The Little Green House on K Street was a residence at 1625 K Street, NW, Washington DC, USA, where the notoriously corrupt deals of Warren Harding's presidency (1921–1923) are believed to have been planned.
| Little Green House on K Street | |
|---|---|
 1625 K Street in the early 1920s | |
 | |
| General information | |
| Address | 1625 K Street, NW |
| Town or city | Washington, DC |
| Country | United States |
| Completed | 1880 |
| Demolished | 1941 |
History
editThe Little Green House on K Street was constructed in 1880 by a retired attorney, J. B. Edmonds of Iowa.
The house was rented by associates of President Harding's Attorney General Harry Daugherty, including Jess Smith and Howard Mannington, known as the Ohio Gang.[1] According to testimony before the Senate Committee investigating the Teapot Dome bribery scandal,[2][3][4] it was the gang's unofficial headquarters, where many of the deals were hatched. The testimony before the Senate Committee broke down when the key witness, Roxie Stinson, admitted before the committee that she had never even seen the "little green house". The investigation was further undermined when the other key witness, Gaston Means, retracted his entire testimony in an affidavit. He admitted to jointly coaching Stinson in her testimony along with Senator Burton Wheeler.[5]
The building was razed in 1941 to make way for the 12-story Commonwealth Building.[6]
Legacy
editThe name entered the American lexicon as a symbol of political corruption and cronyism.[7] The Chicago Tribune described the home as one of "the symbols of a nation's disgrace".[8]
In 1934, Congressman Fred Britten, a Republican of Illinois, famously compared the Red House on R Street in Georgetown, where the original New Dealers strategized during the early years of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Administration, to the Little Green House on K Street.[9][10] The R Street address became known as the Brain Trust's Little Green House on K Street.[10][11][12]
During the scandal involving the extramarital affairs of Senator John Ensign and Congressman Chip Pickering in 2009, commentators frequently compared their C Street homes to the Little Green House on K Street.[13][14]
References
edit- ^ "Mannington is Mystery Man in Mystery House", Chicago Daily Tribune, March 23, 1924
- ^ Davis, Hilda Emery; and Davis, Garry. Letters to World Citizens, p. 50. World Government House, 2004. ISBN 0-9706483-7-5. Accessed October 12, 2009.
- ^ McCartney, Laton. The Teapot Dome Scandal: How Big Oil Bought the Harding White House and Tried to Steal the Country, p. 72. Random House, 2009. ISBN 0-8129-7337-2. Accessed October 12, 2009.
- ^ "New Light Shed on Deals of New York Liquor Rings", Los Angeles Times, March 22, 1924
- ^ Harry M. Daugherty and Thomas Dixon (1975), The Inside Tragedy of the Harding Tragedy
- ^ Boese, Kent. "Lost Washington: The Little Green House". Archived 2010-06-16 at the Wayback Machine. Greater Greater Washington. Accessed October 12, 2009.
- ^ "The Little Green House Loses Its Secretiveness", The New York Times, September 2, 1931
- ^ "What Sacrifice, Mr. Willkie?" Chicago Tribune, October 1, 1940
- ^ "Britten Names Hideaway of Brain Trust", Chicago Daily Tribune, August 21, 1934
- ^ a b "New Deal Run In 'Little Red House' Is Charge Hurled On House Floor", Hartford Courant, August 21, 1934
- ^ Moore, William. "Mrs. Roosevelt in R Street House?" Chicago Daily Tribune, May 8, 1943
- ^ "Knox Explains Dinner at Mystery House", Chicago Tribune, May 4, 1943
- ^ Cal Thomas, "Faithful Fellowship on C Street", The Washington Post, June 26, 2009
- ^ Jacob M. Appel, "Hate the Husband? Sue the Mistress", October 6, 2009
Further reading
edit- Dean, John W. Warren G. Harding (The American Presidents Series). Times Books, Henry Holt and Company, LLC, 2004
- Downes Randolph C. The Rise of Warren Gamaliel Harding, 1865–1920. Ohio University Press, 1970
- Ferrell, Robert H. The Strange Deaths of Warren G. Harding, Columbia:MO, University of Missouri Press, 1998
- Murray Robert K. The Harding Era 1921-1923: Warren G. Harding and his Administration. University of Minnesota Press, 1969
- Russell, Francis (1968). The Shadow of Blooming Grove: Warren G. Harding and His Times. New York: McGraw-Hill. pp. 39–40, 403–405. ISBN 0-07-054338-0.
- Sinclair, Andrew. The Available Man: The Life behind the Masks of Warren Gamaliel Harding 1965 online full-scale biography