In 1920 Warren G. Harding won the presidential election against democrat James Cox under the campaign, “A Return To Normalcy,” a promise following the years of the Great War. The promise was exactly what war-weary disillusioned voters wanted to hear at the beginning of a new and hopeful decade. Harding won by an unprecedented landslide of 60 percent of the popular vote. Another promise of Harding’s on the campaign trail, “Less government in business and more business in government.”
A sentiment and promise that would ultimately be President Harding’s demise. And, a little over a hundred years later we find ourselves in similar waters.
As a U.S. Senator from Ohio in 1914 he missed more sessions than he attended including being absent for key debates on prohibition and women’s suffrage. Once in office he admitted to close friends that the job was beyond him. Harding also knew little about foreign affairs.
Democrat leader William Gibbs McAdoo called Harding’s speeches “An army of pompous phrases moving across the landscape in search of an idea.” That being said, historians have stated [his speeches] were very murky and effective since Harding’s pronoucements remained unclear.
What did Harding accomplish? Well, not much, but I’ll get to that shortly. Harding created a higher protective tariff, lower taxes on business, and a sharp reduction in the number of immigrants allowed to enter the United States from Southern and Eastern Europe.
While most historians agree that Warren G. Harding’s place in history is toward the bottom rung of presidents, the biggest achievement would be Harding’s success in getting the world’s major powers to agree to halt the arms race in production of large naval vessels in 1921-22.
Harding’s presidency is riddled with scandal that carried on well after his death in 1923. Many of Harding’s friends were put into official positions and then began using their positions for their own enrichments. These friends often fell into two camps: the outstanding leaders like Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes and Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover and the unscrupulous politicians like Attorneys General Harry Daugherty and Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall.
It has been documented that Harding was a notoriously poor judge of character who expected his appointees to repay his trust with integrity. However, at the time of Harding’s presidency, historians mark it as one of the most corrupt administrations in the nation’s history. (Something tells me this distinction is about to change.)
Harding surrounded himself with dishonest cheats who came to be known as the “Ohio Gang” and who would end up defrauding the government. The Attorneys General, Harry Daugherty, was a friend of Harding’s who often played poker together, drank whisky, smoked, told jokes, played golf, and kept late hours with. Daugherty was also the head of the “Ohio Gang.” Daugherty would end up standing trial twice for conspiracy of selling illegal permits and pardons but was never convicted. His private secretary, Jess Smith, committed suicide in May 1923, a day after Harding informed Daugherty of his pending arrest for corruption, and was rumored to have been involved with the “Ohio Gang” profiting from a variety of corrupt activities.
Charles Forbes was the head of the Veterans Bureau who accepted kickbacks from contractors building veterans’ hospitals. Forbes also illegally sold surplus medical supplies to private contractors and ultimately resigned in February 1923. A senate investigation in 1924 found that Forbes and his associates stole more than 200 million dollars (almost 2.8 billion in today’s dollars) from the Veterans Bureau. Harding allowed Forbes to leave the country to escape prosecution and shortly thereafter Charles Cranmer, the General Council for the Veterans Bureau, committed suicide.
Probably the most well known scandal of Warren G. Harding’s presidency would be the Teapot Dome scandal.
In 1921 Secretary of the Interior, Albert Fall, convinced Harding to shift oversight of strategic oil reserves set aside for the United States Navy to the Department of the Interior. Fall then secretly granted lucrative no-bid contracts for exclusive drilling rights to the federal reserves, which contained high-grade petroleum worth hundreds of millions of dollars, to a pair of Fall’s longtime friends and oil tycoons. In return for leasing two California reserves, Pan American Petroleum and Transport Company founder Edward Doheny, gave Fall a one hundred thousand interest-free “loan” that his son Ned Doheny and friend Hugh Plunket delivered to Fall in a black parcel bag.
After gaining exclusive drilling rights to the reserve in Teapot Dome, Wyoming, the Mammoth Oil Company owner Henry Sinclair, gave Fall three hundred thousand dollars in liberty bonds, cash, and delivered a large herd of livestock to Fall’s ranch. Sinclair would end up serving six months in prison for jury tampering and contempt of congress.
The Wall Street Journal broke the news of the contracts in April 1922. The senate would not investigate until February 1929. Tragically, due to the criminality coming into focus, Hugh Plunket fatally shot friend Ned Doheny in a Beverly Hills mansion before turning the gun on himself.
Fall was convicted of accepting a bribe from Edward Doheny and served nine months in prison becoming the first cabinet official to be incarcerated for a felony committed while in office.
While Harding was not implicated in the scandal, he was aware of the actions and failed to bring the corruption to light. The public began to regard Harding as a man not measured up to the responsibilities of such a high office.
“Teapot Dome” became a synonym of government corruption.
Harding had had multiple affairs before he took office and during his three years in the White House. One woman was thirty years his junior and another had claimed Harding fathered a child in 1919 (in 2015 DNA would prove the child was Harding’s). He told his longtime mistress that he was in a loveless marriage and that there was not “one iota of affection at home.” When Harding received the nomination for president the Republican National Committee (RNC) gave his longtime mistress (Carrie Phillips, who Harding began seeing in 1905) hush money consisting of a two thousand per month stipend (almost thirty two thousand in today’s dollars) plus twenty five thousand for a cruise to Japan and China during the fall of 1920. Phillips was therefore out of the country in the weeks and days leading up to the presidential election. Her return was well after the election and Harding was already occupying the White House.
Harding once told the press, “It’s a good thing I’m not a woman, I would always be pregnant. I can’t say no.”
Warren G. Harding’s presidency began at a time of the depression of 1920-21. Unemployment in the fall of 1921 reached post-war high of 5.7 million. Waves of violence by the KKK spread throughout the country as they attacked African Americans, who upon returning from the Great War, no longer wanted to return to subservience, whippings, or lynchings by the KKK.
He had little desire to be president and preferred golf, drink, and poker. He favored pro-business policies, always supporting legislation friendly to businesses. He allowed Andrew Mellon to push through tax cuts for the rich, he stopped anti-trust actions, and opposed organized labor.
Harding was embroiled in one scandal after another from hush money payments to his mistress to illegal actions by the “Ohio Gang” and Teapot Dome.
Historians seem to agree that Harding was the least capable of the nation’s chief executives up to that point.
In the end, his administration accomplished little of lasting value and after his death a series of scandals would doom his legacy as well as being judged among the worst president in American history.
Harding was known as a “good fellow” who enjoyed being liked more than he prized himself as being a good leader.
So, what’s the big deal with Harding? An early twentieth century president who died three years into his term. A president who couldn’t possibly understand today’s world of instant news and seemingly violent storms of misinformation and disinformation. A president experiencing the new era of aviation and who would have no concept of personal computers or social media. How can any of this be relatable today?
It’s relatable because the past teaches us lessons for the future and for future actions. We don’t always immediately see the big picture until we can step back and examine, uncover, and analyze the clues from the past. What can the past teach and show us? And, most importantly, how do we use this information in 2025 and beyond?
As Mark Twain is quoted as saying, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”
Sources: Whitehouse.org; Millercenter.org; history.com; Britannica.com; Ohio Wesleyan University; Intercollegiate Review