What happened to sex scandals? Politics and peccadilloes, Jefferson to Kennedy

Journal of American History

Volumn 87, Issue 3, 2000, Pages 825-854

  Summers, John H ^a,b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER   (United States)

^b HARVARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0007195770     PISSN: 00218723     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/2675274     Document Type: Article

References (199)

1. Theodore Roosevelt, "A Disagreeable Duty," Outlook, June 14, 1913, p. 316;
2. Albany Argus, July 2, 1844, p. 2.
3. On the "repeal of reticence" and its implications, see Rochelle Gurstein, The Repeal of Reticence: A History of America's Cultural and Legal Struggles over Free Speech, Obscenity, Sexual Liberation, and Modern Art (New York, 1996). The scope of this article is restricted to the ideology and collective psychology of the national political elite. A fuller investigation would attempt to account for differences related to region, section, gender, ethnicity, and race and would show how other domains of private character might affect the argument. Until now no sustained, scholarly analysis of sex scandals in American history has existed.
4. For an informal history of political gossip that furnishes useful documentary evidence but no serious explanatory framework, see Gail Collins, Scorpion Tongues: Gossip, Celebrity, and American Politics (New York, 1998).
5. For the statement by John Adams, see Richard R. Beeman, "Deference, Republicanism, and the Emergence of Popular Politics in Eighteenth-Century America," William and Mary Quarterly, 49 (July 1992), 402.
6. James T. Callender, History of the United States for 1796 (Philadelphia, 1797), 34. Sedition Act, sec. 2, I Stat. 596 (1798). "The language of the Sedition Aa was vague enough to make a man criminally liable for almost any criticism of the government or its leading officials," observes Richard Hofstader.
7. See Richard Hofstader, The Idea of a Party System: The Rise of a Legitimate Opposition in the United States, 1780-1840 (Berkeley, 1969), 107.
8. See also James Morton Smith, Freedom's Fetters: The Alien and Sedition Laws and American Civil Liberties (Ithaca, 1956), esp. 94-155.
9. Benjamin Franklin, "An Account of the Supremest Court of Judicature in Pennsylvania, Viz. The Court of the Press," Sept. 12, 1789, in The Writing of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Albert Henry Smyth (10 vols., New York, 1905-1907), X, 38.
10. Charles O. Lerche Jr., "Jefferson and the Election of 1800: A Case Study in the Political Smear," William and Mary Quarterly, 5 (Oct. 1948), 469, 487;
11. Norma Basch, "Marriage, Morals, and Politics in the Election of 1828," Journal of American History, 80 (Dec. 1993), 890-918.
12. For the charges against William Henry Harrison and John Quincy Adams, see James Pollard, The Presidents and the Press (New York, 1947), 135, 207;
13. Collins, Scorpion Tongues, 23-94.
14. On Grover Cleveland, see below. John Quincy Adams, Memoirs, ed. Charles Francis Adams (7 vols., Philadelphia, 1875), VII, 415;
15. Alexander Hamilton, "Observations on Certain Documents Contained in No. V & VI of 'The History of the United States for the Year 1796,' In Which the Charge of Speculation Against Alexander Hamilton, Late Secretary of the Treasury, is Fully Refuted. Written by Himself," in The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, ed. Harold C. Syrett (27 vols., New York, 1961-1987), XXI, 239.
16. For Harrison's statement, see Pollard, Presidents and the Press, 207.
17. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. Henry Reeve (1838-1840; 2 vols., New York, 1990), I, 94, 187;
18. Lady Emmeline Stuart Wortley, Travels in the United States, Etc., During 1849 and 1850 (New York, 1851), 44.
19. Michael E. McGerr, The Decline of Popular Politics: The American North, 1865-1928 (New York, 1986), 12-41. The advent of mass communication facilitated the spread of scandal. "Quite suddenly, the circulation of political speech exploded," as reporting became a means to hold public officers accountable to voters.
20. See Thomas C. Leonard, The Power of the Press: The Birth of American Political Reporting (New York, 1986), 93, 94.
21. On the influence of both republicanism and liberalism on the theory and practice of American politics, especially during the first century of the Republic, see James T. Kloppenberg, "The Virtues of Liberalism: Christianity, Republicanism, and Ethics in Early American Political Discourse," Journal of American History, 74 (June 1987), 9-33;
22. Gordon Wood, "Interests and Disinterestedness in the Making of the Constitution," in Beyond Confederation: Origins of the Constitution and American National Identity, ed. Richard Beeman, Stephen Botein, and Edward C. Carter II (Chapel Hill, 1987), 69-109;
23. Ralph Ketcham, Presidents above Party: The First American Presidency, 1789-1829 (Chapel Hill, 1984);
24. Michael J. Sandel, Democracy's Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy (Cambridge, Mass., 1996).
25. For a definition of republicanism, see Gordon S. Wood, "Republicanism," in The Reader's Companion to American History, ed. Eric Foner and John A. Garrary (Boston, 1991), 930-31.
26. Paul Pry, Feb. 13, 1836, p. 4;
27. Paul Pry, ibid., Dec. 24, 1831, p. 2.
28. Charles G. Finney, Finney's Systematic Theology (Minneapolis, 1994), 231, 233;
29. Richard J. Carwardine, Evangelicals and Politics in Antebellum America (New Haven, 1993), 58, 66;
30. Finney, Finney's Systematic Theology, 238.
31. On evangelicalism and antebellum politics, see also Daniel Walker Howe, "The Evangelical Movement and Political Culture in the North during the Second Party System," Journal of American History, 77 (March 1991), 1216-39;
32. Paul Goodman, "Moral Purpose and Republican Politics in Antebellum America, 1830-1860," Maryland Historian, 20 (Fall/Winter 1989), 5-39.
33. The Whigs in particular crafted images of Christian moralism for their party's candidates. See Daniel Walker Howe, The Political Culture of the American Whigs (Chicago, 1979), esp. 11-42, 150-70.
34. Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography (1790; New York, 1962), 69;
35. David Crockett, The Life of Martin Van Buren, Heir-Apparent to the "Government," and the Appointed Successor of General Andrew Jackson (Philadelphia, 1835), 13, 29, 20.
36. On the "deep anxieties about the destructive potential of hypocrisy in the American republic," see Karen Halttunen, Confidence Men and Painted Women: A Study of Middle-Class Culture in America, 1830-1870 (New Haven, 1982), 33-55;
37. John F. Kasson, Rudeness and Civility: Manners in Nineteenth-Century Urban America (New York, 1991).
38. Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. Reeve, I, 27;
39. Robert H. Wiebe, Self-Rule: A Cultural History of American Democracy (Chicago, 1995), 21.
40. On the "democratic idiom" of nineteenth-century popular speech, see Kenneth Cmiel, Democratic Eloquence: The Fight over Popular Speech in Nineteenth-Century America (Berkeley, 1990).
41. Major Jack Downing [Seba Smith], My Thirty Years Out of the Senate (New York, 1859), 5.
42. On Henry Ward Beecher, see Richard Wightman Fox, "Intimacy on Trial: Cultural Meanings of the Beecher-Tilton Affair," in The Power of Culture: Critical Essays in American History, ed. Richard Wightman Fox and T. J. Jackson Lears (Chicago, 1993), 103-32;
43. Nation, July 20, 1871, in American Press Opinion, Washington to Coolidge: A Documentary Record of Editorial Leadership and Criticism, 1785-1927, ed. Allan Nevins (2 vols., Port Washington, 1928), II, 323.
44. Ignatius Donnelly, Caesar's Column: A Story of the Twentieth Century (Chicago, 1890), 318;
45. Thomas E. Watson, The People's Party Campaign Book, 1892 (Washington, 1892), 221, 216-17;
46. W. Frank Mulvihill, The Prohibition Text Book for the Campaign of 1900, Containing Up-to-Date Information Regarding the So Called "Liquor Problem" (Chicago, 1900), 58, 53, 54.
47. For more on Watson's harangue, see Lawrence F. Prescott, The Great Campaign (Washington, 1896), 529-36.
48. Rebecca Edwards, Angels in the Machinery: Gender in American Party Politics from the Civil War to the Progressive Era (New York, 1997), 31;
49. Albany Argus, July 2, 1844, p. 2;
50. James C. Klotter, The Breckinridges of Kentucky, 1760-1981 (Lexington, Ky., 1986), 160-70.
51. Benjamin La Fevre, Campaign of '84 (San Francisco, 1884), 27;
52. Deschler Welch, Stephen Grover Cleveland: A Sketch of His Life (New York, 1884), iii;
53. Buffalo Evening Telegraph, July 21, 1884, p. 1. The story added that Cleveland also cavorted with other women - as any "respectable citizen" would confirm - and, lest readers miss the point, that he had been seen around town "beastly drunk." The authorship of the piece has not been established conclusively; at the least, Ball served as the chief investigator and source of the gossip.
54. Independent, Sept. 4, 1884, in American Press Opinion, ed. Nevins, II, 372;
55. Woman's Journal, Oct. 4, 1884, p. 320;
56. Woman's Journal, ibid., Aug. 9, 1884, p. 253;
57. Marvin Rosenberg and Dorothy Rosenberg, "The Dirtiest Election," American Heritage, 13 (Aug. 1962), 97.
58. Buffalo Evening Telegraph, July 21, 1884, p. 1;
59. Grover Cleveland to Charles W. Goodyear, July 23, 1884, in Letters of Grover Cleveland, 1850-1908, ed. Allan Nevins (Boston, 1933), 37;
60. Allan Nevins, Grover Cleveland: A Study in Courage (New York, 1933), 163. Historians as different as Matthew Josephson and Allan Nevins have characterized the Halpin affair as a "grotesque debate," and none has denied the centrality of gossip to the campaign.
61. See Nevins, Cleveland, 166;
62. Matthew Josephson, The Politicos, 1865-1896 (New York, 1938), 366.
63. See also Lewis L. Gould, "Election of 1884," in Running for President: The Candidates and Their Images, ed. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. (2 vols., New York, 1994), I, 365-73.
64. Cleveland to Winston S. Bissell, Nov. 13, 1884, in Letters of Cleveland, ed. Nevins, 48. Gail Collins also finds a shift toward reticence in this period, although her explanation - that "people seemed to prefer regarding their political leaders as virtuous, and rather distant" - strikes me as a broad and unwarranted inference.
65. See Collins, Scorpion Tongues, 130.
66. Pollard, Presidents and the Press, 551;
67. Collins, Scorpion Tongues, 116;
68. David Lawrence, The True Story of Woodrow Wilson (New York, 1924), 132;
69. Woodrow Wilson, "An Outline and Two Drafts of Statements," in The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, ed. Arthur S. Link et al. (69 vols., Princeton, 1966-1994), XXXIV, 496-97, 498-99;
70. Mary Allen Hulbert, The Story of Mrs. Peck (New York, 1933).
71. Samuel Hopkins Adams, "The Timely Death of President Harding," in The Aspirin Age, ed. Isabel Leighton (New York, 1949), 87;
72. Francis Russell, The Shadow of Blooming Grove: Warren Harding in His Times (New York, 1968).
73. The Democrats once claimed to possess documents verifying the Nan Britton affair, and the involvement with Carrie Phillips, Samuel Hopkins Adams noted, "was known to the newspapermen." Adams, "Timely Death of President Harding," 86-87.
74. Cf. Russell, Shadow of Blooming Grove, 401-2.
75. The profile was Anne O'Hagen, "The Woman We Send to the White House," Delineator, 97 (Nov. 1920), 7.
76. Nan Britton, The President's Daughter (New York, 1927);
77. Samuel Hopkins Adams, Revelry (New York, 1926);
78. Gaston Means with May Dixon Thacker, The Strange Death of President Harding (New York, 1930).
79. H. L. Mencken, "Politics," in Civilization in the United States: An Inquiry by Thirty Americans, ed. Harold E. Stearns (New York, 1922), 21;
80. H. L. Mencken, "Saturnalia," Baltimore Sun, July 18, 1927, p. 15.
81. For official and unofficial attempts to suppress works by Britton, Means, and Adams, see Congressional Record, 70 Cong., 1 sess., Jan. 26, 1928, pp. 2077-79;
82. New York Daily News, July 1, 1927, p. 3;
83. Nan Britton, Honesty or Politics (New York, 1932);
84. May Dixon Thacker, "Debunking 'The Strange Death of President Harding': A Complete Repudiation of a Sensational Book by Its Author," Liberty, Nov. 7, 1931, pp. 8-12;
85. New York Times, Sept. 3, 1927, p. 13;
86. ibid., Sept. 7, 1927, p. 35. Writing in the New Yorker, Dorothy Parker avowed that The President's Daughter was "the most amazing work that has yet found its way into these jittering hands." Yet Parker could think of no lessons to draw from Harding's clandestine behavior.
87. Dorothy Parker, Constant Reader (New York, 1970), 5, 6, 8-9. Harding's reputation continues to suffer from speculation about his affairs, the existence of which his apologists stubbornly dispute.
88. For evidence of the affairs, see Britton, President's Daughter;
89. Francis Russell, "The Shadow of Warren Harding," Antioch Review, 36 (Winter 1978), 57-76;
90. New York Times, July 10, 1964, p. 27;
91. Russell, Shadow of Blooming Grove.
92. For an unpersuasive dissent, see Robert H. Ferrell, The Strange Deaths of President Harding (Columbia, Mo., 1996), 50-84.
93. Norman Foerster, "Literature and the Undergraduate," Dial, Jan. 1, 1913, p. 4;
94. Malcolm Cowley, Exile's Return: A Literary Odyssey of the 1920s (1934; New York, 1994), 65. The literature charting the new frankness is vast.
95. See, for example, Gurstein, Repeal of Reticence;
96. Ann Douglas, Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s (New York, 1995);
97. John D'Emilio and Estelle Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America (New York, 1988), esp. 171-235;
98. John C. Burnham, "The Progressive Era Revolution in American Attitudes toward Sex," Journal of American History, 59 (March 1973); 885-908;
99. Paul S. Boyer, Purity in Print: The Vice Society Movement and Book Censorship in America (New York, 1968), esp. 128-66;
100. Warren I. Susman, Culture as History: The Transformation of American Society in the Twentieth Century (New York, 1984), 39-49.
101. Robert Creamer, Babe: The Legend Comes to Life (New York, 1974), 297. One might argue, against my implications, that the legal difficulties that plagued Ruth's sexual relationships contributed to the willingness of reporters to discuss his marriage in print. Wilson and Harding did not suffer legal problems.
102. See Jonathan Daniels, The Time between the Wars: Armistice to Pearl Harbor (Garden City, 1966), 208-9, 221;
103. Chalmer Roberts, "Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Press," in The Credibility of Institutions, Policies, and Leadership, vol. V: The Media, ed. Kenneth W. Thompson (New York, 1985), 186;
104. Hugh A. Bone, "Smear" Politics: An Analysis of the 1940 Campaign Literature (Washington, 1941). Bone collected, from more than thirty states, approximately four hundred pieces of campaign literature deemed "scurrilous, obscene, vicious, subversive, and destructive." He concluded that "the last presidential contest [1940] was undoubtedly one of the most bitter in recent American history" yet in his detailed analysis found no utterance on sexual immorality.
105. Hugh A. Bone, "Smear" Politics: An Analysis of the 1940 Campaign Literature Ibid., 1.
106. Jules Witcover, "Unshining Moments: What Did Newsmen Know of JFKS Antics - And When Did They Know It?," Columbia Journalism Review (Jan./Feb. 1998), 76;
107. Seymour M. Hersh, The Dark Side of Camelot (New York, 1977), esp. 1-12, 24-25, 49, 62, 71, 82-87, 102-20, 129-30, 222-46, 294-340, 344, 386-411.
108. On the Profumo affair, see Robin Gaster, "Sex, Spies, and Scandal: The Profumo Affair and British Politics," in The Politics of Scandal: Power and Process in Literal Democracies, ed. Andrei S. Markovits and Mark Silverstein (New York, 1988), 62-88.
109. Susman, Culture as History, 276, 278.
110. See Joan Williams, "Virtue," in A Companion to American Thought, ed. Richard Wightman Fox and James T. Kloppenberg (Cambridge, Mass., 1995), 706-9.
111. Kevin Pierce Thornton, "The End of Virtue: Public Morality and Individual Autonomy in America, 1865-1880" (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1996), 12. Presidential campaign biographies projected essentially the same image between 1824 and 1960: "a plain, simple man of modest means, surrounded by a dutiful, loving wife and adoring children; a man of practical good sense and boundless energy, a man of deep but unostentatious piety, of impeccable moral character, and of sturdy republican virtue."
112. See William Burlie Brown, The People's Choice: The Presidential Image in the Campaign Biography (Baton Rouge, 1960), 145.
113. Theodore Roosevelt, "Character and Civilization," Outlook, Nov. 8, 1913, p. 527;
114. Theodore Roosevelt, "Practical Politics," in The Work of Theodore Roosevelt, ed. Hermann Hagedorn (24 vols., New York, 1923-1926), XXII, 102;
115. Theodore Roosevelt, "Citizenship in a Republic," The Work of Theodore Roosevelt, ibid., XV, 374;
116. David H. Burton, "The Public Mind of Theodore Roosevelt: An American Amalgam," Duquesne Review, 13 (Spring 1968), 26;
117. Henry F. Graff, "Election of 1928," in Running for President, ed. Schlesinger, II, 152-59.
118. James RestOn, Deadline: A Memoir (New York, 1991), 102;
119. Lindsay Rogers, "President Roosevelt's Press Conferences," Political Quarterly, 9 (July-Sept. 1938), 364;
120. Russell, Shadow of Blooming Grove, 401-2.
121. For J. Edgar Hoover's threats to expose the sexual habits of Martin Luther King Jr., see David J. Garrow, Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (New York, 1986), 360-63;
122. Richard Gid Powers, Power and Secrecy: The Life of J. Edgar Hoover (New York, 1987), 415-22. See also Upton Sinclair's observation that socialists "have been caught upon the hook of an unhappy marriage, gutted, skinned alive, and laid quivering on the red-hot griddle of Capitalist Journalism."
123. Upton Sinclair, The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism (n.p., 1919), 332, 178.
124. Lambert A. Wilmer, Our Press Gang; or, A Complete Exposition of the Corruptions and Crimes of the American Newspapers (Philadelphia, 1859), 280;
125. Charles Eliot Norton, "Some Aspects of Civilization in America," Forum, 20 (Feb. 1896), 644, 651;
126. George T. Rider, "The Pretensions of Journalism," North American Review, 135 (June 1882), 476, 475;
127. Augustus A. Levey, "The Newspaper Habit and Its Effects," North American Review, ibid., 143 (Sept. 1886), 308;
128. E. L. Godkin, "The Rights of the Citizen - To His Own Reputation," Scribner's Magazine, 8 (July 1890), 58-67;
129. Samuel D. Warren and Louis D. Brandeis, "The Right to Privacy," Harvard Law Review, Dec. 15, 1890, pp. 193-220.
130. For upper-class reaction to the discussion of the Cleveland and Blaine affairs, see Henry Adams to Charles Milnes Gaskell, Sept. 21, 1884, in Letters of Henry Adams, 1858-1918, ed. Worthington Chauncey Ford (2 vols., Boston, 1930-1938), I, 360.
131. Curtis D. MacDougall, Newsroom Problems and Policies (New York, 1941), 307. The experience of Drew Pearson and his partners in the "Merry-Go-Round" is instructive. The authors of "Merry-Go-Round," the most widely read, gossipy, and careless of all syndicated newspaper columns between the 1930s and 1970s, were sued for libel more times than anyone else in this period. Yet, although the country "had no uniform libel standard in regard to defenses against defamation actions brought by public officials" until 1964, Pearson lost only one case. Of the 126 lawsuits analyzed by Douglas A. Anderson, moreover, none concerned the imputation of sexual misbehavior to a political official.
132. See Douglas A. Anderson, A "Washington Merry-Go-Round" of Libel Actions (Chicago, 1980), 120.
133. On the erratic development and ultimate failure of the privacy tort, see William L. Prosser, "Privacy," California Law Review, 48 (Aug. 1960), 383-423;
134. Diane L. Zimmerman, "Requiem for a Heavyweight: A Farewell to Warren and Brandeiss Privacy Tort," Cornell Law Review, 68 (March 1983), 281-367.
135. Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Crowded Hours (New York, 1933), 109, 128;
136. Edith Bolling Wilson, My Memoir (Indianapolis, 1938), 67.
137. McGerr, Decline of Popular Politics, 42-137;
138. Robert Westbrook, "Politics as Consumption: Managing the Modern American Election," in The Culture of Consumption: Critical Essays in American History, 1880-1980, ed. Richard Wightman Fox and T. J. Jackson Lears (New York, 1983), 145-73.
139. Walter Lippmann, Liberty and the News (New York, 1920), 78-79. By 1912, 3 universities had established schools of journalism, and 9 more offered courses in the subject. Three years later, 39 universities taught journalism. National press associations formed between 1885 and 1923, following the efforts of state and local organizations. At the first national journalism conference in May 1914, discussants even proposed licensing requirements for reporters.
140. See Marion Tuttle Marzolf, Civilizing Voices: American Press Criticism, 1880-1950 (New York, 1991), 50-53, 64, 68;
141. Merle Thorpe, "The Coming Newspaper," in The Coming Newspaper, ed. Merle Thorpe (New York, 1915), 23.
142. Joseph Pulitzer, "The College of Journalism," North American Review, 178 (May 1904), 667.
143. For the statements by the Kansas editors, the Brooklyn paper, and the Oregon journalists, see Stanley Walker, City Editor (New York, 1934), 172, 174, 173.
144. American Society of Newspaper Editors, Problems of Journalism: Proceedings of the First Annual Meeting (Washington, 1923), 17, 1-2.
145. For other press codes and sentiment about their necessity and efficacy, see Nelson A. Crawford, The Ethics of Journalism (New York, 1924), 183-210;
146. M. Lyle Spencer, Editorial Writing: Ethics, Policy, Practice (Boston, 1924), 73;
147. John H. Sorrells, The Working Press (New York, 1930), 3;
148. Moses Koenigsberg, King News: An Autobiography (Philadelphia, 1941), 502.
149. Walter Lippmann, The Phantom Public (New York, 1925), 110. Realist critics questioned "the belief in the capacity of all men for rational political action and the belief in the practicality and desirability of maximizing the participation of all citizens in public life." They argued for a "government for the people by enlightened and responsible elites."
150. Robert B. Westbrook, John Dewey and American Democracy (Ithaca, 1991), 281-82.
151. For more on the "powerful and deadly critique of the democratic ideal" in these years, see Edward A. Purcell Jr., The Crisis of Democratic Theory: Scientific Naturalism and the Problem of Value (Lexington, Ky., 1973), esp. 95-113.
152. MacDougall, Newsroom Problems and Policies, 98, 135;
153. John Macy, "Journalism," in Civilization in the United States, ed. Stearns, 43;
154. Gerald Johnson, What Is News? (New York, 1926), 44;
155. Spencer, Editorial Writing, 77;
156. Washington Gladden, "Tainted Journalism: Good and Bad," in Coming Newspaper, ed. Thorpe, 50, 38, 39.
157. Casper S. Yost, The Principles of Journalism (New York, 1924), 154, 110;
158. "Symposium: Giving the Public What It Wants," in Coming Newspaper, ed. Thorpe, 223, 238;
159. George Harvey, Journalism, Politics, and the University (n.p., 1908), 2, 1, 8. This pamphlet contains the Bromley lectures delivered at Yale University in March 1908.
160. Christopher Lasch, The New Radicalism in America, 1889-1963: The Intellectual as a Social Type (New York, 1965), 163;
161. Gladden, "Tainted Journalism," 41.
162. Mark Sullivan, The Education of an American (New York, 1938), 316;
163. Scott Hart, "From Such a Bond," in Dateline: Washington; The Story of National Affairs Journalism in the Lift and Times of the National Press Club, ed. Cabell Phillips (Garden City, 1949), 29, 33.
164. Reston, Deadline, 102;
165. A. Merriman Smith, Merriman Smith's Book of Presidents: A White House Memoir, ed. Timothy G. Smith (New York, 1972), 38, 221;
166. Hersh, Dark Side of Camelot, 25, 49, 62, 71.
167. Jane Grey Swisshelm, Half a Century (Chicago, 1880), 131-35.
168. [Clinton Wallace Gilbert], The Mirrors of Washington (New York, 1921);
169. New York Times, July 16, 1922, p. 10;
170. New York Times, ibid., July 31, 1921, p. 3;
171. "The Washington Scene," Outlook and Independent, July 29, 1931, p. 408;
172. [Drew Pearson and Robert Allen], Washington Merry-Go-Round (New York, 1931), 326;
173. Jack Lait and Lee Mortimer, Washington Confidential: The Low-Down on the Big Town (New York, 1951), x, 85, 97, 87, 146. Pearson and Allen disclosed that a "petty temper" proved President Herbert Hoover's "fatal weakness of character" and discussed Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon's embarrassing 1912 divorce proceedings.
174. See [Pearson and Alien], Washington Merry-Go-Round, 56, 176-79. I have not been able to determine precisely what Pearson knew about Franklin Roosevelt's affairs. Certainly Pearson had heard rumors.
175. See "Roosevelt Family," n.d., G296, 1 of 3, Private Papers of Drew Pearson (Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library, Austin, Tex.).
176. Gene Fowler, Beau James: The Life and Times of Jimmy Walker (New York, 1949), 212;
177. Neal Gabler, Winchell: Gossip, Power, and the Culture of Celebrity (New York, 1994), 95, 135-36.
178. On journalism's status as a profession, see Michael Schudson, "The Profession of Journalism in the United States," in The Professions in American History, ed. Nathan O. Hatch (Notre Dame, 1988), 145-61.
179. Hersh, Dark Side of Camelot, 118-20;
180. "Rule XIV," in U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Constitution, Jefferson's Manual, and the Rules of the House of Representatives (Washington, 1995), 525;
181. The Statutes of California and Amendments to the Codes Passed at the Thirty-Third Session of the Legislature, 1899 (Sacramento, 1899), 28;
182. Laws of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Passed at the Session of 1903 (Harrisburg, 1903), 353, 350.
183. More generally, see Stephen Hess and Milton Kaplan, The Ungentlemanly Art: A History of American Political Cartoons (New York, 1968), 47.
184. Stephen Skowronek, Building a New American State: The Expansion of National Administrative Capacities, 1877-1920 (Cambridge, Mass., 1982), 3-18, esp. 4, 3.
185. C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite (New York, 1956), 85.
186. On status and stratification, see C. Wright Mills, Power, Politics, and People: The Collected Essays of C. Wright Mills, ed. Irving Louis Horowitz (New York, 1963), 305-23.
187. Herbert Croly, The Promise of American Life (1911; Cambridge, Mass., 1965), 74, 165, 166, 449, 166, 69;
188. Laws of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania . . . 1903, 354.
189. New York Times, Sept. 3, 1927, p. 13;
190. New York Times, ibid., Sept. 7,1927, p. 35;
191. Congressional Record, 70 Cong., 1 sess., Jan. 26, 1928, pp. 2077;
192. Richard Washburn Child, "Sh - They Say the President," Collier's, Feb. 12, 1927, pp. 8, 42;
193. John W. Gunn, Was President Harding Murdered? (Girard, 1931 ), 25-26.
194. Mills, Power Elite, 357, 84.
195. On "sacralization," see Lawrence W. Levine, Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America (Cambridge, Mass., 1988), esp. 83-168. Levines perceptive and important analysis of cultural hierarchy offers fruitful points of comparison with the evolution of political hierarchy.
196. Although it does not discuss the topic of sex scandal, Neal Gablers biography shows that Walter Winchells desire for respectability and his sense of patriotism became intertwined as the century progressed. This helps explain the columnist's extremely close relationship with J. Edgar Hoover. See Gabler, Winchell.
197. Political speech is only one of many arenas in which the public-private dichotomy is conceptually muddled. For a useful overview, see Jeff Weintraub, "The Theory and Politics of the Public/Private Distinction," in Public and Private in Thought and Practice: Perspectives on a Grand Dichotomy, ed. Jeff Weintraub and Krisan Kumar (Chicago, 1997), 1-42.
198. C. Wright Mills, Power, Politics, and People, ed. Horowitz, 336. One can find a version of Mills's remark in nearly every period of American history, but the point here is that the standard mechanisms of redress - genuinely alternative parties - diminished by the post-World War II era, as the extrapolitical ferment of the 1960s amply demonstrated.
199. This point is demonstrated in a brilliant exegesis by a political scientist, useful here as conceptual framework: James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven, 1985).