Warren G. Harding - Personal Controversies

Personal Controversies

In a Washington Post article, journalist Carl S. Anthony disclosed that Warren G. Harding had extramarital affairs with four women. These women included Susie Hodder and Carrie Fulton Phillips, Mrs. Harding's personal friends; Grace Cross, Harding's senatorial aide; and Nan Britton. Anthony stated that Harding was the father of Hodder's daughter. In her 1927 book, The President's Daughter, Britton asserted that Harding fathered her daughter, Elizabeth Ann, as well, during a 1919 tryst in his senatorial offices. Britton, who had a profound obsession with Harding beginning in high school, also alleged that she was his mistress before and during his administration, at one point having sex with him in a closet at the White House. Historian Henry F. Graff states that Harding was sterile and that Harding's affair with Britton ended after Harding assumed the presidency.

Historian Francis Russell indicates that, beginning in the spring of 1905, Harding had a 15-year relationship with Carrie Fulton Phillips, wife of businessman and friend James Eaton Phillips of Marion, Ohio. More than 100 intimate letters between Harding and Mrs. Philips were discovered in the 1960s, but publication of the letters was enjoined by court order in Ohio until 2024. Russell, however, viewed the letters upon their discovery and described them as very touching and naive in some respects, erotic in others. Russell also concluded from the letters that Phillips was the love of Harding's life—"the enticements of his mind and body combined in one person".

Before his death, Harding had established a margin account with stockbroker Sam Ungerleider. Before the broker could get authority from Harding's successors to liquidate the stocks purchased on loan, the account had a loss of more than $170,000. The broker was given the authority to sell, but the family refused to settle the loss and the broker declined to force collection.

The most sensational allegations include one that President Harding and Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty participated in bacchanalian orgies at the Ohio Gang's Little Green House on K Street in Washington, D.C.; witnesses to this were considered unreliable and one was a convicted perjurer. Also, in his 1987 book The Fiery Cross, historian Wyn Craig Wade suggested that President Harding had ties with the Ku Klux Klan, perhaps having been inducted into the organization in a private White House ceremony. Evidence included the taped testimony of one of the members of the alleged induction team; however, evidence beyond that is scanty. Other historians generally dismiss these stories. However, in the 1998 History Channel documentary entitled Ku Klux Klan: A Secret History, the speculation that Harding may have joined the group is highlighted by the fact that William J. Simmons, the founder of the modern Klan, once visited the President at the White House.

Several historians deny claims of orgies and mistresses, such as Robert H. Ferrell and Paul Johnson. Paul Johnson writes in Modern Times: "When in 1964 the Harding Papers (which had not been burnt) were opened to scholars, no truth at all was found in any of the myths, though it emerged that Harding, a pathetically shy man with women, had a sad and touching friendship with the wife of a Marion store-owner before his presidency. The Babylonian image was a fantasy, and in all essentials Harding had been an honest and exceptionally shrewd president."