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The first thing Warren G. Harding did as president was to unlock the White House gates which had been barred for the duration of the Great War. He had been carried to office on the wings of the slogan "Return to Normalcy," - a notion all too seductive to a country exhausted by intense politics of Woodrow Wilson.
Raised in small - town Ohio, Harding took hold of a failing newspaper and made a go of it. His talent for oratory led to his election as a state senator in 1898 and lieutenant governor in 1903. In 1910 he ran unsuccessfully for governor. Four years later, he was elected a U.S. Senator. He demonstrated a flair for mediation, but on most issues he stood with his party. This led to his popularity in Congress, and he was nominated for president thanks to a stalemate between two Republican hopefuls. He went on to win election by a landslide.
As president, he set the highest tariffs in history, passed legislation limiting immigration and succeeded in reducing both income tax and the national debt.
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