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.

8/02/2020

Monday, August 2, 1920

Another quiet day in Marion, although Senator Harding does continue to greet callers, some of whom want him to either leave the front porch for speaking engagements outside Ohio or arrange special days in Marion. The mayor of Indianapolis, which is in Marion County, Indiana, is here to discuss a "Marion County Day" for citizens of those counties in each state.

The slogan contest in the New York Evening World "has assumed national proportions. In every part of the country young and old...are engaged in intensive efforts to devise a successful slogan." Some printed today include:
  • Be Wise and Vote for H.-C., Not for H. C. L. [I get the first initials: Harding-Coolidge; I don't get the second set.]
  • We Want Harding, Not Hard Times; We've Heard Plenty of Democratic Chimes.
  • Vote for Cox, from Bad to Worse; Vote for Harding, Safety First.
  • Cox's the Wagon, Roosevelt the Horse, Coolidge the Driver, Harding the Boss.
  • Harding, Harding, Harding, Honest, Fearless, Furnace Tested; Can't Be Bested, Fittingly Selected.
Sources:
  • "Harding Men Aim Attacks on White." New York Times. 3 August 1920.
  • "Presidential Slogans Prove Zeal and Skill of Hosts of Readers." New York Evening World. 2 August 1920.
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