In August 2, 1923, Warren G. Harding died in a hotel suite with no autopsy, five doctors, and a First Lady who ordered the body embalmed before sunrise.
Official cause of death: Heart failure.
Unofficial cause of death: crab poisoning, a murdered conscience, a cover-up designed to save the crooks circling his Cabinet.
Harding wasn’t the first president to die in office, but he was the first whose death felt like a lie. And the first whose administration had primed the country to expect one.
Harding’s “Return to Normalcy” turned out to be the most corrupt presidency in modern memory. Teapot Dome. Veterans Bureau scandals. Blackmailers haunting the White House. Psychic mediums on the guest list.
By the time he dropped dead at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, the country didn’t want closure—it wanted evidence.
Five Doctors, One Convenient Ending
Harding had fled Washington’s summer heat—both meteorological and legal—on what aides called the “Voyage of Understanding.” It was a PR stunt in the shape of a train tour. He never made it home.
On August 2, Florence Harding sat beside him in their hotel suite, reading him a glowing review in The Saturday Evening Post. “That’s good,” he told her. “Go on.” Then he collapsed.
Five doctors were summoned. Heart attack. Maybe stroke. Possibly gallbladder failure. They didn’t agree on a cause. The president was dead, and that was final.
Florence Harding was used to making decisions—an outspoken advocate of women’s suffrage, which passed the summer before Harding’s election, she was the first First Lady to cast her ballot for her husband.
And Florence said asked no further questions. She said yes to an overnight embalming.
Harding’s Death Broke the National Trust
Harding had promised Solicitor General James M. Beck that he would try not to “overdo” it on his trip across the continent—the strain of which would kill him.
The White House lost a president—and credibility.
When the press realized there would be no medical review, no clarity, and no honest accounting of what had killed the most scandal-drenched president in living memory, it filled in the gaps the old-fashioned way: with rumors.
Florence had poisoned him. His Cabinet had silenced him. The cover-up was timed to end the investigations with the man himself.
And unlike earlier eras, Harding’s death landed in a media ecosystem wired for suspicion. Radio, telegraph, and the newly aggressive press corps turned a death certificate into an invitation.