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Show 7 THE CITIZEN I i isider Harding, of the Marion Star r-l t the Use tV t was born on his grandfathers farm, not to from the village of Blooming Gliive, Morrow county, Ohio, on November 2, 1865. Election day this year S,2rw5l be his anniversary and he will be taRREN G. HARDING fifty-fiv- e. There were eight children in the plle2fatnily and Senator Harding was the oldest. His father, George T. Harding, was the village doctor in those days and is still practicing medicine in- - the city of Marion, Ohio, the present home of the senator. The Hard-i- d beta family came from Scotland, and In Connecticut and later ent ' 8ttled first moved to Wyoming Valley, Pennsylvania, where many of them fought in war. Warrens tlie Revolutionary mother was Phoebe Dickerson, des-- a ricended from the Van Kirks, an old Holland Dutch family. Our next president has the strong blood of tlje Holland Dutch on one side and the fearless, alert, and liberty-lovin- g e wiScotch blood on the other. As Warren grew up on his grandfathers farm he had to learn to cut down trees, chop wood, split rails, 1C plant and hoe corn and all those things that had to be done when to raise crops meant raising them between the roots and stumps of trees. Everything was done by hand for there was no expensive farm machinery. t: on He milked cows, fed the chickens, gathered the eggs, pitched the hay back into the mow and chopped wood the kitchen stove and then carried iif into the kitchen and piled it up out the rain and snow. When the pump oze up he thawed it out again with teakettle and hot water; on Satur-y- s he went along with the family ) Bowling Green, Ohio, and carried tpe butter and eggs from the big farm agon into a general store, where they uuld be exchanged for sugar and cof-- I ?e and other groceries that could be ut away for the winter. Sfor He was a healthy, big boy and like healthy boys, he enjoyed the sports f the country and village. He loved old swimming hole and no boy 11 ?ie dive deeper or swim farther flian Warren. He had a sunny disposition and was the real leader of the gang of his schoolmates. When e was sixteen he looked like a man nd had the strength of a man and lere was no older boy who dared ully him. And he always protected younger boys. !0ie he was fourteen years old he to the village school, and then fie entered the Ohio Central Co'lege of yerla. He graduated high in scholar-iiip- . It was while there that he 'lowed a talent for newspaper work, vr lie was made editor of the college aper. But the boys in those days 'JUldnt afford to go right through allege. He had to stop for a time 'v and then to earn enough money go ahead and finish. During these lines he worked at many things. He ainted his neighbors barns, cut corn, drove a team to grade the road- - new fangled cut to his coat, nor yet bed of a railroad. He taught school when he was seventeen and played a horn in the village brass band. an ultra conservative, with an unpressed Prince Albert or cutaway and baggy pantaloons affected by so many of the politicians of the older school who see in such a garb an opportunity to dress the part. Harding instead wears good, well cut, up to date, although . modest, suits, just like any other successful business man might be expected to wear, realizing the importance of a becoming personal appearance. In color the suits usually are blue. This summer the senator is wearing an ordinary straw sailor hat and white buckskin shoes, just like thousands of other American business men who are trying to be comfortable during the hot weather. And he carries a cane, a dark colored slim one, with a straight silver tipped handle, merely to keep his hand occupied. He began work as a printer on the Marion Mirror, but got into trouble with the Democratic editor because he insisted on wearing a Blaine campaign hat to the office. That was when he bought the Star, in payment of which he took over the debts which had been incurred by the previous owners. When the Star got on its feet he went to the Ohio state senate for two terms, then to the state capitol as lieutenant-governoand then, election of 1914, finally, in the to the United States senate. His present term will expire on March 4 next, and it may be necessary for him only to go about fifty steps out of the senate chamber to the capitol plaza to take the oath of office as presidenl of the United States before riding up Pennsylvania avenue at the head of the inaugural procession to the White House. r, off-ye- ar Everybody agrees that Warren G Harding looks as thought he ought tc be president of the United States. He possesses a certain dignity, grace of manner and commanding stature that seem to go with the office; his face is kindly yet determined and it bespeaks the vigor that finds its vent in outdoor exercise; his smile is of the sort that the American people like to see and talk about and look at pictures of in the newspapers a cheery, confi- dent, reassuring smile that sends a little thrill through you and makes you like the man. In any ordinary crowd Warren G. Harding is just a trifle taller than anybody else. He is a natural centre of whatever is going on, although he does not force the situation. People just automatically accept him as a leader upon whom they can depend. In outward appearance he possesses all those qualifications which make him look the part.. Harding's hair is almost entirely gray, although he is not yet It used to be a dark sandy color and he still has all of it he ever had in other words, hes not showing signs of baldness. He keeps it cut reasonably short and brushed back close to his head. fifty-fiv- e. This presence of gray hair with a rather glowing, youthful complexion gives him a striking appearance, similar in a way to a person whose hair has whitened prematurely. And yet that is not the idea exactly. A second glance gives the impression of a man who, although still comparatively young, has gone all the way through the school of experience and that the tinges of age merely are external weather marks resulting naturally from battering up against the world. In the cut of his clothes Harding reveals as well as in any other way his liberal conservatism in statesmanship. Hes not a "radical, with a Harding ever met you hed remember about it when hed see If Warren G. Not that hes one of the memory sharks they describe in the magazine advertisements, but its one of his happy faculties to be able to recall faces, names and places. And when he learns your town if it be within a reasonable range of his experience hes very apt to ask you about somebody else who lives there, for his acquaintance is wide. Especially is this true of Ohio, where Harding has been an important figure for almost twenty years, but it still is true of a great many other states, for Harding has travelled much. Furthermore, he knows his London and Paris and other European capitals, for he has gone abroad on several occasions to familiarize himself with foreign governments and their problems, including the tariff. Harding is easy to approach. There is an air about him, undoubtedly acquired by his long experience as a newspaper editor and as a politician, which enables a person to talk with him freely and frankly, without stuttering and stammering and getting red in the face and all that sort of thing. You feel at the start that hes considerate and friendly and is not going to embarass you with any short answers or by making it plain by liis attitude that the subject which is important to you is too unimportant to him to waste much time on. One of the Democratic leaders in the senate recalled a day or two ago a conversation he had with Senator Harding a short time before the Chicago convention. It sheds much light on the Republican nominees character, as well as revealing the esteem by which lie is held among his Democratic colleagues as well as those of Republican faith. "Harding, Im a good Democrat, and so as a disinterested observer I can talk pretty much as I please about tlie you again. . situation, this senator repeating Ills words to the Republican said, Ohioan. "I certainly do hope that the Republicans nominate you at Chicago. Id like to see somebody in the White House whom I could go up to and slap on the back and talk with as if he were a human being. Senator Harding is one of the most considerate men in public life. Although in recent years he has had immense responsibilities on his shoul: ders he never forgets the nice little things to do at the proper time. And he will return a favor if he can. In the recent campaign for convention delegates from Ohio Senator Harding was opposed by Gen. Wood, and so both candidates summoned such strength as they could to their own support. Two of the sons of Mr. Justice Day of the supreme court of the United States, whose home is in Canton, Ohio, and who served in the McKinley cabinet, participated in the campaign, William F. Day on behalf of Gen. Wood and Rufus Day on behalf of Senator Harding. Rufus Day travelled through the state with Senator Harding, and it was a hard campaign, which wound up finally in Cincinnati. It was long after midnight when they finally got to bed in a Cincinnati hotel, with adjoining rooms. Rufus Day had to go to Washington the next morning very early, so he got up after a few hours sleep at half past four oclock in the morning, to be exact. Before he was fully dressed Senator Harding came into the room. Day apologized, "Why, senator, Im sorry if Ive disturbed you. "No, said Senator Harding, who was visibly tired from the almost I left an early ceaseless campaign. call, too; I cant allow, a friend of mine to leave without saying goodbye. There has not been a political campaign in the last thirty years that Harding has not taken part in personally, and most of the time it has been a real fight, for his part has been played mostly in Ohio, and in Ohio politics is of the real fighting sort. 4m At Marion, Ohio, which is a town of about 30,000 inhabitants, they still talk about the time that Harding, as the editor of the struggling Daily Star, put a definite stop to the vicious attacks that were being heaped upon him by one of the two opposition newspapers, the Marion Independent. Marion at the time had 5,000 inhabitants and three newspapers the other being the Marion Mirror, which held first place. The Harding paper, the Star, and the Independent were in a hot fight for second honors, the maintenance of this position being the first step toward supremacy. And the Independent was unmerciful in its per- sonal attacks on Harding. Politics, of course, was involved, Harding being a vigorous young Republican in (Continued on Page 18.) i i i i I i i |