By Mary Mostert, Analyst, Original Sources (www.originalsources.com)
February 17, 1999
The very resilient talking heads of TV land have hit upon a new topic in the wake of the acquittal of Bill Clinton. We are being urged to "just forget" what we've been engrossed in for a year, "get back to the nation's business" and "put all the bitterness of the past year behind us."
On CNN Walter Cronkite spoke nostalgically of the past when CBS, NBC and ABC "controlled 90-95% of the news." He observed, "We did not deal with the moral piccadillos (of politicians) - unless it affected their job." Howard Baker asked, rhetorically, "Does the Press have the responsibility to act as a censor? The press concealed that President Roosevelt couldn't walk."
An unsmiling Kweisi Mfumi, lamenting the onslaught of Cable TV and the Internet observed, "CBS no longer can censure what the public sees."
Did the press really conceal that President Roosevelt couldn't walk? Not exactly. Those of us who grew up during the Roosevelt era knew well that FDR had polio as an adult and could not walk. However, it is true that the photographers did not take pictures of him struggling to stand up at a podium in his braces. Was it for political reasons or for common decency? Most of us thought it was common decency - a decency that no longer exists in today's world.
It is interesting to hear people like Kweisi Mfumi complaining that "CBS no longer can censure what the public sees" and to realize that control over information not only is now being admitted by media controllers, but the loss of control is now seen as a great loss. Somehow, we were told, we need to put this information genie back in the bottle, lest some other, presumably Democrat, politician is ousted or not elected due to his "private behavior" which is, so we are told, none of our business.
Walter Cronkite divided the media into "responsible" and "irresponsible" camps - with the Internet and Cable TV lumped together with "Tabloids" as the "irresponsible" and CBS, NBC, ABC, the Washington Post and New York Times being tagged with the label of "responsible press." The "irresponsible" press - the Internet - was chided for its reporting of the Lewinsky situation back in January.
Are we really going to try to go back to business as usual where an elite media could decide who would and who would not be the candidate, merely by exposing or withholding information? Somehow I rather doubt it. There was a Clinton Clone back in the 1920s that is mostly a scorned or forgotten figure today - Warren G. Harding, a Republican.
Harding, who had an illegitimate child by a woman 30 years his junior, Nan Britton, while he was a Senator, also had a 15 year affair with Carrie Phillips, the wife of a friend. Harding's administration is rarely mentioned today without the adjective "scandal-ridden" attached. Harding was the Bill Clinton of the roaring 1920s, his entry into the White House accompanied by the need for Bimbo Control. Mrs. Harding and Mr. Phillips didn't suspect the affair for years, even though the couples often spent their vacations together. The heat began to rise when Carrie Phillips began to pressure Warren Harding to leave his wife. Carrie was trapped in Berlin by the start of World War I during the time that Harding became a senator. In fact, she threatened to go public with their affair unless he voted against a declaration of war -- a threat that he ignored.
It was reported that after Harding won the Republican presidential nomination, the Republican National Committee attempted to silence Phillips by sending the Phillips family on an all-expenses-paid trip to Japan, a $20,000 payment and promise of future monthly stipends.
Harding, who served the State of Ohio at first as Governor and than as Senator, became president with 60% of the electorate in 1920. Like Clinton, who never received 50% of the votes, Harding basked in the glow of the country's prosperity, its illegal drugs (bootlegged because of Prohibition) and loose morals which took place that took place after the World War I. Clinton became president in the glow of the country's prosperity, illegal drugs and loose morals which took place after the end of the Cold War.
However, all was not well behind the scenes of his administration. Some of Harding's friends were using their government positions for personal profit and Harding covered up for them, in spite of his Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover's, strong plea to him to blow the whistle on them. Harding's administration was riddled with scandals. The "Teapot Dome Affair" was perhaps the most important scandal of Harding's administration. After jurisdiction over naval oil reserves were transferred to the Department of the Interior, in a 1920's version of Al Gore's "reinventing government," secretary Albert B. Fall leased Teapot Dome to oil interests in exchange for a bribe. He eventually spent time in a federal prison because of his actions. The incident also resulted in the resignation of Secretary of Navy Edwin N. Denby, who had consented to the transfer of the reserves.
Attorney General Daugherty was charged with receiving payments from prohibition violators, and was forced to resign by Calvin Coolidge, Harding's vice-president and successor, when he died in 1923.
Harding's wife, Florence Kling de Wolfe, a 1920's Hillary Rodham, was a powerful and controlling influence. A woman of wealth and influence, many believed that she forged Harding's political career. Their marriage was a stormy one, due to Harding's wandering eye.
In the summer of 1923 Harding was visiting Alaska when he received a coded message from Washington. The contents so distressed him that he collapsed. Corruption within his administration was far worse then he had thought, and he planned an immediate return to Washington. When he reached San Francisco, however, he became gravely ill.
Harding died on August 2, 1923. The official cause of death was listed as a stroke. Some doctors felt that a more likely cause was a heart attack. Some people believed that Harding's wife had finally become fed up with his affairs, and poisoned him because the scandal was coming to the surface. The fact that Mrs. Harding refused to allow an autopsy, and would not permit a death mask to be made gave fuel to these rumors.
Is there a moral to this tale? Perhaps. The nation didn't know about any of this until after Harding died. In fact, as late as 1968, there was a $1 million lawsuit against Harding Biographer Francis Russell for making some of the letters of Carrie Phillips public. Weeping citizens met and smothered the train with flowers as they mourned at each train stop as the body of Warren Harding moved across the land. His death was called a "great calamity" and by the time the train reached Chicago 300,000 inhabitants had clustered along the tracks or were swarming in through the railroad station to pay homage. Yet, today he is as women burst into tears and a delegation of aldermen carrying a wreath of white roses and lilies paid homage to a "fallen warrior."
And, the nation survived. In fact, under Coolidge the debts of extravagance and war were paid off and the roaring twenties continued to roar for six more years - until 1929 when the Stock Market crashed, unemployment reached up to 30% of the workforce, depression gripped the land and a chastened nation abandoned its drug-dealing, free sex, high-flying speculation and tried to figure out how to dig their way out of the mess created by the 1920s excesses.
The country will follow the advice of the talking heads and "just forget" about Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky, Kathleen Willey, Gennifer Flowers, perjury, obstruction of justice, Travelgate, Filegate, Whitewater, Campaign Finance at its own peril. Sexual misbehavior, it seems, quite often is a barometer of other kinds of misbehavior. People who lie to those they love will lie to strangers who vote.
To comment: mmostert@originalsources.com