Teapot Dome. Those two words seem to represent the lasting legacy of the nation’s 29th President, Warren Harding, and they connote a legacy of scandal. And while there was some malfeasance in and around the Harding administration, there was so much more to this man’s life and political career. Warren Harding won a landslide victory to become his nation’s leader in 1920. The American people widely embraced his “Return to Normalcy” campaign as an antidote to the visionary efforts yet ultimate failures of his predecessor, Woodrow Wilson. Harding remained popular throughout his 2½ years in office, persevering through challenging economic times before the U.S. economy began to soar. His international disarmament conference yielded landmark agreements among the major powers of the earth, earning high praise for the American executive. Harding died unexpectedly while on a goodwill tour of the American West. As the nation mourned, many assumed that Harding would be fondly remembered by posterity. That would not be the case.
There was an undercurrent of corruption that ran through Washington, D.C. during Harding’s tenure in office. Those rumors became front-page news in the immediate aftermath of Harding’s death with a series of highly publicized congressional hearings and court cases. Flamboyant characters took the witness stand offering wild tales of pervasive graft that reached into the President’s Cabinet. Charges were levied against members of the so-called “Ohio Gang,” which primarily consisted of Harding cronies who weren’t government officials but were portrayed as coming to Washington to peddle influence to anyone with sufficient cash. While some truth could be found in these troubling tales, much of the damning testimony was exaggerated, some was outright fabricated, and none directly implicated Harding in any corrupt act. Nevertheless, the sensational accounts found the headlines and into the psyche of the American people.
And then there were the affairs. Harding had two long-term extramarital dalliances that also became very public after his death. One was the subject of a highly detailed tell-all memoir from Nan Britton, the young woman who claimed to be the father of Harding’s only child. … Over the ensuing decades, more details would emerge, including the often lurid letters Harding had written to the other object of his affections, one Carrie Phillips. Those letters were finally released to the public in 2015, around the same time that DNA evidence pointed directly to Harding as the father of Nan Britton’s child. Warren Harding has been dead for 100 years, but had rarely rested in peace. …
The goodwill that Warren Harding generated through a lifetime of good works, including some noteworthy accomplishments as his nation’s President, quickly got washed out of his story in favor of the scandals. The full story is certainly more nuanced than that, and deserves to be told.