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.

8/29/2020

Sunday, August 29, 1920

As usual, it is a slow Sunday in Marion, although campaign staff release statements and announce the content of telegrams received in response to Harding's speech on the League of Nations, all of which are in the same vein as the one sent by Jacob Gould Schurman, president of Cornell University: "Cordial congratulations on your league of nations speech today. The substance is extraordinarily good, the style very fine and the presentation very masterly and convincing. Your position will win the country."

According to the New York Times, Harding will focus the rest of the campaign on "two issues -- foreign relations and reconstruction problems," such as cost of living and banking.

Sources:

  • "Harding to Ignore Dispute." New York Times. 30 August 1920.
  • "To Speak on Reclamation." Marion Star. 30 August 1920.


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