reviewed Britton's papers at UCLA, regarded them as unproven. In 2015, DNA tests performed by Ancestry.com were used by members of the Harding and Blaesing families, which confirmed that Harding was Elizabeth's father. Sinclair suggested that a harsher standard was applied to Harding compared with Grover Cleveland, who was elected president in 1884, although it was known he had a mistress and may have fathered a son out of wedlock. Historical view Upon his death, Harding was deeply mourned—not only in the United States, but around the world. He was called a man of peace in many European newspapers. American journalists praised him lavishly, with some describing him as having given his life for his country. His associates were stunned by his demise. Daugherty wrote, "I can hardly write about it or allow myself to think about it yet." Hughes stated, "I cannot realize that our beloved Chief is no longer with us." Hagiographic accounts of Harding's life quickly followed his death, such as Joe Mitchell Chapple's Life and Times of Warren G. Harding, Our After-War President (1924). By then, the scandals were breaking, and the Harding administration soon became a byword for corruption in the view of the public. Works written in the late 1920s helped shape Harding's dubious historical reputation: Masks in a Pageant, by William Allen White, mocked and dismissed Harding, as did Samuel Hopkins Adams' fictionalized account of the Harding administration, Revelry. These books depicted Harding's time in office as one of great presidential weakness. The publication of Nan Britton's bestselling book disclosing they had had an affair also lowered the late president in public esteem. President Coolidge, wishing to distance himself from his predecessor, refused to dedicate the Harding Tomb. Hoover, Coolidge's successor, was similarly reluctant, but with Coolidge in attendance, presided over the dedication in 1931. By that time, with the Great Depression in full swing, Hoover was nearly as discredited as Harding. Adams continued to shape the negative view of Harding with several nonfiction works in the 1930s, culminating with The Incredible Era—The Life and Times of Warren G. Harding (1939) in which he called his subject "an amiable, well-meaning third-rate Mr. Babbitt, with the equipment of a small-town semi-educated journalist ... It could not work. It did not work." Dean views the works of White and Adams "remarkably unbalanced and unfair accounts, exaggerating the negative, assigning responsibility to Harding for all wrongs,