President Harding's Smutty Letters

School of Humans. Hello, American filth listeners, how are you guys doing?

Ugh? Today's episode is more of a personal one because it's for my mom specifically. Okay, my mom has recently started writing books. She's written a memoir, a novel, some short stories, and she recently asked me to see if I could somehow use my comedy to make her famous so that she can get a publishing deal. Now, unfortunately, I haven't even been able to use my comedy to make myself famous, so I don't know exactly what she wants from me, but I'm going to give it a

Apparently, my mom.

She's gotten really great feedback from her friends and fellow writing colleagues about her work, and they've apparently given her a lot of compliments, specifically about her sex scenes and so filth listeners, if you're wondering where I get all my perversion from is actually from my dad. But it's nice to know that my mom and dad still have something in common despite being.

Divorced for three decades.

So anyway, it seems my mom has a great knack for writing a hint of smut. Maybe even we could call it erotica, maybe just porn.

I don't know.

But there is someone in American history who I think my mom could learn from, and that person is the twenty ninth President of the United States, Warren Harding.

Now, Warren Harding had a wife.

Her name was Florence, but she was very sickly. She had a lot of kidney issues, and so their relationship lacked a lot of sexuality. Mister Harding, though, he wanted to bang, and he found a great bang companion in this woman named Carrie Fulton Phillips. Warren and Carrie had an affair for about fifteen years, probably started in nineteen.

Oh five and Mary in Ohio.

And you know how did Warren meet Carrie, Well, they were neighbors. And also Warren was quite close with Carrie's husband, James, who owned a dry goods store. In fact, they might have even been best friends. And what a way to treat your best friend is to fuck his wife?

Aha.

And then Carrie was also close with Florence, Warren's wife. The two couples were actually so close that sometimes they would go on tours to Europe together. But it seems that the affair started when Warren's wife, Florence, was sick, and then Carrie's husband was also sick. He was actually away at a sanitarium suffering from probably depression. He and Carrie's two year old son had recently died, so there

Ha ha ha ha. That's how it started.

But anyway, in twenty fourteen, the Library of Congress unsealed a bunch of letters that Warren wrote to carry over the course of their relationship. It is more than a thousand pages, and oh boy are they filled with longing, desire, tension, everything that my mom needs to make her books shine even brighter. So today on American Filth, we're going to take a look at these letters to.

Get some literary inspiration. Cue the theme song.

This is American Filth and I'm Gabby Watts. Every week I tell you a filthy story from American history. This week's episode hard hearting sex Letters.

So let's dive in.

Shall we just how Warren liked to dive into Carrie's under Murken.

So this first letter we're going to look at.

It's from January twenty eighth, nineteen twelve, about seven years into their illicit relationship. Earlier, in nineteen eleven, Warren's wife Florence. It seems that she discovered their relationship, and so Carrie and her daughter left Ohio.

For a bit, traveling around Europe.

They spent a lot of time in Germany, but then at the end of nineteen eleven, Carrie got back to Ohio spent Christmas.

With her family.

But then she and Warren spent New Year's Eve together in Montreal, and apparently when the clock struck midnight, taking us from nineteen eleven to nineteen twelve, the two of them, we're pounding it out. Now, did they climax at the stroke of midnight? That would have been maybe too much coordination. Besides fact, then men hadn't found the glitterists yet, so I don't even know if women were really reaching the end of the train line, if you know what I'm saying.

Here is what he.

Wrote, I love your poise of perfect thighs when they hold me in paradise. I love the rose your garden grows, love seashell pink that over it glows. I love to suck your breath away. I love to cling their long to stay. I love you garbed but naked more love your beauty to thus adore.

I love you.

When you open eyes and mouth and arms and cradling thighs. Wow. What an amazing poem that Warren Harding sent to Carrie Phillips.

It seems he really enjoyed her thighs.

But that wasn't the only time that Carrie Phillips inspired poetry within Warren Harding. Another poem he wrote to her was in December nineteen twelve. Carrie had spent most of that year in Berlin again, so Warren had spent much of the year pining for her.

So, Mom, maybe in your.

Book you should include some sexually explicit poems like this, Who cares not what was wrought today of the medley that fate has whorled. I hold you in my arms to say I love you more than all the world we love today. Let's dream tonight so we may thus repeat that bliss, then hale in arms, a new day bright with exquisite and loving kiss, possessed, possessing our love's true night is heaven and day is life. So I repeat, dear, I love you, I'll be your lover, you my wife.

Is it good poetry?

Not really, but he certainly wrote it, So that's enough of his letters in verse. On January fifth, nineteen thirteen, Warren wrote about a sexual encounter he and Carrie had a few weeks earlier, and.

Then he described how he was daydreaming about her.

He said, I like to dream in loose, flowing garb because I can dream more intently.

And I did, to alarming release. I called your name a.

Loud thrice, begging you to come, and a voice from upstairs responded, wanting to know what I wanted. I was alarmed and sobered. Oh yes, what vivid daydreaming he was doing. But Warren's pining for Carrie was so great that he even said in a letter one time that he would leave his wife. He was like, pretty please, Carrie, let's be together. But then she suggested that, well, maybe the only reason the relationship is so spicy is because it is illicit.

So maybe they should just stay with their spouses.

Florence had discovered their affair, but it doesn't seem like Carrie's husband, James either minded the fact that they were banging or he just didn't know what was going on. James had also gone to Europe with Carrie on one of her trips and send letters back to Warren being like, hey, buddy, how are you doing.

Hope you're doing well. Meanwhile, Warren's like, I want to freak your wife.

But Warren even got jealous within the confines of his relationship with Carrie because Carrie in the letters at some point brought up that she was attracted to other men besides him, and definitely besides her husband. This news seemed to drive him a bit crazy, and on September fifteenth,

Morning communion at Richmond sopping wet, not like the lake. Lol.

Now, another element of Warren's writing that perhaps my mom could include in her smut is that Harding had a nickname for him, Wiener. So yes, Mom, whenever you have a character with a Wiener, give it a nickname. Now what did Warren call his? Of course he called it the most obvious nickname, Jerry.

My penis Jerry. So let's hear some.

Passages from Warren's letters where he included Jerry. Jerry came and will not go, says he loves you, that you are the only only love worthwhile in all the world, and I must tell you so in a score and more of other fond things he suggests, But I spare you. You must not be annoyed. He is so utterly devoted that he only exists to give you all. I fear you would find a fierce enthusiast today. Is anyone else here uncomfortable with the personification of his wiener?

But whatever, here's some other ones.

Jerry came in while I was pondering your notes in glad reflection, and we talked about it. He was strongly interested and elated and clung to discussion. He told me to say that you are the best and darlingest in the world, and if he could have but one wish, it would be to be held in your darling embrace and be thrilled by your pink lips that convey the surpassing rapture of human touch and the unspeakable joy of love surpassing embrace.

I cordily agree with all he said.

Perhaps it is not important, maybe it's even not interesting, but he is devotedly, exclusively for you. It sounds like Jerry wants Carrie to give him a blowjob.

And here's another one.

Jerry sends Christmas greetings and finally, wish I could take you to Mount Jerry.

Wow. Jerry is a Mountain now too.

The unfortunate thing about Warren Harding and Carrie Phillips correspondence is that of her letters are gone, and much of what she said is inferred from what Warren wrote to her.

And Meanwhile, during the relationship, while.

Carrie was traveling about Europe, Warren Harding was getting more into politics and Marion. He'd gotten His career started as a newspaper man. He ran the very successful Marion Star newspaper. Then he want to see in the Ohio State Senate. He was the lieutenant governor of Ohio, but then he lost his governor run in nineteen ten. But four years later, in nineteen fourteen, he was elected to the United States Senate, and at that point his relationship with Carrie started to

And the thing about Germany.

Is there's about to be a big war, a world war, you might say, as that is what it is called, and that's going to rip these two apart. Be right back after these soothing advertisements. Okay, mom, So the rest of this isn't going to really help you with your smut writing, but I suppose I should give the filth listeners some context for the history of what happened between these two. So we're just going to dive into that.

Anyway.

Having spent so much time in Germany, Carrie Phillips was very pro German.

She loved the culture.

She's like yas Germany, and as World War One escalated, Carrie just kept being vocal about Germany. Like in nineteen fifteen, she's like, Ah, sure the Germans take a bout that killed twelve hundred Americans, but.

Still they're great guys. Yay Germany, Boo Britain.

But then when the US did enter the war inteen seventeen, the Espionage Act was passed, which was basically like, Hey, Americans, you're not allowed to publicly be for America's enemies. America is number one. You can't be pro German. Shut up

At this point, Warren.

Got really pissy with Carrie because he's like, you're being careless. And he was also like, I can't hang out all the time if you're gonna be pro German, because everybody in the Senate is going to be like, wow, Warren, you're being.

Influenced by a pro German person.

Like yeah, in the Senate, they don't technically know we're having an affair, but they know that like we're friendly, you know, like whenever we got to dinner, it's noted in a file and it's embarrassing, So like, stop being pro German and just like watch your mouth.

So they had all this.

Tension building up in their relationship, and then once the war was over, the two of them still seemed to be slightly involved, but Carrie kind of fell into a deep depression because Germany didn't win Boo. But then the

Only add to the ill we have already done.

It doesn't seem like you to think of such a fatal course. I can't believe your purpose is to destroy me. Warren was like, I've been so nice to you for so many years, and now this.

Is how you repay me. That's so rude of you.

And he was also like, hey, this new amount of money that you asked for, I actually don't have that much money to give you. But what I could do instead is give you five thousand dollars a year for every year that I'm in the public service. And also, if you don't take that deal and you do expose the affair, I'll lose my job and then I won't have any money to give you. So you might as well just accept this offer.

It will make you comfortable.

So it does seem that Carrie ended up accepting this deal from him. But then Warren confided in some people in the Republican Party about the affair, and they gave Carrie another probably twenty five K and hush money to get her and.

Her family out of town for the presidential election. And while you might not.

Think of this as a pioneering moment, apparently this was the first time a woman successfully blackmailed an American president, So girl power. But anyway, the blackmailing got settled. Warren Harding won the presidency. He became the twenty ninth president, and at this point Carrie and Warren essentially broke up because apparently, once you blackmail someone, it's kind of hard to continue a sexual and romantic relationship.

So ladies, keep that in mind.

If you're ever concerned about a man off, I suggest don't blackmail.

Okay.

Also, maybe don't root for Germany during World War One. That's another thing to keep in mind if you're trying to keep a man, keep that in mind. But Carrie, though, she never did destroy those letters, and when she died in nineteen sixty a few years after that, the letters were found. Basically, there was this historian who wanted to use the letters in a book he was writing, but then the Phillips family and the Harding family was like, no, thank you, We do not want the public to see

A big to do.

Caused a big his historical hubbub. I suppose there's a big celebration the letters. There are still family members who were like, I don't want to be able to see these, but too bad we seen them. But yeah, So Carrie passed away in nineteen sixty. She died mostly in poverty. Apparently she had two German shepherds that were being neglected. I know, sorry, dog people. Warren Harding, however, didn't live as long. He actually died during his presidency in nineteen twenty three.

How did he die well.

Some people like to suggest he was poisoned, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

It was more likely that he died of heart disease.

You know, we could say poetically he died of a broken heart, but that's not true at all. Because Warren Harding, along with having his affair with Carrie Phillips, he also had other affairs. Was a nasty man, and he had one affair with this lady named Nan Britton, whose virginity he took when he was fifty and she was twenty and with whom he.

Had a child. Ah. What a great guy.

He also, in his two years as president, rolled back a lot of progressive era reforms and helped pass racist immigration laws.

So boo Warren Harding. But anyway, isn't it.

Funny when people in the past talk about having sex? He he it's so silly that those people had sex in the past.

Gross.

But Warren Harding, throughout the letters to Carrie, he didn't just write about lust.

He also spoke of love.

So maybe this is one last note from my mom that you should just make sure, amongst the smut that you were writing, make sure that you also have some big dramatic moments where someone's declaring their love, because I think that's the thing that's going to get the TV show made.

Like, for example, if you guys watch.

Bridgerton in every season, there's always the dude at some point saying something.

Really dramatic about how he loves the lady.

And Warren Harding he had his own version of the Bridgerton quote, and I think this is the quote that should be used for that big dramatic moment if he and Carrie ever get their own series. So this was in nineteen ten Christmas Eve, and he wrote this, there are no words at my command sufficient to say the full extent of my love for you, A mad.

Tender, devoted, ardent, eager.

Passion, wild, jealous, reverent, wistful, hungry, happy, love, unspeakably encompassing, immeasurably absorbing, unendingly, worshiping, unceasingly, exalting, unwillingly, exacting, involuntarily, excluding, everlastingly compensating, Damn Warren Harding. And that used every single vocabulary word.

That's how you write a love letter, my dude.

Me personally, I would be scared if I ever received such a letter.

But good on Carrie. I'm sure she felt good about herself.

And in every episode of American Felt, we learn a lesson, and that lesson for today is don't send smuddy letters unless you want be blackmailed.

Cue the Gradus.

American Filth is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcast.

This episode was written and hosted by Me Gabby Watts. The theme song is by me and Jesse Niswanger.

Our senior producer is Amelia Brock, and our executive producers are Virginia PRIs Scott, Elsie.

Crowley, and Brandon Barr. You can follow along with the.

Show on Instagram at American Filth Pod and please leave a review some stars and also don't forget June twenty ninth, end of this month, in Atlanta, Georgia, we're having our first American Filth Live show. It's at Dynamic El Dorado at eight pm. You can find tickets in the show notes and also on the Instagram.

And I'll talk to you guys next time.

By School of Humans