The Letters That Warren G. Harding’s Family Didn’t Want You to See

[brooklynite]

NY Times:

Warren Harding is not the most beloved of American presidents. Two of the earliest polls to assess presidential popularity, conducted in 1948 and 1962, ranked him last and last among chief executives. Harding served only briefly, from 1921 to 1923, before he died in office, but his administration has been widely regarded as visionless, ineffectual and corrupt. He slashed immigration quotas, appointed his cronies — one of whom, his secretary of the interior, accepted bribes from oil companies in what became known as the Teapot Dome scandal — and brought an end to the famously reform-minded eras of Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Perhaps the best that can be said about Harding is that he seems to have been conscious of his defects. “I am not fit for this office and should never have been here,” he once conceded.

It is no wonder, then, that in 1964, after the historian Francis Russell gained access to letters from Harding to his longtime mistress, Carrie Fulton Phillips, the Harding family sued to halt their publication. Rumors of the affair were not new, but the letters — written between 1910 and 1920, before Harding assumed the presidency — confirmed the infidelity in startling detail. The Harding family feared that publishing them would further tarnish Harding’s legacy and hurt the entire family. To the dismay of many historians, a settlement was reached in which the Harding family, who owned the copyright to the letters, agreed to donate them to the Library of Congress in return for a guarantee that they remain sealed for 50 years. Russell’s biography appeared, sans letters, in 1968, but was no less scathing for their absence.

“He was looking at protecting the younger generation at the time,” Richard Harding, the president’s grandnephew, says of his father’s lawsuit. But the family is now prepared to break that seal. On July 29, the Library of Congress will make the original letters available to the public for the first time. “We’ve honored the trust,” Harding says, “and it’s time to release them.”

The correspondence is intimate and frank — and perhaps the most sexually explicit ever by an American president. Even in the age of Anthony Weiner sexts and John Edwards revelations, it still has the power to astonish. In 106 letters, many written on official Senate stationery, Harding alternates between Victorian declarations of love and unabashedly carnal descriptions. (While Phillips’s notes and some drafts of her letters have been preserved, her actual replies were not.) The president often wrote in code, in case the letters were discovered, referring to his penis as Jerry and devising nicknames, like Mrs. Pouterson, for Phillips.

Jan. 28, 1912
I love your poise
Of perfect thighs
When they hold me
in paradise . . .

I love the rose
Your garden grows
Love seashell pink
That over it glows

I love to suck
Your breath away
I love to cling —
There long to stay . . .

I love you garb’d
But naked more
Love your beauty
To thus adore . . .

I love you when
You open eyes
And mouth and arms
And cradling thighs . . .

If I had you today, I’d kiss and
fondle you into my arms and
hold you there until you said,
‘Warren, oh, Warren,’ in a
benediction of blissful joy. . . . I
rather like that encore
discovered in Montreal.
Did you?

[WinkyDink]

1. I'm entranced, myself! Clearly a man of Courtly Love.

[brooklynite]

4. ...just not for his wife.

[WinkyDink]

14. Which was what CL was about!

[liberal N proud]

2. When I was in college, we had a history prof who was obsessed with Presidential Mistresses

He would waste a whole hour on them at least once a week.

[hlthe2b]

3. He may have died early....

but I'm guessing he died happy.

[bulloney]

5. Some stories indicated that Harding's wife poisoned him because of his affairs.

[hlthe2b]

6. I can see why some might think so....

if she happened on any of these letters to the mistress...

[LuvNewcastle]

7. He wasn't fit to be Poet Laureate, either.

[progressoid]

9. At least it wasn't Vogon poetry.

[hunter]

11. Or George W. Bush self portraits with "Jerry..."

[LuvNewcastle]

13. That is hilarious!

I really think we've had some alien Presidents, although probably not of the lizard-skin David Icke variety.

[mercuryblues]

8. prepared to break that seal

You aren't doing anyone a favor. The 50 years are up buddy, whether you are prepared or not.

[Johnyawl]

10. Give the Harding family some credit...

...at least they're not resorting to litigation again to keep the records sealed. God only knows where that law suit would go, with this SCOTUS.

I'm guessing they may be hoping that the letters will make him seem a bit more human, and help lift him off the bottom.

[JaneyVee]

12. Nice rhyme.

[steve2470]

15. He apparently was a handsome man back then

I've read this. He was popular with the ladies.

[dixiegrrrrl]

17. check out his pics on Google image....

He reminds me of Jim Carter, who plays butler Carson on Downton Abbey.....those bushy eyebrows and intimidating stare.

[steve2470]

18. wiki on Harding and let me go look up Butler Carson

The campaign also drew on Harding's popularity with women. Considered handsome, Harding photographed well compared to Cox. However, it was mainly Harding's Senate support for women's suffrage legislation that made him popular in that demographic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_G._Harding

[steve2470]

19. yes he looks very much like Butler Carson nt

[bullwinkle428]

16. Some aspiring musician needs to come up with a "porno guitar" version

of "Hail to the Chief"!