President Warren G. Harding

On a humid July evening in 1921, the new President of the United States leaned back in the upholstered seat of a White House car rolling slowly up Pennsylvania Avenue. Warren Gamaliel Harding had just delivered a speech titled “Not Heroes, but Partners,” praising the teamwork required to rebuild a nation emerging from war. Crowds lined the sidewalks, many of them smiling at the tall, handsome man with silver hair and movie-star features. Veterans tipped their hats. Older women waved handkerchiefs. Reporters scribbled his every gesture. Harding acknowledged them with his characteristic easy warmth. He had a gift for it—an instinctive, almost unconscious ability to make people feel comfortable in his presence. More than any president since perhaps McKinley, he simply looked the part: dignified, reassuring, polished in a way that restored confidence after years of turmoil.