Editing Warren G. Harding (section)

====Civil rights and immigration====
[[File:Harding at Birmingham.jpg|thumb|Harding addresses the segregated crowd in Birmingham, Alabama, October 26, 1921.]]
Although Harding's first address to Congress called for passage of anti-lynching legislation,<ref name=Baker18Aug/> he initially seemed inclined to do no more for African Americans than Republican presidents of the recent past had; he asked Cabinet officers to find places for blacks in their departments. Sinclair suggested that the fact that Harding received two-fifths of the Southern vote in 1920 led him to see political opportunity for his party in the [[Solid South]]. On October 26, 1921, Harding gave a speech in [[Birmingham, Alabama]], to a [[racial segregation|segregated]] audience of 20,000 Whites and 10,000 Blacks. Harding, while saying that the social and racial differences between Whites and Blacks could not be bridged, urged equal political rights for the latter. Many African-Americans at that time voted Republican, especially in the Democratic South, and Harding said he did not mind seeing that support end if the result was a strong two-party system in the South. He was willing to see [[literacy test]]s for voting continue, if applied fairly to White and Black voters.{{sfn|Sinclair|pp=230–234}} "Whether you like it or not," Harding told his segregated audience, "unless our democracy is a lie, you must stand for that equality."<ref name=Baker18Aug/> The White section of the audience listened in silence, while the Black section cheered.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Radosh |first1=Ronald |author-link=Ronald Radosh |last2=Radosh |first2=Allis|url=http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/hey_wait_a_minute/2014/07/warren_harding_letters_could_they_spark_a_revisionist_view_of_the_much_maligned.single.html |title=What If Warren Harding Wasn't a Terrible President? |work=[[Slate (magazine)|Slate]] |date=July 16, 2014 |access-date=July 18, 2014}}</ref> Three days after the [[Tulsa race massacre]] of 1921, Harding spoke at the all-Black [[Lincoln University (Pennsylvania)|Lincoln University]] in Pennsylvania. He declared, "Despite the demagogues, the idea of our oneness as Americans has risen superior to every appeal to mere class and group. And so, I wish it might be in this matter of our national problem of races." Speaking directly about the events in Tulsa, he said, "God grant that, in the soberness, the fairness, and the justice of this country, we never see another spectacle like it."<ref>{{cite news |last=Robenalt |first=James D. |title=The Republican president who called for racial justice in America after Tulsa massacre |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|date=June 21, 2020 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/06/21/warren-harding-tulsa-race-massacre-trump/| access-date = June 22, 2020| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20200622065637/https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/06/21/warren-harding-tulsa-race-massacre-trump/| archive-date = June 22, 2020| url-status = live}}</ref>

[[File:Taft Harding Robert Lincoln 1922.jpg|thumb|left|Harding (center) with Chief Justice [[William Howard Taft|Taft]] (left) and [[Robert Todd Lincoln]] at the dedication of the [[Lincoln Memorial]], May 30, 1922]]
Harding supported Congressman [[Leonidas Dyer]]'s [[Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill|federal anti-lynching bill]], which passed the House of Representatives in January 1922.{{sfn|Dean|p=123}} When it reached the Senate floor in November 1922, it was [[filibuster]]ed by Southern Democrats, and Lodge withdrew it to allow the ship subsidy bill Harding favored to be debated, though it was likewise blocked. Blacks blamed Harding for the Dyer bill's defeat; Harding biographer Robert K. Murray noted that it was hastened to its end by Harding's desire to have the ship subsidy bill considered.{{sfn|Murray 1973|pp=89–90}}

With the public suspicious of immigrants, especially those who might be [[socialist]]s or [[communist]]s, Congress passed the [[Emergency Quota Act|Per Centum Act of 1921]], signed by Harding on May 19, 1921, as a quick means of restricting immigration. The act reduced the numbers of immigrants to 3% of those from a given country living in the U.S., based on the 1910 census. This would, in practice, not restrict immigration from Ireland and Germany, but would bar many Italians and eastern European Jews.{{sfn|Sinclair|p=215}} Harding and Secretary of Labor [[James J. Davis|James Davis]] believed that enforcement had to be humane, and at the Secretary's recommendation, Harding allowed almost 1,000 deportable immigrants to remain.{{sfn|Dean|pp=101–102}} Coolidge later signed the [[Immigration Act of 1924]], permanently restricting immigration to the U.S.{{sfn|Sinclair|p=217}}