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- [00:00]
Don Wildman
Thanks for listening to American History Hit. To get all the History Hit podcasts ad free early access and bonus episodes, head over to historyhit.com subscribe or you can sign up on Apple podcasts with just one click. It's Christmas Day 1921 at a federal penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia. A burst of cheers rises from the inmates. Convict number 9653 is being released just three years into his ten year sentence. The 64 year old Eugene V. Debs raises his hat and cane in response to the ovation. Then he turns, setting off through the prison gates towards a gaggle of reporters, photographers and newsreel cameras. And the freedom, he says, to continue a fight for his principles, conviction and ideals. But before all that can start, he'll need to stop off in Washington, D.C. he's been summoned to the White House, having won 3.5% of the vote in the recent election. Debs, who ran a presidential campaign from his prison cell, has been invited to the Capitol to greet his victorious opponent, a man who has commuted not just Debs sentence, but those as well of 23 other prisoners convicted under the Sedition Act. So begins his journey from prison to the Oval Office to meet a man Debs will later call a kind gentleman with humane impulses, Warren g. Harding, the 28th president of the United States. Hello there, this is American History hit. I'm Don Wildman and thanks for joining us. It has been a while since we've revisited our sequential series on the American presidents. We took a pause for election histories this last month with a certain presidential contest hanging in our balance. But today we're back with a tale of our 29th Chief Executive President Warren G. Harding of Ohio. In the election of 1920, Harding would be the man to return the American people to normalcy, or so his slogan proclaimed. Harding was a pro business conservative values Republican who had a winning demeanor and refined good looks that presented well. He was also, by most accounts, very concerned with his own popularity. He liked to be liked. Nonetheless, historians generally view his administration poorly rife with scandal and corruption and featuring a loss of public trust that prompted the President to hit the road in a doomed endeavor to try to win back the people's goodwill. But as we learn on every episode on this podcast about presidents or otherwise, history is never as simple as we may choose to believe. There is much about Harding's abbreviated term in the White House that deserves reconsideration, if not revision. Indeed, he was a man beloved by those around him. That much worked out for him, at least. He was mourned by millions when he died in office. Spoiler alert. And importantly, Harding demonstrated and publicly expressed profound and meaningful values that challenged norms and had a real impact on a modernizing American society. So let's understand this complicated man, this president, guided by Professor Jason Roberts, who teaches history at Quincy College in Massachusetts. An expert in US politics of the 1920s, he is currently working on the foreign policies of Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge as pertains especially to Lenin's Russia. Great stuff. Hello, Jason. Nice to meet you.
- [03:49]
Professor Jason Roberts
Nice to meet you.
- [03:50]
Don Wildman
The rankings typically put Warren Harding at bottom. Scathing reviews, worst chief executive in US History, New York Times. But for me, it's not so simple. I mean, there seems to be a sort of tragic tone to his presidency. Do you agree there's many dimensions to this conversation, aren't there?
- [04:07]
Professor Jason Roberts
Yes, definitely many dimensions. I do think he's more complicated than people realize. And while I think the scandals are relevant, and the scandals did happen, I think they overshadow other aspects of Warren G. Harding's presidency. And while I would not put him on Mount Rushmore by any means, I think he did have his fair share of accomplishments that I think don't always get the coverage they deserve.
- [04:41]
Don Wildman
This is one of these conversations, I think, that a podcast like this was made for because there really is a lot of stuff that people don't really understand where there's a lot of headlines as well, that sort of make it, you know, filter down through history as the things that happened. And indeed they did. I mean, this is a White House full of cronyism, Cabinet corruption scandal. We will soon discuss people go to prison. Then there's his personal life, which is a crazy mess. So before we dive in, give me your take on who this man was psychologically.
- [05:11]
Professor Jason Roberts
Psychologically. I mean, I'd say in terms of, like, his personality, this is actually someone, I think, who was really perfectly designed for American politics. If you were going to pick someone and say, who would make the perfect politician, who would make the perfect candidate, I think Harding would be near the top of the list. I think as far as politicians go, he is one of the most skilled politicians we've ever had as president. And really, one of the keys to his success was his personality. This was someone who was, if you met him, he was very warm. He was very likable. He was extroverted. People liked him because they knew he liked him. So, you know, so men would meet him and they'd say, like, this is a great guy. He's cool. I can golf with him, you know, I can drink with him, I can smoke cigars with him. And women would meet him and like, wow, you know, this guy is, you know, he's so good looking and he's so charming. So on a personal level, I mean, he was very successful at relating to people, getting people to like him. I think that's one thing that stood out about him. And he was also a very caring person, a very humane person. So he was known for helping others, giving money to charity. When he ran his newspaper, the Marion Star, he never fired any of his employees. He paid them well. And the newsboys, as they were called, you know, when they're interviewed later, they all loved Warren G. Harding.
- [06:44]
Don Wildman
Yeah, well, he is a newspaper man. That's a big key point in his resume before politics comes along right out of the gate as a young man, he gets a hold of a newspaper in his hometown, right, The Marion newspaper there. And he begins this career which becomes quite successful as a newspaper publisher in Ohio. And he has that natural affinity, of course, as you're saying, psychologically just he's a glad handing kind of guy. But he also has a feeling for the news. And this is a very important aspect of this period of time in America, as media has been for the last 50 years before, pretty much taking hold, hold in this country as a defining element of the culture. Never mind politics, we're doing it already. We're falling into this, which is you start to project onto Harding the psychological analysis because so much of his administration goes counter to how he was perceived and maybe how he really was. But they're undeniable, the facts of his time in office. But so much of it has to do with how he put together his Cabinet, isn't it? He was so hands off in the way that he staffed his Cabinet, his administration, that these people felt very empowered to do whatever they wanted to do.
- [07:54]
Professor Jason Roberts
Well, I think the Cabinet is. I think it's a little more complicated than people realize. So I think too often historians and others focus on the bad appointments he made in the Cabinet. So Albert Fall at the Interior Department, Harry Dogherty at the Justice Department, and then you have Charles Forbes. It's not really a Cabinet office, but Charles Forbes at the Veterans Bureau. So there were these bad appointments, but actually he had a number of great appointments in the Cabinet. Charles Evans Hughes as Secretary of State, did a phenomenal job for hardening of foreign policy. The star of the Cabinet was Herbert Hoover at Commerce, who ironically, he was seen as like the activist in the Harding administration. So a Number of the appointments were very solid appointments, I think often don't get the credit that they deserve and they're kind of overshadowed by the bad ones.
- [08:51]
Don Wildman
And some real achievements as well that we'll discuss. Well, let's circle back to that in a moment, but let's get something out of the way right away. His sex life, which is such a big headline of this man's life. He was married, first of all, for 32 years to Florence Kling. A woman named Florence Kling made him name a woman five years older than him. He married her at 26. Remained so until his death 32 years later at the age of 57. So a lifelong marriage, pretty much. Florence dominated the relationship and in many ways called the shots in his career even before he goes into the higher echelons of politics. Little did she know Warren had started an affair with her friend Carrie Fulton Phillips that would last about 15 years, ending just before the presidency. Tell me about the evidence that came out later. An extraordinary collection of love letters that really illustrated his emotional qualities.
- [09:43]
Professor Jason Roberts
Yeah, the letters have been known about between Carrie Phillips and Warren G. Harding, going back to the 1960s, though they weren't fully published until I think 2014, 2015 by the Library of Congress. And so now you can go to their website and all the letters are there. And usually what gets a lot of play is the graphic nature of the letters. He's very explicit about their sex life, their sexual activities. He had a nickname for his private part. He called it Jerry. So that gets a lot of play. But I think maybe those graphic accounts get too much play, because I do think that most likely she was the love of his life, that it wasn't just some, like, tawdry one night stand. For him, there's obviously the physical attraction, but I think he really did fall in love with her.
- [10:40]
Don Wildman
Yeah, I mean, let's be honest. Hopefully we felt these feelings, you know, but he is quite high up on the spectrum. Here's a quote from one of the many letters. Wouldn't you like to get sopping wet out on Superior, not the lake, for the joy of fevered fondling and melting kisses? Wouldn't you like to make the suspected occupant of the next room jealous of the joys? Oh, I'm just getting embarrassed even reading this. But you get the flavor. You know, he's really out there, very expressive, which might have been his, frankly, his attractiveness to many women who are, you know, found this guy very emotionally available. And yet, of course, this was all being done behind the scenes, you know, this was 15 years behind his wife's back. He also had another affair with a woman named Nan Britton, a woman who is 30 years younger than him. This comes after Carrie, and with whom it was rumored that she'd produced a daughter out of wedlock. And in 1927, Britain published a memoir called the President's Daughter, outing the affair and his support of the child. She claimed the affair had continued scandalously right into the White House, rather previewing another president to come many, many years later. For a long time, people did not believe in this woman, which is so often the case, Nan Britton and whether she was telling the truth about her child and Warren Harding's paternity of that. How did that all resolve itself?
- [11:57]
Professor Jason Roberts
Yes, so she comes out with her book, the president's daughter in 1927, and you know, it's very sensationalistic. You know, there's a 30 year age gap and she alleges that she would have these rendezvous with Harding in the White House closet and the Secret Service were used to pay child support. But there were historians over the decades who questioned her account. And in fairness to those historians, what they focused on was we don't have like hard, solid evidence. You know, at least in the Carrie Phillips case, you have those letters. So there, you know, there was no doubt of an affair. So people said, you know, you basically have Nam Britton's word, you know, where's the letters? Though there's evidence that Hardy may have told her to destroy letters. So some people said maybe she made it up, maybe she knew about the Kerry Phillips affair. And then she took that and kind of ran with it and said, oh, I had an affair. So that was one of the allegations against her, to say that it wasn't true. And you did have Secret Service agents who said, we never met Nan Britton. She was never in the White House. We never paid child support to her. So I think there were reasons to question her account of the affair. And certainly I think John Dean of Watergate fame wrote a book about Warren G. Harding. He questioned her account. The prominent historian Robert Farrell, who wrote about Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he questioned her account. Other historians questioned her account. But ultimately it's resolved in 2015 when the results of a DNA test come out.
- [13:43]
Don Wildman
Wow.
- [13:43]
Professor Jason Roberts
And the DNA test shows, you know, as Mari Povich would have said, like, yes, Warren G. Harding, you are the father of Nan Britton's child. I mean, it's pretty clear that the DNA test is conclusive. The only thing I would say about it is that I think there was an affair, obviously. But I do think it's possible that she exaggerated parts of the affair. So she may not have been telling the truth when she said she met him in the White House and she had a rendezvous in the White House closet. Because you do have Secret Service agents who were interviewed later and they said, we never saw her.
- [14:21]
Don Wildman
Right. But that's the blood oath of those guys. You know, that's an old story. It just astonishes me that anyone could manage to do that. You know, you're in the job, especially in his case, because he's so insecure about the job. Here you are trying to figure out how to do this amazingly important job while at the same time managing these love affairs. It's just incredible that these people have the capacity to do this.
- [14:46]
Professor Jason Roberts
Yeah, he was. He was good at, yeah, kind of juggling his political career with these personal affairs. And I mean, no one knew about it until after he died. So it's kind of similar to John F. Kennedy. It's like, I think Harding might have been flattered by the fact that she was obsessed with him. Apparently when she was a schoolgirl, you know, she would write like, I love Warren G. Harding in her textbook. And so people who knew her said, like, from the time she was a little girl, she had this, like, obsession with Warren G. Harding. So I'm sure it must have been flattering to him. Like, you know, wow, like, this girl, like, she loves me, you know, she's obsessed with me.
- [15:22]
Don Wildman
We have mentioned, of course, Florence Harding, a complicated person of her own in her own right. But how did she feel about the. Was there any proof of how she felt about these affairs?
- [15:32]
Professor Jason Roberts
So I think there's some circumstantial evidence that eventually she did find out about Warren G. Harding and Carrie Phillips. And I think there's some accounts that even talk about a confrontation or an argument between Carrie Phillips and Florence Harding. And I think there was like a diary that she kept where there's allusions to basically her talking about the infidelity of husbands. So she's not, I think she's not directly saying, oh, you know, my husband, Warren G. Harding had an affair, but basically talking about how, like, oh, you know, men aren't perfect and men do have these affairs. But yeah, the relationship, I think, between Warren G. Harding and Florence Harding is very interesting. And I think historians try to wrap their heads around it because, you know, he's this like, charming, good looking guy and, you know, she's five Years older and she looks much older than that. And so I think there's people who say, like, what's the attraction? What's the chemistry?
- [16:39]
Don Wildman
Sure.
- [16:40]
Professor Jason Roberts
And I think at some level they did share a common bond. They did share a love of politics. Florence Harding, I think for her time, was very much a political activist. She supported women's rights, prisoners rights, animal rights, she championed disabled veterans. So I think in many ways she is kind of the precursor to Franklin Roosevelt and Eleanor, Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton. You know, he sees her as a valued political partner. And I think Harding, on some level he cared about her, he was very fond of her. And I think it is telling that he doesn't leave Florence Harding for Carrie Phillips, even though, like, she's repeatedly like demanding like, I want you to leave her and he doesn't. So, you know, is it political calculation, like, oh, you know, if I end this relationship and I marry my mistress, that's the end of my political career, or is it just at some level it's like he really did care for Florence Harding and you know, maybe emotionally and psychologically she provided him with a level of stability that Carrie Phillips, as much as I think he did love her, she could not provide.
- [17:57]
Don Wildman
What happens to Florence after he's gone?
- [17:59]
Professor Jason Roberts
So she lives another year. And she'd always had these kidney issues. I think she had a kidney removed and the other kidney was like often getting infected and she almost actually died in the White House at one point. She was bedridden for months with a kidney infection and pulled through. So she lived another year and two months and then I think ultimately died from those kidney problems. So it's unfortunate because it would have been interesting to see how she would have responded, you know, to the Nam Britton allegations and the other scandals.
- [18:32]
Don Wildman
All of this speaks to a kind of quality of this man that is an important thing to keep in the background because we're now going to move towards the more serious subjects of politics. But understand that this guy has an extraordinary personality and, and I do think it's kind of fair to, to compare him a bit to Bill Clinton in that regard where women are such a big part of his life, obviously, and he proclaims his feelings about this. So it's just an interesting psychological aspect of this man. So to keep in mind, spark something uncommon this holiday with just the right gift from Uncommon Goods. The busy holiday season is here and Uncommon Goods makes it less stressful. With incredible hand picked gifts for everyone on your list, all in one spot. Gifts that spark joy, wonder, delight and that it's exactly what I wanted. Feeling they scour the globe for original, handmade, absolutely remarkable things. Somehow they know exactly the perfect gift for every single person you know. Here's one of my favorite gifts I found on their site. I bought a pair of Buffalo Bills pint glasses for my football loving, beer loving friend. The perfect thank you. When you shop at Uncommon Goods, you're supporting artists and small independent businesses. Many of their handcrafted products are made in small batches, so shop now before they sell out this holiday season. To get 15% off your next gift, go to uncommongoods.com americanhistoryhit that's uncommongoods.com AmericanHistoryHit for 15% off. Don't miss out on this limited time offer Uncommon Goods. We're all out of the ordinary.
- [20:24]
C
I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Eleanor Yanaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and latest groundbreaking research from the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings, Normans, kings, and popes who were rarely the best of friends. Murder, rebellions, and crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History. Hit on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [21:04]
Don Wildman
Now, this was the 1920s we're talking about. We're coming out of World War I. Post war moment, return to normalcy is really what Americans want for real. That's not just a campaign slogan. Is he the right man for the times? Is that why he's so popular?
- [21:20]
Professor Jason Roberts
I think in many ways he was the right man for the time, or at least he was the right man that I think people were looking for at that time after eight years of Wilson, after the first World War. And I think what people forget is just how much of a mess the country was in going into the 1920 election. So, you know, you go back 1918. 1919, you know, 1918, you had the end of the war. You have a flu epidemic that kills over 700,000Americans. I think 100 million or so people worldwide. You have Woodrow Wilson not prepared for the end of the war. So he really had no plans for converting the economy back to a peacetime economy. And then when all these, like, wartime contracts are, you know, canceled, you know, it's chaos. We have a post war depression. I mean, at one point, like inflation is through the roof. We have labor strikes all over the country. We have anarchists setting off bombs. And then kind of the most historians would say the excessive counter reaction, you know, was a Mitchell Palmer's red scare, where we're just going to round up people and arrest them with little or no evidence. And it turns out most of the people he arrested weren't terrorists, weren't anarchists. You have race riots throughout the country in 1918, 1919. And this is the period where you're seeing the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. Lynchings are on the rise. So it was a really unstable, chaotic period. Business people weren't happy, workers weren't happy, farmers weren't happy. No one's really, you know, happy. And also you have Woodrow Wilson for the last year and a half of his presidency, he's basically awol. I mean, he has a series of strokes and he's incapacitated. I mean, he's president in name only. So the government, I mean, basically ground to a halt.
- [23:24]
Don Wildman
Yeah, we don't really understand that coming out of World War I, this place was a hotbed of social unrest, really, especially in the, in the labor world as a result of all of these different contracts being canceled and emerging unions and so forth. America was really a hotbed of all sorts of problems, really, that were now being voiced quite openly in the press, which was much more widespread in those days. So it might have been the obvious thing for Harding to say, let me put you back in order here. But it was also a calculated move, wasn't it?
- [23:57]
Professor Jason Roberts
Yeah, I mean, Harding was, you know, he's basically trying to win an election and he knows people are upset over these issues. So he's trying to say, I'm going to take you back to a better time before Wilson, before the Great War. But I think the appeal of Harding was, you know, he wasn't a rabble rouser, he wasn't a demagogue. Interestingly enough, he never attacked Woodrow Wilson personally. You know, and people around him said, go after him. Go after the fact that, you know, he's awol, he's an invalid, attack him personally. And at one point, Harding says to the people around him, if you think I'm going to become president stepping over the broken body of Woodrow Wilson, you've got the wrong man. You know, I will disagree with him on policy, but I will not attack him personally. And I think people really like that about Harding and it is kind of appealing today.
- [24:53]
Don Wildman
Yeah, it's a zero sum game nowadays, and he was not wanting to play that. This was typical of his political career from before, wasn't it? I mean, let's not forget he was a Ohio state senator, 1904, lieutenant governor in Ohio, 1904 to 1906. U.S. senator from 15 to 21. It's out of that that he runs for president. So he had a political career, lest we just chalk him up as a newspaper man. But the quality of the man as a manager, which is different than being a senator or a lieutenant governor, you know, this is a different kind of job he steps into. And he very famously, very openly says, I'm out of my depth. You know, he says to a reporter, I believe it is. It made him nervous how to. How to operate in this world. I would call him a delegator. You know, that would be the label I would have to him in terms of how he operates an office, free hand to the members of the cabinet. And some of these cabinet members, as you explain, are unique. They're into this for their own good. Let's talk about that, because that's really what emerges in the end. But importantly, it's after Harding is gone. I mean, this is what's unique about this. We're about to talk about an administration that ends prematurely. Warren Harding dies in 1923, before the end of his first term. What makes it most famous are these scandals that happened during his presidency but didn't come out until long afterwards in trials and so forth. And so the Harding presidency is judged in those terms, which is a very interesting, you know, we said at the top, multidimensional view of this. So let's talk about these scandals. But everyone keep in mind this never comes out until after he's gone. The Teapot Dome scandal is the headline. When and why and how does this happen?
- [26:33]
Professor Jason Roberts
So Teapot Dome, it happens during his presidency. So Teapot Dome was an oil reserve in Wyoming controlled by the federal government. Originally, the Navy Department controlled it. And then Albert Fall, the Secretary of Interior, convinces Edwin Denby, the Navy Secretary, to basically transfer authority over to the Interior Department. And Harding signs off on this. And basically what we find out after Harding dies is that Albert Fall allowed oil companies to drill at Teapot Dome, which they were not supposed to do, but he allowed them to drill there in exchange for approximately $400,000 in bribes. But that doesn't come out until after Hardin dies and Fall, eventually he goes to prison over Teapot Dome. The best evidence is that Harding didn't know anything about it at the time of his death.
- [27:34]
Don Wildman
All right, so he's purveying leases, basically. ALBERT Fall SECRETARY of the Interior There's a lot of machinations when you read about it. It's very complicated. There's A lot of little backroom dealings going on. This was not necessarily his purview as the Secretary of Interior. He had to have this sort of taken over into his role. So it shows great intent. Everything that they kind of track that this man knew what he was doing. And then he's accepting these bribes from two sources for these oil leases and then just collecting on the revenues for a long time. Makes a lot of money doing it, right?
- [28:05]
Professor Jason Roberts
Yeah. And we do know that at one point, I mean, before he's taken these bribes, he's heavily in debt. I think he's behind on his mortgage payments on his ranch. And then all of a sudden, like, wow, you know, he's got all this money. Where did this money come from? I would note about Teapot Dome, for all the attention that historians devote to it, it didn't really resonate with the people. Basically, what happens when they hold hearings is we also find there were prominent Democrats that worked for some of these oil companies that were involved in Teapot Dome. So they hold these hearings and ultimately it flames out. You know, Calvin Coolidge is president and people don't blame him. So I don't think it resonates with the public the way, say, Watergate would resonate with the public in the 1970s.
- [28:55]
Don Wildman
Right. It's a different kind of corruption. It's old fashioned corruption is what it is. It's like, how do I get, you know, take a little money on the side here in order to do something good for the American people? They may see it as such. The Veterans Bureau scandal is a little creepier, in my opinion. This is involving Charles Forbes, who is the head of a new organization, which is the Veterans Bureau. Again, to put in context, we're at the end of this terrible period where so many American soldiers have come back from World War I, many of them in need of treatment, and there's really not the system to service them at this point. We've never been in a war like this. And so the Veterans Bureau is created. It eventually becomes the Veterans Administration that we have today. And Charles Forbes is head of that bureau. The Bureau's chief counsel is Charles Kramer. And then there's a guy named Charles Hurley who was in construction. There's three. Charles is in this story. And this is all about a complex scheme to inflate costs and then skim profits to the different parties, but in different areas, in hospital construction, in land and in supplies, all of this created these cash streams that were distributed. How does this come out and when does that happen?
- [30:06]
Professor Jason Roberts
So it starts to come out, I think, in the final months of Harding's administration, I believe is interesting enough. Like, Harry Dogherty is telling Harding, like, you know, he's hearing bad things about Charles Forbes. And there's an account of a reporter coming to the White House, and he sees Harding yelling at someone, and he's shaking this person, and he's saying, you lying sob how could you do that to me? And then it turned out it was Charles Forbes that he was confronting. And then not long after that, Forbes flees to Europe. He submits his resignation. So there's a debate about that where some critics look at that and say, Harding let him get away with it. Like, you know, not only should he have fired him, the law should have came down hard on Forbes. There should have been an investigation. There should have been legal consequences. Defenders of Harding say, well, wait a minute, he confronted him. He forced him to resign. And at that point, they didn't have all the evidence, you know, so it probably would have been, they believe, premature for Harding, just like, oh, we're going to investigate you, we're going to arrest you.
- [31:18]
Don Wildman
Yeah, proactive moves would have been the thing. And he didn't do that. In fact, he actually, it's suspected that he effectuated Forbes escape, didn't he? He made it possible for him to get away.
- [31:29]
Professor Jason Roberts
Yeah. And I think a large part of this is it's tragic for Harding, I think, on two levels. I mean, one level is Forbes was a friend of his, you know, so he trusted him. So I think it was a case of Harding trusting the wrong person. The other part of it was, and I think, to me, this is like the most tragic part of the scandal. Harding loved veterans. He loved helping disabled veterans. He and his wife Florence would visit them in the hospital, they would house them at the White House. You know, they'd host parties for them. And the Veterans Bureau was meant to help these disabled veterans. And so I think it hit Harding really hard that, you know, he trusted this person to help veterans, and this person betrayed his trust.
- [32:15]
Don Wildman
I'll say. I mean, and it's, you know, particularly this. This subject matter, you know, servicing the war wounded. That's what's going on here. And remember, we're talking about two years. Really. This is all happening between 1921 and 23. All of this is contributing to this scandal and corruption. But at the same time, this is where the revisionism comes in. And I want to point out that there's been a lot of discussion and we're even having it as we started this conversation about how Harding's presidency was more than just this. He was a strong advocate for racial equality. He appointed black Americans to federal positions at a very, very sensitive time for this. I mean, remember, we're coming out of the man who segregated D.C. which was Woodrow Wilson, and suddenly Harding is coming along with an entirely different attitude. He also importantly and strategically promoted women's suffrage. He was the first president who was voted in with the women's vote.
- [33:09]
Professor Jason Roberts
Right, exactly. So, yeah, he was a big supporter of the 19th Amendment when he was a senator. And yeah, he is now widely seen as having a very strong record on civil rights for that time, especially compared to Woodrow Wilson. He appoints African Americans to government jobs. He supported anti lynching legislation in the Senate. And I think especially impressive, he goes down south to Birmingham, Alabama, of all places, and gives a powerful speech in support of civil rights, especially criticizing voter suppression in the south, which is just, I mean, remarkable for that time. And I think took great courage for Harding to do that.
- [33:57]
Don Wildman
Yeah. And, you know, for being a pro business president, he was also wanting to improve labor rights. He tried to become that president. Sort of embrace this new reality in America that you're going to have these unions who are really very influential, but all of this sort of crumbles against all of that scandal and corruption.
- [34:27]
C
I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Eleanor Yanaga. And in God Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and latest groundbreaking research from the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings, Normans, Kings and popes who were rarely the best of friends. Murder, rebellions and crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from history, hit on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [35:07]
Don Wildman
Meanwhile, you have a booming economy. And this is a big deal. Of course, as we know, even in our old times, we judge presidents, you know, day by day by the economy, when it in fact is a much bigger picture. But in his case, that really happens and it goes on for a long time beyond him. He is really the one that unleashes the Roaring twenties, isn't he?
- [35:25]
Professor Jason Roberts
Yeah, I mean, in many ways, economically, under him, you will go from an economic downturn to an economic boom. And I actually think even more impressive economically, especially fiscally, is he takes a national debt and he is able to reduce that national debt, and he takes budget deficits and he turns them into budget surpluses by the end of his presidency. So the government is taking in more money than he's spending. So it looks especially impressive today where whoever's president, you don't see that.
- [36:00]
Don Wildman
Yeah, exactly.
- [36:00]
Professor Jason Roberts
At least not since Bill Clinton.
- [36:02]
Don Wildman
And there's one really interesting episode that stands out for me in terms of his healing quality, which was that one of the people he ran against was Eugene Debs, the socialist candidate who was at that time imprisoned for his protest movement. And he was running for president from prison where he got a considerable amount of votes and he was in prison for a 10 year sentence. I mean, this was serious stuff back then. And Harding, one of the first things he does really is release Eugene Debs, who then comes to visit him in the White House.
- [36:32]
Professor Jason Roberts
Yeah, I think it's one of the great moments of the Harding administration. I think it's one of the reasons, I think people love Warren G. Harding. You know, if they love him, is it kind of. It shows his humanity. It shows like his sense of justice and mercy. And, you know, and he kept saying to his aides like, we need to release Eugene Debs from prison. This wasn't right. He was just expressing his first amendment rights under the Constitution. And so he arranges the release so Debs can spend Christmas Day with his family. And the only condition on the release was, you gotta come see me at the White House. And they meet at the White House and we don't know what was said. But Eugene Debs comes out and says to the press like, warren G. Harding is a good man.
- [37:19]
Don Wildman
Hmm, that's nice to know. And they petted his dog and everybody was happy. So in the midst of all of this, I mean, again, I keep reminding people it was only a 24 month period of time. We're talking about really where all this stuff comes out about the Teapot Dome. And as I say it was in the papers, the trials and so forth happen after Harding's death. But he needs to repair his reputation with the people. He wants to get out among them. And so he and his wife take a train trip, explain the motivation behind this and how they chose to go where they went, which was the Upper Northwest.
- [37:54]
Professor Jason Roberts
Well, I think one reason he goes is he, you know, he wanted to travel out west. He was also thinking ahead to the 1924 election. So he thought this would be a great opportunity to basically glad hand with the people. And he also want, I think he wanted to get away from the situation in Washington, D.C. so certainly get away from Charles Forbes and his scandal, get away from some other scandals. So I think part of it was political getting ready for the 1924 election. And then Also part of it was personal. I wanted to explore the West. This will be my opportunity to relax, unwind, and really do what I do best, which is meet with the people and give speeches.
- [38:41]
Don Wildman
When you have that quality as a person, that effect on people, you know it and you understand its power and its influence. And he was wanting to get out and prove to people that he was this real guy that they didn't know. But from the papers now, and the papers were filled with all kinds of negatives, you're mentioning something very important, the 1922 election. Typically, presidents are beaten up. In that midterm election that happened. Right. It was a bad election for the Republican Party.
- [39:06]
Professor Jason Roberts
Yeah. They did lose seats in that election.
- [39:08]
Don Wildman
Yeah. So he has to get out and do some hard work trying to win back things in time for this next election. So as they're taking this train ride, he basically has what's called apoplexy. Right.
- [39:19]
Professor Jason Roberts
He will. In San Francisco. Yeah. He will die of a. A heart attack in his hotel.
- [39:25]
Don Wildman
Right. In a very sort of peaceful, lovely scene where he's lying in bed and they're reading and suddenly he just goes to sleep is what happens. He didn't have a good heart. We should have mentioned this from the beginning. I mean, he was not a well man in terms of the heart. He had an enlarged heart condition, they called. It still happens to people. And it comes upon him in this way. He's only 57 years old when he dies. It's a shame.
- [39:47]
Professor Jason Roberts
He looked healthy, looked vigorous and strong. He had a history of health problems. He had gone, I guess over the years to the. I think it was the Kellogg Sanitarium in Michigan for health issues. He had a history of like high blood pressure, high sugar, high cholesterol. You know, he liked, I think his favorite food was waffles covered in like beef gravy. He liked these foods that were high in cholesterol. He smoked cigars. He didn't drink, I think as much as people think he drank. And interestingly enough, one of the causes for his health problems and his early death was that Harding basically worked himself to death in the White House. So there's accounts saying he would get up at 8am and he would basically work until midnight. And one journalist who visited him in the White House said Warren G. Harding has like these 80, 85 hour days. So I think part of it was he wanted to do the job well. But also, you know, I think as you mentioned, he wasn't a great manager. So actually being an executive was something that was new to him. And people around him would say, you don't need to meet with these people. You know, you don't need to read these letters like other people can read them. You know, you don't need to read over every document. But I think he had this insecurity, like, I'm not as smart as Woodrow Wilson or Theodore Roosevelt, so I have to work even harder than they do.
- [41:25]
Don Wildman
Yeah, exactly. It's a layered irony. I mean, a man runs for president based on making everything normal again and ends up because of his personality and his instincts, making a presidency that's anything but normal, you know, or unless you see scandal and corruption as the norm in politics. And many do. But certainly Warren Harding didn't, you know, he didn't want to have that kind of legacy. And yet here we are discussing it yet again. You know, that's what gets discussed when you discuss Warren Harding. So in the end, his race to heal the wounds of the nation were not all that successful, except that you had a good 10 years after him. How much of Harding do we see in Calvin Coolidge?
- [42:03]
Professor Jason Roberts
Well, I think that's an interesting question. And I think the problem is when we talk about Harding and Coolidge, the two get separated because they're two different personalities. Like Harding's extroverted, warm, outgoing. He loves people. He loves to talk and give speeches. And we know about his extramarital affairs, you know, versus coolish, personality wise. He tends to be more shy, more introverted. He often says the bare minimum. And, you know, he kind of has like that New England taciturn personality. And he has a kind of a different relationship with his wife. He never cheated on Grace, you know, whereas Harding cheated on Florence, though I would know. I think Warren G. Harding and Florence Harding, their relationship kind of foreshadowed Franklin Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt and Bill and Hillary Clinton, that it was, you know, a quote, unquote, political partnership. He actually, I mean, valued her political advice. Whereas Calvin Coolidge loved his wife, but he seems to have been very contemptuous of her intellect and her political ability. And he wouldn't let her, like, talk about policy. He'd say, we don't share that promiscuously, Grace. When she'd say, like, what's your schedule today? So I think we too often focus on, like, oh, they're different personalities. But the reality is that Coolidge basically followed Warren G. Harding's policies. You know, so you talk about reducing the debt, running budget surpluses, cutting taxes for business, high tariffs on imported goods. He's basically following Harding's policies. And I think what happens sometimes with the Coolidge supporters is they give credit to Coolidge for stuff that actually started under Warren G. Harding. So I think in some ways Warren G. Harding actually made it easier for Calvin Coolidge to be president because Harding had an agenda that was already in place. So it's almost like being an actor and they give you the script and you just follow the script. So I think Coolidge was just basically following the script. I think where they might be different policy wise, I think Coolidge was even more pro business than Warren G. Harding.
- [44:26]
Don Wildman
Yeah, right. Well, they're attached at the hip, I think is the key point to make. Not to mention Secretary of State Herbert Hoover. I mean, really out of the Harding presidency you get his vice president takes over Calvin Coolidge, and then comes Herbert Hoover, who basically runs us into the Great Depression. But prior to that, there are 10 fabulous years, the roaring 20s, when America is in the Jazz Age. And it's quite something to talk about and write plays about and everything else about for the rest of time. It's extraordinary time and much of it has to do with Warren Hardy. Thank you very much. Jason Roberts, professor of history at Quincy College in Massachusetts, where he focuses on the history of the 1920s, including the presidencies of Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge. Thank you so much, Jason. Nice to meet you.
- [45:10]
Professor Jason Roberts
A pleasure to talk to you.
- [45:15]
Don Wildman
Hello folks. Thanks for listening to American History hit. Each week we release new episodes, two new episodes dropping Mondays and Thursdays. All kinds of great content like mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements, to some of the biggest battles across the centuries. Don't miss an episode by hitting like and follow. You help us out, which is great. But you'll also be reminded when our shows are on. And while you're at it, share with a friend. American history hit with me, Don Wildman. So grateful for your support. Thanks so much. Do you ever wonder where your favorite foods come from?
- [46:01]
Professor Jason Roberts
Like, what's the history behind bacon wrapped hot dogs? Hi, I'm Eva Longoria. Hi, I'm Mayte Gomez Rejon.
- [46:06]
Don Wildman
Our podcast Hungry for History is back.
- [46:09]
Professor Jason Roberts
And this season we're taking an even bigger bite out of the most delicious food and its history, seeing that the most popular cocktail is the margarita, followed by the mojito from Cuba and the pina colada from Puerto Rico. Listen to Hungry for history on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.