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.

8/28/2020

Saturday, August 28, 1920

This is a "gala day" in Marion as delegations from Minnesota and Indiana come to hear "the most important pronouncement which Warren G. Harding, Republican nominee for president, has so far made from his famous 'front porch.'"

Minnesota Delegation

This delegation arrives at the station at 9:30 this morning. According to the Star, "Thirty-five in the delegation are from the iron county, including seven from Hibbing, said to be the wealthiest village in the world."

Louis L. Collins, the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor of the state who "is only five feet tall [and] is known as the 'Little Corporal' of the Rainbow division [in the Great War], presents his delegation to the candidate and crowd. "It was Ohio infrantrymen that shouted the name of Senator Harding for president then, and they were from Marion. The whole United States is shouting it now."

Collins and Harding pose for a photograph at the executive offices next door to Harding's home:


Indiana Delegation

Members of the Harding Club of Indianapolis arrive by special train in the afternoon. Indianan Will Hays, chairman of the national committee, returns to Marion to head the parade, alongside Senator New, also back in town, and Elias J. Jacoby, president of the Harding Club.


Other signs on display include "Cox visited President Wilson in the White House, but he never will move in" and "Indiana is Cox sure that Harding is the next President."

Jacoby, a Marion native and acquaintance of Harding, introduces the delegation from the front porch. "Hoosiers have come here to pay you their profound respect and they bid me give you the assurance that 'when the frost in on the pumpkin and the fodder's in the shock' they, with many thousands of others back home, will, with an overwhelming majority, present you with the electoral vote of Indiana."

Harding's Speech

Senator Harding comes out against the League of Nations in a front-porch speech to Republicans from Indiana and Minnesota.
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Indiana Delegation: I greet you in a spirit of rejoicing; not a rejoicing in the narrow personal or partisan sense; not in the gratifying prospects of party triumph; not in the contemplation of abundance in the harvest fields and ripening corn fields and maturing orchards; not in the reassuring approach of stability after a period of wiggling and wobbling which magnified our uncertainty — though all of these are ample for our wide rejoicing — but I rejoice that America is still free and independent and in a position of self-reliance and holds to the right of self-determination, which are priceless possessions in the present turbulence of the world.
According to the Indianapolis Star, Harding "declared here today that he would take 'all that is good and excise all that is bad' from both The Hague Tribunal and the Versailles league in forming an association or league of free nations that would 'make the actual attainment of peace a reasonable possibility."

Mrs. Harding tells a reporter from the Minneapolis Star Tribune, "After that speech this afternoon I do not believe that there is anyone who can say that they do not know where Warren Harding stands."


In 1924, J. Hampton Moore, who served as mayor of Philadelphia, recalled the day.
August 28th, 1920, the day the accompanying photograph was taken, Senator Harding, then Republican nominee for President, made his celebrated "porch front" speech in favor of a World Court, as opposed to the League of Nations. The Hardings included Mrs. Moore and me amongst their luncheon guests that day. Others present being Colonel George Harvey, Will H. Hays, Charles G. Hilles, Senator George Sutherland, and Harry Dougherty. Throughout the luncheon and during exercises on the porch, Mrs. Harding was the life of the party, a charming hostess at table and a delightful welcomer in the receiving line. Thousand were present that afternoon during which Mrs. Harding was always by her husband's side. The photograph was taken from the sidewalk after the crowd had dispersed. The car in the back ground was the Mayor's official car. --J. Hampton Moore

Sources:

  • "Harding Seeks Best in League and Hague Court." Indianapolis Star. 29 August 1920.
  • "Harding Talks of New League." Marion Star. 28 August 1920.
  • "Marion Cheers State Pilgrims at Front Porch." Minneapolis Star Tribune. 29 August 1920.
Images:
  • The photograph of the Hardings and the Moores is in the digital collections at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
And because the source file from the Ohio History Connection does not identify Collins, here's an image of him from the Minnesota Historical Society as evidence that he is the one in the Harding photograph:


And this photograph is published here because I can't confirm it was taken on this date, but hear me out:

The man in the photograph is Will Hays, who is definitely in Marion today. According to the Star report on August 30, 1920, "Senator Harding was particularly interested in two of his callers Saturday. They were Mrs. Frances A. Potter, of Indianapolis, and Mrs. N. Stimmel, of Columbus. Mrs. Potter is over ninety, and Mrs. Stimmel, over eighty years of age. On their return from a trip east they were brought to Senator Harding's home by Mrs. M. A. Potter, daughter of Mrs. Stimmel, and a director in the Harding League of Indianapolis. They were entertained on the front porch by Senator and Mrs. Harding and all three of the ladies assured the nominee that they were going to give their first votes for him this year."
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