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.

7/21/2020

Wednesday, July 21, 1920

Harding plans to spend the day "in rest and recognition. He [has] only a few callers on his day's program, which included among other things another long automobile ride and a golf game." (I can't confirm he golfed today, and I only care because golf will become an issue soon.)

Senator Henry Cabot Lodge travels from Columbus to confer with Harding on last minute details for tomorrow's notification ceremonies. After an hour in campaign headquarters, they pose for photographs then eat lunch in Harding's house. Lodge is then taken back to Columbus to meet with the Republican National Committee.


The New Philadelphia Daily Times (and other papers across the country) publishes an illustration of the "Prominent Men in the Political Field Who Will Participate in the Official Notification Program for Senator Harding at Marion on July 22." Harding is in the middle. The others, with quoted descriptions, clockwise from the top middle, are:
  • J. Frank Hanley of Indianapolis. Ex-gov. of Indiana. Once presidential candidate for the Prohibition Party.
  • Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge of Mass. Chairman presidential notification committee. He delivers the notification speech.
  • Gen. Coleman Dupont of Delaware. Head of sub-com. on arranges for the formal notification ceremonies.
  • Harry M. Daugherty of Columbus, O. Pre-convention campaign mgr. for Sen. Harding.
  • Will H. Hays of Ind. Chairman Republican National Com.

Bishop William F. Oldham, the former pastor of the Broad Street Methodist Episcopal Church in Columbus, will offer the invocation in the place of Rev. McAfee, who is still recovering from his stroke.

Copies of the first Harding biography—Joe Mitchell Chapple's Warren G. Harding - The Man—are now available in Marion. (It's available 100 years later on Google Books.)

Sources:
  • "First Biography of Senator W. G. Harding." Marion Star. 21 July 1920.
  • "Harding Defines His Stand Today." New York Times. 22 July 1920.
  • "Harding to Make League Big Issue in Marion Speech." Washington Star. 21 July 1920.
  • "Lodge Confers with Nominee." Marion Star. 21 July 1920.
  • "Prominent Men in the Political Field Who Will Participate in the Official Notification Program for Senator Harding at Marion on July 22." New Philadelphia Daily Times. 21 July 1920.
  • "Warren G. Harding and Senator Henry Cabot Lodge photograph." Ohio History Connection.
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