The Ohio Gang: The World of Warren G. Harding

By Charles L. Mee Jr.

Book Overview

An entertaining and immensely readable encapsulation of democracy American-style, The Ohio Gang follows the corruption, scandal and inept leadership behind Warren G. Harding's weak presidency. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0871313405
• ISBN13: 9780871313409
• Release Date: January 1983
• Publisher: Henry Holt & Co
• Length: 248 Pages
• Weight: 1.49 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Welcome to the Smoke-filled Room

An older book on Warren Harding's cronies, it still gives us a bird's-eye-view into the backroom politics that got Harding nominated and elected. Charles Mee provides excellent background on the major actors in the Harding coterie. You'll be introduced to the notorious smoke-filled hotel room, where, during the convention, the power-brokers met and decided on Harding, who was considered "the best of the second raters." In was also in this hotel room, where Harding was asked the question if there was anything in his background that would preclude his being elected...and asking for a few minutes to think about it...then lied, saying, "No." That was followed with the Republican Party having to pay hush money and provide an overseas vacation to Carrie Phillips and her husband, to get them out of town during the campaign, after it was learned that he was having an affair with Carrie. (He also didn't tell them he was seeing Nan Britton at another hotel in town.) This is a book not to be missed; it is always listed in the bibliography of books written by historians who accurately detail Harding's adulterous lifestyle in biographical studies about this, our worst president.