670 Chapter 25 From “Normalcy” to Economic Collapse: 1921–1933
Although the three culpritsin theTeapot Dome
scandalescaped conviction on the charge of conspir-
ing to defraud the government, Sinclair was sentenced
to nine monthsinjail for contempt of the Senate and
for tampering with ajury, and Fall was fined $100,000
and given a yearinprison for acceptingabribe.In
1927 the Supreme Court revoked the leases and the
two reserves were returned to the government.
The public still knew little of the scandals when, in
June 1923, Harding left Washington on a speaking
tour that included a visit to Alaska. His health was poor
and his spirits low, for he had begun to understand how
his “Goddamn friends” had betrayed him. On the
return trip from Alaska, he came down with what his
physician, an incompetent crony whom he had made
surgeon general of the United States, diagnosed as
ptomaine poisoning resulting from his having eaten a
tainted Japanese crab. In fact the president had suffered
a heart attack. He died in San Francisco on August 2.
Few presidents have been more deeply mourned by
the people at the moment of their passing. Harding’s
kindly nature, his very ordinariness, increased his
human appeal. Three million people viewed his coffin
as it passed across the country. When the scandals
came to light, sadness turned to scorn and contempt.
The poet E. E. Cummings came closer to catching the
final judgment of Harding’s contemporaries than has
any historian:
the first president to be loved by his
“bitterest enemies” is dead
the only man woman or child who wrote
a simple declarative sentence with seven grammatical
errors “is dead”
beautiful Warren Gamaliel Harding
“is” dead
he’s
“dead”
if he wouldn’t have eaten them Yapanese Craps
somebody might hardly never not have been
unsorry, perhaps
Source: “the first president to be loved by his.” Copyright 1931, © 1959,
1991 by the Trustees for the E. E. Cummings Trust. Copyright © 1979
by George James Firmage, from Complete Poems: 1904–1962by
E. E. Cummings, edited by George J. Firmage. Used by permission of
Liveright Publishing Corporation.Coolidge Prosperity
Had he lived, Harding might well have been defeated
in 1924 because of the scandals. Vice President
Coolidge, unconnected with the troubles and not the
type to surround himself with cronies of any kind,
seemed the ideal person to clean out the corrupt offi-
cials. Coolidge was a taciturn, extremely conservative
New Englander with a long record in Massachusetts
politics climaxed by his inept but much admired sup-
pression of the Boston police strike while governor.
Harding had referred to him as “that little fellow
from Massachusetts.” Coolidge preferred to follow
public opinion and hope for the best.
Coolidge defused his predecessor’s scandals by
replacing Harding’s Attorney General Daugherty
with Harlan Fiske Stone, dean of the Columbia
University Law School. Soon Coolidge became the
darling of the conservatives. His admiration for busi-
nessmen and his devotion to laissez-faire knew no
limit. “The man who builds a factory builds a tem-
ple,” he said in all seriousness. “The Government can
do more to remedy the economic ills of the people by
a system of rigid economy in public expenditures than
can be accomplished through any other action.”
Andrew Mellon, whom he kept on as secretary of the
Treasury, became his mentor in economic affairs.
Coolidge won the 1924 Republican nomination
easily. The Democrats, badly split, required 103 ballots
to choose a candidate. The southern wing, dry, anti-
immigrant, pro-Klan, had fixed on William G. McAdoo,
Wilson’s secretary of the Treasury. The eastern, urban,
wet element supported Governor Alfred E. Smith of
New York, child of the slums, a Catholic who had com-
piled a distinguished record in social welfare legislation.
After days of futile politicking, the party compromised
on John W. Davis, a conservative corporation lawyer
closely allied with the Morgan banking interests.
Dismayed by the conservatism of Coolidge and
Davis, Robert M. La Follette, backed by the farmCalvin Coolidge’s quiet presidential style was a sharp contrast to the
outspoken Warren Harding. When Coolidge died in 1933, humorist
Dorothy Parker remarked, “How could they tell?”