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.

8/30/2020

Monday, August 30, 1920

Senator Harding starts his work week with another trip to Mansfield to play golf, this time with Gifford Pinchot, who is described as "one of the last of the former progressives to smoke the pipe of peace with Senator Harding." Pinchot was a member of the Bull Moose Party, which Theodore Roosevelt founded in 1912. His reasoning for forgiving Harding for political conflicts during that contentious election: "I want to help get this country out of the control of the Southern reactionaries by which we have been ruled for nearly eight years."

The newsreels of the Jolson visit are ready to show at the Grand downtown.

Here's an editorial cartoon that is published in today's Great Falls Daily Tribune:

Sources:

  • "Harding, Forgiven, Wins Pinchot's Aid." New York Times. 31 August 1920.
  • "In Best Interests of All Americans." Marion Star. 31 August 1920.
  • "Just Drifting." Great Falls Daily Tribune. 30 August 1920.

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