Warren Gamaliel Harding (1865-1923)/biography


 * This article is about the American politician; for the American rock climber, see .

Warren Gamaliel Harding ( –  ) was an  and the 29th, from 1921 to 1923, when he became the sixth president to die in office. A from, Harding was an influential  publisher with a commanding presence and a flair for public speaking. He served in the (1899–1903) and later as  of Ohio (1903–1905) and as a U.S. Senator (1915–1921). His political leanings were, which enabled him to become the compromise choice at the. In the, he coined the phrase "return to normalcy" and defeated his opponent, , in a landslide, 60.36 % to 34.19%. As president, he appointed a strong cabinet, led by,   and. However some other appointments proved to be. In foreign affairs, Harding signed peace treaties which formally ended, and led the way to world disarmament at the  of 1921–22. Harding died in, 29 months into his term, at age 57 from a.

Harding is often ranked as one of the least successful presidents of the United States, despite his immense popularity while in office. Indeed, Harding himself is quoted as saying "I am not fit for this office and never should have been here."

Early life
Harding was born on, , near Corsica, Ohio (now ). Harding was the eldest of the eight children of Dr. George Tryon Harding, Sr. and Phoebe Elizabeth (Dickerson) Harding. His birth name was Warren Gamaliel Bancroft Winnipeg Harding. His mother was a, who later obtained her , and his father taught, for a time, at a school north of. While he was a teenager, the Harding family moved to in neighboring  when Harding's father acquired The Argus, a local weekly newspaper. It was here that Harding learned the basics of the business. His education was completed at in. While a, he learned more about the and newspaper trade, while working at the Union Register in Mount Gilead.

After graduating, Harding moved to, where he raised $300 with two friends to purchase the failing . It was the weakest of Marion's three newspapers and the only daily in the growing city. Harding converted the paper's editorial platform to support the Republicans and enjoyed a moderate degree of success. However, his political stance was at odds with those who controlled most of Marion's local. When Harding moved to unseat the Marion Independent as the official paper of daily record, his actions brought the wrath of Amos Hall Kling, one of Marion's wealthiest s, down upon him.

While Harding won the war of words and made the  one of the biggest newspapers in the county, the battle took a toll on his health. In 1889, when Harding was 24, he suffered from and nervous fatigue. He traveled to, to spend several weeks in a to regain his strength. He 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 informal conversation) with his friends over games of.

On, , Harding married , who was five years Harding's senior, a , and the mother of a young son, Marshall Eugene DeWolfe. She had pursued him persistently, until he reluctantly surrendered and proposed. Florence's father, Amos Hall Kling, was Harding's nemesis. Upon hearing that his only daughter intended to marry Harding, Kling disowned her and even forbade his wife to attend her. He opposed the marriage vigorously and would not speak 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 inherited her father's determination and business sense and turned the Marion Daily Star into a able business. She has been credited with helping Harding to achieve greater things than he might have done alone, leading to speculation that she later pushed him all the way to the.

Harding was a, raised to the Sublime Degree of a on  , in Marion Lodge #70, F.& A.M., in Marion, Ohio.

Political career
As an influential newspaper publisher with a flair for, Harding was elected to the in 1899. He served four years before being elected, a post he occupied from 1903 to 1905. His leanings were conservative, and his record in both offices was relatively undistinguished. He received the nomination for  in 1910, but lost to incumbent.

U.S. Senator
In 1912, Harding gave the nominating speech for incumbent  at the   and in 1914 he was  to the. He served in the Senate from 1915 until his inauguration as president on, , becoming the first sitting to be elected.

In his book, , has suggested that Harding's political success was based on his appearance, essentially that he "looked like a president". Gladwell argues that the first impression of Harding outweighed his intellectual and other deficiencies, and refers to the combination as the 'Warren Harding Error' in how people make decisions.

Election of 1920
Relatively unknown outside his own state, Harding was a true "" candidate, winning the nomination due to the political  of his friends after the nominating convention had become deadlocked. Republican leaders met in a at the  in  to end the deadlock. Before receiving the nomination, he was asked whether there were any embarrassing episodes in his past that might be used against him. His formal education was limited, he had a longstanding affair with the wife of an old friend, and he was a social drinker. Harding answered "No" and the Party moved to nominate him, only to discover later his relationship with.

In the, Harding ran against Democratic , whose running-mate was. The election was seen in part as a on whether to continue with the "" work of the  administration or to revert to the "" approach of the  era.

Harding ran on a promise to "Return to ", a seldom used term he popularized, (the word's creation is often credited to Harding in error. It was in English language dictionaries as early as 1857. The more common word in conventional English at the time was "Normality"). The slogan called an end to the abnormal era of, along with a call to reflect three trends of his time: a renewed in reaction to the War, a resurgence of , and a turning away from the government activism of the reform era.

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 coverage, but it was also the first modern campaign to use the power of  and  stars, who traveled to Marion for photo opportunities with Harding and his wife. ,, , and were among the conservative-minded luminaries to make the pilgrimage to central Ohio. Business icons, , and also lent their cachet to the campaign. From the onset of the campaign until the November election, over 600,000 people traveled to Marion to participate.

The campaign owed a great deal to, 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 s and their industry and played to their needs by making herself freely available to answer questions, pose for pictures, or deliver food prepared in her kitchen to the press office, which was a she had constructed at the rear of their property in Marion. Mrs. Harding even went so far as to coach her husband on the proper way to wave to 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 Harding's support for women's suffrage in the Senate that made him extremely popular with women: the ratification of the in August 1920 brought huge crowds of women to  to hear Harding.

During the campaign, rumors spread that Harding's great-great-grandfather was a black and that other blacks might be found in his family tree. In response, Harding's campaign manager said, "No family in the state (of Ohio) has a clearer, a more honorable record than the Hardings, a blue-eyed stock from and, the finest pioneer blood." The rumors, perhaps based on no more than local gossip, were circulated by. Rumors may have been sustained by an alleged response of Harding to a friendly reporter, perhaps meant merely to be dismissive: "How do I know, Jim? One of my ancestors may have jumped the fence." (Wallechinsky and Wallace, The People's Almanac)

The election of 1920 was the first in which women could nationwide. Harding received 60% of the national vote and 404 s, an unprecedented margin of victory. Cox received 34% of the national vote and 127 electoral votes. , campaigning from a, received 3% of the national vote. Debs was in prison for opposing Wilson's draft; despite the many political differences between the two candidates, when Harding became President, he pardoned Debs.

Presidency 1921–1923
The administration of Warren G. Harding followed the Republican approved at the, which was held in.

Harding pushed for the establishment of the (later organized as the ), the first permanent attempt at answering the needs of those who had served the nation in time of War.

In April 1921, speaking before a joint session of congress he called for peacemaking with and, emergency s, new  laws, regulation of  and trans cable communications retrenchment in government,  reduction, repeal of wartime excess profits tax, reduction of  rates, promotion of  interests, a national budget system, a great  and a department of public welfare. He also called for the abolition of. But he did not want to make enemies in his own and with the Democrats and did not fight for his program.

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

Major events during presidency

 * signed with Germany, Austria and, formally ending for the United States
 * Established the Veterans' Bureau, later incorporated into the Veterans Administration and ultimately the
 * Treaty to indemnify for its loss of
 * Matewan Massacre in West Virginia
 * 1921–1922
 * 1922
 * Created the Naval Petroleum Reserve Number 4, 1923 (now the )
 * Resignation of Harding's for accepting s
 * Pardon of war protester and other s
 * Created the Naval Petroleum Reserve Number 4, 1923 (now the )
 * Resignation of Harding's for accepting s
 * Pardon of war protester and other s

Supreme Court appointments
Harding appointed the following justices to the :
 * – Chief Justice – 1921
 * Harding was the only President to have appointed a previous President to the Supreme Court.
 * – 1922
 * – 1923
 * – 1923

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

The most infamous scandal of the time was the affair, which shook the nation for years after Harding's death. The scandal involved, who was  of accepting bribes and illegal no-interest personal loans in exchange for the leasing of public s to business associates. (Absent the bribes and personal loans, the leases themselves were quite legal.) In 1931, Fall became the first member of a to be sent to.

, head of the, was convicted of accepting bribes. , personal aide to the, destroyed papers and then committed. , director of the, skimmed profits, earned large amounts of , and directed underground alcohol and drug distribution. He was convicted of and  and drew a two-year. Charles Cramer, an aide to Charles Forbes, also committed suicide.

No evidence to date suggests that Harding personally profited from these crimes, but he was apparently unable to stop them. "My God, this is a hell of a job!" Harding said. "I have no trouble with my enemies, but my damn friends, my God-damned friends... they're the ones that keep me walking the floor nights!"

Death
In June 1923, Harding set out on a cross-country "Voyage of Understanding," planning to meet ordinary people and explain his policies. During this trip, he became the first president to visit. Rumors of in his administration were beginning to circulate in Washington by this time, and Harding was profoundly shocked by a long message he received while in Alaska, apparently detailing illegal activities previously unknown to him. At the end of July, while traveling south from Alaska through, he developed what was thought to be a severe case of. He gave the final speech of his life to a large crowd at the University of Washington Stadium (now ) at the campus in. He then took the south. Arriving at the in, he developed. Harding died of either a or a  at 7:35 p.m. on. The formal announcement, printed in the New York Times of that day, stated that "A of  was the cause of death." He had been ill exactly one week.

physicians surmised that he had suffered a ; however, this was not made by Dr., the , who was traveling with the presidential party. Mrs. Harding refused permission for an, which soon led to speculation that the President had been the victim of a plot, possibly carried out by his wife. , an amateur historian and, noted in his book The Strange Death of President Harding (1930) that the circumstances surrounding his death lent themselves to some suspecting he had been poisoned. Several individuals attached to him, personally, and politically, would have welcomed Harding's death, as they would have been disgraced in association by Means' assertion of Harding's "imminent impeachment". Although Means was later discredited for publically accusing Mrs. Harding of the murder, enough doubts surround the President's death to keep reputable scholars open to the possibility of murder.

Harding was succeeded by, who was sworn in by his father, a , in ,.

Following his death, Harding's body was returned to Washington, where it was placed in the East Room of the pending a  at the. employees at the time were quoted as saying that the night before the funeral, they heard Mrs. Harding speak for more than an hour to her dead husband.

Harding was entombed in the receiving vault of the Marion Cemetery, Marion, Ohio, in August 1923. Following Mrs. Harding's death on, , she too was temporarily buried next to her husband. Both bodies were moved in December 1927 to the newly completed in Marion, which was dedicated by President  in 1931. The lapse between the final interment and the dedication was partly because of the aftermath of the scandal.

At the time of his death, Harding was also survived by his father. Harding and are the only two presidents to have predeceased their fathers.

Extramarital affairs
The extent to which Harding engaged in extra-marital affairs is somewhat controversial. It has been recorded in primary documents that during his lifetime, Harding had an affair with ; 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 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 that Harding had a 15-year relationship with Mrs. Phillips, who was then the wife of his friend James Phillips, owner of the local, 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 with her daughter Isabel. However, as the United States became increasingly likely to be drawn into, 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.

Mrs. 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 sent Phillips and her family on a trip to  and paid them over $50,000. She also received monthly payments thereafter, becoming the first and only person known to have successfully money from a major.

The letters Harding wrote to Mrs. Phillips were confiscated at the request of the Harding heirs, who requested and received a 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.

Besides Mrs. Phillips, Harding also reportedly 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, and it is often cited as one of the best-known "facts" about Harding, but it has not been proved to the satisfaction of most historians.

Nan Britton's obsession with Harding started at an early age when she began pasting pictures of Senator Harding on her bedroom walls. According to Britton's book The President's Daughter, she and Senator Harding conceived a daughter,, in January of 1919, in his Senate office. Elizabeth Ann was born on. Harding never met Elizabeth Ann but paid large amounts of. Harding and Britton, according to unsubstantiated reports, continued their affair while he was President, using a closet adjacent to the for. Following Harding's death, Britton unsuccessfully the estate of Warren G. Harding on behalf of Elizabeth Ann. Under 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, 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, , in.

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." His errors were compounded by his insistence on writing his own speeches. Although it might not have been a mispronunciation as some thought, Harding's most famous "mistake" was his use of the word "normalcy" when the more correct word to use at the time would have been "normality." Harding decided he liked the sound of the word and made "Return to Normalcy" a recurring theme. Critic disagreed, saying of Harding, "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. Upon Harding's death, poet said "The only man, woman or child who wrote a simple declarative sentence with seven grammatical errors is dead."

Some suggest Harding had a form of.

Memorials

 * Warren G. Harding Middle School, Steubenville, Ohio
 * Warren G.Harding High School; Bridgeport, Connecticut
 * Warren G. Harding Middle School, ,
 * is named in his honor.
 * Ohio Northern University's College of Law was once named after him but was later renamed.
 * in San Francisco is named after him.
 * Peace Treaty Marker. ,.  In 1921, at the estate of  Governor, Warren Harding signed the peace treaty which ended America's involvement in World War I. Today, the estate is long gone and  has replaced it with s. The marker remains in a patch of grass near a   along , just North of the.
 * Ohio Northern University's College of Law was once named after him but was later renamed.
 * in San Francisco is named after him.
 * Peace Treaty Marker. ,.  In 1921, at the estate of  Governor, Warren Harding signed the peace treaty which ended America's involvement in World War I. Today, the estate is long gone and  has replaced it with s. The marker remains in a patch of grass near a   along , just North of the.