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Warren
G. Harding Speech - Inaugural address
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. We have seen a
world passion spend its fury, but we contemplate our Republic unshaken,
and hold our civilization secure. Liberty--liberty within the law--and
civilization are inseparable, and though both were threatened we find them
now secure; and there comes to Americans the profound assurance that our
representative government is the highest expression and surest guaranty of
both.
Standing in this presence, mindful of the solemnity of this occasion,
feeling the emotions which no one may know until he senses the great
weight of responsibility for himself, I must utter my belief in the divine
inspiration of the founding fathers. Surely there must have been God's
intent in the making of this new-world Republic. Ours is an organic law
which had but one ambiguity, and we saw that effaced in a baptism of
sacrifice and blood, with union maintained, the Nation supreme, and its
concord inspiring. We have seen the world rivet its hopeful gaze on the
great truths on which the founders wrought. We have seen civil, human, and
religious liberty verified and glorified. In the beginning the Old World
scoffed at our experiment; today our foundations of political and social
belief stand unshaken, a precious inheritance to ourselves, an inspiring
example of freedom and civilization to all mankind. Let us express renewed
and strengthened devotion, in grateful reverence for the immortal
beginning, and
utter our confidence in the supreme fulfillment.
The recorded progress of our Republic, materially and spiritually, in
itself proves the wisdom of the inherited policy of noninvolvement in Old
World affairs. Confident of our ability to work out our own destiny, and
jealously guarding our right to do so, we seek no part in directing the
destinies of the Old World. We do not mean to be entangled. We will accept
no responsibility except as our own conscience and judgment, in each
instance, may determine.
Our eyes never will be blind to a developing menace, our ears never deaf
to the call of civilization. We recognize the new order in the world, with
the closer contacts which progress has wrought. We sense the call of the
human heart for fellowship, fraternity, and cooperation. We crave
friendship and harbor no hate. But America, our America, the America
builded on the foundation laid by the inspired fathers, can be a party to
no permanent military alliance. It can enter into no political
commitments, nor assume any economic obligations which will subject our
decisions to any other than our own authority.
I am sure our own people will not misunderstand, nor will the world
misconstrue. We have no thought to impede the paths to closer
relationship. We wish to promote understanding. We want to do our part in
making offensive warfare so hateful that Governments and peoples who
resort to it must prove the righteousness of their cause or stand as
outlaws before the bar of civilization.
We are ready to associate ourselves with the nations of the world, great
and small, for conference, for counsel; to seek the expressed views of
world opinion; to recommend a way to approximate disarmament and relieve
the crushing burdens of military and naval establishments. We elect to
participate in suggesting plans for mediation, conciliation, and
arbitration, and would gladly join in that expressed conscience of
progress, which seeks to clarify and write the laws of international
relationship, and establish a world court for the disposition of such
justiciable questions as nations are agreed to submit thereto. In
expressing aspirations, in seeking practical plans, in translating
humanity's new concept of righteousness and justice and its hatred of war
into recommended action we are ready most heartily to unite, but every
commitment must be made in the exercise of our national sovereignty. Since
freedom impelled, and independence inspired, and nationality exalted, a
world supergovernment is contrary to everything we cherish and can have no
sanction by our Republic. This is not selfishness, it is sanctity. It is
not aloofness, it is security. It is not suspicion of others, it is
patriotic adherence to the things which made us what we are.
Today, better than ever before, we know the aspirations of humankind, and
share them. We have come to a new realization of our place in the world
and a new appraisal of our Nation by the world. The unselfishness of these
United States is a thing proven; our devotion to peace for ourselves and
for the world is well established; our concern for preserved civilization
has had its impassioned and heroic expression. There was no American
failure to resist the attempted reversion of civilization; there will be
no failure today or tomorrow.
The success of our popular government rests wholly upon the correct
interpretation of the deliberate, intelligent, dependable popular will of
America. In a deliberate questioning of a suggested change of national
policy, where internationality was to supersede nationality, we turned to
a referendum, to the American people. There was ample discussion, and
there is a public mandate in manifest understanding.
America is ready to encourage, eager to initiate, anxious to participate
in any seemly program likely to lessen the probability of war, and promote
that brotherhood of mankind which must be God's highest conception of
human relationship. Because we cherish ideals of justice and peace,
because we appraise international comity and helpful relationship no less
highly than any people of the world, we aspire to a high place in the
moral leadership of civilization, and we hold a maintained America, the
proven Republic, the unshaken temple of representative democracy, to be
not only an inspiration and example, but the highest agency of
strengthening good will and promoting accord on both continents.
Mankind needs a world-wide benediction of understanding. It is needed
among individuals, among peoples, among governments, and it will
inaugurate an era of good feeling to make the birth of a new order. In
such understanding men will strive confidently for the promotion of their
better relationships and nations will promote the comities so essential to
peace.
We must understand that ties of trade bind nations in closest intimacy,
and none may receive except as he gives. We have not strengthened ours in
accordance with our resources or our genius, notably on our own continent,
where a galaxy of Republics reflects the glory of new-world democracy, but
in the new order of finance and trade we mean to promote enlarged
activities and seek expanded confidence.
Perhaps we can make no more helpful contribution by example than prove a
Republic's capacity to emerge from the wreckage of war. While the world's
embittered travail did not leave us devastated lands nor desolated cities,
left no gaping wounds, no breast with hate, it did involve us in the
delirium of expenditure, in expanded currency and credits, in unbalanced
industry, in unspeakable waste, and disturbed relationships. While it
uncovered our portion of hateful selfishness at home, it also revealed the
heart of America as sound and fearless, and beating in confidence
unfailing.
Amid it all we have riveted the gaze of all civilization to the
unselfishness and the righteousness of representative democracy, where our
freedom never has made offensive warfare, never has sought territorial
aggrandizement through force, never has turned to the arbitrament of arms
until reason has been exhausted. When the Governments of the earth shall
have established a freedom like our own and shall have sanctioned the
pursuit of peace as we have practiced it, I believe the last sorrow and
the final sacrifice of international warfare will have been written.
Let me speak to the maimed and wounded soldiers who are present today, and
through them convey to their comrades the gratitude of the Republic for
their sacrifices in its defense. A generous country will never forget the
services you rendered, and you may hope for a policy under Government that
will relieve any maimed successors from taking your places on another such
occasion as this.
Our supreme task is the resumption of our onward, normal way.
Reconstruction, readjustment, restoration all these must follow. I would
like to hasten them. If it will lighten the spirit and add to the
resolution with which we take up the task, let me repeat for our Nation,
we shall give no people just cause to make war upon us; we hold no
national prejudices; we entertain no spirit of revenge; we do not hate; we
do not covet; we dream of no conquest, nor boast of armed prowess.
If, despite this attitude, war is again forced upon us, I earnestly hope a
way may be found which will unify our individual and collective strength
and consecrate all America, materially and spiritually, body and soul, to
national defense. I can vision the ideal republic, where every man and
woman is called under the flag for assignment to duty for whatever
service, military or civic, the individual is best fitted; where we may
call to universal service every plant, agency, or facility, all in the
sublime sacrifice for country, and not one penny of war profit shall inure
to the benefit of private individual, corporation, or combination, but all
above the normal shall flow into the defense chest of the Nation. There is
something inherently wrong, something out of accord with the ideals of
representative democracy, when one portion of our citizenship turns its
activities to private gain amid defensive war while another is fighting,
sacrificing, or dying for national preservation.
Out of such universal service will come a new unity of spirit and purpose,
a new confidence and consecration, which would make our defense
impregnable, our triumph assured. Then we should have little or no
disorganization of our economic, industrial, and commercial systems at
home, no staggering war debts, no swollen fortunes to flout the sacrifices
of our soldiers, no excuse for sedition, no pitiable slackerism, no
outrage of treason. Envy and jealousy would have no soil for their
menacing development, and revolution would be without the passion which
engenders it.
A regret for the mistakes of yesterday must not, however, blind us to the
tasks of today. War never left such an aftermath. There has been
staggering loss of life and measureless wastage of materials. Nations are
still groping for return to stable ways. Discouraging indebtedness
confronts us like all the war-torn nations, and these obligations must be
provided for. No civilization can survive repudiation.
We can reduce the abnormal expenditures, and we will. We can strike at war
taxation, and we must. We must face the grim necessity, with full
knowledge that the task is to be solved, and we must proceed with a full
realization that no statute enacted by man can repeal the inexorable laws
of nature. Our most dangerous tendency is to expect too much of
government, and at the same time do for it too little. We contemplate the
immediate task of putting our public household in order. We need a rigid
and yet sane economy, combined with fiscal justice, and it must be
attended by individual prudence and thrift, which are so essential to this
trying hour and reassuring for the future.
The business world reflects the disturbance of war's reaction. Herein
flows the lifeblood of material existence. The economic mechanism is
intricate and its parts interdependent, and has suffered the shocks and
jars incident to abnormal demands, credit inflations, and price upheavals.
The normal balances have been impaired, the channels of distribution have
been clogged, the relations of labor and management have been strained. We
must seek the readjustment with care and courage. Our people must give and
take. Prices must reflect the receding fever of war activities. Perhaps we
never shall know the old levels of wages again, because war invariably
readjusts compensations, and the necessaries of life will show their
inseparable relationship, but we must strive for normalcy to reach
stability. All the penalties will not be light, nor evenly distributed.
There is no way of making them so. There is no instant step from disorder
to order. We must face a condition of grim reality, charge off our losses
and start afresh. It is the oldest lesson of civilization. I would like
government to do all it can to mitigate; then, in understanding, in
mutuality of interest, in concern for the common good, our tasks will be
solved. No altered system will work a miracle. Any wild experiment will
only add to the confusion. Our best assurance lies in efficient
administration of our proven system.
The forward course of the business cycle is unmistakable. Peoples are
turning from destruction to production. Industry has sensed the changed
order and our own people are turning to resume their normal, onward way.
The call is for productive America to go on. I know that Congress and the
Administration will favor every wise Government policy to aid the
resumption and encourage continued progress.
I speak for administrative efficiency, for lightened tax burdens, for
sound commercial practices, for adequate credit facilities, for
sympathetic concern for all agricultural problems, for the omission of
unnecessary interference of Government with business, for an end to
Government's experiment in business, and for more efficient business in
Government administration. With all of this must attend a mindfulness of
the human side of all activities, so that social, industrial, and economic
justice will be squared with the purposes of a righteous people.
With the nation-wide induction of womanhood into our political life, we
may count upon her intuitions, her refinements, her intelligence, and her
influence to exalt the social order. We count upon her exercise of the
full privileges and the performance of the duties of citizenship to speed
the attainment of the highest state.
I wish for an America no less alert in guarding against dangers from
within than it is watchful against enemies from without. Our fundamental
law recognizes no class, no group, no section; there must be none in
legislation or administration. The supreme inspiration is the common weal.
Humanity hungers for international peace, and we crave it with all
mankind. My most reverent prayer for America is for industrial peace, with
its rewards, widely and generally distributed, amid the inspirations of
equal opportunity. No one justly may deny the equality of opportunity
which made us what we are. We have mistaken unpreparedness to embrace it
to be a challenge of the reality, and due concern for making all citizens
fit for participation will give added strength of citizenship and magnify
our achievement.
If revolution insists upon overturning established order, let other
peoples make the tragic experiment. There is no place for it in America.
When World War threatened civilization we pledged our resources and our
lives to its preservation, and when revolution threatens we unfurl the
flag of law and order and renew our consecration. Ours is a constitutional
freedom where the popular will is the law supreme and minorities are
sacredly protected. Our revisions, reformations, and evolutions reflect a
deliberate judgment and an orderly progress, and we mean to cure our ills,
but never destroy or permit destruction by force.
I had rather submit our industrial controversies to the conference table
in advance than to a settlement table after conflict and suffering. The
earth is thirsting for the cup of good will, understanding is its fountain
source. I would like to acclaim an era of good feeling amid dependable
prosperity and all the blessings which attend.
It has been proved again and again that we cannot, while throwing our
markets open to the world, maintain American standards of living and
opportunity, and hold our industrial eminence in such unequal competition.
There is a luring fallacy in the theory of banished barriers of trade, but
preserved American standards require our higher production costs to be
reflected in our tariffs on imports. Today, as never before, when peoples
are seeking trade restoration and expansion, we must adjust our tariffs to
the new order. We seek participation in the world's exchanges, because
therein lies our way to widened influence and the triumphs of peace. We
know full well we cannot sell where we do not buy, and we cannot sell
successfully where we do not carry. Opportunity is calling not alone for
the restoration, but for a new era in production, transportation and
trade. We shall answer it best by meeting the demand of a surpassing home
market, by promoting self-reliance in production, and by bidding
enterprise, genius, and efficiency to carry our cargoes in American
bottoms to the marts of the world.
We would not have an America living within and for herself alone, but we
would have her self-reliant, independent, and ever nobler, stronger, and
richer. Believing in our higher standards, reared through constitutional
liberty and maintained opportunity, we invite the world to the same
heights. But pride in things wrought is no reflex of a completed task.
Common welfare is the goal of our national endeavor. Wealth is not
inimical to welfare; it ought to be its friendliest agency. There never
can be equality of rewards or possessions so long as the human plan
contains varied talents and differing degrees of industry and thrift, but
ours ought to be a country free from the great blotches of distressed
poverty. We ought to find a way to guard against the perils and penalties
of unemployment. We want an America of homes, illumined with hope and
happiness, where mothers, freed from the necessity for long hours of toil
beyond their own doors, may preside as befits the hearthstone of American
citizenship. We want the cradle of American childhood rocked under
conditions so wholesome and so hopeful that no blight may touch it in its
development, and we want to provide that no selfish interest, no material
necessity, no lack of opportunity shall prevent the gaining of that
education so essential to best citizenship.
There is no short cut to the making of these ideals into glad realities.
The world has witnessed again and again the futility and the mischief of
ill-considered remedies for social and economic disorders. But we are
mindful today as never before of the friction of modern industrialism, and
we must learn its causes and reduce its evil consequences by sober and
tested methods. Where genius has made for great possibilities, justice and
happiness must be reflected in a greater common welfare.
Service is the supreme commitment of life. I would rejoice to acclaim the
era of the Golden Rule and crown it with the autocracy of service. I
pledge an administration wherein all the agencies of Government are called
to serve, and ever promote an understanding of Government purely as an
expression of the popular will.
One cannot stand in this presence and be unmindful of the tremendous
responsibility. The world upheaval has added heavily to our tasks. But
with the realization comes the surge of high resolve, and there is
reassurance in belief in the God-given destiny of our Republic. If I felt
that there is to be sole responsibility in the Executive for the America
of tomorrow I should shrink from the burden. But here are a hundred
millions, with common concern and shared responsibility, answerable to God
and country. The Republic summons them to their duty, and I invite
co-operation.
I accept my part with single-mindedness of purpose and humility of spirit,
and implore the favor and guidance of God in His Heaven. With these I am
unafraid, and confidently face the future.
I have taken the solemn oath of office on that passage of Holy Writ
wherein it is asked: "What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly,
and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" This I plight to God
and country.
Warren Harding
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