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Warren G. Harding Symposium
The Warren G. Harding Symposium is an academic, social, and cultural exploration of the life and times of America's 29th president. The symposium presents in-depth analysis and research by authors, historians, researchers, and experts on the Harding Era and related areas of interest.
The symposium is a collaboration between The Ohio State University at Marion, the Ohio Historical Society, Marion Technical College, Harding Home & Memorial, and Marion County Historical Society.
Symposium events may feature speakers of noted interest, community social gatherings, and tours of historical significance, era appropriate cultural and performing arts presentations all centered on celebrating the historical significance of Harding and other turn of the century events in American history that are a reflection of our country's development from 1910 through 1925.
Scandals and the United States Presidency
July 19-20, 2013
The Harding Symposium will present “Scandals and the United States Presidency” on July 19-20, 2013. Featured will be presentations by John Dean, White House counsel for President Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal which toppled the Nixon presidency. The two-day event will feature:
- Wine and dessert reception at The Ohio State University at Marion;
- White House wreath- laying ceremony at the tomb of President Warren G. Harding;
- Workshop sessions featuring John Dean, former Nixon White House Counsel, along with other noted authors, historians, and Harding researchers;
- Gala Dinner with keynote speaker.
Click on the links below for more information, click on the link a second time to close the window.
Schedule of Events
Friday, July 19
7:30-9:30 p.m.—Wine and Dessert Reception
The Ohio State University at Marion
Maynard Hall Portico
1461 Mount Vernon Avenue, Marion
The opening wine and dessert reception for the 2013 Warren G. Harding Symposium will be held under the Maynard Hall Portico on the campus of The Ohio State University at Marion. Our featured guest will be Sam Grant, one of the foremost portrayers of President Ulysses S. Grant. The Civil War hero and eighteenth chief executive of the United States was no stranger to controversy, often depicted as a drunk and owner of a scandal-plagued administration. What was fact and what was fiction? How was he viewed in the eyes of his contemporaries, friends, and associates? President Grant himself will provide a glimpse into this unique and complex man.
Saturday, July 20
10:30 a.m.—Annual Wreath-laying Ceremony
The Harding Tomb
Delaware Avenue at Veterans Park
Marion, Ohio 43302
The Harding Tomb, final resting place of President and Mrs. Warren G. Harding, is widely regarded as the most impressive presidential monument outside of Washington, D.C. Dedicated by President Herbert Hoover in 1931, the massive white marble structure is 103 feet in diameter and 53 feet high. The memorial is important in American history because it is one of the last of the elaborate presidential tombs. The United State Army will conduct the annual wreath-laying ceremony honoring the 29th President of the United States, highlighted by the placing of a wreath designed and presented by the White House.
Afternoon workshop sessions will be held at:
• The Ohio State University at Marion
Morrill Hall Auditorium
1465 Mount Vernon Avenue, Marion
1:00-2:15 p.m. ● Tempest Over the Teapot Dome
Dr. David Stratton is Emeritus Professor and past chairman of the Department of History at Washington State University in Pullham, Washington. His 1998 book, Tempest Over Teapot Dome: The Story of Albert B. Fall, is considered the definitive study of the events leading up to the scandal which continues to tarnish the administration of Warren G. Harding. Dr. Stratton will focus on the relationship between Fall and Harding which concluded with the infamous Teapot Dome scandal.
2:30-3:45 p.m. ● Scandals and the United State Presidency
All presidential scandals follow a pattern. Presidents are people who do not like to lose and at times they react in irrational ways when confronted with taking a certain loss. Think of Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon as two recent examples. Rather than take the loss, they covered-up their mistakes and made things worse. Both brought on impeachment proceedings, not for the underlying conduct, but because they obstructed the investigation, lied and covered-up. Former Nixon White House Counsel John Dean and author James Robenalt will share their amazing insights.
4:00-5:15 p.m. ● Cancer Growing on the Presidency
Dean and Robenalt present a national seminar that addresses what psychologists refer to as “lose frame” acting—making matters worse by failing to take the public relations hit. They use Dean’s experience as Counsel to the President to tell his story and to show that this sort of behavior is in our DNA and bound to re-occur given similar circumstances. In the process, the audience gets to see historic video and listen to critical portions of the Nixon Tapes, where Dean warns the President of the “cancer growing on his presidency.”
6:30 – 9:00 p.m. • Dinner and Program
The Ohio State University at Marion
Guthery Community Room in Maynard Hall
Keynote: John W. Dean and James D. Robenalt
Dean and Robenalt will also talk about the Nixon Tapes—how they were discovered and the fight to get them released—leading to the famous “Saturday Night Massacre” in which Nixon fired Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, fanning the flames of impeachment. The story is not well known and is fascinating.
Featured Presenters
Sam Grant
has dedicated his life to understanding Ulysses S. Grant, one of the greatest leaders this nation has ever known. His fascination with the 18th president of the United States began purely by accident. Knowing his son’s growing interest in history, Sam’s father purchased a copy of Grant Moves South by Bruce Catton at a Quaker Fair one Saturday. Upon completing that volume, Sam went on to the other books about Grant in the Catton series.
After reading Grant by William McFeely, he was finally hooked. Since that time, Sam has studied more than a dozen biographies of President Grant along with countless treatises about the key persons that affected his life. After years of study and experience and portraying the part of General Grant, his professional interpretation of the General’s physical stature and character have won him the intellectual admiration and heartfelt appreciation of the most serious students of Civil War history and novice spectators alike. In Sam’s own words, “If that’s what I look like, and that's what I know, then that’s why I’m here, to teach people about the Greatest Average American that ever lived.”
David H. Stratton
is Professor Emeritus and past chairman of the Department of History at Washington State University in Pullham, Washington. He is a native of New Mexico and received his undergraduate degree in history from Eastern New Mexico University and earned both masters and doctorate degrees from Baylor University.
Throughout his busy career, Dr. Stratton has been active in a number of professional organizations including the Washington State Council on Historical Preservation and the Washington State Centennial Committee. A prolific writer, he published works include First Century of Baptists in New Mexico, Spokane and the Inland Empire, and Tempest Over Teapot Dome: The Story of Albert B. Fall. He has received grants from the National Endowment of Humanities and the Washington State Historical Society. Dr. Stratton has also received the Governor of Washington’s Writers Award, the Gray Award from the Washington State Historical Society, and the Dean’s Distinguished Contribution Award from the College of Liberal Arts at Washington State University.
Keeping busy in retirement, Dr. Stratton still teaches occasional courses for the Department of History, and is conducting research for a book involving the influence of major highways on western towns.
John W. Dean
was born in Akron, Ohio and lived for a time in Marion, Ohio. He did his undergraduate studies at Colgate University and the College of Wooster, with majors in English Literature and Political Science. He received a graduate fellowship from American University to study government and the presidency, before entering Georgetown University Law Center, where he received his Juris Doctor degree in 1965.
Before becoming Counsel to the President of the United States in July 1970 at age thirty-one, Dean was Chief Minority Counsel to the Judiciary Committee of the United States House of Representatives, the Associate Director of a law reform commission, and Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States.
While serving as the White House Counsel to President Richard Nixon, Dean learned that five men had been arrested for breaking into the Democratic National Headquarters at the Watergate Hotel. In the ensuing cover-up of the crime, he felt he had few choices beyond his obligation to the administration. The ethical dilemma that he faced eventually set a historic precedent for the entire legal profession. Ultimately, Dean testified against President Nixon, who eventually resigned the presidency as a result of the scandal, and turned in the names of other officials he believed had been involved in the obstruction of justice—himself included. As a result, he later spent four months in prison for his role in the scandal.
Dean recounted his days in the Nixon White House and Watergate in two books, Blind Ambition (1976) and Lost Honor (1982). He lives in Beverly Hills, California with his wife Maureen, and now devotes full time to writing and lecturing, having retired from his career as a private investment banker. Together with James Robenalt, he is in demand as a lecturer discussing Watergate as a case study to examine cover-up crimes and activities, analyzing them under post-Watergate ethical rules and standards. .
James D. Robenalt
was born in Lima, Ohio. He was raised in a family of seven children, his father, a lawyer and his mother, an activist in local politics and education. He majored in political science at Miami University, spent a semester abroad in Miami’s Luxembourg program, and graduated magna cum laude in 1978. He followed in his father’s footsteps, attending The Ohio State University College of Law, receiving his Juris Doctor degree in 1981.
He is a partner and former chair of the business litigation group at Thompson Hine LLP. He has won major verdicts for his clients, including Avery Dennison ($81 million jury verdict on international espionage case) and Solvay Pharmaceuticals ($68 million arbitration award on drug co-promotion agreement). He is also a recognized leader in judicial reform in Ohio.
Robenalt is the author of two non-fiction books dealing with the American presidency: Linking Rings, William W. Durbin and the Magic and Mystery of America (Kent State University Press 2004) and The Harding Affair: Love and Espionage During the Great War (Palgrave 2009).
He currently lives in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and is active in the greater Cleveland community. He was the founding chair of the Judicial Candidates Rating Coalition, an assembly of bar associations that rate judicial candidates. He also serves on the boards of the Near West Theater and the renowned Cleveland Institute of Music.
Registration
Registration Form (PDF) {You can type in the form and then print out the completed registration, or you can print out the registration form and fill it out by hand.}
Complete Package:
The complete package registration includes: admission to the Friday evening program, all Saturday study sessions, access to exhibits, and the evening reception, dinner
and program. Complete package registrations are limited to 120. The deadline for registering is July 13
Program Costs: |
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Complete Package Adult: |
$75 |
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Complete Package Student: |
$50 |
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Friday Reception only |
$25 |
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Saturday workshops only: |
$50 |
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Saturday dinner only: |
$30 |
In the News
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"Mister We Could Use a Man Like Warren Harding Again!" (7/12/2011)
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"Time for Another Harding?" (10/24/2011)
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"How Austerity Cured a Depression." (1/20/2012)
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"Let Us Renew our Praise for Harding." (1/22/2012)
Advisory Committee, Event Partners & Volunteers
Advisory Committee |
Partners |
| Bronwen Babich | The Ohio State University at Marion |
| Betsy Blankenship | Friends of the Harding Home and Memorial, Inc. |
| Joyce Brown | The Harding Home and Tomb |
| Phyllis Butterworth | Marion County Convention and Visitors Bureau |
| Rosie Catera | Marion Technical College |
| Dave Claborn | Ohio Historical Society |
| Jean Dodd | |
| Sherry Hall | |
| C. Gary Iams | |
| Karen Ream | |
| Wayne Rowe | |
| Diane Watson | |
Acknowledgements |
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Staff and Volunteers if the Harding Home and Tomb Presidential Garden Club Buckeye Backers Holiday Inn Express and Suites The Marion Star WMRN |
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