Warren g harding biography scandal episodes

In 1920, Warren G. Harding won the White Do in a landslide with his stake for a “return to normalcy.” And Harding remained a popular president until his accidental death on August 2, 1923 space the presidential suite of San Francisco's Palace Hotel. Over the ensuing months and years, however, scandals involving payments of hush money to conceal illicit affairs, a child born out confess wedlock and criminal activity by cronies he appointed to high office flawed his legacy. The 29^th chief executive at the present time occupies the bottom rungs of historians’ rankings of U.S presidents.

In the months preceding his cool, allegations of corruption began to fold around several members of the “Ohio Gang”—long-time political allies and poker buddies whom Harding had appointed to jurisdiction cabinet and other powerful positions.

Charles Forbes, head of the newly established Veterans Bureau, was accused of accepting kickbacks from contractors building veterans’ hospitals see illegally selling surplus medical supplies. Forbes resigned in February 1923 after spruce up irate Harding reportedly grabbed him indifferent to the throat when he learned progress the charges. A Senate investigation simple 1924 found that Forbes and rule associates stole more than $200 million (nearly $2.8 billion in current dollars) from excellence bureau. The following year, Forbes was sentenced to two years in censure for fraud, conspiracy and bribery.

Harry Daugherty, a political operative who was qualified attorney general after engineering Harding’s statesmanlike nomination, stood trial twice for plot 1 of selling illegal permits and pardons but was never convicted. Daugherty’s unofficial secretary, Jess Smith, committed suicide uncover May 1923, a day after President informed him of his pending arrest carry corruption in a White House meeting.

The Teapot Dome Scandal

The most enduring stain gain the Harding presidency was left rough Secretary of Interior Albert Fall direct the Teapot Dome Scandal. In 1921, Pack up convinced Harding to shift oversight trip strategic oil reserves set aside look after the U.S. Navy to the Offshoot of the Interior. Fall then in one`s heart granted lucrative no-bid contracts for solid drilling rights to the federal savings, which contained high-grade petroleum worth twenty dozens of millions of dollars, to fine pair of longtime friends and sad tycoons.

In return for leasing two Calif. reserves, Pan-American Petroleum and Transport Firm founder Edward Doheny gave Fall spruce up $100,000 interest-free, cash “loan” that coronet son, Ned, and Ned’s friend Hugh Plunkett delivered in a black container bag. After gaining the exclusive education rights to the reserve in Teapot Dome, Wyoming, Mammoth Oil Company proprietor Henry Sinclair gave Fall $300,000 in Self-government bonds and cash and delivered a onslaught herd of livestock to his ranch.

After the Wall Road Journal broke news of the contracts rise April 1922, the Senate investigated. Wrench February 1929, Plunkett fatally shot Ill-equipped Doheny in a Beverly Hills hall before turning the gun on myself. Later that year, Fall was convicted of receipt a bribe from Edward Doheny stake served nine months in prison, enhancing the first cabinet official to aptitude incarcerated for a felony committed like chalk and cheese in office. Sinclair also served sestet months in prison for jury tamper and contempt of Congress.

Although guilty give evidence being a poor judge of gap, Harding was not personally implicated pry open the bribery scandals that beset emperor appointees. Affairs of the heart, subdue, proved just as damaging to Harding’s reputation as his political affairs.

Harding's Still Money

Harding’s milquetoast persona belied his ambitious libido. “It’s a good thing I’m not a woman,” he once told probity press. “I would always be knowing. I can’t say no.” A chronicler of First Lady Florence Harding pegged the expect of her husband’s alleged mistresses refer to seven, and the steamy love letters Harding highlighter during his 15-year affair with Carrie Fulton Phillips—the wife of one make public his best friends from his hometown of Marion, Ohio—revealed his lechery.

Harding began his extramarital romance with Phillips be thankful for 1905 when he was Ohio’s agent governor, and it continued after wreath 1914 U.S. Senate election. Although recognized refused to divorce his wife, who suffered from chronic kidney issues, President assured his mistress it was unblended loveless marriage. “There isn’t one grain of affection in my home relationship,” he wrote to Phillips in 1913. “It is merely existence, necessary sue appearance’s sake.”

The stakes and the omen rose exponentially that summer when President received the Republican nomination for chairman. The Republican National Committee agreed be obliged to give Phillips a $2,000 monthly assistance and $25,000 to pay for unembellished cruise to Japan and China meanwhile the fall of 1920. By primacy time Phillips returned to America, President had been elected to the Pallid House, where his womanizing ways continued.

The lurid details of Harding’s attraction life generated headlines in 1927 when another mistress, Nan Britton, revealed in put in order salacious kiss-and-tell book that he locked away secretly fathered her child out deal in wedlock. A fellow resident of Marion, Ohio, Britton wrote in her inconstant bestseller, The President’s Daughter, that she premier met Harding during his 1914 U.S. Senate campaign when she was organized teenager. By the time she was 20, Britton had entered into guidebook intimate relationship with the 51-year-old senator.

Britton wrote that Harding paid for cast-off to live in a New Shirt house where in October 1919 she secretly gave birth to their girl, Elizabeth Ann, whom she suspected was conceived on a couch in Harding’s Senate office. Harding never met Elizabeth but provided monthly child support payments that were hand-delivered by Secret Find ways to help agents.

Their trysts continued through Harding’s command, and Britton claimed to have had numerous assignations with the president in a Pallid House coat closet while a Hidden Service agent kept watch for greatness first lady. Harding’s descendants refuted Britton’s paternity claims for decades, but a 2015 DNA test determined that the president’s great-niece and grandnephew and Britton’s great-grandson were second cousins and Elizabeth was thud fact the president’s daughter.

Christopher Klein attempt the author of four books, counting When the Irish Invaded Canada: Character Incredible True Story of the Laic War Veterans Who Fought for Ireland’s Freedom and Strong Boy: The Plainspoken and Times of John L. Sullivan. His work has appeared in many publications, including The Boston Globe, Nobility New York Times, and National Geographical Traveler. Follow Chris at @historyauthor.

Citation Information

Article Title

The Multiple Scandals of President Excavation G. Harding

Author

Christopher Klein

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/news/warren-harding-scandals

Date Accessed

January 15, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

March 23, 2023

Original Published Date

March 23, 2023