page_title: Presidency of Warren G. Harding
section_title: Inauguration
hierarchical_section_title: Presidency of Warren G. Harding / Inauguration
caption_attribution_description: English: Warren G. Harding, U.S. President, making inaugural speech.
context_page_description: The presidency of Warren G. Harding began on March 4, 1921, when Warren G. Harding was inaugurated as President of the United States, and ended when he died on August 2, 1923, a span of 881 days. Harding, the 29th United States president, presided over the country in the aftermath of World War I. A Republican from Ohio, Harding held office during a period in American political history from the mid-1890s to 1932 that was generally dominated by his party. He died of heart attack and was succeeded by Vice President Calvin Coolidge.
  Harding took office after defeating Democrat James M. Cox in the 1920 presidential election. Running against the policies of incumbent Democratic President Woodrow Wilson, Harding won the popular vote by a margin of 26.2 percentage points, which remains the largest popular-vote percentage margin in presidential elections since the end of the Era of Good Feelings in the 1820s. Upon taking office, Harding instituted conservative policies designed to minimize the government's role in the economy. Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon won passage of the Revenue Act of 1921, a major tax cut that primarily reduced taxes on the wealthy.
context_section_description: Harding  was inaugurated as the nation's 29th president on March 4, 1921, on the East Portico of the United States Capitol. Chief Justice Edward D. White administered the oath of office. Harding placed his hand on the Washington Inaugural Bible as he recited the oath. This was the first time that a U.S. president rode to and from his inauguration in an automobile. In his inaugural address Harding reiterated the themes of his campaign, declaring:
  My Countrymen: When one surveys the world about him after the great storm, noting the marks of destruction and yet rejoicing in the ruggedness of the things which withstood it, if he is an American he breathes the clarified atmosphere with a strange mingling of regret and new hope. ... Our most dangerous tendency is to expect too much from the government and at the same time do too little for it.
  Literary critic H.L. Mencken was appalled, announcing that:
  He writes the worst English I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights.
caption: Inauguration of Warren G. Harding, March 4, 1921.
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