Another American Presidents series book. This is pretty short, like the rest of the series, and doesn't really dwell on Harding's sex scandals, bummer. It does talk more about the scandals that erupted after his death, but mostly indicates that wasn't on him. I'm also quite impressed with his wife, Florence, and her fierceness.
What really stood out for me was that Florence's dad, Amos Kling, was (a) rather a dick, and (b) had a hate on for Harding, who was a newspaper publisher at the time. Amos was the richest man in town and acted accordingly. Harding attacked him in the paper, Amos reacted about as you'd expect on that. "Capulet-and-Montague love affair" was used, har har.
Florence wasn't born a boy but got treated like one anyway, and he dominated the heck out of her and she wanted the heck OUT of that. He'd lock her out after curfew, she'd sleep elsewhere...and finally got pregnant by the town's "youngest drunk." They "eloped" and left town but never married legally, apparently, and of course the baby daddy eventually flaked and bailed, as they do. Right before Christmas Eve, Florence had to cave in, beg for a free train ride home, and go back to Marion (the town)..by which I mean, she literally BROKE INTO AN EMPTY HOUSE to sleep that night, with the baby, because she knew darned well he wouldn't let her in even for Christmas. She went to live with a friend instead and got help from others instead. Eventually her father made her an offer to adopt the boy, which she let him do.
Naturally, Daddy-o lost it when he found out who his daughter was dating next, and ALSO Daddy-o was a racist and there were rumors that Harding wasn't white. I guess this rumor came about because the family lived by some African-Americans? Amos did call Harding the n-bomb word around town to pressure her into breaking up with him (since claiming he'd disinherit her didn't do the trick...doesn't say why, I assume Florence assumed she was disinherited anyway so why worry about it?). Harding threatened to beat Amos's ass for that one, but it never got that far. He also tried to screw Harding over in business. The couple of course eloped. Harding's quote on the whole thing was that he'd rather have his father-in-law's hatred because "as it is, he now lets me alone. If he were friendly, he would want to tell me how to run my business." We're also told that "no bond was stronger than their mutual dislike of Florence's father, and their determination to show him that they could succeed in spite of his wishes and efforts to the contrary." I do note that eventually Amos caved in and started liking his son-in-law. Which is to say, he still called Harding an n-bomb, but a "smart" (n-bomb.). He even wrote Harding a letter of apology!
Florence was also tough as nails, and she was called "the Boss" and "the Duchess," and Harding liked to spend a lot of time out of town. At one point Harding didn't win any delegates in Indiana while running for re-election and when Harding was about to quit running for president, Florence grabbed the phone and said they were in it until hell froze over. Florence also went to a professional psychic who told her that her husband would win, but would die in office as president. "Florence never told her husband of these predictions because he didn't believe in such nonsense."
I did enjoy the hate-on that H.L. Mencken had for Harding, including his elaborate descriptions as to how bad his speeches were, "wet sponges," and "stale bean soup," and "balder and dash." And after his death, "What did he accomplish in life? He became President....He was, from first to last, an obscure man, even as President. No salient piece of legislation bears his name. He led no great national movement. He solved no great public problem. He said nothing arresting and memorable."
He did have affairs with Carrie Phillips and later supposedly knocked up Nan Britton, who wrote a book about it that H.L. Mencken gave a rave review to :P However, this author notes that Nan Briton never did establish the paternity of her child and it sounds like she made up a lot of details and/or getting dish from Carrie Phillips's daughter. Oh yeah, and that Harding was sterile. Attempts to track down the supposed president's daughter to check her DNA apparently didn't happen because the lady disappeared after the 1960's. The author notes he was unable to find her and hopes the family will reach out to him, hah hah.
Anyway, this was pretty entertaining on the personal dish, so three and a half stars from me.
Harding golfed, but badly, and he didn't want that in the newspapers. When reporters asked how to deal with the situation if any news happened while he golfed, Harding said if he broke 100, they could report it. LOL.
While Wilson was racist, Harding hired more African-Americans to posts, or it sounds like he did as much as he was legally allowed to, anyway.
I'm not sure I'm smart enough to understand all the scandals that went on under Harding's nose, but I did like his quote about his friends were the ones who kept him up walking the floor nights, not his enemies. A few months after his death, things started exploding. "The fact that Harding had done nothing wrong and had not been involved in any criminal activities became irrelevant....Harding's reputation became inseparable from the bad apples in his administration. Their disgrace became his disgrace. All that he had done well was attributed to others, from his wife to the able men with whom he had surrounded himself." I guess it didn't help that his wife burned his papers, so "writers felt free to write the Harding history as they wished, and they did."
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