Dead Last: The Public Memory of Warren G. Harding’s Scandalous Legacy (review)

Presidential scholars and other opinion makers consistently rank presidents of the United States based on their performance in office. Historian Arthur Schlesinger, in 1948, was the first to poll scholars, asking them to rank the U.S. presidents in categories from “great” to “failure.” Since that time, such findings have appeared on a regular basis from various sources including Siena College, Time magazine, and CNN. Ohio’s Warren G. Harding, if not always “dead last,” is consistently ranked in the bottom five—clearly a failure. Philip G. Payne, in his new book Dead Last: The Public Memory of Warren G. Harding’s Scandalous Legacy examines the evolution of his subject’s legacy since his death in 1923. The core of Payne’s work is his assessment of how the public remembers the past—most specifically the presidency of Warren G. Harding. The role of the scandals plaguing the Harding administration—ranging from the political intrigue of Teapot Dome to Harding’s own sexual encounters—is significant in shaping the public view of the twenty-ninth president.

When Warren G. Harding ran for president in 1920, he was a virtual unknown to the American electorate. During the election campaign, the construction of the Harding legacy began. His handlers effectively posed him as the inheritor of the log cabin myth; he eventually rose to the highest office in the land. The personable Harding was going to return the nation to “normalcy” following the turmoil of the Great War and the labor and political unrest that ensued at war’s end. When he died in 1923, the interpretation of his reputation began to take a different direction. As the political scandals that marked his administration became public knowledge, Harding’s character came under close scrutiny. It did not take long for historians and the general public to embrace the excoriation of his character, aided by his own personal moral lapses and poor judgment in selecting and defending friends. Payne is not trying to rehabilitate Harding’s reputation but is more interested in answering the question “What does Harding’s reputation mean for the American civic religion and our understanding of the role of the presidency in it?” (2).

Payne believes that many people were responsible for constructing an image of Harding that is part true, part myth, and part conjecture based on flimsy evidence. Professional academic and public historians, Marion civic boosters, journalists, and others all had hands in shaping an image of Harding that has persisted for almost ninety years. Payne begins his examination of the creation of the Harding legacy in his hometown of Marion, Ohio, which played an important role in his rise to the presidency. In the aftermath of Harding’s death, Marion became a symbol of what went wrong with the late president. The small town naïveté that Marion supposedly bred “was blamed both for limiting the political vision of Harding and for his shortcomings” (47).

Payne examines other facets of the Harding legacy, including the rumor that he was part African American as well as, paradoxically, a member of the Ku Klux Klan. His affairs, notably with Carrie Phillips and Nan Britton, along with Britton’s love child purportedly fathered by Harding, also play a large role in how he is remembered and his presidency interpreted. As the author notes, not only is Harding himself the object of such one-dimensional characterizations, but his wife, Florence, is also cast in an unfavorable light. Where he is seen as the charming, naïve, “he-harlot,” she comes off as a shrewish, manipulative, and—quite possibly—her husband’s murderer. Payne also examines how the Harding legacy has continued into our time. In the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, pundits, journalists, and others drew comparisons between these presidents and Harding. With all of this baggage, it is no wonder that a fair and accurate...