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Line 81: − The publication of Nan Britton’s book "The President's Daughter" in 1928 portrayed the late President as a womanizer, which historians now unanimously agree was true, even if some disputes remain regarding the degree to which Harding was involved with Ms. Britton herself, and as to the paternity of her child. + − + − In 1930, [[Gaston B. Means]], a lifelong criminal who had nonetheless managed to get himself hired as an FBI agent for a brief time during the Harding administration, published “The Strange Death of President Harding, by Gaston B. Means as told to May Dixon Thacker, in which he alleged that Mrs. Harding murdered her husband out of jealousy of Ms. Britton and out of fear of the soon to be revealed Teapot Dome and Veteran’s Administration scandals. Means was later described by J. Edgar Hoover, who knew Means personally, as “the greatest faker of all time” and “the most amazing figure in contemporary criminal history”. Means who had been previously acquitted of murder and had been involved in a number of other questionable situations such as possible insurance fraud, was convicted of bootlegging and mail fraud in 1925. While in prison he met May Dixon Thacker, who was interested in the rehabilitation of prisoners, and convinced her that he had been unjustly convicted. He convinced her to help him write a tell-all book about how he was railroaded, but as May Dixon Thacker herself wrote in a subsequent magazine article, he failed to provide her with any of the documentation of his account that he had promised. In the end, she made most of it up.<ref> Ferrell, Robert H. (1996), The Strange Deaths of President Harding, University of Missouri Press pp. 42-43</ref> Means would go on to further criminal enterprise, and would finally be convicted of swindling Florence Harding’s close friend [[Evalyn Walsh McLean]] of over $100,000.00 which he was to use to ransom the kidnapped Lindbergh baby. Means was then sent to Leavenworth, where he died. − − No forensic evidence has ever been found to suggest that Warren G. Harding had been poisoned by any person, let alone his wife. The suggestion that she had a motivation to kill the president because of Florence Harding’s jealousy over an affair with Nan Britton makes little sense in light of the nearly unanimous consensus of modern historians that Harding had been a womanizer for many years prior to his election to the Presidency, and his wife had had knowledge of at least some of those affairs. The suggestion that she would murder the President to somehow deflect scandals that would be met by apathy is similarly unlikely. Yet despite the source of these charges, their utter lack of factual support, and the unlikeliness of the alleged motives of the First Lady, Frederick Lewis Allen would repeat these charges in his very successful book “Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s” in 1931. Coming as it did in the deepest part of the [[Great Depression]], Allen’s book, which depicted all of the Republican presidents of the 1920s as bumbling incompetents, was eagerly accepted by a public looking for someone to blame. Allen’s history remains in print, and continues to provide misinformation quoted in poorly researched histories, articles and encyclopedias down to the present day. − − The impact of Allen’s attack on Harding’s character is astounding in its depth. For decades afterward, Harding was routinely rated as the worst president in United States history in polls of professional historians, and the portrayal of Harding as a clueless fool who died one way or another because of political scandals has been accepted, even by many conservatives, as gospel. The success of Allen in damaging the collective memory of Republican presidents, Harding among them, continues to effect the public’s perception of both parties and their relative competence.
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In 1926, author [[Samuel Hopkins Adams]] published the novel “Revelry”, with characters which appeared to be thinly disguised members of the Harding administration. The president in the novel, “Willis Markham” poisons himself by accident, but does not take an available antidote, because he realizes that his death “will wipe out the whole score” of soon to be revealed scandals involving oil and the Veteran’s Administration. The novel was later dramatized .<ref>Ferrell, Robert H. (1996), The Strange Deaths of President Harding, University of Missouri Press p.33</ref>. Adams was a successful writer, and would go on to write the story which would become Frank Capra’s film “It Happened One Night”, and to share screenwriting credits with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on an unrelated film, “The President’s Mystery” in 1936. His fictional account of Harding’s death brought the issue of poison firmly into the public mind.
In 1926, author [[Samuel Hopkins Adams]] published the novel “Revelry”, with characters which appeared to be thinly disguised members of the Harding administration. The president in the novel, “Willis Markham” poisons himself by accident, but does not take an available antidote, because he realizes that his death “will wipe out the whole score” of soon to be revealed scandals involving oil and the Veteran’s Administration. The novel was later dramatized .<ref>Ferrell, Robert H. (1996), The Strange Deaths of President Harding, University of Missouri Press p.33</ref>. Adams was a successful writer, and would go on to write the story which would become Frank Capra’s film “It Happened One Night”, and to share screenwriting credits with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on an unrelated film, “The President’s Mystery” in 1936. His fictional account of Harding’s death brought the issue of poison firmly into the public mind.
[http://ap.grolier.com/article?assetid=a2012900-h][http://www.suite.com/article.cfm/presidents_and_first_ladies/47901/3]
[http://ap.grolier.com/article?assetid=a2012900-h][http://www.suite.com/article.cfm/presidents_and_first_ladies/47901/3]