This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Aug. 6, 2013: President Obama’s administration has been under a lot of fire recently. Critics swooped in after the National Security Agency’s massive surveillance program was leaked to the public, the Department of Justice seized media phone records and the Internal Revenue Service’s went after of conservative groups. At the same time the controversy around the attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, lingers.
A very frustrated Obama recently referred to these developments as “phony scandals.” I disagree with that. These are real issues that need to be investigated. However, historically speaking, these matters pale in comparison to other embarrassing incidents in our history such as the Iran Contra Affair, Watergate or Bill Clinton’s “Zippergate.” And what we have seen under Obama is nothing compared to what happened under our 29th president, Warren G. Harding. When it comes to misconduct, his administration takes the cake.
Warren Harding, who died 90 years ago last week, was a second-rate senator from Ohio who won the Republican nomination for president in 1920. He wasn’t anyone’s first choice; but when the convention was deadlocked they turned to him. His main qualification seemed to be that he looked like a president. But, with his pledge to return the country to “Normalcy” after World War I, he won a landslide victory.
Harding was an honest man at least when it came to financial matters. Unfortunately for him (and the country) he surrounded himself with the biggest bunch of crooks (known as the “Ohio Gang”) Washington has ever seen.
The best-known crime during the Harding administration was the Teapot Dome Scandal, which was perpetrated by Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall. Early in the 20th century the U.S. Navy converted from coal to oil. To ensure that the Navy would have sufficient petroleum reserves, several oil producing areas were put under the secretary of the Navy’s control. That was until Secretary Fall convinced Harding to transfer jurisdiction of the fields to his department.
Fall then secretly leased the reserves at Teapot Dome in Wyoming and a couple of fields in California to two oil companies without obtaining competitive bids. Leasing the oil fields probably wasn’t illegal. What was illegal was that he personally received cash payments of $400,000 to $500,000 ($5.5 million to $7 million in today’s dollars) from the oil companies. Fall was in desperate need of cash as he was nearly bankrupt.
After receiving the money, people began to notice that, for a public figure who only earned $12,000, the secretary was living pretty well. Soon an investigation was under way. Fall was eventually found guilty of taking bribes and he became the first cabinet officer to be sent to prison.
The next bit of wrong doing involved Charles Forbes, director of the U.S. Veteran’s Bureau. This department was created after World War I to ensure that the wounded and disabled war veterans received proper care. As director, Forbes controlled more than $500 million ($6.9 billion in today’s dollars) in annual expenditures. He hired many personal friends who were unqualified for their roles and some jobs were created that were just meaningless. One field agent wrote to a colleague that he earned his pay by staying “soused to the gills” (good work if you can find it). Forbes even hired President Harding’s sister.
One of Forbes’ responsibilities was to ensure that new hospitals were built to take care of all of the medical needs of the veterans. Forbes built the hospitals, but he used construction firms that offered him generous kickbacks. The director also sold “surplus” material from a government warehouse at steep discounts for which he received more kickbacks. These items were supplies that were needed by the veteran’s hospitals and were in short supply.
As with Secretary Fall, people began to wonder how the director could have such an affluent lifestyle on a salary of only $10,000. Forbes was investigated and convicted of bribery and corruption. The chief witness against him was an employee of a St. Louis-based construction company who had been a close friend but was now furious at Forbes for seducing his wife. A Senate investigation found that Forbes had ransacked the government for more than $200 million. He was sent to Leavenworth. The bureau’s legal adviser, Charles Cramer, was also accused of taking bribes. He chose suicide.
Problems also existed at the Justice Department which was overseen by Attorney General Harry Daugherty, Harding’s former campaign manager. Daugherty and his right-hand man, Jess Smith, set the tone for the administration. Allegedly they took bribes from individuals to secure government positions, to avoid prosecution or to obtain pardons. They also sold bootleggers withdrawal permits that allowed them to legally obtain stocks of alcohol from pharmacies that held them for medical purposes. And they supplied whisky to the White House for Harding’s poker games. Harding wasn’t about to let that prohibition thing keep him from his whisky. Daugherty was eventually charged with corruption but was acquitted. Smith, like Cramer, committed suicide rather than face criminal charges.
Harding was not in on any of these illegal activities and he was deeply hurt by the betrayal of his friends whom he claimed were “selling him all over this town and all over the country.”.= Shortly before he died he remarked, “I have no trouble with my enemies. But my damn friends … my goddamn friends. … They’re the ones that keep me walking the floor at night.”
While President Harding wasn’t directly involved in the illegal financial affairs during his administration, he was responsible for his extra-marital affairs. Harding’s first such adventure began in 1905 while his wife was recovering from an operation. His lover was Carrie Phillips, the wife of a good friend. Their affair ended in 1920 when Sen. Harding won the Republican nomination. Out of fear that Carrie would expose their dirty secret, Harding’s supporters paid her off. And for good measure they shipped her off on an all-expense-paid trip to Japan along with her husband.
In 1916, before the Phillips affair ended, Harding, then 51, started another with a 20 year old named Nan Britton. He and Nan’s father had been friends back in Ohio and she had been infatuated with the future president since high school.
In 1919 Miss Britton gave birth to a daughter that she claimed Harding had fathered. Warren took responsibility and began to secretly pay child support. Their relationship continued even after he became president. Nan would often come to the White House where he would take her to a coat closet off of his private office while the secret service stood guard. After his death, Nan wrote a bestseller called “ The President’s Daughter” about her affair with Harding.
So as we read about the scandals in the Obama administration we need to put them into historical perspective. Every presidential administration has had transgressions, some big and some small. And while today’s scandals are worrisome, we have seen worse.