Monday, July 12, 1920

Despite only having a dozen pages of his acceptance speech completed, Harding continues to meet with callers, including his overnight guest Senator Cummins, who speaks to the press this morning: "I think that [Harding] grasps the real problems that we have to deal with as well as, if not more comprehensively than, any other man of my acquaintance. His outlook is all forward and not backward. With respect to all the questions that will interest us in the next decade or two, he is as progressive as any man in the country, bar none."

In the evening, the Hardings host Representative Nicholas Longworth, of Cincinnati, and his wife Alice, the daughter of former president Theodore Roosevelt, on an overnight visit.

This summer, Eleanor Freeland, a Cleveland teacher spending her summer vacation at her family's home on Mt. Vernon Avenue, will publish a series of newspaper articles about what she sees as "The Girl Next Door" to the Hardings:

The other evening one of our friends down town called up and said: "Look who's here." We knew that was a signal that somebody very important was coming, so we got to the front of the house just in time to see Alice Roosevelt enter Harding's house, accompanied by her husband, Nicholas.

She was dressed in a stylish black and white foulard with a big picture hat. Of course she has been in the spotlight so much that she didn't event notice our staring at her.

She swung up the walk with a breezy air and, as she met the Hardings with a big hearty handshake, you just knew she was used to getting the glad hand wherever she chose to go.

Well, I guess she is like her old daddy -- always full of pep and good at making friends.

We heard that she stayed until the next day and that she was talking politics far into the night. Her father once said she was a better politician than he was.

In Chicago, General Leonard Wood releases his promised statement in support of Harding, although his statement doesn't reference Harding by name: "I am a Republican and as a Republican I heartily indorse [sic] the nominees of the party, understanding that the progressive elements of the party are to be brought into the campaign and given full representation and participation."

And in Columbus, Governor Cox confers for the first time with his running mate, Franklin Roosevelt, who is returning from the convention in San Francisco. They announce that their campaign will cover every state, and Roosevelt tells the press, "One thing is certain. When we begin this fight we will not look upon a single State in the union as too hopelessly Republican to justify the most energetic effort that can be made to win it for our cause."

The following editorial cartoon is published in Cox's paper (but its context is lost on me, other than knowing that both candidates were from Ohio).

Clear the Ring!

Sources:

• "Clear the Ring!" Dayton News. 12 July 1920.
  
• "Cox and Roosevelt to Tour the County." New York Times. 13 July 1920.
• "'Dirt Farmer' Idea Good, Says Harding." New York Times. 13 July 1920.
• "Senator Seen by Longworth." Marion Star. 13 July 1920.
• "Wood Indorses Party Nominees." New York Times. 13 July 1920.