HARDING, Warren G. Autograph letter signed ("Warren G. Harding") as President, to H. Hough, Washington, 19 November 1921. 1 full page, 4to (8 7/8 x 7 in.), imprinted White House stationery. A PRESIDENT "NEVER WRITES A LETTER WHICH IS READ SOLELY BY THE ONE TO WHOM IT IS ADDRESSED" Harding, eight months into his presidency, wryly acknowledges that Presidential letters are rarely truly private and comments on his and the public's increasing dependence upon the typewriter: "Mr. Christian has handed me your letter, and I have heard of your collection, so I am very pleased to comply with your request. Probably we should be quite as well off if all letters were penned by their authors for we should then have less of them." In conclusion, Harding states a simple fact concerning the President's lack of privacy: "One thing a President must learn - he never writes a letter which is read solely by the one to whom it is addressed." As a recent biographer notes, Harding "devoted much time to answering his unsolicited private correspondence, often working late at night to reply personally to the juvenile or crackpot letters that should have been handled by some third assistant secretary, if at all" (F. Russell, The Shadow of Blooming Grove , p. 453). Still, he preferred to dictate most of these, and that habit, plus his short presidency, combine to make Hardings ALSs in office quite rare. According to auction records, only four Harding ALSs have been offered for sale in the last twenty years, none of comparable presidential content.
HARDING, Warren G. Autograph letter signed ("Warren G. Harding") as President, to H. Hough, Washington, 19 November 1921. 1 full page, 4to (8 7/8 x 7 in.), imprinted White House stationery. A PRESIDENT "NEVER WRITES A LETTER WHICH IS READ SOLELY BY THE ONE TO WHOM IT IS ADDRESSED" Harding, eight months into his presidency, wryly acknowledges that Presidential letters are rarely truly private and comments on his and the public's increasing dependence upon the typewriter: "Mr. Christian has handed me your letter, and I have heard of your collection, so I am very pleased to comply with your request. Probably we should be quite as well off if all letters were penned by their authors for we should then have less of them." In conclusion, Harding states a simple fact concerning the President's lack of privacy: "One thing a President must learn - he never writes a letter which is read solely by the one to whom it is addressed." As a recent biographer notes, Harding "devoted much time to answering his unsolicited private correspondence, often working late at night to reply personally to the juvenile or crackpot letters that should have been handled by some third assistant secretary, if at all" (F. Russell, The Shadow of Blooming Grove , p. 453). Still, he preferred to dictate most of these, and that habit, plus his short presidency, combine to make Hardings ALSs in office quite rare. According to auction records, only four Harding ALSs have been offered for sale in the last twenty years, none of comparable presidential content.
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