WARREN GAMALIEL HARDING

BY C. B. GALBREATH

Since the founding of our government six Presidents

of the United States have died in office.

Three of these were native sons of Ohio, and one, William Henry Harrison, when elected to that high office was and for twenty-six years had been a citizen of this state.

Three of the six fell at the hands of assassins, and two of these, Garfield and McKinley, were Ohioans. The passing of all these was attended with widespread and sincere expressions of sorrow, mingled in the case of Lincoln and Garfield and McKinley, with horror at the awful deed that thrust these tried and cherished leaders of the Republic "from the full tide of this world's interest, from its hopes, its aspirations and victories," into eternity.

And in simple truth it may be said that on no previous similar occasion were the hearts of the Nation more generally touched than at the announcement of the death of President Warren G. Harding.

His was a kindly nature with sympathies that reached to all classes and conditions of men. With his genial personality he united unwavering devotion to principle, tireless patience, constancy of purpose and executive ability that peculiarly fitted him for the high office to which he was called by an overwhelming majority of his countrymen. One editor pays tribute to his "iron hand that wore ever a velvet glove." Behind

the smile that was native to his face could be seen the intimation of a will which, when the rare occasion required, was as unyielding as adamant.

Most of the Presidents of the United States began life with humble surroundings. The eloquent Garfield in his tribute to Abraham Lincoln one year after the death of the great Emancipator quoted from Tennyson the lines that were in time to apply peculiarly to himself -lines which trace the upward steps of

Some divinely gifted man,
Whose life in low estate began
And on a simple village green;

Who breaks his birth's invidious bar,

And grasps the skirts of happy chance,
And breasts the blows of circumstance,

And grapples with his evil star;

Who makes by force his merit known
And lives to clutch the golden keys,
To mould a mighty State's decrees,
And shape the whisper of the throne;

And, moving up from high to higher,
Becomes on Fortune's crowning slope
The pillar of a people's hope,

The centre of a world's desire.

Some of our Presidents began life on "a simple village green" and a number of them on the quiet farm,

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife.

From the establishment of our government under the constitution, from Washington to McKinley, not one of them was born in the city. Assuredly America has been another word for opportunity. "The heights by great

men reached" have been accessible to the youth who hails from the region where the quiet streams meander unvexed through the valleys and the harvests ripen in the undulating fields.

Those who now read the early life of Warren G. Harding and his successor, Calvin Coolidge, cannot fail to note the re-establishment of the old order of elevation from rural obscurity to the highest office in the foremost nation of the world. The rapid growth of our great cities has not yet closed that avenue to eminence and enduring fame.

Harding knew and appreciated this community of opportunity so characteristic of our American life. More than once he dwelt eloquently on this theme. He was the last man, however, even in his most secret estimate to have considered himself in any special sense "divinely gifted," except as thousands of other American citizens who grew up through like environment and effort are divinely gifted.

The anonymous iconoclast who wrote the Mirrors of Washington, in which the peculiarities, the foibles and in some instances the weaknesses of the great and the near-great at our national capital are made objects of satire and ridicule, found in the unassuming candor of President Harding a defense not easily pierced by his shafts of sarcasm. Greatness is denied by this critic on the authority of Harding himself, who freely admitted that he was "just folks." But even this detractor acknowledges that Harding had "exceptional tact," that his inaugural address "was a great speech, an inaugural to place alongside the inaugurals of Lincoln and Washington," and this admission is made near the conclusion of the critique:

Out of his modesty, his desire to reinforce himself has proceeded the strongest cabinet that Washington has seen in a generation.

Warren G. Harding possessed those qualities which disarmed hostility, harmonized differences and made his ascendancy to the presidency a healing influence in the world.

But we need not dwell upon his virtues. It would be vain to attempt to add aught in praise or eulogy. From every section of our common country, with remarkable unanimity, come, mingled with expressions of sorrow at his death, tributes of respect and appreciation such as have seldom fallen to the chief executive of any nation. With enviable achievements to his credit, with the fruition of beneficent policies in sight and popular favor turning steadily to his support, he was called from his high place with no untoward act to detract from his enduring fame.

His fitting memorial is yet to be written. On these pages are recorded in simple outline sketch the story of his life.

Warren Gamaliel Harding was born near Blooming Grove, Morrow County, Ohio, November 2, 1865. He was the oldest of a family of eight children. His father was Dr. George T. Harding, a Civil War veteran and for many years a country physician but afterwards a practitioner in the city of Marion. He was of Scotch descent. His ancestors first settled in Connecticut in colonial times and later moved to Pennsylvania where some of them were massacred by the Indians and others fought in the Revolution. His mother's maiden name was Phoebe Dickerson and her descent has been traced from an oldtime Holland Dutch family, the Van Kirks