Warren Harding's Front Porch Campaign: Friday, September 3, 1920

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.

9/03/2020

Friday, September 3, 1920

Senator Harding meets a delegation from the National Board of Farm Organizations:

With your assent, I will not welcome you as representatives of farmers' organizations and I shall make no appeal, either now or later, to the people of the country which may be labeled an appeal in behalf of farmers.
Permit me therefore to welcome you as Americans, permit me to welcome you as producers whose Americanism is so sound that I may and do consider that you represent here today the consumers of the United States, and I address you not as farmers but as patriotic citizens of the United States. Every word that I say to you is addressed not to your welfare alone, but to the welfare of every man, woman and child, and to the welfare of the future citizens of our country.
I deplore the use in political campaigns or in public administration of special appeals and of special interests. I deplore any foreign policy which tends to group together those of foreign blood in groups of their nativity. I deplore undue meddling in the affairs of other nations, which may, some day in a future election, result in a hyphenated vote controlling the balance of power which may be delivered to that candidate who is most supine in the face of un-American pressure. I deplore class appeals at home. I deplore the soviet idea, and the compromises and encouragements which we have seen extended to it.

In the late afternoon, he travels with senators from Michigan and Missouri to Mt. Gilead and addresses a crowd at an American Legion celebration. Members of the legion are raising funds to build a home for their local post.

I believe that every American should do everything he can to show his gratitude to the young men who went out to defend our country in the World War. I want to show my gratitude in helping America to do its part to see that neither they, their sons, nor their sons' sons shall ever be called to the battle front again. If I speak the conscience of America, we will lead the world to outlaw war, and I am not uttering the sentiments of a pacifist people.