The Ohio Gang


Book Description

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.




The Teapot Dome Scandal


Book Description

Mix hundreds of millions of dollars in petroleum reserves; rapacious oil barons and crooked politicians; under-the-table payoffs; murder, suicide, and blackmail; White House cronyism; and the excesses of the Jazz Age. The result: the granddaddy of all American political scandals, Teapot Dome. In The Teapot Dome Scandal, acclaimed author Laton McCartney tells the amazing, complex, and at times ribald story of how Big Oil handpicked Warren G. Harding, an obscure Ohio senator, to serve as our twenty-third president. Harding and his so-called “oil cabinet” made it possible for the oilmen to secure vast oil reserves that had been set aside for use by the U.S. Navy. In exchange, the oilmen paid off senior government officials, bribed newspaper publishers, and covered the GOP campaign debt. When news of the scandal finally emerged, the consequences were disastrous for the nation and for the principles in the plot to bilk the taxpayers: Harding’s administration was hamstrung; Americans’ confidence in their government plummeted; Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall was indicted, convicted, and incarcerated; and others implicated in the affair suffered similarly dire fates. Stonewalling by members of Harding’s circle kept a lid on the story–witnesses developed “faulty” memories or fled the country, and important documents went missing–but contemporary records newly made available to McCartney reveal a shocking, revelatory picture of just how far-reaching the affair was, how high the stakes, and how powerful the conspirators. In giving us a gimlet-eyed but endlessly entertaining portrait of the men and women who made a tempest of Teapot Dome, Laton McCartney again displays his gift for faithfully rendering history with the narrative touch of an accomplished novelist.




A Time of Scandal


Book Description

A look at what really happened in the U.S. Veterans’ Bureau Scandal in the 1920s. In the early 1920s, as the nation recovered from World War I, President Warren G. Harding founded the U.S. Veterans Bureau, now known as the Department of Veterans Affairs, to treat disabled veterans. He appointed his friend, decorated veteran Colonel Charles R. Forbes, as founding director. Forbes lasted only eighteen months in the position before stepping down under a cloud of suspicion. In 1926—after being convicted of conspiracy to defraud the federal government by rigging government contracts—he was sent to Leavenworth Penitentiary. Although he was known in his day as a drunken womanizer, and as a corrupt toady of a weak president, the question persists: was Forbes a criminal or a scapegoat? Historian Rosemary Stevens tells Forbes’s story anew, drawing on previously untapped records to reveal his role in America’s commitment to veterans. She explores how Forbes’s rise and fall in Washington illuminates Harding’s efforts to bring business efficiency to government. She also examines the scandal in the context of class, professionalism, ethics, and etiquette in a rapidly changing world. Most significantly, Stevens proposes a revisionist view of both Forbes and Harding: They did not defraud the government of billions and do not deserve the reputation they have carried for a hundred years. Packed with conniving friends, FBI agents, and rival politicians as well as gamblers, revelers, and wronged wives, A Time of Scandal will appeal to anyone interested in political gossip, presidential politics, the “Ohio Gang,” and the 1920s.




The Ohio Gang


Book Description

An entertaining and immensely readable encapsulation of democracy American-style, The Ohio Gang follows the corruption, scandal and inept leadership behind Warren G. Harding's weak presidency.




The Teapot Dome Scandal


Book Description

Examines the Teapot Dome scandal, describing how the administration of President Warren G. Harding illegally leased government-owned oil reserves and the trial that followed.




Accidental Presidents


Book Description

This New York Times bestselling “deep dive into the terms of eight former presidents is chock-full of political hijinks—and déjà vu” (Vanity Fair) and provides a fascinating look at the men who came to the office without being elected to it, showing how each affected the nation and world. The strength and prestige of the American presidency has waxed and waned since George Washington. Eight men have succeeded to the presidency when the incumbent died in office. In one way or another they vastly changed our history. Only Theodore Roosevelt would have been elected in his own right. Only TR, Truman, Coolidge, and LBJ were re-elected. John Tyler succeeded William Henry Harrison who died 30 days into his term. He was kicked out of his party and became the first president threatened with impeachment. Millard Fillmore succeeded esteemed General Zachary Taylor. He immediately sacked the entire cabinet and delayed an inevitable Civil War by standing with Henry Clay’s compromise of 1850. Andrew Johnson, who succeeded our greatest president, sided with remnants of the Confederacy in Reconstruction. Chester Arthur, the embodiment of the spoils system, was so reviled as James Garfield’s successor that he had to defend himself against plotting Garfield’s assassination; but he reformed the civil service. Theodore Roosevelt broke up the trusts. Calvin Coolidge silently cooled down the Harding scandals and preserved the White House for the Republican Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression. Harry Truman surprised everybody when he succeeded the great FDR and proved an able and accomplished president. Lyndon B. Johnson was named to deliver Texas electorally. He led the nation forward on Civil Rights but failed on Vietnam. Accidental Presidents shows that “history unfolds in death as well as in life” (The Wall Street Journal) and adds immeasurably to our understanding of the power and limits of the American presidency in critical times.




World's Greatest True Crime


Book Description




Organized Crime and American Power


Book Description

Historisch overzicht van de samenhang en wederzijdse beïnvloeding van de georganiseerde misdaad en de politiek in de Verenigde Staten.




The Ohio Presidents


Book Description

Ohio sent eight presidents to the White House--one Whig and seven Republicans--from 1841 to 1923: William Harrison, U.S. Grant, Rutherford Hayes, James Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, William Taft and Warren Harding. Collectively their social policies and beliefs formed a unified philosophy and legacy. Ohio republicanism--an alliance of Christianity, populism, nationalism, industrialism and conservative economics--dominated politics across America from 1860 to 1930. Initially several factions in search of a party, it morphed from the anti-slavery Whig Party of Abraham Lincoln and swallowed up a group of single-issue parties, including the Abolition and Free Soil parties, under a national banner. The ghost of Ohio republicanism can still be seen today.




Warren G. Harding


Book Description

Examines the life of Warren G. Harding from his birth in Ohio to his time as twenty-ninth president of the United States and death in office.