Warren G. Harding

. In order of percentage stake:. Thomas Carter was a famous stage magician in the early part of the 1900's, and the book offers a fascinating alternate explaination for the death of Warren Harding. This includes some of the companies where a Berkshire Hathaway stake is 5% or more of the outstanding stock, as reported in the last proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the latest annual report. President Harding and his wife both appear in fictional form as supporting characters in the novel Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold. Main article: List of assets owned by Berkshire Hathaway. Harding County, New Mexico is named in his honor. .

Now Elizabeth Ann Blaesing, Nan Britton's daughter has been a resident of California for most of her life and was still living as of 2002. The sure outcome: a multitude of investors destined to be disappointed.". Christian, who adopted Elizabeth Ann. They would be sold by brokers working for big commissions, would impose other burdensome costs on their shareholders, and would be marketed en masse to unsophisticated buyers, apt to be seduced by our past record and beguiled by the publicity Berkshire and I have received in recent years. Britton married a Mr. "The unit trusts that have recently surfaced fly in the face of these goals. Under cross-examination by the Harding heirs' attorney, Grant Mouser (a former member of Congress himself), Britton's testimony was riddled with inconsistencies, and she lost her case. As Buffett said in his 1995 shareholder letter:.

Harding on behalf of Elizabeth Ann. Buffett was reluctant to create the Class B shares, but did so to thwart the creation of unit trusts that would have marketed themselves as Berkshire look-alikes. Following Harding's death, Nan Britton unsuccessfully sued the estate of Warren G. Holders of Class A stock are allowed to convert their stock to Class B, though not vice versa. Harding and Britton, according to unsubstantiated reports, continued their affair while he was President, using a closet adjacent to the Oval Office for privacy. However, Berkshire Hathaway has created a Class B stock, with a price set to 1/30 of that of the original shares (now Class A) but 1/200 of the per-share voting rights. Harding never met Nan's daughter, but paid large amounts of child support. Each share is thus worth tens of thousands of dollars.

According to Nan's kiss-and-tell book The President's Daughter, published after Harding's death, she and Senator Harding conceived "their" daughter, Elizabeth Ann, in January 1919 in his Senate office. Berkshire Hathaway is notable in that it never allows its shares to split. Nan's obsession with Harding started at an early age when she began pasting pictures of then-Senator Harding on her bedroom walls. Berkshire's Vice-Chairman Charlie Munger also holds a stake big enough for him to be considered a billionaire in his own right. Britton of Marion. As of 2005, Buffett owns 38% of Berkshire Hathaway. Phillips, Harding also reportedly had an affair with Nan Britton, the daughter of Harding's late friend, a Dr. It has been called the "Capitalist Woodstock".

Besides Mrs. Berkshire Hathaway holds yearly meetings that are heavily attended by these investors, many of them families. The Harding-Phillips love letters remain under an Ohio court protective order that expires in 2024, after which the content of the letters may be published and/or reviewed. Although Buffett retains a controlling stake in the company, it has thousands of shareholders, and these investors often are very interested and involved in the running of the business. Russell in turn left quoted passages from the letters as blank passages in protest against the Harding heirs' actions. However, many of the investments Buffett made were spectacularly successful, especially in the 1980s and 1990s. Phillips were confiscated at the request of the Harding heirs, who requested and received a court injunction prohibiting their inclusion in Francis Russell's book, The Shadow of Blooming Grove. Formerly a textile company, it was taken over by Warren Buffett in the 1960s, but its textile venture did not succeed.

The letters Harding wrote to Mrs. In 1998 Berkshire Hathaway purchased Dairy Queen. Phillips also received monthly payments thereafter, becoming the first and only person known to have successfully extorted money from a major political party. Brown shoes; The Buffalo News; Benjamin Moore paints; clothing manufacturer Fruit of the Loom; vacuum cleaner manufacturer Kirby Corporation; and several insurance companies such as GEICO and General Re. Mrs. Berkshire Affiliates include Borsheim's Fine Jewelry, an enormous Omaha jewelry store; Nebraska Furniture Mart; The Pampered Chef; See's Candies; Helzberg Diamonds stores; H.H. To reduce the likelihood of a scandal breaking, the Republican National Committee sent Carrie and her family on a trip to Japan and paid them over $50,000. Berkshire Hathaway NYSE: BRKa is a company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, USA, that oversees and manages a number of subsidiary companies.

Once they learned of the affair, it was too late to find another nominee. Coca-Cola (8.3%). When Harding won the Republican presidential nomination in 1920, he did not disclose the relationship to party officials. H&R Block (8.7%). Phillips threatened to go public with their affair if the Senator supported the war, but Harding defied her and voted for war, and Carrie did not reveal the scandal to the world. The Gillette Company (9.5%). Mrs. American Express (12.1%).

Harding was now an Ohio Senator, and a vote was coming up on a declaration of war against Germany. Moody’s Corporation (16.2%). and the affair reignited. The Washington Post Company (18.1%). Phillips moved back to the U.S. NetJets. However, as the United States became increasingly likely to be drawn into World War I, Mrs. World Book.

When he refused, she left her husband and moved to Berlin with her daughter Isabel. See's Candies. By 1915, she began pressing Harding to leave his wife. The Pampered Chef. Phillips was ten years younger than Harding. Nebraska Furniture Mart. Mrs. Fruit of the Loom.

Phillips, who was then the wife of his friend James Phillips, owner of the local department store, the Uhler-Phillips Company. Dairy Queen. Russell persuaded her to relent, and the letters showed conclusively that Harding had a 15-year relationship with Mrs. Borsheim's Fine Jewelry. Phillips kept the letters in a box in a closet and was reluctant to share them. Wesco Financial Corporation. The letters were in the possession of Harding's one true love, Carrie Fulton Phillips, who by the 1960s was very elderly. National Indemnity Company.

However, their existence was not confirmed until author Francis Russell gained access to them during his research for his book, The Shadow of Blooming Grove. Kansas Bankers Surety Insurance Company. Rumors of the Harding love letters circulated through Marion, Ohio for many years. Geico. Carrie Fulton Phillips; he was also rumored to have had an affair with Miss Nan Britton, though information for this comes mostly from her book, written after his death. General Re. What is known, and has been recorded in primary documents, is that during his lifetime, Harding had an affair with Mrs. Total shareholders’ equity at the end of 2004: $85,900 million.

Many self-appointed experts on Harding's infidelities base their suppositions on innuendo, speculation, and stories that swirled around the President following his death. Common stock investments market value at the end of 2004: $37,717 million. "I have no trouble with my enemies, but my damn friends, they're the ones that keep me walking the floor nights.". "My God, this is a hell of a job!" Harding said. No evidence to date suggests that Harding personally profited from these crimes, but he was apparently unable to stop them.

Charles Cramer, an aide to Charles Forbes, also committed suicide. He was convicted of fraud and bribery and drew a two-year sentence. Charles Forbes, Director of the Veterans Bureau, skimmed profits, earned fat kickbacks, and ran alcohol and drugs. Jess Smith, personal aide to the Attorney General, destroyed papers and then committed suicide.

Thomas Miller, head of the Office of Alien Property, was convicted of accepting bribes. In 1931 Fall became the first member of a Cabinet to be sent to prison. Fall, who was eventually convicted of covertly leasing public oil fields to business associates in exchange for personal loans. The scandal involved Secretary of the Interior Albert B.

The most infamous scandal of the time was the Teapot Dome affair, which shook the nation for years after Harding's death. Corruption was rampant throughout Harding's administration, though it is uncertain how much Harding himself knew about his friends' illicit activities. Known as the "Ohio Gang" (a misleading term used by Charles Mee, Jr., for his book of the same name), some of the appointees used their new powers to rob the government. Upon winning the election, Harding placed many of his old allies and cronies in prominent political positions.

With the release in the 1960s of Francis Russell's The Shadow of Blooming Grove, the specter of Harding's mixed blood was again raised and, lacking factual sources, quickly put down as innuendo. Harding's 1923 California-issued death certificate also indicates nothing to suggest Chancellor's theories were accepted as fact. Furthermore, Chancellor's theories find no basis in Federal Census Records, nor in probate court records. The claim is also impossible to verify through public records in Ohio; Harding was born in 1865, and the state of Ohio did not require registration or recording of births until 1867.

Furthermore, there has never been a test of Harding's DNA. In fact, so few copies of his book exist—one of five known copies is owned by a private book collector in Marion, Ohio—that its availability to modern scholars is limited at best. Chancellor's work never provided clear indications of his sources, or his proof. There is no scientific or legal basis for these arguments.

Those who hold to the theory of mixed race do so without proof, often relying on the research of William Estabrook Chancellor for details of Harding's supposed African-American lineage. Eventually the Hardings and Klings reconciled, but the rumors persisted. Kling got his comeuppance when his daughter Florence Kling DeWolfe married Harding. Among those spreading the rumor was Amos Kling, one of Marion's wealthiest citizens, who detested Harding and his newspaper, The Marion Daily Star.

Harding's detractors began using the damaging rumor of his alleged negro ancestry against him in the 1880s, early in his political career. The theories advanced by Means—who had previously been imprisoned for his suspect activities while an FBI agent—have never been proven; they remain as speculative as they were sensational. In 1933, an exposé in Liberty magazine denounced Means as a fraud who used a ghost writer for The Strange Death of President Harding. Harding poisoned the President, a rumor that has clouded the facts of Harding's death and heart condition.

Means claimed it was possible that Mrs. In 1930, a former private investigator named Gaston Means wrote the exploitative book, The Strange Death of President Harding, in which he suggested many people had motives to murder the President, including his wife. The lapse between the final interment and the dedication was due in part to the aftermath of the Teapot Dome scandal. Both bodies were moved in December 1927 to the newly completed Harding Memorial in Marion, which was dedicated by President Herbert Hoover in 1931.

Harding's death in November 1924, she too was temporarily buried next to her husband. Following Mrs. Harding was entombed in the receiving vault of the Marion Cemetery, Marion, Ohio, in August 1923. Harding at this time was: "They can't hurt you now, Warren.".

The most commonly reported (though never verified) remark attributed to Mrs. Harding speak for more than an hour to the face of her dead husband. White House employees at the time were quoted as saying that the night before the funeral, they heard Mrs. Following his death, Harding's body was returned to Washington, where it was placed in the Gold Room of the White House pending a state funeral at the United States Capitol.

Harding was succeeded by his Vice President, Calvin Coolidge, who was sworn in by his father, a Justice of the Peace, in Plymouth Notch, Vermont. Sawyer's medical qualifications were also called into question. Harding refused permission for an autopsy, which soon led to speculation that the President had been the victim of a plot. Upon Sawyer's recommendation, Mrs.

Charles Sawyer, the Surgeon General, who was traveling with the presidential party. Naval physicians surmised that he had suffered a heart attack; however, this diagnosis was not made by Dr. on August 2, 1923 at age 57. Harding died of either a heart attack or a stroke at 7:35 p.m.

Arriving at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, he developed pneumonia. At the end of July, while traveling south from Alaska, he developed what was thought to be a severe case of food poisoning. Rumors of corruption in his administration were beginning to circulate in Washington by this time, and Harding was profoundly shocked by a long message he received while in Alaska, apparently detailing illegal activities previously unknown to him. During this trip, he became the first President to visit Alaska.

In June of 1923, Harding set out on a cross-country "Voyage of Understanding," planning to meet ordinary people and explain his policies. Harding appointed the following justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:.
. Both President Harding and his wife were extremely popular during their tenure in the White House.

Wallace, the future Cabinet Secretary, Vice President and 1948 progressive presidential candidate. Wallace was the father of Henry A. Wallace. Weeks, Postmaster General Will Hays, and Secretary of Agriculture Henry C.

Despite the reputation that later clung to him, Harding did appoint several men to his Cabinet who rose to personal prominence later, including especially Hughes, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, Secretary of War John W. He attended baseball games regularly. senator from Ohio he had voted for Prohibition, Harding kept the White House well stocked with bootleg liquor. Although as a U.S.

As President, Harding played both golf (in season) and poker twice a week. "This is not the American way.". "Nothing can be gained by blinking our eyes to this problem," Harding stated. Harding also called for the equal access to politics, business and education for all Americans.

In his speech, given at the Capitol park, Harding stated that lynching had become an international problem, and that it violated the rights of "negro Americans". President to advocate the rights of blacks while on southern soil. On October 26, 1921, Harding delivered a speech while on a trip to Birmingham, Alabama, making him the first U.S. In a special session of Congress shortly after his inaugaration he called for retrenchment of government, low taxes, repeal of the wartime excise tax, reduction of railroad rates, a great merchant marine, a Public Welfare Department (realized in 1953 as the U.S Health, Education and Welfare Department), a national budget system and promotion of agricultural interests.

Harding was also able to bring the reality of an eight-hour work day to millions of Americans (which happened some days after his death). Congress, and the General Accounting Office to audit government expenditures. Also notable was the establishment of the Bureau of the Budget (now the Office of Management and Budget), which increased the powers of the President by directing departmental spending plans to him rather than to the U.S. One important event, however, was the Washington Naval Conference of 1921-1922, which at Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes' instigation limited the size of navies and reduced tension between the US, the UK and Japan in the Pacific.

Throughout his administration, Harding adopted laissez-faire policies, and there are few lasting achievements to his name. Debs, campaigning from Federal prison, received 3 percent of the national vote. Socialist Eugene V. Cox received 36 percent of the national vote and 127 electoral votes.

Harding received 61 percent of the national vote and 404 electoral votes, an unprecedented margin of victory. The milestone election of 1920 was the first in which women could vote nationwide. These rumors, perhaps based on no more than local Ohio gossip, were circulated by William Estabrook Chancellor. In response, Harding's campaign manager said, "No family in the state [of Ohio] has a clearer, a more honorable record than the Hardings, a blue-eyed stock from New England and Pennsylvania, the finest pioneer blood." To a friend, however, Harding confided that one of his ancestors may have "jumped the fence," though Harding himself was never certain whether or not this was true.

During the campaign, rumors were spread by persons (unaffiliated with the Cox campaign) that Harding's great-great-grandfather was a West Indian black and that other blacks lurked in his family tree (see Scandals, below). However, it was Harding's support for women's suffrage in the Senate that made him extremely popular with women: the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution in August 1920 brought huge crowds of women to Marion, Ohio to hear Harding. Considered handsome, Harding photographed well compared to Cox. The campaign also drew upon Harding's popularity with women.

Harding even went so far as to coach her husband on the proper way to wave to newsreel cameras to make the most of coverage. Mrs. She cultivated the relationship between the campaign and the press; as the business manager of the Star, she understood reporters and their industry and played to their needs by making herself freely available to answer questions, pose for pictures or deliver home cooked food from her kitchen to the press office, a bungalow she had constructed at the rear of their property in Marion. The campaign owed a great deal to Florence Harding, who played perhaps a more active role than any previous candidate's wife in a Presidential race.

From the onset of the campaign until the November election, over 600,000 people traveled to Marion to participate. Business icons Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and Harvey Firestone also lent their cachet to the Front Porch Campaign. Al Jolson, Lillian Russell, Douglas Fairbanks, and Mary Pickford were among the luminaries to make the pilgrimage to central Ohio. Not only was it the first campaign to be heavily covered by the press, and to receive widespread newsreel coverage, but it was also the first modern campaign to use the power of Hollywood and Broadway stars who traveled to Marion for photo opportunities with Harding and his wife.

Harding's "front porch campaign" during the late summer and fall of 1920 captured the imagination of the country. Harding ran on a promise to "Return to Normalcy," a term he coined, which reflected three trends of his time: a renewed isolationism in reaction to World War I, a resurgence of nativism, and a turning away from the government activism of the reform era. The election was seen in part as a referendum on whether to continue with the progressive work of the Woodrow Wilson administration or to revert to the laissez-faire approach of the William McKinley era. Roosevelt.

Cox, whose vice presidential candidate was Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. In the 1920 election, Harding ran against Democrat Ohio Governor James M. There is controversial and disputed evidence that Harding was himself a Klan member. Harding's newlywed brother Vetallis ("Tal") Kling and his bride Elnora ("Nona") Younkins-Hinaman also received a all expenses-paid tour of Europe from the Hardings; the bride was a Catholic widow, and the marriage performed in the Catholic Church at a time when Catholics were viewed as a liability in American politics and the recently revived Ku Klux Klan, anti-Catholic as well as anti-black and anti-Jewish, was rapidly becoming popular in the Midwest.

Mrs. Phillips and her family received an extended tour of Asia courtesy of the Republican Party in exchange for her silence. Harding answered "No" and the Party moved to nominate him, only to discover later his relationship with Carrie Fulton Phillips. His formal education was limited, he had a longstanding affair with the wife of an old friend, and was a social drinker.

Before receiving the nomination, he was asked whether there were any embarrassing episodes in his past that might be used against him. A relative unknown outside his own state, Harding was a true "dark horse" candidate, winning the Republican Party nomination due to the political machinations of his friends after the nominating convention had become deadlocked. He made a speech opposing this and had a recording made of it. This was a proposal of President Woodrow Wilson that would later be The United Nations.

Harding was a strong opponent of the League Of Nations. Among them was the vote to send the 19th Amendment (granting Women's Suffrage) to the states for ratification, a measure he had supported. As with his first term as Senator, Harding had a relatively undistinguished record, missing over two-thirds of the roll-call votes. Re-entering politics five years later, Harding lost a race for governor in 1910, but won election to the United States Senate in 1914, serving from 1915 until his inauguration on March 4, 1921, having earned the distinction of becoming the first sitting Senator to be elected President.

At the conclusion of his term as Lieutenant Governor Harding returned to private life. His leanings were conservative, his record in both offices relatively undistinguished. He served four years before being elected Lieutenant Governor of Ohio, a post he occupied from 1903 to 1905. As an influential newspaper publisher with a flair for public speaking, Harding was elected to the Ohio State Senate in 1899.

& A.M., Marion, Ohio. 70, F. He was raised to the Sublime Degree of a Master Mason on August 27, 1920, in Marion Lodge No. Harding was also a member of the Freemasons.

Florence's drive has been credited with helping Harding to achieve greater things than he could have done alone, leading to speculation that she later pushed him all the way to the White House. Thomas, who ran for President on the Socialist ticket, often credited his work ethic to Florence Harding, whom he remembered fondly in his recollections of life in Marion. One of the Hardings' paperboys at the Star was the young Norman Thomas, son of the city's Presbyterian Church minister, who later became a noted journalist and socialist leader in New York City. Florence Harding inherited her father's determination and business sense, and turned the Marion Daily Star into a profitable business.

While the marriage was not one of full-blown passions, the couple complemented one another, Harding's affable personality balancing his wife's no-nonsense approach to life. He opposed the marriage vigorously and would not speak to his daughter or son-in-law for eight years. Upon hearing that his only daughter intended to marry Harding, Kling cut her completely out of the family and even forbade his wife to attend her wedding. Florence's father was Harding's nemesis, Amos Kling.

Five years older than Harding, she had pursued him persistently, until he reluctantly surrendered and proposed. In 1891, Harding married Florence Mabel Kling DeWolfe, a divorcee and the mother of one son. He spent his days boosting the community on the editorial pages, and his evenings "bloviating" (Harding's term for informal conversation) with his friends over games of poker. He traveled to Battle Creek, Michigan to spend several weeks in a sanitarium regaining his strength, later returning to Marion to continue operating the Star.

In 1889, when Harding was 24, he suffered exhaustion and nervous fatigue. While Harding won the war of words and made the Daily Star the biggest newspaper in Marion, the battle took a toll on his health. When Harding moved to unseat the Marion Independent as the official paper of daily record, his actions brought the wrath of Amos Kling, one of Marion's wealthiest real estate speculators, down upon him. However, Harding's political stance was at odds with those who controlled most of Marion's local politics.

Harding converted the paper's editorial platform to support the Republicans and enjoyed a moderate degree of success. It was the weakest of Marion's three newspapers and the only daily in the growing city. After graduation, Harding moved to Marion, where he raised $300 with two friends to purchase the failing Marion Daily Star. Harding's education was completed at Ohio Central College (later Muskingum College) in Iberia.

While a teenager, the Harding family moved to Caledonia in neighboring Marion County when Harding's father acquired The Argus, a local weekly newspaper, where Harding learned the basics of the newspaper business. His mother was a midwife who later obtained her medical license. His boyhood heroes were Alexander Hamilton and Napoleon. George Harding and Phoebe Dickerson Harding.

Harding was the oldest of the eight children of Dr. Harding was born on November 2, 1865, near Corsica, Ohio (now Blooming Grove) in Morrow County. . Harding was basically "a good President.".

Ferrell, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at Indiana University and a leading scholar on the presidency, has concluded that Warren G. Robert H. With the passage of time, Harding's place in history is being reconsidered. He was succeeded by Vice President Calvin Coolidge.

However, medical scholars now believe that Harding died of end stage heart disease. The cause of death was first said to have been food poisoning, then changed to apoloxy(stroke). While on the final leg of a western states and the Alaska Territory, Harding died in San Francisco, California, 27 months into his term. He adopted hands-off laissez-faire policies both on economic and social policy.

Cox in a landslide, 60.36 to 34.19 percent (404 to 127 in the electoral college). In the 1920 election he defeated his Democratic opponent James M. A political unknown at the time of the 1920 Republican National Convention, Harding emerged as a dark horse to become the presidential nominee through political maneuvering. Senator (1914–1921), where he again had a relatively undistinguished record, missing over two-thirds of the roll-call votes.

At the conclusion of his term, Harding returned to private life, only to reenter politics ten years later as a U.S. His leanings were conservative, his record in both offices relatively undistinguished. He served four years before being elected Lieutenant Governor of Ohio, a post he occupied from 1903 to 1905. Harding was elected to the Ohio State Senate in 1899.

state of Ohio, Harding was an influential newspaper publisher with a flair for public speaking before entering politics, first in the Ohio Senate (1899–1903) and later as Lieutenant Governor (1903–1905). A Republican from the U.S. Warren Gamaliel Harding (November 2, 1865 – August 2, 1923) was an American politician and the 29th President of the United States, serving from 1921 to 1923, when he became the sixth president to die in office. Edward Terry Sanford - 1923.

Pierce Butler - 1923. George Sutherland - 1922. Harding was the only President to have appointed a previous President as chief justice (or associate justice, for that matter; Taft is the only person to have served as both President and Supreme Court Justice). William Howard Taft - Chief Justice - 1921