Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

This day February 2 2nd, 1920, Warren G Harding writes a letter that contains a very curious

proposal.

The letter was to Carrie Fulton Phillips, the woman he had been having an affair with on and off for the better

part of 15 years or so.

And over those 15 years, Harding's political star was steadily rising, and by February

1920 he was a senator from Ohio perhaps with an eye on an even higher office

but he knew that this affair if it went public might doom his chances so he wrote this letter

in which he offered one of two proposals to

carry Phillips in return for her silence. One option he would resign at the end of

his senatorial term and not return to Marion, Ohio where they had met.

And the other option was that he would pay her $5,000 a year each march for as long as he remained

in public service.

Warren Harding, of course, did stay in public service.

He would go on to be elected president that fall, take office in 1921.

He would serve for only two years before dying in office and is largely considered one of the

worst presidents.

He was very corrupt and ineffective, very anti-immigrant.

That's another parallel that we may not get into in this episode,

but let's focus on the letters and this affair and to do that is as always

Nicole Hammer of Columbia. Hello Nicky. Hello Jody I want this whole episode to

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