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U.S. History 1877-Present 7: President Warren G. Harding 59 Views


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President Harding won the election by promising a "return to normalcy." Seems like everyone forgot how terribly corrupt big businesses normally were...

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English Language

Transcript

00:03

Once Woodrow Wilson vacated the White House in 1921 the [Woodrow Wilson in Presidents office]

00:07

place was packed with Republicans for the rest of the decade first up to bat

00:11

was warren g harding who campaigned on the promise that he would bring a return

00:15

to normalcy to america but what a normal mean to Warren G mandatory oatmeal for [Warren sitting at desk with oatmeal]

00:21

all it meant a return to a government that was pro-business anti-tax and anti

00:26

regulation well during World War one the federal government under Wilson had been

00:30

all up in the business of big business so all the big business guys told Uncle [Big Business men approach Uncle Sam]

00:34

Sam it was time for him to get out of their offices they figured they could do

00:37

way better with that you know Uncle Sam cramping their style also it was just

00:42

creepy to have some random old guy chilling in their space in a moment [Old man watching kid on computer]

00:46

Harding's Treasury secretary mega wealthy financier Andrew Mellon actually

00:50

cut income tax rates for the wealthiest Americans from the staggering 73 percent

00:55

to 25 percent this created tons of capital and injected jet fuel into the [Cash falling and jet flys by]

01:00

stock market and into new businesses helping the Jay Gatsby and Andrew Mellon

01:05

to the world make good amounts of money and like the wealthy well they could [Man dressed in money in bedroom made of money]

01:09

have built houses made of actual stacks of money just for fun that'd be great

01:12

no doubt that helped create an economic boom in America but it also set the

01:16

nation up for the economic bust of the Great Depression like money was just too [Girl celebrating with rain of coins]

01:21

easy to borrow Harding absolutely hated the government regulation of business

01:25

instituted under the progressive administrations of fellow Republicans

01:29

like Teddy Roosevelt and cap will come about this course he loaded the federal

01:33

regulatory agencies with officials plucked from the industries meant to be [People thrown into regulatory agencies]

01:37

regulated yeah so the guys who are supposed to be monitoring certain

01:40

industries were actually from those industries well they know the industry

01:43

better than anyone else well many of these anti regulation regulators proved

01:47

to be not only philosophically opposed to government regulation but sadly

01:52

insanely corrupt under Harding's administration scandal tainted many

01:56

departments of the government with the corrupt looting of public property [Man running through field with monopoly cards]

01:59

costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars in the most infamous incident

02:03

called the Teapot Dome scandal Harding's anti conservationists interior

02:08

secretary accepted bribes of nearly half a million dollars from cronies in the [Men put stacks of cash on desk]

02:12

oil industry this was his reward for giving away drilling rights in valuable

02:17

federal oil reserves at teapot dome Wyoming and elk Hills California well

02:21

this kind of out-of-control corruption has led today's historians to rank

02:24

Harding pretty high on the worst presidents lift ever this was an

02:29

impressive achievement and Harding only served three years of his term before [Harding stood by Worst Presidents list]

02:32

dying of a stroke while on a speaking tour yet his circulatory system was

02:36

corrupt too [Woman point to circulatory system]

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