DNA Is Said to Solve a Mystery of Warren Harding’s Love Life

[Gene C]

The book, The President's Daughter" is available on line.
I haven't figured out how to open it.

https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15550121...the_author

[Rogerm]

Apparently, this book is part of an E-book lending program that you have to borrow. You have to put your name on a waiting list.

[RJNorton]

Warren Harding was himself personally honest. His appointees ranged from brilliant to the most corrupt men in Ohio and elsewhere. There is a story which ought to be true that Harding was so furious when he discovered one of his people was selling presidential pardons, that the president knocked the miscreant down, tried to choke him while yelling "you rat, you rat" and had to dragged away by aides and secret service men.

Tom

Tom, as Bill R. would say - if it didn't happen that way it should have!

[Houmes]

Grover Cleveland was another President with a paternity scandal, I believe. It has lived on through a political cartoon published at the time.

A Secret Life: The Lies and Scandals of President Grover Cleveland
by Charles Lachman

If even half of this book is correct, it's a fairly good example of jaw-dropping, eye-opening moral turpitude.

[LincolnToddFan]

THAT book is on my Amazon Wish List!

[Anita]

"DNA Shows Warren Harding Wasn’t America’s First Black President

For decades, some Americans claimed that the nation’s first black president was really Warren G. Harding."

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/19/us/pol...other.html

[loetar44]

Hello again! Just returned from vacation to South Africa. Found a lot of very interesting posts here! The one which striked me most was the one about Harding. I wonder: why is it so important to know if someone is white or black, catholic or protestant, poor or rich, male or female, especially concerning the presidency? In South Africa I was a caucasian among coloured people and I felt no difference at all. We were all humans, 99.9 per cent identical (in other words a tiny 0.1 per cent difference). Whether you hail from Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania or the Americas, your genetic make-up is strikingly similar to that of every other person on Earth, not according to me, but according to modern DNA survey. So again: why is race, faith and gender so important if a US president is or has been chosen?

Frederick Douglass, the 19th century black abolitionist, visited president Lincoln three times at the White House. Yet he was never invited in to sleep as a guest. After Lincoln’s second inauguration and an open house to the public, Douglass was turned away at the door because of a standing order that blacks were not allowed to enter for the celebration. BTW: the White House was built by black men and women (most were slaves).

[Anita]

Hello again! Just returned from vacation to South Africa. Found a lot of very interesting posts here! The one which striked me most was the one about Harding. I wonder: why is it so important to know if someone is white or black, catholic or protestant, poor or rich, male or female, especially concerning the presidency? In South Africa I was a caucasian among coloured people and I felt no difference at all. We were all humans, 99.9 per cent identical (in other words a tiny 0.1 per cent difference). Whether you hail from Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania or the Americas, your genetic make-up is strikingly similar to that of every other person on Earth, not according to me, but according to modern DNA survey. So again: why is race, faith and gender so important if a US president is or has been chosen?

Frederick Douglass, the 19th century black abolitionist, visited president Lincoln three times at the White House. Yet he was never invited in to sleep as a guest. After Lincoln’s second inauguration and an open house to the public, Douglass was turned away at the door because of a standing order that blacks were not allowed to enter for the celebration. BTW: the White House was built by black men and women (most were slaves).

Welcome back kees. For the record, my post is a quote from the NY Times. Anita

[Wild Bill]

At the risk of offending everyone I offer the following:

Deep South white children used play a game in a dark room where they turn on a bright light and ask each other to put their hand in it to see if their fingernails turn purple to show they are of black descent somewhere back when. It really does not work. Everyone's nail turn purple. Of course the secret is to see who refuses to do it and knows that someone jumped the broom in their past.

My Hungarian friend and I often can tell someone is of Jewish descent just by looks or by name with a high degree of accuracy. My father did the same. I suspect that such is not in vogue since WW II. People always ask how can you do that? It is in the culture. Central and Eastern Europeans ferret out Jews, Americans do the same with blacks.

In America in the olden times one drop of "Negro Blood" blackened, hence the Harding stories, which now are proven false. Supposedly he had a picture of his grandfather that showed him as a black man. It was probably something in the photo processing that had changed over the years. I always thought it rather brilliant that Harding just laughed the whole thing off, saying it could be true but he did not know.

"Polish" jokes are told in every society, with some minority group substituting for the Poles. When I was in the Netherlands the Belgians or Germans were the fall guys. Down South it was Damnedyankees. Out West it is Californians or Easterners. It may not be politically correct but that's the way people are.

The opposite was experienced by my wife at work (university hospital). One woman was talking about someone else. Several missed out of the start of the tale and asked "Who are you talking about?" The speaker said the girl in the laboratory with the dark hair. That included everyone but my wife. When queried again and again the story teller reluctantly admitted it was the black girl.

Did I miss anyone?

[Anita]

Eva, I didn't think Kees was pointing at me. I forgot to put quotes in my original post so I went back and added them.

I found the article informative and look at it as part of history. I'm poorly educated when it comes to Harding. DNA testing has done a lot to answer historical questions i.e. Jefferson and his descendants.

[L Verge]

I have to agree with Bill's interpretation; unless we can completely change all mankind, there will always be some form of discrimination -- and it is not indigenous to the United States. I found both the French and the Belgians a tad rude to "foreigners" in general while I was visiting in their country. Two women in Brussels blatantly babbled something in French about my friend and me and the U.S., not knowing that my friend was a French teacher and that I had minored in French as an undergrad. For once in my life, I ignored the insult.

On the home front, I married into a family that was one-half Italian and one-half Russian (with one drop of Polish). I've heard a lot of derogatory comments and jokes about those lines. Likewise, they were good at giving back with Irish and Chinese jokes , and I was instantly labeled a "cake eater" because of my Anglo-Saxon, Protestant/French background.

The racial issue predominates because that is what the media focuses on. Whatever sells at any particular moment. Kennedy's election broke many of the religious barriers because his Catholicism was focused on by his opponents -- and they lost.

Most cultures within American society have worked hard to overcome the stigmas and prejudices that they have endured over the years. The proof is in the pudding. Show us what you're made of and how much good you can contribute to society, and many barriers and negative opinions can come tumbling down.

[Jim Page]

Thomas Jefferson wrote a long piece on racial blood percentages.

I had forgotten, but remember that fingernail "test" Bill referred to from my early school days, and we were in the Deep South at that time.

And I learned from a Korean friend who lived with us during our high school days that there were strong stigmas and prejudices in Asian society. Folks who lived in one Asian country or another looked down on folks from other Asian countries, and it sounded to me a lot like what was going on in our country at that time.