"Been There, Done That"

Warren Harding was a great guy.  He looked like a President of the United States should look, so they say.  He was a handsome dude.  He photographed well and the pictures of him in the rotogravure sections won him affection and respect.  He was, some say, the friendliest man ever in the White House.  He liked everybody. He wanted to help everybody.  He wanted to do favors for everybody.  His was not the forced affability of the “cold-blooded politician;” it was transparent and genuine.  Like Mr. Roger’s “Won’t you be my neighbor,” Mr. Harding wanted  everyone to be his neighbor when he become President in 1921.

No one seemed to see Warren Harding’s liabilities.  He had limited political experience. He was “almost unbelievably ill-informed.”  His mind was dull, vague and fuzzy.  His public addresses were profuse, pompous, pretentious and grandiose.  He struggled to find the right words (“normalcy” for normality, etc.).  He didn’t have the wherewithal to deal with all the many issues of governance and thus became utterly dependent upon those around him.  Harding had difficulty being honest.   After all he wanted to be helpful to all.  He would do almost anything to be helpful and neighborly—and he did!

His mind could not handle the new job.  Who could he depend on?  He gave his brother-in-law a job. He appointed his hometown personal physician to deal with the various health agencies of government, calling that position a “brigadier-generalcy.”  He selected his hometown lawyer-friend to be Comptroller of the Currency even though he had minimal banking experience.  No one paid much attention to all of this.  The public cared little about what happened behind the scenes.  What they saw, when they did bother to look, was the “well-lighted stage where the Harding Administration was playing a drama of discreet and seemly statesmanship.” Harding’s relatives and friends, given power, used it to enrich themselves.  This included what is known as the Teapot Dome scandal.

Warren Harding had a mistress and an illegitimate daughter.  Mrs. Harding was consumed with insane jealousy when she discovered this and became very angry when she became aware of the criminality within her husband’s Administration.  It has been suggested that she may have poisoned him—maybe even with the help of that hometown physician appointed to the  “bridgadier-generalcy!”

Maybe the writer of Ecclesiastes was right:  “There is nothing new under the sun!”  Does history repeat itself?