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U.S Presidents — Warren G. Harding | |||||||||||||||||
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OVERVIEW
Name: Warren G. Harding
President: # 29 Term Number(s): 34 Term Length: 2.4 Took Office: March 4, 1921 Left Office: August 2, 1923 Age when Elected: 55 Party: Republican Also Known As: "Wobbly Warren" BIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION
Education: Ohio Central College
Occupation: Businessman (Newspapers) Other Governmental Position: United States Senator from Ohio, 28th Lieutenant Governor of Ohio, Ohio State Senator. Military Service: None Religion: Baptist Spouse(s): Florence Kling Harding (July 8, 1891) Children: Marshall Eugene DeWolfe (stepson)
Birthdate: November 2, 1865
Birthplace: Blooming Grove, Ohio Deathdate: August 2, 1923 Deathplace: San Francisco, California Age at Death: 57 Cause of Death: heart attack Place of Internment: Harding Memorial Park in Marion County, Ohio  Signature FIRST ELECTION
Election Year: 1920
Main Opponent: James M. Cox Voter Participation: 49.20%
CABINET AND COURT APPOINTMENTS
Vice President: Calvin Coolidge
Secretary of State: Charles Evans Hughes (1921–1923) Secretary of the Treasury: Andrew Mellon (1921–1923) Secretary of War: John W. Weeks (1921–1923) Secretary of the Navy: Edwin Denby (1921–1923) Secretary of the Interior: Albert B. Fall (1921–1923), Hubert Work (1923) Secretary of Agriculture: Henry C. Wallace (1921–1923) Secretary of Commerce: Herbert Hoover (1921–1923) Secretary of Labor: James J. Davis (1921–1923) Attorney General: Harry M. Daugherty (1921–1923) Postmaster General: Will H. Hays (1921–1922), Hubert Work (1922–1923), Harry S. New (1923) Supreme Court Assignments: William Howard Taft (1921), George Sutherland (1922), Pierce Butler (1923), Edward Terry Sanford (1923) PRESIDENT'S BIOGRAPHYA Democratic leader, William Gibbs McAdoo, called Harding's speeches "an army of pompous phrases moving across the landscape in search of an idea." Their very murkiness was effective, since Harding's pronouncements remained unclear on the League of Nations, in contrast to the impassioned crusade of the Democratic candidates, Governor James M. Cox of Ohio and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Thirty-one distinguished Republicans had signed a manifesto assuring voters that a vote for Harding was a vote for the League of Nations. But Harding interpreted his election as a mandate to stay out of the league. Harding, born near Marion, Ohio, in 1865, became the publisher of a newspaper. He married a divorcee, Florence Kling De Wolfe. He was a trustee of the Trinity Baptist Church, a director of almost every important business, and a leader in fraternal organizations and charitable enterprises. He organized the Citizen's Cornet Band, available for both Republican and Democratic rallies. "I played every instrument but the slide trombone and the E-flat cornet," he once remarked. Harding's undeviating Republicanism and vibrant speaking voice, plus his willingness to let the machine bosses set policies, led him far in Ohio politics. He served in the state Senate and as lieutenant governor, and unsuccessfully ran for governor. He delivered the nominating address for President Taft at the 1912 Republican Convention. In 1914 he was elected to the Senate, which he found "a very pleasant place."  Republicans in Congress easily got the President's signature on their bills. They eliminated wartime controls and slashed taxes, established a federal budget system, restored the high protective tariff, and imposed tight limitations upon immigration. By 1923 the postwar depression seemed to be giving way to a new surge of prosperity, and newspapers hailed Harding as a wise statesman carrying out his campaign promise, "Less government in business and more business in government." Behind the facade, not all of Harding's Administration was so impressive. Word began to reach the president that some of his friends were using their official positions for their own enrichment. Alarmed, he complained, "My ... friends ... they're the ones that keep me walking the floors nights!" Looking wan and depressed, Harding journeyed westward in the summer of 1923, taking with him his upright Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover. "If you knew of a great scandal in our administration," he asked Hoover, "would you for the good of the country and the party expose it publicly or would you bury it?" Hoover urged publishing it, but Harding feared the political repercussions. He did not live to find out how the public would react to the scandals of his administration. In August of 1923, he died in San Francisco of a heart attack. FIRST LADY'S BIOGRAPHY Florence Kling Harding A music course at the Cincinnati Conservatory completed her education. When only 19, she eloped with Henry De Wolfe, a neighbor two years her senior. He proved a spendthrift and a heavy drinker who soon deserted her, so she returned to Marion with her baby son. Refusing to live at home, she rented rooms and earned her own money by giving piano lessons to children of the neighborhood. She divorced De Wolfe in 1886 and resumed her maiden name; he died at age 35. Warren G. Harding had come to Marion when only 16 and, showing a flair for newspaper work, had managed to buy the little Daily Star. When he met Florence, a courtship quickly developed. Over Amos Kling's angry opposition they were married in 1891, in a house that Harding had planned, and this remained their home for the rest of their lives. The couple had no children. Mrs. Harding soon took over the Star's circulation department, spanking newsboys when necessary. "No pennies escaped her," a friend recalled, and the paper prospered while its owner's political success increased. As Mr. Harding rose through Ohio politics and became a United States Senator, his wife directed all her acumen to his career. He became Republican nominee for president in 1920 and "the Duchess," as he called her, worked tirelessly for his election. In her own words, "I have only one real hobby—my husband." She had never been a guest at the White House; and former President Taft, meeting the President-elect and Mrs. Harding, discussed its social customs with her and stressed the value of ceremony. Writing to Nellie, Taft concluded that the new first lady was "a nice woman" and would "readily adapt herself." When Mrs. Harding moved into the White House, she opened the mansion and grounds to the public again—both had been closed through President Wilson's illness. She herself suffered from a chronic kidney ailment, but she threw herself into the job of first lady with energy and willpower. Garden parties for veterans were regular events on a crowded social calendar. The president and his wife relaxed at poker parties in the White House library, where liquor was available although the Eighteenth Amendment made it illegal. Mrs. Harding always liked to travel with her husband. She was with him in the summer of 1923 when he died unexpectedly in California, shortly before the public learned of the major scandals facing his administration. With astonishing fortitude, she endured the long train ride to Washington with the president's body, the state funeral at the Capitol, the last service, and the burial at Marion. Mrs. Harding died in Marion on November 21, 1924, surviving Warren Harding by little more than a year of illness and sorrow. MAJOR EVENTS
1921: Peace between Germany and Austria declared.
1921: Harding opposes entry ino the League of Nations.
1921: Pardoning of war protestor Eugene V. Debs.
1922: Beginning of the Teapot Dome Scandal.
1922: Fordney-McCumber Tariff Act.
1922: US, Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan sign an agreement to limit naval armaments.
TRIVIA
1. Warren Harding was the first president to speak over the radio.
2. Harding loved to play poker and would play at least twice a week. He once lost a set of White House china in a single game.
3. The first president to visit Canada and Alaska, Harding was also the first president to go to the South to denounce the Ku Klux Klan.
4. Harding was the president with the largest feet; he wore a size 14 shoe.
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