786 
 .C462 
 copy 2 
 
 mRRENG HARDING 
 
 

Warren G. Harding 
 -The Man 
 
 hy 
 
 Joe Mitchell Chapple 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 Chappie Publishing Company, Limited 
 
 1920 
 
 Co;-" ^ 
 

 Copyright, 1920, by 
 
 JOE MITCHELL CHAPPLE 
 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
 M-^^ V 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 I. The Call for Leadership 7 
 
 II. A Man of "Manifest Destiny" 1^ 
 
 III, A Blue-eyed Babe in Blooming Grove ... 21 
 
 IV. Boyhood Days in a Country Town 29 
 
 V. College Days at the "Central Ohio" 35 
 
 VI. Beginning Life in a Big Town 41 
 
 VII. The Hardings a Hardy Breed 47 
 
 VIII. The Broadening Field of Public Service . 57 
 
 IX. When the News Reached the Home Folks . 65 
 
 X. The Measure of the Man 71 
 
 XI. Character the Reality 77 
 
 XII. The Log Book of Life 83 
 
 XIII. By His Greetings You Shall Know Him . 89 
 
 XIV. His Relations with Theodore Roosevelt . . 95 
 XV. A Four-square Leader 101 
 
 XVI. Anecdotal "Close-ups" 107 
 
 XVII. The Test of a Printer-Partner 115 
 
 XVIII. Champion of Americanism 123 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 THIS book is written as a friend would speak of 
 a friend, whose superb qualities of manhood, 
 known to his friends and neighbors, are to be 
 made known to the world under the searching spotlight 
 of a Presidential Campaign. 
 
 When a friend appeared and offered to stand sponsor 
 for a book, I could not resist. There was a fire in my 
 bones that impelled me to write when Warren G. Harding 
 was nominated for President of the United States. 
 While not intended as a political book, there is an 
 earnest intent that the reader may feel that this tribute 
 is tempered with the restraint due to dealing with future 
 events, and that it is not inspired by partisan bias. 
 
 All America loves a man — no matter under what 
 party banner he may enlist. 
 
 "God, give us men!" 
 
 This was the cry of the poet, John G. Holland, in the 
 days following the Civil War. The cry is still heard in 
 the land! That is why I delight to write of Warren G. 
 Harding, first and last, as a Man — irrespective of other 
 distinctions that may come to him. 
 
 Boston O^ ^JiX<JuJjC C^lo/l^iZt/^ 
 
THE CALL FOR LEADERSHIP 
 
THE CALL FOR LEADERSHIP 
 
 ON the tablets of Time is burned the 
 memory— even the history of those whose 
 Uves are dedicated to the cause of human- 
 ity. And it is well. Little do we remember, little 
 do most of us care, less do most of us think of 
 the inner motives which mould the bigger 
 motives that make us free or happy. Perhaps it 
 is a law of Nature to forget. Human relations, 
 even nations, start with the family. Who ever 
 heard of a family that individually or collect- 
 ively took the pains to consider the tiny, indis- 
 cernible, extrinsic elements that make for the 
 most expedient and beneficent management and 
 government of that little group. 
 
 It is the same way with nations. 
 
 Men come and men go. Ever and anon are 
 the sweep of new thought, new interests, new 
 problems, new fields to develop, new hazards 
 that must be braved, new corruptions that 
 
 (7) 
 
8 Warren G. Harding — The Man 
 
 must be crushed, new enterprises that must be 
 sponsored. StabiUty of man and mankind is 
 as impracticable as an attempt to lull the At- 
 lantic into an everlasting quiet. Times change, 
 men change and thought changes, even as desire 
 changes. Which leads to my objective — the 
 intention of declaring that the institution most 
 affected by this intangible, elusive, multi- 
 polygon of doubt and human nature is our sys- 
 tem of bestowing on certain individuals the 
 honor and responsibility of capably interpreting 
 our likes and dislikes, our fears and hopes, our 
 ambitions and our follies. This art of caring for 
 the multifarious wants of millions comes under 
 the name of "politics," a noun too large for 
 proper classification by our deans of English, 
 a word that has a scope bounded only by the 
 Arctic snows, the southern seas, and the wills 
 and wants of mankind. Indeed, it is a word 
 of illusions. Its par-value fluctuates on the 
 exchange of opinions. In fact, if it ever had a 
 par value such value was only temporary, only 
 a passing whim. 
 
 Leaders are men who know the operation of 
 of other minds and have a capacity for co- 
 operative effort. And these qualities of a new 
 leader, quiet and unobtrusive, stand out as a 
 
The Call for Leadership 9 
 
 marked characteristic. The man whom everyone 
 Hkes within the entire circle of close acquain- 
 tance is the man who likes everybody. The 
 equation is never failing. 
 
 Whoever understood politics? Who dares to 
 prophesy, with any degree of scientific accuracy, 
 where politics holds sway? 
 
 Combining the highest ethics and ideals, and 
 the lowest trickery and intrigue, some people 
 are prone to look with suspicion upon politi- 
 cians as the black sheep — others as the white- 
 fleeced leaders of the flocks. 
 
 But— 
 
 We remember that a political convention 
 gave to the world Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 The acquaintance of nations with its leaders 
 passes through varied processes. The hour, 
 the time and the responsibility demand men 
 fitted for the occasion. It is difficult to name 
 the specific hour, time, and particular respon- 
 sibility that foreshadow the faith that comes 
 from friendships, individual and collective, that 
 crystallize into public favor, permanent and 
 enduring. Humanity loves Lincoln today be- 
 cause even in the days of 1860, unknown and 
 untried, the home folks were the first to insist 
 that he possessed those fundamental virtues 
 
10 Warren G. Harding — The Man 
 
 that come with a virile, heartsome neighborH- 
 ness which could not be limited by state or 
 national boundary lines. In Lincoln we find 
 included some traits of our very own selves, 
 which he encompassed so completely and com- 
 prehensively through his contact with the "plain 
 people," as he loved to call us, that his com- 
 pleted circle of greatness finds a place for all 
 humankind. 
 
 The American people have ever placed the 
 homely virtues and common sense as the first 
 qualification of a public servant. They natu- 
 rally love and follow a public man who mani- 
 festly has some of our own virtues and even 
 some of our own faults, but whose whole nature 
 is in the large mould of a man who understands 
 his fellow-man. 
 
 The flowers of friendship bud, bloom, and 
 alas, even in their fading, defy all description 
 based on a concrete incident. You cannot tell 
 just why, when or how you began admiring or 
 even loving a friend. In the light of a bor- 
 rowed match you may have caught the glow on 
 the face of a man for whom friendship blossomed 
 in the all-pervading kindly sunlight of a casual 
 greeting. The result of this may be a kinship 
 as close as blood ties — a fruitage that just grows. 
 
The Call for Leadership 11 
 
 In the early days of the month of June, 1920, 
 I felt the wild call of politics. The eyes of the 
 world were focused on the metropolis of the 
 Mid- West, where nine hundred and eighty -four 
 men and women were expressing the will of 
 milions. The roar was reaching me. I felt the 
 pulse-beat of stirring multitudes. 
 
 From the time Chairman Will H. Hays 
 opened the proceedings by declaring it the 
 greatest free-for-all national political conven- 
 tion ever held, it was anyone's guess upon 
 whom the high honor of the nomination would 
 fall. 
 
 Bossless, leaderless, the delegates found them- 
 selves in a haze of speculation. They queried 
 each other: 
 
 "Well, who is it going to be?" 
 
 And nobody could answer. 
 
 The time for a new leader had come. The 
 delegates were there. The bosses were not 
 there. It was a great moment in history — the 
 one time in which the voice of every one of the 
 millions of sovereign voters directly shape and 
 influence the destinies of our own country in 
 choosing a President. This convention was the 
 prelude of the balloting tribunal in November, 
 which will prove the greatest referendum ever 
 known in history. 
 
12 Warren G. Harding — The Man 
 
 Then, one afternoon came a thrill that sent 
 the blood surging in my veins. There was a 
 friend who now stood almost on the high peak 
 of party favor. The whole world was looking 
 at him, wondering about him, inquiring about 
 him, thinking about him. The Republican 
 National Convention had nominated Warren 
 G. Harding, for President of the United States 
 of America. 
 
A MAN OF "MANIFEST DESTINY" 
 
II 
 
 A MAN OF "MANIFEST DESTINY' 
 
 HAVE you ever heard a friend who rises 
 to pubhc prominence discussed by people 
 from random impressions? From a pho- 
 tograph, from a ghmpse in pubhc hfe, from 
 stray paragraphs, the picture of the man is 
 formed. Then you begin to reaHze how few 
 pubhc men are really known by the people. 
 The true proportions may not always prevail in 
 the perspective of an admiring friend, any more 
 than in the hazy, indistinct notions that enhalo 
 a new leader whom destiny has thrust into the 
 foreground of world activities. 
 
 In 1916 I stood on the platform of the Coli- 
 seum at Chicago after the Republican Conven- 
 tion had adjourned sine die. As Warren G. 
 Harding laid down the gavel, a group of admiring 
 friends gathered about and chorused the 
 remark: "You will be nominated here four 
 years hence." The remark passed as one of the 
 
 (16) 
 
16 r| Warren G. Harding — The Man 
 
 casual political prophecies, but events recall 
 events. 
 
 It was in 1912 when Warren G. Harding first 
 addressed the delegates of the Republican Con- 
 vention. It was not a brilliant or pyrotechnic 
 speech. It was too balanced to suit the 
 temper of the times, and he, like many others, 
 was consigned by political wiseacres to the 
 oblivion that envelops passing figures in the 
 political panorama. There was something in 
 his bearing and presence on the platform, how- 
 ever, which indicated to keen observers that he 
 was in an environment he understood, and for 
 which he was fitted. The whirlwind of political 
 discussion was not new to him. At that time 
 there were rivals and opponents who felt a 
 respect for this well-matured and well-equipped 
 spokesman for his people. They insisted, just as 
 the "home folks" did, that here was a man in 
 the full and unmeasured sense of the word. 
 
 He looked, acted and spoke the part of the 
 typical American, concerning whom admirers 
 might venture the conviction: 
 
 "Some day that man will be President!" 
 
 When he was elected Lieutenant-Governor of 
 Ohio, his friends felt there was a Governor-in- 
 the-making, but alas, political tides ebb and 
 
Co/hvng/i/. Edmonston, Wash. 
 
 Mrs. Warren G. Harding 
 
A Man of ''Manifest Destiny" . 17 
 
 flow, and he was defeated because of a divided 
 party. Four years later he was elected United 
 States Senator — one of the first in this country 
 chosen by the direct vote of the people. 
 
 The senatorial toga came to him as Ohio's 
 tribute to his fitness to deal with national 
 problems, as revealed first of all in his address 
 at the Republican National Convention two 
 years before, and his presiding genius in the 
 turbulent days of 1916 — four years later. 
 
 When the list of presidential nominees for 
 the Republican party, with its high prospects 
 of success, were reviewed in 1920, his name was 
 never far in the background. 
 
 "He came from behind," as they say in real 
 sports. 
 
 His primary campaign was so modest that 
 two-thirds of all the funds were contributed by 
 the "home folks" at Marion. Every dollar 
 carried the conviction of the "home folks" — 
 those who knew the man — that he should be 
 President. Some of the campaign funds were 
 returned. 
 
 The unpretentious way in which his campaign 
 was conducted was indicated in the cards used 
 in the Republican Convention in Chicago. 
 They were the very same as those used in the 
 
18 Warre7i G. Harding — The Man 
 
 state primaries a month previous, with the words 
 "primaries (May 4th)" blotted out. The same 
 printed hkeness of Mr. Harding was carried by 
 the delegates, as by the voters of Ohio. The 
 whole appeal was so simple and modest at 
 Chicago that the Harding men could easily 
 wear the cards, like a miner's torch, in their hats. 
 All of which recalled the simplicity of Lincoln's 
 campaign in 1860. 
 
 In 1920, memorable year of history, the three- 
 hundredth anniversary of the Landing of the 
 Pilgrim Fathers is to be celebrated. Once again 
 will be re-affirmed those basic principles of 
 representative government which were drawn 
 up under the light of a swinging lantern, in 
 the cabin of the Mayflower. May there not be 
 something analogous — something of "manifest 
 destiny" in the nomination of a man whose 
 ancestors were of that same hardy stock, 
 and who, generation after generation, have 
 carried into domestic and public life the flint of 
 Plvmouth Rock.'^ 
 
A BLUE-EYED BABE IN BLOOMING 
 GROVE 
 
Ill 
 
 A BLUE-EYED BABE IN BLOOMING 
 GROVE 
 
 YEARS ago the little hamlet was called 
 Corsica, after the birthplace of Napoleon, 
 but the flowers of the woods and the 
 prairie suggested the name of Blooming Grove, 
 to which it was changed. One hundred years 
 ago, on a little eminence outside this Ohio vil- 
 lage, the Hardings located. Midway in this 
 century, November 2, 1865, a blue-eyed boy was 
 born, in a farmhouse amid simple surrounding. 
 The mother rejoiced that her first-born was a 
 boy, for she had dreams concerning his destiny. 
 The old daguerreotypes, still in existence, show 
 the serene Phoebe Dickerson and Tyron Hard- 
 ing in a pleasing romance at sweet sixteen. This 
 picture reveals the unusual charm of Warren 
 Harding's mother. When the youthful suitor 
 proposed marriage, this sensible girl said: 
 
 "No, Tyron, w^e must wait until we have an 
 education." And wait they did, both gradu- 
 
 (21) 
 
22 Warren G. Harding — The Man 
 
 ating later in medicine, and each equipped with 
 a knowledge of the physical basis of life and the 
 ability not only to live well themselves, but to 
 help others to live. 
 
 Those were the days of large families; yet it 
 is striking to note how near to extinction this 
 branch of the Harding line came. Owing to 
 the Indian massacres, only a single Harding 
 remained, yet like the Nile, almost disappearing 
 at times, the family strain broadened in the 
 next generation, no less than nineteen names 
 appearing in the family bible record. 
 
 The boy, Warren, was named for the hus- 
 band of "Aunt Tillie," who was Rev. Warren 
 Gamaliel Bancroft, a Methodist preacher who 
 lived a long life of usefulness in active service, 
 and who watched with warm interest the 
 development of his namesake. 
 
 As a young country editor in a far-away state, 
 I had the friendship and counsel of this self- 
 same minister; but never thought of the added 
 distinction which might come to Warren G. 
 Bancroft after his life-work was done. 
 
 True to the name he bore, the child was an 
 early student at his mother's knee, listening to 
 Bible stories and always "hungry for more." 
 Before he could read, he was committing to 
 
A Blue-eyed Babe in Blooming Grove 23 
 
 memory the great sentiments and truths of 
 the Scriptures. Before he knew even his alpha- 
 bet his mother read him many books. During 
 these formative days there grew up a beautiful 
 intimacy with his mother that was never broken. 
 Her passionate fondness for flowers was com- 
 municated to the son, who, in all the after years, 
 whether at home or across the seas, whether 
 alone or among multitudes, had flowers for her 
 every Sunday morning as long as she lived. 
 She passed away in 1910, but he still clings to 
 the custom of having flowers in his room each 
 Sunday to recall the sacred memory, thus 
 observing "Mother's Day" every week of the 
 year. 
 
 The child grew up as he should — to be just a 
 boy, not a prodigy, but humanly normal. He 
 ran away and had to be' tied to the bedpost, like 
 other boys. Yet in all his discipline, no actual 
 blow was ever struck — his mother's method 
 being to seat the boy smartly in a chair, and 
 then look straight into his eyes and say, "Now, 
 Warren!" Then would begin that earnest coun- 
 sel, that reasoning, that guidance suffused with 
 mother-heartedness, which constituted the whole 
 of the maternal authority. 
 
 These first five years of life at Blooming 
 
24 Warren G. Harding — The Man 
 
 Grove have left their mark. The father and 
 mother were busy with their patients and re- 
 sponses to calls from far and near. Those were 
 the days of agues, chills and fever, demanding 
 from the doctor and his wife time and absence 
 from home, even to sitting up nights with the 
 sick and the sorrowing; but never the night 
 that little Warren was not with his mother, 
 even on her errands of mercy. 
 
 At the village store one day there arrived 
 some red-topped, brass-toed boots for little 
 boys. In that day the ambition of the smallest 
 son was to wear boots like father's. Little 
 Warren was told that he might go and 
 "look" at them. He toddled down, and 
 his blue eyes sparkled as he saw the coveted 
 red-tops. 
 
 "Do you want to take them home?" asked the 
 shrewdly observant country storekeeper, as he 
 patted the lad on the head. That was enough 
 for Warren; his little arms were outstretched, 
 and he promptly opened his first "charge ac- 
 count," feeling sure that his "credit" would be 
 backed by "Daddy," if not by "Mother." 
 When he had said his prayers that night, he 
 seized the red-topped boots and begged that he 
 might take them to bed with him, and as the 
 
A Blue-eyed Babe in Blooming Grove 25 
 
 mother stooped to kiss him she saw closely 
 snuggled in his arms the little red-topped 
 boots. 
 
 She left him to dream the angel dreams of 
 childhood. 
 
BOYHOOD DAYS IN A COUNTRY TOWN 
 
IV 
 
 BOYHOOD DAYS IN A COUNTRY TOWN 
 
 WHEN I think of Warren G. Harding, the 
 man, I love to recall those rollicking 
 tales related of his boyhood — just the 
 average small -town -farmer -boy career. The 
 "moving to town" was an event — and the hay 
 rack* served as the van. Then came the days 
 and nights, too, to do chores, for even in the 
 city, there was the doctor's horse and the cow, 
 and school days succeeded happy vacation 
 hours. He was early recognized by associates 
 as a careful leader. He did not venture far out 
 in Whetstone Creek until he knew he could 
 swim. He had his jean trousers and his ging- 
 ham suit dipped and tied in a knot while in 
 swimming — as others had before him. 
 
 But he untied the knots. 
 
 He played Indian and Pom Pom Pullaway, 
 and played hard, but there was always a feeling 
 among teachers that "Doc," as he was nick- 
 
 (29) 
 
30 Warren G. Harding — The Man 
 
 named, would pull through the examinations, 
 although he could not be called the "model boy" 
 in school. He loved to speak pieces, and his 
 rendering of Patrick Henry's "Give Me Liberty 
 or Give Me Death" was at least concluded with 
 the graceful bow then taught in schools. 
 
 These eventful years from four to sixteen — 
 milking the cows, working in the fields, painting 
 fences, keeping the wood box filled — although 
 not perhaps discerned at the time, are where a 
 life career is often determined. Rather shy, 
 big and awkward, Warren Harding was known 
 as a serious boy, with an inclination to write 
 essays and an occasional flight to "po^ry." 
 He pored over encyclopedias now and then, to 
 drink deep in the biography of his favorite Na- 
 poleon and Alexander Hamilton. In order to 
 have his essays in real type, he was ambitious 
 to become a printer. Perched on a stool, he 
 soon learned the "boxes" in the Caledonia Argus 
 office. He quickly learned the printer's trade, 
 and the glory of Gutenburg was upon him when 
 he had the privilege of "throwing in pi," that is, 
 distributing back into the boxes the jumbled 
 mass of type that had fallen "off its feet." 
 
 Caledonia had a brass band, a real cornet 
 band, and young Harding played an alto horn 
 
Boyhood Days in a Country Town 31 
 
 and learned that "after beats" were as import- 
 ant as the slip horn or solo trombone. Later 
 on, when the family moved to Marion, he 
 joined the band there, and became its youthful 
 manager. That excursion of the new band to 
 Chicago, upon the occasion of the opening of the 
 Erie Railroad, with $2.40 expense money, was 
 an event in the young life of the alto player of 
 the Caledonia Cornet Band, who sweltered in a 
 helmet somewhat large for him. What is life in 
 a country town without "belonging to the 
 band?" 
 
 The literary society, debates, amateur dra- 
 matics, in fact all activities included the services 
 of the quiet, but ever-ready American lad. 
 
 Young Warren had made a trip to the circus 
 at Marion and had been there with "the band." 
 But to live in the county seat, where the big 
 stone court house was located, and where the 
 railroads were all junctionized, looked like a 
 real future. On to college was the exhilarating 
 vision of Dr. Harding and his wife and family 
 of children in the early eighties. 
 
 These were the days when Caledonia boasted 
 of eight hundred population and proved it by 
 the census. Now it is six hundred, but there 
 are some pessimists left who insist this is too 
 
32 Warren G. Harding — The Man 
 
 high. There are fine frame houses, and it is a 
 real "home town." The history of all the 
 famous men who have gone from the town 
 cluster about high school traditions. 
 
 There were tears in the ej^es of playmates on 
 the day the Harding children left Caledonia. 
 Iberia then seemed far away. Little groups of 
 the chums gathered, and in brusque boy fashion 
 bade "Doc" Harding, good-bye, with pledges to 
 continue to keep the secrets of the "Stunners" 
 sacred and to smash the "Chain Gang," the 
 rival organization, at first chance. Then they 
 whispered confidentially that they would let 
 him know if the girls were planning one of those 
 deaf and dumb "surprise parties" where they 
 served lady -fingers and salad. 
 
 Boyhood ties were broken, but boyhood mem- 
 ories remained. 
 
Dr. George Tyron Harding 
 Father of Warren C. Harding. Dr. Harding was seventy-six years old 
 on the day his son was nominated for President 
 
COLLEGE DAYS AT THE "CENTRAL 
 OHIO" 
 
COLLEGE DAYS AT THE "CENTRAL 
 OHIO" 
 
 THE distance from the High School in Cale- 
 donia, which Harding attended, to the 
 Central Ohio College in Iberia was only 
 seven short miles — an easy walking distance 
 for the long-legged farmer lad. The college 
 no longer exists, having succumbed to institu- 
 tions with larger facilities. This college, founded 
 before the Civil War, was a famous under- 
 ground railway station, pregnant with thrilling 
 Abolition tales which have never been printed. 
 At the age of fifteen, Warren Harding appeared 
 at this co-educational institution, one of only 
 sixty students. The college was founded by 
 the United Presbyterian Church, but it later 
 became undenominational. Dr. Harding hav- 
 ing the education of his children uppermost in 
 mind, moved his family to a farm three miles 
 away, where young Warren could conveniently 
 attend college and have the week-ends at home. 
 
 (36) 
 
36 Warren G, Harding — The Man 
 
 At the age of seventeen he became a school 
 teacher, mainly because it was the habit of 
 country youths to take a turn at teaching. 
 
 In his three years at this institution Warren 
 Harding maintained the traditions of school 
 days portrayed by Tom Brown at Rugby. Al- 
 though in 1910 he received the degree of Doctor 
 of Law from Northern Ohio University, the one 
 reminder which the village people point to with 
 most pride is the door of Dr. Virtue's office, 
 painted by Warren Harding forty years ago, 
 with pigments and craftsmanship that have 
 withstood the ravages of time. It was good 
 paint. 
 
 On the site of the old college on a shaded knoll 
 resides Frank Miller, an old classmate. He 
 was a Harding booster at the Chicago Conven- 
 tion and returned to the green meadows fringed 
 with maples, with a feeling that his old chum 
 had at last realized some of the visions they 
 chaffingly discussed in the moments when 
 studies grew dull and they walked far afield. 
 
 Now came the flood of college anecdotes. 
 Warren did not fancy chemistry as a study, but 
 delighted in its experimental opportunities. 
 The teacher's desk proved a luring laboratory. 
 Underneath was placed a bottle of hydrogen 
 
College Days at the ''Central Ohio'' 37 
 
 sulphide, which was popular because of its 
 strong odor of addled eggs. The stopper was 
 tied with a string attached to the drawer in the 
 desk. This drawer when opened meant trouble. 
 Meek and docile, the embryo chemists waited, 
 and when the drawer was opened by the teacher 
 everyone "just looked around," holding their 
 offended nostrils to escape the olfactory torture. 
 All assisted in the search, but the aged eggs 
 were never found to this day, for at noon the 
 bottle was removed and the mystery remained 
 unsolved. 
 
 The new professor was always telling the 
 students that they were not as smart as the boys 
 at Delaware, where he formerly taught. In 
 the geometry class one day he remarked: 
 
 "I wish you boys would do things as they do 
 them at Delaware." 
 
 That night Warren Harding accepted the chal- 
 lenge — he stayed up far into the morning hours 
 studying his geometry. At the recitation the 
 following morning he was called on and 
 demonstrated propositions for two solid class 
 hours without an error until the professor fairly 
 gasped and asked him to cease. 
 
 "Is that as good as they do at Delaware.^" 
 asked Warren, with a twinkle in his eye. The 
 
38 Warren G. Harding — The Man 
 
 professor said: "I think it is." After that there 
 was nothing more said about the boys at Dela- 
 ware. 
 
 The three years at college deepened his deter- 
 mination to try a newspaper career and follow 
 the impulse which had come to him when set- 
 ting type in the little brick building which still 
 stands in the town square, where the village 
 paper was printed. During vacations he re- 
 turned to Caledonia and worked in a brickyard, 
 a stiff job in hot weather, but young Harding 
 was equal to the emergency. 
 
 There were hints of some college romance 
 and long walks down the country road in the 
 autumn moonlight, and sleighing parties in the 
 tingling air of winter. Still living in this local- 
 ity are some of his old college mates, among 
 them the co-eds that are now looking up the 
 scrawled notes which read with classic for- 
 mality, "Will you accept my company home 
 tonight?" and bearing a signature that now has 
 the possibility of sending out invitations to 
 visit the White House.! 
 
BEGINNING LIFE IN A BIG TOWN 
 
VI 
 
 BEGINNING LIFE IN A BIG TOWN 
 
 GRADUATING from college, young Hard- 
 ing's eyes turned toward Marion as the 
 "big town" to "grow up with" and 
 launch his "bark on the stormy seas of life" — 
 as read the girl's valedictory. The railroad 
 maps encouraged the vision that here was to be 
 builded a real city. Always keeping in mind 
 the interests of his growing family, Dr. Harding 
 decided to move to this county seat. He and 
 the mother ever remained the pals of their boys 
 and girls. Young Warren soon decided that 
 his star would shine in the firmament if he could 
 work on a newspaper. A job secured on a 
 Democratic newspaper, young Harding felt that 
 his destiny was assured, for he was permitted 
 to write locals and put them in type and to run 
 the old hand press. The father was an enthu- 
 siastic admirer of James G. Blaine, and so was 
 his son, Warren. Those were the days of in- 
 
 (41) 
 
42 Warren G. Harding — The Man 
 
 tense feeling, either for or against James G. 
 Blaine. The editor of the paper despised the 
 name of Blaine and when he found young Hard- 
 ing wearing a Blaine hat, that was enough. He 
 lost his job. The fire of determination was 
 awakened in the youth whose dreams had been 
 so rudely shattered. At the age of nineteen 
 he and a brother printer, Jack Warwick, bought 
 the Marion Star, then a struggling newspaper, 
 where the "ghost*' seldom "walked" on Saturday 
 — pay day. His father helped him, but dis- 
 claims ever having any interest, direct or indi- 
 rect, in the paper, and Warren G. Harding soon 
 became "editor and publisher" of a Republican 
 newspaper. 
 
 Now it was work in earnest. He began set- 
 ting editorials directly from the case, and ad- 
 dressed the wrappers going to the few admiring 
 subscribers included in the list of old school 
 friends in Caledonia — ten miles away. The 
 people of Marion and the farmers roundabout 
 soon grew to admire and love the hard-working 
 young editor in his struggles to provide for 
 paper, ink, and payrolls. The Star kept right 
 on shining and growing more luminous as the 
 crisp and earnest editorials, hearty home-like 
 "locals" appeared. At one time or another the 
 
Beginning Life in a Big Town 43 
 
 name of nearly every man, woman and child in 
 Marion appeared in the columns of the Star. 
 
 Although famed far and wide as a strong 
 speaker, he was timid about public addresses 
 at home. When he delivered his lecture on 
 ''Alexander Hamilton," and took an active part 
 in the local Chautauqua, the home people were 
 not thinking of him as a great speaker, but just 
 looked at him and thought the old thoughts. 
 
 The real relations to friends at home are 
 expressed in the instructions given to all workers 
 and reporters on the Marion Star by Warren G. 
 Harding when he launched his career: 
 
 Remember there are two sides to every question. 
 Get both. Be truthful. Get the facts. Mistakes are 
 inevitable, but strive for accuracy. I would rather have 
 one story exactly right than a hundred half wrong. Be 
 decent; be fair; be generous. Boost — don't knock. 
 There's good in everybody. Bring out the good in 
 everybody, and never needlessly hurt the feelings of 
 anybody. In reporting a political gathering give the 
 facts; tell the story as it is, not as you would like to 
 have it. Treat all parties alike. If there's any politics 
 to be played, we will play it in our Editorial Columns- 
 Treat all religious matters reverently. If it can possi- 
 bly be avoided, never bring ignominy to an innocent 
 man or child in telling of the misdeeds or misfortune of 
 a relative. Don't wait to be asked, but do it without 
 the asking, and, above all, be clean and never let a 
 
44 Warren G. Harding — The Man 
 
 dirty word or suggestive story get into type. I want 
 this paper so conducted that it can go into any home 
 without destroying the innocence of any child. 
 
 Warren G. Harding. 
 
 The common sense and vigor of the young 
 editor were revealed in a well-defined policy for 
 the conduct of a newspaper. It did not attract 
 circulation at first, but eventually it won the 
 confidence that endures with life. In public 
 service Warren G. Harding never dodged the 
 drudgery of his duty. Every question was to 
 him a matter of thorough, conscientious, bal- 
 anced judgment. He wrote editorials every day 
 on public problems which were quoted far and 
 wide in Ohio-land, as his reputation as a sound 
 thinker began to find the furthermost boundary 
 lines of the nation. 
 
 Warren Harding is never afraid of himself 
 and understands self-expression. He does not 
 strangle that impulse which lies within us to live, 
 feel and think with others, realizing the richness 
 of Hellenic ideals. 
 
THE HARDINGS A HARDY BREED 
 
VII 
 
 THE HARDINGS A HARDY BREED 
 
 IN the early struggles of rearing the family, 
 the definite plan of father and mother was 
 to educate their children. Little was said 
 of ancestors. They were too busy with the 
 problems of the present. In moving about, 
 many of the old relics and heirlooms and records 
 were scattered, but relatives in the East kindly 
 furnished the Harding brothers and sisters with 
 the proof of their right to be enrolled as Sons 
 and Daughters of the Revolution. 
 
 In 1624 Stephen and Richard Harding arrived 
 at Weymouth Landing, Mass., and joined the 
 Plymouth Colony. Later, Amos Harding left 
 for Rhode Island, and when the Revolution came 
 it found his descendants had again removed to 
 Orange County, New York, and many of the 
 Hardings enlisted and fought in the Continental 
 Army with the New York troops. The restless, 
 adventuresome Harding spirit prevailed, and 
 
 (47) 
 
48 Warren G. Harding — The Man 
 
 the family pushed on to Pennsylvania and 
 settled in Wyoming Valley. 
 
 On the morning before July 4 in 1778 the 
 cry rang out in Wyoming valley, "Remember 
 the Hardings." The brave defenders of Forty 
 Fort made their attack, only to be cut down 
 by the Tory Butler and his rangers, assisted 
 by the Seneca Indians in their mad blood-lust. 
 There were three hundred victims in the 
 massacre of Wyoming, and among them many 
 Hardings, ancestors of Warren G. Harding, 
 who stood their ground on the frontier and left 
 a tradition of devotion to their firesides, their 
 country, and their freedom that is imperishable. 
 
 Under the willows in a lonely cemetery in this 
 historic vale is a modest slab erected over the 
 resting place of Hardings, on which is engraved 
 the epitaph: 
 
 "Sweet be the sleep of those who preferred 
 death to slavery." 
 
 The Hardings fell three days before the 
 tragic massacre that found its background in one 
 of the loveliest vales of Pennsylvania. Two of 
 these fighters were Revolutionary soldiers, Abra- 
 ham Harding and Captain Stephen Harding. 
 It was Amos, the son of Abraham, who pushed 
 
Mrs. G. T. Harding 
 Mother of Xi'arren G. Harding {died May 29, igio) 
 
The Hardings a Hardy Breed 49 
 
 on to the West and founded the pioneer home 
 in Richland County (now a part of Morrow 
 County), Ohio, one hundred years ago. Five 
 generations of Hardings have carried on the 
 traditions of their family to the Mid-West. The 
 forbears of Warren G. Harding never departed 
 from the ideals carried to Ohio that began with 
 Stephen Harding in 1624, when he arrived from 
 Devonshire, England, to become a prominent 
 personage in the Providence plantations. 
 
 Generation after generation these ideals of 
 representative government have been reflected 
 in the lives now obscure, and now eminent 
 among the virile Harding breed who have 
 played their part in the creation and triumphs 
 of government that came with the founding of 
 New England and the colonies of the New 
 World. 
 
 The Slocum families, related to the Hardings, 
 were scalped and wiped out in the massacre, 
 with the exception of a little girl of three, 
 who was captured and carried off by the 
 Indians. She was given up for dead after years 
 of search, but the story of the lost child was 
 handed down year by year. A vagrant para- 
 graph in a newspaper relative to the probable 
 fate of this child came to the attention of 
 
50 Warren G. Harding — The Man 
 
 Colonel George Evans, an Indian trader in 
 Loganport, Indiana. While among the Indians 
 one day he observed a squaw who did not seem 
 to act or walk like the rest of the tribe. Her 
 sleeves were rolled up, revealing the white skin 
 of her arm, which immediately aroused his 
 suspicion. He addressed her in the Miami 
 tongue, calling her a white woman, and she 
 started, saying, "Yes, I was a white child, but 
 I can remember nothing of my people." 
 
 She was married to the chief of the tribe 
 which captured her, but had left him to become 
 the bride of the chief of the Miamis. When 
 implored to return to her people she refused. 
 Two grown daughters and a lifetime spent with 
 the wandering savages had completely weaned 
 her from her own. The spell of the wild was 
 stronger than the call of civilization, and a 
 monument to her memory was erected, com- 
 memorating her as "The White Rose of the 
 Miamis." 
 
 These are among the traditions recounted to 
 me by Warren Harding's father. 
 
 Although Dr. Harding was seventy-six years 
 of age the day his son was nominated for 
 President, he is still making his daily rounds 
 of calls on patients. He steps sprightly, his 
 
The Har dings a Hardy Breed 51 
 
 eyes are not dimmed, nor his vigor abated. 
 His memory is unerring on past as well as on 
 present happenings. He seems especially well 
 informed on all the current political topics, as 
 well as the economic history of the country 
 during his long and active life. One could see 
 the influence of the brain power and tenacious 
 memory of the father who had trained his son. 
 
 The Hardings are a hardy breed. 
 
 A visit to Dr. Harding's home, where the 
 young editor lived in the struggling days of 
 the Star, reveals a modest structure with maple 
 trees in front and a narrow, vine-covered porch. 
 Immediately one feels the homelike, hospitable 
 atmosphere of a place where real boys and girls 
 had lived. I had knocked several times before 
 the door was opened by the handsome and 
 stately sister of the Republican nominee, who 
 has maintained the traditions of the family as 
 a teacher in the high school for a decade. As 
 she ushered me in, she seemed truly a queen in 
 gingham. She had been busy about the house- 
 work. Her name is Abigail Harding, but she 
 is called "Miss Daisy." Another sister, Mrs. 
 Votaw, of Washington, D. C, entered later, 
 having returned from her work as an officer 
 of the Police Court in Washington, to the old 
 
52 Warren G. Harding — The Man 
 
 home. She is the sister who spent ten years 
 as a missionary in India, and estabhshed mis- 
 sions and dispensaries in Burmah. It was of 
 her and her brother Warren — the last and the 
 first born — of whom the mother had said: 
 
 "These are consecrated for service to God 
 and to humanity." 
 
 How beautiful it was to hear this family 
 speak of one another in such terms of affection, 
 lending a new halo to the meaning of the Ameri- 
 can home! There was the other son, Dr. 
 George Tryon Harding, Jr., Columbus, Ohio, 
 who had chosen his father's profession, in which 
 he has achieved marked distinction. They 
 spoke of Charity, Mrs. Remsberg, the sister in 
 distant California, who was a great chum of 
 her brother Warren, who christened her with 
 the pet name of "Chatty" because of genial 
 companionship. 
 
 What large family is not blessed with the 
 name of Mary ? A few years ago Mary Harding 
 passed away in young womanhood, leaving to the 
 family a precious heritage. Having only slight 
 vision, she made golden minutes and precious 
 hours of life, and saw things not revealed to the 
 physical sense, and her contribution to the 
 enrichment of the family was a marvelous spir- 
 
The Hardings a Hardy Breed 53 
 
 ituality. For years her brother had read to 
 her, hour after hour, books and papers, discuss- 
 ing the great questions of the day and the phil- 
 osophy of Hfe and pohtics, for which an en- 
 Hghtened soul gave her a keen insight. When 
 this sister and her mother passed beyond the 
 sight of mortals, the arc of the family circle was 
 broken and bereft of two choice spirits. 
 
 Then we were off to the Doctor's office. The 
 way was long and the day was hot. Street cars 
 were running, but the sprightly young man of 
 seventy-six led me off at a merry clip down the 
 maple-lined avenue, while he kept up a cheery 
 chat, now and then interjecting something about 
 Warren and telling me of his horse and why he 
 did not like automobiles. 
 
 "I had two; one I ran into a wire fence trying 
 to dodge a load of hay, and the other had a meaner 
 disposition than any balky horse I ever owned." 
 
 Up one flight in the Daily Star building, and 
 I found myself in Dr. Harding's office. On the 
 open door was a printed pasteboard sign, that 
 had been there for many years, evidently printed 
 in the Star office from wood type, reading: 
 
 "Dr. Harding's Office" 
 
54 Warren G. Harding — The Man 
 
 Open-hearted and frank, there is a whole- 
 someness that made the visit with the father of 
 Warren G. Harding one long to be remembered. 
 
 Across the hall is his son Warren's editorial 
 den, and together father and son have been 
 real comrades, although following different pro- 
 fessions. 
 
 In the editor's office the Doctor proudly 
 pointed to the picture of James G. Blaine. 
 
 He left me to finish my notes upon the edi- 
 torial desk of his son. It was a hot, sultry 
 afternoon, and a little later I peeked into the 
 Doctor's office. The attendant said: "The 
 Doctor is taking a little nap after the rush of 
 calls." 
 
 I tiptoed quietly down stairs. He was just 
 the sort of dear old dad we all love. 
 
THE BROADENING FIELD OF PUBLIC 
 SERVICE 
 
VIII 
 
 THE BROADENING FIELD OF PUBLIC 
 SERVICE 
 
 THE unfolding of the public career of War- 
 ren G. Harding was as natural as the 
 processes of evolution in the physical 
 world. He was born to lead, trained for destiny, 
 measured up to responsibility, and naturally 
 grew to Presidential timber. 
 
 The home town of Marion honors her distin- 
 guished son, because from the beginning he has 
 been the highest exemplification of civic re- 
 sponsibility and leadership. The growth of the 
 city from six thousand to thirty-six thousand 
 has had no more important factor than the work 
 of Warren Harding. Whatever pertained to the 
 pubhc good always found in "W. G." an ardent 
 advocate and supporter. Because of this, the 
 "home-folk" are for him. They know him, 
 believe in him, love him. 
 
 This describes the man! As he is loved at 
 home, so he has been regarded abroad, as the 
 horizon of his activities has widened. 
 
 (57) 
 
58 Warren G. Harding— The Man 
 
 The qualities which have most to do with 
 the creation of a strong personal following— a 
 following which is not political so much as 
 friendly— are first of all a rugged honesty, 
 Lincolnesque in its directness and simplicity. 
 It is no small tribute in a large town to know his 
 friends by their first names and yet to have 
 retained through a period of thirty-six years 
 the trust and respect of all. Long service in a 
 growing American city is a supreme test of a 
 pubhc man. One of his favorite mottoes is 
 "Honesty endures," and his home people declare 
 him sincere as Roosevelt; affable as McKinley, 
 and with Blaine's capacity for inspiring friend- 
 ships. 
 
 His first public office came as the natural 
 result of his unconscious friend-making. These 
 friends expressed their views from various angles. 
 "We want him for the state Senate, for he 
 looks like a Senator." "We will not nominate 
 him for any office until we can make him Senator, 
 for he speaks hke a Senator." 
 
 This was in 1889. In the campaign, his 
 enthusiastic father took the picture of his son 
 from the wall and put it in the window of his 
 office. This was too much for the modest 
 Warren. Going in, he took it down, saying: 
 
The Broadening Field of Public Service 59 
 
 **Let the other people put up the pictures, Dad; 
 they all know where you stand." 
 
 He served for four years in the turret-towered 
 capital at Columbus, where his work on com- 
 mittees, his insight into state and national 
 questions, his team-work and conference genius 
 soon marked him as a man destined for wider 
 fields of usefulness. 
 
 From this time his editorials on public and 
 national questions began to attract wide atten- 
 tion. Here he shows strong and big. The 
 files of his paper are an open book. His every 
 mood and whim was day by day, through a 
 long period of years, put to the test. He stood 
 four-square to all questions and discussed them 
 in a fearless forum with his own people. 
 
 His ripe judgment, graceful speech, polished 
 manner soon drew him to Chautauqua platforms 
 and on the circuit. His service in the state 
 Senate won for him the Lieutenant-Governor- 
 ship of his state in 1903. And in 1908 he first 
 addressed a national Republican convention. 
 In the thick of the fight he was a towering figure. 
 
 His election to positions of public trust was 
 now a succession of dates. In 1914 he was 
 elected to the United States Senate from Ohio 
 by over 102,000 majority. 
 
60 Warren G. Harding — The Man 
 
 Now the broadening career had begun in 
 earnest. The World War conflagration had 
 just broken out. The beginning of his Sena- 
 torial service was contemporaneous with the 
 advent of a new world order. Here his long 
 daily study of national and international ques- 
 tions found scope. He was made a member of 
 the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, had 
 much to do with drafting the document declar- 
 ing a state of war, and later with the conduct 
 of the great combat. 
 
 With all the exacting questions that had to be 
 met, he soon proved the good judgment of his 
 home state in sending him to the Senate. The 
 hours of long study at home, the point of view 
 gained even from the days when as a boy he sat 
 in the Caledonia court room listening to the argu- 
 ments of local attorneys, the ripe experience of 
 long grappling with questions of national import, 
 came to flower. 
 
 He was soon recognized as a Senator of 
 balanced brain and heart. His judgment was 
 sound, having in it the vision of the statesman, 
 together with the common sense of a trained 
 business man. Perplexing judicial and diplo- 
 matic questions were submitted to him, and 
 in all situations his careful, well-poised, bal- 
 
The Broadening Field of Public Service 61 
 
 anced point of view clarified the most complex 
 situations. 
 
 In a pre-convention address before the Home 
 Market Club in Boston, he spoke from the same 
 platform with Governor Coolidge, the Vice- 
 Presidential nominee, and Httle did they, or any 
 of those present, dream that this combination 
 of brain, power and leadership would be com- 
 bined on one ticket. Here Warren G. Harding 
 paid a tribute to Roosevelt as the one who had 
 brought the awakening of the American con- 
 science and closed with this prayerful prophecy : 
 
 FACE TO THE FRONT 
 
 "I like to think that we in the United States of 
 America have come nearer to estabHshing dependable 
 popular government than any people in the world. Let 
 us cling to the things which made us what we are. We 
 are eminent in the world, and self-respecting as no other 
 people are. Yet America has just begun. It is only 
 morning in our National life, I believe there is a destiny 
 for this Republic; that we are called to the inheritance, 
 and are going on to its fulfillment. Let us have our 
 faces to the front. Let us cling fast to the inheritance 
 which is ours, never fearing the enemy from without, 
 but watching the enemies from within, and move on to 
 the fulfillment of a splendid destiny." 
 
 The scene now shifts to the Republican Na- 
 tional Convention at Chicago in 1920. The 
 
62 Warren G, Harding — The Man 
 
 time for constructive leadership in the most 
 crucial period of the world's history has come. 
 "Who is sufficient for these things?" Even the 
 delegates were confused. Day after day passed. 
 Ballot after ballot was taken. The convention 
 was deadlocked. The long vigils and sleepless 
 nights brought no solution until somebody 
 voiced the unspoken thought of many: "With 
 Harding in the White House, the country can 
 sleep nights." Slowly, surely, the deep, sober 
 judgment of the convention began to crystal- 
 lize about the sentiment. The more the dele- 
 gates thought about it, the more they came to 
 believe it — the wonder was that they had not 
 thought about it before. Not by sudden action, 
 but by slow birth, was chosen a new leader in 
 American politics. 
 
 Warren G. Harding was the man. 
 
WHEN THE NEWS REACHED THE 
 HOME FOLKS 
 
IX 
 
 WHEN THE NEWS REACHED THE 
 HOME FOLKS 
 
 AFTER the nomination in Chicago, the big 
 whistles in the "shovel factory" at Marion 
 sounded for the call to celebrate. They 
 have the roar of an ocean liner. Here is where 
 most of the steam shovels were manufactured 
 that dug the Panama Canal. In the railroad res- 
 taurant, and everywhere, were evidences of the 
 celebration on Saturday night when the news was 
 received from Chicago that "W. G." had been 
 nominated. Every electric light post on East 
 Center Street was adorned with a qluster of 
 flags. Crude photographs were hastily posted 
 in the windows of homes and stores. Here were 
 the home folks among whom he had lived, and 
 when I asked a small boy of twelve in the res- 
 taurant if he had met Mr. Harding, "Nope, I 
 never saw Mr. Harding, but you know we all 
 just know him anyhow." Another lad entered 
 whom they called "Happy," and his smiling face 
 
 (65) 
 
G6 Warren G. Harding — The Man 
 
 indicated the appropriateness of his name. 
 Nothing escapes the brusque and frank ex- 
 pressiveness of nicknames in real American boy- 
 hfe. The trains were coming in from all direc- 
 tions — Erie, Hocking Valley, Big Four and 
 Pennsy., indicating that Marion may be another 
 Canton for the pilgrimage of admirers and 
 supporters of the candidate when the front 
 porch campaign begins — a fitting setting for 
 a porch campaign. 
 
 East Center Street, with churches on one side 
 and a school on the other, impressed the writer 
 with what the average American town considers 
 first. There was the omnipresent Orpheum and 
 moving picture houses, billboards, and all the 
 appurtenances that belong to the average city. 
 It was a hot day, and some of the housewives 
 were rocking on the porch under the vines for a 
 breathing spell after the morning work. There 
 was the old stone courthouse from which the 
 street cars and interurban radiate. On the 
 Marion County Bank was a sign saying it was 
 founded in 1839, so that it must be understood 
 that Marion is a city with a history. Every- 
 body seemed to be mowing the front lawn, and 
 painters were busy, for Marion appreciated its 
 responsibility in the coming campaign. 
 
When the News Reached the Home Folks 67 
 
 The temptation was too much, and I dropped 
 in at the stores to find out just what thej^ 
 thought of Warren Harding. One of the first 
 I met was jolly Dick Crissinger. He an- 
 nounced that he had always been a Democrat, 
 but insisted that Warren G. Harding was a 
 "live one" and this was the year that he would 
 vote the Republican ticket. The plumbers, 
 the bakers, the little shoe shops and the big 
 department stores were filled with people who 
 were eager to tell you about "W. G.," as he is 
 aftectionately called. An organization was 
 launched by Dick Crissinger, who was twice the 
 Democratic nominee for Congress, to organize 
 a Harding-for-President Club that would make 
 the election practically unanimous in the Marion 
 district. Old-time Republicans rubbed their 
 eyes as they saw the wheel-horse Democrats at 
 work for Harding. 
 
 After the nomination the boys were kept busy 
 sending bundles and bundles of letters and 
 telegrams of congratulation pouring in from all 
 cities and states to follow the candidate to 
 Washington. The Hoo Hoos, good-natured 
 with their black cat ensign, Knights of Pythias, 
 Loyal Order of Moose, the Elks, Sons of Vet- 
 erans, and every civic organization to which 
 he belonged, vied with each other in fraternal 
 
68 Warren G. Harding — The Man 
 
 and almost affectionate greetings, for Warren 
 Harding pias been something of a "jiner." 
 
 On Mount Vernon Avenue, lined with beautiful 
 maples, is located the home of Mr. and Mrs. 
 Warren G. Harding. They were preparing for 
 the home-coming, and the seven hundred feet 
 of porch space was being polished. It was a 
 simple, modest, but substantial home. In the 
 early struggles of the Star^ Warren Harding 
 courted and won the favor of Florence Kling. 
 The father opposed the match and insisted that 
 they could not be married with his consent, but 
 the young people kept on and drew the plans 
 for a house of their own in which to be married. 
 In the meantime, the bride-to-be studied the 
 problems of the business manager of the Star, 
 and the tide soon turned towards profits to help 
 pay off the debt and build a home. 
 
 The long-looked for day of the wedding ar- 
 rived, and in the new house, scarcely completed, 
 a simple ceremony which made the young edi- 
 tor, Warren G. Harding, and Florence Kling 
 man and wife, was performed without the pres- 
 ence of the bride's father. 
 
 As the guests departed, they saw the young 
 bride and groom standing in the doorway, little 
 thinking that their future home might be in the 
 White House, at Washington. 
 
THE MEASURE OF THE MAN 
 
X 
 
 THE MEASURE OF THE MAN 
 
 THE real biography of Warren G. Harding 
 will be written day by day, in act and deed 
 under the pitiless spotlight of a Presiden- 
 tial campaign. Every word, every inflection, 
 almost every inner thought, is X-rayed by the 
 earnest voter of the country seeking to get 
 the truth concerning the man whose name will 
 appear on over twenty million ballots — the 
 white messengers of authority — scattered over 
 the country like snowflakes on November 2, 
 1920, on which the voters of the United States 
 are to register with a simple mark of "X" or 
 O.K. with a lead pencil, the measure of the 
 man whom they choose to have as their Presi- 
 dent to safeguard the interest of home and 
 country while the mad tides of internationalism 
 are threatening our own and other shores. 
 
 Election day falls upon the anniversary of his 
 birth; every ballot for him will be a birthday gift. 
 
 How few people realize that in a Presidential 
 election the individual vote that is cast is the 
 
 (71) 
 
72 Warren G. Harding — The Man 
 
 one direct contact that every citizen personally 
 has with choosing the man he desires to repre- 
 sent him as the chief executive of his country. 
 The electoral college has long since become a 
 mere matter of form, for the ballot is in itself a 
 contract definitely expressed, that the policies 
 of sound government, as indicated in the 
 speeches and acts of Warren G. Harding, shall 
 be carried out by and with the consent of the 
 people and their representatives in Congress and 
 the Judiciary, co-ordinating once more the 
 three fundamental branches of government, as 
 outlined in the Constitution. The virtue of 
 this contract depends on promises fulfilled, 
 and a violated pledge or breach of faith has never 
 been associated with the public or private life 
 of Warren G. Harding. 
 
 His sense of loyalty to party covenants has 
 been expressed in this following firm declaration : 
 
 "Through political parties we have the means of ex- 
 pressing our convictions and aspirations, and out of the 
 composite view of the thinking people of America we 
 write the covenant of party faith, which we translate 
 into party action." 
 
 Added to his other gifts is a rare sense of 
 humor, which, to the delight of his hearers, 
 crept into even the discussions of prosaic ques- 
 tions and made him a favorite speaker in all 
 parts of the country. The story of a hat bought 
 
The Measure of the Man 73 
 
 in Paris, illustrative of how the tariff works, 
 may be cited from the traditionally dull pages 
 of the Congressional Record: 
 
 CARRIED THE HAT HIMSELF 
 
 "Now, what were facts? Bear in mind that I had 
 given $40 for this hat in Paris, and the tariff is a tax, 
 and the tariff is 60 per cent. 
 
 "Well, this hat was a very beautiful specimen. It was 
 a large one, and I, as the head of the family, became its 
 special bearer and custodian. I carried that particular 
 piece of millinery from Paris to Calais, and from Calais 
 to Dover, and from Dover to London, and from London 
 to Liverpool, and was bothered with it from one side of 
 the Atlantic to the other, and when we landed in New 
 York city, and a more or less vain woman put on her 
 Paris hat here to go out and show it to New York, and 
 we started down Fifth Avenue, we had not gone a block 
 until in a show window was the identical hat that I 
 purchased and carried from Paris. 
 
 "The tariff is a tax, and I gave up $40 in Paris for a hat 
 and found it in a window in New York city advertised 
 at $24." 
 
 Standing more than six feet in the flesh, with 
 head erect and the steady eye of a gladiator, 
 Warren Harding measures in character up to 
 every task, with motives of honesty and justice; 
 an indomitable instinct and purpose; an un- 
 blemished armor of Honor. 
 
 Thrice-armed he leads a cause that is just. 
 
CHARACTER THE REALITY 
 
XI 
 
 CHARACTER THE REALITY 
 
 EARLY in the campaign it was evident that 
 Senator Harding was a candidate who 
 would grow in favor the more he became 
 known. The general impression concerning him 
 in days following the nomination, among voters 
 in his own party, was far from being a correct 
 estimate of the man. As the days passed and 
 those who knew him began to speak, the people 
 began to understand. They looked again at 
 his pictures and understood that under those 
 dark shaggy eyebrows gleamed blue eyes as 
 kindly as any that ever reflected the soul of a 
 man. While in no sense self-opinionated, his 
 life work has indicated that he is not an easy 
 man for any clique or outside influence to con- 
 trol. He has none of the angles of self-esteem 
 that prevent him from getting on and working 
 with other men. The keynote of his first utter- 
 ances was an appeal for normal common sense. 
 
 (77) 
 
78 Warren G. Harding — The Man 
 
 He began early to seek advice and counsel. His 
 election means a cabinet of strong, capable men 
 whose counsel and guidance with Warren G. 
 Harding's conception of executive functions 
 will result in directing the Ship of State safely 
 through the shoals of the coming years. The 
 personnel of virile men already called for coun- 
 sel includes men having some of the elements of 
 power that characterized the names now famed 
 through their association with the life and times 
 of Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 The businesslike and sensible way in which 
 he grappled the problems of a candidate, fore- 
 shadowed the sane poise of a president. He 
 went direct from Chicago to Washington, un- 
 affected by the demonstrations, to clear the 
 decks and prepare for the event at the home 
 town of Marion, where he delivered the notable 
 speech of acceptance from the threshold of his 
 own house. Here was initiated a porch campaign 
 that may become as memorable as that of 
 McKinley at Canton and Abraham Lincoln at 
 Springfield. Evidence accumulated day by day 
 as his speeches were delivered that here was a 
 man to lead the country in the re-adjustment 
 days of the nation. 
 
Character the Reality 79 
 
 "Every action is measured by the depths of 
 the sentiment from which it proceeds." This 
 was the declaration of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 
 in commenting upon Abraham Lincoln during 
 the war before the world had the measure of his 
 greatness. Look for the source from which flows 
 the acts of Warren Harding, and there is ever 
 apparent a sentiment that assures the reality of 
 his character. 
 
 In the character of Warren G. Harding I am 
 first impressed with his honesty and his consid- 
 erate heart; also his way of attending strictly 
 to his own business and duties. Meeting con- 
 ditions day by day in the light of the average 
 notions of average people, understood and ap- 
 preciated by the average American, illustrates 
 again how he reaches sound conclusions on 
 great questions. 
 
Residence of Warren G. Harding at Marion, Ohio 
 
THE LOG BOOK OF LIFE 
 
XII 
 
 THE LOG BOOK OF LIFE 
 
 THE log book of Warren G. Harding's life 
 indicates that he has traveled far and 
 wide over this country, speaking from 
 California to Maine, and Canada to Texas, 
 addressing audiences in the large cities and 
 small towns. During these years he has been 
 able to analyze the aspirations of nearly every 
 community in the United States, from the 
 metropolis to the smallest hamlet. He speaks 
 the language of the Far West, knows the ambi- 
 tions of the Middle West, and is sympathetic 
 in his knowledge and understanding of the 
 problems of the East and South. He has met the 
 people and debated public questions in much 
 the same manner as Abraham Lincoln discussed 
 them. In his Chautauqua addresses he has 
 been able to make a cross-section survey of 
 what the people think on public matters. 
 On the stump he has grappled political prob- 
 
 (83) 
 
84 Warren G. Harding — The Man 
 
 lems with the virihty of an effective cam- 
 paigner. 
 
 Having seen America first, Warren G. Harding 
 is one hundred per cent. American. In his study 
 of the tariff and national questions, he went 
 abroad to get the facts, reahzing that observation 
 should be co-ordinated with information to 
 insure an intelligent conception of any subject. 
 
 One of the recommendations of Warren G. 
 Harding is that he has the brevity of a trained 
 editorial writer. He could not write or dictate 
 an ambiguous, comprehensive, hypothetical sen- 
 tence or paragraph if he tried. His thoughts 
 have the power of direct transmission, and are 
 not lost in a maze of rhetoric. 
 
 The generosity of his nature was indicated 
 when his father-in-law, who refused to attend 
 the wedding of his daughter, announced himself 
 as a candidate for public office. Everyone said : 
 "Of course, Harding will oppose him." Instead 
 he gave him the hearty endorsement of a loyal 
 worker in the ranks. They became fast friends 
 later, which continued until the death of Mr. 
 Kling. He never used his own paper to boost 
 his own political career. 
 
 Senator Harding's wife, Mrs. Florence Kling 
 Harding, has truly exemplified the comradeship 
 
The Log Book of Life 85 
 
 and support of an American wife. Like Mrs. 
 Theodore Roosevelt, Mrs. Harding believes that 
 her husband belongs to the public, and in order 
 to help him in his work maintains that her duty 
 is first to the home. There's no glamor or 
 procession of public functions to interfere. Her 
 ambition is that of a helpmate and home-maker. 
 Maintaining the wholesome spirit and atmos- 
 phere of American home life, no matter what 
 eminence may come to her distinguished 
 husband, is the one life purpose of Florence 
 Kling Harding. 
 
 When Bastile Day, July 14th, was to be ob- 
 served in Marion, Mrs. Harding discovered 
 there was not a flag of France in the city. With 
 the spirit of a descendant of French Huguenots, 
 she sewed together strips of red, white, and blue, 
 and the tri-color of France proudly floated from 
 the Harding residence on the great French holi- 
 day. The example of Betsy Ross was emu- 
 lated. As a home-maker, Mrs. Harding has 
 always delighted in doing those things that 
 have through the years added to the glory and 
 splendid traditions of American home life, ex- 
 pressed with the modesty of a true helpmate: 
 
 "W'arren does the talking, and I do the baking 
 for the family." 
 
BY HIS GREETINGS YOU SHALL 
 KNOW HIM 
 
XIII 
 
 BY HIS GREETINGS YOU SHALL 
 KNOW HIM 
 
 THE interchange of personal greetings 
 between the RepubHcan and Democratic 
 candidates for President shows the broad 
 mindedness and good nature of Warren Harding, 
 and also the real calibre of the man. 
 Senator Harding says: 
 
 "I recall a much remarked cartoon which portrayed 
 you and me as newsboys contesting for the White House 
 delivery. It seems to have been prophetic. As an 
 Ohioan and a fellow-pubHsher, I congratulate you on 
 your notable victory." 
 
 Governor Cox's message to Harding: 
 "I accept your message as an evidence of the fraternal 
 impulse which has always characterized the craft to 
 which you and I belong. I heartily reciprocate the felici- 
 tous spirit which you have expressed." 
 
 In commenting upon Governor Cox's nomina- 
 tion, Senator Harding said: 
 
 "It is an added consideration shown to our great state 
 of Ohio, for which I am glad, and gives reasonable assur- 
 
 (89) 
 
90 Warren G. Harding — The Man 
 
 ance that finally a newspaper man is to be made the 
 nation's chief executive. Ohio has accorded Governor 
 Cox very unusual distinction, and he deserved his notable 
 victory at San Francisco. His nomination will not 
 change our activities in any way in Ohio. It is a great 
 party contest before us, to be fought on great principles 
 involved, and neither place or residence nor personality 
 will have any marked influence on the result." 
 
 The following colloquial comment concerning 
 his political opponent further reveals his pro- 
 portions of greatness: 
 
 "I don't know what he thinks of me, but Cox is a 
 shrewd man, possessor of great political wisdom, and 
 has made a very able Governor of Ohio, whom the 
 people like and approve. He has done many things in 
 Ohio. Cox is smart. He understands politics. He 
 makes a very impressive speech. I have great respect 
 for his newspaper ability." 
 
 As the legislative and public record of Warren 
 G. Harding is reviewed, or searched with X-ray 
 thoroughly by opponents, his staunch and stal- 
 wart qualities are further reflected. He is 
 frankly and avowedly a party man, believing 
 in the wisdom of the many. In the conduct of 
 public affairs in a Republic he insists that no 
 one man's wisdom is suflScient. As he said : 
 
 "The covenant of our party must be the deliberate 
 and harmonized convictions of representative Repub- 
 lican thought, digested in national councils." 
 
By His Greetings You Shall Know Him 91 
 
 There is no doubt as to where he stands on 
 every question that confronts him, for he has 
 the happy faculty of expressing honest convic- 
 tion without a camouflage construction of double 
 meaning, blowing hot and cold. The biography 
 of Warren G. Harding in the Congressional 
 Directory, which is furnished by each individual 
 Senator, is counted the model of brevity and 
 modesty, and could scarcely have been con- 
 densed — even by one letter or a punctuation 
 mark. 
 
 Even his political opponents recognize him, 
 not as an enemy, but as a man who is always 
 broad-minded and human in his outlook: "As 
 a man, he is good to look upon and to be trusted, 
 and there is in him an assuring indemnity if our 
 party loses." 
 
 In all the years of active public life he has 
 made few enemies, but these enemies have felt 
 the hard blow of righteous indignation which 
 he delivers with a power of conviction, fighting 
 for a principle rather than from personal feeling 
 or passion. 
 
 His native Ohio loves him because it knows 
 him first as a man. He has spoken many times 
 in all but one of the eighty-eight counties of 
 the state. The "home folks" believed years 
 
92 Warren G. Harding — The Man 
 
 ago that he was of the proportions of a states- 
 man, just as Lincoln's home folks believed him 
 before national renown came and despite a 
 rather colorless career as Congressman, which 
 did not estimate or foreshadow his later fame. 
 
 Senator Harding will never fill the role of a 
 solitary wise man, but fulfills the ideals of a 
 constitutional statesman. True to constitu- 
 tional form, he insists upon formulating his 
 political creed through his party and advisers — 
 even reaching beyond the boundaries of his own 
 party lines for advice and counsel, in order to 
 reach the true balance, which reflects the wis- 
 dom, sound sense, and clarity of judgment 
 recognized in the man. 
 
 Life is one round of greetings — morning, noon, 
 and night have their salutations — which mark 
 "the manner of the man." Now the insistent 
 telephone bell makes one continuous merry 
 chime of intermittent greeting. The cheery 
 "hello" of the Republican candidate was in- 
 dexed in his speech of acceptance as a grand 
 hailing sign to America. It has inspired the 
 people to "call" again. The voters will "put in 
 a call" November 2 for Warren G. Harding that 
 will secure a clear line for Uncle Sam to tell him 
 that it was — 
 
 "America first!" 
 
HIS RELATIONS WITH THEODORE 
 ROOSEVELT 
 
XIV 
 
 HIS RELATIONS WITH THEODORE 
 ROOSEVELT 
 
 THE fact that Theodore Roosevelt in 1916 
 turned to Senator Harding to prepare an 
 amendment to the Selective Draft Law 
 indicated his faith in Warren G. Harding's 
 capacity to direct the most vital war matters 
 before Congress. 
 
 The legal and legislative ability that secured 
 the passage of the bill through both houses of 
 a Congress which was politically hostile, was an 
 early triumph for Senator Harding as a national 
 leader in the Senate. It remained for President 
 Wilson's veto to keep Theodore Roosevelt "out 
 of the war," with four sons as volunteers, and 
 France calling for his help. There was perfect 
 personal and political accord between Colonel 
 Roosevelt and Senator Harding, lasting until 
 the death of the intrepid leader, who aroused 
 the United States to the full consciousness of 
 its duty. The Colonel conferred with Senator 
 
 (.95) 
 
96 Warren G. Harding—The Man 
 
 Harding many times, and the firm friendship 
 remained unbroken until his untimely death. 
 Associates and the family of Theodore Roose- 
 velt regarded Harding as a friend true-blue. 
 Roosevelt recognized that the Republican party 
 must be restored to power to save the country 
 from the wave of ineflSciency and wanton waste- 
 fulness and the drift toward anarchy. This, he 
 felt, must be accomplished by unity and har- 
 mony, and he warmly appreciated the services 
 of Senator Harding as a leader. 
 
 In demanding at the height of the coal short- 
 age that the Interstate Commerce Commission 
 assign coal cars at the mines pro rata, without 
 favoritism, Senator Harding made a Roosevelt- 
 ian stroke. He recognized that with the miners 
 it was not altogether a matter of wages, but 
 steady employment. To break the custom of 
 working only a few days at high wages to be 
 consumed in idle days, owing to shortage of cars, 
 was the crux of the matter. The miner's welfare 
 depends on how many days he can work, and 
 calculate his year's income to meet the year's 
 living expenses, with all its fluctuations. This 
 prompt action of Senator Harding is recognized 
 as the first constructive legislation for the 
 miners passed in many years, and a forward 
 
Office Building of the MXrion "Star" 
 
 Editorial Desk at which Warren G. Harding Worked 
 
His Relations with Theodore Roosevelt 97 
 
 step of permanent advantage to consumer, opera- 
 tor and miner in eliminating waste. 
 
 Senator Harding voted and worked for the 
 National Suffrage Amendment, with an idea of 
 obtaining permanent results rather than make 
 a spectacular crusade that would attract 
 admiration or plaudits. The basic rights for 
 woman suffrage he believed was settled in 1776. 
 
 With a courage unflinching, he has put him- 
 self in the background time and time again 
 when the interest of his party or country came 
 first. He has even faced the charge of reaction- 
 ary with a cool head, and has dared to defy the 
 charge of demagogue. Honesty, sound to the 
 core, is the inherent and supreme virtue of 
 Warren G. Harding. He has never been sym- 
 pathetic with class or race appeal, but his 
 record on the labor problems has been made 
 with a conception that labor is first of all 
 entitled to American rights. His votes on labor 
 issues indicate his clear-headed judgment on 
 securing positive and permanent benefits justly 
 and squarely as citizens and not as a class. His 
 own personal relations with labor tell the story 
 in deeds, and the appreciation of laboring men 
 and union men, who are closest to him, is only 
 a logical sequence. Capital, labor, or any 
 
98 Warren G. Harding — The Man 
 
 clique cannot hope to brow-beat or swerve 
 Warren G. Harding from settled convictions 
 with an appeal to expediency. The question 
 comes back: "Is it right?" 
 
 With the prospect of seventeen million women 
 voting and ten million more who are not voting 
 in th'C South, the coming campaign will be an 
 interesting revelation as to the influence of the 
 women in naming a President of the United 
 States. The strong, stalwart Warren G. Hard- 
 ing, with a personal life as clean as a hound's 
 tooth, will prove as popular with men, as a 
 man's man, and with American women who insist 
 upon a manhood that will honor American 
 homes — his first concern in public service. 
 
 Warren Harding's life passion has been an 
 admiration for honesty as the first attribute of 
 every man entering public service. This was 
 shown in his reverent tribute to Theodore 
 Roosevelt : 
 
 "We can never hope properly to raise the public 
 standard until we elevate the individual standard. The 
 main thing is to get honest men. . . . There is no end 
 to the reformation honesty will work. It exalts men 
 and commands confidence. Colonel Roosevelt was a fine 
 example. The American worship of Colonel Roosevelt is 
 founded on the popular belief in his absolute honesty." 
 
 The spirit of Roosevelt goes marching on! 
 
A FOUR-SQUARE LEADER 
 
XV 
 
 A FOUR-SQUARE LEADER 
 
 BORN on a farm, a worker on the soil who 
 wore overalls and jeans, one who comes 
 directly from the soil, the farmers know 
 that honesty in Warren G. Harding is a natural 
 and necessary consequence of birth and breed- 
 ing. He has long been understood by farmers 
 of Ohio as one who has a genuine, sympathetic 
 appreciation of agricultural problems. While 
 the rural vote of the country may never all unite 
 on any one candidate, the one who possesses 
 the undoubted characteristic of the embattled 
 farmers at Lexington will not be overlooked in 
 their calculations. The erstwhile Ohio farm 
 lad has the qualities demanded in a public 
 servant since the earliest colonial days. 
 
 There's never been any doubt as to where 
 Warren Harding stands on the dry question. 
 A constitutional act with him is law. He has 
 not been affected by sodden dew and will do 
 
 (iti) 
 
102 Warren G. Harding — The Man 
 
 nothing to attract a wet vote by subterfuge. 
 He stands on this question as on others — four- 
 square to the winds. Not for any human 
 reward would he sacrifice convictions or stultify 
 conscience. 
 
 Suffrage in Ohio was thwarted for a time by 
 being confused in the mix-up of the wet and dry 
 fight. The voters will not be confused as to 
 where Warren G. Harding stands on any ques- 
 tion of law or principle. 
 
 Every word or phrase that he uttered in the 
 Senate of Ohio or the Senate of the United 
 States has been scanned and re-read with 
 searching interest. His utterances written and 
 spoken are an open book. 
 
 The fact that all the opposing candidates in 
 the Republican Convention of 1920, including 
 the leaders, General Leonard Wood, Herbert 
 Hoover, Frank O. Lowden and Hiram Johnson, 
 have endorsed Warren Harding on the out- 
 standing issues of the 1920 campaign is proof 
 positive of his soundness as a Republican 
 leader. His staunch Americanism is the answer 
 to the wild and insidious internationalism under 
 which bolshevism masquerades. 
 
 His record indicates that the problem of re- 
 organizing departments of the government to 
 
A Four-Square Leader 103 
 
 a peace basis, and eliminating wanton waste 
 is one that he has trained for in a Hfelong 
 business experience. The government handles 
 its problems through departments. It is im- 
 portant that these departments cease to pyra- 
 mid expense and pile up useless burdens on the 
 people of this and coming generations. The 
 business genius of Warren G. Harding is one 
 that can be trusted to adjust the chaotic condi- 
 tions and make the government function for 
 efficiency. The largest corporations recruit 
 their efficient managers among executives who 
 have solved the problems of smaller units. 
 Warren Harding looms up now, called to under- 
 take this work in the same conscientious manner 
 that has characterized his previous career. 
 Determined to do away with imperialism and 
 executive autocracy, he will call his directors 
 and shape the policy of responsible party gov- 
 ernment with the counsel of a strong cabinet. 
 
 His public addresses prior to the nomination 
 are sufficient to forecast an inaugural address 
 that will meet the pressing issues of the times. 
 One of these addresses had the stirring note of 
 challenge : 
 
 Break the shackles of wartime legislation for both 
 business and citizens. Cut out the extravagance of 
 
104 Warren G. Harding — The Man 
 
 government and of individuals. Get back to the Con- 
 stitution and stand on it immovably. Those who com- 
 plain at the inefficiency of party government are really 
 criticizing the substitute they propose, because every 
 weakness of the present day is chargeable to the im- 
 paired party system. For such failure to meet the 
 people's expectations as our party must answer to to- 
 day, I answer an insufficient party sponsorship. To alter 
 our political system now, after the marvel of American 
 achievement, would be the abandonment of that which 
 made us what we are, and endangers the republic more 
 than the threat of destruction by force. 
 
 When Tennyson described "that tower of 
 strength who stood four-square to all the winds 
 that blew" he voiced the final test of leadership 
 in a crisis. 
 
 With all the shifting winds on the seven seas 
 of the political world, in these turbulent times, 
 blowing now gales, now squalls and now lashing 
 into a fury of threatening warring white caps, 
 a cool-headed pilot with firm hand and stout 
 heart is needed at the helm of an national craft, 
 flying the stars and stripes. 
 
 "And thou, too, Oh Ship of State, Sail on! 
 Sail on!" 
 
ANECDOTAL "CLOSE-UPS' 
 
XVI 
 
 ANECDOTAL "CLOSE-UPS" 
 
 EARLY in the Presidential campaign anec- 
 dotes concerning Warren G. Harding came 
 thick and fast. Interest in the personahty 
 of the candidate increased, as he became better 
 known to the people. His insistence that it 
 was not the candidate, but the party and its 
 councils that must prevail, did not encourage 
 anecdotal endorsement of himself. And yet, 
 these anecdotal bits day by day added to favor- 
 able impressions upon which his popularity 
 continued to gain. 
 
 On a New Year's afternoon, during a recess 
 of the Senate, he was found in the composing 
 room of the Marion Star, green shade over his 
 eyes, corncob pipe in his firm and well-set jaw. 
 He was "making up" the paper, and the way 
 he handled the printers' rule indicated the 
 craftsman. The shock of senatorial hair was 
 tousled and there was ink on his face, but he 
 
 (197) 
 
108 Warren G. Harding — The Man 
 
 was working with a will to get the paper to 
 press. A caller shouted: 
 
 "You are a bird of a United States Senator!" 
 
 "I would be a bird of a United States Senator 
 if I didn't know how to do anything else." 
 
 This was the calm reply of Warren G. Hard- 
 ing, with a twinkle in his blue eyes, who insisted 
 that the first duty in life is to know how to do 
 things. He was puffing away and pushing the 
 work so that the paper could go to press and give 
 his boys a holiday. He worked with the same 
 will as when he and Mrs. Harding used to count 
 the pennies to meet the payroll and current 
 bills. It was locked up firm, and in the very 
 lock-up of this type form was an index to the 
 character of Warren Harding. He has never 
 forgotten how to work with his hands and pro- 
 duce things. He insists he can send a "form" 
 to the stereotyper with more speed than any 
 man in the shop. 
 
 His reverent use of the "print shop towel" on 
 this occasion, with its cubist smears of ink, 
 called up memories. On the second floor he 
 proceeded to wash up, and, after putting on the 
 old smoking jacket, prepared to write an edi- 
 torial "for the paper tomorrow." As he wrote 
 in long hand on the scratch pad, he continued 
 
Anecdotal "Close-ups** 109 
 
 to converse between the paragraphs. There 
 was a sudden lull in the press room. His quick 
 ear discerned it. Down he went to the base- 
 ment and in the quiet way of the old days sug- 
 gested something that helped fix things, and the 
 boys got out the edition in time and caught the 
 mails. His people all had their extra holiday 
 and he had his fun. Another visit to the 
 "print shop towel," with plenty of soap, and 
 he was back upstairs to complete the editorial. 
 On the editorial desk of Warren Harding 
 have been written many human interest stories 
 that have a real flavor of life. There was the 
 story of "Hub," the Boston terrier, who was 
 the inseparable companion. Since the days he 
 wandered down the lane driving the cows, 
 Warren Harding has had a dog. He loved this 
 dog, in fact he loves all animals, and his kindness 
 to animals was the same as to people. The 
 editorial tribute-paid on the passing of "Hub," 
 his dumb friend, is worthy of a place in literature 
 with that classic plea of Senator George Vest 
 in the court room, describing the devotion of a 
 dog. His description of "The Death of the 
 Blind Man's Son" is a bit of the literature that 
 sparkled frequently in the pages of the Marion 
 Star. Ten years after it was printed a tramp 
 
110 Warren G. Harding — The Man 
 
 printer who had put it in type met Senator 
 Harding and repeated word for word the tribute 
 to the bhnd man's son. 
 
 Senator Harding's biography is a bundle of 
 common, everyday incidents of everyday people 
 of the country. From this vast majority Sena- 
 tor Harding sprang. The simple recital of the 
 career of an average and representative man of 
 the people; a plain citizen, neither a genius, 
 hero, nor superman, makes every American feel 
 that, whatever else may be said of Warren G. 
 Harding, he is truly one of us. 
 
 Sitting in the terrace outside the Marble 
 Room of the Senate one summer's day in 1918, 
 I asked Senator Harding what message I should 
 carry to young men and women of today on a 
 Chautauqua tour. 
 
 "Impress them with the importance of think- 
 ing more of what they can do;- have an objec- 
 tive and drive toward it. There are more op- 
 portunities under the new order of things than 
 the old. The world is progressing, and the 
 ideals of sound government will prevail. Keep 
 in touch with older people — those who have 
 lived. You know I imbibed much of the philos- 
 ophy of life from Chandler Smith, the blacksmith 
 
Anecdotal *' Close-ups** ill 
 
 near Caledonia. There was something alluring 
 in the smell of that red blacksmith shop. And 
 when shoeing horses, Mr. Smith could comment 
 like a sage, with the horse's tail swinging in his 
 face. He was one of the men who made me 
 think of what I could do, because he encouraged 
 and exemplified strength with every blow on 
 the anvil, and his life was a ringing call to the 
 joy of honest labor." 
 
 As a lad he had the ambition to see in a real 
 theatre some of Shakespeare's plays which he 
 had read in school. With his chum he went 
 to the city after saving money as diligently as 
 if it were a circus. They occupied cheap seats 
 in the uppermost gallery. With wide-opened 
 eyes they visioned Shakespeare's genius in the 
 glow of footlights. It was like a new world un- 
 folded to them. That night they bunked to- 
 gether — it took all their combined capital to 
 pay for the room — but they bantered back and 
 forth in Shakespeareian phrases in thrilling 
 tones. 
 
 « * * 4s 
 
 Warren Harding's life represents merited 
 reward for honest toil. His wealth is not counted 
 in millions. He has not accumulated money 
 other than through the slow and sterling pro- 
 
112 Warren G. Harding — The Man 
 
 cesses of business. Every penny of his money 
 has come through clean and square deahng with 
 fellow-men. In business or in private life 
 there is no deal of Warren Harding's that took 
 an unfair advantage of friend or foe, no matter 
 what the profits might promise. As a leader 
 in the onslaught that is sure to come against 
 profiteers and their ill-gotten gains, Warren G. 
 Harding is the man who understands the 
 burdens of the multitude and how honest profits 
 are a safeguard to industrial stability. 
 
 Over and over again some of his friends ask: 
 "Is he stern and cross as he appears in the 
 picture?" 
 
 This question brings a smile to those who 
 know him, for his kindly, gentle and just nature 
 is the dominant quality of the man, but contact 
 day by day, in look, act and deed, gives a pic- 
 ture and memory of Warren G. Harding to 
 those who know him that no painting or photo- 
 graph can fully interpret. 
 
 The camera sometimes fails to portray in 
 the countenance that something which the 
 public thought unfailingly divines in the inner 
 soul of a man or woman. 
 
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THE TEST OF A PRINTER-PARTNER 
 
XVII 
 THE TEST OF A PRINTER-PARTNER 
 
 F 
 
 ROM a printer-partner in the early days 
 comes a tribute worthy of one who has 
 stood the test of every phase of friendship. 
 
 [From the Chicago News.] 
 [Jack Warwick of the Toledo Blade has long been a 
 friend of Senator Harding's. At the time of Grover 
 Cleveland's first election they both played horns in the 
 Marion band, and afterward joined forces as Republicans 
 and newspaper men.] 
 
 This is about me and the Republican nominee for 
 president of the United States. 
 
 ."I knew him when " 
 
 Truth is mighty and must wail. Too many false- 
 hoods have been given out about Warren Gamaliel 
 Harding — "W. G." for short. This is especially true of 
 his brass band past. People have been confused in their 
 minds with Hi Henry, who flourished about the same 
 time. Hi and W. G. didn't play in the same band and 
 their methods were different. Hi could play either pp 
 or ff, and was impartial between the little end and big 
 
 (116) 
 
116 Warren G. Harding — The Man 
 
 end of a crescendo movement. W, G. was strong for 
 the big end. 
 
 Truth further forces the admission that Warren G. 
 Harding had no more brass band conspicuity than I had. 
 We began to make the night hideous in the same organi- 
 zation. He was conspicuous because he was big and 
 blew the smallest horn, and I was conspicuous because 
 I was small and blew the biggest horn. Destiny main- 
 tains a balance for her own. But let that go. 
 
 My recollection is that the beginning of the collapse 
 of W. G.'s horn-blowing ambitions took place in Novem- 
 ber, 1884. Grover Cleveland's election had much to do 
 with it. The Democrats of Marion were turning off a 
 big hurrah in celebration of the temporary resurrection 
 of the party. Johnnie Sickel, a friend of mine, and I 
 drove a pair of yellow ponies nine miles to hear the re- 
 heartened rank and file chortle with glee. Harding with 
 his cornet was furnishing the keynote for the wolves of 
 Democracy to howl by. 
 
 When the parade was over he found Sickel and me in 
 front of a restaurant. We all went in to eat to Harding's 
 hunger. It was there that the exhausted hornblower 
 sez, sezze: 
 
 "Jack, let's buy the Marion Daily Star." 
 
 "If we do," I asked, "who's going to pay for these 
 oysters?" 
 
 Then Johnnie broke in: "The treat's on me boys, 
 oysters and Star." 
 
 That was the beginning of the resuscitation of the 
 rundown, flea bitten, four page paper that has since 
 become a vital force in the county of Marion, Ohio. 
 
The Test of a Printer-Partner 117 
 
 Harding did it. He gave up the cornet for the Star. I 
 question whether he ever fully recovered from having 
 blown that horn in celebration of Grover Cleveland's 
 triumph while his heart was aching over James G. 
 Blaine's defeat, 
 
 "I knew him when " 
 
 It was a shock to my nerves to wake up last Saturday 
 evening and find myself famous, through no fault of my 
 own. Harding had done it. The man with whom I 
 had worked in various capacities for nearly twenty years 
 was nominated for the biggest job in the country. I 
 must say I worked "with him" in deference to his wishes. 
 Always it was his desire and request that associates and 
 co-laborers should avoid saying they worked "for him." 
 He never wanted them to say that. If he lacks any- 
 thing, it is the elements of a czar. 
 
 Well, it was a long time before the Star began to make 
 as much noise in the community as the old brass band 
 had done. It was a daily ostensibly, but publication 
 had been intermittent. The first thing we had to do 
 was to get it to come out every day, in the evening. 
 That was done finally, and only a week or two of regu- 
 larity was required to establish a bit of confidence in the 
 minds of the people. 
 
 W. G. was an indefatigable worker. He worked in- 
 side and outside the office. He messed in printer's ink 
 until the office devil was immaculate by comparison. 
 Whatever his hands could find to do he dirtied them 
 with it. Honest toil was written over his shirtsleeves 
 in black splotches. In those days, in that community, 
 
118 Warren G. Harding — The Man 
 
 the value of printer's ink was not as well established as 
 now. W. G. was a pioneer in the belief that it paid to 
 advertise, and he could prove it by his shirt. 
 
 William G. McAdoo's patched pants would have been 
 an impotent political asset in the Marion Daily Star 
 office. For this I may be denounced and denied a cabi- 
 net position, but as I said before, truth is mighty and 
 must wail. Read it slowly. At one time Warren G. 
 Harding had to go to bed, in mid-afternoon, near the 
 hour of going to press, to have his pants repaired. For- 
 tunately the repairs were made in time to get the paper 
 on the press at the accustomed hour. 
 
 There were many hard days and long nights in the 
 old Star office. But through them all Harding was in 
 and out among the workers, one of them, and with a 
 sense of humor that shortened the hours. Most of the 
 way in the early days the traveling was up hill, but 
 through all the rough stuff of disappointment W. G. 
 kept his head up and face toward success. And when 
 success came it did not change the man. He was the 
 same human, cordial, whole-souled fellow workman 
 among his employes. 
 
 "I knew him when " 
 
 Yes, I knew him when he was at grips with fate and 
 before. I knew him in school and in the ole swimmin' 
 hole days, in his boyhood home, which was a family 
 shrine. I have gone with him to the cow pasture and 
 have seen him milk. He knows the producing side of 
 a cow. I have seen him on the loaded farm wagon, 
 have seen him paint a house and have seen him make 
 a broom. 
 
The Test of a Printer -Partner 119 
 
 But of all the days that I knew him those nearly 
 twenty years in the same printing office are the most 
 vivid. There he stood up to man's height and faced 
 the world in a hard struggle, unyielding in the teeth of 
 discouragement and holeproof ridicule. 
 
 It's my personal opinion that W. G. ought to be 
 elected. 
 
 Jack Warwick. 
 
 Toledo, Ohio, June 18. 
 
CHAMPION OF AMERICANISM 
 
XVIII 
 
 CHAMPION OF AMERICANISM 
 
 THE American people will vote for Warren 
 G. Harding because he is the Republican 
 standard bearer. The party is united as 
 never before. Recognized as a man among men, 
 he can work with others and eliminate executive 
 autocracy. The qualities of Harding that im- 
 press the people are honesty, tact, firmness, lack 
 of pretense. He knows human nature and the 
 plain people. 
 
 He has won his own way in the world and has 
 lived and grown up among the people, not to 
 spectacular heights of wealth but to a compe- 
 tence which all Americans are entitled to hope for. 
 He won the respect of the neighborhood, and as 
 the neighborhood area is extended into national 
 proportions, he grew naturally and inevitably 
 into national leadership. He is a product of 
 the soil — wholesome all through. An efficient 
 factor in Congress during the world war, 
 
 (123) 
 
124 Warren G. Harding — The Man 
 
 Senator Warren G. Harding was among the 
 first to see Wilson's fallacies before and after 
 the war on preparedness — both for war and 
 peace. He was one of the thirty -nine Senators 
 who joined in the Round Robin protest. His 
 service in Washington during these eventful 
 years has made him thoroughly conversant 
 with domestic and foreign affairs. His experi- 
 ence with industrial operations and knowledge of 
 the necessities of a protective tariff to furnish 
 employment for the American people will enable 
 them to guard against the influx of foreign goods, 
 which would mean stagnation at home. Prac- 
 tical, sensible, aggressive, he has demonstrated 
 qualities of a capable executive equal to the 
 great tasks of the hour. Best of all, to complete 
 his high qualifications, he is a lovable, domestic 
 human — one of the people — a convincing public 
 speaker, and whether from porch, platform or 
 in public print, he knows how to interpret the 
 public mind. His real character and propor- 
 tions will become known to the people as they 
 are known by the legion of friends, whose con- 
 victions grow deeper that Warren G. Harding 
 is truly the man to lead in epochal times. 
 
 As a champion of protection, Warren G. Hard- 
 ing is a crusader fully equipped and ready to 
 
Champion of Americanism 125 
 
 meet the challenge of the Democratic platform 
 of 1920 for a "tariff for revenue." The Repub- 
 lican party affirmed its belief in the protective 
 principle, and pledged itself to revision as soon 
 as conditions make it necessary for the preser- 
 vation of the market for American labor, agri- 
 culture, and industries. 
 
 President Buchanan, a Democrat, comment- 
 on the tariff for revenue of 1846 said: 
 
 In the midst of unsurpassed plenty in all the pro- 
 ductions and elements of national wealth, we find our 
 manufactures suspended, our public works retarded, 
 our private enterprises of various kinds abandoned and 
 thousands of useful laborers thrown out of employment 
 and reduced to distress. 
 
 Referring to the same period of tariff for 
 revenue. President McKinley drew a similar 
 picture in these words: 
 
 But instead of insuring prosperity it produced uni- 
 versal distress and want; instead of raising money to 
 support the government, even during a period of peace 
 and wonderful development, the system of duties it 
 provided was utterly insufficient and produced results 
 exactly the opposite of those claimed for it. As soon 
 as the foreign wars ceased the revenue began to diminish 
 and the expenditures to exceed it, thus creating de- 
 
126 Warren G. Harding — The Man 
 
 ficiencies and forcing loans and increasing our national 
 debt from $15,500,000 in 1846 to $90,580,000 on March 4, 
 1861. 
 
 In 1913 came another period of low tariff, 
 when Martin W. Littleton, a Democratic mem- 
 ber of Congress, reported: 
 
 New York is at this moment the centre of the most 
 remarkable pessimism I have ever known. There is a 
 sense of depression and dismay here that I have not 
 seen before in this great city during the seventeen years 
 that I have known it. 
 
 These are the unfailing results of tariff-for- 
 re venue policies, and Warren G. Harding knows 
 his history of American political and economic 
 developments. He realized that war conditions 
 in 1914 saved the country from the disaster 
 of another calamity under the Underwood Act, 
 which is still in force and must remain in force 
 until a Republican President is elected who will 
 not veto a protective tariff bill. 
 
 With a voice of prophecy Warren G. Harding 
 one month preceding his nomination, when he 
 or his friends had little thought of his becoming 
 the Republican leader in this crucial campaign, 
 outlined in ringing tones to the Home Market 
 Club in Boston the parting of the ways and a 
 
Champion of Americanism 127 
 
 dominant issue of the campaign. He spoke as 
 a thorough-going American, experienced in legis- 
 lation, who aimed at definite objectives, for the 
 interest of all the country in meeting an im- 
 pending crisis: 
 
 When the world restores normal production it is 
 going to seek the American market, and you will have 
 a new order to face then. And yet I remember that 
 in 1912 we were promised a reduced cost of living. We 
 were to sharpen our wits in competition with the world. 
 We sharpened our wits, but dulled our production. 
 You have forgotten it now, but we were on the skids in 
 1914. Nothing but the world war saved us. We pro- 
 tected our home market with war's barrage. But the 
 barrage was lifted with the passing of the war. The 
 American people will not heed today because world 
 competition is not yet restored, but the morrow will soon 
 come when the world will seek our markets, and we must 
 think of America first or surrender American eminence. 
 I believe most cordially in the home market first for the 
 American product. There is no other way to assure our 
 prosperity. 
 
 Young America, with its red-blooded hopes; 
 first voters with their visions; American man- 
 hood and womanhood in their struggles and 
 triumphs; veterans in the sunset of life, all 
 find their own aspirations revealed in the life 
 experiences and record of the Republican leader 
 
128 Warren G. Harding— The Man 
 
 of 1920. Their ideals of Americanism will be 
 declared by ballot and support of the conviction 
 that Warren G. Harding is the measure of a man 
 to be chosen President of the United States. 
 
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