Sunday, July 18, 1920

The Hardings attend services at Trinity Baptist Church in the morning then the public exercises for Marion Lodge, No. 865, Independent Order of B'nai B'rith. Harding is introduced by the president of the new lodge: "In responding to the greetings of members and guest, Senator Harding said he hoped all America would catch the spirit of B'nai B'rith in campaign against ignorance, intolerance, defamation and everything else aimed to rend the concord of citizenship."

Harding is also interviewed by a reporter for the New York Times, who notes "the manner in which Marion had poured out its heart, hanging [Harding's] picture in its windows and decked itself in holiday attire to show the pride and pleasure it felt in the distinction that recently has come of its 'favorite son.'"

I haven't had the time to go down town and look at it all. This game is an endless series of confining conferences. As soon as one ends another beings. I have hardly been out of here since I returned to Marion.

He is asked about his decision to keep his campaign on the front porch:

Whirlwind campaigning was undertaken only once by the Republican Party in the fifty-two years preceding the Roosevelt campaign in 1912. That was in 1884 when [James G.] Blaine permitted himself to be talked into conducting that sort of a fight and we all remember what happened to Blaine. Had Blaine stayed home there would have been no 'rum, Romanism and rebellion' break in his campaign oratory to blight his prospects of winning the Presidency...

I am not doing this to signalize a return to old-time methods, as has been suggested. I am doing it for two reason. The first is that this method of campaigning conforms to my own conception of the dignity of the office for which I am a candidate. The second is a practical one. I believe there is more value in the assured, correct public version of deliberate statements than there is in the chance publicity of extemporaneous utterances made from the tail end of a train.... There is another reason. A man accepting the burden of responsibility that the Presidency involves much have some regard for his health...

As described in the Marion Star, Harding makes "an assault on the league of nations covenant, registering his own and the Republican party's hostility to that covenant" be releasing a pre-emptive statement binding Governor Cox to the current president:

The President and the Democratic nominee for his successor are in conference today, and at the conclusion it will inevitably be announced that they found themselves in complete accord, that harmony reigns, and unity is established in the Democratic Party.

The significance of that announcement will not be missed. There is just one way that can establish accord between himself and the President - that is by yielding his own opinion at every point to that of the President. When the nominee establishes accord with the President, it means that the latter is in charge of the campaign and will be the real force of the next Administration, if it is Democratic.

A headline in the New York Times the following day is "Cox and Wilson Reach Full Accord"; in the Marion Star, it is "Cox and Wilson One on League."

And in the Columbus Dispatch, Billy Ireland draws Cox and Harding on a golf course with the "votes for women" as their partners.

Sources:

• "Attend Church." Marion Star. 19 July 1920.
• "Four Questions to Cox." New York Times. 19 July 1920.
• "Harding Holds Rivals to Record." New York Times. 19 July 1920.
• "Independent Order of B.B. Instituted." Marion Star. 19 July 1920.
• Ireland, Billy. "It Looks As If the Game Were to be a 'Mixed Foursome.'" Columbus Dispatch. 18 July 1920.
• "President in Full Control." Marion Star. 19 July 1920.