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Warren G. Harding, the 29th president of the United States, is now perhaps most commonly known for ranking at or near the top of Worst Presidents lists. Invocation of Harding's name does not typically call to mind any sterling achievements as president, but rather a litany of scandal and corruption: the bribery-induced Teapot Dome oil leases of Harding's Secretary of the Interior (Albert Fall); Harding's heavy drinking and fully stocked White House bar in the midst of Prohibition; Harding's long extramarital affair (including a child fathered out of wedlock) with Nan Britton, a woman 30 years his junior; and Harding's sudden and mysterious death in office in 1923. Part and parcel of Harding's dissolute reputation is the claim that he once rashly gambled away the White House china on a single hand of poker: 1 (A cold hand in poker is one in which each player is dealt a face-up hand of cards, and the highest-ranked hand wins -- unlike standard forms of poker, no cards are concealed, no additional cards are drawn, and no betting takes place after the deal.) Although Harding lost the White House china in a poker game is a common anecdote told about the 29th president, it is typically presented without reference to any documentation or evidence establishing it to be true. Yet the exact source of this claim is readily ascertainable: Betty Beale, the long-time Washington Star society writer whose columns were syndicated in numerous newspapers across the U.S. In 1965, Beale had occasion to write about Louise Cromwell Brooks, the American socialite who had recently passed away. Brooks, once dubbed one of Washington's most beautiful and attractive young women, was notorious for being a four-time divorcee, having married (and then split up with), in succession, Baltimore businessman Walter Booth Brooks Jr., General Douglas MacArthur, actor Lionel Atwill, and bandleader Alf Heiberg. Brooks was a personal acquaintance of Warren Harding's, which prompted Beale to include the following story in her highlights of Brooks' life: This seems to be a credible account, related by an identifiable source with specific details of time and place. On the other hand, it's also a single-source, second-hand account, told by someone who putatively learned about the event 20 years after the fact and then didn't reveal what she was told until another 20 years had passed, when both of the principals (Harding and Brooks) were dead and could no longer confirm or deny it. This account could be literally true, it could be fabricated, or the truth could lie somewhere in between (e.g., Brooks played poker with Harding, and the president later made her a gift of some White House china, but the two events were not directly connected). At this remove, it's difficult to prove one way or the other. We note, however, that even if this tale were literally true, it wouldn't necessarily be as salacious as modern tellers make it sound. Rather than the common narrative (i.e., Harding foolishly bet -- and lost -- all the White House china in a drunken poker game), Beale presents an account of some friendly banter between Brooks and Harding over a game of cards. It might have been the case that, when pressed by Harding to state what she wanted to claim as her winnings, Brooks whimsically named the first thing that came to mind, something she never really expected to receive (and wouldn't have complained if she didn't get), but Harding decided to play along and make her a gift of some surplus White House china anyway. According to Beale's account, even if Brooks did win some china from Harding in a poker game, what Harding paid up with wasn't all of the White House china, nor all of former president Benjamin Harrison's dinnerware. Some, but not all, presidential administrations commission china patterns for dinnerware which may continue to be manufactured and used in subsequent administrations, and while what Brooks allegedly received might have been Benjamin Harrison-patterned White House china, it wasn't necessarily manufactured during Harrison's term or used by him, and -- as Beale observed -- it represented only a small portion of the White House dinnerware reserve: Even today, Benjamin Harrison presidential china is readily available for purchase on the open market.
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