[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2013] Florence Harding once said she had only one real hobby. Warren harding. She was a significant force in er husbands presidency. Despite many struggles including her own poor health, flarns 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. In her time, the hardings came in as very popular people. We are going to learn about her and her husbands time in office and her interesting story not many people know. Let me introduce you to our guests. Katherine sibley is a history professor at st. Joseph college. Her book is called first lady Florence Harding behind the tragedy and controversy. Thank you for being here. David pietrusza is a guest as well. Hes author of many books including 1920 the year of the six president s. We talk about teapot dome and other scandals in his presidency but when he came into office it was a landslide. Set the stage for what brought these people into office. And what 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 omination. Tr was supposed to be the nominee. There was a big split. That is patched up. Unfortunately, t. R. Dies in his sleep in january, 1919. There are people who want to fill the void. Leonard wood. Frank loughton. The governor of illinois, i cant remember how to pronounce his name correctly, im always being corrected on it. Johnson was just too irascible. Which leads you to the fourth man, the available man, as andrew sinclair, one of his biographers said, Warren Harding. Hes 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 wilsonism wins. The hardings personal trajectory came from smalltown marion, ohio, where they were publishers of the newspaper. Give us a short history of publishing a newspaper to national politics. Yes, thank you so much. The marion star was a small paper when harding required it. He made it into a much more successful paper other time, thanks to the efforts of his wife, flarns. Florence harding and he, well talk later about how they met but for the point of the discussion, how they got to 1920, she was a key element here. What happens is, they are working in the newspaper and its going very well but its a little dull for her. Shed like to see him get involved in other things. He does go on the circuit, he was a very good speaker. She thought he could go for bigger things. So he did. He ran for state senate, elected two times in ohio. Tried to go further than that with a lieutenant governor. Later ran for governor, was not successful but just as you said, he was positioned, he was visible in ohio and by the time of 19 by the time of 1913, when theres a new law in this country which allows senators for the first time to be elected popularly, hes in position to run. And hes elected to the senate for ohio and he thus becomes publicly elected senate and the first one to become president as a sitting senator. His wife is right there with him along this trajectory. You write in your look 1920 that he was unconvinced about his viability as a candidate. Even among his fellow republicans, his there was not much support. There was the matter of his ell, and he did die young. And there was nan and nans baby. Warren hardings personal life was a mess. Do people look the other way . I think there were a lot of things which were not talked about. Scaen dals of public figures was not written about unless there was a divorce case. Unless something went into the courts. The papers would not touch it. And something thats never occurred to me until now, hes a newspaper man. Maybe hes part of that club and theyre not going to write about it. That may work very much in his favor. But you also see in that era that there are other infidelities going on. Theres mr. Weeks, who he appoints to the cabinet, he has a mistress. Theres certainly some issues about Woodrow Wilson, maybe in the bahamas or bermuda, rather, before hes president. Theres the famous incident of Alice Roosevelt longworth and er child deborah, which is amed, or she wanted to name it deborah, it becomes pauline, but thats the daughter of senator eborah, a famous guy. And Franklin Roosevelt cheating on Eleanor Roosevelt in 1917. The rich have their prerogatives and they take them. One of our viewers on facebook i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks asked, how did mrs. Harding respond to rumors of hardings wandering eyes . Thats an interesting question. Well have some debate about the extra marital relationships harding had. He had an affair with Carrie Phillips. Old friends. They were both the phillips and hardings were all related in a connected way in ohio. And what happens over time is warring falls in love with carrie and florence finds out about this. Sometime between 1905, when florence gets sick for the first time, and 1911, she discover this is affair. They were still friends, they were still vacationing together. Your caller asks how was this happening . And how did florence react to this . Well, not very happily. In fact, she asked him to consider divorce. But warren refused. He knew he needed her, partly for the reasons i alluded to, for his career and other ways. He agreed to downplay this affair and i believe he committed to sort of ending it but in fact he did not, as it turns out. So by 1920, as hes running for president , its a bit of an embarrassment. It hasnt been an active affair for some queer but there were flaring moments of it and because of that in the end, she is essentially bought off by members of the Republican Party and others who come up with funds to kind of get her out of the way and no, florence was not happy about this at all. Theres some wonderful quotes weve read in her diary, to get back to the question, where she expresses the difficulty of dealing with an unfaithful husband like hers was. We have one of her diary quotes, but how much of a dirist was she . Is it preserved . Her diary is not reliable as far as dates. I believe it is an authentic version of her thoughts. Its a small book discovered about 15 years ago in a barn in ohio. Its a list of recipes, remembrances by her and these statements youre going to share with our audience and so from what i can tell, theres a clear sense of her own views and beliefs in there. Ed i think its credible but its not extensive and its not dated. A formal diary, its in a datebook or calendar. Catch as catch can. There are huge gaps in it. But it seems to be real. One quote that we will share with you to capture her thinking about this is this one. To sanction the inequity of iniquity of man but demand purity of woman has become an attitude of society. Did she make the best of Warren Harding . I think she did. She saw the potential in him. She saw he could be someone who could rise to higher position with her strength and her backing. Sometimes we hear she made him or she made him president , i think thats too simple. I mean that takes away from his own abilities, which i think something they were that could be reckoned with. He wasnt just a pretty face and a senatorall looking man. But she had a key role in pushing him into the place where he got to be. Steve murdoch on twitter asked, wouldnt his newspaper enemies take shots at him and his infidelities. One ho did was his fatherinlaw. Explain why he would in his newspaper criticize his soninlaw. In fact, this is a long story. He doesnt have a newspaper. Hes a banker, a businessman. But doesnt he buy a competing newspaper . Not that i know of. I dont believe thats true. I think that maybe what the caller is getting to is he actually helped fund an opponent of harding when harding ran for senator. He funded another newspaper. He funded another republican newspaper in the town to siphon business away from it. But to call him a newspaper person would be, no, hes a banker. Hes the banker behind it. And hes the fournl. And he likes being banker a lot more. There was a long history. He didnt like i know were going to talk about the history of florences first marriage. He did not like her first husband, he did not like her second husband. They only got reconciled later when amos, his first wife had died, the mother of florence, then he decided to make some rapprochement with her. But it was a difficult relationship for the first 37 years. Of their life but the first seven years of the harding marriage there was nothing. It was a difficult time. You talked about hardings oratory and how he was known for it, helped make him a national personality. Were going to begin our audio and visual part of this program with an audio clip of Warren Harding in one of his speeches and then youll learn about the front porch campaign, the way that they decided, unlike their opponent, james cox, who was traveling around the country, to conduct their campaign from marion, ohio. Lets watch. All of the action took place on this very porch here. Usually during speeches, warren would stand in the middle here on the steps, the top step. Florence right beside him. And they would wave to the crowds who were parading down mount vernon avenue toward his house. But this was a perfect backdrop for the campaign. Not only did it show the human sides of the hardings, the fact that they did not live in a mansion, they lived in a very normal house, like most of the folks coming to see him speak. They wanted to feature this town as well. Warren himself often said that this campaign was taking main street to the white house. And florence was very much a part of this message. She was a very visible part of this 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 home body, the wife, the caretaker of the candidate. So she knew how poll techs worked. She knew the different sides of her that would have to be portrayed as part of this campaign in order to make his campaign successful for him. She is not afraid to wade into a crowd. Shes not hanging back. And she is in the line shaking hands along with the president to be. And going through hundreds, if not thousands, of people standing there as long as it will take to shake the hands and great people. So we see a Florence Harding who knows how her husband is going to get to the white house, through the votes. Its very important politically but she absolutely believes in the people of the United States. She seems as good or better a politician than her husband. Absolutely. She is more out there, i say with her strength. He gets exhausted in some of these encounters. He pushes on but she continues. When we think about how ill she was. She was back and forth with her illness, nephritis. It would take her 48 hours sometimes to recover with her hands sore and swollen. But she was determined to do it, she wanted to be accessible, she wanted to be a people person, i guess you could say. We welcome your participation, were getting comments as you can see on facebook and twitter. Youre become to join the conversation, the cspan Facebook Page is easy to follow, theres a conversation under way. Twitter, two ways to be involved, use the hash it is g, firstladies or our firstladies address. Here are the phone lines. You cant talk about the 1920 campaign without talking about Harry Doherty dougherty. Who was he . Hes the campaign manager. Hes the man behind the throne especially the way he tells it. He elevates his influence and power a great deal in the telling of the story and since the other two people are dead, he gets to tell it far longer. And he does help harding out. But you also see correspondence from harding where hes telling harry in 1918, you think just because i listen to the gulf that people tell me that i swallow it all . Well, i dont. Ok. I know exactly whats going on. And harding is in fact an incredibly savvy politician. Hes good. Hes an excellent people person. People like him. Even his enemies like him. He is he exudes human kindness. This is something which is quite often overlooked about him. He is a genuinely kind and if you shut out certain aspects of his life a good person. Hes very lovable. Daugherty is a kind of run of the mill ohio politician, hes been in the general assembly. And he has run for governor, attorney general, all sorts of things. But hes a little too shady to make the trip himself. He gets behind harding, he runs across him a few times. Most particularly in florida when he says, i found him, he was sunning himself like a turtle on a log. And i pushed him off into it. Now there are a lot of factors. D florence make him, did daugherty make him, did harding make himself . And one biography makes the point that hardings , testations of humbleness are not necessarily an act. But harding from the beginning is a sharp guy. His academic career is good. He learns things very quickly. Hes giving speeches at the age of 4. And so hes good early and he knows that people sometimes get jealous of people who are good. But wouldnt you agree he didnt necessarily want to be president , did he . I dont think so. Certainly not with the Carrie Phillips thing hanging over his head. He enjoyed being in the senate. But he really didnt. But it seemed like over time, increasingly, there was urgings on him and the situation back in ohio didnt look good for him to be reelected. My theory is that and in the big long letter which he sends to Carrie Phillips regarding the blackmail how did she try to blackmail him . She had the will thers. That was not the only let she hung on to. There were approximately 98 of them. Torrid love letters . Not all torrid love letters ut a lot of them were. I will say this, often in reading history, people skip over to the dirty parts. Skip the dirty part in reading these and read the rest of these. Hes a very good writer. Hes very good. And theres a certain charm and skill to his language skills. But, shes got the goods on him. This is the smoking gun. These are this is the blue dress to the nth degree. And shes got it. And she and her husband in 1920, because she finally became so incensed at him, harding, that she tells her husband and they determine that they are going to put the hammer to this wannabe president and theyll drive him out of office or drive him bankrupt. The party responded by helping to deal with the Carrie Phillips situation. What did they do . They offered money to her and that seemed to take care of what was it like 5,000 . 5,000 a year. Enge they give 25,000 up front. And an all expenses paid trip to the orient. Go far away during this election campaign. Her and her husband. And the excuse is hes in the dry goods business, they have a lot of dry goods over there. Harding tried to argue with her, to suggest, i could do some good for the world if you let me carry out this president ial election. But no there was this disagreement there. So yeah, shes pretty much out of the picture at that point. And i argue that is sort of the end of this relationship and its certainly, i think most would agree, i would argue its the end of all the relationships. Many would suggest there were other relationships. Nan britten, others have been heard youve probably heard about the president s daughter. I dont find that credible, perhaps if your viewers are interested in hearing more about this. There was a child on the other side. Florence was married before, had a child, divorced the childs father. Was that an issue . This is a sad story. She married early on to escape her overwhelmingly powerful father. We alluded to that earlier in the show. We dont actually have any record that she literally married this man next door, pete dewolf, but she eloped with him, they had a child. He had a difficult past and difficult future he left her and she he was a for the do well, he was a drunk, she was trying to raise this little boy, marshall, and her father steps in and says, you cant obviously do this, ill take over and she was trying, this is the interesting part of her story. She taught pee yawn know. She was making piano, she was making money doing that, but not enough to sustain herself and her son. In the end she has to kind of allow marshall to live with her father. Nevertheless, she lives she sees him quite a bit. When she married her second husband or maybe her first husband. Shes been divorced from pete, this is apparently the first case, or maybe the second case of divorce in ohio, certainly shes the first divorced first lady. And that story, marshall grows up, he has children, a wife, etc. , and also has a sad future later himself and doesnt live very, very long after his Young Children are born. They are its an interesting story, its something that could have, i think, humanized the hardings even more, the little grandchildren running around the white house but she doesnt want to acknowledge that, she plays it down. Back to our conversation, this was an issue she didnt want brought up in the election and she tries to down play it. I have not found much evidence that the children were ever invited much to the white house or that that story was, though it was important to her and she was in close contact with her dournl there wasnt much of a public, visible presence. Holly hunt asks, what was the story on why Florence Harding didnt raise her son . It had much to do with this issue of her being a single mother and not a very wealthy woman, despite not the scandal it was more she didnt have the money . Well, yes. I think she probably could have done this, she was trying to, but yes. There were other issues, thats an important point but the interesting thing was, when she married warren, warren accepted marshall as well and marshall seems to have lived partly with them and partly with his grandfather. It was an interesting relationship. She doesnt seem that maternal. I think thats part of it. Your e story i think original question had to do with the 1920 campaign or something, does that become an issue . And her being divorced, certainly divorce was not in favor at that time, but its a case of mutual assured destruction. Mr. Cox,