Antifeminist. Sunday, your questions for author Christina Hoff sommers. And looking ahead to the new in on joint mark leva january 5. Nd awe. As like shock ad i could close my eyes and see him on the stretcher. I could see him putting his hands up and his eyes. I could close my eyes and see it. I will never forget that first case, bringing me to reality of what was going on here. After he got into the tent, there was an initial triage. We got the report and saw him. The other team starts to work. We got pulled in, myself and my colleagues that wrote the forward. We both got pulled in. The other team wanted us to begin right away. They did not want us to be bystanders. Get involved right away. Once they did that, it was like a jolt. To you have to act, you have be a doctor, a surgeon, a care provider. Emotion to dismiss your and talk that away, what you are feeling tuck that away. You have one objective. You have to stop the bleeding. You have to get him back home to his family. He uses his own military experience is to write about physicians working in afghanistan. More on sunday night at 8 00 on q a. Florence harding once said she had only one real hobby. Warren harding. She was a significant force in her husbands presidency. Florence harding set many precedents that would help define the role of the modern first lady. Good evening. Tonight we are going to tell you the story of Florence Harding, who has been neglected and derided throughout history. Inrtime, the hardings her time, the hardings came in as popular people. We are going to learn about her and her husbands time in office. Let me introduce you to our guests. Katherine sibley is a history professor at st. Joseph college. Her book is called behind the tragedy and controversy. Thank you for being here. David pietrusza is a guest as well. Harding andwarren teapot dome. When he came to office, it was in a landside. Set the stage for what brought these people into office. And with the mood of the country was. The mood of the country is bad. It is the year when any republican can win. The trick was to get to the nomination. Tr was supposed to be the nominee. There was a big split. That is patched up. Tr dies in his sleep. There are people who want to fill the void. The governor of illinois. Johnson was just too irascible. Which leads you to the fourth man, the available man, andrew sinclair, Warren Harding. He is not too hot, not too cold, not too much of anything. Except he is handsome and a fairly good speaker. He has been on the National Stage at the 1916 republican convention. He nominated taft in 1912. So he is the alternative. In that year, the alternative to wins. Ism they were the publishers of a newspaper. Give us the short history of publishing a newspaper to national politics. Thank you so much. It was a small paper when harding required it. He made it successful over time thanks to the efforts of his wife, florence. For the point of getting to the discussion, she was a key element. What happens is they are working in the paper. It is going well. It is a little dull. She liked seeing him get involved in other things. He was a very good speaker. He did an Alexander Hamilton oration. He was a lieutenant governor. He ran for governor, was not successful. He was positioned. He was visible in ohio. By the time of 1913, when there was a new law that allowed senators to be elected popularly, he is positioned to run. In 1914, he is elected to the senate in ohio. He thus becomes the first popularly elected senator from that state. And the first senator to become president as a sitting senator. And of course florence is right there alongside him. Her role is quite significant. You write in your book that he was unconvinced about his of viability as a candidate, even among his congressional republicans. It was a matter of his health. He did die early. Then there was a matter of terri Carrie Phillips. There were other women as well. His personal life was a mess. Do people look the other way and in these days . In those days . There were a lot of things which were not talked about. Scandal of public figures were as not written about. Unless there was a divorce. Unless something went into the courts. The papers would not touch it. Something that has never occurred to me until now, he is a newspaper man. Maybe he is part of the club and theyre not going to write about it. That may work in his favor. But you also see in that era that there are other infidelities going on. There is certainly some issues about Woodrow Wilson in the bahamas or bermuda, before he is president. There is the famous incident of Alice Roosevelt, and her child, deborah, she wanted to name it deborah. It becomes pauline. That is the illegitimate daughter of a famous guy at that time. Then Franklin Roosevelt cheating on Eleanor Roosevelt in 1917. The rich have their prerogatives. They take them. One of our viewers asks how did mrs. Harding respond to the rumors of hardings wandering eyes . It is a great question. There is a debate about these relationships that Warren Harding had. He had this affair with Carrie Phillips. They were both a couple who were related in ohio. What happens over time is that warren falls in love with carrie. Florence discovers about this affair. They were still friends and vacationing together. How was is happening . How did she reacts . Not very happily. She asked him to consider divorce. He knew he needed her for his career. He agreed to downplay the affair, and i believe he committed to ending it. He did not, as it turns out. As he is running for president , it is an embarrassment. It hasnt been an active affair for several years. They were flaring years of it. In the end, she is essentially bought off by members of the Republican Party who come up with funds to get her outof of the way. Florence was not happy at all. There are wonderful quotes in her diary where she expresses how difficult it was dealing with an unfaithful husband like hers was. We have one of her diary quotes. How much is preserved . Her diary is not very reliable as far as dates. I believe it is an authentic version of her thoughts. It was a small book discovered 15 years ago in ohio. Is a list of recipes, remembrances, and the things going tonts you are share with the audience. There is a clear sense of her own views and beliefs. I think it is credible. It is not extensive and dated. We have to take that into account. Barely a formal diary. It is like a datebook or calendar. It seems to be real. One quote we will share with you to caption her thinking about this did she make the best foreign harding . I think she did. She went after him. I know sometimes we hear she made him at think that is too simple. That takes away from his abilities, which is not something that can be reckoned with. Absolutely. He was not just a pretty face. She had a key role of pushing him into the place where he got to be. Steve murdoch asks, was in his newspaper one newspaper person who did was his own fatherinlaw. Explained the story. He would criticize his sonin law. This is a long story. He is a banker, a businessman. Doesnt he buy a competing newspaper . Not that i know of. I believe what the caller is getting to is that he helped to fund an opponent when harding ran for senator. He funded another republican newspaper in the town and siphon business away. To call him a newspaper person would be he is a banker. He is the fatherinlaw. He likes being a banker. There was a long history. We can talk about the history of florences first marriage. It was kind of a sad chapter in her life. He did not like her first husband or her second husband. The only got reconciled when his first wife died, the mother of florence. He decided he would make some rapprochement with her. They came back together. It was a difficult relationship for the first years. The first seven years, there was nothing. Yes. It was a difficult time. Talk about hardings audio. Our audiog to begin and visual part with an audio harding in one of his speeches. Then we will learn about the front porch campaign. They conducted a campaign from marion, ohio. Lets watch. Not revolution but restoration. Not surgery, but serenity. Not that dramatic, but the dispassionate. All of the action took place on this porch. Usually during speeches, warren would stand here with florence beside him. They would wave to the crowd parading down towards his house. This was a perfect backdrop to the campaign. Not only did it show the human side, the fact they did not live in a mansion. They lived in a normal house like most of the folks coming to see him speak. They wanted to feature the town as well. Warren said the campaign was taking main street to the white house. Florence was a part of this message. She was a visible part of the campaign. She was always near him on the front porch when he was speaking. She gave interviews herself to magazines, especially womens magazines. She alternated between being the savvy politician, to being the homebody. The wife, the caretaker, the candidate. She knew how politics works. She knew the different sides of her that but have to be per portrayed as part of the campaign in order to make the campaign successful for him. She is not afraid to wait into a into a crowd. She is in the line shaking hands along with the president. Going through hundreds if not thousands of people, standing there as long as it will take to shake hands and greet people. We see Florence Harding, who knows how her husband is going to get to the white house, through the vote. It is important politically, and she believes in the people of the united states. She seems as good or better a politician as her husband. She is more out there with her strengths. He pushes on. She continues. We think of how ill she was, the kidney ailments, it is astounding. She would recover from days like that, taking 48 hours to recover from shaking hands. Thousands of hands. She had the strength. She wanted to be accessible. She wanted to be a people person. We welcome your participation. We are getting comments on facebook and twitter. Youre welcome to join that conversation. The cspan facebook pages easy to follow. There is a conversation underway. Twitter, two ways you can be involved. We will look at those. Here are the phone lines we will get to those calls in just a couple of minutes. You cant talk about the campaign without talking about harry dorning. Who was he . Dockery. K it is he is the campaign manager. He is the man behind the throne, especially the way he tells it. He elevates his influence and power great deal. A great deal in the telling of the story. He does help harding out. But you also see udc correspondence where he is saying you think if i listen to the gossip that people tell me that i swallow it all. I dont. I know exactly what is going on. Harding is incredibly savvy. He is good. He is an excellent people person. People like him. Even his enemies like him. He is exuding human kindness. This is something overlooked about him. He is a genuinely kind and if you shove out aspects of his life, hes a good person. He is very lovable. But daugherty is runofthe mill. Dockery. He has been in the general assembly. He has run for attorney and governor. He is a little too shady to make the trip himself. He gets behind harding. He runs across some a few times. He says i found him sunning himself like a turtle on along, and i push them into it. Did harding make himself . John dean in his biography makes the point that hardings protestations of inadequacy, of humbleness, is not necessarily an act, but that harding from the beginning was a very sharp guy. His academic career is good. He learns things quickly. He is giving speeches at the age of four years old. People get jealous of people who were good. He didnt necessarily want to be president did he . I do not think so. Certainly not with the Kerry Phillips thing hanging over his head. He enjoyed being in the senate. They thought he was popular. He didnt. It seemed over time increasingly there was urgings on him. My theory is that in the big letter which he sends to Kerry Phillips regarding the blackmail. How did she try to blackmail him . She had the letters. There were approximately 98 of them. Torrid love letters . Not all torrid love letters. A lot of them were. I will not endeavor to quote them. I will say this. In reading history, people skip over to the dirty parts. Read the rest of these he is a good writer. He is very good. There is a certain charm. She has the goods on him. This is the smoking gun. This is the blue dress. To the nth degree. She has it, and she and her husband in 1920, because she is finally become so incensed at him, she tells her husband, and they determine they are going to put the hammer to this one of the president. The party responded. They offered money to her. 5,000. He made the offer. 5,000 per year. 25,000 up front. All expense paid trip to the orient. Go far away during the election campaign. Her and her husband. Hes in the dry goods business. Harding tried to argue with her, i can do good if you would let me carry out this president ial election. There was this disagreement there. She is pretty much out of the picture at that point. I argue that is the end of the relationship, but it is the end of all the relationships. Many might suggest that were other relationships. Other names have been heard. You probably heard the story about the president s daughter. I did not find it credible. There was a child. Florence had been married once before and she had a child. Was that an issue . It is interesting. This is a sad story. She married to escape her overwhelmingly powerful father. We alluded to that. We dont actually have any records she literally married this man. Dewolf. E wolf but she certainly a lot with them and they had a child. He was someone who had a difficult past and future. He left her. He was a drunk. There she was trying to raise this boy on her own. Her father steps in and says you cant do this. I will take over. She was trying. She was a single mother who taught piano. She was making money doing that, but not enough. In the end, she has to live with her father. When she marries her husband, her second husband, or maybe her first, she divorces from pete. This is the first or second case of divorce in ohio. She was the first divorced first lady. Marshall grows up. He has a set of future. He doesnt live very long after his Young Children are born. It is an interesting story. It could have humanized the hardings. She doesnt want to acknowledge this. This was an issue she didnt want brought up in the election. She tries to downplay it. I have not found evidence that the children were invited to the white house. There wasnt much of a public visible presence. What was the story on why she didnt raise her son . It had to do with this issue of being a single mother, and not a wealthy one. She didnt have the money . You probably could have done it. She was trying to. There were issues at the time, the interesting thing was that when she married warren, marshall seems to have lived partly with them and probably with their grandfather. It is an interesting relationship they worked out. She doesnt seem that maternal. I think that is part of that. In terms of the story your , original question has to do with the 1920 campaign. Does that become an issue . Her being divorced was not in favor at that time. It is a case of mutually assured destruction. Mr. Cox is the first divorced person to run for president. He had been married once before. His wife had mental problems. He marries again. There is no great scandal. Marries a much younger woman. Yes. They are not about to bring that up. If they had brought up the immense hardship which florence had to go through, and she spent a great deal of time not dealing with until she gets into the white house, there could have been more sympathy generated for her. Because her life is tremendously hard. Take away the infidelities. She comes from the richest family in town. She has to go and live with this fellow when she is pregnant at the time of the marriage. Or nonmarriage, as it was. When she gets back to town, abandoned, it is on Christmas Eve. She has to hitch a ride on a train on Christmas Eve to get home. And even then she is afraid to go see her father, and must break in to an abandoned home to spend the night. She sees her father, and its no i will not help you. And then finally a deal is brokered after quite a while. That i will take your son. Not you. This is like way down east. This is like dw griffith and lillian gish. This is real 19thcentury melodrama. It happened to her. This is a very hard life. The illness. This series of things. In that way, shes a sympathetic person because she is a survivor. I think you are right. Going to phone calls, hi , bill. Thank you for taking my call. I have always thought Florence Harding was misaligned as a first lady regardless of the scandals in the administration. I think she was probably very opinionated and very bossy. But the horrible rumors that came, i am sure you will discuss them later, that she plays in the presidency. I think she was probably in the top 10 first ladys because of her accomplishments and the amount of firsts that she had. Thanks for taking my call. I appreciate you and your guests for the job youre doing. Thank you. We cant leave in 1920 campaign without making note of it along the way. This is the first election the first lady can vote for her husband. How important was the womans vote in 1920 . It is very important. The number of women voters in 1916, by 1920 the number of actual voters jumped to 25 million because women were voting. That was not the only reason. This was a significant shift. It is also important in the election. Florence becomes someone who is attuned. She has been attuned as a woman, a single mother. Someone who dealt with her share of difficulties. She is someone who is attuned to the plight of women and the opportunities that women are going to get now that they are voters. She is interested in womens involvement in politics. She listens closely to many who come to the white house. The vote itself is a moment of real triumph for her. She is there at the front porch. She travels 25,000 miles with him after they leave the front porch. She is reaching out. There are number of problems. Much excitedry about womens possibilities. There is a quote you can perhaps allude to, where she talks about how thrilled she is to see women succeeding in active in politics, wanting to cultivate that. They break the vote down by sex in 1920. I believe the hardingcoolidge team does well. You also see it is an advantage to the republicans. You see precincts in massa