A Note on My Harding Research

The information I posted during 2020 mostly covered Warren Harding's front-porch campaign from his home on Mt. Vernon Avenue in Marion, Ohio. The campaign officially started on July 31, 1920, and ended on September 25. The plan was to post daily on events that occurred exactly 100 years ago that day, but I shared other information as well. You'll have to read bottom-to-top if you want to follow the campaign from Day 1.

I used the open web for some of my research but also information accessible by using my library card or my subscription to www.newspapers.com. The most useful resource was the Marion Star, which was owned by the Hardings at the time of the campaign. I also browsed online copies of other newspapers like the New York Times, the Washington Star, and the Dayton Daily News, which, in 1920, was owned by Harding's Democratic opponent, Governor James M. Cox. I also posted information from other newspapers that covered Harding's trips away from Marion during the campaign.

Another great resource I used was Dale E. Cottrill's The Conciliator, a 1969 biography of the president that expanded an earlier bibliography of Harding's speeches. An online version is available at the Internet Archive, but I used a hard copy borrowed from the State Library of Ohio.

Readers should not construe anything posted here as a political statement on my part. I just like Harding as a historical topic.

7/31/2020

Harding in His Home Town

Senator Arthur Capper of Kansas visited Harding on Sunday, July 25. Capper was elected to the Senate in 1918 and was a newspaper publisher like Harding. His report on his trip to Marion appeared on the front page of his Topeka newspaper Capper's Weekly on July 31, 1920. Here are some excerpts:
Reaching Marion from Chicago over the old Erie railroad reminds a Kansan of traveling over the Central Branch of the Missouri Pacific. Marion is apparently "crazy about Harding." The thing that impressed me was that Marion's pride in its foremost citizen really was a pride in and affection for Harding himself and was entirely disassociated from the kind of town pride that plumes itself over possessing a distinguished citizen. Marion has known Harding for 30 years. He has been an important factor in building up its industries, in formulating its ideas and ideals... The town talks Harding all day...

It is not that Harding is brilliant. His friends do not claim that. But that the Hardings are genuine. I say "the Hardings" for Mrs. Harding shares the esteem in which Senator Harding is held... Marion has found them genuine in their interest in people, in their ability to do things; genuine in the grasp of big ideas...

The Hardings do not live in the "show place" of Marion. That belongs to a manufacturer. The owner recently offered them the use of this near-palace for the campaign, but they prefer to remain in their own unpretentious but comfortable home...
In the short time I have been in the Senate, I have enjoyed close and friendly relations with his as a man and a senator. It didn't need my recent visit to Marion, where I saw the remarkable esteem and respect in which his own people hold him, to confirm the favorable impressions I already had formed in Washington. 
It is my candid and honest judgment that Senator Harding will make an able and forceful executive--a truly great President. He is an upstanding, stalwart American.

 
Source:
  • "Harding in His Home Town." Capper's Weekly. 31 July 1920.
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