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.

8/18/2020

Wednesday, August 18, 1920

Tennessee ratifies the 19th amendment, and Senator Harding releases a statement about the historic event:

All along, I have wished for the completion of ratification, and have said so, and I am glad to have all the citizenship of the United States take part in the presidential election. The Republican party will welcome the response of American womanhood, through its appeal to the confidence of all our people.

In Marion, Senator Harding greets a delegation of Native Americans in the afternoon.

I have heard something about the dissatisfaction of many Indian residents but it has not been my good fortune to hear of it in detail. I think we will agree about the basic principle that the American Indian is as much entitled to a square deal as anybody in the republic, and if we are called to responsibility he will get it.

While we are talking about democracy and human rights, I think we had better bestow them on the native American rather than sacrificing American lives in trying to bestow it thousands of miles across the sea. I believe in bestowing them on Americans first. You take that message back to your people from me, Whether I am elected to the presidency or not, I am still a member of the senate for a little while and I will be glad to add my voice and efforts to see that the Indian gets a square deal.

Members of the Society of American Indians, which was established at Ohio State University in 1911, had visited Governor Cox yesterday, which led one of the speakers to inadvertently address the Republican candidate as "Senator Cox," to which Harding quipped:

I don't blame you. He's a pretty live fellow. But that's all right. I'll be President, anyway.

Harding then travels to Lincoln Park to deliver a speech to an Ohio lumbers dealers' association. The speech is all about lumber (so no excerpts here).

This editorial cartoon (of which I only understand the Cox part) is published in today's Washington Times: 

Sources:

  • "Harding Says Start Idealism at Home." New York Times. 19 August 1920.
  • "Indians Call on Nominee Today." Marion Star. 18 August 1920.
  • "Is Glad to Have All Citizenship Take Part." Marion Star. 18 August 1920.
  • "Lumber Needs for Country." Marion Star. 19 August 1920.
  • "Senator Harding Smokes Pipe of Peace with Indians." Marion Star. 23 August 1920.
  • "Suffrage Wins Battle Today." Marion Star. 18 August 1920.

Other Information:

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