Dark secrets of the ‘black’ President (Warren Harding Earlier Black President)

Wales Online ^ | Nov 4 2008 | Dan O'Neill

[nickcarraway]

SO today’s the day. The day we discover whether a black man can become president of the USA.

But hang on. According to some chroniclers of the times, America has already had a black president.

And it happened in 1920 amidst a form of apartheid as unsavoury as anything coming out of South Africa, a time when lynchings were commonplace, when it was hard enough for a black man or woman to vote, let alone get elected to any kind of office.

And those who claimed he was black nodded knowingly when Warren Gamaliel Harding became the first president since the Civil War to speak out in the Deep South for the rights of African-Americans. Remember, that war had ended only 55 years earlier. In those southern states, blacks were still regarded as subhuman.

The first open accusation came when Harding, then 21, moved to the little town of Marion, Ohio, where he met Florence Kling De Wolfe, divorced daughter of Amos Kling, the richest man in town. When he heard of their burgeoning romance, Kling grabbed Harding in the court house yelling “I’ll blow your head off if you ever come near my house.”

But Florence married him and, working with a supreme fixer named Harry Daugherty, pushed him into local politics. Then, after a few undistinguished years in the Senate, Warren G Harding was, to much amazement, nominated the Republican candidate on the 10th ballot after his party’s power brokers chomped their way through so many cigars that here was the origin of that legendary “smoke-filled room”.

They chose him because “he looked like a president ought to look”. And he was, the king-makers agreed, “the best of the second-raters”. His own joyous reaction summed up this compulsive gambler: “I feel like a man who goes in on a pair of eights, and comes out with aces full.”

By then Harding had a mistress, 20-year-old Nan Britton who gave birth to his child. The scandal was hushed up – but that other “secret” was brought out into the open, a flood of leaflets claiming that “there is Negro blood in the Harding lineage”.

His enemies provided affidavits from acquaintances who knew of his background, and they talked of a full-page of facts backing their claims, due to be published in the local paper but “bought up and suppressed before it could appear”.

Meanwhile, a book that “proved” the president’s Afro-American ancestry was confiscated by the Department of Justice, purchasers forced to hand their copies over until only half a dozen survived.

Proof of a black president would have triggered the greatest crisis since the Civil War, maybe even started another.

But it wasn’t race that would haunt Harding’s presidency, and during his last days in office George W Bush might take some interest in his predecessor.

Harding had talked of coming out with aces full, and there was plenty of poker in the White House as the cronies appointed to his Cabinet joined him for all-night sessions washed down with booze provided by the president’s official bootlegger in this era of Prohibition.

Those cronies were playing for bigger stakes. Daugherty, appointed Attorney General, and the rest made it the most corrupt administration in history. Millions of taxpayers’ dollars were stolen, bribery and outright theft was the norm. When things started to fall apart some of Harding’s placemen fled to Europe, one shot himself and Congressional investigations into abuses of office began.

To find some relief, Harding and his poker-playing pals embarked on a cross-country train trip with a quick visit to Canada included.

In Vancouver, Harding complained of feeling ill and his Surgeon General, one of the poker brigade known as Doc Sawyer, diagnosed acute indigestion. It was coronary thrombosis. Harding died in a San Francisco hospital. The country mourned – until the corruption was exposed. And then, wrote Samuel Hopkins Adams, veteran Harding-watcher: “The public which had held its breath over the dying president now held its nose over the rising stench of scandal.”

Five of Harding’s men were jailed, two killed themselves, and there were claims his wife poisoned him to avoid inevitable impeachment. But today, real proof that America has changed since then: only a few diehards openly give a damn that Barack Obama is black.

[Michael.SF.]

I answered your questions. The only question I didn't answer was ......

lol, OK. take care.

[melsec]

LOL!

Mel

[melsec]

Cheers

Mel

[freeangel]

It will never be over. Racism was the only issue he could win on and he and others will use that as a model for many years to come.

[Rockingham]

Harding was a popular and better President than is commonly credited. He appointed Mellon to Treasury, reduced spending, and pursued deregulation and low taxes and tariffs that sparked a long boom and much material progress.

A newspaper publisher and a pro-business conservative, Harding's schooling in political issues was as a speaker and in writing editorials. With an easy going nature, he was inclined toward conciliation instead of controversy. Harding recoiled from the Wilson administration's “Palmer raids” against real and suspected radicals and pardoned Socialist Eugene Debs.

Harding was not a party to the corruption in his administration, felt deeply betrayed by it, and acted against it when it came to his attention. In one instance, a visitor came upon Harding throttling his Secretary of Veteran's Affairs in anger at the man's corruption. If Harding had not died in office, he would have cleaned house.

As for Harding's supposed Black lineage, the issue is unresolved.

[R. Scott]

But today, real proof that America has changed since then: only a few diehards openly give a damn that Barack Obama is black.

Yep, but not yet ready to accept a woman for Vice President.
Even as our "esteemed" media were still praising The One and showing amazement that the nation had actually elected a black man to the Presidency (they all seemed to honestly believe we were still a nation of racists) they were still nit picking Sara Palin.
Our media is as misogynistic as they thought we were racist.

[Michael.SF.]

your pre-existing world view, so you discount it out of hand

Please clarify your assumption on my "pre-existing world view".

[AdvisorB]

I agree with you completely. I think that historians have overlooked the record of the Harding Administration. When Harding was elected in the 1920 General Election, America was in the doldrums, coming out of the Great War (WWI). The economy was in the tank, and the economy that Harding inherited was similar to the economy that Ronald Reagan faced some 60 years later.

Harding was a reform Conservative who initiated the Bureau of the Budget in order to get a handle on federal expenditures. He was also courageous in limiting government spending, cutting some one billion dollars in spending during his short time as POTUS, and going so far as to oppose the bonus to the WWI veterans which was a very unpopular thing to do on his part. Yet his selection of Mellon to the Treasury, as you mentioned, and his fiscal hawk stance on federal spending helped put the roar into the Roaring Twenties.

I visited the Harding House in Marion, Ohio last year, and I saw the pictures of the Harding family, and the picture of his paternal grandfather was very interesting. I believe that anyone viewing that picture would conclude that Harding's grandfather was indeed, black. JMHO.

[Retired COB]

How many lynchings do you need before you cross the line from "rare" to "common place"?

If my take on history is correct, most of the lynchings occured as vigilante justice in the old West (you know rustlers, horse thieves, etc) because there was no other recourse. There was a shortage of lawmen and judges and people had to solve problems themselves. My point is that most lynchings weren't Klansmen hanging blacks.

This one kinda reminds me of Bill Clinton's remarks about black churches burning when he was a young man....which turned out not to be true.

[Retired COB]

In the mid 1960s, it was still legal in Texas to shoot someone caught in bed with your wife. No need to even go to court to proclaim it as being “a crime of passion, heat of the moment”. It was an accepted instance of murder (possibly even premeditated).

It was called "The unwritten law", and it wasn't just Texas that accepted it. In some states to get away with it, you had to shoot both of them.

[Charles Henrickson]

I have heard the Harding thing long before BO. But as I look at photos, if WGH had any black blood in him, it must have been very little. The distinctive features (lips, nose, hair, skin tone) are just not there:

[weegee]

A good column to link to this thread...

Larry Elder: Barack Obama Did Not Invent Opportunity (Wednesday, November 5, 2008)

"Does Obama's victory, as a black man, make you feel that you can do anything?" Someone asked me that on Election Night.

It is a caricature of America that, pre-Obama, major obstacles blocked achievement. It is equally a caricature that Obama's win suddenly creates opportunity that did not exist before.

Hard work wins, my Dad always told me...

May 4, 1951

Kirk, my Son, you are now starting out in life – a life that Mother and I cannot live for you.

So as you journey through life, remember it's yours, so make it a good one. Always try to cheer up the other fellow.

Learn to think straight, analyze things, be sure you have all the facts before concluding, and always spendless than you earn.

Make friends, work hard, and play hard. Most important of all, remember this: The best of friends wear out if you use them.

This may sound silly, Son, but no matter where you are on the 29th of September [Kirk's birthday], see that Mother gets a little gift, if possible, along with a big kiss and a broad smile.

When you are out on your own, listen and take advice but do your own thinking and concluding, set up a reasonable goal, then be determined to reach it. You can and will; it's up to you, Son.

Your Father, Randolph Elder

[AmericanVictory]

Now that we have a half-black president, one wonders if we could focus a bit more on the actual statistics of crime between the races, such as they are perceived. It is always puzzling that cries of white persecution and discrimination seem to not only not diminish but increase as the rate of black on white crime increases.

[Rockingham]

From the PBS series American Experience:

"Warren Harding took office promising to undo many of the progressive policies of Woodrow Wilson's administration. Ushering in an era of conservative Republicanism, Harding wasted little time in cutting taxes on higher incomes and raising tariff rates."

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Sounds like a good President to me!

As for Harding's ancestry, pictures are an imperfect guide since many who are indisputably white with Mediterranean lineage can be said to have vaguely Black features in some respect. The better sense of the matter is to recognize that claims of Harding as being of mixed race are of uncertain truth and were generated by his adversaries and widely circulated in a racially charged historical context.

In the 1920 election, Republicans and Harding successfully courted the Black vote with appeals for racial equality and moderation. As President, Harding facilitated two modest reforms of interest to Blacks: anti-lynching legislation and withdrawal of the Marines from Haiti.

An academic essay available online points out that attacks on Harding's lineage were part of a Democratic campaign effort in the 1920 election that deliberately stirred white backlash:

“I believe in equality before the law. You can't give rights to the white man and deny them to the black man. But while I stand for that great, great principle, I do not mean that the white man and the black man must be forced to associate together in the acceptance of their rights.”

Harding address in Oklahoma City, October 9, 1920, as reported in The Daily Oklahoma, October 10, 1920.

"The greatest indignity suffered by Harding in his career was the allegation made during the campaign of 1920 that he had Negro forebears. This was part of the white backlash reactions that were aroused by the moderate concessions made by Harding and the Republicans to the rising Negro-rights movement. To be attacked for racial reasons was not a new experience for either Harding or the Republicans. The whites, especially Democratic ones, had been backlashing ever since anti-slavery days. The Hardings had been punished with "nigger talk" ever since they espoused anti-slavery sentiments in a Democratic section of Ohio in pre-Civil War times. It has been standard treatment in certain sections of society, especially in the Civil War and Reconstruction periods, for Republicans to be called "nigger worshippers" because of their interest in civil rights."

From: NEGRO RIGHTS AND WHITE BACKLASH IN THE CAMPAIGN OF 1920, by RANDOLPH C. DOWNES

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[AdvisorB]

I saw the picture of his paternal grandparents, and the grandfather was black. And I think that any objective observer, having looked at the picture, would conclude the same. I agree that pictures are an imperfect guide, but what I saw, on the wall on the second floor of the Harding house, led me to believe that Warren Harding was of mixed race. Yes, pictures are an imperfect guide, but alas, that is all we have.

And just because the rumors regarding his race, were spread around by his political enemies, including his father-in-law, Amos Kling, who was opposed to his daughter marrying into the Harding family, doesn't mean the rumors were without merit. And Harding, when asked about the rumors of black blood in the Harding family, replied, and I'm paraphrasing, that he didn't know if there was someone in the woodpile somewhere in the Harding lineage.

I appreciated your comments about Harding. I learned a great deal from what you had to say. As you stated, the Harding record on race had some modest achievements, but I think that Harding showed a great deal of courage when he made the famous speech in Birmingham Alabama in 1921, where he called for political and social equality for black people in America. Pointing to the white section of the segregated Woodrow Wilson Park, Harding said, "Whether you like it or not, unless our democracy is a lie, you must stand for equality." That was a pretty gutsy thing to do in the deep south in 1921. So gutsy that the head of the Tuskegee Institute said of Harding's address before the segregated crowd in Birmingham, that Harding's words were the most important utterance on race since Abraham Lincoln.

[Rockingham]

I would have to see the picture and be sure of its authenticity and that the claimed lineage is correct. In the 1920 campaign, rival genealogies for Harding were advanced, and I do not know if historians have settled the issue.

I agree with you about Harding's speech. The 1920’s manifested an early civil rights era. The rise of the “Second Klan”, the Depression, and Democratic rule brought an end to it.