MURDER AND GRAFT

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 929, 24 March 1930, Page 11

MURDER AND GRAFT

SENSATIONAL SCANDAL ON HARDING REGIME BOOK BY EX-PRISONER Reed. 9.5 a.m. NEW YORK, Sun. Amazing charges of murder, graft and corruption, linked in a most sensational scandal story of the Harding Administration, are being examined by the United States Attorney, Leo Rover. The allegations appear in a book dictated by Gaston Means, formerly an agent of the Justice Department and an ex-prisoner. Means purports to tell the inside story of the deaths of several of Mr. Harding’s closest associates and of the sudden deaths of Mr. Harding and of his physician, General Sawyer, while Mrs. Harding was his guest, also of Mrs. Harding’s death two months later. Means’s story, according to the Washington correspondent of the Chicago “Tribune,” declares he was secretly employed by Mrs. Harding between 1921 and 1923 to establish the falsity of rumours of her husband’s mesalliance with a Nan Britton. He was also to discover liow and where Harding was losing large sums in stock speculations, and to frustrate the designs of several of his associates, whom Means calls “the Ohio Gang,” which was able to force compliance of its wishes by a threat of exposure of an alleged intrigue with . Nan. SEALED HIS LIPS Those connected with the gang, which seemed to command unlimited money, included Jess Smith, an associate of the former Attorney-General. Mr. Daugherty, and who did not suicide as stated but was killed to seal his lips. Three others died suddenly—T. B. Felder, another of Daugherty’s associates, after declaring he would reveal the story, John T. King, a politician, and C. F. Hateley, a Justice Department agent. Means adds: “The Ohio Gang sold its protection to bootleggers.” Mr. Rover is expected to decide immediately whether there is ground for Grand Jury action against Means or some of the persons accused in the book. Mr. W. G. Harding was President of the United States at the time of his death on August 2, 1923, aged 58. It was announced that the cause of death was heart trouble following pneumonia. He died and was buried at Marion, Ohio. Mrs. Harding (nee Miss Florence Kling) was a daughter of Mr. Amos O, Kling, a hardware merchant, of Marion. Her family were Mennonites. Her first husband was M. E. de Wolfe. She divorced him and he died in Colorado after having been aided by Mr. Harding to establish himself in a newspaper business. De Wolfe’s children received legacies under Mr. and Mrs. Harding's wills. Mrs. Harding died at Marion on November 21, 1924.