The Jazz Age President: Defending Warren G. Harding
It is the last Sunday of the month meaning it is time for the next president, making this week’s book of the week The Jazz Age President: Defending Warren G. Harding by Ryan S. Walters.
Warren Gamaliel Harding was born on November 2, 1865, in Blooming Grove, OH and was the oldest of eight children. He went to Ohio Central College before moving to Marion, OH, which would be his home base the rest of his life. Once he moved to Marion, he purchased a newspaper, the Marion Star, which was an unquestionable success. See, he did this thing called profit sharing with the paper, so that all the employees had a vested interest in the success of the paper.
When he was 25, he married Florence Kling DeWolfe, who was the daughter of the wealthiest man in Marion, Amos Kling. Amos had not quite disowned his daughter, but the two had had a falling out due to Florence, who had been in a common law marriage, meaning not blessed by the church, got pregnant, and then was abandoned by her husband. Harding stepped in and married her. She was happy for the offer, not just because her own falling out with her father, but because Harding had made savage allegations regarding his soon to be father-in-law, accusing him of shady financial dealings with the city government. In retaliation, Amos Kling floated an old rumor that Harding had black blood in his veins. The book does not cover whether that is true or not, largely because it is so thoroughly irrelevant. Despite the well-known rumors, Harding was nominated and ultimately elected to the presidency in 1920. But that was many years in the future.
Harding’s interest in politics was sparked in 1884 when he used his rail pass, which was a perk of owning a newspaper, to attend the Republican National Convention. Within four years, he was a delegate to the convention. In his entire political career, he only lost two campaigns, his first race for Marion County auditor in 1892, and a bid for Ohio Governor in 1910. The intervening campaigns saw his winning two terms in the Ohio state senate, Ohio state lieutenant governor, and US Senate, which position he was in he accepted the nomination for president in 1920.
Now, Walters does a good job debunking some popular myths about Harding, starting with the myth that Republican movers and shakers did a back room deal in a smoky hotel room to secure his nomination in exchange for cabinet postings. Also, the belief that he was a dark horse candidate. Prior to his death in 1919, Teddy Roosevelt had been considering running again for president, and had approached Harding as a possible vice-presidential candidate. Of course, Roosevelt died before that, and Harding was a distant fourth when the Republican Convention started in 1920, behind General Leonard Wood, who was favored for his role in WWI in Europe and had 124 delegates at the start of the convention; Hiram Johnson from California was next with 112 delegates, Frank Lowden governor of Illinois was in third place with 72 delegates and Harding was last with 39 delegates. But none of this mattered when the race starts, because you need a majority of the delegates to vote for you, which in 1920 was 984 delegates. So, none of them were even close at the start of the convention, meaning it was anyone’s game. And while history likes to claim that Harding’s friend and eventual US Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty finagled the nomination for Harding, he secured the nomination through open assembly, via the usual political wheeling and dealing in open debate at the convention. And for the record…just as an aside…I need to read an unbiased book on Alice Roosevelt Longworth. Because she was VERY opinionated, and not in a way I think I agree with. But much is made of her historically, and I need to know why.
Back to Harding. Following his nomination, which was not even attended by Daugherty, who was not nominated as a delegate at large and so did not attend the convention, Harding became the clear front runner when Johnson and Wood became deadlocked. Neither set of delegates would give an inch, and so Harding leapt to the front. And once he secured the nomination, he did the very politic thing: he asked Hiram Johnson of California to be his running mate. California was one of the fastest growing states and with its rich oil and gold deposits and fertile farm valleys, Johnson was very much a force to be reckoned with.
It is believed that in 1916, when Charles Evans Hughes was the Republican nominee in and was campaigning in California, he failed to meet with I believe it was then governor Johnson, who was even staying in the same hotel as Hughes. Hughes famously lost to Wilson’s second term, and Harding determined not to repeat the snub by offering the VP position to Johnson. Johnson declined, and Harding offered it to Calvin Coolidge, who had earned national renown by dealing with a police union strike in I think it was 1918, when Coolidge was governor of Massachusetts. I think. I may be misremembering some of Coolidge’s details, but they’ll come up again next month.
Now, even people who adamantly disliked Harding, acknowledged that he was a very kind man, and liked by many. Not them, but many did like him, and he was very kind, as well as being very honest. Which we are definitely coming back to, given some of the scandals that occurred during his presidency, which rocketed him to the bottom of most lists of presidents, and made many believe he was not a likely president. Wilson certainly seemed to think so, and was convinced the nation loved him, loved his league of nations, and would never vote for Harding. Included in Wilson’s belief that Harding couldn’t win, was the belief that Harding was part black; however, in 1920 at least, this rumor didn’t matter outside of the south, and Harding won in an absolute bloodbath, taking 60% of the popular vote, 16,143,407 votes to democratic nominee James Cox, who only won 9,141,750 votes. The Electoral college reflected this lopsided win, with Harding claiming 404 votes to Cox’s 127.
And with that, Harding won, and was sworn in as the 29th president on March 4, 1921. And set about changing America for the better. Like all president’s his first task was assigning his cabinet, and his picks were absolutely stellar. He started by advising VP Calvin Coolidge that Coolidge would be needed to sit in on all cabinet meetings. This was a wild deviation from the norm and set the stage for the VP to have more say in the day-to-day operations of the government. Also ended up being very good for the nation, as Coolidge was able to step immediately into Harding’s position on his death…spoiler alert… without needing to be briefed. He already knew the state of the nation and what was happening where, due to his participation in the twice weekly cabinet meetings.
Harding was not a micromanager, and had a gift for picking the exact right person to delegate a task to…with three notable exceptions, which I’ll come back to.
Harding was unquestionably a hard worker, putting in 16 and 17 hour days, and his typical work week was 84 hours, making him one of the hardest working presidents we’ve ever had. His cabinet consisted of Charles Evans Hughes as Secretary of State, Andrew Mellon as Secretary of the Treasury, John Weeks as Secretary of War, and Herbert Hoover as Secretary of Commerce. Mellon, who at this point in history had an established wealth of like $300 million in 1920’s dollars, which would be over $1billion in today’s currency, was an unquestionably brilliant pick, and he is acknowledged historically as the second most brilliant secretary of treasury behind Alexander Hamilton. Now, I say that, as a preface to what comes next.
Beginning in January 1920, America fell into a financial depression, owing to Wilson’s bad policy, which was implemented on the passing of the federal reserve act. Personally, I would have pushed for the repeal of the federal reserve act, but what Mellon did worked just as well. See, Wilson’s policies had taken American debt from $1.2 billion in 1916 and had it balloon to $26 billion by 1919. Just three short years had skyrocketed American debt, thanks to Wilson’s War. Under Wilson, the income tax, which had been sold to the American people as a tax on the wealthy only, came to be 77% on the wealthiest American’s who then opted to hide their wealth in various bonds, which they still do today. This is nothing new. So Mellon lowered the income tax across the board. He also put a stop to inflation by having the federal reserve board stop printing money. During the War years, the Federal Reserve had increased the money supply by 1000%, which in turn caused prices to rise, as there was now more money floating around. We see this today, as inflation is off the charts and everything is more expensive.
So, Mellon lowered the income tax on the wealthiest American’s from 77% to 32%. See, what Mellon knew, but most congress critters today don’t seem capable of grasping, is if the income tax is too high, people will avoid paying taxes by simply refusing to work. Mellon also raised corporate taxes to 12.5% and allowed for capital gains tax rate of 12.5%. So it wasn’t all lowered. But he made the taxes not so onerous, that people simply stopped working to avoid paying them. And by July 1921, so within four months of Harding taking office, the depression was over. Business was flourishing. Mellon also explained to both Congress and the American people what is obvious to all but the most willfully stupid: the government does not make money but has to take it from the American people. He ended many government programs that were profoundly wasteful.
Harding also created a Bureau of the Budget, putting in charge Charles Dawes. The Bureau of the Budget was brand new, and for the first time, the executive had a budget to work with. And this entailed cutting spending. You can’t cut taxes and NOT cut spending commensurate to those taxes. Between Mellon and Dawes, the Harding administration cut spending by $1.8 billion, and by the end of 1922, the federal budget had a surplus of $736 billion. The prior years surplus had only been $509 million.
Mellon also convinced the federal reserve to cut interest rates to 5% and refinanced some of the war loans at the lower interest rate, which saved American taxpayers $200 million. But the third year of Harding’s administration, the national debt had fallen to $22.3 billion, from a post war high of $25 billion, helped in large part by the budget surpluses that Dawes and Mellon managed to wrangle out of the mangled economy Wilson had left when he stepped down as president.
Harding also believed strongly in America First. He was against Wilson’s league of nations and allowed Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes a free hand. Hughes sat down with the European nations, who were all for America just forgiving the enormous loans she had provided to fight the war, and came up with workable payment tables which would ultimately see the money Europe owed America for the war paid in full by 1984, at the interest rates of 3% for the first ten years, and 3.5% for the remainder.
Harding was not necessarily against immigration, but his belief in America First had him pumping the brakes on the mass influx of European immigrants who were flooding American markets with cheap labor. Additionally, the immigrants were bringing with them radical bolshevism, which had already sowed mass anarchy during the war years in the form of bombs and bodies falling. This, incidentally, makes it easier to understand Wilson’s take on jailing dissidents, IF those dissidents are engaging in domestic terrorism. But Harding, once the war was over and peace was established, started pardoning those who had been jailed for voicing dissent, as a gross violation of the 1st Amendment. Dissenting opinion is also America First.
He built bridges with all the nations the Wilson and Roosevelt before him had burnt, restoring our standing with Latin America, namely Columbia and Panama, with Mexico, and with Japan. For everything he accomplished, Harding was nominated for two Nobel Prizes, I think in 1921 and 1923.
But despite all of the brilliant things he managed to accomplish in the 2 years and 4 months he sat in the White House before dying of a stroke on August 2, 1923, are overshadowed by bad historians, who are incapable of digging for the truth behind the scandals that came to overshadow Harding’s presidency.
So, what are the scandals. First up, was the Veteran’s Bureau. Following WWI, it was acknowledged that we needed to take care of the men returning from the front who had received injuries. One of the last bills Wilson signed into law as he left the White House for Harding’s inauguration was a bill creating a new Veteran’s Bureau. Since it was now law, and Harding truly did see the need for it, he made sure it was well funded, and placed in charge of the Veteran’s Bureau Charles Forbes, who had previously worked in the Wilson administration. Forbes was doing contract work on the new Naval base at Pearl Harbor when then Senator Harding met him. Forbes created quite an impression on Harding and his wife, and it was Mrs. Harding who pressured Harding to give Forbes a position. And with as well funded as the bureau was, it was all too easy for Forbes to start skimming off the top. He also took kickbacks on land purchases and hospital constructions, sold government medical supplies for less than their value, pocketing the difference, and leaving veteran’s hospitals lacking needed supplies. Harding, when he found out, hit the roof, and a New York Times reported who was present for the scene, reported that Harding cornered Forbes in the White House and shouted “You double-crossing bastard!” grabbing Forbes by the throat and shaking him “like a dog would a rat.” Harding demanded and got Forbes resignation, but would die before seeing Forbes prosecuted for fraud and bribery, of which he was convicted, and spent two years in federal prison. The Veteran’s Bureau attorney, Charles F Cramer who was also presumably caught up in the scandal, would later kill himself.
The next major scandal occurred in Daugherty’s Justice Department, primarily through the office of Jesse Smith. Which is interesting, because Smith was not actually an employee of the Justice Department, he merely had an office in the building at the behest of Daugherty. Smith engaged in political graft and corruption, by selling access to the government. Pardons, liquor licenses, offices, judgeships…if it flowed through the Justice Department, it was for sale through the office of Jesse Smith, with Daugherty’s blessing. Harding had NOT appointed Smith to the office. Daugherty had. It is also important to note that while Daugherty had a rented house on H street in Washington DC, and Harding and the First Lady did dine with Daugherty at this residence, the house where all the swinging parties occurred was “the Little Green House on K Street”; and Harding was NEVER at that house. He genuinely didn’t know what was going on. Until he did. He was just as enraged with Daugherty when this happened. Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover reported in his memoirs what happened to Smith. “The president called for Smith to meet him at the White House, confronted him about the activities, then told him that he “would be arrested in the morning.” But Smith “went home, burned all his papers, and committed suicide.” Daugherty would be indicted and tried twice, but pled the fifth amendment on both occasions, which resulted in hung juries on both trials.
Of these two incidents, Harding is known to have said “My God, this is a hell of a job! I have no trouble with my enemies. I can take care of my enemies all right. But my damn friends, my goddamn friends, They’re the ones that keep me walking the floor nights!”
The most infamous though, is the Teapot Dome Scandal. This involved oil reserves in Teapot Dome, WY, and Elk Hills, CA, which had been ear marked for use by the US Navy. Accordingly, the Secretary of Navy, Edwin Denby, was placed in charge of the oil reserves. Secretary of Interior Albert Fall convinced Denby to transfer control of the reserves to the Department of the Interior. Harding, trusting Fall’s judgement, signed an executive order authorizing the transfer. Fall, who was experiencing personal financial hardship, accepted bribes totaling more than $400,000 from two oilmen, Harry Sinclair and Edward Doheny, to lease these oil reserves and drill them. This all became suspicious very quickly when Fall’s finances suddenly improved. This scandal did not break until after Harding’s death, and it’s been used as proof positive of his cluelessness.
But, as Walter’s points out, Harding did not benefit from any of the scandals, and the ones he knew about, he acted swiftly to dismiss from service and acknowledged the matter. He felt genuinely betrayed by those closest to him who brought such shame to the White House. And many believe that the scandals weighed so heavily on his heart that they contributed first to his heart attack and then to the stroke that ultimately killed him while he was on a national tour, turning his restful retreat into a funeral train home. But the nation truly mourned him when he died, lining up in the millions along the tracks carrying his body home for burial. But by the time his memorial stone was ready for dedication, teapot dome had broken, and Coolidge did not feel he could dedicate the memorial. Herbert Hoover had no such reservations, and delivered a heartfelt eulogy for the fallen president.
In addition to the national scandals, we do know, via DNA evidence, that he had at least one extra marital affair which resulted in the only child of Warren G Harding. And all of that is muckraked by “historians” who don’t want to acknowledge the massive good Harding did for post-war America. As a direct result of his policies, GDP experienced 7% year over year growth from 1922 to 1927. Manufacturing output was a 64%, output per worker was at 40%. The 1920’s saw the nation’s wealth climb from less than $70 billion in 1921 when Harding took office, topping out at over $103 Billion by 1929. The national debt was $26 billion when Harding took office, and had fallen to $17 billion in 1929 as the decade closed.
This prosperity brought technological advances, and America lit up…literally. By 1929, 2/3 of American households were wired for electricity. Americans were buying cars, and roads were being built as a result of Harding’s federal highway bill. This in turn created a two brand-new industries: that of the road side motel and roadside cafes.
Harding’s policies accomplished a second Gilded Age of unprecedented prosperity for America, the first one lasted from approximately 1877 to 1900, this one lasting just 9 short years, starting March 4, 1921, and ending October 31, 1929, when the stock market crashed, as a result of HOOVER’s policies. Not Harding’s.
The subtitle of this book is Defending Warren G. Harding. And he NEEDS defending, from the slanderous muckrakers who only think of the scandals surrounding his administration, and not of the incredible good he accomplished, the people his policies helped, or his own reaction to those scandals. I’m behind in updating my presidential ranking list, but he’s moving to the top, just for the spectacular changes he made to the American economy and for the American People, in just 881 days. He accomplished more in his time in office than JFK did, yet is vilified for it, by “historians” who do not deserve that title.
