1914: World War I begins in Europe … Charles R. Forbes becomes superintendent of Public Works in Hawaii … Warren G. Harding is elected US senator.
1915: Harding meets Forbes in Hawaii.
1916: President Woodrow Wilson elected to a second term.
1917: United States enters World War I … Forbes deploys to France as a divisional signal officer … Elias H. Mortimer of Minneapolis joins a crowd of deal-makers and fixers in Washington.
1918: Republicans gain control of both Houses of Congress … Crippling influenza epidemic in the spring, second outbreak in the fall … Armistice ends hostilities November 11.
1919: Prohibition ratified … Volstead Act establishes guidelines for national prohibition of manufacture, transportation, and sale of intoxicating liquor nationwide, effective August 1920 … Mortimer marries (and enters the family of) Katherine Bulkeley Tullidge … Third wave of pandemic influenza in the spring … “Red Scare” against suspected communist cells in the United States … J. Edgar Hoover manages antiradical program at the Department of Justice … Forbes works for Harding in Republican primary campaign.
1920: Ex-soldiers demand compensation for high civilian wages lost during the war and campaign for a “soldiers bonus” … The American Legion (established 1919) gains strength as a lobby for war veterans … Women have the vote for the first time … In November, Harding elected president by a landslide.
1921: Harding’s inauguration in March … Outgoing President Wilson signs the first Langley Act for constructing hospital beds for World War I veterans, named for Rep. John W. Langley of Kentucky … Committee run by Charles G. Dawes recommends consolidating scattered federal services for World War I veterans into one organization … Harding makes White House physician Charles E. Sawyer his aide on health and welfare policy … Forbes becomes director of the Bureau of War Risk Insurance … Creation of the Bureau of the Budget and the Office of Comptroller General with Dawes as first director of the budget … Establishment of the US Veterans Bureau with Forbes as its first director … Carolyn Harding Votaw part of Forbes’s team … Establishment of Federal Board of Hospitalization, with Sawyer as chief coordinator … Second Langley bill introduced for additional hospital construction … At instigation of Interior Secretary Albert B. Fall, Harding signs executive order transferring oil reserves from the navy to the Interior Department, which later sets off the Teapot Dome scandal.
1922: Coal strike begins … Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty under fire … Forbes meets Mortimer … Kate Marcia Forbes leaves for Europe and stays away fifteen months … Forbes makes major trip west … Railroad shop workers’ strike … Daugherty arranges injunction to stop strike … Forbes and staff decide on a quick sale of army surplus goods at Veterans Bureau depot in Perryville, MD … Harding vetoes Bonus Bill in the cause of a balanced budget … Forbes breaks with Mortimer … November elections: Republicans lose congressional seats … Harding halts the Perryville sale … Charges of impeachment against Daugherty … At Harding’s second annual message to Congress, Republicans greet him with cheers … Albert Fall leases oil reserve no. 1 to oilman Edward L. Doheny.
1923: Interior Secretary Fall resigns … Backlash against “military influence” at the Veterans Bureau … Forbes departs for Europe … Harding announces Forbes’s resignation … Frank T. Hines becomes bureau director … Senate authorizes investigation of the Veterans Bureau, conducted by Senators David A. Reed (chair), David I. Walsh, and Tasker Oddie; with John F. O’Ryan as counsel … Veterans Bureau lawyer Charles F. Cramer commits suicide … Jesse “Jess” W. Smith commits suicide … Harding leaves Washington with a large party on trip to Alaska … Forbes goes to West Coast to establish a business … Harding dies … Calvin Coolidge becomes president … Kate Forbes returns to United States, files for divorce … Senate investigative hearings on the Veterans Bureau and Senate hearings on oil leases begin, both in late October … Senate investigation of the Veterans Bureau ends in December … James S. Easby-Smith represents Forbes.
1924: Drama at the oil hearings in January … Critical reports on the Veterans Bureau investigation published … Senate passes joint resolution calling on Coolidge to appoint a special committee to investigate oil scandals … Grand jury investigation summoned for Veterans Bureau case in Chicago, with John W. H. Crim as government prosecutor and Mortimer as chief witness … Resignation of Naval Secretary Edwin L. Denby … Articles by Will Irwin depict Forbes as one of Harding’s betraying friends … Grand jury indicts Forbes and businessman John W. Thompson … Mortimer works for Assistant Attorney General Mabel Walker Willebrandt as informer on prohibition cases … Senate investigation of Daugherty opens … Mortimer testifies against two congressmen on liquor charges … Langley indicted, convicted, and goes to prison … Bonus Bill passes after Congress overrides Coolidge’s veto … Daugherty resigns … Baltimore grand jury indicts Forbes and a Boston businessman over the sale of surplus goods at Perryville … Political party conventions highlight the Harding scandals, singling out Fall and Forbes … Sawyer dies … Coolidge/Dawes presidential ticket wins in November … Trial of Forbes and Thompson begins under federal judge George A. Carpenter.
1925: Guilty verdict for Forbes and Thompson … Civil suit to cancel Teapot Dome lease to Harry F. Sinclair begins in Wyoming … Albert Fall indicted for conspiring with Doheny … Appeals by Forbes and Thompson unsuccessful.
1926: Forbes begins prison term, Thompson dies … Samuel Hopkins Adams publishes influential satire of the Harding administration … Fall-Doheny oil trial testimony ends … Daugherty and Thomas W. Miller tried in New York on illegal sale of alien property, Miller convicted.
1927: Supreme Court invalidates Teapot Dome lease … Trial of Fall and Sinclair fails, jury discharged, and new trial set … Forbes released from Leavenworth in November … Publishes his account of the Harding years.
1928: Senate hearings on the oil leases resume, end in May … Fall continues under legal scrutiny … Mortimer dies … Herbert Hoover elected president.
1929: Sinclair enters Washington jail in May, leaves in November … Fall found guilty of accepting a bribe from Doheny, sentenced to one year. (After appeals fail, Fall enters prison in Santa Fe in July 1931, released May 1932.) … New York stock market crashes … Forbes resumes private life … Forbes dies in 1952.