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.

9/17/2020

Friday, September 17, 1920 (CONSTITUTION DAY)

Delegations arrive from Ashland, Champaign, Cuyahoga, Defiance, Knox, Logan, Ottawa, Putnam, Tuscarawas counties, among others, including, as usual Marion County Republicans:

Senator Harding offers this opening:
There is abroad in the land a spirit which seeks to weaken the adherence of the people to their constitution, and which recklessly challenges its worth. It is well, therefore, to have one day in the year set apart for the clearing of our vision and the regeneration of our faith. 

To assail or belittle the flag is to invite and incur the just and passionate resentment of all country-loving men, but the constitution may be attacked or disparaged with impunity, and, all too often, with approval; and yet the one is but a symbol — though a very precious symbol — while the other is the very warp and woof of our national existence...

Sources:
  • "Three Speeches Away From Front Porch." Marion Star. 16 September 1920.
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