The Strange Death of Warren G. Harding

The Strange Death of Warren G. Harding
Warren G. Harding (C) stands at the back of the Northern Pacific train with his wife and gardener in 1923. Library of Congress/Public Domain
Eric Felten
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Commentary

It was about 100 years ago—Aug. 2, 1923—when President Warren G. Harding suddenly died. He was in San Francisco, on the tail end of a cross-country promotional tour that had taken him as far as Alaska. It would have been an exhausting trip even for a younger man without a bum ticker. Then Harding contracted pneumonia along the way and, if that wasn’t enough, was laid low by some tainted seafood.

Eric Felten
Eric Felten
Author
Eric Felten is an investigative correspondent for RealClearInvestigations, reporting on government corruption. He is a former columnist for the Wall Street Journal and previously a Kennedy Fellow at Harvard University. Felten has been published in Washingtonian, People, National Geographic Traveler, The Weekly Standard, Daily Beast, National Review, Spectator USA, and Reader’s Digest.
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