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.

8/16/2020

Monday, August 16, 1920

Senator Harding has a busy day at campaign headquarters. He starts work on his next front porch speech, scheduled for Thursday. He chats with the press; according to a report in his own paper, "He discussed with newspapermen the work ratification of suffrage would entail in registering the new voters and counting ballots. He said that an unusual delay in receiving returns will be inevitable if the amendment is ratified in time for the women to vote in November."

The candidate is quoted as being "more and more convinced of the impracticability of running the other half of the world from this half. I can that there will be little of the present foreign policy if the Republican party succeeds. There will be a complete reversal." This statement inspires this editorial cartoon. originally published in the Chicago Tribune:


The New York Evening World is still receiving and posting slogans:
  • Ohio is the State, Marion is the town, Harding is the man.
  • Harding, the man of might, will surely fight for the people's rights.
  • A better county and a better world demand a better President--Harding.
Governor Cox will speak this week in Columbus, Ohio; South Bend, Indiana; and at a "Cox day" celebration in Canton, Ohio.

And the readers of the Albuquerque Morning Journal find an editorial cartoon on their front page today in which Harding and Cox are in front of the classroom presenting "the Great League of Nations Joint Debate" while "landlords" harass the "public":

Sources:
  • "Are All Our Little Boys and Girls Paying Strict Attention to the Lesson?" Albuquerque Morning Journal. 16 August 1920.
  • "Complete Revision of Foreign Policy Is Harding's Aim." Fort Worth Star-Telegram. 17 August 1920.
  • "Conditions in Indiana Good." Marion Star. 16 August 1920.
  • "Harding's Position." Pittsburg Sun. 21 August 1920.
  • "Presidential Candidates Preparing New Speeches." Harrisburg Telegraph. 16 August 1920.
  • "Revive Old Epitaphs and Adapt Them for Cox---Harding Slogans." New York Evening World. 16 August 1920.
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