Warren Harding inaugurated as 29th U.S. President and says he will put America first

Washington D.C., 5 March 1921 - Warren G. Harding has been inaugurated as the 29th President of the United States.

At a ceremony in Washington D.C. yesterday, the new president outlined his vision for the United States, stating that the country would ‘seek no part in directing the destinies of the Old World. We do not mean to be entangled. We will accept no responsibility except as our own conscience and judgment, in each instance, may determine.’

While never ‘deaf to the call of civilisation’, Mr Harding’s message to the world was unambiguous: his administration would be governed by a policy of ‘America first’.

A wide shot of the crowd and stage at Harding’s inauguration (Image: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. USA)

The president’s speech, described by the Irish Independent as a ‘plain, practical utterance’, emphasised that America’s aims and those of its allies in the recent war were not one and the same. ‘We,’ he said, ‘crave friendship and harbour no hate...but America...can be a party to no permanent military alliance’ and will enter into ‘no political commitments, nor assume any economic obligations which will subject our decisions to any other than our own authority.’

Reacting to the inaugural address, the unionist newspaper, the Belfast Newsletter, pointed out that the American policy of non-interference in the affairs of the world, as enunciated by Mr Harding, will also apply to Ireland. The paper believes that the speech undermines the suggestion that the British government’s hardline approach towards Sinn Féin activity in Ireland will lead Britain into conflict with the United States. There is, the Newsletter insists, ‘no reason why Anglo-American relations should be less cordial than they were during Mr Wilson’s term of office.’

[Editor's note: This is an article from Century Ireland, a fortnightly online newspaper, written from the perspective of a journalist 100 years ago, based on news reports of the time.]