2008-09
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 8/31/2008
Rare General Order No. 111, 1p. octavo, with black mourning borders, Navy Department, Washington, D.C., August 3, 1923, issued by Theodore Roosevelt (son of the President) Acting Secretary of the navy, and reads “1. After a life of national service our Commander in Chief, PRESIDENT HARDING, died at San Francisco last evening. Through these troubled and important years he gave himself unsparingly to the service of our country and accomplished great good. He wore himself down by the burden he was carrying. No man in our history more truly gave his life for his country. 2. Under the Constitution, Calvin Coolidge, Vice President, has become President....” VG. In June 1923, Harding set out on a cross-country "Voyage of Understanding," planning to meet ordinary people and explain his policies. During this trip, he became the first president to visit Alaska. Rumors of corruption in his administration were beginning to circulate in Washington by this time, and Harding was profoundly shocked by a long message he received while in Alaska, apparently detailing illegal activities previously unknown to him. At the end of July, while traveling south from Alaska through British Columbia, he developed what was thought to be a severe case of food poisoning. He gave the final speech of his life to a large crowd at the University of Washington Stadium (now Husky Stadium) at the University of Washington campus in Seattle, Washington. A scheduled speech in Portland, Oregon was canceled. The President's train proceeded south to San Francisco. Arriving at the Palace Hotel, he developed pneumonia. Harding died of either a heart attack or a stroke at 7:35 p.m. on August 2, 1923. The formal announcement, printed in the New York Times of that day, stated that "A stroke of apoplexy was the cause of death." He had been ill exactly one week. Naval physicians surmised that he had suffered a heart attack; however, this diagnosis was not made by Dr. Charles E. Sawyer, the Surgeon General, who was traveling with the presidential party. Mrs. Harding refused permission for an autopsy, which soon led to speculation that the President had been the victim of a plot, possibly carried out by his wife.
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