The ratification of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth amendments, the Suffrage and Prohibition measures, and the Federal Child Labor Law, important measures long pending, were enacted in this administration.
He died on February 3, 1924, and his tomb in the crypt of the great cathedral at St. Albans draws daily pilgrims.
CHAPTER XVII
THE ADMINISTRATION OF WARREN G.
HARDING
March 4, 1921, to August 2, 1923
INAUGURATION DAY dawned clear and bright for Warren G. Harding, twenty-ninth President. His installation into office was marked by its simplicity.
The Hardings went direct to the Willard Hotel upon their arrival in Washington. On the morning of March 4th, President-elect and Mrs. Harding, Vice President-elect and Mrs. Coolidge, and George B. Christian, Jr., with former Speaker Cannon, went to the White House. As the hour of the inaugural ceremonies drew near, President Wilson appeared leaning on the arm of Mr. Harding and took his seat in the machine that was to take him to the Capitol. Mrs. Wilson was accompanied by Dr. Grayson. She and Mrs. Harding rode together in a car following that of their husbands. Four troops of the Third Cavalry had been assigned to the duty as escort.
This inauguration was not in any respect like previous celebrations; not a strain of music was heard until the party had passed the Peace Monument. There the Harding and Coolidge Band of Washington was playing. The only other music was by the Marine Band on the plaza in front of the reviewing stand. President Wilson spent a few minutes signing belated bills and then decided to take his departure, as he was taxing his strength. He was assisted to his machine, and with Mrs. Wilson, Admiral Grayson, and Mr. Tumulty, he left the scene of so much of his activity to receive a great ovation later at his own home.
In the Senate Chamber, Vice President Marshall inducted Governor Coolidge into office. Miss Alice Robertson attracted much attention as the second woman to be elected to Congress. She was from Oklahoma, and succeeded Miss Rankin as the one woman legislator. The ceremony on the East Portico deviated but little from those of former occasions. Amplifiers were used for the first time to enable the people to hear the address. The oath was administered by Chief Justice White on a Bible of historic interest. It was the one used by George Washington in 1789. It had been borrowed from the Masonic Lodge for the purpose then, and was loaned by the same Lodge for Mr. Harding’s use.
After the address, the new President went back to the Senate chamber, made a brief speech to his former colleagues, and then presented the names of his Cabinet. They were at once confirmed. All precedents were eclipsed in the celerity with which government control was transferred from the Democrats to the Republicans and in the speed with which the new régime was organized and ready for functioning. The new Cabinet consisted of Charles E. Hughes, Secretary of State; John W. Weeks, Secretary of War; Harry M. Daugherty, Attorney General; Will H. Hays, Postmaster General; Edwin Denby, Secretary of the Navy; Albert B. Fall, Secretary of the Interior; Henry Cantwell Wallace, Secretary of Agriculture; Herbert Clark Hoover, Secretary of Commerce, and James J. Davis, Secretary of Labour.