The Ohio Gang by Charles L. Mee Jr

Author:Charles L. Mee Jr.
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781590772881
Publisher: M. Evans & Company
Published: 2015-01-12T16:00:00+00:00

In foreign relations, Harding was stuck with a country that had just repudiated President Wilson’s League of Nations. Some said that the entire election had been nothing but a referendum on the League of Nations. The opposition to the league had been stated as worry that America would lose its historic character if it were to become entangled with evil and cynical Europeans. The essential concern was that foreign entanglements would lead to an internationalist, imperialist foreign policy, with all the customary damage that does to a democratic country: the flow of power out of state and local governments to the federal government, and, within the federal governments, to the executive branch, and within the executive branch into the hands of an imperial presidency and so ending in the destruction of the Republic itself. The question of internationalism versus isolationism had been drawn in no less compelling terms than these.

And yet, Harding had somehow straddled the issue during the election campaign. He was against Wilson’s league, no doubt of that. He was against that sort of vague idealism that Wilson had come to represent. But he was not quite, altogether, against some sort of American role in the world. And, when it came time to choose his cabinet, Harding appointed both Hoover and Hughes, both of them well known as internationalists.

Just what Harding was about confused editorial writers, who resorted to commonplace political explanations: Harding wanted to make peace with the liberal wing of the party; Harding wanted to smooth over differences; Harding wanted to blunt criticism by absorbing it.

But Hughes made the difference between Wilson and Harding clear: Hughes spoke, on behalf of the new administration, in terms not of American “ideals,” but of American “interests.” America would enter the world to pursue its interests–that and that alone. No one could object to that. To protect one’s own interests was surely an unimpeachable intent. To pursue one’s natural interest is simply to be true to one’s character to pursue one’s natural destiny.

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