29th President of the United States

In office:
March 4, 1921 - August 2, 1923

Vice President:
Calvin Coolidge

Preceded by
Woodrow Wilson

Succeeded by:
Calvin Coolidge

Political party:
Republican

Warren Gamaliel Harding
(November 2, 1865 - August 2, 1923)

Warren Harding, a member of the Republican Party, was one of the most popular U.S. presidents to that point.  After his death a number of scandals, such as Teapot Dome, came to light, as did his extramarital affair with Nan Britton; each eroding his popular regard.  He is often rated as one of the worst presidents in historical rankings.

Harding lived in rural Ohio all his life, except when political service took him elsewhere.  As a young man, he bought The Marion Star and built it into a successful newspaper.  He ran for the Republican nomination for president in 1920, and he was considered a long shot until after the convention began.

The leading candidates could not gain the needed majority, and the convention deadlocked. Harding's support gradually grew until he was nominated on the tenth ballot.  He conducted a front porch campaign, remaining for the most part in Marion and allowing the people to come to him, and running on a theme of a return to normalcy of the pre-World War I period.  He won in a landslide over Democrat James M. Cox and the then imprisoned Socialist Party candidate Eugene Debs and became the first sitting senator to be elected president.

Harding appointed a number of well-regarded figures.  A major foreign policy achievement came with the Washington Naval Conference of 1921 - 1922, in which the world's major naval powers agreed on a naval limitations program that lasted a decade.  Harding released political prisoners who had been arrested for their opposition to World War I.  Two of his cabinet members were later tried for corruption in office; these and other scandals greatly damaged Harding's posthumous reputation.

Harding died of a heart attack in San Francisco while on a western tour, succeeded by Vice President Calvin Coolidge.

Born:
November 2, 1865 Blooming Grove, Ohio

Died:

Resting place:
Harding Tomb
Marion Cemetary
Marion, OH