Warren Gamaliel Harding

Harding, Warren Gamaliel (1865–1923), 29th president of the United States. Harding's administration was marred by scandals, and his imprudent political appointments and lack of personal decisiveness have made historians rank him as one of the weakest presidents in U.S. history.

Early life

Harding studied law, sold insurance, and taught school before finding his vocation—journalism—while working for the Marion Democratic Mirror. In 1884, Harding and a friend bought a newspaper, the Marion Star, and built it into a flourishing enterprise. In 1891, he married Florence Kling DeWolfe, a wealthy divorcée.

Politics

Harding's impressive appearance and speaking ability made it natural for him to enter politics. In 1898, he won a seat in the Ohio Senate. He was reelected in 1900 and, in 1903, was elected lieutenant governor. In 1910, he was defeated as the Republican candidate for governor. Two years later, he was chosen to nominate William Howard Taft, a fellow Ohioan, for a second term as president.

At the urging of Mrs. Harding and Harry M. Daugherty, a close friend and active lobbyist, Harding entered and won the 1914 race for U.S. Senate. Popular among senators, Harding gained national notice as keynote speaker and permanent chairman of the 1916 Republican national convention. He was persuaded, again by his wife and Daugherty, to seek the presidency in 1920. When the party convention in Chicago was deadlocked between chief contenders Leonard Wood and Frank Lowden, powerful Republican senators and party bosses met at Chicago's Blackstone Hotel in what Daugherty called the “smoke-filled room.” They agreed on Harding as a compromise candidate and he was nominated the next day.

Harding's promise of a return to “normalcy” struck a resonant chord in war-weary voters. He and his running mate, Calvin Coolidge, easily defeated Democratic candidates James M. Cox and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Presidency

As president, Harding largely acquiesced to Cabinet officers, Congress, and pressure groups. He refused to enter the League of Nations but his secretary of state, Charles Evans Hughes, called the Washington Disarmament Conference of 1921 and 1922. Harding's administration cut public debt and cut or abolished high wartime taxes.

Harding gave important government posts to many of his friends, “the Ohio gang,” among whom corruption and dishonesty slowly emerged. In the Teapot Dome scandal, Harding's secretary of the interior, Albert B. Fall, was convicted of accepting a bribe for leasing government-owned oil reserves to influential oilmen. Scandal also enveloped Secretary of State Harry Daugherty when an aide's suicide revealed corruption at the Department of Justice, the Treasury, and the Veterans' Bureau. In June 1923, working to restore his administration's crumbling popularity, Harding embarked on a speaking tour through the West. While in Alaska, he received upsetting news of the Senate investigation of the Teapot Dome scandal. His friends' betrayal broke Harding's spirit, and he fell ill. He died on August 2. News of the scandals had scarcely broken; the unknowing public deeply mourned his passing. Vice President Calvin Coolidge completed his term.