"Analysis: Warren G. Harding: ""Not Nostrums, but Normalcy""."

Warren G. Harding delivered this speech before the Home Market Club in Boston, Massachusetts, in the spring of 1920, before he was selected as the Republican nominee for president. His speech presented a critique of the political reforms and Progressivism of Democratic President Woodrow Wilson. This was the first speech in which Harding called for a return to “normalcy,” a major theme of his campaign. Throughout the speech, Harding drew a number of contrasts between what he saw as the needless experimentation of Wilson’s Progressive agenda and his desire to see the United States return to traditional, more conservative ideals and practices that he believed the Republican Party embodied. He called for less dependence on government, more reliance on the character and accomplishments of the people, and an abandonment of the internationalism associated with US participation in World War I and Wilson’s attempt to draw the country into the League of Nations.