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There were no clear leads to either the motive or the identity of the assailants. The parade continued all Saturday night and all day Sunday. The newspapers circulated descriptions of the four wanted men as per the five eyewitnesses, although these were quite vague. None were said to be likely more than 30, and all four were described as having darker complexions. Windsor had evidently had some trouble from some Italians at his legitimate business, a dance hall called the Windsor Bar-B-Q, located near Yonge and Sheppard; this likely led to the suggestion that the gang of killers may have been Italian.
The media offered various theories as to the motive of the crime. Although Windsor was relieved of some valuable jewellery he had on him, it was not seen primarily as a robbery, as the men made no apparent effort to take other items of value which were in plain sight. The first theory to hit the newspapers was that Windsor had refused to pay money to a protection racket , with the suggestion that this racket was more of a problem in Toronto than had been previously believed. The Toronto Telegram , January 11, The Star continued trying to promote this theory, criticizing Toronto police for not working more actively with the Buffalo police and exploring this possibility.
Several known Toronto underworld figures had appeared in police lineups before the five witnesses, but none had yet been identified. The lack of an arrest made the Toronto media restless. All three newspapers, hungry for action, issued calls for the local police to clean up the gangs. Its ramifications reach to other centres of the province, and apparently tie in with the mobsters in the United States. The Toronto Telegram , January 13, McDonald had, in fact, been in custody for several weeks for his role in the assault and robbery of a Church Street bootlegger named James Elder. Out on bail during the time of the Windsor murder, he had subsequently been convicted for his role in the Elder case, and sent to Kingston Penitentiary.
For the Toronto media, however, the Windsor murder appeared to be solved, and attention soon shifted to Mickey McDonald. Courtroom sketch drawn by Charles R. Former Treasury Secretary William G. McAdoo was a major contender, but he was Wilson's son-in-law, and refused to consider a nomination so long as the president wanted it.
As Cox was, when not in politics, a newspaper owner and editor, this placed two Ohio editors against each other for the presidency, and some complained there was no real political choice. Both Cox and Harding were economic conservatives, and were reluctant progressives at best. Harding elected to conduct a front porch campaign , like McKinley in In the meantime, Cox and Roosevelt stumped the nation, giving hundreds of speeches.
Coolidge spoke in the Northeast, later on in the South, and was not a significant factor in the election. In Marion, Harding ran his campaign. As a newspaperman himself, he fell into easy camaraderie with the press covering him, enjoying a relationship few presidents have equaled. His " return to normalcy " theme was aided by the atmosphere that Marion provided, an orderly place that induced nostalgia in many voters.
The front porch campaign allowed Harding to avoid mistakes, and as time dwindled towards the election, his strength grew. The travels of the Democratic candidates eventually caused Harding to make several short speaking tours, but for the most part, he remained in Marion. America had no need for another Wilson, Harding argued, appealing for a president "near the normal. Harding's vague oratory irritated some; McAdoo described a typical Harding speech as "an army of pompous phrases moving over the landscape in search of an idea.
Sometimes these meandering words actually capture a straggling thought and bear it triumphantly, a prisoner in their midst, until it died of servitude and over work. Mencken concurred, "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 kind of grandeur creeps into it.
It drags itself out of the dark abysm It is rumble and bumble. It is balder and dash. Wilson had stated that the election would be a "great and solemn referendum" on the League of Nations, making it difficult for Cox to maneuver on the issue—although Roosevelt strongly supported the League, Cox was less enthusiastic. This was general enough to satisfy most Republicans, and only a few bolted the party over this issue.
By October, Cox had realized there was widespread public opposition to Article X, and stated that reservations to the treaty might be necessary; this shift allowed Harding to say no more on the subject. The RNC hired Albert Lasker , an advertising executive from Chicago, to publicize Harding, and Lasker unleashed a broad-based advertising campaign that used many now-standard advertising techniques for the first time in a presidential campaign. Lasker's approach included newsreels and sound recordings. Visitors to Marion had their photographs taken with Senator and Mrs. Harding, and copies were sent to their hometown newspapers.
Telemarketers were used to make phone calls with scripted dialogues to promote Harding. During the campaign, opponents spread old rumors that Harding's great-great-grandfather was a West Indian black person and that other blacks might be found in his family tree. Wooster College professor William Estabrook Chancellor publicized the rumors, based on supposed family research, but perhaps reflecting no more than local gossip.
By Election Day, November 2, , few had any doubts that the Republican ticket would win. The Republicans greatly increased their majority in each house of Congress. Warren Harding was sworn in as president on March 4, , in the presence of his wife and father. Harding preferred a low-key inauguration, without the customary parade, leaving only the swearing-in ceremony and a brief reception at the White House. In his inaugural address he declared, "Our most dangerous tendency is to expect too much from the government and at the same time do too little for it.
After the election, Harding had announced he was going on vacation, and that no decisions about appointments would be made until he returned to Marion in December. He went to Texas, where he fished and played golf with his friend Frank Scobey soon to be Director of the Mint , then took ship for the Panama Canal Zone. He went to Washington, where he was given a hero's welcome [e] when Congress opened in early December as the first sitting senator to be elected to the White House.
Back in Ohio, he planned to consult the "best minds" of the country on appointments, and they dutifully journeyed to Marion to offer their counsel. Mellon , one of the richest people in the country; he agreed. The two Harding cabinet appointees who darkened the reputation of his administration for their involvement in scandal were Harding's Senate friend, Albert B. Fall was a Western rancher and former miner, and was pro-development. Trani and David L. Wilson, in their volume on Harding's presidency, suggest that the appointment made sense then, since Daugherty was "a competent lawyer well-acquainted with the seamy side of politics Harding made it clear when he appointed Hughes as Secretary of State that the former justice would run foreign policy, a change from Wilson's close management of international affairs.
With the Treaty of Versailles unratified by the Senate, the U. Peacemaking began with the Knox—Porter Resolution , declaring the U. Treaties with Germany , Austria and Hungary , each containing many of the non-League provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, were ratified in This still left the question of relations between the U. Hughes' State Department initially ignored communications from the League, or tried to bypass it through direct communications with member nations. By , though, the U. By the time Harding took office, there were calls from foreign governments for reduction of the massive war debt owed to the United States, and the German government sought to reduce the reparations that it was required to pay.
Harding sought passage of a plan proposed by Mellon to give the administration broad authority to reduce war debts in negotiation, but Congress, in , passed a more restrictive bill. Hughes negotiated an agreement for Britain to pay off its war debt over 62 years at low interest, effectively reducing the present value of the obligations. This agreement, approved by Congress in , set a pattern for negotiations with other nations. Talks with Germany on reduction of reparations payments would result in the Dawes Plan of A pressing issue not resolved by Wilson was the question of policy towards Bolshevik Russia.
Under Harding, Commerce Secretary Hoover, with considerable experience of Russian affairs, took the lead on policy. When famine struck Russia in , Hoover had the American Relief Administration , which he had headed, negotiate with the Russians to provide aid. Soviet leaders the U.
Hoover supported trade with the Soviets, fearing U. Harding had urged disarmament and lower defense costs during the campaign, but it had not been a major issue.
That evening, at about 7: Archived from the original on October 6, The conference established a committee under the leadership of U. A place for Halifax leisure readers to interact with their library and the larger community of leisure readers. Fall reappeared and stated that the money had come as a loan from Harding's friend and The Washington Post publisher Edward B. The Regents Press of Kansas.
He gave a speech to a joint session of Congress in April , setting out his legislative priorities. Among the few foreign policy matters he mentioned was disarmament, with the president stating that the government could not "be unmindful of the call for reduced expenditure" on defense. Idaho Senator William Borah had proposed a conference at which the major naval powers, the U.
Harding concurred, and after some diplomatic discussions, representatives of nine nations convened in Washington in November Most of the diplomats first attended Armistice Day ceremonies at Arlington National Cemetery , where Harding spoke at the entombment of the Unknown Soldier of World War I , whose identity, "took flight with his imperishable soul. We know not whence he came, only that his death marks him with the everlasting glory of an American dying for his country". Hughes, in his speech at the opening session of the conference on November 12, , made the American proposal—the U.
The naval agreement was limited to battleships and to some extent aircraft carriers, and in the end did not prevent rearmament. Nevertheless, Harding and Hughes were widely applauded in the press for their work. Congress had authorized their disposal in , but the Senate would not confirm Wilson's nominees to the Shipping Board.
Harding appointed Albert Lasker as its chairman; the advertising executive undertook to run the fleet as profitably as possible until it could be sold. Most ships proved impossible to sell at anything approaching the government's cost. Lasker recommended a large subsidy to the merchant marine to enable the sales, and Harding repeatedly urged Congress to enact it. Unpopular in the Midwest, the bill passed the House, but was defeated by a filibuster in the Senate, and most government ships were eventually scrapped. Intervention in Latin America had been a minor campaign issue; Harding spoke against Wilson's decision to send U.
Once Harding was sworn in, Hughes worked to improve relations with Latin American countries who were wary of the American use of the Monroe Doctrine to justify intervention; at the time of Harding's inauguration, the U. The troops stationed in Cuba to protect American interests were withdrawn in ; U. Both Hughes and Fall opposed recognition; Hughes instead sent a draft treaty to the Mexicans in May , which included pledges to reimburse Americans for losses in Mexico since the revolution there.
This had its effect, and by mid, Fall was less influential than he had been, lessening the resistance to recognition. The two presidents appointed commissioners to reach a deal, and the U. When Harding took office on March 4, , the nation was in the midst of a postwar economic decline. When Harding addressed the joint session the following day, he urged the reduction of income taxes raised during the war , an increase in tariffs on agricultural goods to protect the American farmer, as well as more wide-ranging reforms, such as support for highways, aviation, and radio.
An act authorizing a Bureau of the Budget followed on June 10; Harding appointed Charles Dawes as bureau director with a mandate to cut expenditures. Treasury Secretary Mellon also recommended to Congress that income tax rates be cut. He asked that the excess profits tax on corporations be abolished. The House Ways and Means Committee endorsed Mellon's proposals, but some congressmen, who wanted to raise tax rates on corporations, fought the measure.
Harding was unsure what side to endorse, telling a friend, "I can't make a damn thing out of this tax problem. I listen to one side, and they seem right, and then—God! In the Senate, the tax bill became entangled in efforts to vote World War I veterans a soldier's bonus. Frustrated by the delays, on July 12, Harding appeared before the Senate to urge it to pass the tax legislation without the bonus.
It was not until November that the revenue bill finally passed, with higher rates than Mellon had proposed. Harding had opposed payment of a bonus to veterans, arguing in his Senate address that much was already being done for them by a grateful nation, and that the bill would "break down our Treasury, from which so much is later on to be expected.
A bill providing a bonus, without a means of funding it, was passed by both houses in September Harding vetoed it, and the veto was narrowly sustained. A bonus , not payable in cash, was voted to soldiers despite Coolidge's veto in In his first annual message to Congress , Harding sought the power to adjust tariff rates. The passage of the tariff bill in the Senate, and in conference committee became a feeding frenzy of lobbyist interests. It wrought havoc in international commerce and made the repayment of war debts more difficult. Mellon ordered a study that demonstrated historically that, as income tax rates were increased, money was driven underground or abroad.
He concluded that lower rates would increase tax revenues. Taxes were cut for lower incomes starting in The lower rates substantially increased the money flowing to the treasury. They also pushed massive deregulation and federal spending as a share of GDP fell from 6. By late , the economy began to turn around.
The misery index, which is a combination of unemployment and inflation, had its sharpest decline in U. Libertarian historians Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen argue that, "Mellon's tax policies set the stage for the most amazing growth yet seen in America's already impressive economy. The s were a time of modernization for America. Use of electricity became increasingly common. Mass production of the motor car stimulated other industries, as well, such as highway construction, rubber, steel, and building, as hotels were erected to accommodate the tourists venturing upon the roads.
This economic boost helped bring the nation out of the recession. Harding had urged regulation of radio broadcasting in his April speech to Congress. Both Harding and Hoover realized something more than an agreement was needed, but Congress was slow to act, not imposing radio regulation until Harding also wished to promote aviation, and Hoover again took the lead, convening a national conference on commercial aviation.
The discussions focused on safety matters, inspection of airplanes, and licensing of pilots. Harding again promoted legislation but nothing was done until , when the Air Commerce Act created the Bureau of Aeronautics within Hoover's Commerce Department. Harding's attitude toward business was that government should aid it as much as possible. Harding warned in his opening address that no federal money would be available. No important legislation came as a result, though some public works projects were accelerated. Within broad limits, Harding allowed each cabinet secretary to run his department as he saw fit.
This was consistent with Hoover's view that the private sector should take the lead in managing the economy. Widespread strikes marked , as labor sought redress for falling wages and increased unemployment. In April, , coal miners, led by John L. Lewis , struck over wage cuts. Mining executives argued that the industry was seeing hard times; Lewis accused them of trying to break the union. As the strike became protracted, Harding offered compromise to settle it.
As Harding proposed, the miners agreed to return to work, and Congress created a commission to look into their grievances. On July 1, , , railroad workers went on strike.
Harding proposed a settlement that made some concessions, but management objected. Wilkerson to issue a sweeping injunction to break the strike. Although there was public support for the Wilkerson injunction, Harding felt it went too far, and had Daugherty and Wilkerson amend it. The injunction succeeded in ending the strike; however, tensions remained high between railroad workers and management for years. By , the eight-hour day had become common in American industry.
One exception was in steel mills , where workers labored through a twelve-hour workday, seven days a week. Hoover considered this practice barbaric and got Harding to convene a conference of steel manufacturers with a view to ending the system. The conference established a committee under the leadership of U.
Steel chairman Elbert Gary , which in early recommended against ending the practice. Harding sent a letter to Gary deploring the result, which was printed in the press, and public outcry caused the manufacturers to reverse themselves and standardize the eight-hour day.
Although Harding's first address to Congress called for passage of anti-lynching legislation, [8] he initially seemed inclined to do no more for African Americans than Republican presidents of the recent past had; he asked Cabinet officers to find places for blacks in their departments. Sinclair suggested that the fact that Harding received two-fifths of the Southern vote in led him to see political opportunity for his party in the Solid South.
On October 26, , Harding gave a speech in Birmingham, Alabama , to a segregated audience of 20, whites and 10, blacks. Harding, while stating that the social and racial differences between whites and blacks could not be bridged, urged equal political rights for the African American. Many African Americans at that time voted Republican, especially in the Democratic South, and Harding stated he did not mind seeing that support end if the result was a strong two-party system in the South.
He was willing to see literacy tests for voting continue, if applied fairly to white and black. Harding had spoken out against lynching in his April speech before Congress, and supported Congressman Leonidas Dyer 's federal anti-lynching bill , which passed the House of Representatives in January Murray noted that it was hastened to its end by Harding's desire to have the ship subsidy bill considered.
With the public suspicious of immigrants, especially those who might be socialists or communists , Congress passed the Per Centum Act of , signed by Harding on May 19, , as a quick means of restricting immigration. This would, in practice, not restrict immigration from Ireland and Germany, but would bar many Italians and eastern European Jews. Harding's Socialist opponent in the election, Eugene Debs , was serving a ten-year sentence in the Atlanta Penitentiary for speaking against the war. Wilson had refused to pardon him before leaving office.
Daugherty met with Debs, and was deeply impressed. There was opposition from veterans, including the American Legion , and also from Florence Harding. The president did not feel he could release Debs until the war was officially over, but once the peace treaties were signed, commuted Debs' sentence on December 23, Harding released 23 other war opponents at the same time as Debs, and continued to review cases and release political prisoners throughout his presidency.
Harding defended his prisoner releases as necessary to return the nation to normalcy. Harding appointed four justices to the Supreme Court of the United States. When Chief Justice Edward Douglass White died in May , Harding was unsure whether to appoint former president Taft or former Utah senator George Sutherland —he had promised seats on the court to both men. After briefly considering awaiting another vacancy and appointing them both, he chose Taft as Chief Justice.
Sutherland was appointed to the court in , to be followed by two other economic conservatives, Pierce Butler and Edward Terry Sanford , in Entering the midterm congressional election campaign, Harding and the Republicans had followed through on many of their campaign promises. But some of the fulfilled pledges, like cutting taxes for the well-off, did not appeal to the electorate. From Republicans elected to the House in , the new 68th Congress would see that party fall to a — majority.
In the Senate, the Republicans lost eight seats, and had 51 of 96 senators in the new Congress, which Harding did not survive to meet. A month after the election, the lame-duck session of the old 67th Congress met. Harding had come to believe that his early view of the presidency—that it should propose policies, but leave whether to adopt them to Congress—was not enough, and he lobbied Congress, although in vain, to get his ship subsidy bill through. The economy was improving, and the programs of Harding's more able Cabinet members, such as Hughes, Mellon and Hoover, were showing results.
Most Republicans realized that there was no practical alternative to supporting Harding in In the first half of , Harding did two acts that were later said to indicate foreknowledge of death: By , he was aware he had a heart condition. Stress caused by the presidency and by Florence Harding's ill-health she had a chronic kidney condition debilitated him, and he never really recovered from an episode of influenza in January After that, Harding, an avid golfer, had difficulty completing a round. In June , Ohio Senator Willis met with Harding, but brought to the president's attention only two of the five items he intended to discuss.
When asked why, Willis responded, "Warren seemed so tired. In early June , Harding set out on a journey, which he dubbed the "Voyage of Understanding. Harding's political advisers had given him a physically demanding schedule, even though the president had ordered it cut back. In Denver, he spoke on Prohibition, and continued west making a series of speeches not matched by any president until Franklin Roosevelt. Harding had become a supporter of the World Court , and wanted the U.
In addition to making speeches, he visited Yellowstone and Zion National Parks , [] and dedicated a monument on the Oregon Trail at a celebration organized by venerable pioneer Ezra Meeker and others. The first president to visit Alaska, he spent hours watching the dramatic landscapes from the deck of the Henderson. The party was to return to Seward by the Richardson Trail , but due to Harding's fatigue, it went by train.
He was welcomed by the Premier of British Columbia and the Mayor of Vancouver, and spoke to a crowd of over 50, Two years after his death, a memorial to Harding was unveiled in Stanley Park.
After resting, he played the 17th and 18th holes so it would appear he had completed the round. He was not successful in hiding his exhaustion; one reporter deemed him looking so tired that a rest of mere days would not be sufficient to refresh him. In Seattle the next day, Harding kept up his busy schedule, giving a speech to 25, people at the stadium at the University of Washington.
In the final speech he gave, Harding predicted statehood for Alaska. Harding went to bed early on the evening of July 27, , a few hours after giving his final speech at the University of Washington. Later that night, he called for his physician, Charles E. Sawyer , complaining of pain in the upper abdomen. Sawyer thought it was a recurrence of a dietary upset, but Dr. Boone suspected a heart problem. The next day, as the train rushed to San Francisco, Harding felt better, and when they arrived on the morning of July 29, , he insisted on walking from the train to the car, which rushed him to the Palace Hotel [] [] where he suffered a relapse.
Doctors found that not only was Harding's heart causing problems, but he also had pneumonia. Harding was then confined to bed rest in his hotel room for the remainder of the time. When treated with caffeine and digitalis , Harding seemed to improve, and he was pleased when his planned foreign policy address advocating membership in the World Court was released to the press by Hoover and received a favorable reception.
By the afternoon of August 2, , doctors allowed Harding to sit up in bed. That evening, at about 7: As Florence Harding resumed reading, President Harding suddenly twisted convulsively and collapsed back in his bed; doctors were unable to revive him with stimulants, and President Harding was pronounced dead at the age of Harding's death came as a great shock to the nation.
The president was liked and admired, and the press and public had followed his illness closely, and been reassured by his apparent recovery. Nine million people lined the tracks as Harding's body was taken from San Francisco to Washington, D. After funeral services there, the body was transported to Marion, Ohio, for burial. In Marion, the body of Warren Harding was placed on a horse-drawn hearse , which was followed by President Coolidge and Chief Justice Taft, then by Harding's widow and father. Harding appointed a number of friends and acquaintances to federal positions. Some served competently, such as Charles E.
Sawyer , the Hardings' personal physician from Marion who attended to them in the White House. Sawyer alerted Harding to the Veterans' Bureau scandal. Others proved ineffective in office, such as Daniel R. Crissinger , a Marion lawyer whom Harding made Comptroller of the Currency and later a governor of the Federal Reserve Board ; or Harding's old friend, Director of the Mint Frank Scobey, who Trani and Wilson noted "did little damage during his tenure".
Harding's brother-in-law Heber H. Votaw, superintendent of federal prisons, was unable to root out the drug trade from within the facilities. Most of the scandals that have marred the reputation of Harding's administration did not emerge until after his death. The Veterans' Bureau scandal was known to Harding in January but, according to Trani and Wilson, "the president's handling of it did him little credit". Forbes , to flee to Europe, though he later returned and served prison time.
The president ordered Daugherty to get Smith out of Washington and removed his name from the upcoming presidential trip to Alaska. Smith committed suicide on May 30, Hoover accompanied Harding on the Western trip and later wrote that Harding asked then what Hoover would do if he knew of some great scandal, whether to publicize it or bury it. Hoover replied that Harding should publish and get credit for integrity, and asked for details. Harding stated that it had to do with Smith but, when Hoover enquired as to Daugherty's possible involvement, Harding refused to answer.
The scandal which has likely done the greatest damage to Harding's reputation is Teapot Dome. Like most of the administration's scandals, it came to public light after Harding's death, and he was not aware of the illegal aspects. Teapot Dome involved an oil reserve in Wyoming which was one of three set aside for the use of the Navy in a national emergency. There was a longstanding argument that the reserves should be developed; Wilson's first Interior Secretary Franklin Knight Lane was an advocate of this position.
When the Harding administration took office, Interior Secretary Fall took up Lane's argument and Harding signed an executive order in May transferring the reserves from the Navy Department to Interior. This was done with the consent of Navy Secretary Edwin C. The Interior Department announced in July that Edward Doheny had been awarded a lease to drill along the edges of naval reserve Elk Hills in California. The announcement attracted little controversy, as the oil would have been lost to wells on adjacent private land.
The Interior Department refused to provide documentation, so he secured the passage of a Senate resolution compelling disclosure. The department sent a copy of the lease granting drilling rights to Harry Sinclair 's Mammoth Oil Company , along with a statement that there had been no competitive bidding because military preparedness was involved—Mammoth was to build oil tanks for the Navy as part of the deal. This satisfied some people, but some conservationists, such as Gifford Pinchot , Harry A. Slattery , and others, pushed for a full investigation into Fall and his activities.
They got Wisconsin Senator Robert M. Walsh to lead the investigation, and Walsh read through the truckload of material provided by the Interior Department through into , including a letter from Harding stating that the transfer and leases had been with his knowledge and approval.
Hearings into Teapot Dome began in October , two months after Harding's death. Fall had left office earlier that year, but he denied receiving any money from Sinclair or Doheny; Sinclair agreed. The following month, Walsh learned that Fall had spent lavishly on expanding and improving his New Mexico ranch. Fall reappeared and stated that the money had come as a loan from Harding's friend and The Washington Post publisher Edward B. McLean , but McLean denied it when he testified. Doheny told the committee that he had given Fall the money in cash as a personal loan out of regard for their past association, but Fall invoked the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when he was compelled to appear again, rather than answer questions.
Doheny was brought to trial before a jury in April for giving the bribe Fall had been convicted of accepting, but he was acquitted. Harding's appointment of Harry M. Daugherty as Attorney General received more criticism than any other.
Daugherty's Ohio lobbying and back room maneuvers were not considered to qualify him for his office. Democratic Montana Senator Burton K. Wheeler was on the investigating committee and assumed the role of prosecutor when hearings began on March 12, Caskey, to accept payoffs from alcohol bootleggers to secure either immunity from prosecution or the release of liquor from government warehouses. Coolidge requested Daugherty's resignation when the Attorney General indicated that he would not allow Wheeler's committee access to Justice Department records, and Daugherty complied on March 28, Smith and Miller received a payoff of almost half a million dollars for getting a German-owned firm, the American Metal Company, released to new U.
Records relating to that account were destroyed by Daugherty and his brother. Miller and Daugherty were indicted for defrauding the government. The first trial, in September , resulted in a hung jury ; at the second, early in , Miller was convicted and served prison time, but the jury again hung as to Daugherty.
Though charges against Daugherty were then dropped, and he was never convicted of any offense, his refusal to take the stand in his own defense devastated what was left of his reputation. The former Attorney General remained defiant, blaming his troubles on his enemies in the labor movement and on the Communists, and wrote that he had "done nothing that prevents my looking the whole world in the face".
Forbes , the energetic director of the Veterans' Bureau, sought to consolidate control of veterans' hospitals and their construction in his bureau. At the start of Harding's presidency, this power was vested in the Treasury Department. The politically-powerful American Legion backed Forbes and denigrated those who opposed him, like Secretary Mellon, and in April , Harding agreed to transfer control to the Veterans' Bureau.
Louis, which wanted to construct the hospitals. The two men became close, and Mortimer paid for Forbes' travels through the West, looking at potential hospital sites for the wounded World War I veterans. Forbes was also friendly with Charles F. Some of the money went to the bureau's chief counsel, Charles F. Intent on making more money, Forbes in November began selling valuable hospital supplies under his control in large warehouses at the Perryville Depot in Maryland.
The check on Forbes' authority at Perryville was Dr. Sawyer, Harding's physician and chairman of the Federal Hospitalization Board. Harding did not want an open scandal and allowed Forbes to flee to Europe, from where he resigned on February 15, In spite of Harding's efforts, gossip about Forbes' activities resulted in the Senate ordering an investigation two weeks later, [] and in mid-March, Cramer committed suicide.
Mortimer was willing to tell all, as Forbes had had an affair with his wife which also broke up the Forbes marriage. The construction executive was the star witness at the hearings in late , after Harding's death. Forbes returned from Europe to testify, but convinced few, and in , he and John W. Thompson, of Thompson—Black, were tried in Chicago for conspiracy to defraud the government. Both were convicted and sentenced to two years in prison. Forbes began to serve his sentence in ; Thompson, who had a bad heart, died that year before commencing his. Harding had an extramarital affair with Carrie Fulton Phillips of Marion, which lasted about fifteen years before ending in Letters from Harding to Phillips were discovered by Harding biographer Francis Russell in the possession of Marion attorney Donald Williamson while Russell was researching his book in Before that, the affair was not generally known.
Williamson donated the letters to the Ohio Historical Society. Some there wanted the letters destroyed to preserve what remained of Harding's reputation. A lawsuit ensued, with Harding's heirs claiming copyright over the letters. The case was ultimately settled in , with the letters donated to the Library of Congress. They were sealed until , but before their opening, historians used copies at Case Western Reserve University and in Russell's papers at the University of Wyoming. Coffey in his review of Harding biographies criticizes him for "obsess[ing] over Harding's sex life".
The allegations of Harding's other known mistress, Nan Britton , long remained uncertain. The book, which was dedicated to "all unwedded mothers" and "their innocent children whose fathers are usually not known to the world", was sold, like pornography, door-to-door wrapped in brown paper. Harding's biographers, writing while Britton's allegations remained uncertain, differed on their truth; Russell believed them unquestioningly [] while Dean, having reviewed Britton's papers at UCLA , regarded them as unproven. Upon his death, Harding was deeply mourned.
He was called a man of peace in many European newspapers; American journalists praised him lavishly, with some describing him as having given his life for his country. His associates were stunned by his demise; Daugherty wrote, "I can hardly write about it or allow myself to think about it yet.
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Harding, Our After-War President Works written in the late s helped shape Harding's historical reputation: President Coolidge, not wishing to be further associated with his predecessor, refused to dedicate the Harding Tomb. Hoover, Coolidge's successor, was similarly reluctant, but with Coolidge in attendance presided over the dedication in By that time, with the Great Depression in full swing, Hoover was nearly as discredited as Harding. Harding in which he called his subject "an amiable, well-meaning third-rate Mr.
Babbitt , with the equipment of a small-town semi-educated journalist It could not work. It did not work. Today there is considerable evidence refuting their portrayals of Harding. Yet the myth has persisted. The opening of Harding's papers for research in sparked a small spate of biographies, of which the most controversial was Russell's The Shadow of Blooming Grove , which concluded that the rumors of black ancestry the "shadow" of the title deeply affected Harding in his formative years, causing both Harding's conservatism and his desire to get along with everyone.
Coffey faults Russell's methods, and deems the biography "largely critical, though not entirely unsympathetic. Trani and Wilson faulted Murray for "a tendency to go overboard" in trying to connect Harding with the successful policies of cabinet officers, and for asserting, without sufficient evidence, that a new, more assertive Harding had emerged by Later decades saw revisionist books published on Harding.
Robert Ferrell 's The Strange Deaths of President Harding , according to Coffey, "spends almost the entire work challenging every story about Harding and concludes that almost everything that is read and taught about his subject is wrong. Harding has traditionally been ranked as one of the worst presidents. In concrete accomplishments, his administration was superior to a sizable portion of those in the nation's history. Trani faults Harding's own lack of depth and decisiveness as bringing about his tarnished legacy.
In the American system, there is no such thing as an innocent bystander in the White House. If Harding can rightly claim the achievements of a Hughes in State or a Hoover in Commerce, he must also shoulder responsibility for a Daugherty in Justice and a Fall in Interior. Especially must he bear the onus of his lack of punitive action against such men as Forbes and Smith. By his inaction, he forfeited whatever chance he had to maintain the integrity of his position and salvage a favorable image for himself and his administration.
As it was, the subsequent popular and scholarly negative verdict was inevitable, if not wholly deserved. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For other uses, see Warren Harding disambiguation. United States Senate election in Ohio, Read The Menace and get the dope, Go to the polls and beat the Pope. United States presidential election, America's present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality.
I don't expect Senator Harding to be nominated on the first, second, or third ballots, but I think we can well afford to take chances that about eleven minutes after two o'clock on Friday morning at the convention, when fifteen or twenty men, somewhat weary, are sitting around a table, some one of them will say: