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Speaker 1: All right, how crazy is our political atmosphere these days?

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Speaker 1: You think this is the worst it's ever been, Well

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Speaker 1: think again. How about a president whose administration was filled

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Speaker 1: with greed, corruption, and embezzlement, not to mention gambling, illegal drinking,

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Speaker 1: and illicit affairs. Ah, the Roaring twenties. I'm Patty Steele,

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Speaker 1: maybe the worst president in American history and maybe murdered

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Speaker 1: by the ultimate insider. That's next on the backstory. We're

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Speaker 1: back with the backstory over indulgence, crazy parties, widespread corruption,

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Speaker 1: and shady business dealings. Politics is usual, right, Why can't

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Speaker 1: we have leaders like they did back in the good

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Speaker 1: old days? Well, maybe we do. The Roaring twenties was

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Speaker 1: the party before the devastation of the Great Depression. The

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Speaker 1: country was becoming electrified. Movies and radio connected us all.

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Speaker 1: The aviation industry was taking off, and the mass production

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Speaker 1: of cars and trucks put everybody on the road, stimulating

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Speaker 1: other industries like rubber and steel, as well as highway

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Speaker 1: construction and the building of hotels. As folks ventured out,

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Speaker 1: and the president at the time reflected the easy going

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Speaker 1: party mentality of the people. Warren G. Harding took office

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Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty one. He was a good looking, charismatic

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Speaker 1: guy who promised to return to normalcy in the aftermath

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Speaker 1: of World War One. His was a landslide victory, but

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Speaker 1: almost immediately the scandals began. He was only in office

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Speaker 1: for a little over two years before his untimely death

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Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty three, but he and his cohorts were

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Speaker 1: nothing but trouble. A former newspaper publisher, Harding himself admitted

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Speaker 1: he was unfit to be a president. He totally relied

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Speaker 1: on his wife, his friends, and associates to help him

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Speaker 1: make decisions, and that group, known as the Ohio Gang,

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Speaker 1: became infamous for their corruption and greed. One of the

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Speaker 1: most notorious scandals was called the Teapot Dome Affair. It

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Speaker 1: involved federal oil reserves in Teapot Dome, Wyoming. It turned

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Speaker 1: out Albert Fall, Harding's Secretary of the Interior, had taken

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Speaker 1: bribes and then secretly leased the oil fields to private companies.

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Speaker 1: It became one of the biggest political scandals in US history.

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Speaker 1: One conservationist said, when Fall was first appointed Secretary of

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Speaker 1: the Interior, you could find a worse choice, but it

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Speaker 1: might be a near impossible task. And there was so

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Speaker 1: much more. Charles Forbes, head of the Veterans Bureau, was

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Speaker 1: caught embezzling millions of dollars that was supposed to go

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Speaker 1: to VA hospitals. Harding's Attorney General, Harry Daugherty, was caught

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Speaker 1: up in a bunch of scandals, including bootlegging and bribery.

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Speaker 1: The White House was a total soap opera, with gambling,

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Speaker 1: illicit affairs, and illegal drinking. Don't forget Prohibition had just

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Speaker 1: been inacted, and Harding's personal life was filled as drama.

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Speaker 1: The president was a notorious womanizer, and his extramarital involvements

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Speaker 1: were an open secret in Washington in those days. The

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Speaker 1: press was sort of complicit in covering up the president's

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Speaker 1: sex life, an unspoken agreement that lasted right up until

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Speaker 1: Bill Clinton's presidency, when it came to a screeching hall.

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Speaker 1: Harding had had an ongoing affair back home in Ohio

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Speaker 1: with Carrie Fulton Phillips, which lasted for fifteen years before

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Speaker 1: ending abruptly. As he headed to the White House in

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Speaker 1: nineteen twenty, he called a hall to it to protect

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Speaker 1: his reputation. Some historians say Carrie was actually the love

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Speaker 1: of Harding's life, he'd written many letters to her, finally

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Speaker 1: released decades after all parties were dead, in which he

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Speaker 1: told her the enticements of my mind and body are

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Speaker 1: combined in just you. Wow. He was a romantic, and

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Speaker 1: there were others, but one of Harding's most infamous affy

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Speaker 1: affairs was with Nan Britton, a young woman also from

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Speaker 1: his hometown of Mary In, Ohio. After Harding's death, she

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Speaker 1: claimed he was the father of her daughter. There were

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Speaker 1: lots of denials from his family and friends when their

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Speaker 1: affair was detailed in NaN's tell all book, The President's Daughter.

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Speaker 1: Its nineteen twenty seven release cost a huge scandal. The book,

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Speaker 1: which was dedicated to all unwedded mothers and their innocent

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Speaker 1: babies whose fathers were usually not known to the world,

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Speaker 1: was actually sold like porn door to door, wrapped in

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Speaker 1: brown paper, and it was a hit. While the President

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Speaker 1: had still been very popular following his unexpected death, his

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Speaker 1: reputation had taken something of a hit due to the

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Speaker 1: other scandals which were then coming out, and a lot

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Speaker 1: of people believe NaN's claim. The public ate up the

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Speaker 1: salacious details, such as NaN's story about the two of

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Speaker 1: them having sex in a closet near the Oval office

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Speaker 1: with Secret Service agent's post to ward off intruders. Now.

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Speaker 1: The Harding family responded, saying the late president was infertile

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Speaker 1: and couldn't have fathered a child since he'd had mumps

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Speaker 1: as a little boy. Nan maintained that Harding had given

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Speaker 1: her five hundred dollars a month in child support for

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Speaker 1: the daughter he never met. Nothing was definitively settled about

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Speaker 1: this until DNA testing confirmed NaN's claim, but not until

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Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, almost ninety years after the book was published.

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Speaker 1: With all his scandals, it makes sense that Harding doubted

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Speaker 1: his own ability to be an effective president, and he

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Speaker 1: shared that opinion about himself regularly. He told friends he

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Speaker 1: felt unfit for the office and overwhelmed by the responsibilities.

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Speaker 1: He struggled to control his administration and get ahead of

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Speaker 1: the crises that kept popping up during his two years

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Speaker 1: in office. Stress from all the chaos and corruptions surrounding

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Speaker 1: him took its toll. In nineteen twenty three, Harding decided

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Speaker 1: to do a cross country summer tour, hoping to reconnect

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Speaker 1: with the American people and give himself an image boost.

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Speaker 1: He called it a voyage of understanding, and the plans

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Speaker 1: had him going out west and also to Alaska. Now,

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Speaker 1: in fairness, he had always had heart problems and high

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Speaker 1: blood pressure, but he became increasingly ill during the trip.

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Speaker 1: By the time he reached San Francisco, he was at

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Speaker 1: the end. On August second, nineteen twenty three, Harding died

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Speaker 1: in his hotel suite at the Palace Hotel. The official

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Speaker 1: cause of death was a heart attack. But here's where

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Speaker 1: he gets a little sticky. Rumors and conspiracy theories quickly

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Speaker 1: began to circulate. Some believed that Harding had been poisoned,

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Speaker 1: and fingers were pointed at his wife, Florence. Florence Harding,

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Speaker 1: a tough as nail's chick, was known as the Duchess.

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Speaker 1: A number of historians believe she was the driving force

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Speaker 1: behind her husband's rise to the White House. She often

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Speaker 1: said he only made correct choices when he did what

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Speaker 1: she told him to do. She was highly protective of

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Speaker 1: him and deeply involved in his administration, advising him on

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Speaker 1: political matters. So why would anyone suspect that she'd poisoned him. Well,

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Speaker 1: she wanted to protect his legacy because she saw all

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Speaker 1: the scandals about to publicly erupt, as they did soon

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Speaker 1: after his death, and there was a lot of talk

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Speaker 1: that he would have been impeached for the teapot Dome

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Speaker 1: affair had he not died. Then there are the odd

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Speaker 1: actions she took as soon as he died, despite the

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Speaker 1: fact that he was just fifty seven years old and

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Speaker 1: in basically good health. She refused to allow an autopsy,

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Speaker 1: so they never knew exactly what killed him, and she

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Speaker 1: insisted that his body be embalmed less than an hour

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Speaker 1: after his death. She then quickly had him brought back

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Speaker 1: to Washington, d c. For a state funeral and burial

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Speaker 1: in Ohio. So did Florence Harding slowly murder her husband

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Speaker 1: with poison? Actually it's pretty unlikely, but as with our

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Speaker 1: current political climate, folks love a good conspiracy theory, and

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Speaker 1: for a short time they really seized on it. In

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Speaker 1: the end, Warren Harding was a pretty crummy president, not

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Speaker 1: so much because he was personally corrupt, but more because

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Speaker 1: he just wasn't up to the job. The power that

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Speaker 1: comes with the highest office demands someone with the strength

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Speaker 1: to manage not just public expectations and needs, but who

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Speaker 1: also understands the responsibility of choosing the right people for

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Speaker 1: his administration and knowing how to manage them. British historian

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Speaker 1: Lord Acton said, great men are almost always bad men.

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Speaker 1: Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I

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Speaker 1: hope you like the Backstory with Patty Steele. I would

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Speaker 1: love it if you would subscribe or follow for free

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Speaker 1: to get new episodes delivered automatically, and feel free to

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Speaker 1: dm me if you have a story you'd like me

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Speaker 1: to dig into and cover. On Facebook, It's Patty Steele

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Speaker 1: and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele. The

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Speaker 1: Backstories a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the Elvis Durand

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Speaker 1: Group and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser.

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Speaker 1: Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday

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Speaker 1: and Friday. Feel free to reach out to me with

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Speaker 1: comments and even story suggestions on Instagram at Real Patty

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Speaker 1: Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening

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Speaker 1: to the Backstory with Patty Steele. The pieces of history

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Speaker 1: you didn't know you needed to know