Harding’s Pompous Phrases

President Warren Harding, who looked like a president, but probably never should have become president, could be challenging to listen to when he delivered speeches.

William McAdoo, President Wilson’s Secretary of the Treasury and his son-in-law, described Harding’s speeches:

“His speeches left the impression of an army of pompous phrases moving over the landscape in search of an idea;  sometimes these meandering words would actually capture a straggling thought and bear it triumphantly as a prisoner in their midst, until it died of servitude and overwork.”