Here’s a funny story about Warren Harding. Several months ago, I was having dinner with a good friend of mine and her husband. It just so happens that her husband is a high school social studies teacher and when I mentioned my Presidential Reading Project, we went into a long and mutually satisfactory lovefest over American history, specifically presidential scandals. I am not totally sure how we got on the subject to begin with but nevertheless, the conversation became noticeably heated after the Teapot Dome scandal came up. He declared that Teapot Dome occurred before the Civil War and I heartily disagreed.
“No, no, no,” I protested. “I have already read all presidents up to Wilson. It couldn’t have happened before the Civil War.” I then channeled Mr. Black (my American history AP teacher) and said, “It was under Harding.”
He had a good chuckle over this until I told him to get out his smartphone and look up the information. Sure enough, a look of chagrin soon passed across his features. “You were right,” he mumbled, “it was Harding.”
I gave a giant whoop! of victory, said something like “eat it history teacher,” and then walked out of the restaurant in triumph. Harding was so mine!
Just because I’m an absolute monster when it comes to mindless trivia does not mean that I really know anything at all about Warren Harding. In fact, other than the Teapot Dome scandal (and I couldn’t quite remember what it was even about), I knew nothing about this guy. I thus visited my handy neighborhood library and I came away with Warren Harding: The American Presidents Series by John W Dean (New York: Times Books, 2004).
Born on November 2, 1865 in Grove, OH, Warren Gamaliel, whose father was a fifer in the Civil War for the Union Army, became the eldest of 8 children. His father became a doctor after the war and then purchased a newspaper, the Caledonia Argus. This newspaper would affect Harding’s future profession.
By the age of four, Warren learned to read. He spent his early education at local schools but by 1874 at the age of 14, he enrolled at Ohio Central College. “He worked his way through college by painting houses and barns, and, during the summers, doing heavy construction work on railroad gradings” (p. 7). While in college, he focused on literature and philosophy which, upon graduation in 1882, led him to start his own newspaper with his friend, Frank Harris. Unfortunately his family moved to Marion, OH shortly thereafter and there Warren tried to teach school and practice law but he did not like either profession. He started a band—the Marion’s Citizen’s Band—and then purchased another newspaper called the Marion Star, where he was the publisher and editor. Due to his work with the newspaper, Harding became more involved in politics. His press pass allowed him to attend numerous political events, including the Republican National Convention in 1884.
It was during this time that Harding met Florence Kling. She was a single mother, living with friends, who provided piano lessons to the public. In fact, she visited the Harding household to give lessons to Warren’s sister, Charity. Florence had a hard life—her baby daddy ran off—leaving her to face her merciless and strict father, Amos Kling. On July 8, 1891, Florence and Warren married and this union produced a rift between Warren and his father-in-law.. “In Warren Harding, Florence had found a man through whom she could channel her own ambitions; and in Florence Kling, Warren had found a partner whose judgment he trusted, and someone who was committed to building their future together” (p. 21).
The rising prominence of the newspaper kept Harding travelling continuously but in 1894, he checked in to a sanitarium in Michigan for health reasons. In 1895, he ran in his first election for county auditor but lost. Several years later, he ran for a position in the Ohio Senate and won. Next he was elected as Ohio’s lieutenant governor but resigned in 1905 due to his wife’s health this time. During his time away from politics, Harding simply stepped back into his role as newspaper writer and editor. In 1910, he lost the election for the governorship of Ohio.
There is evidence that also during this time Harding began an affair with a friend’s wife, Carrie Phillips. This affair lasted for another 15 years and would only end when Harding headed to the White House.
An important event in Harding’s rise to the presidency occurred in 1914 when he was elected to the US Congress as a senator from Ohio. “In the Senate of this era, new senators were expected to keep a low profile while learning the rules of the club, and Harding dutifully kept his head down” (p. 38). Through careful networking and ‘keeping his head down,’ Harding, by 1916, had earned the acclaim of his fellow senators, culminating in an invitation to give the keynote address at the Republican National Convention. “Harding had acquitted himself well on the national stage, looking presidential while acting like a regular guy, and his skills as a politician were obvious” (p. 43). His prominence grew and he was given a position on the coveted Foreign Relations Committee.
“Still, Harding continued to position himself as a potential candidate. He delivered a steady stream of speeches, many of which ere reprinted and sent throughout the country by anonymous friends, with some being printed in newspapers” (p. 47). At one point he was invited to the White House to discuss the League of Nations and there apparently Harding got the better of Wilson in a verbal battle. Harding wanted the Republican nomination in 1920 and worked hard to succeed in this endeavor. “No historical distortion has persisted longer than the notion that Warren Harding was an accidental president, a fluke selected by a cabal of Senate colleagues in a smoke-filled room when the 1920 Chicago convention deadlocked” (p. 52).
The 1920 elections boiled down to Harding and Coolidge versus Cox and FDR with the major issues being the League of Nations, the return to ‘normalcy’ and ethnic issues. Harding won in a landslide victory for the Republicans. “Few men have entered the presidency with less baggage than Harding. He had made no deals and owed no one any favors or patronage, particularly in the U.S. Senate” (p. 79). After the election, Harding took an extended vacation golfing, fishing and playing poker in Texas and then cruising to Panama with his wife.
Unfortunately, Harding would almost immediately need to deal with the post-war woes of the American economy. “The nation’s economy in the aftermath of the war was not good. It was experiencing deflation, credit was tight and domestic markets were glutted with heavy inventories, accompanied by a sharp drop in foreign trade” (p. 84). He also needed to put together a stellar cabinet to prop him up politically. “It was a carefully crafted, well-built cabinet, composed of distinguished, self-made men of independent public standing. It was a cabinet with a future president (Hoover), a future chief justice (Hughes), and a future felon (Fall)” (p. 93).
After Wilson’s extended and debilitating illness, the country was in a shambles. Harding turned his attention to tax reform, agricultural issues, and instituting an emergency tariff. Immigration was restricted with the Per Centum Act and Harding, due to financial issues in the government, created the Bureau of the Budget in the Treasury department. There were a myriad of labor problems; there were coal and railroad strikes and Harding helped end steel’s 12-hour workday. In 1921, Harding participated in a post-war disarmament conference in an effort to make the world a safer place.
Harding was slowly wearing himself out with the problems confronting the executive branch and in 1923, he contracted the flu. Recovering from this illness, Harding then had to face a veritable slew of scandals that would rock his presidency and tarnish his reputation for future generations. There was the scandal of the Veterans Bureau (where hospital supplies were being sold in the private sector for profit), the Ohio Gang scandal (friends and associates of Harding who sold bootleg liquor and partook in other illegal activities) and finally the Teapot Dome scandal (where the Secretary of the Interior, Albert Fall, leased national oil reserves to private investors).
Warren Harding died on August 2, 1923 of an apoplectic stroke while visiting San Francisco
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