Warren G. Harding (1865 – 1923), the 29th president of the United States, is consistently ranked amongst the country’s worst. His administration is best remembered for scandals, from carnal to official corruption. Below are some fascinating facts about Warren G’s most salacious White House scandal.
A President’s “Private Chief of Staff”
The Harding administration’s best known scandal was Teapot Dome. The Secretary of the Interior took bribes to lease oil fields to private oil companies without competitive bidding. Another scandal involved an Attorney General who took bribes from bootleggers during Prohibition. Simultaneously, a Director of the Veterans Bureau was getting rich through massive graft. Salacious revelations about affairs with mistresses inflicted yet more damage on Harding’s reputation. In today’s blizzard of scandals, shenanigans like those of Harding and his administration would probably occupy the news cycle for a few days, tops. However, the 1920s were a more innocent era, and such scandals shook the country.
Between the corruption and the details of carnal escapades with his mistresses, Harding’s public reputation, which had been quite high at the time of his death, cratered and was replaced with contempt. It was an unfortunate end to a public service career that began in 1899. Harding worked his way up the political ladder from Ohio state senator, to failed Republican nominee for governor, to winner of a 1914 election to the US Senate. Throughout most of his political career, he had carried on an extramarital affair with Carrie Fulton Phillips. As historians discovered in love letters he wrote her, Harding referred to his private member as his “private chief of staff”, but more often referred to it by the nickname “Jerry”.
Warren “The Real G” and Nan Britton
In one such letter, Harding wrote to Carrie Fulton Phillips: “Jerry — you recall Jerry…— came in while I was pondering your notes in glad reflection, and we talked about it…He told me to say that you are the best and darlingest in the world, and if he could have but one wish, it would be to be held in your darling embrace and be thrilled by your pink lips that convey the surpassing rapture of human touch”. Harding ended the affair after fifteen years in 1920, when he ran for president. The Phillips affair was low key. A more explosive one was with Nan Britton. That mistress wrote a tell-all book after Harding’s death, The President’s Daughter, in which she alleged that Harding had fathered an illegitimate daughter upon her. Britton described salacious details that make the Clinton and Monica Lewinsky affair look like amateur hour.
Among other things, Warren G. and Nan got it on in White House closets, with Secret Service agents posted as lookouts to turn away intruders. After she gave birth, Nan alleged that the president paid her child support of $500 a month – a considerable sum back then. Understandably, Harding’s family rushed to defend what was left of his reputation, and denied the affair. They painted Nan Britton as a liar, and alleged that the 29th president had been infertile, and so could not have possibly fathered a child upon Nan. Things remained in a he-said-they-said standoff until 2015, when a DNA test conclusively proved that the daughter, Elizabeth Ann Bleasing, was, indeed, Harding’s child.
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Some Sources & Further Reading
Business Insider – Ancient US Presidential S*x Scandal Revealed
History Halls – Politicians Who Couldn’t Keep it In Their Pants: Warren G. Harding
Rumpus – On This President’s Day: A Brief History of Presidential S*x
New York Times, August 13th, 2015 – DNA is Said to Solve a Mystery of Warren Harding’s Love Life
