Reputation overrides record: how Warren G. Harding mistakenly became the 'worst' president of the United States.

• Author: Pecquet, Gary M.
• Position: Biography

Dean Albertson, a professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, was the first scholar granted access to the long closely guarded Warren G. Harding Papers. Although he did not complete his intended biography, he made a significant presentation on the centennial of Harding's birth in 1965. By that time, Harding had been deemed the worst president in U.S. history. But, asked Albertson, might Harding have been the best (see Payne 2009, 183)? Ivan Eland (2009), quantifying presidential performance in three areas--peace, prosperity, and liberty--ranks Harding sixth.

In the first survey-based ranking of presidents, done in 1948, Arthur M. Schlesinger asked a carefully selected group of historians to rate presidents as "Great," "Near Great," "Average," "Below Average," or "Failure." The ratings were converted into a numerical scale, and the scales averaged. Schlesinger repeated the exercise in 1962; and his son, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., conducted a third survey in 1997. Yet other surveys were conducted, with various methodologies. Up through the Schlesinger, Jr., survey, a total of seven surveys, (1) Harding was ranked last every time. How could Harding be ranked as worst in seven surveys of historians and yet be thought possibly to be among the best by the first historian granted access to his papers?

To investigate the possibility that prejudice was influencing assessments in survey-based rankings, Robert Murray and Tim Blessing (1983) asked respondents about their own political philosophy. They found that rankings were similar for both liberal and conservative scholars. In particular, Harding was ranked last by both sets of scholars. In two surveys conducted by the Wall Street Journal (Lindgren and Calabresi 2001; Taranto 2005), panels with the same number of left- and right-of-center scholars were assembled. In each of these two surveys, Harding is ranked next to last. In a survey specifically of right-of-center scholars (Gregg 1998), Harding is ranked fourth worst. If prejudice has been working against Harding, it has permeated the scholarly community.

The Siena Research Institute (SRI) now conducts a "tracking poll" of presidential rankings that includes both assessments in specific areas as well as an overall assessment. In its 2002 survey, Harding was ranked next to last overall and below average in each of the specific areas. His best areas--where he was merely mediocre--were "handing of the economy" and "ability to communicate." In the 2010 SRI survey, Harding was ranked third worst overall and among the worst in each of the specific areas. In particular, he was no longer deemed to have been merely mediocre in handling of the economy and ability to communicate. (2)

C-SPAN has also conducted two surveys of scholars, one in 1999 and another in 2009 (both given in C-SPAN 2009). These surveys are similar to the SRI surveys in that they include assessments in specific areas. From 1999 to 2009, the assessments of President Harding's "public persuasiveness" and "economic management" deteriorated. This deterioration parallels the SRI surveys. Obviously, Harding's abilities to communicate and to manage the economy did not change from 1999 to 2009, but scholarly assessment of those abilities did.

Dean Keith Simonton (1981, 1986, 1991, 1992) has developed models in which presidential greatness as judged by historians is a function of the "intellectual brilliance" a person brings to office. In some of his later work, Simonton (2001, 2002, 2006) develops models that use both input-type variables (e.g., intellectual brilliance) and output-type variables (e.g., war) to explain ratings by scholars, but the input-type variables dominate. Thus, a president like Harding, being a "man of the people," would not be rated highly, whatever his accomplishments in office were. A study done in 2014 (Thies 2014) examines the preferences implicit in historians' ratings of presidents and finds that historians disregard economic performance, love war without discrimination, and are fixated on scandal. Harding, who promoted peace and prosperity and whose reputation came to be tarnished by scandal after he died, struck out--zero for three.

Harding in Real Time

At the time of his death in 1923, Harding was beloved by the American people. Robert H. Ferrell says that his "reputation was very high.... By all accounts, he was a kindly man, genuinely interested in people. He possessed not an iota of self-importance, and his smile warmed everyone he met" (1998, vii-viii). The economy had vigorously rebounded from the severe recession that he inherited and approximated full employment in 1923. Harding had been instrumental in advancing the cause of peace in the world and had courageously attacked Jim Crow in the Deep South, and there was only a hint of scandal at the time of his death. The next year, his midterm successor, Calvin Coolidge, who had continued Harding's policies, was elected to a full term in a landslide.

The obvious reason for the collapse of Harding's public image is the series of scandals that came to light after his death. These scandals include three involving corruption. There was also a much ballyhooed sex scandal. (3) Yet another scandal involved Harding turning the White House into something like a speakeasy, with booze and gambling in addition to loose women, and Harding being rather dimwitted. John A. Moore says, "Harding's poor reputation among historians and political experts is understandable given his personal faults, the scandals that tore apart his presidency, and his inability to exhibit strong leadership skills" (2014, 598).

Veterans' Bureau Scandal

Table 1 tracks the major events associated with the Harding scandals. The first public awareness of any scandal came in January 1923 and involved the Veterans' Bureau. This organization was put together from several agencies scattered about the federal government and expanded rapidly to deal with the large number of veterans returning from the Great War (later renamed World War I). On a tip from his wife, Harding intervened to put an end to the sale of excess supplies. When Charles Forbes, the bureau's director, did not comply, Harding demanded his resignation. At this point,

Senator Burton K. Wheeler, a progressive Democrat from Montana, called for an investigation. Shortly thereafter, two members of the administration committed suicide: Charles F. Cramer, general counsel of the Veterans' Bureau, and Jess Smith, an aide to the attorney general. The forced resignations and the suicides raised suspicions as to the possible extent of corruption in the administration.

During the next six months, a Select Committee headed by Senator David A. Reed, a progressive Republican from Pennsylvania, pursued the evidence regarding the Veterans' Bureau scandal. It was during this six-month period that Harding passed away. Once the hearings got under way, the committee made a strong case against Forbes, thanks to the cooperation of a corrupt business associate. The committee showed that Forbes had been involved in multiple transactions of bribes and kickbacks. His misdeeds represented "an opportunistic patchwork of individual bribery and greed" (Murray 1969, 459), but the committee did not show that corruption had reached into the White House.

Teapot Dome Scandal

At almost the same time that the Veterans' Bureau hearings got under way, the Senate Committee on Public Lands conducted hearings into leases of oil fields constituting the Naval Petroleum Reserve. This issue had been brewing for some time. In 1922, Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall leased an oil field in Wyoming known as Teapot Dome to Sinclair Oil and another oil field in Elk Hills, California, to Pan American Oil via private, no-bid contracts. Control of these oil fields had been transferred from the Department of the Navy to the Department of the Interior by executive order. The contracts were complex, providing, among other things, for construction of refineries, pipelines, and storage capacity because there was concern regarding the navy's ability to supply its new oil-burning warships. Regardless of their legality, the contracts were politically controversial, upsetting those favoring conservation. (4)

Hearing rumors of the contracts, Senator Robert La Follette, a progressive Republican from Wisconsin, called for an investigation. The chair of the committee of jurisdiction was Senator Thomas J. Walsh, a Democrat from Montana, and a pro-development western man. Walsh did not immediately pursue the matter, and in early 1923 Fall resigned as secretary of the interior to return to private life. At the time, the resignation was considered unexceptional. Harding wrote a letter acknowledging his transfer of Teapot Dome and vouching for Fall's actions. This letter would become Harding's political epitaph (Stratton 1998, 255). Walsh eventually held hearings on the contracts. In their initial appearances at the hearings, Fall acquitted his role in the letting of the leases, and Edwin Denby, secretary of the navy, claimed ignorance. In light of his failure to promote the navy's interests, Denby subsequently resigned.

The matter might have concluded at this point except that an old enemy of Fall noticed that he had made extensive improvements to his ranch in New Mexico soon after his return to private life. Fall was recalled by the committee. He claimed he had been lent money by Edward B. McLean, publisher of the Washington Post and a friend of the administration, who had no connection to the oil contracts. Walsh doggedly followed up, however. When McLean claimed for health...