Sold – Warren G. Harding Urges Honesty in Banking

The Ohio Bankers’ Association was founded in 1891 and still exists today as the Ohio Bankers’ League. Its 17th Annual Convention would have been circa 1908. The guest speaker that year was a newspaper publisher from Marion, Ohio named Warren G. Harding. From 1899-1905, Harding had served in the Ohio State Senate and then as the state’s lieutenant governor. At the conclusion of the latter term, he returned to private life and did not re-enter politics for ten years. He was a United States Senator from 1914–1921, and his presidency followed immediately thereafter.

The topic of Harding’s speech to the Ohio bankers was “Security.” Here are a few exerpts from this 17-page Autograph Manuscript; a printed copy of the entire address in included. After starting out mentioning “my short public service,” he spoke of the progress being made by America generally and the banking industry in particular. “We have made some astonishing advances in this most astonishing nation, but finance and banking are ever abreast of the advancing American procession. Banking has necessarily been a vital factor in commerce and industry in which we Americans have easily distanced the whole world…The security to which I would briefly address my remarks is not the guaranty of the loan to the banker, but the security the banker owes to the depositor…When that condition is attained bank deposits will increase as you have not dreamed and millions will be added to the active capital of this matchless and tireless industrial and commercial people…One man may be dishonest, but it is difficult to maintain collective dishonesty. One man may be admirably honest and yet be deceived, but it is difficult to buncoe a board of men committed to responsibility. One man may be talented and of good intent, but he gets the virus of speculation in his veins. With unfettered authority he takes a great risk, is crowned a Napoleon if he wins, but brings misery to hundreds of trusting homes, stigma on his associates and distrust upon the banking business if he fails…The spirit of the times will not harmonize with one-man policy. Genius and talent still make capacity and will grow no less in usefulness and influence, but we live in an era of joint responsibility. Autocracy no longer holds a sway. We Americans do not believe in and will not have an autocratic government. No good intent of any executive has ever persuaded us to favor the abandonment of Congress or the judiciary. We believe there is an efficacy in a balance wheel on all driving authority…You bankers make and unmake public confidence. You supply the fuel that makes the steam that keeps the wheels revolving. You ought, with popular aid, to sustain banking ethics with banking laws and abiding honesty…”

Harding is often ridiculed as inarticulate and fatuous and criticized as having no comprehensible principles. This speech proves that these attitudes are wrong, that he had a clear understanding of the American system of government, a great confidence in the American people, and the courage to face a room of businessmen and lecture them on ethics and honesty. So here we catch a glimpse of why Hardin g rose to prominance. The speech has an irony about it, however, because the very things he insisted on to the bankers – honesty and responsibility – are the ones that he neglected as president and that cost him his reputation.