NOT-SO-GREAT DEPRESSION

America's greatest depression fighter was Warren Gamaliel Harding, says the Cato's Institute's Jim Powell. He was elected president in 1920 and followed the much praised Woodrow Wilson -- who had built up huge federal bureaucracies, imprisoned dissenters and incurred $25 billion of debt.

Harding's Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover wanted government intervention, but Harding would have none of it. He insisted that relief measures were a local responsibility. Under Harding:

• Federal spending was cut from $6.3 billion in 1920 to $5 billion in 1921 and to $3.2 billion in 1922.

• The number of unemployed fell to 6.7 percent of the labor force -- in 1922.

• And just a year and a half after Harding became president, the Roaring 20s were underway; the unemployment rate declined to a low of 1.8 percent in 1926.

While Harding can hardly be considered a champion of laissez-faire economics, his pro-growth policies are directly responsible for the growth in prosperity America enjoyed through the Roaring 20s, says Powell.

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