Speaker 1: School of Humans. Hello, American filth listeners, how are you
Speaker 1: guys doing?
Speaker 2: Ugh? Today's episode is more of a personal one because
Speaker 2: it's for my mom specifically. Okay, my mom has recently
Speaker 2: started writing books. She's written a memoir, a novel, some
Speaker 2: short stories, and she recently asked me to see if
Speaker 2: I could somehow use my comedy to make her famous
Speaker 2: so that she can get a publishing deal. Now, unfortunately,
Speaker 2: I haven't even been able to use my comedy to
Speaker 2: make myself famous, so I don't know exactly what she
Speaker 2: wants from me, but I'm going to give it a
Speaker 2: shot for mom. And what I wanted to focus on
Speaker 2: for today was one thing about my mom's writing.
Speaker 1: Apparently, my mom.
Speaker 2: She's gotten really great feedback from her friends and fellow
Speaker 2: writing colleagues about her work, and they've apparently given her
Speaker 2: a lot of compliments, specifically about her sex scenes and
Speaker 2: so filth listeners, if you're wondering where I get all
Speaker 2: my perversion from is actually from my dad. But it's
Speaker 2: nice to know that my mom and dad still have
Speaker 2: something in common despite being.
Speaker 1: Divorced for three decades.
Speaker 2: So anyway, it seems my mom has a great knack
Speaker 2: for writing a hint of smut. Maybe even we could
Speaker 2: call it erotica, maybe just porn.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: But there is someone in American history who I think
Speaker 2: my mom could learn from, and that person is the
Speaker 2: twenty ninth President of the United States, Warren Harding.
Speaker 1: Now, Warren Harding had a wife.
Speaker 2: Her name was Florence, but she was very sickly. She
Speaker 2: had a lot of kidney issues, and so their relationship
Speaker 2: lacked a lot of sexuality. Mister Harding, though, he wanted
Speaker 2: to bang, and he found a great bang companion in
Speaker 2: this woman named Carrie Fulton Phillips. Warren and Carrie had
Speaker 2: an affair for about fifteen years, probably started in nineteen.
Speaker 1: Oh five and Mary in Ohio.
Speaker 2: And you know how did Warren meet Carrie, Well, they
Speaker 2: were neighbors. And also Warren was quite close with Carrie's husband, James,
Speaker 2: who owned a dry goods store. In fact, they might
Speaker 2: have even been best friends. And what a way to
Speaker 2: treat your best friend is to fuck his wife?
Speaker 1: Aha.
Speaker 2: And then Carrie was also close with Florence, Warren's wife.
Speaker 2: The two couples were actually so close that sometimes they
Speaker 2: would go on tours to Europe together. But it seems
Speaker 2: that the affair started when Warren's wife, Florence, was sick,
Speaker 2: and then Carrie's husband was also sick. He was actually
Speaker 2: away at a sanitarium suffering from probably depression. He and
Speaker 2: Carrie's two year old son had recently died, so there
Speaker 2: was just a lot of emotions going on. And sometimes
Speaker 2: when there's high emotion, there's high horniness by accident, and
Speaker 2: then you bang your husband's best friend and your friend's husband, and.
Speaker 1: Ha ha ha ha. That's how it started.
Speaker 2: But anyway, in twenty fourteen, the Library of Congress unsealed
Speaker 2: a bunch of letters that Warren wrote to carry over
Speaker 2: the course of their relationship. It is more than a
Speaker 2: thousand pages, and oh boy are they filled with longing, desire, tension,
Speaker 2: everything that my mom needs to make her books shine
Speaker 2: even brighter. So today on American Filth, we're going to
Speaker 2: take a look at these letters to.
Speaker 1: Get some literary inspiration. Cue the theme song.
Speaker 2: This is American Filth and I'm Gabby Watts. Every week
Speaker 2: I tell you a filthy story from American history. This
Speaker 2: week's episode hard hearting sex Letters.
Speaker 1: So let's dive in.
Speaker 2: Shall we just how Warren liked to dive into Carrie's
Speaker 2: under Murken.
Speaker 1: So this first letter we're going to look at.
Speaker 2: It's from January twenty eighth, nineteen twelve, about seven years
Speaker 2: into their illicit relationship. Earlier, in nineteen eleven, Warren's wife Florence.
Speaker 2: It seems that she discovered their relationship, and so Carrie
Speaker 2: and her daughter left Ohio.
Speaker 1: For a bit, traveling around Europe.
Speaker 2: They spent a lot of time in Germany, but then
Speaker 2: at the end of nineteen eleven, Carrie got back to
Speaker 2: Ohio spent Christmas.
Speaker 1: With her family.
Speaker 2: But then she and Warren spent New Year's Eve together
Speaker 2: in Montreal, and apparently when the clock struck midnight, taking
Speaker 2: us from nineteen eleven to nineteen twelve, the two of them,
Speaker 2: we're pounding it out. Now, did they climax at the
Speaker 2: stroke of midnight? That would have been maybe too much coordination.
Speaker 2: Besides fact, then men hadn't found the glitterists yet, so
Speaker 2: I don't even know if women were really reaching the
Speaker 2: end of the train line, if you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: But anyway, that night together inspired Warren to write carry
Speaker 2: a poem in that January nineteen twelve letter.
Speaker 1: Here is what he.
Speaker 2: Wrote, I love your poise of perfect thighs when they
Speaker 2: hold me in paradise. I love the rose your garden grows,
Speaker 2: love seashell pink that over it glows. I love to
Speaker 2: suck your breath away. I love to cling their long
Speaker 2: to stay. I love you garbed but naked more love
Speaker 2: your beauty to thus adore.
Speaker 1: I love you.
Speaker 2: When you open eyes and mouth and arms and cradling thighs. Wow.
Speaker 2: What an amazing poem that Warren Harding sent to Carrie Phillips.
Speaker 1: It seems he really enjoyed her thighs.
Speaker 2: But that wasn't the only time that Carrie Phillips inspired
Speaker 2: poetry within Warren Harding. Another poem he wrote to her
Speaker 2: was in December nineteen twelve. Carrie had spent most of
Speaker 2: that year in Berlin again, so Warren had spent much
Speaker 2: of the year pining for her.
Speaker 1: So, Mom, maybe in your.
Speaker 2: Book you should include some sexually explicit poems like this,
Speaker 2: Who cares not what was wrought today of the medley
Speaker 2: that fate has whorled. I hold you in my arms
Speaker 2: to say I love you more than all the world
Speaker 2: we love today. Let's dream tonight so we may thus
Speaker 2: repeat that bliss, then hale in arms, a new day
Speaker 2: bright with exquisite and loving kiss, possessed, possessing our love's
Speaker 2: true night is heaven and day is life. So I repeat, dear,
Speaker 2: I love you, I'll be your lover, you my wife.
Speaker 1: Is it good poetry?
Speaker 2: Not really, but he certainly wrote it, So that's enough
Speaker 2: of his letters in verse. On January fifth, nineteen thirteen,
Speaker 2: Warren wrote about a sexual encounter he and Carrie had
Speaker 2: a few weeks earlier, and.
Speaker 1: Then he described how he was daydreaming about her.
Speaker 2: He said, I like to dream in loose, flowing garb
Speaker 2: because I can dream more intently.
Speaker 1: And I did, to alarming release. I called your name a.
Speaker 2: Loud thrice, begging you to come, and a voice from
Speaker 2: upstairs responded, wanting to know what I wanted. I was
Speaker 2: alarmed and sobered. Oh yes, what vivid daydreaming he was doing.
Speaker 2: But Warren's pining for Carrie was so great that he
Speaker 2: even said in a letter one time that he would
Speaker 2: leave his wife. He was like, pretty please, Carrie, let's
Speaker 2: be together. But then she suggested that, well, maybe the
Speaker 2: only reason the relationship is so spicy is because it
Speaker 2: is illicit.
Speaker 1: So maybe they should just stay with their spouses.
Speaker 2: Florence had discovered their affair, but it doesn't seem like
Speaker 2: Carrie's husband, James either minded the fact that they were
Speaker 2: banging or he just didn't know what was going on.
Speaker 2: James had also gone to Europe with Carrie on one
Speaker 2: of her trips and send letters back to Warren being like, hey, buddy,
Speaker 2: how are you doing.
Speaker 1: Hope you're doing well. Meanwhile, Warren's like, I want to
Speaker 1: freak your wife.
Speaker 2: But Warren even got jealous within the confines of his
Speaker 2: relationship with Carrie because Carrie in the letters at some
Speaker 2: point brought up that she was attracted to other men
Speaker 2: besides him, and definitely besides her husband. This news seemed
Speaker 2: to drive him a bit crazy, and on September fifteenth,
Speaker 2: nineteen thirteen, he wrote another letter filled with longing. Honestly,
Speaker 2: I heard with insatiate longing until I feel that there
Speaker 2: will never be any relief until I take a long,
Speaker 2: deep and wild drafts on your lips and then bury
Speaker 2: my face on your pillowing breasts. Oh Carrie, I want
Speaker 2: the solace you can only give. It is awful to
Speaker 2: hunger so and be so holy denied, wouldn't you like
Speaker 2: to hear me ask if we only dared, and answer
Speaker 2: we dare, while souls rejoicing saying the sweetest of choruses
Speaker 2: in the music room. Wouldn't you like to get sopping
Speaker 2: wet out on Superior, not the lake, for the joy
Speaker 2: of fevered fondling and melting kisses. Wouldn't you like to
Speaker 2: make the suspected occupant of the next room jealous of
Speaker 2: the joys you could not know, as we did in the.
Speaker 1: Morning communion at Richmond sopping wet, not like the lake. Lol.
Speaker 2: Now, another element of Warren's writing that perhaps my mom
Speaker 2: could include in her smut is that Harding had a
Speaker 2: nickname for him, Wiener. So yes, Mom, whenever you have
Speaker 2: a character with a Wiener, give it a nickname. Now
Speaker 2: what did Warren call his? Of course he called it
Speaker 2: the most obvious nickname, Jerry.
Speaker 1: My penis Jerry. So let's hear some.
Speaker 2: Passages from Warren's letters where he included Jerry. Jerry came
Speaker 2: and will not go, says he loves you, that you
Speaker 2: are the only only love worthwhile in all the world,
Speaker 2: and I must tell you so in a score and
Speaker 2: more of other fond things he suggests, But I spare you.
Speaker 2: You must not be annoyed. He is so utterly devoted
Speaker 2: that he only exists to give you all. I fear
Speaker 2: you would find a fierce enthusiast today. Is anyone else
Speaker 2: here uncomfortable with the personification of his wiener?
Speaker 1: But whatever, here's some other ones.
Speaker 2: Jerry came in while I was pondering your notes in
Speaker 2: glad reflection, and we talked about it. He was strongly
Speaker 2: interested and elated and clung to discussion. He told me
Speaker 2: to say that you are the best and darlingest in
Speaker 2: the world, and if he could have but one wish,
Speaker 2: it would be to be held in your darling embrace
Speaker 2: and be thrilled by your pink lips that convey the
Speaker 2: surpassing rapture of human touch and the unspeakable joy of
Speaker 2: love surpassing embrace.
Speaker 1: I cordily agree with all he said.
Speaker 2: Perhaps it is not important, maybe it's even not interesting,
Speaker 2: but he is devotedly, exclusively for you. It sounds like
Speaker 2: Jerry wants Carrie to give him a blowjob.
Speaker 1: And here's another one.
Speaker 2: Jerry sends Christmas greetings and finally, wish I could take
Speaker 2: you to Mount Jerry.
Speaker 1: Wow. Jerry is a Mountain now too.
Speaker 2: The unfortunate thing about Warren Harding and Carrie Phillips correspondence
Speaker 2: is that of her letters are gone, and much of
Speaker 2: what she said is inferred from what Warren wrote to her.
Speaker 1: And Meanwhile, during the relationship, while.
Speaker 2: Carrie was traveling about Europe, Warren Harding was getting more
Speaker 2: into politics and Marion. He'd gotten His career started as
Speaker 2: a newspaper man. He ran the very successful Marion Star newspaper.
Speaker 2: Then he want to see in the Ohio State Senate.
Speaker 2: He was the lieutenant governor of Ohio, but then he
Speaker 2: lost his governor run in nineteen ten. But four years later,
Speaker 2: in nineteen fourteen, he was elected to the United States Senate,
Speaker 2: and at that point his relationship with Carrie started to
Speaker 2: take a turn. First, he realized that their steamy letters
Speaker 2: could get his political career in trouble. He had written
Speaker 2: to her previously, I have been thinking about all those
Speaker 2: letters you have. I think you should have a fire
Speaker 2: chuck em. They are too flammable to keep. But also,
Speaker 2: as Carrie's traveling around Europe, you might have noticed that
Speaker 2: she is spending a lot of time in Germany.
Speaker 1: And the thing about Germany.
Speaker 2: Is there's about to be a big war, a world war,
Speaker 2: you might say, as that is what it is called,
Speaker 2: and that's going to rip these two apart. Be right
Speaker 2: back after these soothing advertisements. Okay, mom, So the rest
Speaker 2: of this isn't going to really help you with your
Speaker 2: smut writing, but I suppose I should give the filth
Speaker 2: listeners some context for the history of what happened between
Speaker 2: these two. So we're just going to dive into that.
Speaker 1: Anyway.
Speaker 2: Having spent so much time in Germany, Carrie Phillips was
Speaker 2: very pro German.
Speaker 1: She loved the culture.
Speaker 2: She's like yas Germany, and as World War One escalated,
Speaker 2: Carrie just kept being vocal about Germany. Like in nineteen fifteen,
Speaker 2: she's like, Ah, sure the Germans take a bout that
Speaker 2: killed twelve hundred Americans, but.
Speaker 1: Still they're great guys. Yay Germany, Boo Britain.
Speaker 2: But then when the US did enter the war inteen seventeen,
Speaker 2: the Espionage Act was passed, which was basically like, Hey, Americans,
Speaker 2: you're not allowed to publicly be for America's enemies. America
Speaker 2: is number one. You can't be pro German. Shut up
Speaker 2: about freedom of speech. You were certainly free to say
Speaker 2: yay America, and Carrie's pro German sentiments was really putting
Speaker 2: Warren in a bind because he was a senator and
Speaker 2: he knew that the FBI had put Carrie on a
Speaker 2: list she was under surveillance because she was always like
Speaker 2: yay Germany. And Carrie was also doubly suss because her
Speaker 2: daughter was courting a German who was the cousin of
Speaker 2: a known German spy and in their letters.
Speaker 1: At this point, Warren.
Speaker 2: Got really pissy with Carrie because he's like, you're being careless.
Speaker 2: And he was also like, I can't hang out all
Speaker 2: the time if you're gonna be pro German, because everybody
Speaker 2: in the Senate is going to be like, wow, Warren,
Speaker 2: you're being.
Speaker 1: Influenced by a pro German person.
Speaker 2: Like yeah, in the Senate, they don't technically know we're
Speaker 2: having an affair, but they know that like we're friendly,
Speaker 2: you know, like whenever we got to dinner, it's noted
Speaker 2: in a file and it's embarrassing, So like, stop being
Speaker 2: pro German and just like watch your mouth.
Speaker 1: So they had all this.
Speaker 2: Tension building up in their relationship, and then once the
Speaker 2: war was over, the two of them still seemed to
Speaker 2: be slightly involved, but Carrie kind of fell into a
Speaker 2: deep depression because Germany didn't win Boo. But then the
Speaker 2: relationship continued to deteriorate once Warren decided to run for president. Carrie,
Speaker 2: whether you know she was bitter about World War One
Speaker 2: or because she was kind of in a difficult financial spot,
Speaker 2: she was like, well, Warren, if you're going to run
Speaker 2: for president, I'm going to tell everyone about our affair
Speaker 2: unless you give me money. Waha, haha, I'm blackmailing you.
Speaker 2: At first she was like, give me specifically ten thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: And then Warren, he still seemed to care for Carrie.
Speaker 2: He was still simping for her a bit. He was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'll give you ten thousand dollars as long as you
Speaker 2: give me all the letters that I wrote to you
Speaker 2: destroy them please. But then Carrie changed her mind and
Speaker 2: was not satisfied with the original amount of money she
Speaker 2: had insisted on and demanded more. At that point, Warren
Speaker 2: was like, girl, you're going insane. On February second, nineteen twenty,
Speaker 2: he said, your proposal to destroy me and yourself in
Speaker 2: doing so, will.
Speaker 1: Only add to the ill we have already done.
Speaker 2: It doesn't seem like you to think of such a
Speaker 2: fatal course. I can't believe your purpose is to destroy me.
Speaker 2: Warren was like, I've been so nice to you for
Speaker 2: so many years, and now this.
Speaker 1: Is how you repay me. That's so rude of you.
Speaker 2: And he was also like, hey, this new amount of
Speaker 2: money that you asked for, I actually don't have that
Speaker 2: much money to give you. But what I could do
Speaker 2: instead is give you five thousand dollars a year for
Speaker 2: every year that I'm in the public service. And also,
Speaker 2: if you don't take that deal and you do expose
Speaker 2: the affair, I'll lose my job and then I won't
Speaker 2: have any money to give you. So you might as
Speaker 2: well just accept this offer.
Speaker 1: It will make you comfortable.
Speaker 2: So it does seem that Carrie ended up accepting this
Speaker 2: deal from him. But then Warren confided in some people
Speaker 2: in the Republican Party about the affair, and they gave
Speaker 2: Carrie another probably twenty five K and hush money to
Speaker 2: get her and.
Speaker 1: Her family out of town for the presidential election. And
Speaker 1: while you might not.
Speaker 2: Think of this as a pioneering moment, apparently this was
Speaker 2: the first time a woman successfully blackmailed an American president,
Speaker 2: So girl power. But anyway, the blackmailing got settled. Warren
Speaker 2: Harding won the presidency. He became the twenty ninth president,
Speaker 2: and at this point Carrie and Warren essentially broke up
Speaker 2: because apparently, once you blackmail someone, it's kind of hard
Speaker 2: to continue a sexual and romantic relationship.
Speaker 1: So ladies, keep that in mind.
Speaker 2: If you're ever concerned about a man off, I suggest
Speaker 2: don't blackmail.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: Also, maybe don't root for Germany during World War One.
Speaker 2: That's another thing to keep in mind if you're trying
Speaker 2: to keep a man, keep that in mind. But Carrie, though,
Speaker 2: she never did destroy those letters, and when she died
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty a few years after that, the letters
Speaker 2: were found. Basically, there was this historian who wanted to
Speaker 2: use the letters in a book he was writing, but
Speaker 2: then the Phillips family and the Harding family was like, no,
Speaker 2: thank you, We do not want the public to see
Speaker 2: these letters. So what they did is they took the
Speaker 2: letters and then transferred them to all these different estates,
Speaker 2: and then eventually they went to the Library of Congress
Speaker 2: and they got a judge to be like, hey, we're
Speaker 2: going to seal them for fifty years so no one
Speaker 2: can see them by then, in twenty fourteen, ten years ago,
Speaker 2: they were unsealed and it was.
Speaker 1: A big to do.
Speaker 2: Caused a big his historical hubbub. I suppose there's a
Speaker 2: big celebration the letters. There are still family members who
Speaker 2: were like, I don't want to be able to see these,
Speaker 2: but too bad we seen them. But yeah, So Carrie
Speaker 2: passed away in nineteen sixty. She died mostly in poverty.
Speaker 2: Apparently she had two German shepherds that were being neglected.
Speaker 2: I know, sorry, dog people. Warren Harding, however, didn't live
Speaker 2: as long. He actually died during his presidency in nineteen
Speaker 2: twenty three.
Speaker 1: How did he die well.
Speaker 2: Some people like to suggest he was poisoned, but that
Speaker 2: doesn't seem to be the case.
Speaker 1: It was more likely that he died of heart disease.
Speaker 2: You know, we could say poetically he died of a
Speaker 2: broken heart, but that's not true at all. Because Warren Harding,
Speaker 2: along with having his affair with Carrie Phillips, he also
Speaker 2: had other affairs. Was a nasty man, and he had
Speaker 2: one affair with this lady named Nan Britton, whose virginity
Speaker 2: he took when he was fifty and she was twenty
Speaker 2: and with whom he.
Speaker 1: Had a child. Ah. What a great guy.
Speaker 2: He also, in his two years as president, rolled back
Speaker 2: a lot of progressive era reforms and helped pass racist
Speaker 2: immigration laws.
Speaker 1: So boo Warren Harding. But anyway, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Funny when people in the past talk about having sex?
Speaker 2: He he it's so silly that those people had sex
Speaker 2: in the past.
Speaker 1: Gross.
Speaker 2: But Warren Harding, throughout the letters to Carrie, he didn't
Speaker 2: just write about lust.
Speaker 1: He also spoke of love.
Speaker 2: So maybe this is one last note from my mom
Speaker 2: that you should just make sure, amongst the smut that
Speaker 2: you were writing, make sure that you also have some
Speaker 2: big dramatic moments where someone's declaring their love, because I
Speaker 2: think that's the thing that's going to get the TV
Speaker 2: show made.
Speaker 1: Like, for example, if you guys watch.
Speaker 2: Bridgerton in every season, there's always the dude at some
Speaker 2: point saying something.
Speaker 1: Really dramatic about how he loves the lady.
Speaker 2: And Warren Harding he had his own version of the
Speaker 2: Bridgerton quote, and I think this is the quote that
Speaker 2: should be used for that big dramatic moment if he
Speaker 2: and Carrie ever get their own series. So this was
Speaker 2: in nineteen ten Christmas Eve, and he wrote this, there
Speaker 2: are no words at my command sufficient to say the
Speaker 2: full extent of my love for you, A mad.
Speaker 1: Tender, devoted, ardent, eager.
Speaker 2: Passion, wild, jealous, reverent, wistful, hungry, happy, love, unspeakably encompassing,
Speaker 2: immeasurably absorbing, unendingly, worshiping, unceasingly, exalting, unwillingly, exacting, involuntarily, excluding,
Speaker 2: everlastingly compensating, Damn Warren Harding. And that used every single
Speaker 2: vocabulary word.
Speaker 1: That's how you write a love letter, my dude.
Speaker 2: Me personally, I would be scared if I ever received
Speaker 2: such a letter.
Speaker 1: But good on Carrie. I'm sure she felt good about herself.
Speaker 2: And in every episode of American Felt, we learn a lesson,
Speaker 2: and that lesson for today is don't send smuddy letters
Speaker 2: unless you want be blackmailed.
Speaker 1: Cue the Gradus.
Speaker 2: American Filth is a production of School of Humans and
Speaker 2: iHeart Podcast.
Speaker 1: This episode was written and hosted by Me Gabby Watts.
Speaker 1: The theme song is by me and Jesse Niswanger.
Speaker 2: Our senior producer is Amelia Brock, and our executive producers
Speaker 2: are Virginia PRIs Scott, Elsie.
Speaker 1: Crowley, and Brandon Barr. You can follow along with the.
Speaker 2: Show on Instagram at American Filth Pod and please leave
Speaker 2: a review some stars and also don't forget June twenty ninth,
Speaker 2: end of this month, in Atlanta, Georgia, we're having our
Speaker 2: first American Filth Live show. It's at Dynamic El Dorado
Speaker 2: at eight pm. You can find tickets in the show
Speaker 2: notes and also on the Instagram.
Speaker 1: And I'll talk to you guys next time.
Speaker 2: By School of Humans