The Ohio Gang: The World of Warren G. Harding

by Charles L. Mee Jr.

When Warren G. Harding was elected president in 1920, he brought to Washington some of his political chums from Ohio. They played poker; they sold illegal liquor permits, pardons and paroles. They sold fixes in the Justice Department and transported contraband across state lines. They sold naval oil reserves at Teapot Dome and sheets out of Army warehouses.

The Ohio Gang, an historical entertainment peopled with the characters of the day, follows Harding and his cronies from their Ohio childhoods to the smoke-filled rooms of the Republican convention and on to the White House. We meet Henry Daugherty, the attorney general with the disconcerting eyes; Jess Smith, tall and pigeon-toed; Nan Britton, the teenage girl who fell in love with Harding’s campaign posters and who later became his mistress and mother to his illegitimate daughter; and America’s first lady, the Duchess. Following the antics of the president and his administration, The Ohio Gang concludes with Harding’s whistle-stop tour of the country—his final, despairing attempt to keep his presidency from coming undone.

An entertaining and immensely readable encapsulation of democracy American-style, The Ohio Gang is an historical tour de force in which the presidency is seen as a traveling medicine show.

Genres: History, Politics, Presidents, Biography, Nonfiction, Us Presidents, American History

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

Charles L. Mee is an American playwright, historian and author known for his collage-like style of playwriting, which makes use of radical reconstructions of found texts. He is also a professor of theater at Columbia University. (Source: Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Lance Carney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Warren Gamaliel Harding. His name is almost musical (okay, it was in a song by Al Stewart of Year of the Cat fame). The 29th President of the United States, during the Roaring Twenties, and his Ohio cronies he brought with him to Washington (The Ohio Gang) certainly made a mess of things. Corruption, kickbacks, shady deals where the participants thought they were doing no wrong-all from the gang. How much Warren G. knew was debatable in the book. Maybe that's because he was too busy with marital infedelity. While the quantity was not on par with say, Don Draper of Mad Men, he did have an affair with a married woman well before the presidency and an unmarried woman before and during the presidency. He also had a secret child with the second woman. When his wife found out and the hammer fell on his cronies for their deeds, Warren G. promptly died in office (giving us Calvin Coolidge-thanks a lot).

The Ohio Gang: The World of Warren G. Harding was a short, choppy book with too short chapters where I often tried to figure out what was going on. But the subjects were certainly fascinating.

[Linda · Rating 2 out of 5]

A poorly written account of the scandals of the Harding administration. No dates until Hardingn dies at the end. Lacks cohesion. Does include a fair amount of pictures. I want to find a better written book about this administration.

[Neil Pierson · Rating 1 out of 5]

You weren't going to read this anyway. You were right.

President Warren G. Harding didn't ask a lot of questions. Mostly he played poker and consorted with his dimwitted mistress. When poker and consorting got to be too stressful, he played golf.

His lack of curiosity enabled members of his administration, including the Attorney General and the Secretary of the Interior, to steal everything that wasn't bolted down. The Teapot Dome scandal, where private oil companies helped themselves to the country's naval oil reserve, was one example.

Like Mr. Harding, the author didn't ask many questions. Instead, he read books by people who actually did some research, then rephrased their work. The book is a series of examples of who bribed whom and who kickbacked (?) whom. Look somewhere else for insights.

Perhaps the subtitle, "An Historical Entertainment," is supposed to excuse this lazy book. It has about as much entertainment value a stack of newspaper clippings about shoplifting at Wal-Mart.

[John Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Better of two recent books I bought at the Springfield antique store on Harding. While it was not that well written, with chapters that were super short and making it choppier that would be nice, I did learn more about this unique gentleman who became our president. The historian who penned this book focused on Nan more than those in the other books on Harding. He claimed that Harding’s wife had a FBI chief who worked for her husband investigate if the two had an affair, learning that he did – and that he had a baby with Nan. The author claimed that Mrs. Harding was shocked and confronted her husband shortly before he died. He exploded, saying he never loved her.

The book focused on his poor cabinet, highlighting the work and opinions of his Attorney General, Harry Daugherty. What was especially interesting is how Daugherty felt that the 600,000 mineworkers striking was a a Soviet plot. Daugherty traveled to Chicago and convinced the judge to issue an injunction that enjoined union members from exercising all kinds of constitutional rights. Within 48 hours, the strike was crushed. The mineworkers used other means to secure a settlement, but not a good one. Surprising when the Attorney General returned to the White House, his fellow cabinet members were upset with his heavy-handed treatment, including – get this – Hoover; he was worried about the civil liberties.

There was also a more detailed story about the release of Eugene Debs. Harding was moved by the letter writing campaign, including a personal appeal to him by a guy who had worked at his newspaper when he was younger. The author points out that “of all those jailed during the war, 13,735 had already been released.” Only a few hundred remained in the United States, including Debs, while other allies, like Britain, Italy, and Belgium, had released their prisoners.
Harding ordered his Attorney General to meet with Debs and get an idea if he would be dangerous. They sent Debs to the White House without security and the two gentlemen had a surprisingly powerful discussion – and a very long one leading to a lunch break so Daugherty could meet someone for lunch and Debs ordered out then they joined again to finish their discussion. Even after such a discussion, Daugherty was against allowing the political prison to be released.

As the campaign to release Debs hit hard, Harding decided to release him on Christmas Eve. Daugherty opposed it, saying he should at least wait until the New Year. Harding wanted Debs to be able to spend Christmas with his family. He only asked that Debs stop by at the White House for a one-on-one meeting, something that helped the president to look better in the eyes of progressives and labor supporters.

1919 had been a year of workers rising up. The book points out that 35,000 dress and shirtwaist makers struck, shipbuilders in Seattle, a threat of 86,000 packers, a strike of 30,000 cigar makers in NYC, 30,000 more construction workers in Chicago, and others: streetcar and subway workers in Boston and Chicago, New England railroad shopmen, Chicago steelworkers, and Boston police.
The end of his life comes very quickly in this book. The book did follow up with the Ohio gang and briefly talked about what happened to them in pretty straight forward, fairly boring ways.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a deep scholarly work, but a brisk and well written narrative of the corruption surrounding Warren Harding‘s administration. Makes for fascinating, if slightly sickening, reading. Quite an era in American history.

[Senath Rankin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disjointed. Focused mostly on sensational aspects of certain characters without a relevant or overarching theme or point to the book.

[Mark Bunch · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very easy read. If you want to learn about President Warren Harding, the newspaper man, this man be the ticket. I enjoyed the 3 and 4 page chapters. Much easier read then most.

[Kristen · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you run across this in in a thrift store, skip it.

[YourLovelyMan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part of an ongoing project to read one book on each US President, this one on Warren Harding.

Not many books have been written about Warren Harding. The Shadow of Blooming Grove is said to be the standard, but it's not easy to find or reputedly an enjoyable read, and at over 600 pages I felt like it would be too much for the Harding chapter. The Ohio Gang is 256 pages and written to be informative and entertaining. Thoughts:

It is certainly entertaining. The book begins by describing some of the poker players in Harding's circle (his so-called "Ohio Gang") before going into his biographical details. It touches on every major event of his Presidency, although not in comprehensive detail.

Harding's penchant for dirty dealing, womanizing, and gambling are apparent throughout. The chapters are titled for the disasters that follow: "Bribery and Corruption" is one; "Things Get Out of Hand" is another. You get the impression that his cabinet members are more to blame for the dirty deals, many of which were done behind his back. But you don't feel particularly sorry for him, as he either benefits or turns a blind eye.

Some of the parallels to our situation today are compelling. I previously read and wrote about Wilson, the Democrat whose globalist legacy was stunted by the Republican Harding's nationalist agenda. But it goes deeper, as we get into the oil heads appointed to Harding's cabinet and some of the deals they brokered:

It turned out [American oil businessman] Sinclair was after a lease on the oil lands in he southern half of the Soviet Union's Sakhalin Island.

[Secretary of the Interior] Fall would go, he telegraphed...Sinclair, Fall, and Archibald Roosevelt set off for Moscow. They negotiated an agreement without a hitch, almost overnight, for an awesome amount of Russian oil. They signed the contract and returned to New York at once in the highest of spirits.

There was only one hitch to the agreement. The Russians had made a strange stipulation: within five years of the date of the contract, the United States must recognize the Soviet Union. All Sinclair, Fall, and Roosevelt needed to do was to alter the foreign policy of the United States, and they stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars.

Fall did not lose a moment in starting to work. When his ship docked in New York, the secretary was greeted by newspaper reporters. How had he liked Russia? The Soviet Union, he declared, was not as bad as it had been painted [during the first red scare]. In fact, he said, we look forward to the day that the Soviet Union is recognized by the US.

Fall and Sinclair both later went to jail for Teapot Dome, a domestic oil scandal that is now synonymous with Harding's Presidency.

Recommended if you're interested in Harding and the 1920s but don't want a dry scholarly work on the subject.

[rmn · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quick and interesting read about Warren Harding and the people with whom he surrounded himself. The author paints Harding as an affable enough guy who was happy to please his political party, enjoyed gambling and fraternizing, and was unable to say no (especially to Nan Britton with whom he had an affair and an illegitimate child). He was kind of an accidental President who managed to get ahead by being milquetoast enough to let his party's good old boy network pull the strings and enrich themselves.

The book deals little with Harding's actual policies or accomplishments while in office, rather it focuses on the people surrounding Harding as well as Harding's rise to the presidency and his affairs. Whether Harding knew of all the graft going on among his appointees during his Presidency is questionable, but his associates seemed to have free reign to do as they pleased within the government so he was either guilty of knowing too much or guilty of knowing too little.

[Collins Roth · Rating 4 out of 5]

If all history were written like this, we would all read a lot more history!

This is quick, fun read focused on the unraveling of the Harding Presidency at the hands of various nefarious characters that made up Harding's entourage. The writing style is short and punchy. Rarely do you laugh aloud in a work of presidential history, but it happens more than a few times in this book.

While perhaps not a scholarly work, it is a fund read with a strong view of Harding as an affable man, hoisted to the presidency by machine politics, and eventually eaten alive by that very same machine.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

This true story of these despicable characters took place nearly 100 years ago yet it could probably be placed in current times with current political figures. Actually, I have to say I am still amazed at the depth of corruption and the near total lack of scruples by individuals who held the public's trust. Difficult to conclude whether Harding was as corrupt as he was ineffective. He didn't seem to gain much financially from the enormous amount of money that his appointees and colleagues managed to swindle and extort.

[Mark Bunch · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Teapot Dome tribe at work. I enjoyed this fast read historical read. The style-very short 3 and 4 page chapters led to a very enjoyable read. If you want to understand Warren Harding, the newspaper man turned major pol0this one is it.

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

The funniest work of history I've ever read.

[Paul Petersen · Rating 1 out of 5]

not really a history book not really fiction. no real reason to read it as I was unsure what was hard fact

[Dave Carter]

Weird book. but, I couldn't find any in-depth bio of Harding.