On August 2nd 1923, the President Warren Harding listened while his wife, Florence read him to him from a newspaper. Harding was recuperating after a period of illness and was sitting up in bed, but he liked what he heard. “That’s good! Go on – read some more!” Florence resumed reading. But within moments, Harding had collapsed into the bed, as he struggled with the effects of what was either a heart attack or a stroke. He died shortly afterwards. His First Lady, Florence herself would die, a little over a year later.
Harding had been the 29th US president and was now the fifth to die in office. Two more – FDR and JFK – have died in the century since. He was 57 wen he passed on, but to modern eyes looks much older. Photographs of him today suggest a man of about seventy. In reality, the president had been in a state of poor health for some time, but the true extent of his illness had been concealed from the general public. Most Americans were shocked and saddened to hear of his death. Nine million people lined the railroad tracks as the train carrying his body proceeded from San Francisco to Washington, D.C. He was still a popular figure in 1923.
This would change. Over time, more and more would be revealed about the incompetence and corruption of his administration culminating in what became known as the Teapot Dome scandal. History now judges Harding to have been amongst the very worst of the 45 leaders who have thus far occupied the US presidency.
Back in November 1920, it had seemed like a different story. The Republican Harding had won a landslide in that year’s presidential election by promising a “return to normalcy.” Harding’s grasp of English was questionable (‘normality’ would have been a better word to use) but the concept was hugely appealing to an America still reeling from the traumas of the influenza pandemic and the First World War. Harding had only been selected as the Republican nominee in a “smoke-filled room” as a compromise after a deadlocked Republican convention could not decide on anyone else.
Everyone agreed: Warren Gamalie Harding looked and sounded exactly how a president ought to look and sound. On one occasion, his words even oddly foreshadowed those of a later, much better leader who would be elected forty years later: “We need citizens who are less concerned about what their government can do for them, and more concerned about what they can do for the nation.” Harding easily saw off his Democratic opponent, James M. Cox and his youthful running mate, Franklin D. Roosevelt in the November elections.
In office, however, Harding completely floundered. “I knew that this job would be too much for me,” he admitted, one of many occasions when Harding was effectively condemned by his own words. There were rumours of late-night White House poker games and of extramarital affairs with a mistress at one point having sex with Harding in a wardrobe. That same woman, one Nan Britton claimed her daughter Elizabeth was in fact the result of her affair with Harding, a man more than thirty years her junior. The Hardings always denied this claiming Warren (who had no other children) had been left infertile after a childhood bout of mumps. In fact, a DNA test published in 2015, just ten years after Louise’s death, confirmed beyond reasonable doubt, that she had been President Harding’s daughter.
“I have no trouble with my enemies,” Harding once fumed. “I can take care of my enemies in a fight. But my friends, my goddamned friends, they’re the ones who keep me walking the floor at nights!” Harding’s judgement was terrible, for example, appointing Albert B. Fall as Secretary of the Interior. His main qualification for the position? He was Harding’s friend. Some years later, he was convicted of bribery and became the first cabinet minister in US history to be jailed for his conduct while in office. Harding’s attorney general, Harry M. Daugherty also became notorious for his role in the Teapot Dome scandal.
Most of these scandals broke during the presidency of Harding’s successor, Calvin Coolidge. Perhaps we should let Harding himself have the final word: “I am not fit for this office and never should have been here.”
Chris Hallam's World View 