Warren G. Harding

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Warren G. Harding : biography

02 November 1865 – 02 August 1923

The campaign owed a great deal to Florence Harding, who played a more active role than the wives of previous candidate had. She cultivated the relationship between the campaign and the press. As the business manager of the Star, she understood reporters and their industry. She played to their needs by being available to answer questions, pose for pictures, or deliver food from her kitchen to the press office—a bungalow that she had constructed at the rear of their property in Marion. Mrs. Harding even coached her husband on the proper way to wave to newsreel cameras to make the most of coverage.

Campaign manager Lasker struck a deal with Harding’s paramour, Carrie Phillips, and her husband Jim Phillips, whereby the couple agreed to leave the country until after the election. Ostensibly, Mr. Phillips was to investigate the silk trade.

The campaign also drew on Harding’s popularity with women. Considered handsome, Harding photographed well compared to Cox. However, it was mainly Harding’s Senate support for women’s suffrage legislation that made him popular in that demographic. Ratification of the 19th Amendment in August 1920 brought huge crowds of women to Marion, Ohio to hear Harding speak. Immigrant groups such such as ethnic Germans and Irish, who made up an important part of the Democratic coalition, also voted for Harding—in reaction to their perceived persecution by the Wilson administration during World War I.

The 1920 election was the first in which women could vote nationwide. It was also the first presidential election covered on the radio, thanks to both 8ZZ (later KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) and 8MK (later WWJ) in Detroit, which carried the election returns—as did the educational and amateur radio station 1XE (later WGI) at Medford Hillside MA. Harding received 60% of the national vote, the highest percentage ever recorded up to that time, and 404 electoral votes. Cox received 34% of the national vote and 127 electoral votes.Russell, pp. 418. Campaigning from a federal prison, Socialist Eugene V. Debs received 3% of the national vote. The Presidential election results of 1920, for the first time in U.S. history, were announced live by radio. Harding was the only Republican presidential candidate to ever defeat Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt on a presidential ticket. At the same time, the Republicans picked up an astounding 63 seats in the House of Representatives.Russell, pp. 419. Harding immediately embarked on a vacation that included an inspection tour of facilities in the Panama Canal Zone.Russell, pp. 420.

African-American lineage contention

During the campaign, Democratic opponents spread rumors that Harding’s great-great-grandfather was a West Indian black person and that other blacks might be found in his family tree.Russell, pp. 372. In an era when the "one-drop rule" would classify a person with any African ancestry as black, and black people in the South had been effectively disfranchised, Harding’s campaign manager responded, "No family in the state (of Ohio) has a clearer, a more honorable record than the Hardings’, a blue-eyed stock from New England and Pennsylvania, the finest pioneer blood." Historian and opponent William Estabrook Chancellor publicized the rumors, based on supposed family research, but perhaps reflecting no more than local gossip.Russell, pp. 403–405. The rumors may have been sustained by a statement Harding allegedly made to newspaperman James W. Faulkner on the subject, which he perhaps meant to be dismissive: "How do I know, Jim? One of my ancestors may have jumped the fence."Adams, p. 280. However, while there are gaps in the historical record, studies of his family tree have not found evidence of an African-American ancestor.Gloria Millner, , Cleveland Live, Inc., February 4, 2008, Retrieved December 23, 2010

Media portrayals

  • Backstairs at the White House: Television episode 1.2, Warren G. Harding played by George Kennedy, 1979.
  • The Prez: A Ragtime Scandal: A musical centered on the historial life events of Warren G. Harding: played by Larry Marshall. Hosted by Capital Style Magazine at the National Press Club on C-SPAN, February 18, 1999.
  • The American President: Season One, Episode 8, Voice of President Harding: Benjamin C. Bradley, 2000.
  • Carter Beats the Devil: A novel by Glen David Gold wherein the climax of his latest touring stage show, Carter invites United States President Warren G. Harding on to stage to take part in his act, 2001.
  • Boardwalk Empire: Television episode 1.8, Warren G. Harding played by Malachy Cleary, 2010.
  • Momma’s Boys: A historical play that centers around eight previous Presidents of the United States from Ohio in a humorous and dramatic discussion of their lives. Warren G. Harding played by Matthew Parker. 2011
  • Mentioned in the SyFy TV show Sanctuary (episode "Requiem") when Helen Magnus says that he was an abnormal ("You don’t think a normal person would choose a job that impossible?").
  • Al Stewart’s song "Warren Harding" (from his 1973 album Past, Present and Future) satirizes the predicament of the President by contrasting his fall with the rise of an immigrant bootlegger.
  • In a 1975 episode of Bob Newhart’s show, the condition known as Montezuma’s Revenge is referred to as "Warren Harding’s Revenge."
  • Ki Longfellow, China Blues, Eio Books 2012, ISBN 0-9759255-7-1 Warren Harding looms large in this story of 1920s San Francisco, in which Harding dies during his visit to the City by the Bay.http://www.eiobooks.com/chinablues.html
  • The Bloviator, 2012, ISBN 978-1475279535 a comic novel by Jim Yoakum that tells the semi-fictional story of Harding’s last six months on earth.https://www.createspace.com/3845103