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.

7/10/2020

Saturday, July 10, 1920

The Harding campaign releases a statement:
Senator Harding believes the country would greatly profit through the participation by the vice president in the cabinet conferences of the administration. It not only would elevate the office of vice president, but would give the president the sound advice and able assistance of his chief partner in handling the nation's affairs.
It is announced that the first delegation scheduled to travel to Marion after the notification ceremonies will be the Richland County Harding and Coolidge Club. Special trains from Mansfield, Ohio, will bring the delegation to Marion the morning of Saturday, July 31.

"Former Rivals Burying Hatchet"

The Hardings dine with Major General Leonard Wood, who arrived from Chicago this evening. Leonard competed against Harding for the Republican nomination and actually led the first four ballots at the convention. Harding won the nomination on the tenth. 

General Wood announces that he would wait to declare his support for Harding until he returns to Chicago, but he does support the front-porch campaign itself:
In referring to the front-porch campaign plan General Wood said that the problem which confronts a candidate for nomination is very different from that which a nominee faces, in that a candidate in a primary fight must go out to meet the people in order to be heard while every utterance of a nominee is read all over the country.
After dinner, Wood is taken to the Marion Club after dinner then catches a train back to Chicago at midnight.

As an aside, in the foreword to The Shadow of Blooming Grove, his popular biography from 1968, historian Francis Russell compares Harding with President Eisenhower, whose second term ended seven years earlier. Russell was not impressed by either of them and makes it clear that Harding supporters will not like the book by stating, "I think it is indisputable that this country would have had a better history if General Wood had been elected President in 1920 and Senator [Robert] Taft in 1952" (p. xv1). (I have other thoughts about the Russell book that I will share at some point.)
 
Sources:
  • "Coolidge Is to Sit in Cabinet." Marion Star. 10 July 1920.
  • "Former Rivals Burying Hatchet." Cincinnati Enquirer. 13 July 1920.
  • "General Wood Comes to This City Saturday." Marion Star. 12 July 1920.
  • "Wood and Harding Have a 'Pleasant Talk' at Marion." Washington Star. 11 July 1920.
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