Warren Gamaliel Harding

Samuel Hopkins Adams:  Incredible Era:  The Life and Times of Warren Gamaliel Harding

Warren Gamaliel Harding:  29th President (1921-1923); b. 1865; d. 1923

Warren Harding--best remembered as the name of Ralph's school in Christmas Story.  And I can certainly understand why people would rather forget.

One of the most interesting aspects of this book is that Adams is unabashedly critical in his assessment of Harding and his administration.  Adams was a journalist who was active during Harding’s administration, and this book was published only a few years after Harding’s death.  The books is not, therefore, a purely scholarly and detached assessment of Harding’s career.  The book’s focus is on the incredible scandals that occurred during Harding’s watch and the way in which these scandals ruined his legacy and affected the nation.

Harding himself is an interesting character.  He was truly out of his league as president.  His background was humble—as was that of many presidents—and he married a divorcee, a la Andrew Jackson.  What’s interesting is that he entered politics in part because it was enjoyable and in part because of his wife’s prodding (and his own desire to show his father-in-law that he was worthy of marrying the man’s daughter).  He was an able campaigner, and was a genuinely likable guy—he thus appears to have got along well in legislative politics.  

But Harding had no principled stances and no agenda.  He didn’t stand for anything.  He appears to have had no interests in major domestic issues or foreign policy.  He didn’t have any favored interest groups.  It appears that he rose to the senate because he was popular with Ohio Republicans and had no controversial positions (because he had none).  He did some good things--his arms control conference was much heralded internationally, he helped keep the budget under control, and tried to improve tariff policy.  But this appears to be ad hoc policy making in response to issues more than proactive attempt at change.

His nomination was a display of the real power of the Republican machine.  While there were other unlikely presidents from unlikely nominations (Garfield; Cleveland), this guy really did kind of come out of nowhere.  You could see this as an indictment of the then-existing nomination process, but do we do much better now?

The books is really about the scandals, and those were incredible.  If a sitting cabinet member now accepted a literal bag filled with cash in exchange for allowing a corporation to pump oil from government reserves, it would be a bonanza—this would be a scandal of unprecedented importance.  If it so happened that the sitting attorney general actively hindered investigations into these and other activities and FBI officers harassed US Senators investigating such activities, it would be even bigger.  And if a high-ranking government official, and personal friend of the president, was getting generous kick-backs for selling medical supplies to corporate interests for pennies on the dollars while wounded soldiers went without, he might be assassinated.  But this was how it went under Harding.  I think about some of the more recent governmental scandals under Nixon and Clinton and the industry capture of executive agencies under Bush II, but nothing approaches the audacity of selling the people’s property for personal gain.

Harding's cabinet had some powerhouses in it--Charles Evans Hughes, Hoover, and Andrew Mellon--but he never seems to have harnessed them for any great purpose.

And let’s not forget Harding’s extended affair with a much younger woman and resulting love child.  This certainly makes him a more human and interesting character.  But it does seem to speak to his lack of moral fortitude, especially when he continued on with the affair knowing that his wife was aware of what was going on.  Perhaps the best result of this was that it fueled speculation that Harding's wife poisoned him.

William Henry Harrison

Robert M. Owens:  Mr. Jefferson's Hammer: William Henry Harrison and the Origins of American Indian Policy

William Henry Harrison:  9th President (1841); b. 1773; d. 1841

Poor William Henry Harrison.  He made it all the way to the presidency, and then died 32 days into his first term.  His presidency is only interesting because of the people around him.  He was the first Whig president—and was nominated because the Whigs were confident that they could beat Van Buren following the panic of 1837 and wanted someone “electable.”  Henry Clay was the party’s leader but had made too many enemies in his decades of service.  No one really knew anything about Harrison, so nominated—and elected—he was.  His vice president was a Democrat, and when Harrison died John Tyler refused to cooperate with the Whigs that had made him Veep and made enemies out of pretty much everyone in Washington.  Daniel Webster was offered the number two job on the Harrison ticket, but turned it down because he thought it was an unimportant job—if only he knew how decrepit old Harrison was he might have taken the job.

The military uniform was painted on later.

The book itself is a very solid piece of historical research.  As far as readability, it suffers from density.  The chapters are packed tightly with information, and tend to be lengthy, but rather than offering breaks or sub-headings, Owens powers through each one straight through to the end.  To be honest, much of the material is rather dry—information about the various forts throughout the frontier at which Harrison served and his steady climb through the army.  By contrast, much of the work is fascinating—the central focus of the book, on the interactions between the plains Indians and the American settlers is compelling.  A little more storytelling could have elevated the work.  The book ends prior to Harrison’s presidential campaign and presidency, which I covered in works about Clay, Van Buren, and John Tyler.

The New South:  One notable topic is the linkage between the South—Virginia in particular—and much of the Midwest.  I think of Indiana as a cold, northern state.  But it, and much of southern Ohio, was tied to the South through river travel and was settled by Virginians.  Harrison owned slaves, as did many in Ohio.  And Harrison’s own work in the Jefferson administration is fascinating, if not just for learning about Harrison, but for the ways that Virginians viewed territorial expansion across the Appalachians.  This also suggests how small the country was in the late 1700's and early 1800's.  Harrison's dad knew Jefferson because they were both prominent Virginians.  When we talk about leaders of any of the colonies, all of the prominent people knew each other--they just did.  This isn't the case today.  The leading lawyers of even a small city don't all know each other, and they're not all on speaking terms with area politicians and businessmen.

Tecumseh:  I think we forget two things about the Indian Wars.  The first is how entrenched the Indians were in the Midwest in the late 1700s.  There were nations of people that lived in these areas that were slowly and inexorably pushed west.  And these were nations—they had governments and leaders and defined cultures and languages.  We also forget how vital these nations were in protecting their own interests.  I’m really reminded of the Goths and Celts of northern and western Europe during the expansion of Rome—these nations were mobile and fluid, and actively sought alliances between larger powers to advance their own interest.  It’s a mistake to see them as passive or victims of historical forces—they were active participants in historic events.  Harrison’s role in the expansion of the United States into areas previously controlled by Indian tribes was significant.  He was sometimes brave—he was a veteran of the Indian Wars and the War of 1812—sometimes diplomatic—he held a number of conferences as his own home—and in the end effective.