Warren Harding

Warren G. Harding served as United States President for three years. Although he was unable to complete his term, Harding was always known as a good man who became president with some reluctance and wanted the best for our nation.

Warren Harding was born in Corsica, OH (now Blooming Grove) on November 2, 1865. He was the son of Phoebe Dickerson and George Tyron Harding. As a child he learned the alphabet when his mother taught it to him with a charcoal stick on the bottom of a shoebox. Young Harding's mother also taught him poems at age four.

When Harding was ten, he moved with his family to Caledonia. There he went to school and was good at spelling, along with writing essays. Harding's father soon became part owner of the Caledonia Harding worked as a ``printer's devil'' (messenger and office boy) for that newspaper. He also learned to set type.

Harding's chores included painting the barns, milking the cows, and tending to the horses. He was always willing and eager to work hard in order to earn money. At the age of fourteen Harding entered Ohio Central College which was located in Iberia, Ohio. Tuition was seven dollars a term.

Harding moved to Marion, Ohio in 1882 when he was sixteen years old. There he tried studying law and selling insurance. However, he preferred shooting pool and playing poker. When Harding was seventeen he began earning thirty dollars a month by teaching in a country school, but after one term he quit because he found it too difficult. Harding, who owned a second-hand B-flat cornet, helped to organize the Citizen's Cornet Band of Marion. He especially enjoyed playing at park concerts, and the band won third place in a state band festival.

When he was almost nineteen, Harding took a job for the Marion Democratic Mirror a weekly newspaper. With this job he earned a dollar a week. The job, however, lasted only a few weeks because Harding was an avid supporter of James G. Blaine, who was the Republican presidential candidate. The Democratic owner of The Mirror didn't like this.

In 1884, he and two friends purchased The Marion Star, a struggling independent newspaper, for three hundred dollars. Both of his friends soon dropped out of the venture, however, and Harding soon found himself the sole owner of The Star.

Harding married Florence Kling DeWolfe in 1891. Her father, a prominent Marion banker, was against the marriage, and at one point even threatened Harding's life. Florence, who was five years older than him and a divorcee, had one son by her previous marriage. Harding nicknamed his wife "the Duchess" for her dominating personality. She had great ambitions for her new husband. Harding became the director of three corporations and a trustee of the Trinity Baptist Church.

In 1892 Harding ran for county auditor. He lost overwhelmingly. At the 1899 state Republican convention, Harding was awarded nomination for the state senate. He won the election.

Harding became Lieutenant Governor of Ohio in 1902. He delivered the nominating address for President Taft at the 1912 Republican Convention. Four years later he delivered the keynote speech. He was elected to the United States Senate, which he called "a very pleasant place" in 1914. Harry Daugherty, an Ohio admirer, began to promote Harding for the 1920 Republican nomination. Why? Because according to Daugherty, "He looked like a President." Harding, who enjoyed being a senator and recognized his own limitations, did not want to run for president. However, Daugherty convinced him.

The theme of his campaign was the call for "normalacy." Harding conducted a front-porch campaign from his home in Marion, which reminded some of William McKinley. Both opponents and proponents of American entrance into the League of Nations could find reasons to vote for him in his vague statements and speeches.

The two principal candidates were General Wood and Governor Frank Lowden, of Illinois. Harding wanted to drop out of the election, but Daugherty and his wife urged him on, hoping a deadlock would develop between Wood and Lowden. One soon did. The Chicago Convention adjourned till morning. That night messengers came and went; strings were pulled. The most important meeting took place in a room at the Blackstone Hotel. The meeting was attended by an influential group of Republican senators who wanted neither Wood nor Lowden. They decided they would swing their support to Harding as long as he had nothing in his life or background that would embarrass the party. After deliberating by himself for a while, Harding told them he did not. Daugherty called the room in which that important meeting took place the "Smoke-Filled Room".

Harding won the election, the first in which women had voted, by a landslide. He captured over 61% of the vote. He was the first president to drive to his inauguration in an automobile. He was aged 55 years at the time of the inauguration. He was now the 29th president of the United States.

Harding chose some of the best minds in the country for his cabinet, but some appointments turned out to be ill-made. He selected Albert B. Fall, a former senator, to be Secretary of the Interior. Other appointments included: .TS center allbox ; l l . Charles E. Hughes Secretary of the State Herbert Hoover Secretary of Commerce Andrew W. Mellon Secretary of the Treasury Calvin Coolidge Vice President .TE

As a senator Harding voted for Prohibition, but as president he stocked the White House with illegal bootleg liquor. He was often confused by the complexities of legislation. He said that although he knew he could not be the best U.S. president ever, he wanted to be the best loved. Harding opened the White House to the public and happily greeted all who came to visit him. Harding once was visited by a circus giant with two midgets. He also met Billy Sunday and Madame Curie, the co-discoverer of radium. His wife changed the White House lawn by planting thousands of bulbs and installing bird houses.

Much of the real business in the Harding Administration took place at evening poker and drinking parties at the White House. During one unfortunate poker game, Harding gambled away a complete set of the White House china. These parties were attended by Fall, Daugherty, Jesse Smith (a Harding friend of dubious repute), and other cronies and hangers-on. Friends and acquaintances flocked from Ohio to get jobs from Harding. They became known as the ``Ohio Gang.'' Their headquarters was the ``Little Green House,'' that is, 1265 K Street.

Harding appealed to the steel industry to shorten the twelve-hour working day. He was rebuffed three times, but persisted in the matter. It wasn't until after Harding's death that they agreed to shorten the work day.

When Congress passes a huge soldier's bonus bill for veterans of World War I, Harding vetoed it. He pointed out that the bill didn't provide for necessary additional revenues to pay the bonus.

In October of 1921, Harding became the first president since the Civil War to deliver a speech in the South on behalf of equal rights for blacks. Because less Republicans were voted into both houses in 1922, Harding resolved to go on a nationwide speaking tour in 1923 to strengthen his popularity. On November 11th, 1921, Harding gave an emotional dedication speech at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

A treaty between the U.S.A. and Columbia was ratified by the Senate on the 21st of April in the year 1921. In this treaty the U.S. government agreed to pay Columbia $25,000,000 as compensation for its loss of control over Panama and the Panama Canal Zone.

The Harding administration gave farmers more borrowing power. The administration didn't, however, meet their demands for lower shipping costs and higher prices. A serious coal miners' strike was settled during Harding's term. One of the results of the strike was the appointment of the President's Factfinding Commission. This group took the first official survey of underlying problems in the coal industry.

Harding had interpreted his winning the election to mean that most people wanted to stay out of the League of Nations. He refused to cooperate with European nations in collective security plans. He then called an international conference to reduce naval armaments, and thus decrease the possibility of war. The Washington Conference opened in 1921. At the conference Secretary of State Hughes recommended large cuts in the navies of the U.S., Britain, and Japan. From this resulted the Five Power Naval Treaty of 1922. The treaty caused an Englishman to remark, "Secretary Hughes sunk in 35 minutes more ships than all the admirals of the world have sunk in a cycle of centuries."

Conservative Republicans pushed through much of their program and got the president's approval on their bills. They got rid of remaining wartime government restrictions, cut taxes, and created a federal budget system. They also established the high protection tariff, and, for the first time in American history, drastically restricted immigration with the Immigration Restriction Act of 1921.

Also in 1921 Harding transferred supervision of the naval oil reserve lands from the navy to the Department of the Interior. Albert B. Fall secretly granted to Harry F. Sinclair, of the Mammoth Oil Company, exclusive rights to the Teapot Dome reserves in Wyoming on April 7, 1922. Fall granted similar rights to Edward L. Doheny, of Pan American Petroleum Company, for the Elk Hills and Buena Vista Hills reserves in California. In exchange for the leases, Fall received cash gifts and no-interest "loans".

When the affair became known, Congress directed Harding to cancel the leases. The Supreme Court declared the leases fraudulent and ruled illegal Harding's transfer of power to Fall. Even though Harding himself was not implicated in the transactions following the transfer, the realization of his cabinet's corrupt dealings took a severe toll on his health.

In the summer of 1923 Harding, looking wan and depressed, journeyed to Alaska. He was suffering from high blood pressure and heart trouble, however, so the trip was unwise. On his journey, which he called the Voyage of Understanding, the wanted to explain his policies to the American people and assure them that he was an honest man. In Alaska he completed construction on the Alaskan railroad by driving in the "golden spike".

After giving a public address in Seattle, Harding became ill. Aides tried to persuade him to abandon the trip, but he insisted they continue on to San Francisco. It was the end of July when he reached San Francisco, and his tiring schedule and illness had weakened him so much that he was exhausted and had to be carried from the train. All speech making engagements were canceled. A great welcome had been planeed for the chief executive, but rejoicing turned to concern when word of his illness arrived. Harding began to complain of indigestion and showed signs of bronchial pneumonia. News reports on his condition were very serious for a few days, but on August 2nd, a Thursday, it was reported that Harding was "feeling easier this morning".

The doctor, satisfied with the day's progress, went for an automobile ride. Two little girls came to the presidential suite just before 7:00, and Mrs. Harding accepted their gift of flowers. Then she went back into the suite and began reading to the president. When she paused, Harding said, "That's good. Go on; read some more." Those were his last words. At 7:30 on that August day a shudder ran through Harding's body. he doctor's could do nothing. He had held office for 2 years, 5 months.

A funeral train bearing his body moved eastward to Washington. It arived in Washington just before midnight on Tuesday, August 7th. The chief executive's body was then taken to the East Room in the White House. Then his body was taken into the spacious rotunda where people could pay tribute to his memory. After that the body went by train to his father's home in Marion, Ohio. People visited his body there all throughout the afternoon, night, and morning.

The official cause of death was listed as a stroke, but some doctors believed that Harding died of a heart attack. Other people thought that Mrs. Harding had poisoned him. She refused to allow an autospy and wouldn't allow a death mask to be made, which gave fuel to arguments against her. Why did people think that Mrs. Harding had poisoned him? One reason is that perhaps she wanted to spare him the indignity of impeachment. Another is that maybe she became fed up with his numerous affairs and killed him just as they and his illegitimate daughters were about to surface. Foul play in association with his death was never proven, though, and historians still believe he died of natural causes.

On August 7th a friend of Mrs. Harding saw her place "a small bouquet of country flowers, of daisies and nastertiums" in Harding's casket. The friend then heard the first lady say, "No one can hurt you now, Warren." On Friday, August 10th, funeral services were held and the casket placed in a vault.

Immediately after the funeral, Mrs. Harding methodically destroyed almost all of her husband's personal correspondance. She was most likely afraid his reputation would be damaged by future historians. She died 15 months later. Her remains were placed next to her husband's in the Harding Memorial at Marion, Ohio. The Harding Memorial is a large masoleum constructe with donations from the community. The new president was Harding's former vice-president, Calvin Coolidge.

Most older Americans, upon recalling Harding's administration, think first of the scandals that blackened his reputation. But Warren Harding was a hardworking and honest man who had many great accomplishments and to the best of his ability executed the office of President of the United States of America.