Warren G. Harding (No. 29) – Washington, DC - March 31, 2018

Warren G. Harding (No. 29) – Washington, DC

March 31, 2018

Bust of Harding at Heritage Hall, Marion, OH

Embracing the election motto of “America First,” voters overwhelmingly elected Warren Gamaliel Harding as the next president of the United States in 1920.  With 404 electoral votes and 60 percent of the popular vote, it was the largest margin of victory at the time.

How had a little known senator from Ohio won the election?

Warren Harding, a U.S. senator and owner of a newspaper (Marion Star), was hand-picked by oilmen and the Ohio political machine to be the next president.  Harding had no desire to be president—he actually liked being a senator.  But he looked presidential—wide brow, square chin, and sharp nose. (Cathy thinks he looks like an eagle.)  Best of all, he was seen as malleable. 

Two swaggering oil men, Harry Sinclair and Jake Hamon, made a pact that if they could get 40:1 shot Harding elected, they would grant themselves some favors.  Hamon would become the secretary of interior and would lease the naval oil reserves located in Wyoming to Sinclair.  In turn, Sinclair would give Hamon a third of the earnings.  

The Republican Convention of 1920 was held in Chicago.  For the first time in a presidential election, women had the right to vote and 27 of the 984 delegates were women.  Although Prohibition was the law of the land, liquor flowed at 10,000 speakeasies in Chicago more or less with the consent of the authorities. 

In a “smoke-filled room” at the Blackstone Hotel, Sinclair and Hamon conferred with Republican Party elders to convince them to back Harding.  Initially, General Leonard Wood of WWI fame was the front-runner.  But after nine ballots he still couldn’t get over the top.  Finally, on the 10th ballot, momentum shifted to Harding and he won the nomination.  His running mate would be Massachusetts Gov. Calvin Coolidge.

The Democrats, meanwhile, nominated another Ohio newspaper man, James M. Cox, who owned the Dayton Daily News.  His running mate was Franklin Delano Roosevelt.   

Because of weariness with Wilson’s international focus, Harding ran on a platform of America First.  This

Campaign poster

included higher tariffs and restrictions on immigration.  His campaign manager, Harry Daugherty, decided to limit Harding’s travel and continue the recent campaign tradition of front porch speeches.  Harding gave more than 100 speeches from the front porch of his large home on Mount Vernon Avenue in Marion, Ohio, to more than 600,000 people who came to hear him from all over the country.

Cox never had much of a chance.  Harding and Coolidge won 37 of 48 states and 404 electoral votes.  Cox received only 127 electoral votes. 

It was the largest margin of victory in a presidential race at the time.

Once elected, Warren was beholden to the Ohio Gang.  As Laton McCartney writes in The Teapot Dome Scandal (2008), “once Warren Harding assumed office, this collection of swindlers, sharpies, con men, and extortionists descend

ed on Washington like a pestilence, securing just about every job in the new administration that provided an opportunity for corruption.” 

But Hamon never got his coveted Cabinet position — because nineteen days after the election, he was fatally shot by his jilted mistress.   

But Sinclair would find another champion.

Enter Albert Fall, a senator from New Mexico. With Hamon dead, Harding appointed Fall as secretary of the interior.  Fall was an odd choice for this position, because he was anti-conservation and wanted to undo  the progress that had been made on protecting land from development. But more than anything, he wanted money.  He arranged for the naval oil reserves at Teapot Dome (the sandstone feature looked like a teapot) to be transferred from the Navy to the Department of the Interior.  Then he leased out the right to tap the reserves to Sinclair in a non-competitive bid.  In return, Sinclair laundered Liberty bonds to Fall and sent him animals for his failing farm including “six heifers, a yearling bull, two young boars, four sows, and an English Thoroughbred racehorse” (McCartney, 2008).

Long after Harding’s term ended, Sinclair was found guilty of trying to bribe jurors.  But he didn’t serve much time, less than a year.  Further, an appeals court ruled the Dome leases invalid.  Fall was shown to have illegally received $300k in Liberty bonds.  Fall was also jailed, but like Sinclair, he served less than a year.  But he lost his failing ranch and almost went bankrupt. 

And those were not the only criminals in Harding’s administration. 

As leader of the Ohio Gang, Harry Daugherty was appointed attorney general.  He was in a perfect position to steal.  One of his schemes was selling permits for alcohol to be used for medicinal purposes;  he made tens of thousands of dollars using this strategy.  He also sold pardons and paroles for convicts. 

Harding’s director of the Veterans Bureau, Charles Forbes, sold government supplies for personal gain.  He also made $1 million in kickbacks. When Harding learned this, he fired Forbes. 

Harding's wife, Florence, was
five years his senior.

Harding himself was no saint.  He was faithless in his marriage to Florence Kling, who was five years his senior.  He had multiple, sometimes overlapping affairs.  One of his lovers, Carrie Fulton Phillips, was paid hush money by both Harding and the Republican National Committee.  (Fulton was probably the love of Harding’s life — he wrote her 900 pages of letters over the course of their many year affair.  She was also married at the time.)  He brought another lover, Nan Britton, directly into the White House for “trysts.”  She later claimed that her daughter was fathered by Harding and wrote a book about it in 1927 called The President’s Daughter.  (In 2015, DNA testing of relatives of Harding and Britton’s daughter proved that her claim was true.)  When the 1922 book Illustrated Life of President Warren G. Harding revealed his affair with Carrie Phillips, Attorney General Daugherty ordered dozens of agents to find and burn copies.  They also destroyed the printing plates. (President Calvin Coolidge eventually fired Daugherty).

Harding wasn’t directly implicated in any of his administration’s scandals.  But he seemed to have a sense that things were not right.  He said, “I have no trouble with my enemies…but my darn friends, my God-damn friends…they’re the ones that keep me walking the floor nights.” (Riccards, 1995). 

We know that Harding asked Fall about the non-competitive lease sales to Sinclair but was assured by Fall that the bids were competitive.  We also know that an associate of Sinclair offered $500,000  (in Liberty bonds paying 4-3/4 percent interest)  for Harding’s paper,  the Marion Star.  This was much more than its value.  Harding accepted the payment.  He  used the money to buy $500,000 stocks on margin, which he bought under the name of one of his Secret Service agents.

And when he died of a heart attack two years into his term—in the Palace Hotel in San Francisco—his wife (assisted by Attorney General Harry Daugherty) spent several days burning most of his papers.

While president, Harding pushed laws to restrict immigration because immigrants (mostly from southern and eastern Europe) were seen as taking jobs from U.S. workers.

On the plus side, Harding invited several countries to a meeting to discuss post-war disarmament—in particular reducing the size of their fleets and abolishing the use of poison gas.  In addition to the United States, the 1921 Washington Disarmament Conference included Britain, France, and Japan. Unlike Wilson, who excluded the Senate from the League of Nations discussion, Harding included members of the Senate on the American delegation.  Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes suggested that the participants scrap their ships in a ratio of 5  (U.S.), 5 (Britain), 5 (Japan), and 1.7 (France).  The countries also would be held to a 10-year ship building moratorium.  Japan reluctantly agreed to the arrangement under the stipulation that the U.S. not fortify the Philippines, Guam, Wake Island and the Aleutian Islands.  (This would become a problem in two decades.)

Harding was the first president who had to submit an annual budget to Congress.  In 1921, Congress passed the Budget and Accounting Act, which gave it control over Federal spending and required the President to submit a budget to Congress its approval.  He established the Bureau of the Budget to help him prepare the annual submission.

Harding was an advocate for improving the lives of blacks and called for anti-lynching laws.  In a speech arguing for protections for the rights of blacks, he said:  “Unless our democracy is a lie, you must stand for that democracy” (Baker, 2015).  Harding’s sympathy for blacks may have originated from rumors that Harding himself had black blood.  This rumor was meant to hurt his chances of getting elected.  In addition, the rumors imperiled his impending marriage to Florence in 1891.  Her father was upset by the rumors and was against the marriage.  (DNA testing conducted in 2015 showed that Harding did not have black ancestors, at least not within four generations.) (Baker, 2015)

Still, Harding was known as an intellectual lightweight.  His treasury secretary said his “speeches left the impression of an army of pompous phrases moving over a landscape in search of an idea.  Sometimes these meandering words would actually capture a straggling thought and bear it off triumphantly, a prisoner in their midst, until it died of servitude and overwork”

* * *

Trying to visit Harding wasn’t as easy as it might seem.

The obvious place is his house in Marion. But it’s closed until at least 2019 as it is restored to its 1920 appearance. A presidential center also is being added to the site, scheduled to open in 2020, 100 years after Harding’s election.

So Tom looked up locations important in the Teapot Dome scandal (but not Wyoming itself). But those sites and others tied to other scandals during Harding’s presidency have been torn down — now they’re part of the Department of Veterans Affairs and random office buildings in downtown Washington.

After about a month of research, we decided to go to his hometown of Marion, anyway. After all, he and Florence are buried there. And the city has a historical society. That has to include Harding information, right?

Right. We were pleasantly surprised with what we found.

We flew to Marion through Columbus on an overcast and breezy 47-degree day at the end of March. As we approached town on our hour-long drive, we found rolling farmland, strip malls and dilapidated houses as the “Welcome to Marion” sign greeted us.

Harding Memorial

Our first stop was the Harding Memorial. As we were driving along, Tom started pointing, saying “huge.” I looked over, and there it was. It is massive.

Harding had said he wanted a “simple burial under a tree in the open sky,” according to the Ohio Historical Association’s information placards on a marble kiosk outside the tomb.

That’s what he got — a huge, open-air dome that looks a bit like a Greek temple, with both Ionic and Doric columns. Inside the memorial is a tree, with the two black granite tombs beneath it. Gardens hang down from the top of the memorial. A simple inscription with Warren and Florence’s names and birth and death dates is carved into the white Georgia marble in the back. Unfortunately, the memorial is gated, so you can only look, not wander around.

The tombs within Harding Memorial

The memorial is in a small park across the street from the cemetery. Trees were planted and landscaped so the entire area forms a Latin cross.

After Harding died, the quickly formed Harding Memorial Association—comprised of President Coolidge, members of Harding’s cabinet the Marion business community and others—started a nationwide fund-raising campaign for the memorial. More than one million people from the U.S., Europe and the Philippines donated almost $1 million. That includes 200,000 kids who gathered pennies for the effort, according to the Ohio History Connection.  (As expected, the Harding Memorial Association touted the positive accomplishments of Harding and turned a blind eye to the scandals.  One of the placards in the part states:  “Historians attempting to use Harding’s presidential papers for research were turned away by the Harding Memorial Association.  The HMA, which owned the papers, was wary of additional sensational and inaccurate books being published.”  Another placard says Harding had “no knowledge of Teapot Dome” and his “reputation was sullied because of wild gossip and innuendo.”)  The tomb and Harding’s house are now owned by the state of Ohio and managed by the Ohio Historical Society. 

Lunch at Courthouse Grub & Pub

After a tasty lunch in the cozy Courthouse Grub and Pub next to the county courthouse, we headed for the old U.S. Post Office building. The building houses Heritage Hall, operated by the Marion County Historical Society and is dedicated to all types of Marion history, including popcorn (more on that later).

Next to First Harding High School is the old post office and Heritage Hall inside.

The resident docent was a Marion retiree.  He told us he was “a farmer, soldier, city worker, and truck driver.”  He once jackknifed a tractor-trailer and walked away.  But he knew that it was time to quit.  “God’s way of telling me to stop,” he said. 

He told us that Marion had seen better days., calling it a “a typical rust belt town.”  It was once a factory town but many businesses have closed.  Now the major employers are a Whirlpool factory, the hospital and three prisons.  Harding’s old paper, the Marion Star, was bought by Gannett.  The docent said “it’s not much of a paper now.” 

Indeed, earlier when we walked along Church Street, one of the main downtown thoroughfares, we passed a small gathering outside the YMCA featuring speakers discussing the horrors of the opioid epidemic and remembering a friend who had died from addiction in 2016.  A sign read, “Don’t cry, fight.” 

And then there’s the two Confederate flags we spotted flapping in the wind.  What?  Ohio was a staunch member of the Union 150 years ago.

We found two rooms on the ground floor chock full of Harding memorabilia.

Glass display cases line the walls, with more in the center of the rooms, holding photos, campaign posters, campaign pins, newspapers, invitations, gadgets, coins, stuff. The docent told us that he expected it would all move to the Harding presidential center once it’s built. But for now, it suited our purposes perfectly.

The Hardings' dog, Laddie Boy, was famous.

One display case was devoted to Laddie Boy, the Hardings’ famous dog.  The Airedale terrier who arrived at the White House as a puppy, even had his own chair at Cabinet meetings.  The case even displays an old song sheet for the dog:  Laddie Boy He’s Gone, which memorialized Harding’s death.  (As a side note, Laddie Boy even has his own Wikipedia page.)

There’s also the Harding chapel, which seems to have nothing to do with the Hardings, other than a donation was made.

In the areas that highlight Florence, we learned something interesting. While Eleanor Roosevelt is credited as being the first first lady to advocate for her own issues, Florence Harding had several causes that she promoted: women’s issues, particularly single working women, women’s professional sports leagues, and wounded vets from WWI.

The rest of Heritage Hall is a potpourri of historical Marion County stuff. Besides the Harding rooms, the downstairs holds a resource library and genealogical records, a replica of a country store, and an exhibit of Marion’s manufacturing past. A red, old-time Coke machine-cooler sits in a hallway.

Upstairs is a military room, with a Civil War exhibit and war library. There’s a Victorian Room, complete with fashions of the day. There also is an enormous stuffed Percheron draft horse, which was born in Napoleon III’s stables.

The Wyandot Popcorn Museum is not to be missed.

And beyond the horse — the Wyandot Popcorn Museum. This is something Cathy had been looking forward to seeing, and was delighted when we found that it was in the same building as the Harding memorabilia — Tom could find no way to avoid it.

The museum is set up under a big circus tent in the back of the building. It boasts that it has the largest collection of popcorn wagons and peanut roasters in the U.S. All of these antiques have been restored to their former brass and candy apple red luster, looking brand new. There is also a display of all the toys inside Cracker Jacks over the years.

One of the popcorn wagons is a Model T that is brought

Creepy clown (on the right)

out each year for the town’s annual Popcorn Festival and Parade in September.

In the middle of the area are displays showing the history of Wyandot Popcorn. The company was established by W. Hoover Brown and his wife Ava in 1936 as a way to supplement their grain and livestock farming operation in Wyandot County, Ohio. Popcorn took off as a treat during the Depression because it was inexpensive, allowing the company to grow steadily.

The display also exhibits the different types of popcorn. Wyandot introduced three hybrids in the 1950s, including Super C for caramel corn, featuring a ball-shaped kernel that doesn’t crumble under the pressure of the caramel.

Yes, the museum gives you a box of popcorn on the way out. Yum!

My only quibble is that many of the wagons include small, creepy clown figurines that look like they’re turning the hand crank. I know clowns were big in the day, especially when the circus came to town. But … Pennywise.

Harding's home is closed until the 100-year
anniversary of his election in 1919.

View from the front porch.

Our Harding tour concluded with a stop at his house, although it was closed for renovations. We were able, however, to walk around his spacious front porch, where he ran the fourth — and last — front porch campaign in U.S. history.  Standing in the wide, circular corner of the porch, between the columns, with plenty of lawn in front, you can easily picture Senator Harding orating to the masses.  Here is what he boomed on one occasion:  “It is fine to idealize, but it is very practical to make sure our own house is in perfect order before we attempt the miracle of old world stabilization.  To safeguard America first, to prosper America first, to stabilize America first, to think of America first, to exalt America first, to live for and revere America first.”