exertion of Coolidge’s team, including Mellon, Dawes, Lord, and so many others, the Twenties roared. It was Coolidge who wrote in three Ladies Home Journal essays in 1929 reflecting on the Harding-Coolidge agenda, as he left office (as if to remind Hoover), that it was on the shoulders of his predecessors that Hoover won election and entered office with unprecedented political capital. It was Coolidge who continued to work for the policies of Harding — including the U. S. Highway System that debuted in 1926 — that merits even more credit than Cal is typically given, an oversight in which even Mr. Walters indulges in his book. It is incorrect to elevate Harding at the expense of Coolidge just as it is unfair to consign the Twenties to isolationism and economic weakness merely because Wilson had exhausted his political capital by 1920 and FDR had not yet capitalized on the accomplishments of Harding and Coolidge, as he would in 1932. It was no less a progressive, advancing, historic era. Mr. Walters makes his case that Harding deserves much more but, in doing so, he withholds — at times — the same degree of credit due to Coolidge that he criticizes is deprived from Harding. We need not prove how to lift up one President by tearing down another. Harding was not weak but the Presidential ratings game too often indulges in the opposite of what Cal himself once said, “Don’t expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong.” It is perhaps symptomatic of the incomplete treatment of Coolidge in The Jazz President that Mr. Walters misquotes that too often incorrectly-cited quip that the “business of America is business,” when the myth has long been refuted in multiple sources.

We would do well to credit both Harding and Coolidge for their distinctive accomplishments without resorting to the unjust assessment that Harding (let alone Cal) did it all alone, when neither claim holds up historically. As historian Jerry Wallace notes: Both Harding and Coolidge were necessary to launch and continue the normalcy agenda. Harding’s personality was ideally suited to assemble the team that welcomed the necessary contributions of opposites like Mellon and Dawes, while also wrangling legislators in Senate and House. What momentum could gather without first putting down the tracks in statute and appropriation, in the creation of resolutions, settlements, bureaus, and appointee confirmations? Coolidge’s administrative acumen and focus for details were ideally suited to build on what Harding had begun and keep pressing forward their singular program once Cal’s steady endurance had taken the helm. Both ‘engineers’ maintained the steam vital to advance but the rails had to come first. Put another way, without Harding, the agenda would not have taken flight. Without Coolidge, the agenda would have crash-landed and been merely a footnote of hastily jettisoned, untested public policy lasting a meager two years. Harding and Coolidge, for all their differences in style and personality, made one of the most excellent Presidential pairs in American history. Few others ever come close with comparable results. Wilson and Marshall had a tragically abysmal relationship. “Cactus Jack” Garner had pungent words for his role as Vice President under FDR. Truman fared no better in the administration. Reagan and Bush as well as LBJ and JFK certainly fall far short of anything close to the working team Harding and Coolidge were. The closest equivalent in the last century might be Eisenhower and Nixon. In fact, before Harding, the Vice Presidency was merely an ornamental and strategic alliance, a mutual burden to carry until death or election freed the bearers. Harding and Coolidge confirmed its actively involved role in the vital work of the administration.

Mr. Walter’s book is well worth a careful reading, earning 4 and 1/4 stars. Much thanks to Mr. Walters for tackling a long overdue defense of a President who did much more than most allow recognition for or to whom honor is rarely, if ever, bestowed. It is intellectual laziness that caricatures him now when civic responsibility and mature citizenship demands a greater esteem for his courage and achievements, especially when considered Harding seized the momentum and kept at it with no less fervor than FDR did in his first ‘Hundred Days.’ Harding merits a higher regard than the historians acknowledge and Walters shines a welcome light on a too neglected corner of Presidential, if not American, history.