UPDATE #2 – Let’s be nice to Dave. We’ve had some enjoyable sparring, but I don’t want it to shed more heat than light. I instigated this, so I’d like to tone this down.
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UPDATE: Dave Maass replies in the comments. I append one tiny question he failed to answer.
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“I am not fit for this office and should never have been here.”
President Warren G. Harding reportedly uttered these damning words about his inadequacy for the office. CityBeat writer and SD Rostra groupie Dave Maass, in rebutting an SD Rostra post praising Harding’s tax-cutting response to a recession that began in 1920, stated in the comments that Harding “reportedly” uttered these words.
Warren G. Harding
“Reportedly,” however, is not the same as confirmed. It’s often a tip-off the writer doesn’t have confirmation from a primary source. (Confession: I’ve used that weasel-word myself). So my journalistic hackles rose on hearing that word. It’s a great quote to discredit Harding’s presidency, almost too good to be true.
Perhaps it is.
In my reply to Maass in the comments, I said he should do a little research to confirm the quote’s authenticity. Diligent reporter concerned with accuracy that he is, Maass is presumably burning the midnight oil. Out of compassion, I decided to help with the research. (And if I’m wrong in my suspicions and my snark backfires, I wanted to be the first to find out).
Over the last day and a half, I’ve sporadically Googled the quote, looking to find a primary source, and have had virtually no luck. None of those using the phrase, including a 2007 U.S. News and World Report article by Jay Tolson Dave cited, gave a reference. Creative Loafing, the Atlanta alternative weekly, published a juvenile anti-Bush article in 2009 that offhandedly attributed the quote to a “diary admission.”
The closest I’ve been able to find as a source is Wikiquote, which cites a 1939 book by Nicholas Murray Butler (1939) Across the Busy Years vol. 1. That’s not exactly a plenitude of confirmation, although it’s better than nothing. I would have thought such a startling quote would have been written about more extensively. It would have provided rich material for historians and student papers. Perhaps these exist, but just aren’t accessible to my information valet, Mr. Google.
So right now all I have is a very inadequate reference, not enough to prove the quote authentic. The reference doesn’t specify to whom Harding spoke these words, or even the year in which he spoke them. For such a startling admission of failure, that’s very thin. The lack of firm sourcing worried a Wikipedia contributor, “KarlFrei” who in 2008 argued against the quote’s inclusion in its article on Harding:
“This quote was mentioned prominently in the article, in the summary at the start, but with a bad source. I have looked a little bit (standard google search) but have been unable to locate an authoritative source for this quote, just several trivia lists and quote lists. Since this is a rather extreme statement for a president in office to make, I think we need a really good source here, ideally a newspaper from the time.
“As a bare minimum, we should be able to establish exactly *when* he said this and to whom, and perhaps also in what circumstances. None of the sources I found provide any background, they simply repeat the quote verbatim. As long as we cannot even pin a date on this quote, I do not believe it should be in this encyclopedia.”
KarlFrei appears to have won the point: the alleged Harding quote is not to be found in his Wikipedia entry as of the night of June 15.
But perhaps there is such an authoritative source for this quote, specifying its date and circumstances. I’ve not had much success so far. So I’m turning to the SD Rostra community to help Dave Maass prove its authenticity. {snark} Such a widely used quote simply has to be accurate, otherwise, all the journalists who used it would be wrong. And it’s simply inconceivable that such a journalistic consensus would be in error.{/snark}.
Gentle readers, please comment, with link if possible, to any sources that shed light on this matter. And please hurry. Because if Dave is correct, I’d like you to provide the confirmation. That will be some consolation as I eat crow.
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(DISCLAIMER: This article by Bradley J. Fikes does not necessarily reflect the opinion of his employer, the North County Times.)