Warren Harding

Source

• Born: 2 November 1865
• Birthplace: Corsica, Ohio
• Died: 2 August 1923 (heart attack)
• Best Known As: President of the United States, 1921-23

Warren Harding was president of the United States from 1921 until his sudden death in 1923. One can almost feel sorry for Harding, who consistently gets ranked as one of the worst presidents of all time. Harding published and edited the Marion Daily Star, a pro-Republican newspaper, for many years before serving as Ohio's lieutenant governor (1904-06). He was elected in 1914 to the U.S. Senate, where he became known as a handsome and affable fellow who was not necessarily the most active mind in the chamber. Nonetheless, Harding was chosen as a compromise candidate on the 10th ballot of the 1920 Republican convention. He was inaugurated in 1921 and took over the White House from two-term Democrat Woodrow Wilson. Harding's administration is chiefly remembered for the Teapot Dome scandal, a messy tale of bribery, fraud, and federal oil reserves. Harding died suddenly in San Francisco during a 1923 cross-country tour. He was succeeded by his vice president, Calvin Coolidge.

Harding rode an automobile to his inauguration, the first president ever to do so... He and his wife, Florence Kling Harding, had no children together; Mrs. Harding had a son, Marshall, by a previous marriage (he died in 1915 at the age of 34). Harding's mistress, Nan Britton, alleged after his death that he was the father of her daughter Elizabeth Ann, born in 1919. Harding never publicly acknowledged the child and Britton's claim is now regarded as questionable.

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Warren G. Harding. (credit: Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)

(born Nov. 2, 1865, Caledonia, Ohio, U.S. — died Aug. 2, 1923, San Francisco, Calif.) 29th president of the U.S. (1921 – 23). He became a newspaper publisher in Marion, Ohio, where he was allied with the Republican Party's political machine. He served successively as state senator (1899 – 1902), lieutenant governor (1903 – 04), and U.S. senator (1915 – 21), supporting conservative policies. At the deadlocked 1920 Republican presidential convention, he was chosen as the compromise candidate. Pledging a "return to normalcy" after World War I, he defeated James Cox with more than 60% of the popular vote, the largest margin to that time. On his recommendation, Congress established a budget system for the federal government, passed a high protective tariff, revised wartime taxes, and restricted immigration. His administration convened the Washington Conference (1921 – 22). His ill-advised cabinet appointments, including Albert Fall as secretary of the interior, led to the Teapot Dome scandal and earned his administration a reputation for corruption. After a vacation in Alaska in mid-June 1923, he arrived in San Francisco reportedly suffering from food poisoning and other ailments; he died there under unclear circumstances. He was succeeded by his vice president, Calvin Coolidge.

For more information on Warren Gamaliel Harding, visit Britannica.com.

(b. Corsica, Ohio, 2 Nov. 1865; d. San Francisco, 2 Aug. 1923) US; US Senator 1915 – 20, President 1921 – 3 The son of a farmer, speculator, and doctor, Harding was educated at Ohio Central College and graduated in 1882. After a short stint at a number of jobs, he entered publishing — he bought out an ailing local paper — and established himself as a figure in Ohio politics. A Republican, he was elected to two terms in the state Senate and served for two years as the state's Lieutenant-Governor. Defeated for the governorship of the state in 1910 and again in 1912 he thought about leaving politics, but his forceful wife Florence (known as "the Duchess") and a political ally and fixer, Harry Daugherty, persuaded him to carry on. In 1914 he was elected to the US Senate. He enjoyed mixing with other members. He did little in terms of legislative activity but towards the end of his term began to give voice to a popular mood of despair. In 1920, he emerged as the presidential candidate of a deadlocked Republican convention. He was the choice of the party bosses, who thought he would be responsive to their wishes. They were to be proved right.

Harding, campaigning on a promise to "return to normalcy", was elected President by a massive majority. He won 16 million votes, against 9 million for the Democratic candidate, James Cox. He was inaugurated on 4 March 1921 and appointed to office a number of the political cronies to whom he was both indebted and loyal. He did little, although during his term in the White House his government hosted the Washington conference on naval disarmament and his able Treasury Secretary, Andrew Mellon, achieved reform of the budget system. Harding largely left the business of government to others, a number of whom did treat it as a business. Interior Secretary Albert Fall and Attorney-General Harry Daugherty were among several government officials using their positions to enlarge their personal finances. Fall was leasing oil reserves — including at Teapot Dome, Wyoming — in return for kickbacks. In 1922 rumours of corrupt practices began to circulate and two of those involved committed suicide. Charges were levelled against Daugherty and Fall and in March 1923 Fall was forced to resign. Harding conceded that it was his friends rather than his enemies that were keeping him awake at nights.

Harding went on a trip to restore his flagging popularity. He spoke in several states in the Midwest and West before going to Alaska and then Canada. He then travelled to Seattle and San Francisco. On the way to San Francisco he suffered an attack of food poisoning. In San Francisco, he suffered a cerebral thrombosis and died before doctors could reach him. His body was brought back to Washington to lie in state.

Harding was a disaster as President. His credentials for the job appeared to be that he looked presidential and would not go against his backers. His main attributes appeared to be those of ill-health (he suffered several nervous breakdowns during his publishing career), gambling, drinking, and adultery. He was lazy, preferring to play poker with his cronies to getting on with whatever job he was meant to be doing. His marriage was one of convenience and he had a child by his mistress Nan Britton (who later published a book about their affair). He was not a strong personality, wanting to get on with everyone, and had few ideas of his own. His wife was a driving force, influencing some of his decisions and apparently on occasion — like a later First Lady — taking advice from an astrologer. Though popular in office, the scandal engulfing his administration — dubbed the Teapot Dome scandal — robbed his presidency posthumously of any credit. He was not cut out to be President. Left to his own preferences, he would have stayed in the Senate.

Harding, Warren Gamaliel (1865-1923) 29th president of the United States (1921-23), born near Blooming Grove, Ohio. A prominent newspaperman and leading citizen of Marion, Ohio, Harding served two terms in the state senate (1900-04) and one term as lieutenant governor (1904-06) before being elected to the U.S. Senate. As a Republican senator (1915-21), he supported most of President Woodrow Wilson's war measures, but became highly critical of them after World War I. In 1920 he received his party's presidential nomination and was swept to victory on a platform that called for a return to “normalcy, ” opposition to the League of Nations, protective tariffs, and stricter immigration standards. But once in office, Harding proved ill-suited for the challenges of the position. His administration was marked by highly publicized scandals (many of which came to light only after his death) involving officials in several departments. The most notorious of these was the Teapot Dome affair, concerning the transfer of naval oil reserves at Teapot Dome, Wyoming, to the Department of the Interior, whose secretary subsequently leased them to private interests. The administration's greatest diplomatic achievement was the complex of treaties negotiated and signed at the Washington Conference on the Limitation of Armaments and on Far Eastern and Pacific Questions (1921-22), resulting in the slowing of a naval arms race and international recognition for the U.S. open door policy in regard to China.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

The twenty-ninth president of the United States, Warren Gamaliel Harding (1865-1923), highly popular during his lifetime, was later regarded as one of the worst presidents in the country's history.

Warren G. Harding was born on Nov. 2, 1865, on a farm near Blooming Grove, Ohio. He attended local schools and graduated from Ohio Central College in 1882. His father moved the family to Marion that same year. After unsatisfactory attempts to teach, study law, and sell insurance, young Harding got a job on a local newspaper. In 1884 he purchased the struggling Marion Star with two partners (whom he later bought out). The growth of Marion and his own business skill and editorial abilities brought prosperity to the Starand to Harding. On July 8, 1891, he married Florence DeWolfe, a widow with one child; they had no children of their own.

Election to Office

Active in local Republican politics, Harding was elected in 1899 to the Ohio Senate, where he served two terms and became Republican floor leader. In 1903 he was elected lieutenant governor but retired in 1905. Although a born harmonizer who remained personally on good terms with all elements in the faction-ridden Ohio Republican party, he belonged to the Old Guard wing of the party. He ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1910. But in the Republican comeback in 1914 Harding was elected to the U.S. Senate. As a senator, Harding strongly supported business, pushing for high tariffs, favoring the return of the railroads to private hands, and denouncing radicals. He was a "strong reservationist" on the League of Nations, and he followed Ohio public opinion by voting for the prohibition amendment.

In 1919 Harding announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination; he won the nomination on the tenth ballot. Legend has pictured Harding as a puppet in the hands of his wife or his campaign manager. But Harding was no one's puppet: he was an ambitious and calculating politician. Nor was he the handpicked nominee of a group of Old Guard senators. The convention was unbossed, and Harding, with his reputation as a loyal party man, his amiable personality, and his avoidance of controversial stands, was the second choice of the majority of the rank-and-file delegates. When the two front-runners deadlocked, the convention had swung to the handsome Ohioan.

In the election Harding successfully straddled the explosive League of Nations issue. By capitalizing on the public's yearning for a return to "normalcy" after World War I, Harding won by the largest popular majority yet recorded.

The President

Despite the country's postwar position as a creditor nation, Harding gave his blessing to protective farm tariffs. Devoted to governmental economy, he supported establishment of the Bureau of the Budget, sharply cut government expenditures despite depressed economic conditions, and vetoed the World War I veterans' bonus passed by Congress. He backed Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon's program for repealing the excess-profits tax and lowering the income tax on the wealthy; he gave Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover a free hand in his efforts to promote business cooperation and efficiency; he favored turning over government-owned plants to private enterprise; he packed regulatory commissions and the Supreme Court with conservative appointees; and he strongly favored immigration restriction.

Harding wished to remain neutral in labor disputes and worked behind the scenes for conciliation, but when his hand was forced, he took management's side. Thus, after his attempted mediation in the 1922 railroad shopmen's strike failed, he approved a sweeping injunction against the strikers - this won him the bitter enmity of organized labor.

But Harding was not the archreactionary of later myth. He supported the Sheppard-Towner Act (1921), extending federal aid to the states to reduce infant mortality. He unsuccessfully proposed establishing a department of public welfare to coordinate and expand Federal programs in education, public health, child welfare, and recreation. He was instrumental in ending the 12-hour day in the steel industry. He promoted increased federal spending on highways. He commuted the sentences of most of the wartime political prisoners, including Socialist leader Eugene V. Debs. While balking at government subsidies or price-fixing to assist farmers hard hit by postwar falling prices, he approved legislation for extending credit to farmers, for stricter federal supervision of the meat industry, for regulating speculation on the grain exchanges, and for exempting farm marketing cooperatives from the antitrust laws.

Foreign Policy

In foreign policy Harding was largely guided by his prointernationalist secretary of state, Charles Evans Hughes. Although Harding regarded the 1920 election as a popular mandate against American membership in the League of Nations, his administration cooperated with the nonpolitical activities of the League, and in 1923 he came out in favor of American membership on the World Court. Adamant in demanding full repayment of Allied war debts, he was flexible in arranging terms.

Efforts were made to restore good relations with Mexico and Cuba and to terminate military intervention in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Colombia was indemnified for the loss of Panama. The Harding administration's most important diplomatic achievement was the Washington Conference. Meeting in November 1921, the conferees formulated a series of treaties, which secured Senate ratification, fixing ratios of warships for the United States, Britain, Japan, France, and Italy, guaranteeing the territorial status quo in the Pacific, and reaffirming the independence and territorial integrity of China and the open-door principle of commercial equality.

Scandals in the Administration

By 1923 Harding was increasingly disturbed by the rumors of corruption involving high administration officials and hangers-on. But he failed to act decisively, partly because he believed the attacks were politically motivated, partly because of a misplaced loyalty to old friends. Perhaps his worst mistake was in appointing his senatorial crony Albert B. Fall as secretary of the interior. Fall persuaded Harding to transfer naval oil reserves from the Navy Department to the Department of the Interior. Then, after Fall had corruptly leased the reserves at Elk Hills, Calif., and Teapot Dome, Wyo., to oilmen, he induced Harding to defend these transactions when questions were raised in the Senate.

Although the Republicans had suffered sharp losses in the 1922 congressional elections, Harding personally remained tremendously popular. However, his health was affected by overwork and anxiety over his wife's health and the multiplying evidences of corruption in his administration. He suffered a heart attack followed by bronchopneumonia while on his cross-country tour in the summer of 1923. He died on Aug. 2, 1923, probably from a cerebral hemorrhage. The posthumous exposure of the scandals in Harding's administration - including Fall's conviction for bribery, the attorney general's forced resignation and narrow escape from jail, and prison sentences for the head of two government bureaus - and the charges that Harding had fathered an illegitimate daughter and that he drank excessively all led to his decline in public esteem.

Yet Harding was not the affable, weak, and even stupid figure of popular legend. He was a hardworking, conscientious, well-intentioned, politically skillful chief executive who was not without courage or the capacity for growth. Most contemporaries praised his success in leading the country through the painful transition from the difficulties of the postwar years, and his administration did lay foundations for later prosperity. But he showed indecisiveness and lack of leadership when faced with conflict; his mind was untrained and undisciplined; and most important, the values of small-town America which he embodied were inadequate for dealing with the problems of the postwar world.

Further Reading

There is no satisfactory biography of Harding. Francis Russell, The Shadow of Blooming Grove: Warren G. Harding in His Times (1968), emphasizes the scandalous aspects of Harding's private and public life. Andrew Sinclair, The Available Man: The Life behind the Masks of Warren Gamaliel Harding (1965), contains shrewd insights but is superficial in its research. Robert K. Murray, The Harding Era (1969), is a well-researched but not wholly convincing attempt to rehabilitate Harding's presidential reputation. See also William Allen White, Masks in a Pageant (1928), and Samuel Hopkins Adams, Incredible Era: The Life and Times of Warren G. Harding (1939). On the election of 1920 see Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., ed., History of American Presidential Elections, vol. 3 (1971).

• Born: Nov. 2, 1865, Blooming Grove, Ohio
• Political party: Republican
• Education: Ohio Central College, 1879–82
• Military service: none
• Previous government service: Ohio Senate, 1899–1903; lieutenant governor of Ohio, 1903–4; U.S. Senate, 1915–21
• Elected President, 1920; served, 1921–23
• Died: Aug. 2, 1923, San Francisco, Calif.

Warren Harding was a handsome, amiable man who looked like a President but hardly acted like one. He won election by a landslide but did nothing with his mandate. A conservative Republican, he favored a return to “normalcy” after Woodrow Wilson's New Freedom program of business regulation. Scandals rocked Harding's Presidency and contributed to his untimely death in office.

Harding grew up on a farm in Ohio. He worked on his father's newspaper, then became a reporter and publisher of the Marion Star. He lost a race for county auditor in 1892, but in 1899 won election to the state senate. After serving two terms he became lieutenant governor of Ohio in 1903. He lost the election for governor in 1909. Harding won Ohio's first direct Primary nomination for U.S. senator and was elected in 1914. He voted for two constitutional amendments in the Senate, one prohibiting the sale and consumption of alcohol (though he was a heavy drinker) and the other establishing woman suffrage. He voted against the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War I.

In 1920 Harding was a compromise choice when a deadlock developed at the convention between front-runners Leonard Wood and Frank Lowden. Harding won the nomination on the 10th ballot. He defeated Democratic candidate James Cox, the governor of Ohio, by a huge margin.

Harding's Presidential policies were pro-business: high tariffs (taxes on imports) to protect American industry, lower government expenditures, tax cuts for corporations, and an end to antitrust enforcement (the regulation or breakup of large financial empires that established business monopolies). Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, one of the wealthiest men in the United States, got Congress to reduce income taxes on millionaires by two-thirds. Harding was the first President to broadcast a radio address, when he dedicated the Francis Scott Key Memorial at Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland, on June 14, 1922.

In foreign affairs Harding proposed an association of nations in place of the newly formed League of Nations, but his idea got no support at home or abroad. His secretary of commerce, Herbert Hoover, provided $20 million in emergency food relief for the Soviet Union in 1921 to avert a famine, saving as many as 10 million people. Harding concluded a treaty with Colombia that provided $25 million in reparations for the U.S. role in detaching Panama from that nation. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes organized the Naval Disarmament Conference of 1921–22, a successful effort to limit naval expenditures of major military powers. It resulted in treaties establishing ceilings on the total number of battleships owned by the United States, Great Britain, Japan, and several other nations.

Harding presided over one of the most corrupt administrations in U.S. history. If George Washington could not tell a lie, then Warren Harding could not tell a liar. The Ohio Gang from his state party took key positions; his main political adviser, the director of the Veterans Bureau, Charles Forbes, received tens of millions of dollars in bribes for the construction of veterans hospitals. Forbes was forced to resign and eventually spent two years in jail.

The biggest scandal of all involved naval oil reserves at Teapot Dome, Wyoming. The President and Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby transferred control of naval petroleum reserves from the Navy Department to the Department of the Interior, headed by Albert Fall. Fall then leased the Teapot Dome reserve to oil producer Harry Sinclair after receiving at least $300,000 from him in bribes. (In 1927 the government canceled the leases and Fall went to prison.) Though Harding himself was not involved in these scandals, he was embarrassed by the way in which his friends betrayed his trust for personal gain. Harding's death, from a heart attack during a vacation trip in the West, released him from the White House before the scandals became public and before the full political effects of his corrupt administration could be visited upon him.

See also Coolidge, Calvin

Sources

• Robert K. Murray, The Harding Era: Warren G. Harding and His Administration (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1969).
• Eugene P. Trani and David L. Wilson, The Presidency of Warren G. Harding (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1977)

(1865-1923), twenty-ninth president of the United States. Harding presided over an administration marred by scandal but successful in reducing political acrimony and establishing policies pursued throughout the 1920s.

Born near Blooming Grove, Ohio, Harding attended Ohio Central College (1879-1882) and in 1884 became owner-editor of the Marion Star. In 1891 he married Florence Kling DeWolfe, who helped him make the newspaper a commercial success. Politically, he affiliated with Ohio's Old Guard Republicans and with their support was elected to two terms in the state senate (1900-1904) and one as lieutenant governor (1904-1906). He lost the gubernatorial contest in 1910 but was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1914. As senator, he was noted for his affability, party regularity, and skills as a political harmonizer. But he demonstrated few leadership qualities and had no important legislation identified with his name.

In 1919 Ohio political leader Harry M. Daugherty opened a campaign to make Harding president; and in 1920, following a deadlock between the leading contenders at the Republican National Convention, Harding was nominated on the tenth ballot. Urging a return to "normalcy," he easily defeated Democrat James M. Cox, receiving 61 percent of the popular vote and 404 electoral votes to Cox's 127. In constructing his cabinet, he found places for long-time political associates like Daugherty but also redeemed his pledge to make use of the nation's "best minds," particularly in appointing Herbert Hoover, Charles Evans Hughes, and Andrew Mellon. The policies that followed were conservative, especially in the areas of taxation and spending, tariff protection, immigration restriction, labor rights, and business regulation. But his administration also pushed moderate measures of farm aid, efforts to improve business management, freedom for wartime political prisoners, and limited social legislation. In foreign policy, Harding repudiated Woodrow Wilson's World War I peace settlement but sought to create a safer system of international treaties and adjustment mechanisms, the leading example being the treaties that emerged from the Washington Armament Conference of 1921-1922.

Most of the scandals besmirching Harding's reputation--the Teapot Dome oil leasing scandals, fraudulent transactions in the Veterans Bureau and Justice Department, and his extramarital affairs involving Nan Britton and Carrie Phillips--came to light only after his death. He had, however, learned enough about the corruption associated with his administration to be deeply worried, and this probably contributed to the stroke that killed him while he was returning from a speaking tour of Alaska.

Most historians have regarded Harding as the nation's worst president, not only a man flawed by bad personal habits but one basically unfitted for the office and manipulated by others. Recent revisionist scholarship, however, has shown that contrary to myth Harding was hardworking, conscientious, and nobody's puppet. He might well be credited with facilitating national passage through a painful transitional period.

Bibliography:

Robert K. Murray, The Harding Era (1969); Francis Russell, The Shadow of Blooming Grove (1968); Andrew Sinclair, The Available Man (1965).

Author:

Ellis W. Hawley

See also Conservatism; Elections: 1920; Mellon, Andrew; Teapot Dome Affair.

A political leader of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who served as president from 1921 to 1923. As Republican party candidate in the campaign of 1920, he described his goal as a return to “normalcy” after the ambitious foreign and domestic policies of the outgoing Democratic president, Woodrow Wilson; Harding strongly opposed the participation of the United States in the League of Nations. As Harding's presidency went on, the corruption of some of the officials he appointed became increasingly evident; Harding died in office before the worst of the Harding scandals came to light.

Warren Gamaliel Harding served as the twenty-ninth president of the United States, from 1921 to 1923. Harding, who also served one term in the U.S. Senate, presided over an administration that achieved little and that was tainted by political corruption.

Harding was born November 2, 1865, in Corsica (now Blooming Grove), Ohio, the eldest of eight children. He attended Ohio Central College. Harding then tried teaching, reading the law, selling insurance, and working as a journalist. He became the editor and publisher of the Marion Star, in Ohio, in 1884.

In 1891, Harding married Florence Kling DeWolfe, the daughter of a prominent Marion banker. DeWolfe was a divorcée, five years Harding's senior, with great ambitions for Harding. She helped build the Marion Star into a prosperous newspaper and encouraged Harding to enter Republican party politics.

Harding was elected to the Ohio Senate in 1898, and was elected lieutenant governor of the state in 1903. He ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1910. His national political standing rose over the next decade. At the Republican National Convention in 1912, he was selected to nominate President William Howard Taft for a second term. (In 1921, he would nominate Taft to serve as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.) In 1914, he was elected to the U.S. Senate. Regarded as a fine public speaker, he gave the keynote address at the 1916 Republican National Convention.

As a U.S. senator, Harding was well liked by his colleagues but demonstrated little interest in the legislative process. He introduced no major bills during his six-year term, and was frequently absent. His politics followed the Republican mainstream: favoring high tariffs on imports and opposing the League of Nations and the federal regulation of commerce.

At the 1920 Republican National Convention, in Chicago, most of the delegates favored Governor Frank O. Lowden, of Illinois; Major General Leonard Wood, formerly army chief of staff; or Senator Hiram W. Johnson, of California, for president. After four ballots, the convention was deadlocked. Early in the morning, in what Harding campaign manager Harry M. Daugherty called a smoke-filled room, the party leaders agreed on Harding as a compromise candidate. The convention agreed to the selection and nominated Governor Calvin Coolidge, of Massachusetts, as Harding's vice presidential running mate.

Harding defeated the Democratic party nominee, Governor James M. Cox, of Ohio, in the November 1920 election. Harding campaigned from the front porch of his home in Marion, avoiding any specifics on his domestic political agenda. Instead, he promised the United States a return to "normalcy."

Harding's presidency was marked by the delegation of responsibilities to his cabinet chiefs. Rejecting the strong executive leadership style of Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, Harding relied on a distinguished group of men, including Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes, and Secretary of Agriculture Henry C. Wallace. These and other cabinet heads helped lead the government away from wartime emergency conditions. In 1921, Secretary Hughes convened the Washington Conference on Naval Disarmament. The members of the conference—England, France, Italy, Japan, and the United States—agreed to limit their naval warships in fixed ratios.

In June 1923, Harding began a cross-country speaking tour, in hopes of reviving Republican party fortunes, which had taken a beating in the 1922 congressional election. On the trip, he received a secret telegram that disclosed an impending scandal for his administration concerning a Senate investigation of oil leases. In Seattle, Harding fell ill, presumably of food poisoning. His train stopped in San Francisco, where doctors reported Harding had pneumonia. On August 2, Harding died. No autopsy was made, leaving the exact cause of death unknown. Vice President Coolidge succeeded Harding as president.

The scandals that stained the Harding administration largely became public after Harding's death. One involved Attorney General Daugherty, who in 1926 was tried twice on charges he had committed improprieties in administering the Office of the Alien Property Custodian. Both trials ended in a hung jury (the jury was unable to reach a decision).

The most troubling scandal, called Teapot Dome, involved Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall. Fall, a wealthy New Mexico attorney, had left the U.S. Senate in 1921 to join Harding's cabinet. In 1924, he was indicted for criminal conspiracy and bribery. It was alleged that he accepted a $100,000 bribe from oil producers Harry F. Sinclair and Edward Doheny in exchange for leasing government-owned oil reserves at Teapot Dome, Wyoming, and Elk Hills, California, to the pair's oil companies at unusually favorable terms. Fall was acquitted of the conspiracy charge in 1926, but was convicted of bribery in 1929. He served two years in prison and paid a fine.

President Harding's short term of office and the scandals that befell his political appointees have left his administration remembered more for its corruption than for its achievements.

Quotes:

"I have no trouble with my enemies. I can take care of my enemies all right. But my damn friends. They're the ones that keep me walking the floor nights!"

"America's present need is not heroics but healing; not nostrums but normalcy; not revolution but restoration."

"I like people in the cities, in the States and in the Nation to ask themselves now and then: What can I do for my city? not How much can I get out of my city? I like people to speak now and then in the same devotion to State and Nation, because, after all, my countrymen, whenever a man contributes to the betterment of his community, whenever he contributes to the enlarged influence of his State, whenever he contributes to the greater glory of the Republic and makes it a better place in which to live and in which to invite men to participate and aspire, he contributes to himself as he contributes to the welfare of his fellow men."

"Standing in this presence, mindful of the solemnity of this occasion, feeling the emotions which no one may know until he senses the great weight of responsibility for himself, I must utter my belief in the divine inspiration of the founding fathers."

"Warren Harding" redirects here. For the American rock climber, see Warren Harding (climber).

Warren G. Harding
29th President of the United States
In office March 4, 1921 – August 2, 1923
Vice President	Calvin Coolidge
Preceded by	Woodrow Wilson
Succeeded by	Calvin Coolidge
United States Senator from Ohio
In office March 4, 1915 – January 13, 1921
Preceded by	Theodore E. Burton
Succeeded by	Frank B. Willis
28th Lieutenant Governor of Ohio
In office January 11, 1904 – January 8, 1906
Governor	Myron T. Herrick
Preceded by	Harry L. Gordon
Succeeded by	Andrew L. Harris
Ohio State Senator
In office 1899–1903
Born	November 2, 1865(1865-11-02) near Blooming Grove, Ohio
Died	August 2, 1923 (aged 57) San Francisco, California
Birth name	Warren Gamaliel Harding
Nationality	American
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Florence Kling Harding
Children	Marshall Eugene DeWolfe (stepson)
Alma mater	Ohio Central College
Occupation	Businessman (Newspapers)
Religion	Baptist
Signature

Warren Gamaliel Harding (November 2, 1865 – August 2, 1923) was the 29th President of the United States, serving from 1921 until his death from a heart attack in 1923. A Republican from Ohio, Harding was an influential newspaper publisher. He served in the Ohio Senate (1899–1903) and later as the 28th Lieutenant Governor of Ohio (1903–1905) and as a U.S. Senator (1915–1921).

His conservative stance on issues such as taxes, affable manner, and campaign manager Harry Daugherty's 'make no enemies' strategy enabled Harding to become the compromise choice at the 1920 Republican National Convention. During his presidential campaign, in the aftermath of World War I, he promised a return to "normalcy". In the 1920 election, he and his running-mate, Calvin Coolidge, defeated Democrat and fellow Ohioan James M. Cox, in what was then the largest presidential popular vote landslide in American history since the popular vote tally began to be recorded in 1824: 60.36% to 34.19%.

Harding headed a cabinet of notable men such as Charles Evans Hughes, Andrew Mellon, future president Herbert Hoover and Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall, who was jailed for his involvement in the Teapot Dome scandal. In foreign affairs, Harding signed peace treaties that built on the Treaty of Versailles (which formally ended World War I). He also led the way to world Naval disarmament at the Washington Naval Conference of 1921–22.

Because of the Teapot Dome scandal and other scandals in his administration, polls of historians and scholars consistently rank Harding as one of the worst Presidents, and frequently the worst, in American history.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Political career 2.1 U.S. Senator 2.2 Election of 1920 3 Presidency: 1921–1923 3.1 Major events during presidency 3.2 Administration and cabinet 3.3 Supreme Court appointments 3.4 Civil Rights 3.5 Administrative scandals 3.6 Death 4 Personal life 5 Speaking style 6 Memorials 7 See also 8 Notes 9 Bibliography 10 External links

Early life

Warren G. Harding was born November 2, 1865, in Corsica (now Blooming Grove), Ohio.^[1] Harding was the eldest of eight children born to Dr. George Tryon Harding, Sr. (1843–1928) and Phoebe Elizabeth (Dickerson) Harding (1843–1910). His mother was a midwife and later obtained her medical license, and his father taught at a rural school north of Mount Gilead, Ohio. One of Harding's great-grandmothers may have been African American.^[2] When Harding was a teenager, the family moved to Caledonia, Ohio in neighboring Marion County, when Harding's father acquired The Argus, a local weekly newspaper there. It was at The Argus that Harding learned the basics of the journalism business. He continued studying the printing and newspaper trade as a college student at Ohio Central College in Iberia, during which time he also worked at the Union Register in Mount Gilead.

After graduating, Harding moved to Marion, Ohio, where he and two friends raised $300 with which to purchase the failing Marion Daily Star, the weakest of the growing city's three newspapers. Harding revamped the paper's editorial platform to support the Republican Party, and enjoyed a moderate degree of success. However, his political stance put him at odds with those who controlled Marion's local politics. Thus when Harding moved to unseat the Marion Independent as the official paper of daily record, he met with vocal resistance from local figures, such as Amos Hall Kling, one of Marion's wealthiest real estate speculators.

Warren and Florence Harding pose in their garden.

While Harding won the war of words and made the Marion Daily Star one of the most popular newspapers in the county, the battle took a toll on his health. In 1889, when Harding was 24, he suffered from exhaustion and nervous fatigue. He spent several weeks at the Battle Creek Sanitarium to regain his strength, ultimately making five visits over fourteen years.^[3] Harding later returned to Marion to continue operating the paper. He spent his days boosting the community on the editorial pages, and his evenings "bloviating" (Harding's term for "informally conversing") with his friends over games of poker.

On July 8, 1891, Harding married Florence Kling DeWolfe, the daughter of his nemesis, Amos Hall Kling. Florence Kling DeWolfe was a divorcée, five years Harding's senior, and the mother of a young son, Marshall Eugene DeWolfe. She had pursued Harding persistently until he reluctantly proposed. Florence's father was furious with his daughter's decision to marry Harding, forbidding his wife from attending the wedding and not speaking to his daughter or son-in-law for eight years.

The couple complemented one another, with Harding's affable personality balancing his wife's no-nonsense approach to life. Florence Harding, exhibiting her father's determination and business sense, turned the Marion Daily Star into a profitable business. She has been credited with helping Harding achieve more than he might have alone; some have speculated that she later pushed him all the way to the White House.^[4]

Harding was a Freemason, raised to the Sublime Degree of a Master Mason on August 27, 1920, in Marion Lodge #70, F.& A.M., in Marion, Ohio.

Political career

As an influential newspaper publisher with a flair for public speaking, Harding was elected to the Ohio State Senate in 1899. He served four years before being elected Lieutenant Governor of Ohio, a post he occupied from 1903 to 1905. His leanings were conservative,^{[clarification needed]} and his record in both offices was relatively undistinguished.^{[citation needed]} He received the Republican nomination for Governor of Ohio in 1910, but lost to incumbent Judson Harmon.

U.S. Senator

In 1912, Harding gave the nominating speech for incumbent President William Howard Taft at the Republican National Convention,^[5] and in 1914 was elected to the United States Senate, becoming Ohio's first senator elected by popular vote. He served in the Senate from 1915 until his inauguration as President on March 4, 1921, becoming the first sitting senator to be elected President of the United States. Harding, John F. Kennedy, and Barack Obama are the only three men to have been elected president while serving as a United States senator.^[6]

Joseph Nathan Kane's book, Facts About the Presidents, stated that Harding was "the second President elected while a Senator." This becomes a matter of semantics. On January 13, 1880, the Ohio legislature appointed James A. Garfield, who was then a Congressman from Ohio, to the U.S. Senate for the term beginning March 4, 1881 (at that time, senators were elected by state legislatures rather than directly by the citizens). He won the Presidential election on November 2, so on that date he was at once Congressman, Senator-elect, and President-elect. Garfield accepted the Presidential election and soon afterwards relinquished his other offices. He never sat in the Senate seat, as his term was not to begin for another four months.

Because of the technicality, Harding continues to be generally considered the first "truly" sitting Senator to become President, Kennedy being the second. For example, George Will referred to Harding that way in his Newsweek commentary in the issue of June 16, 2008, p. 60, in pointing out that the two presumptive candidates in the 2008 race were both sitting senators.

In his book, Blink, Malcolm Gladwell became the latest of numerous political pundits and ordinary voters who suggested that Warren Harding's electoral success was based on his appearance, essentially opining that he "looked like a president." Gladwell argues that peoples' first impression of Harding tended to be so favorable that it gave them a fixed and very high opinion of Harding, which could not be shaken unless his intellectual and other deficiencies became glaring. Gladwell even refers to the flawed process by which people make decisions as 'Warren Harding Error'.

Election of 1920

Harding's home in Marion, from which he conducted his "front porch" campaign

Main article: United States presidential election, 1920

Relatively unknown outside his own state, Harding was a true "dark horse" candidate, winning the Republican Party nomination due to the political machinations of his friends after the nominating convention had become deadlocked. Republican leaders meeting in Room 404 of the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago discussed Harding as a possible compromise candidate. This was only one of many informal meetings taking place at the time and, contrary to popular stories, there is little evidence of a deal having been struck in this "smoke-filled room". Rather, since the three leading candidates were unable to gain a majority, the effort was made to assemble a majority for one of the remaining candidates. The first attempt was made with Harding, as "best of the second raters", who won on the tenth ballot. Before receiving the nomination, Harding was asked whether there were any embarrassing episodes in his past that might be used against him. Despite his longstanding affair with the wife of an old friend, Harding answered "No", and the Party moved to nominate him, only to discover later his relationship with Carrie Fulton Phillips.

In the 1920 election, Harding ran against Democratic Ohio Governor James M. Cox, whose running-mate was Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt. The election was seen in part as a referendum on whether to continue with the "progressive" work of the Woodrow Wilson Administration or to revert to the "laissez-faire" approach of the William McKinley era.

Harding ran on a promise to "Return to Normalcy", a seldom-used term he popularized. The slogan called an end to the abnormal era of the Great War, along with a call to reflect three trends of his time: a renewed isolationism in reaction to the War, a resurgence of nativism, and a turning away from the government activism of the reform era.^{[citation needed]}

Harding's "front porch campaign" during the late summer and fall of 1920 captured the imagination of the country. Not only was it the first campaign to be heavily covered by the press and to receive widespread newsreel coverage, but it was also the first modern campaign to use the power of Hollywood and Broadway stars, who travelled to Marion for photo opportunities with Harding and his wife. Al Jolson, Lillian Russell, Douglas Fairbanks, and Mary Pickford were among the conservative-minded^{[clarification needed]} luminaries to make the pilgrimage to his house in central Ohio. Business icons Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and Harvey Firestone also lent their cachet to the campaign. From the onset of the campaign until the November election, over 600,000 people travelled to Marion to participate.

The campaign owed a great deal to Florence Harding, who played perhaps a more active role than any previous candidate's wife in a presidential race. She cultivated the relationship between the campaign and the press. As the business manager of the Star, she understood reporters and their industry. She played to their needs by being freely available to answer questions, pose for pictures, or deliver food prepared in her kitchen to the press office, a bungalow which she had constructed at the rear of their property in Marion. Mrs. Harding even coached her husband on the proper way to wave to newsreel cameras to make the most of coverage.

The campaign also drew upon Harding's popularity with women. Considered handsome, Harding photographed well compared to Cox. However, it was mainly Harding's support in the Senate for women's suffrage legislation that made him more popular with that demographic: the ratification of the 19th Amendment in August 1920 brought huge crowds of women to Marion, Ohio, to hear Harding. Immigrant groups who had made up an important part of the Democratic coalition, such as ethnic Germans and Irish, also voted for Harding in the election in reaction to their perceived persecution by the Wilson administration during World War I.

During the campaign, political opponents spread rumors that Harding's great-great-grandfather was a West Indian black person and that other blacks might be found in his family tree. In an era when the "one-drop rule" would classify a person with any African ancestry as black, and black people in the South had been effectively disfranchised, Harding's campaign manager responded, "No family in the state (of Ohio) has a clearer, a more honorable record than the Hardings', a blue-eyed stock from New England and Pennsylvania, the finest pioneer blood."^[7] Historian and opponent William Estabrook Chancellor publicized the rumors, based on supposed family research, but perhaps reflecting no more than local gossip.^[7] The rumors may have been sustained by a statement Harding allegedly made to newspaperman James W. Faulkner on the subject, which he perhaps meaning to be dismissive: "How do I know, Jim? One of my ancestors may have jumped the fence."^[8] If the rumors are ever proven to be true, by some definitions Harding would be considered to be the first African-American president.^[2]

The election of 1920 was the first in which women could vote nationwide. It was also the first presidential election to be covered on the radio, thanks to the nation's first commercial radio station, KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Harding received 60% of the national vote and 404 electoral votes, an unprecedented margin of victory. Cox received 34% of the national vote and 127 electoral votes. Campaigning from a federal prison, Socialist Eugene V. Debs received 3% of the national vote.

Presidency: 1921–1923

Inauguration of Warren G. Harding, March 4, 1921

The administration of Warren G. Harding followed the Republican platform approved at the 1920 Republican National Convention, which was held in Chicago.

Harding calmed the 1919-1920 spy scare and released election opponent, Socialist leader Eugene Debs, from prison. Debs had been convicted under charges brought by the Wilson administration for his opposition to Wilson's draft.^[9] Despite many political differences between the two candidates, Harding pardoned Debs.^[10]

Harding pushed for the establishment of the Bureau of Veterans Affairs (later organized as the Department of Veterans Affairs), the first permanent attempt at answering the needs of those who had served the nation in time of war.^{[citation needed]} He created the Bureau of the Budget (now the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)), becoming the first president to have the executive branch take a role in federal expenditures.^[11]

(from left to right) President Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Representative Joseph Gurney Cannon, and Senator Philander C. Knox during the 1921 presidential inauguration

In April 1921, speaking before a joint session of Congress, Harding called for peacemaking with Germany and Austria, emergency tariffs, new immigration laws, regulation of radio and trans cable communications retrenchment in government, tax reduction, repeal of wartime excess profits tax, reduction of railroad rates, promotion of agricultural interests, a national budget system, a great merchant marine and a department of public welfare.^{[citation needed]} He also called for measures to bring an end to lynching, but he did not want to make enemies in his own party and with the Democrats, and did not fight for his program.^[12] Harding was the first president to take questions from reporters and enter them into a pool to answer at press conferences.^{[13][unreliable source?]} He would time the sessions so that reporters could meet morning deadlines.^{[13][unreliable source?]}

The Hardings visited their home community of Marion, Ohio once during the term, when the city celebrated its Centennial during the first week of July. Harding arrived on July 3, gave a speech to the community at the Marion County Fairgrounds on July 4, and left the following morning for other speaking commitments.

Major events during presidency

Harding addresses a joint session of Congress, Coolidge and Gillett seated behind.

• Peace treaties signed with Germany, Austria and Hungary, formally ending World War I for the United States
• Established the Veterans' Bureau, later incorporated into the Veterans Administration and ultimately the Department of Veterans Affairs
• Treaty to indemnify Colombia for its loss of Panama
• Matewan Massacre in West Virginia
• Washington Naval Conference 1921–1922
• Budget and Accounting Act of 1921
• Revenue Act of 1921
• Fordney-McCumber Tariff 1922
• Teapot Dome scandal
• Created the Naval Petroleum Reserve Number 4, 1923 (now the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska)
• Resignation of Harding's Attorney General for accepting bribes
• Pardon of war protester Eugene Debs and other political prisoners
• Formation of the Soviet Union 1922

Administration and cabinet

Official portrait of President Harding

The Harding Cabinet
OFFICE	NAME	TERM
President	Warren G. Harding	1921–1923
Vice President	Calvin Coolidge	1921–1923
Secretary of State	Charles Evans Hughes	1921–1923
Secretary of the Treasury	Andrew Mellon	1921–1923
Secretary of War	John W. Weeks	1921–1923
Attorney General	Harry M. Daugherty	1921–1923
Postmaster General	Will H. Hays	1921–1922
	Hubert Work	1922–1923
	Harry S. New	1923
Secretary of the Navy	Edwin Denby	1921–1923
Secretary of the Interior	Albert B. Fall	1921–1923
	Hubert Work	1923
Secretary of Agriculture	Henry C. Wallace	1921–1923
Secretary of Commerce	Herbert Hoover	1921–1923
Secretary of Labor	James J. Davis	1921–1923

Supreme Court appointments

Main article: Warren G. Harding Supreme Court candidates

The Taft Court, 1925

Harding appointed the following justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:

• William Howard Taft – Chief Justice – 1921
  • Harding was the only President to have appointed a previous President to the Supreme Court.
• George Sutherland – 1922
• Pierce Butler – 1923
• Edward Terry Sanford – 1923

Civil Rights

In a speech in 1921, Harding advocated civil rights for all Americans, including African Americans. He suggested appointing African Americans to federal positions and signed an anti-lynching bill. Harding also advocated the establishment of an international commission to improve race relations between whites and African Americans; however, strong political opposition by the Southern Democratic bloc prevented any of these initiatives from coming to fruition. The Ku Klux Klan had its highest membership during its revival in the 1920s, when it expanded membership among urban populations of the Midwest and South who were concerned about job competition and immigration.^[14]

Harding supported Congressman Leonidas Dyer's federal anti-lynching bill, known as the Dyer Bill, which passed the House of Representatives on January 26, 1922. The bill was defeated in the Senate by a filibuster.^[15] Harding had previously spoken out publicly against lynching on October 21, 1921.^[16] He also advocated suffrage for women. Congress had not debated a civil rights bill since the 1890 Federal Elections Bill.

Historian Wyn Craig Wade, in his 1987 book The Fiery Cross, suggested that Harding allegedly had ties with the KKK, perhaps having been inducted into the organization in a private White House ceremony. Evidence included the taped testimony of one of the members of the alleged induction team; however, beyond that it was scant at best. Historians generally discount the allegation.^[17]

Administrative scandals

Upon winning the election, Harding appointed many of his longtime allies to prominent political positions. Known as the "Ohio Gang" (a term used by Charles Mee, Jr., in his book of the same name), some of the appointees used their new powers to exploit their positions for personal gain. It is unclear how much, if anything, Harding himself knew about his friends' illicit activities.

The most infamous scandal was the Teapot Dome affair, which shook the nation for years after Harding's death. The scandal involved Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall, who was convicted of accepting bribes and illegal no-interest personal loans in exchange for the leasing of public oil fields to business associates. (Aside from the bribes and personal loans, the leases were fully legal.) In 1931, Fall became the first member of a Presidential Cabinet to be sent to prison after conviction on charges.^[18]

Thomas W. Miller, head of the Office of Alien Property, was convicted of accepting bribes. Jess Smith, personal aide to the Attorney General, destroyed papers and then committed suicide. Charles R. Forbes, Director of the Veterans Bureau, skimmed profits, accepted high kickbacks, and directed underground alcohol and drug distribution. He was convicted of fraud and bribery and drew a two-year sentence. Charles Cramer, an aide to Forbes, committed suicide.

No evidence to date suggests that Harding personally profited from such crimes, but he was apparently unable to prevent them. "I have no trouble with my enemies," Harding told journalist William Allen White late in his presidency, "but my damn friends, they're the ones that keep me walking the floor nights!"^[19]

Death

Funeral procession for President Harding passes by the front of the White House.

Harding's tomb in Marion

In June 1923, Harding set out on a cross-country "Voyage of Understanding," in which he planned to meet ordinary people and explain his policies. During this trip, he became the first president to visit Alaska.^[20] Rumors of corruption in his administration were beginning to circulate in Washington. While in Alaska, Harding was profoundly shocked by a long message he received detailing illegal activities previously unknown to him. At the end of July, while traveling south from Alaska through British Columbia, he developed what was believed to be a severe case of food poisoning. Scholars have surmised that, given subsequent events, it was more likely that he had had an inferior-wall myocardial infarct (heart attack).^[21] He gave his final speech to a large crowd at the University of Washington stadium at the University of Washington campus in Seattle, Washington. A scheduled speech in Portland, Oregon was canceled.

The President's train continued south to San Francisco. Arriving at the Palace Hotel, Harding developed a respiratory illness believed to be pneumonia, but which may have been cardiogenic pulmonary edema.^[22] Harding died suddenly in the middle of conversation with his wife in the hotel's presidential suite,^[23] at 7:35 p.m. on August 2, 1923. The president's physician – Dr. Charles E. Sawyer (a homeopath, and friend of the Harding family) – opined that Harding had succumbed to a stroke, but that conclusion was erroneous. The president had abruptly lost his pulse. This was likely due to a cardiac arrhythmia; no localizing neurological deficits were present beforehand.^[24] In retrospect, scholars believe that Harding had shown physical signs of cardiac insufficiency with congestive heart failure in the preceding weeks.^[25][26]

Naval medical consultants who examined the president in San Francisco concluded that he had suffered a heart attack. Reflecting Dr. Sawyer's formal statement to the press, however, the New York Times of that day stated, "A stroke of apoplexy was the cause of death." Harding had been overtly ill for one week before his death.^[27]

Mrs. Harding refused permission for an autopsy. Some people speculated that the President had been the victim of a plot, possibly carried out by his wife. Gaston B. Means, an amateur historian and gadfly, noted in his book The Strange Death of President Harding (1930) that the circumstances surrounding the president's death led some to suspect he had been poisoned. Means' accusation was later discredited.

Harding was succeeded by Vice President Calvin Coolidge. He was sworn in by his father, a Justice of the Peace, in Plymouth Notch, Vermont.

Following his death, Harding's body was returned to Washington. His casket was held in the East Room of the White House pending a state funeral at the United States Capitol. White House employees were quoted as saying that the night before the funeral, they heard Mrs. Harding talking for more than an hour to her dead husband.^{[citation needed]}

Harding was entombed in the receiving vault of the Marion Cemetery, Marion, Ohio, in August 1923. Following Mrs. Harding's death on November 21, 1924 from renal failure, she was temporarily buried next to her husband. Their remains were reinterred in December 1927 at the newly completed Harding Memorial in Marion, dedicated by President Herbert Hoover in 1931. The lapse between the final interment and the dedication was partly because of the aftermath of the Teapot Dome scandal.

At death, Harding was survived by his father. Harding and John F. Kennedy are the only two presidents to have predeceased their fathers.^[28]

Personal life

The extent to which Harding engaged in extramarital affairs is somewhat controversial. It has been recorded in primary documents that Harding had an affair with Carrie Fulton Phillips; Nan Britton wrote The President's Daughter in 1927, documenting her affair and the alleged child, Elizabeth Ann, with Harding.

Rumors of the Harding love letters circulated through Marion, Ohio, for many years. However, their existence was not confirmed until 1968, when author Francis Russell gained access to them during his research for his book, The Shadow of Blooming Grove. The letters were in the possession of Phillips. Phillips kept the letters in a box in a closet and was reluctant to share them. Russell persuaded her to relent, and the letters showed conclusively to Russell that Harding had a 15-year relationship with Phillips, who was then the wife of his friend James Phillips, owner of the local department store, the Uhler-Phillips Company. Mrs. Phillips was almost eight years younger than Harding. By 1915, she began pressing Harding to leave his wife. When he refused, she left her husband and moved to Berlin with her daughter Isabel. However, as the United States became increasingly likely to be drawn into World War I, Mrs. Phillips moved back to the U.S. and the affair reignited. Harding was now a U.S. Senator, and a vote was coming up on a declaration of war against Germany.^{[citation needed]}

Phillips threatened to go public with their affair if the Senator supported the war, but Harding defied her and voted for war, and Phillips did not reveal the scandal to the world. When Harding won the Republican presidential nomination in 1920, he did not disclose the relationship to party officials. Once they learned of the affair, it was too late to find another nominee. To reduce the likelihood of a scandal breaking, the Republican National Committee sent Phillips and her family on a trip to Japan and paid them over $50,000.^{[citation needed]} She also received monthly payments thereafter, becoming the first and only person known to have successfully extorted money from a major political party in the United States.

The letters Harding wrote to Phillips were confiscated at the request of the Harding heirs, who requested and received a court injunction prohibiting their inclusion in Russell's book. Russell in turn left quoted passages from the letters as blank passages in protest against the Harding heirs' actions. The Harding-Phillips love letters remain under an Ohio court protective order that expires in 2023, 100 years after Harding's death, after which the content of the letters may be published or reviewed.

Warren G. Harding

Besides Phillips, Harding also allegedly had an affair with Nan Britton, the daughter of Harding's friend Dr. Britton of Marion. Britton's claim that he had fathered her child was widely circulated in the years just after Harding's death. This is often repeated as a "fact" about Harding, but it has not been proven to the satisfaction of most historians. Robert H. Ferrell's 1998 reappraisal of Harding, The Strange Deaths of Warren G. Harding, found no evidence of an illegitimate child.

Nan Britton's obsession with Harding started at an early age when she began pasting pictures of Senator Harding on her bedroom walls.^{[citation needed]} According to Britton's book The President's Daughter, she and Senator Harding conceived a daughter, Elizabeth Ann, in January 1919, in his Senate office. Elizabeth Ann was born on October 22, 1919. Harding never met Elizabeth Ann but paid large amounts of child support.^{[citation needed]} Harding and Britton, according to unsubstantiated reports, continued their affair while he was President, using a closet next to the Oval Office for privacy. Following Harding's death, Britton unsuccessfully sued the estate of Warren G. Harding on behalf of Elizabeth Ann. Under cross-examination by Harding heirs' attorney, Grant Mouser (a former member of Congress himself), Britton's testimony was riddled with inconsistencies, and she lost her case. Britton married a Mr. Christian, who adopted Elizabeth Ann. In adulthood, Elizabeth Ann married Henry Blaesing and raised a family. During most of her life she shied from press coverage about her alleged birthright, and refused requests for interviews in her later years. She died on November 17, 2005, in Oregon.

Speaking style

Although a commanding and powerful speaker, Harding was notorious for his verbal gaffes, such as his comment "I would like the government to do all it can to mitigate, then, in understanding, in mutuality of interest, in concern for the common good, our tasks will be solved."^[29] His errors were compounded by his insistence on writing his own speeches. Harding's most famous "mistake" was his use of the word "normalcy" when the more common word at the time was "normality." Harding decided he liked the sound of the word and made "Return to Normalcy" a recurring theme. Critic H. L. Mencken disagreed, commenting on Harding's inaugural address, "He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash." Mencken also coined the term "Gamalielese" to refer to Harding's distinctive style of speech, a mocking reference to Harding's middle name rather than a reference to any of the Biblical characters named Gamaliel.^[30] Upon Harding's death, poet E. E. Cummings said "The only man, woman or child who wrote a simple declarative sentence with seven grammatical errors is dead."^[29]

Memorials

A statue honoring Harding on a speech he delivered on relations between the United States and Canada in Stanley Park, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

• Warren G. Harding High School, Warren, Ohio
• Warren G. Harding Middle School, Steubenville, Ohio
• Warren G. Harding High School; Bridgeport, Connecticut
• Warren G. Harding Middle School, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Harding Middle School, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
• Harding Elementary School, Santa Barbara, California
• Warren G. Harding Elementary School, Hammond, Indiana.
• Harding Memorial, Marion, Ohio.
• Marion Harding High School, Marion, Ohio
• Harding County, New Mexico is named in his honor.
• Ohio Northern University's College of Law was once named after him but was later renamed.
• Harding Park Golf Club in San Francisco is named after him.
• Peace Treaty Marker. Somerville, New Jersey. In 1921, at the estate of New Jersey Governor Joseph S. Frelinghuysen, Warren Harding signed the peace treaty which ended America's involvement in World War I. Today, the estate has been replaced with mini-malls. The marker remains in a patch of grass near a Burger King parking lot along Route 28, just North of the Somerville traffic circle.
• Harding Charter Preparatory High School, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
• Harding Memorial, Seattle, Washington. In 1925 a memorial was erected in Seattle at Woodland Park to commemorate the site of Harding's next-to-last public address. In 1977 the memorial was demolished and buried under the Woodland Park Zoo's African Savanna exhibit. The memorial's only surviving elements—two life-sized bronze statues of Boy Scouts that once saluted the image of Harding—were relocated to the headquarters of the Chief Seattle Council of the Boy Scouts.
• Montana Highway 2 over Pipestone Pass near Butte, Montana is named "The Harding Way" in his honor.

See also

• List of United States Presidents who died in office
• List of people on the cover of Time Magazine: 1920s - 10 Mar. 1923

Notes

1. ^ The Biography of Warren. G. Harding
2. ^ ^{a b} Gage, Beverly (April 6, 2008). "Our First Black President?". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/magazine/06wwln-essay-t.html. Retrieved December 13, 2009. 
3. ^ Knott, Bill (2006-01-26). "The Nearly Adventist President". Adventist Review. Seventh-day Adventist Church. http://www.adventistreview.org/article.php?id=307. Retrieved 2007-11-28. 
4. ^ "Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr (1957). The Age of Roosevelt: The Crisis of the Old Order, 1919-1933. Heinemann. p. 50. 
5. ^ Warren G. Harding bio from White House
6. ^ Chan, Sewell; and Richard Pérez-Peña (2007-01-22). "If Clinton Should Win, Who Would Take Her Place?". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=980CE0DC1F30F931A15752C0A9619C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print. Retrieved 2007-11-01. 
7. ^ ^{a b} Russell, Francis (1968). The Shadow of Blooming Grove: Warren G. Harding and His Times. New York: McGraw-Hill. p. 39–40, 403-405. ISBN 0070543380. 
8. ^ Adams, Samuel Hopkins (1939). Incredible Era: The Life and Times of Warren Gamaliel Harding. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. p. 280. 
9. ^ Frum, David (2000). How We Got Here: The '70s. New York, New York: Basic Books. p. 41. ISBN 0465041957. 
10. ^ "Eugene V. Debs". Time (magazine). November 1, 1926. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,722648,00.html. Retrieved 2007-08-21. "He was Eugene Victor Debs, labor leader. He was in jail for the violation of an injunction. Back of this event was the story of an Indiana grocery clerk, a locomotive fireman, who became the organizer of the American Railway Union, who twice made the nation feel the fist of unionized labor. The second time was the great strike against the Pullman Co. in 1894 when President Cleveland had to dispatch troops to Chicago to quell the riotous bloodshed. Eugene Debs and three others, indicted for conspiracy against the Government, were successfully defended by Clarence S. Darrow." 
11. ^ Frum, David (2000). How We Got Here: The '70s. New York, New York: Basic Books. p. 222. ISBN 0465041957. 
12. ^ Murray (1969)
13. ^ ^{a b} Rouse, Robert (March 15, 2006). "Happy Anniversary to the first scheduled presidential press conference - 93 years young!". American Chronicle. http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/6883. 
14. ^ "Warren G. Harding". marionhistory.com. The Marion County Historical Society. http://www.marionhistory.com/wgharding/harding-2.htm. Retrieved October 31, 2009. 
15. ^ Leonidas Dyer (1922). "Anti-Lynching Bill". womhist.alexanderstreet.com. Center for the Historical Study of Women and Gender. http://womhist.alexanderstreet.com/lynch/doc1.htm. Retrieved November 14, 2009. 
16. ^ "Warren G. Harding (1921-1923)". kipnotes.com. Business History. http://www.kipnotes.com/Warren%20G.%20Harding.htm. Retrieved November 14, 2009. 
17. ^ Straight Dope Staff Report: "Was Warren Harding inducted into the Ku Klux Klan while president?"
18. ^ Hakim, Joy (1995). War, Peace, and All That Jazz. New York, New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 37–40. ISBN 0-19-509514-6. 
19. ^ American Decades. 6. The Gale Group. 2001. http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G2-3468300836.html. Retrieved 2008-05-27. 
20. ^ President Harding's 1923 Visit to Utah by W. Paul Reeve History Blazer July 1995
21. ^ Culić V, Mirić D, Eterović D. "Correlation between symptomatology and site of acute myocardial infarction", Int J Cardiol 2001; 77: 163-168.
22. ^ Heard BE, Steiner RE, Herdan A, Gleason D: "Edema and fibrosis of the lungs in left ventricular failure", Br J Radiol 1968; 41: 161-171.
23. ^ Carl Nolte (2009-12-16). "Palace Hotel's birthday key ticket to free stay". San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/12/16/BASR1B4SER.DTL&tsp=1#ixzz0ZseuS1M7. 
24. ^ Ferrell RH: Ill-Advised: Presidential Health & Public Trust, Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1992; pp. 1-87. ISBN 0826208649
25. ^ Ibid.
26. ^ "The Health & Medical History of President Warren Harding". doctorzebra.com. http://www.doctorzebra.com/prez/g29.htm. Retrieved December 22, 2009. 
27. ^ "Harding a Farm Boy Who Rose by Work". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/1102.html. Retrieved 2007-07-21. "Nominated for the Presidency as a compromise candidate and elected by a tremendous majority because of a reaction against the policies of his predecessor, Warren Gamaliel Harding, twenty-ninth President of the United States, owed his political elevation largely to his engaging personal traits, his ability to work in harmony with the leaders of his party and the fact that he typified in himself the average prosperous American citizen." 
28. ^ Facts About the Presidents, Joseph Nathan Kane
29. ^ ^{a b} Stephen Pile, The Book of Heroic Failures (Futura, 1980) p.180.
30. ^ Gamaliel and Gamalielese, October 18, 2006.

Bibliography

• Adams, Samuel Hopkins (1939). Incredible Era: The Life and Times of Warren Gamaliel Harding. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 
• Anthony, Carl S. Florence Harding: The First Lady, the Jazz Age, and the Death of America's Most Scandalous President. (1998)
• Dean, John W. Warren G. Harding (The American Presidents Series). Times Books, Henry Holt and Company, LLC, 2004
• Downes Randolph C. The Rise of Warren Gamaliel Harding, 1865–1920. Ohio University Press, 1970
• Ferrell, Robert H. The Strange Deaths of Warren G. Harding, Columbia:MO, University of Missouri Press, 1998
• Fine, Gary Alan. "Reputational Entrepreneurs and the Memory of Incompetence: Melting Supporters, Partisan Warriors, and Images of President Harding." American Journal of Sociology, 1996 101(5): 1159-1193. Issn: 0002-9602 Fulltext: in Jstor and Ebsco
• Grant, Philip A., Jr. "President Warren G. Harding and the British War Debt Question, 1921-1923." Presidential Studies Quarterly, 1995 25(3): 479-487. Issn: 0360-4918
• Hakim, Joy (1995). War, Peace, and All That Jazz. New York, New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 29–33. ISBN 0-19-509514-6. 
• "An International Problem", Marion Daily Star, October 26, 1921.
• Kenneth J. Grieb; The Latin American Policy of Warren G. Harding 1976 online
• Malin, James C. The United States after the World War 1930. online, detailed analysis of foreign and economic policies
• Morello, John A. Selling the President, 1920: Albert D. Lasker, Advertising, and the Election of Warren G. Harding. Praeger, 2001.
• Murray Robert K. The Harding Era 1921-1923: Warren G. Harding and his Administration. University of Minnesota Press, 1969
• Payne, Phillip. "Instant History and the Legacy of Scandal: the Tangled Memory of Warren G. Harding, Richard Nixon, and William Jefferson Clinton", Prospects, 2003 28: 597-625. Issn: 0361-2333
• Pietrusza, David (2007). 1920: The Year of the Six Presidents. New York: Caroll & Graf Publishers. ISBN 0786716223. 
• Russell, Francis (1968). The Shadow of Blooming Grove: Warren G. Harding and His Times. New York: McGraw-Hill. p. 39–40, 403-405. ISBN 0070543380. 
• Sinclair, Andrew. The Available Man: The Life behind the Masks of Warren Gamaliel Harding 1965 online full-scale biography
• "Social Equality Impossible for Negro, Says President, Pleading for Fair Treatment", Atlanta-Journal Constitution, October 27, 1921.

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Warren G. Harding

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Warren G. Harding

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Warren G. Harding

• Warren G. Harding at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Extensive essay on Warren G. Harding and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia
• American President: Warren Harding
• Warren Harding: A Resource Guide from the Library of Congress
• Audio clips of Harding's speeches
• Inaugural Address
• The Harding home, Ohio History website
• First State of the Union Address of Warren Harding
• Second State of the Union Address of Warren Harding
• C-Span The American Presidents
• White House biography
• Presidential Biography by Stanley L. Klos
• Warren G. Harding Links
• 1920 Presidential Election Links
• Works by Warren G. Harding at Project Gutenberg
• A political cartoon about Harding from Married to the Sea

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Preceded by Woodrow Wilson	President of the United States March 4, 1921–August 2, 1923	Succeeded by Calvin Coolidge
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Persondata
NAME	Harding, Warren Gamaliel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	American politician, businessman
DATE OF BIRTH	November 2, 1865
PLACE OF BIRTH	Near Blooming Groove, Ohio
DATE OF DEATH	August 2, 1923
PLACE OF DEATH	San Francisco, California, United States

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