Jesse W. Smith (October 10, 1872—May 30, 1923) was a member of President Warren G. Harding's Ohio Gang.

He followed up two days later, in the Senate, quoting an Alabama bootleggerYou know Secretary Mellon loaned the Republican National Committee $5,000,000 in 1920.

The plan was to have the liquor men and the breweries contribute to this fund....[2]"That is one of the reasons," shouted Senator Heflin, "why they wanted to get rid of Jess Smith.

Smith is one of four characters (and the only one based on a real person) from whose point of view Gore Vidal's novel of the period, Hollywood, is told.

He is portrayed as a business-savvy but weak-willed and sycophantic follower of Harding and Daugherty, and it's speculated that his death might have been a murder used to cover up the Ohio Gang's crimes.

Daugherty comes to see Smith as a loose end and sends fellow Ohio Gang member, Gaston Means, to kill him.