Jason Roberts
speaker
73 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard 15 Jun
Jason Roberts’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 1.
Appearances
And basically what we find out after Harding dies is that Albert Fall allowed oil companies to drill at Teapot Dome, which they were not supposed to do, but he allowed them to drill there. in exchange for approximately $400,000 in bribes. But that doesn't come out until after Harding dies and fall. Eventually, he goes to prison over Teapot Dome.
The best evidence is that Harding didn't know anything about it at the time of his death.
Yeah. And we do know that at one point, I mean, before he's taking these bribes, he's heavily in debt. I think he's behind on his mortgage payments on his ranch. And then all of a sudden, like, wow, he's got all this money. Where did this money come from? I would note about Teapot Dome, for all the attention that historians devote to it, it didn't really resonate with the people.
Basically, what happens when they hold hearings is... We also find there were prominent Democrats that worked for some of these oil companies that were involved in Teapot Dome. So they hold these hearings and ultimately it flames out. You know, Calvin Coolidge is president and people don't blame him.
So I don't think it resonates with the public the way, say, Watergate would resonate with the public in the 1970s.
So it starts to come out, I think, in the final months of Harding's administration. I believe, interestingly enough, Harry Daugherty is telling Harding he's hearing bad things about Charles Forbes. And there's an account of...
reporter coming to the White House and he sees Harding like yelling at someone and he's shaking this person and he's saying like you know you lying SOB how could you do that to me and then it turned out it was Charles Forbes that he was confronting and then not long after that Forbes flees to Europe he submits his resignation so there's a debate about that where some critics look at that and say Harding let him get away with it like
You know, not only should he have fired him, the law should have came down hard on Forbes. There should have been an investigation. There should have been legal consequences. Defenders of Harding say, well, wait a minute. He confronted him. He forced him to resign. And at that point, they didn't have all the evidence.
You know, so it probably would have been, they believe, premature for Harding just like, oh, we're going to investigate you. We're going to arrest you.
Yeah, and I think a large part of this is it's tragic for Harding, I think, on two levels. I mean, one level is... Forbes was a friend of his you know, so he trusted him. So I think it was a case of Harding trusting the wrong person The other part of it was and I think to me this is like the most tragic part of the scandal Harding loved veterans.
He loved Helping disabled veterans he and his wife Florence would visit them in the hospital. They would house them at the White House and You know, they'd host parties for them and the Veterans Bureau was meant to help these disabled veterans. And so I think it hit Harding really hard that, you know, he trusted this person to help veterans and this person betrayed his trust.
Exactly. So yeah, he was a big supporter of the 19th Amendment when he was a senator. And yeah, he is now widely seen as having a very strong record on civil rights for that time, especially compared to Woodrow Wilson. He appoints African Americans to government jobs. He supported anti-lynching legislation in the Senate. And I think especially...
He goes down south to Birmingham, Alabama, of all places, and gives a powerful speech in support of civil rights, especially criticizing voter suppression in the South, which is just, I mean, remarkable for that time, and I think took great courage for Harding to do that.
Yeah, I mean, in many ways, yeah, economically, under him, you will go from an economic downturn to an economic boom. And I actually think even more impressive economically, especially fiscally, is he takes a national debt... And he is able to reduce that national debt and he takes budget deficits and he turns them into budget surpluses by the end of his presidency.
So the government is taking in more money than he's spending. So it looks especially impressive today where whoever's president, you don't see that.
At least not since Bill Clinton.
Yeah, I think it's one of the great moments of the Harding administration. I think it's one of the reasons I think people love Warren G. Harding, you know, if they love him, is it kind of shows his humanity. It shows like his sense of justice and mercy. And, you know, and he kept saying to his aides, like, we need to release Eugene Debs from prison. This wasn't right.
He was just expressing his First Amendment rights under the Constitution. Yeah. And so he arranges the release so Debs can spend Christmas Day with his family. And the only condition on the release was, you got to come see me at the White House. And they meet at the White House. And we don't know what was said. But Eugene Debs comes out and says to the press, Warren G. Harding is a good man.
Well, I think one reason he goes is he wanted to travel out West. He was also thinking ahead to the 1924 election. So he thought this would be a great opportunity to basically glad hand with the people. And he also, I think he wanted to get away from the situation in Washington, D.C. So certainly get away from Charles Forbes and his scandal. Get away from some other scandals.
So I think part of it was... Political getting ready for the 1924 election. And then also part of it was personal. I want to explore the West. This will be my opportunity to relax, unwind and really do what I do best, which is meet with the people and give speeches.
Showing 41–60 of 73 · page 3 of 4
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