#harding administration

Teapot Dome Historic Gas Station (Zillah, Washington) ©Kevin Schafer - Getty Images

Colonel Haskell's Second Confidential Report on Russia [p. 1], 11/5/1921

“Government now anxious repair mischief save peasants and hold their own jobs at any price stop Scarcely day passes without some new concession to private ownership and right to trade stop”

File Unit: American Relief Administration Russian Operations vol. 1, 1921 - 1923

Series: American Relief Administration Russian Operations Records, 1921 - 1923

Collection: American Relief Administration Records, 1918 - 1926

Transcription:

Hoover was a diligent and industrious presence in both administrations, but he was dazzlingly short on endearing qualities. His manner was cold, vain, prickly, and snappish. He never thanked subordinates or inquired about their health or happiness. He had no visible capacity for friendliness or warmth. He did not even like shaking hands. Although Coolidge's sense of humor was that of a slightly backward schoolboy -- one of his favorite japes was to ring all the White House servant bells at once, then hide behind the drapes to savor the confusion that followed -- he did at least have one. Hoover had none. One of his closest associates remarked that in thirty years he had never heard Hoover laugh out loud.

Coolidge kept an exceedingly light hand on the tiller of state. He presided over an administration that was, in the words of one observer, "dedicated to inactivity."...By 1927, Coolidge worked no more than about four and a half hours a day -- "a far lighter schedule than most other Presidents, indeed most other people, have followed," as the political scientist Robert E. Gilbert once observed -- and napped much of the rest of the time. "No other President in my time," recalled the White House usher, "ever slept so much." When not napping, he often sat with his feet in an open desk drawer (a lifelong habit) and counted cars passing on Pennsylvania Avenue.

All this left Herbert Hoover in an ideal position to exert himself outside his areas of formal responsibility, and nothing pleased Herbert Hoover more than conquering new administrative territories. He took a hand in everything -- labor disputes, the regulation of radio, the fixing of airline routes, the supervision of foreign loans, the relief of traffic congestion, the distribution of water rights along major rivers, the price of rubber, the implementation of child hygiene regulations, and much else that often seemed only tangentially related to matters of domestic commerce. He became known to his colleagues as the Secretary of Commerce and Undersecretary of Everything Else...

Coolidge didn't like most people, but he seemed especially not to like Hoover. "That man has offered me unsolicited advice for six years, all of it bad!" Coolidge once barked when the subject of Hoover came up. In April 1927, Coolidge puzzled the world by issuing a statement proclaiming that Hoover would never be appointed Secretary of State...Why Coolidge issued the statement at all, and why with such finality, was a matter that puzzled every political commentator in the country. As Hoover had indicated no desire for the role, and the incumbent, Frank B. Kellogg, no inclination to leave it, they were as bewildered as everyone else.

With withering disdain Coolidge referred to his tireless Commerce Secretary as Wonder Boy, but though he sneered, he was glad to have someone to do so much of his work for him....(W)hen the Mississippi flooded as it never had before, it was to Herbert Hoover that President Coolidge turned. One week after making his enigmatic promise not to promote Hoover to the role of Secretary of State, Coolidge appointed him to head the relief efforts to deal with the emergency. Apart from that one act, Coolidge did nothing. He declined to visit the flooded areas. He declined to make any federal funds available or to call a special session of Congress. He declined to make a national radio broadcast appealing for private donations. He declined to provide the humorist Will Rogers with a message of hope and goodwill that Rogers could read out as part of a national broadcast. He declined to supply twelve signed photographs to be auctioned off for the relief of flood victims.

That is very true. A lot of people don't know that part of Hoover's story. And he didn't just save children; he helped feed literally MILLIONS of people around the world during and after World War I.

Hoover was also one of the most effective Cabinet members in American history. He was Secretary of Commerce under President Harding and continued in that role throughout the Coolidge Administration following Harding's death in office. And while his title was Commerce Secretary, he was basically the troubleshooter for any major Executive Branch issue that needed efficient management for both President Harding and President Coolidge. He may have nominally been in charge of the Commerce Department, but he was basically Secretary of Everything. And he was extraordinarily successful in that role.

Honestly, if Hoover had never been elected President, he'd probably be remembered as one of the great figures of the 20th Century. Unfortunately for him, he became President just months before the 1929 stock market crash and was Chief Executive throughout the worst of the Great Depression. And despite all of his immense talents as an administrator and at mastering the logistics of government bureaucracy, he didn't have an inspirational bone in his body, and the country needed a good President and an inspirational leader who could shine a light to help find a way out of the Great Depression. Hoover was an engineer rather than a politician, and his dour, aloof personality was the worst possible fit for the times in which he served as President. When he was soundly defeated by Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1932 election, a major reason was because the charismatic FDR was the anti-Hoover.

Exactly 100 years ago, President Warren Gamaliel Harding escaped the sweltering summer weather and increasingly dark political climate of Washington, D.C. to embark upon a lengthy cross-country trip through parts of the American West still relatively unaccustomed to frequent visits by the nation’s Chief Executive. Billed as a “Voyage of Understanding”, Harding’s trip was seen as a prelude to his potential campaign for re-election the following year, and an opportunity to put some literal and figurative distance between the President and the rumors of rampant corruption swirling around some of Harding’s friends and closest aides from Ohio, as well as several Cabinet members — rumors eventually proven to be true, resulting in indictments, convictions, prison sentences, and even suicides. As President Harding prepared for his Western tour, he could feel the heat as the scandals plaguing his Administration began to reach a boiling point. Speaking privately to the famous journalist and editor William Allen White, Harding said of the Presidency, “My God, this is a hell of a job! I have no trouble with my enemies…But my damn friends, they’re the ones that keep me walking the floor nights.”

Harding’s planned 15,000-mile Voyage of Understanding began on June 20, 1923. Traveling aboard the private Pullman railroad car Superb, the 57-year-old President left Washington, D.C. accompanied by First Lady Florence Harding, Speaker of the House of Representatives Frederick H. Gillett, new Interior Secretary Hubert Work, and a large retinue of aides, friends and their families, doctors, Secret Service agents, and members of the press. Work had become Secretary of the Interior a few months earlier when the previous Secretary, Albert B. Fall, became the “fall guy” for the Teapot Dome scandal. For his role in the scandal, Fall was later convicted of accepting bribes — the first former Cabinet member in American history to serve time in prison for crimes committed while in office. At later points along the journey, Harding’s party was also joined by Secretary of Agriculture Henry C. Wallace (father of future Vice President Henry A. Wallace) and Secretary of Commerce (and future President) Herbert Hoover.

The last week of June 1923 was spent traveling through the Mountain West — Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, Montana, and Yellowstone National Park. The beginning of July saw the Presidential party in the Northwest and celebrating Independence Day in Portland, Oregon before boarding the USS Henderson in Tacoma, Washington on July 5, 1923 to sail to Alaska. One of the expected highlights of the Voyage of Understanding was the northernmost  leg of the trip, as Harding became the first incumbent President of the United States to visit Alaska and Canada. The Territory of Alaska had been purchased for the United States by Secretary of State William Seward in 1867 when Warren G. Harding was two years old, and at the time of Harding’s visit, Alaska was still 35 years from being admitted to the Union as the 49th state. But the President spent nearly the entire month of July traveling through the state, mixing public appearances with private recreation and sightseeing. On July 15, 1923, Harding hammered a golden spike in Nenana, Alaska to officially complete the Alaska Railroad. And ten days later, the President crossed into Canada, fishing on the Campbell River in British Columbia on July 25th and then making an official visit the following day in Vancouver, where he was greeted by one of the largest crowds of his voyage — estimated at over 40,000 people — and where he also squeezed in a round of golf at the exclusive Shaughnessy Golf Club.

The President returned to American soil on July 27th, arriving in Seattle and making several speeches in a busy six-hour period — first to Camp Fire Girls at Volunteer Park, then to nearly 30,000 Boy Scouts at Woodland Park, and finishing the day addressing over 30,000 people at what is now Husky Stadium at the University of Washington where he predicted statehood for Alaska, where he had spent most of the month. After making a brief appearance that evening at the Seattle Press Club, Harding boarded his train that night to travel to Portland, Oregon.

But something was not right. The President seemed to be exhausted, perhaps from the grueling trip through geography much wilder than Harding’s native Ohio or swampy Washington, D.C. Despite his exciting journey through Alaska and the energetic welcome provided by the Canadian people, Harding was clearly wiped out by the time he reached British Columbia. The President did head to the country club while in Vancouver, but he was so tired that after six holes of golf his foursome skipped directly to the eighteenth hole, seemingly completing the round without tipping off the press that Harding couldn’t play the entire course.

From the White House, nine days before embarking upon his Voyage of Understanding, Harding wrote a quick note to Solicitor General James M. Beck who had wished the President a safe journey on his upcoming trip. Thanking Beck, Harding wrote, “I shall try to remember not to overdo (it) in crossing the continent.” And, on June 14, 1923, six days before leaving, President Harding wrote a short letter to a young girl from Hartford, Connecticut named Vivian Little, who had recently sent the President a four-leaf clover as a good luck charm. “Thank you so much for the four-leaf clover which you were so good as to press and send to me,” the President wrote. “I hope it will bring me good luck and that it will bring you still more of the same.”

However, any luck that President Warren G. Harding still had seemed to be running out. Ill and exhausted after leaving Vancouver, Harding tried to rest aboard the USS Henderson as it sailed to Seattle in the early morning hours of July 27. At some point around 3 AM, Harding and the other passengers aboard the Henderson were jolted awake as the ship crashed into the USS Zeilin, an American destroyer accompanying the Presidential party while they traveled through the foggy Puget Sound. This was not the first mishap of the Voyage of Understanding. While traveling through Colorado early in the trip, three people from the President’s party had been killed in a car accident. And now, after a few weeks in Alaska where Harding was able to at least temporarily forget about his Administration’s many troubles, the President was not only sick and tired but two of his Navy’s ships had just smashed into each other almost as soon as he had returned to the continental United States. While the USS Zeilin was badly damaged in the collision, the USS Henderson was not and there were apparently no major injuries on either vessel. But when the President’s valet, Major Arthur Brooks, came to Harding’s stateroom aboard the Henderson to inform him that the captain was calling for all hands on deck, he found the depressed President lying on his bed with his face buried in his hands. “I hope the boat sinks,” President Harding quietly muttered.

It was just hours later that Harding made his whirlwind tour through Seattle, putting on a brave face at his public appearances, but clearly not feeling well. While he was never considered a brilliant orator like Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Harrison, or his immediate predecessor, Woodrow Wilson, Harding was a strong speaker and excellent communicator who had a unique ability to connect with audiences, but he was obviously — and unusually — halting and confused while speaking in Seattle on July 27th. As he boarded his train at Seattle’s King Street Station that night, Harding was examined by his doctor and by Interior Secretary Hubert Work, who had once been a physician, and they decided to cancel the next several days of planned activities. Instead of stopping in Portland and then visiting Yosemite National Park, the Presidential party was ordered to proceed directly to San Francisco where Harding could rest before giving a speech on the radio planned for July 31st which was expected to be heard by over 5 million people.

Despite the four-leaf clover that had been sent to him by Vivian Little before his Voyage of Understanding, Warren Gamaliel Harding’s luck seemed to be running out. And, as his train sped through Oregon en route to San Francisco’s Palace Hotel on July 28, 1923, President Harding was also running out of time.  

Florence Kling Harding was a divorcée who had a son from her first marriage that she had given up to be raised by her parents by the time she met Warren Gamaliel Harding in 1890 when he was the owner and editor of the Marion Star newspaper in Marion, Ohio. Florence was instantly attracted to the handsome Harding, but the feeling wasn’t immediately reciprocated. Harding was five years younger than Florence and already had a reputation as a notorious womanizer. However, Florence was persistent in her advances and Harding was practically incapable of turning women down — his father, Dr. George Tryon Harding, once told him, “Warren, it’s a good thing you wasn’t born a gal. Because you’d be in the family way all the time. You can’t say no.” — and they were married in July 1891. It’s impossible to know whether Harding truly fell in lover with Florence, or if he saw her as a potential key to unlock his burning ambition, but it’s worth noting that Florence very quickly went to work running nearly every aspect of Harding’s newspaper business and helping turn it into a success financially. And that Harding was relentlessly unfaithful to his wife throughout their marriage. Warren and Florence never had a child together, but Harding fathered an illegitimate daughter with a young girl from their hometown of Marion, Ohio just a year before he was elected President (Harding’s daughter, Elizabeth Ann Britton, kept a low profile and avoided publicity throughout her life and died in 2005).

But despite Harding’s extensive infidelity and the scandals and allegations of corruption swirling around Harding’s Administration, Florence Harding — now First Lady — tirelessly attended to the 29th President of the United States after he fell ill during his cross-country Voyage of Understanding in the summer of 1923. She remained near his bedside as Harding rested and hoped to recuperate at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco in early August 1923. When they had first arrived in San Francisco on July 29th after canceling all planned events in California due to Harding’s illness, the President’s doctors were worried by his condition, which they had described as “grave”. Originally announced as “ptomaine poisoning” with severe indigestion caused by crabs or seafood that Harding had eaten while visiting Alaska, the bulletins released by his medical advisers noted that the President’s breathing was labored and he had a dangerously rapid pulse. After taking X-rays, the doctors also diagnosed Harding with pneumonia and were worried about the effects of his illness on his heart. But by August 1st, Harding’s fever had broken and his pulse and breathing were closer to normal. Although they had expected to remain in San Francisco for at least two weeks while Harding recovered, the President was in good enough spirits on August 1st to talk about traveling to Catalina Island where he was originally scheduled to go on a deep-sea fishing trip with his friend and supporter William Wrigley Jr.

As President Harding rested in Room 8064 of the Palace Hotel on Thursday, August 2, 1923, he was feeling better than he had in days. To the members of the Presidential traveling party that visited him throughout the day Harding acknowledged that he was tired but said that he felt “out of the woods.” In the afternoon, Harding  and Secret Service agent Colonel Edmund Starling spoke again about deep-sea fishing off of Catalina Island before returning to Washington, D.C. and Harding joked about how he hoped to have better luck there than in Alaska where he didn’t catch any fish.

Early in the evening of August 2nd, Mrs. Harding brought in a copy of the latest edition of the Saturday Evening Post and thumbed to a story by Samuel George Blythe called “A Calm Review of a Calm Man”. With allegations of corruption bearing down on several of Harding’s closest aides and Cabinet officials, the President had been depressed and unable to find silver linings in the clouds gathering over his Administration. But as the First Lady read Blythe’s article out loud to him, Harding was pleased to actually hear some positive reviews about the President’s governing style. “That’s good,” said the President. “Go on; read some more.” As Mrs. Harding was reading, the President closed his eyes while reclining on the bed with his head propped up by the pillows. When she finished reading, the First Lady left Harding’s room and went to her nearby room in the suite while the President was seemingly sleeping.

One of the nurses attending to the President, Ruth Powdery, filled a glass with water in the bathroom and brought it to Harding so that he could take his medication before going to sleep for the night. The nurse was walking towards Harding when she noticed that his face suddenly twitched and his mouth dropped open. As the President’s head fell limply to the side and he slumped over the nurse called for Mrs. Harding who rushed into the room and instantly screamed for a doctor. Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover and Interior Secretary Herbert Work ran into the room almost immediately along with Harding’s personal physician, Brigadier General Dr. Charles E. Sawyer, but it made no difference. It was 7:32 PM on August 2, 1923 and President Harding was dead. He was 57 years old.

Dr. Sawyer quickly declared that Harding had died of a cerebral hemorrhage, but there was some disagreement by others present about the exact cause of death. As other doctors arrived on the scene the distraught First Lady asked whether any of them could do anything for the President and it took nearly an hour before she could be convinced that Harding was actually dead. With the doctors disagreeing about whether or not the President had died of a stroke or a heart attack or some other cause, there was a push to conduct an autopsy in order to make a final determination. However, Mrs. Harding was adamantly opposed to allowing an autopsy to be performed on President Harding. She even refused permission for an artist to make a death mask of her late husband. Florence Harding’s actions in the wake of her husband’s death would later lead to allegations that she may have poisoned the President — either to punish him for humiliating her by engaging in numerous extramarital affairs or out of mercy to prevent his reputation from being further tarnished by the many scandals of his Administration. The rumors about Florence Harding possibly poisoning Warren G. Harding have never been backed by any solid evidence, but some of Mrs. Harding’s actions immediately after the President’s death were unusual. After Harding’s body was returned to Washington, D.C. and he was lying in state in the East Room of the White House, Mrs. Harding reportedly sat next to his open casket for several hours overnight while saying to the dead President’s face, “No one can hurt you now, Warren.”

In Plymouth Notch, Vermont, telephone services were turned off at night in 1923. At a farmhouse in this small rural area of Vermont, Colonel John Calvin Coolidge Sr., who was a justice of the peace and a notary public, was hosting his son and daughter-in-law, who had come to town for a few days of vacation. The Colonel’s son was the Vice President of the United States, Calvin Coolidge, and while he had learned of President Harding’s illness a few days ago, he was under the impression that Harding was improving and would make a full recovery. On August 2, Calvin Coolidge had helped his father with some yard work around the farm and went to bed fairly early. Late that night, Colonel Coolidge heard someone knocking on his door and answered it while Vice President Coolidge was still sleeping. Since there was no way to contact the Coolidge household by phone, the nearest telegraph operator rounded up two members of the Vice President’s staff who were staying nearby and a reporter and drove to Plymouth Notch. When Colonel Coolidge opened the door at about 10:30 PM, the men handed him a note for the Vice President that read, “The President died instantly and without warning and while conversing with members of his family at 7:30 PM. His physicians report that death was apparently due to some brain embolism, probably an apoplexy.”

The Vice President and his wife, Grace, were awakened shortly afterwards by his father calling for them and they headed downstairs. When Coolidge saw the look on his father’s face and heard the tone of his voice, he realized that President Harding was dead. “The only times I have ever observed that before,” Coolidge said of his father’s demeanor that night, “were when death had visited our family. I knew something of the gravest nature had occurred.” A special phone line was opened for Coolidge at a store near his father’s farm so that Coolidge could speak to Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes. Hughes recommended that Coolidge take the Presidential oath of office as soon as possible, seconding the opinion of the Attorney General, who had sent a telegram to Coolidge suggesting the same thing. The Secretary of State told Coolidge that he could be sworn in by any notary and Coolidge told Hughes, “My father is a notary.”

Colonel John Coolidge searched through his private library for a copy of the Constitution, which had the exact wording of the Presidential oath of office. A kerosene lamp was lit in Colonel Coolidge’s sitting room and at 2:47 AM on August 3, 1923, Calvin Coolidge was sworn in as the 30th President of the United States by his own father. When asked later what he was thinking at that moment, Coolidge remembered, “I thought I could swing it.” After he was sworn in, President Coolidge went upstairs and promptly went back to sleep. The new President and his family traveled to Washington, D.C. later that day to await the return of President Harding’s body, which was traveling on the same train that had taken him on his “Voyage of Understanding” as it crossed a country in deep mourning and the nation prepared for a State Funeral.