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PRESIDENT    WARREN    GAMALIEL    HARDING. 


WABREN  GAMALIEL  HARDIIg 

President  of  the  United  States 


A  REVIEW  OF  FACTS 
COLLECTED  FROM 


Anthropological,  Historical  and 
Political  Researches 


-BY- 


William  Estabrook  Chancellor 

FORMERLY 

Professor   of   Economics,    Politics  and   Social   Science   of 
Wooster   College,  Wooster,   Ohio 


This  book  is   sold   and   distributed   by   agents   only. 


THE    SENTINAL    PRESS 


m -^^, 


I  ''  -- 


It  is  a  biological,  likewise  a  psychologies!  fallacy  to 
assume  that  human  traits  admit  of  any  abrupt  adapta- 
tion to  new  environments  or  laws  of  physical  or  mental 
operation. 


The  Sentinel  Press  has  acquired  unreserved  legal 
title  to  my  original  papers  relating  to  my  investiga- 
tions into  the  ancestry  and  life  of  President  Warren 
G.  Harding.  Such  references  as  may  be  made  to  me 
as  the  source  of  information  concerning  facts  there- 
in should  be  credited  as  authentic. 


PUBLISHER'S  PREFACE 

"The  whole  destiny  of  the  world  falls  on  President 
Harding's  leadership;  the  fate  of  white  civilization 
hangs  in  the  crisis." 

This  is  the  startling  assertion  of  Sir  Philip  Gibbs, 
the  'distinguished  war  correspondent,  in  a  recent  analy- 
sis of  world  conditions. 

The  very  thought  bids  us  pause.  Undoubtedly  the 
times  are  out  of  joint  and  a  blind,  selfish  or  false  lead- 
ership will  be  calamitous  indeed. 

It  is  proposed  to  discuss  the  inherited  and  acquired 
traits  of  President  Harding  and  those  of  some  of  his 
intimate  advisers  that  the  reader  may  know  as  he 
should  be  advised  as  to  the  kind  of  leadership  that  is 
now  directing  our  destiny.  Our  story  is  also  as  an 
exoneration  and  vindication  of  Professor  William  Esta- 
brook  Chancellor  upon  whose  investigations  and  writ- 
ings the  facts  herein  stated  are  based  as  is  also  much 
of  the  form  of  statement. 

After  reading  these  pages  let  the  hesitant  reader 
consider  that  selfish  fear  has  closed  the  lips  of  many 
who,  with  Professor  Chancellor,  investigated  and  know 
the  fadts  of  the  President's  ancestry.  It  should  not  be 
forgotten  that  the  tradition  charging  fusion  of  races  is 
over  one  hundred  years  old  and  that  legal  proof  of  the 
existence  of  such  tradition  is  over  seventy  years  old 
and  was  presented  as  evidence  in  the  Butler  murder 
case  in  the  courts  of  Morrow,  President  Harding's 
native  county,  by  one  of  the  most  distinguished  Re- 
publican lawyers  and  leaders  in  the  history  of  Ohio, 
Columbus  Delano,  who  was  Secretary  of  the  Interior 
under  President  Grant.  Living  witnesses  also  are  to 
be  found  who  testify  as  to  the  tradition.    But  why  in- 

7 


s 

deed  hesitate  when  living  witnesses  will  testify,  as 
they  have  done,  that  they  have  heard  the  father  of  the 
President  admit  he  is  not  of  pure  white  blood.  Most 
of  all,  let  the  reader  remember  that  only  scientific 
measurements  and  study  of  mental  characteristics  will 
be  conclusive  in  these  matters.  All  other  testimony 
must  be  questioned  in  motives — of  pride,  prejudice  or 
expediency.  The  challenge  is  here  made  to  submit  the 
Harding  case  to  the  test  of  exact  science. 

The  most  humiliating  and  fearful  fact  confronting 
the  reader  is  the  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  friends  of 
the  President  and  the  Republican  leaders  through  the 
agents  of  the  Postoffice  Department  and  the  personal 
representative  of  H.  IvI.  Daugherty  to  suppress  the  pub- 
lication of  the  facts  by  intimidating  Professor  Chancel- 
lor by  use  of  an  alleged  warrant  which  he  was  as- 
sured would  be  quashed  if  ha  would  destroy  his  manu- 
scripts on  the  Harding  Biography. 

Thus  a  man  who  has  written  the  recognized  work 
dealing  exclusively  with  the  lives  of  the  Presidents, 
which  work  includes  an  account  of  them  all  except 
Woodrow  Wilson,  is  now  forbidden  on  principle  of  lese 
majeste  from  revising  his  work  on  the  Lives  of  the 
Presidents.    Why  ? 

The  publisher  has  many  reliable  reasons  for  believ- 
ing that  the  Republican  leaders  know  that  the  state- 
ments of  Professor  Chancellor  and  others  concerning 
the  ancestry  of  the  President  are  true  and  that  the 
activity  at  suppression  is  due  to  the  fear  that  the  party 
will  be  rebuked  at  last  for  its  imposition  upon  the 
American  people. 

On  March  30th,  1921,  Carl  D.  Ruth,  Washington 
correspondent  of  the  Cleveland  News,  owned  by  Dan 
Hanna,  in  a  message  to  that  paper  calls  attention  to 
reprisals  that  were  to  be  made  against  Democrats  for 
circulating  scurrilous  reports  reflecting  on  the  ances- 


9 

try  of  President  Harding.  This  threat  was  repeated 
in  the  same  paper  on  three  or  more  occasions  as  the  de- 
termined policy  of  Senator  Willis,  of  Ohio. 

Evidently  the  plan  was  abandoned  after  wise  reflec- 
tion for  at  a  later  date  the  same  Carl  D.  Ruth  sent  a 
message  advising  the  News  readers  that  the  whole  plan 
had  been  changed. 

On  March  9th,  another  Washington  correspondent, 
Charles  E.  Morris,  former  private  secretary  of  Gov- 
ernor James  M.  Cox,  in  a  message  to  the  Dayton  News 
writes:  "Since  conferences  here  between  Governor 
Myron  T.  Herrick,  Howard  Mannington,  President 
Harding,  former  President  William  Howard  Taft,  Wal- 
ter F.  Brown,  and  others,  there  has  been  an  abandon- 
ment of  the  policy  of  making  vicarious  sacrifices  of  a 
few  Democratic  office  holders  in  Ohio — postmasters 
and  internal  revenue  collectors — who  were  to  be  given 
the  opportunity  for  immediate  resignation  in  lieu  of 
the  more  embarrassing  experience  of  being  summarily 
fired  'for  having  engaged  in  scurrilous  propaganda' 
during  the  campagn." 

"Requests  for  resignations  have  been  made,  and 
the  requests  may  be  met,  but  these  particular  charges 
are  not  to  be  pressed,  since  it  has  become  known  that 
the  victims  will  fight  back,  and  the  fight  may  result 
in  exposures  decidedly  embarrassing  to  several  men 
now  high  in  the  councils  of  the  party,  members  of  the 
official  family,  personal  counsellors,  and  even  men  who 
have  in  the  past  week  figured  in  the  gossip  as 
recipients  of  the  highest  favors  the  President  has  to 
bestow.  For  a  time  it  was  assumed  that  the  so-called 
'offensive  propaganda'  had  its  origin  in  Democratic 
sources,  but  only  a  little  investigation  was  necessary 
to  show  that  before  the  general  campaign  it  had  been 
kindled  to  a  glowing  heat  in  the  pre-primary  campaign 
in  Ohio  by  the  sponsors  for  the  candidacy  of  General 


10 

Leonard  Wood,  and  that  prior  to  that  it  had  been 
agitated  by  men  who  for  various  reasons  opposed  Mr. 
Harding  in  the  primary,  and  who  now  are  accepted  as 
his  closest  poh'tical  friends."  *  *  *  "President  Harding 
himself  is  disposed  to  forgive  and  forget  and  has 
frankly  expressed  his  desire  to  let  the  animosities  of 
campaign  end  with  the  contest.  It  is  said  that  Judge 
Taft,  Myron  T.  Herrick,  Walter  F.  Brown,  Attorney 
General  Harry  M.  Daugherty  and  Howard  Mannington 
counsel  this  course." 

THE  EDITOR. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I 
Introduction 

CHAPTER  H 

.  William  Estabrook  Chancellor 

CHAPTER  HI 

The  Issues  of  This  Book 

CHAPTER  IV 
The  Negro  Question 

CHAPTER  V 
He  Looks  Like  a  President 

CHAPTER  VI 
The  Plutocracy 

CHAPTER  VII 

The  American  Government  and  Plutocracy 

CHAPTER  VIII 
Fake  Biographies  of  Harding 

CHAPTER  IX 
Races  of  Mankind 

CHAPTER  X 

What  Is  a  Cabinet? 

CHAPTER  XI 

Ohio  Political  History 

11 


12 


CHAPTER  XII 
Presidential  History 

CHAPTER  XIII 
Hamon  and  Harding 

CHAPTER  XIV 

The  Election  Made  to  Order 

CHAPTER  XV 
Letters  to  Divers  People  On  Pertinent  Subjects 

CHAPTER  XVI 
The  Constitution  and  the  President 

CHAPTER  XVII 

The  Genealogy  as  Approved  by  the  Family  of 
Warren  Gamaliel  Harding 

CHAPTER  XVIII 
Prof.  Chancellor  and  the  People 

CHAPTER  XIX 

The  League  of  Nations  and  the  Coming  Wars 

CHAPTER  XX 

The  Government  of  the  District  of  Columbia 


CHAPTER  I 
INTRODUCTION 

The  administration  of  President  Warren  Harding 
has  now  proceeded  several  months,  and  we  can  see,  and 
according  to  our  lights  understand,  what  the  policies 
are  to  be,  for  there  are  no  principles  anywhere  in  it. 

Already  Harding  has  done  several  things  that  ulti- 
mate history  will  regret. 

FIRST,  he  has  broken  the  heart  of  the  world  by  set- 
ting aside  the  League  of  Nations  and  the  machinery 
for  permanent  world  peace.  In  doing  this,  he  has 
broken  his  promises  to  millions  of  persons  who  in  good 
faith  believed  in  him.  It  is  true  that  he  could  not  keep 
faith  both  with  Johnson  and  with  Taft;  he  has  chosen 
rather  to  go  with  Johnson,  Borah  and  Knox  than  with 
Lodge,  Taft  and  Root.  It  is  a  melancholy  decision, 
based  entirely  on  immediate  expediency.  He  needs 
the  irreconcilable  bitter-enders  and  is  more  afraid  of 
them  than  the  reservationists.  He  has  failed  to  un- 
derstand the  dream  of  Dante,  Rousseau  and  Wilson, 
not  to  say  of  Isaiah  and  Jesus  Christ. 

SECOND,  he  has  broken  the  hearts  of  the  colored 
people  of  America,  who  were  told  explicitly  by  the  Re- 
publicans that  Harding  has  negro  blood  and  would  re- 
member the  negroes  in  his  appointments.  He  has  been 
ashamed  of  this  element  in  his  blood,  ashamed  of  his 
own  great-grandmother,  Elizabeth  Madison,  so-called, 
and  of  the  negroes  that  contributed  their  blood  to  his 
great-grandfather,  George  Tyrone  (or  Tyron)  Harding. 

There  are  at  least  fifteen  million  negroes  in  this 
country  and  it  is  a  safe  guess  that,  hereafter,  some  of 

15 


16 

them  will  be  Democrats.  He  has  appointed  so  far  but 
one  person  to  any  office  of  importance  who  has  any 
discoverable  negro  blood ;  which  is  no  better  than  other 
Republicans  have  done  before  him. 

THIRD,  he  has  shown  by  his  messages  and  his  let- 
ters to  societies  and  to  individuals  that  the  Presidency 
has  fallen  into  ignorant  hands,  that  he  cannot  write 
English  that  is  understandable,  that  the  American  poli- 
tical system  is  so  rotten  as  to  permit  the  election  by  an 
enormous  majority  of  a  person  not  competent  to  speak 
authoritatively  upon  public  questions.  His  mental 
furniture,  too,  is  that  of  a  school  boy.  Europe  and  Asia 
now  have  us  in  contempt. 

FOURTH,  his  Cabinet  is  shown  already  to  be  a  clut- 
ter of  unrelated  and  discordant  minds,  such  as  can- 
not be  brought  together  into  any  system  of  states- 
manship. Habitually  all  things  to  all  men,  his  cabinet 
mirrors  hmself.  Not  one  man  yet  in  the  Cabinet,  which 
was  supposed  to  be  the  acme  of  all  in  American  history, 
a  Cabinet  of  multimillionaires,  has  disclosed  the  leader- 
ship necessary  to  help  our  domestic  situation.  Except 
as  Daugherty  or  Mellon  deal  with  Penrose  and  Smoot 
the  Cabinet  will  have  no  influence  whatever  upon  the 
processes  of  the  Senate  or  of  the  House  because  the 
President  himself  carries  no  weight  there  and  never 
did  carry  weight,  and  because  the  same  is  true  of  A.  B. 
Fall,  which  is  fortunate  because  Fall  is  committed  to 
the  policy  of  armed  intervention  in  Mexico.  Hughes 
carries  no  weight  because  he  is  disliked  and  because  he 
lost  the  Presidential  campaign  of  1916  through  blun- 
dering. This  involved  permanent  alienation  from  Sen- 
ator Johnson.  Most  of  the  Senators  are  indifferent  to 
Cabinet  Secretaries;  it  is  a  strange  man  who  would 
not  prefer  a  Senatorship  to  a  Cabinet  position.  To  the 
Senate,  even  Hoover  is  of  no  importance;  a  Cabinet 
Secretary  lives  in  the  sunshine  or  dies  in  the  shadow 


17 

of  his  Master,  the  President.  Any  elective  office  where 
there  is  no  recall  is  better  than  almost  any  appointive 
office ;  among  the  few  exceptions  being  Federal  Judge- 
ships. 

FIFTH,  he  has  continued  to  pose  as  a  common  man, 
anxious  to  please  the  common  people  by  a  variety  of 
poses.  But  even  the  common  people  do  not  care  for 
that  sort  of  thing.  The  common  people  like  to  think 
that  the  President  is  a  superior  man ;  they  like  to  feel 
that  he  has  leisure  and  sport  and  wealth  enough  and 
lives  above  the  common  life.  The  common  people  do 
not  like  a  man  who  tries  to  please  them.  Egg-rolling 
on  the  White  House  lawn,  playing  golf  on  the  Potomac 
flat  public  course,  opening  the  White  House  front  lawn 
to  the  run  of  everyone,  professing  to  wish  to  keep  open 
house  and  see  anyone  who  wishes  an  interview,  writing 
letters  to  every  society  that  sends  an  invitation  and 
saying  how  sorry  he  is  that  he  cannot  attend,  and  all 
such  doings  and  sayings,  Harmless  enough  in  them- 
selves, in  the  end  contrary  to  the  Harding  fancy,  do  not 
"get"  him  anywhere;  they  are  all  of  no  importance. 
What  the  common  people  want  is  prosperity;  they  de- 
sire a  propitious  President,  one  who  brings  to  them  an 
era  of  plenty  of  work  for  good  wages  or  fair  profits 
from  farm  or  trade.  This  alone  counts  with  them.  And 
when  they  see  him  trying  to  make  himself  popular 
otherwise,  they  laugh  at  him. 

SIXTH,  he  has  started  to  make  appointments  to 
foreign  lands  that  show  him,  expose  him  as  a  dealer  in 
offices,  a  political  debt  payer,  not  a  single-minded 
patriot  thinking  first,  last  and  only  of  America. 

Already  Harvey  in  his  speech  before  the  Pilgrim 
Club  has  offended  the  patriotic  sense  of  his  own  party 
associates. 

He  does  not  understand  the  morality  of  a  man  like 
Rutherford  B.  Hayes,  who  upon  becoming  President 


18 

said :  "Now  I  have  no  friends.  I  will  appoint  only  the 
best  men  available."  Instead  of  taking  this,  the  only 
patriotic  and  honorable  position,  Warren  Harding  is 
paying  his  political  debts  at  the  expense  of  Arr-^rica, 
which  is  corruption  at  its  worst.  Open  bribery,  the 
direct  sale  of  offices,  is  less  dangerous  than  the  course 
now  being  pursued.  Daugherty  has  made  him  what  he 
is,  and,  therefore,  he  names  this  low-grade  man  Attor- 
ney General  of  the  United  States,  to  occupy  a  place  of 
very  great  personal  power.  The  Department  of  Justice 
ought  to  be  sacred  from  the  presence  of  any  such  man, 
who  is  not  fit  to  be  even  a  clerk  in  it,  or  janitor  of  the 
rooms  at  K  and  loth  Streets,  N.  W.  Harvey  goes  to 
England  in  payment  for  his  services,  for  his  bertayal 
of  Wilson,  for  his  leaving  the  Democratic  party,  and  for 
revenge  in  becoming  a  Republican — a  vile  course.  Har- 
vey is  the  man  who  printed  in  his  WEEKLY  a  sacri- 
legious cartoon  against  the  League  of  Nations.  He  also 
is  a  man  of  low-grade  mind  and  obviously  low-grade 
character.  Herrick,  who  is  mentally  a  better  man,  is 
morally  lower  than  Harvey;  he  is  in  politics  for  the 
same  reason  that  he  is  in  banking  and  journalism,  to 
make  money  and  to  get  power.  Herrick  goes  to  France 
whether  the  French  really  like  him  or  not.  D.  R.  Cris- 
singer,  who  sold  out  also,  as  did  Harvey,  is  already 
Controller  of  the  Currency,  in  a  position  that  should 
be  filled  by  a  high-grade  financial  and  economic  ex- 
pert. He  has  recently  relieved  the  National  Banks 
from  serious  responsibilities.  They  now  can  report 
general  figures — to  fool  the  people.  Father  Dennison 
has  gone  to  Rome  to  be  consul.  This  is  an  insult  to  the 
Italian  Government  which  is  constantly  in  war  with 
the  alleged  right  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  to  tem- 
poral power.  Now  the  Pope  has  a  right-hand  man  in 
the  American  consulate.  To  the  Catholics,  this  is  one 
of  the  most  important  positions  in  our  Government. 


19 

Yet  Harding  attacked  Cox  for  having  a  Catholic  son-in- 
law. 

These  are  the  worst  cases ;  others  might  be  cited — 
like  that  of  George  W.  Aldridge,  made  collector  of  the 
Port  of  New  York,  one  of  the  lowest  New  York  State 
politcians  and  a  shameless  corruptionist.  Why?  Be- 
cause at  the  Republican  National  Convention  he  voted 
on  every  ballot  for  Warren  Harding  and  used  Hamon 
money  finally  to  win  all  the  other  New  York  delegates 
(46).  Why  has  Harding  done  these  things?  Because 
he  has  no  moral  life  himself,  because  he  cannot  see 
straight.  The  Presidency  to  him  is  a  chance  to  reward 
his  friends  and  to  punish  his  enemies.  We  state  these 
matters  in  the  beginning  to  afford  the  readers  of  this 
book  material  for  the  consideration  of  the  causes  why 
Harding  is  what  he  is  and  is  doing  such  things. 


CHAPTER  II 

WILLIAM  ESTABROOK  CHANCELLOR 

Who  is  this  man? 

He  is  a  native  of  Dayton,  as  was  his  mother  before 
him ;  his  father  was  born  at  New  Carlisle.  His  grand- 
father Chancellor  was  born  on  the  Wilderness  trail  in 
1797.  His  grandfather  Estabrook  founded  Brookville, 
near  Dayton,  and  the  linseed  oil  business  of  the  Miami 
Valley. 

He  went  to  school  in  Dayton  until  twelve  years 
old.  Then  he  was  educated  in  Northampton,  Mass., 
Worcester,  Mass.,  Harvard  Law  School,  New  York  Uni- 
versity, and  spent  a  year  in  Europe.  He  took  more 
prizes  than  any  other  man  ever  graduated  from  Am- 
herst in  the  101  years  of  its  history  to  date,  and  was 
class  orator.  He  was  also  President  of  the  College  Re- 
publican Club.  He  followed  Roosevelt  out  of  the  Re- 
publican party  in  1912,  but  became  a  Democrat  then. 
He  is  the  author  of  38  different  books,  four  on  educa- 
tion, six  on  history,  etc. 

For  sixteen  years  he  was  city  school  superintendent, 
part  of  the  time  in  Washington  as  the  head  of  c  ■'•  the 
schools,  colored  and  white;  he  was  also  cliairman  of 
the  District  of  Columbia  Architectural  Commission. 

He  founded  the  Teachers'  College  of  George  Wash- 
ington University,  and  the  Education  Department  of 
Johns  Hopkins  University. 

He  wrote  and  worked  through  the  Legislature  the 
teachers'  pension  laws  of  New  Jersey. 

The  Ohio  School  Code  is  based  upon  the  outline 
of  one  of  his  educational  works. 

For  twelve  years  he  was  officially  connected  with 

29 


21 

the  College  of  Wooster,  for  over  six  of  them  being  head 
of  the  Department  of  Economics  and  Politics. 

He  was  a  member  of  the  New  York  Press  Club  for 
many  years,  and  had  written  many  long  paid  articles 
for  the  New  York  Times,  the  New  York  Tribune,  the 
Cleveland  Plain  Dealer,  and  other  papers.  As  an 
economist,  few  men  had  equal  standing  in  the  world  of 
journalism.  He  was  a  Wayne  County  delegate  to  the 
Ohio  State  Democratic  Convention  in  1916,  1918,  and 
in  1920.  He  was  Ohio  Presidential  Elector  in  1916.  He 
was  a  member  of  the  City  Council  of  Wooster,  being 
elected  in  a  Republican  ward  in  1919.  He  was  the 
chairman  of  the  Wayne  County  Four-Minute  Men  dur- 
ing the  war.  So  impartial  and  fair  was  he  in  reputa- 
tion that  no  less  than  six  Ohio  cities  had  him  deliver 
the  Roosevelt  memorial  funeral  oration.  This  occurred 
before  the  William  McKinley  Club  in  Canton. 

He  has  given  paid  public  addresses  in  many  differ- 
ent states  upon  over  4500  occasions. 

He  married  a  niece  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher.  He 
has  been  a  Presbyterian  by  church  membership  since 
187F  At.  vvooster  College,  he  had  the  men's  junior  and 
senirr  Bible  class.  Because  he  would  not  sign  a  lie  as 
to  his  belief,  he  was  ousted  contrary  to  all  the  college 
statutes  and  since  then  has  been  forced  to  leave  the 
country  for  parts  unknown. 

Can  the  Republican  plutocracy  destroy  this  man? 
We  think  not. 


CHAPTER  III 
THE  ISSUES  OF  THIS  BOOK 

FIRST  ISSUE 

There  is  a  race  consciousness  that  becomes  a  class- 
consciousness  when  the  amount  of  traits  of  an  indi- 
vidual from  one  race  is  superior  to  that  from  the  race 
in  which  he  prefers  to  remain  as  a  member.  There  is 
no  disposition  on  the  part  of  friends  of  Professor 
Chancellor  in  publishing  this  book  to  insist  that  Warren 
Harding  is  by  race  a  negro.  It  is  evident  to  all  that 
the  man  is  mainly  white.  What  we  insist  on  is  that  the 
race  consciousness  of  the  Hardings  in  Blooming  Grove 
caused  them  to  remain  negro;  and  that  George  Tyron 
Harding  II  never  thought  of  calling  themselves  white 
until  after  the  death  of  Amos  Kling,  father-in-law  of 
Warren.  Warren  and  his  brother  and  sisters  were 
reared  and  treated  as  colored  people. 

We  agree  that  they  have  the  right  to  ask  to  be  con- 
sidered white  because  racially  they  are  mostly  white; 
but  we  deny  that  they  have  the  right  to  assert  the  lie 
that  they  have  always  been  considered  and  have  always 
considered  themselves  white.  We  assert  that  the  rest 
of  us  have  the  right  to  ask  whether  they  have  had  the 
rearing  of  white  men  and  women.  We  assert  the  right 
of  American  neighbors  of  these  Hardings  to  pass  upon 
their  qualifications  social  and  moral  and  intellectual  to 
he  treated  as  all-white  persons  are.  Pure  white  is  not 
colored  and  is  the  opposite  of  negro.  It  is  something 
that  can  not  be  claimed  without  being  questioned. 

The  Republicans  call  it  les  majeste  to  raise  the  is- 

22 


23 

sue ;  but  we  raise  it,  not  feeling  as  yet  that  the  Syrian 
notion  of  the  apotheosis  of  the  ruler,  making  him  a  god, 
is  unAmerican  and  improper  in  our  democracy.  We 
notice  that  the  Ohio  laws  and  courts  call  it  no  slander 
to  speak  of  a  man  as  a  negro ;  it  is  the  truth  when  the 
fact,  and  the  truth  cannot  slander  especially  when  so 
used  with  the  highest  of  human  motives.  If  all  men 
are  created  equal,  why  this  Republican  rage  at  telling 
the  truth  about  their  man  in  the  White  House  ?  A  peo- 
ple threatened  by  contamination  of  the  blood  ought  to 
care  for  the  truth  about  its  head  men. 

SECOND  ISSUE 

We  raise  also  a  less  important  issue.  It  is  simply 
whether  or  not  the  College  of  Wooster  should  be  sup- 
ported by  public  opinion  in  the  violation  of  all  its 
statutes  and  the  suppression  of  truth  in  academic 
circles.  A  nation  may  recover  from  false  notions,  but 
it  can  never  recover  from  contamination  of  the  blood. 
Is  it  a  false  notion  that  a  college  professor  who  hap- 
pens to  be  a  Democrat  has  no  rights  ?  If  so,  the  College 
of  Wooster  stands  in  a  bad  and  lurid  light  before  the 
world. 

Professor  Chancellor  is  an  historian.  As  such  he 
looked  into  the  record  of  Warren  Harding,  but  made 
no  statement.  By  design  or  accident,  a  man  with  the 
first  and  last  name,  who  is  black  and  sixty-five  years 
old,  born  and  reared  among  the  Hardings,  had  his  name 
printed  on  millions  of  sheets  of  tissue  paper  and  sent 
broadcast  over  the  country  with  a  title  attached  thereto 
that  made  ignorant  persons  think  that  Wilham  Esta- 
brook  Chancellor  was  the  author  of  these  slips.  William 
Chancellor  was  a  Republican  and  trying  to  help  Hard- 
ing. 

First  the  Republicans  sent  telegrams  to  Professor 


24 

Chancellor  asking  him  to  deny  that  he  had  made  an 
investigation  into  Harding.  This  he  declined  to  do. 
He  said  nothing  for  weeks. 

Then  they  sent  to  him  and  offered  him  ten  thousand 
dollars  to  make  a  denial.  This  he  refused.  Then  they 
went  out  and  reported  that  he  v/as  in  the  pay  of  the 
Democrats.  Even  this  did  not  smoke  him  out.  He 
rAood  pat  and  silent. 

Every  day  through  even  the  summer  vacation  Pro- 
fessor Chancellor  either  taught  the  summer  classes  or 
gave  teacher's  institute  lectures  or  taught  in  the  regu- 
lar autumn  term ;  but  the  Republicans  charged  that  he 
was  out  spreading  these  tissue  paper  slips.  He  knew 
nothing  as  to  who  v/as  doing  this.  They  made  him, 
like  God,  present  everywhere. 

But  on  about  October  10th,  the  Republicans  pre- 
pared an  attack  upon  Professor  Chancellor  and  filed  an 
indemnity  bond  of  $500,000  with  the  newspaper  as- 
sociation in  Chicago  to  protect  themselves  against  any 
libel  suit  by  Professor  Chancellor. 

On  October  25th,  they  paid,  in  Columbus,  in  cash 
$500,000  in  care  of  a  certain  well-known  woman,  a  cer- 
tified check  of  a  well-known  Chicago  millionaire  to  pay 
for  the  publishing  of  these  articles  throughout  the 
country. 

This  millionaire  is  the  husband  of  a  woman  whose 
father's  memory,  City  School  Superintendent  Chancel- 
lor, when  in  Washington  by  order  of  the  President, 
Theodore  Roosevelt,  had  insulted  by  removing  his  mis- 
tress from  the  schools,  and  who  is  otherwise  tied  up 
with  a  Washington  real  estate  group  whom  Professor 
Chancellor  had  angered  by  refusing  to  play  their  hands 
when  on  the  District  Architectural  Commission. 

These  articles  stated  that,  on  October  28th,  Pro- 
fessor Chancellor  had  been  ousted  from  his  chair  by 
the  College  Trustees  for  libelling  Warren  Harding; 


25 

v/hich  shows  that  the  spirit  of  prophecy  rested  upon 
the  Chicago  millionaire.  This  money  was  paid  to  those 
papers  otherwise  not  willing  to  print  them. 

On  October  28th,  per  order  of  the  Republican 
National  CommJttee,  the  Trustees  m.et  at  Wooster,  At 
4  o'clock  they  asked  Professor  Chancellor  to  come  to 
see  them ;  he  did  not  know  that  they  were  even  holding 
a  meeting.  He  had  already,  at  the  request  of  the  then 
dean  of  the  faculty,  signed  a  truthful  statement  that  he 
had  circulated  no  papers  whatever  about  Harding, 
which  in  letter  and  spirit  was  the  exact  fact.  But  he 
had  been  told  by  the  dean  that  the  paper  was  desired 
solely  for  the  Presbyterian  Church  at  Kenton.  The 
dean  also  asked  him  to  sign  a  statement  that  Warren 
Harding  was  ALL  WHITE.  This  THE  PROFESSOR 
declined  to  do  for  the  professor  of  ethics  in  the  College, 
since  it  was  a  lie  as  to  his  belief.  (The  dean  has  now 
resigned).  There  were  present  at  this  raid  upon 
Professor  Chancellor,  five  Republican  lawyers,  not 
members  of  the  board,  and  one  Republican  National 
Committeeman.  There  were  absent  seven  members  of 
the  Board  of  Trustees,  including  one  Trustee  who  had 
told  Professor  Chancellor  that  he  had  a  perfect  right  to 
make  an  historical  investigation.  (He  was  then  making 
a  new  edition  of  his  book  on  the  lives  of  the  Presi- 
dents) .    This  man  had  received  no  notice. 

The  President  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  began  by 
telling  Professor  Chancellor  that  he  did  not  wish  to 
know  the  truth  whether  Warren  Harding  was  white  or 
colored.  What  he  wished  was  a  denial  by  Chancellor 
that  Warren  was  colored.  This  denial  Chancellor  ab- 
solutely refused  to  make. 

The  interview  lasted  fifteen  minutes. 

In  the  course  of  these  fifteen  minutes,  Professor 
Chancellor  had  perhaps  three  minutes  to  give  his  de- 
nial.   He  offered  to  prove  that  only  an  illiterate  negro 


26 

or  some  other  such  person  could  have  conceived  this 
campaign.  They  refused  to  look  at  his  written  evidence 
of  misspellings,  etc. 

The  meeting  then  adjourned,  and  the  President  of 
the  Board,  with  another  member,  went  down  to  the 
home  of  Professor  Chancellor  and  then  and  there 
agreed : 

1.  To  allow  him  to  disappear  without  any  action 
by  the  Board. 

2.  Not  to  publish  anything  against  him. 

3.  He  was  not  to  do  anything  against  the  College. 
Then  the  meeting  reconvened,  but  the  Republican 

majority  repudiated  this  agreement. 

They  called  Warren  Harding  on  the  telephone  and 
asked  him  to  deny  that  he  had  colored  blood,  but  he  re- 
fused, saying  that  it  would  cost  him  the  colored  vote. 

Then  they  wired  to  him,  asking  him  again  to  deny 
this,  but  he  did  not  answer. 

After  a  late  session,  the  President  of  the  Board  of 
Trustees  persuaded  them  by  a  vote  of  10  to  5  to  repeal 
the  action  making  Professor  Chancellor  a  full  member 
of  the  faculty  for  life ;  and  sent  identical  telegrams  to 
Judson  C.  Welliver,  Will  H.  Hays  and  H.  M.  Daugherty, 
explaining  that  they  had  ousted  Chancellor  after  a  full 
hearing. 

He  then  sent  a  telegram  to  the  New  York  Press 
Club  advising  the  Club  that  Chancellor  had  confessed 
libelling  Harding.  He  lied  and  broke  his  promises, 
both. 

Now  who  is  this  President  of  the  Board  ? 

He  is  pastor  of  the  church  where  the  Chicago  mil- 
lionaire worships  when  at  home. 

He  was  chaplain  of  the  Republican  National  Con- 
tion. 

What  was  the  agreement  between  the  Professors 
and  the  Trustees  ? 


27 

1.  That  an  accused  professor  shall  have  ninety  days 
to  prepare  his  defense. 

2.  That  he  shall  have  the  charges  in  writing. 

3.  That  he  shall  have  a  hearing  first  before  the 
faculty,  and  Isecond  before  the  Trustees  with  legal 
counsel. 

4.  That  if  both  faculty  and  Trustees  agree,  then  he 
may  be  discharged,  but  only  with  a  full  year's  pay  in 
advance. 

In  this  case  Chancellor  had  no  hearing  at  all;  no 
written  charges;  no  time  to  prepare;  no  legal  counsel, 
and  no  salary.  Later  he  was  given  a  few  hundred  dol- 
lars to  move  away.    The  faculty  has  never  acted. 

It  was  given  out  by  members  of  the  Trustee  Board 
that  there  were  five  charges  against  Chancellor,  as  fol- 
lows, viz.: 

1.  He  was  a  Democrat  and  as  such  has  been  elected 
to  the  city  council ;  that  this  had  given  offense  to  many 
patrons  of  the  College. 

2.  That  he  had  made  speeches  for  the  League  of 
Nations.  He  had  done  this  by  authority  of  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  College. 

3.  That  he  had  written  letters  to  others  about  Hard- 
ing. One  of  these  letters  had  been  sent  to  the  editor 
of  a  religious  paper  owned  by  the  same  millionaire,  but 
by  order  of  the  President  of  the  College  who  ad- 
mitted it. 

4.  That  he  had  built  up  a  department  so  large  as 
to  be  irritating  to  other  men  on  he  faculty  and  was  too 
big  a  man  to  be  employed  by  any  college  trustee  board. 
In  exact  language,  the  President  of  the  Board  of  Trus- 
tees said,  "He  is  better  known  than  all  the  College  put 
together." 

5.  That  he  had  written  a  New  York  Times-Annalist 
articles  advocating  the  gold  standard  and  attacking 
bankers'  paper  currency  as  dishonest. 


28 

There  were  defenses  to  each  of  these  propositions, 
but  they  availed  nothing  except  to  hold  five  of  the  fif- 
teen trustees  in  line  to  support  Chancellor. 

Professor  Chancellor  was  ousted  by  ten  men  in  a 
Trustees  Board  of  twenty-two  members. 

One  of  the  men  who  voted  against  him  at  the  next 
meeting  of  the  Trustees  said  that  he  had  been  grossly 
deceived  by  the  others ;  but  this  availed  nothing. 

Such  is  academic  freedom  in  a  so-called  Christian 
college  that  does  not  wish  to  know  the  truth.  God  is 
truth. 

The  friends  of  Professor  Chancellor,  handicapped 
by  being  unable  to  get  the  records  or  even  to  consult 
him,  desire  to  have  the  American  public  look  into  this 
Wooster  College  case. 

Are  the  teachers  of  the  youth,  all  of  them,  to  be  the 
tools  and  slaves  of  these  negro-loving  plutocrats  ? 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  NEGRO  QUESTION 

What  are  the  grounds  for  believing  that  Warren 
Harding  rightly  classifies  among  colored  people? 

On  what  some  regard  as  the  "question"  whether  or 
not  Warren  is  a  negro  or  a  colored  man,  Americana 
take  one  of  many  different  positions. 

1.  Some  do  not  care.  The  President  might  be  a 
Hottentot  or  a  German  from  Berlin,  and  they  would 
not  care.  It  is  not  a  matter  of  any  importance  or  even 
of  interest  to  them.  They  have  other  business  to 
which  to  attend.  The  Government  is  a  thing  apart. 
It  does  not  concern  them  who  lives  in  the  White  House. 
Presidents  may  come  and  go.  The  Presidency  is  a 
kaleidoscope.  University  graduate  or  a  negro  school 
attendant ;  it  is  all  one  to  them.  Why  worry  ?  We  can 
not  change  him,  and  the  case  might  be  worse  than  it  is. 

2.  It  is  a  good  thing  to  try  the  experiment.  Let's 
all  wait  and  see  what  the  "nigger"  will  do !  "There  are 
fifteen  million  black  and  colored  people  in  the  country. 
Every  race  has  a  right  to  be  tried  out.  He  may  prove 
to  be  a  very  desirable  man.  All  races  are  equal  with 
us.  Black,  white,  red,  yellow,  we  are  all  Americans. 
Back  him  up! 

3.  Some  believe  that  government  is  bad,  politics  so 
rotten,  that  since  the  end  of  the  world  is  coming  soon, 
the  worst  that  happens  will  only  bring  on  the  better 
sooner.  Every  wicked  move  by  politicians  is  only  an 
impulse  toward  the  new  day. 

4.  Some  are  interested  and  hesitant;  they  are  dis- 
appointed that  such  a  choice  has  been  made;  but  it 

2^ 


80 

might  be  worse.    After  all,  a  good  negro  is  better  than 
a  bad  white  man. 

5.  Some  regard  the  charge,  as  they  call  it,  as  pure 
invention  of  malicious  politicians.  It  is  not  worth  even 
noticing. 

6.  Some  admit  that  Warren  was  once  considered 
colored,  but  he  has  lived  it  down.  He  is  not  any  longer 
a  negro  roustabout  but  our  foremost  man.  Race  means 
nothing  when  a  fine  specimen  comes  along. 

7.  Some  think  that  even  a  little  negro  blood  is  un- 
desirable, still  with  so  much  white  blood,  there  is  no 
harm  in  the  choice — an  octoroon  is  really,  after  all,  a 
white  man. 

8.  Some  are  horrified.  The  thing  is  too  awful  to  even 
think  about.  His  election  is  an  insult  to  the  white 
women  of  the  South.  He  ought  to  be  impeached;  but 
who  can  start  it  when  the  Senate  and  House  are  his 
political  friends?  We  must  take  to  the  woods  and  try 
to  survive.  ',  t.., 

9.  Some  are  anxious  to  know  the  truth,  then  they 
will  try  to  prevent  the  recurrence  of  this  outrage  to  the 
white  race. 

10.  Many  know  the  truth  and  are  trying  to  get  the 
proofs.  They  believe  that  white  supremacy  is  the 
supremacy  of  patience  and  fair  play. 

On  the  negro  question  itself.  North  and  South  are 
hopelessly  divided,  and  the  wonder  is  that  America  has 
remained  one  nation.  The  South  regards  the  black 
man  as  an  evil  presence.  The  white  man  must  keep 
him  under.  While  the  blacks  remain  in  the  land,  they 
must  be  treated  decently.  No  one  should  kill  an  un- 
offending black  or  colored  man  or  rob  him  of  his  goods 
or  wages ;  but  he  should  not  vote.  He  should  never  be 
allowed  to  mate  with  a  white  woman.  He  should  live 
in  a  separate  segregated  part  of  every  city  or  of  the 
country-side.     He  may  individually  work  as  a  servant 


81 

or  field  hand,  but  all  endeavor  on  his  part  to  rise  even 
to  industrial  equality  should  be  frowned  upon  and  when 
possible,  defeated.  These  people  do  not  hesitate  to 
lynch  an  accused  black  or  colored  man  on  the  same 
hypothesis  that  causes  them  to  kill  a  wild  beast. 

There  is  much  to  justify  this  position  of  the  whites. 

A  thousand  instances  of  cruelty  of  the  genuine 
blacks  to  one  another  might  be  cited.  The  black  man 
will  not  lift  a  hand  to  help  another  black  man  in  trouble. 
He  will  not  work  until  driven  by  starvation  to  work. 
He  punishes  his  own  children  so  severely  that  it  is  not 
an  unusual  thing  for  a  beaten  child  to  die.  He  has  no 
sex-morals. 

There  is  a  case  of  a  black  man  working  as  a  porter 
in  a  hotel  who  admitted  that  he  had  no  less  than 
twenty-six  wives  in  the  course  of  his  sex-affairs.  In 
one  instance,  he  took  a  widow  and  her  daughter  both 
and  lived  with  them  at  the  same  time. 

In  the  official  genealogy  of  the  Hardings,  which  is 
included  in  the  last  chapter  of  the  book,  we  have  the 
printed  statement  that  old  Amos  had  one  child  born  to 
one  woman  in  November  and  another  child  born  to  an- 
other woman  in  April. 

Of  course,  white  men  have  often  been  without  sex- 
morals.  But  the  sex-looseness  of  the  colored  or  black 
man  is  almost  universal.  With  the  black  and  colored 
women,  the  case  is  distinctly  better;  many  being  vir- 
tuous according  to  white  standards. 

The  people  who  do  not  know  these  facts  are  simply 
ignorant  of  the  negro  problem. 

Those  who  say  that  it  is  no  worse  for  a  black  man 
to  mate  with  a  white  woman  than  for  a  white  man  to 
mate  with  a  black  woman,  are  ignorant  of  a  few  very 
plain  facts  of  human  anatomy  and  of  negro  lust. 

Many  white  persons  who  do  know  the  facts, 
say  because  they  believe  that  any  black  man  known  at 


^2 

any  time  to  have  sex-relations  with  a  white  woman, 
should  be  forthwith  legally  killed  by  electrocution  or 
hanging,  whether  she  consented  or  not. 

It  so  happens  that  the  charge  against  the  Hardings 
is  that,  being  colored  men,  they  took  white  women  as 
mates. 

This  is  not  a  medical  book,  but  we  suggest  that 
those  who  wish  to  get  the  scientific  facts  ask  medical 
men  who  have  knowledge  of  the  negro  anatomy  and 
physiology. 

At  a  time  when  one  person  in  every  seven  in  the 
population  is  black  or  colored,  when  they  have  con- 
trolled one  Presidential  election,  the  people  have  the 
right  to  know  these  facts. 

There  are  leaders  of  Southern  opinion  who  think 
that  every  person  with  negro  blood  should  be  placed  in 
a  part  of  the  South  where  the  whites  shall  be  excluded. 
They  would  set  aside  certain  counties  for  blacks  alone. 

It  is  an  unhappy  fact  that  every  human  being  de- 
sires a  mate  superior  to  himself  or  herself.  This  is 
the  law  of  ascent.  Colored  women  desire  white  men; 
black  women  desire  colored  men.  Black  men  are 
"crazy"  to  get  white  women  or  colored  women.  There- 
fore, we  shall  have  lynchings,  and  we  shall  have  them 
until  the  whole  population  is  all  white  or  all  black,  for 
race  instinct  is  behind  the  sins  and  the  lynchings.  Such 
is  the  antique  fear  of  many  Southerners. 

The  interest  of  Professor  Chancellor  in  this,  the 
worst  of  all  American  problems,  did  not  begin  in  1920 
with  the  Presidential  campaign.  It  rested  upon  four 
grounds. 

1.  He  comes  upon  his  father's  side  from  old  Vir- 
ginia slave-holding  families,  the  Warwicks,  Madisons, 
Marshalls,  Servisses,  Pogues,  Boilings  and  Chancellors. 

2.  He  studied  race  anthropology  in  Europe,  and  has 
made  many  field  studies  in  this  country. 


33 

3.  He  was  school  superintendent  in  Washington, 
having  there  in  the  negro  department  of  the  schools 
19,000  colored  children,  670  colored  teachers,  and  260 
colored  engineers  and  janitors. 

4,  He  has  been  a  college  teacher  and  writer  upon 
these  matters  for  many  years. 

When  he  heard  that  Harding  had  negro  blood  it 
aroused  his  established  scientific  interest. 

There  appears  to  be  easily  separable  in  the  United 
States  among  the  several  hundred  thousand  negroes 
of  pure  blood — about  one-sixteenth  of  them  all — no  less 
than  fourteen  negro  "races,"  using  the  word  in  the 
ethnological  sense,  so  Professor  Chancellor  has  written 
to  his  friends. 

There  are  also  classed  among  the  negroes,  falsely, 
groups  of  Malays,  Berbers,  Arabs  and  Moors.  Even 
pure  Indians  have  been  so  grouped  by  action  of  di- 
visive forces  of  public  opinion  and  of  social  taboo. 

These  so-called  negroes,  fourteen  races  in  all,  are 
Senegambians,  Hottentots,  Mosambiquians,  Pigmies, 
Sudanese,  Kaffirs,  Zulus,  Gold  Coast,  Plateau,  Ethio- 
pians, Abyssinians,  Congoese,  Senegalians,  and 
domesticated  negroes  who  for  many  centuries  have 
been  made  the  slaves  of  Moors  and  urbanized. 

The  differences  between  these  various  races  of 
negroes  are  as  great  as  those  between  the  white  races 
of  Europe,  in  culture  and  even  in  external  appearance; 
but  they  have  one  trait  in  common — long,  naiTOw 
heads.    This  has  been  discussed  elsewhere. 

To  say  that  Warren  Harding  has  negro  blood  is  not 
to  assert  that  his  ancestry  is  from  the  Senegambian 
negroes,  or  from  plantation  field  hands  enslaved  to 
white  masters. 

Northern  people  who  do  not  know  many  negroes, 
have  a  concept  of  the  negro ;  according  to  this  concept, 
he  is  kinky-haired,  pot-bellied,  black  as  coal,  with  big 


84 

brown  eyes,  a  prognatious  jaw,  flat  feet,  and  long  arms 
and  legs,  the  knees  not  standing  straight. 

There  may  be  a  few  such  negroes  in  the  United 
States,  but  they  are  very  few. 

Were  the  question  about  Harding  in  this  form: 
"Did  his  family  rear  him  with  the  notion  that  he  was 
a  colored  boy  to  be  a  colored  man?"  there  could  be  in 
the  light  and  truth  of  the  opinion  of  the  neighbors,  a 
thousand  of  them  in  Little  Africa,  meaning  the  three 
counties,  Crawford,  Morrow  and  Marion,  where  the 
thousands  of  Hardings  live,  just  one  answer,  "Yes!" 

Doctor  George  Tryon  (Tyrone)  Harding,  father  of 
Warren,  never  would  have  considered  himself  any- 
thing but  a  colored  man  until  his  death  if  Warren  had 
not  married  the  rich  banker's  daughter.  And  Warren 
with  his  brothers  and  sisters  would  have  all  so  re- 
garded themselves.  They  would  have  gone  back  and 
forth  to  Blooming  Grove  and  have  shared  the  views  of 
their  colored  kinsmen,  who  are  half  of  the  population. 

But  fate  had  something  else  in  store.  It  had  in 
store  the  effort  of  George  T.  Harding  and  of  his  chil- 
dren to  defeat  the  truth  of  social  opinion. 

But  again  the  question  about  Harding  is  not 
whether  or  not  he  was  reared  as  a  colored  boy  with 
the  training  and  notions  of  colored  people;  he  has 
escaped  that  social  classification  at  last  though  not 
without  having  left  some  bitter  enemies  in  Marion, 
where  the  better  element  never  yet  has  had  him  in 
their  homes.  Senator  or  President,  though  he  be,  he 
will  never  again  live  in  Marion.  When  he  becomes  ex- 
President,  he  will  go  to  some  city  where  his  past  will 
be  ignored. 

The  actual  question  is,  in  the  physical  sense,  has 
Warren  any  negro  blood?  If  so,  what  is  the  line  of 
proof  ? 

Socially,  a  man  is  what  his  neighbors  report.     He 


35 

has  to  take  their  classification  or  get  out  from  among 
them.  When  they  call  him  a  negro,  it  does  no  good 
to  sue  them  for  slander ;  they  still  think  so. 

In  September  and  October,  when  Professor  Chancel- 
lor and  newspaper  correspondents  and  others  by 
scores  went  to  Blooming  Grove,  New  Caledonia,  Iberia 
and  Steam  Corners,  no  one  of  them  ever  found  one  man 
or  woman  who  denied  that  the  Hardings  were  anything 
but  colored  people.  The  Hardings  themselves  agreed 
that  they  were  so  called  by  everyone. 

Of  course,  after  the  tremendous  furor  over  the  mat- 
ter, and  especially  after  Professor  Chancellor  was 
ousted  from  his  position  and  after  the  rich  Republi- 
cans had  gone  among  them  with  threats  and  with 
money,  the  neighbors  became  silent — naturally.  Many 
ignorant  persons  now  believe  that  President  Harding 
could  put  them  in  jail  for  telling  the  truth  about  him, 
and  so  he  could  with  Daugherty  and  the  secret  service 
at  his  call. 

But  once  that  Harding  ceases  to  be  President,  what 
will  then  happen? 

Give  the  neighborhood  time  to  recover  itself.  Espe- 
cally  bitter  are  the  darker  negroes  whom  the  Republi- 
cans have  failed  to  reward  as  promised.  There  will  be 
scores  to  settle  that  will  make  the  old  feud — as  Hard- 
ing calls  it — mild  indeed. 

For  Warren  Harding  himself  says  that  "The  peo- 
ple have  been  calling  his  family  and  kin  negroes  for 
eighty  years."  This  was  given  out  twice  in  a  long  in- 
terview. 

Curious  how  the  falsehood  has  lasted ;  but  Harding 
does  not  dare  to  pronounce  it  a  lie ;  he  says  that  people 
have  a  right  to  their  opinions  and  that  he  is  sorry 
about  their  opinion. 

Thousands  of  telegrams  were  sent  to  him  from  all 
parts  of  the  country  asking  him  to  deny  the  truth  about 


36 

his  ancestry;  but  he  never  has  yet  said  that  he  has 
no  negro  blood. 

He  deplores  the  discussion  of  the  subject. 

Is  he  afraid  of  the  ghosts  of  his  negro  ancestors? 
No  man  should  ever  deny  his  ancestors.  That  is  like 
denying  God  Himself.  No  man  should  be  ashamed  of 
his  forefathers.  Some  of  them,  perhaps  a  man  who 
was  hanged,  may  have  transmitted  to  him  some  trait 
of  exceeding  value  in  his  own  life.  It  is  easy  to  see 
that  at  least  a  few  of  the  traits  of  Warren  that  have 
enabled  him  to  "succeed"  so  well  are  negro  traits. 

What  people  call  one  does  not  make  it  so.  All 
Blooming  Grove  may  be  wrong  on  Warren  and  his 
father,  George  T.  Harding,  and  his  grandfather, 
Charles  A.  Harding,  and  his  great-grandfather,  George 
T,  Harding  I,  and  the  second  wife,  Elizabeth  Madison, 
so-called,  who  was  black.  She  was  Warren's  great- 
grandmother. 

No  Harding  descended  from  this  Elizabeth  has  ever 
had  the  courage  to  tell  who  her  parents  were.  No  pic- 
ture of  her  is  acknowledged  to  exist. 

Yet  this  is  the  fact: 

George  Tryon,  or  Tyrone,  Harding  born  June  5,  1790. 

Married  Ann  Roberts,  1812. 

Ann  died  in  1815. 

Married  Elizabeth  Madsion,  1816. 

Elizabeth  died  Jan.  6,  1869. 

The  children  were  Huldah  and  Phoeba  Ann. 

The  children  of  Elizabeth  were  Oliver  Perry, 
Charles  Amos  (or  Alexander),  Miranda. 

No  persons  with  ears  can  doubt  for  one  moment 
what  Elizabeth  was;  she  is  well  remembered  by  eight 
old  persons  still  living  as  late  as  October,  1920,  in 
Blooming  Grove  and  near  by.  One  and  all  say  that 
Elizabeth  was  black.  One  woman,  past  ninety,  said 
that  "she  had  eyes  black  as  night."    She  was  so  dark 


87 

that  she  frightened  white  children  of  her  neighbors. 

Possibly  se  was  a  Moor?  A  Blackmoor?  Or  a  very- 
dark  Scottish  woman,  say  of  the  black  Picts? 

Country  neighbors  are  not  experts  in  such  matters. 
Her  son,  the  grandfather  of  Warren,  lived  till  past 
1880;  he  also  is  well  remembered  and  there  are  pictures 
enough  of  him. 

He  had  curly,  kinky  hair,  and  a  swart  complexion,  and 
a  wide,  big  body,  and  great  nostrils.  Also,  he  left  a 
lot  of  children. 

Professor  Chancellor  offered  to  take  the  Dean  of 
the  College  of  Wooster,  at  his  own  expense,  to  Bloom- 
ing Grove  and  show  these  brothers,  sisters  and  cousins 
bom  of  Charles  A.  Harding  and  of  his  brother,  Oliver 
Perry  Harding,  to  the  Dean  in  order  to  show  the  living 
proofs.  But  the  Dean  preferred  to  publish  his  state- 
ment that  he  had  circulated  nothing  on  the  subject  and 
let  the  country  believe  that  Chancellor  had  "retracted" 
what  he  denied  having  done.  Dean  Elias  Compton 
teaches  ethics  in  the  college,  and  was  Dean  then. 
Exigencies  of  politics  require  flexible  ethics. 

There  are  five  of  these  descendants  of  Elizabeth  in 
Blooming  Grove  and  nearby.  One  of  them  is  Mrs.  J.  C. 
She  is  a  fine  old  dark  colored  woman,  who  never  has 
offended  any  one;  she  is  a  good  woman.  She  allowed 
Professor  Chancellor  to  take  six  pictures  of  herself,  for 
which  courtesy  he  has  refrained  from  printing  them. 
She  has  a  large  heavy  body,  big  brown  eyes,  very  dark 
skin,  and  is  typical  mulatto.  She  had  her  pictures 
taken  with  her  Bible  under  her  arm,  and  that  warded 
off  evil  spirits. 

She  is  not  a  Moor,  or  an  Arab;  she  is  a  dear  old 
colored  mammy,  very  dark. 

In  a  letter  to  one  of  his  friends.  Professor  Chancel- 
lor said  that  he  could  not  bring  himself  to  using  those 
pictures,  because  she  was  so  much  like  the  old  colored 


88 

\voman  who  had  always  lived  in  his  family,  helping 
bring  up  the  children. 

One  preacher  asked  him  why  he  objected  to  having 
a  colored  President.  "Do  not  these  colored  people  go 
to  Heaven?"  He  replied:  "No  doubt  of  it;  but  what 
has  that  to  do  with  their  intellectual  fitness  to  bear 
sons  to  go  to  the  White  House?  Not  every  Saint  is 
fit  to  rule  a  nation." 

There  are  four  others,  all  of  them  darkies.  Their 
names,  like  hers,  might  be  given,  but  they  live  in 
Blooming  Grove  and  Gallon  and  can  be  seen  at  any 
time.  One  of  them,  smaller,  is  equally  dark.  All  of 
them  are  plainly  negro. 

Such  are  the  nearest  living  relatives  of  Warren 
Harding  in  that  generation. 

Let  us  proceed  to  the  court  records. 
In  1849  one  David  Butler  killed  Amos  Smith  in  this 
manner. 

Butler  and  Smith  were  blacksmith  partners  at 
Blooming  Grove.  Butler's  wife  was  a  Harding  woman. 
She  owed  some  money  to  Smith's  wife — fifty  cents. 
Like  negro  women,  she  was  thriftless.  One  afternoon 
as  they  were  closing  the  shop.  Smith  asked  Butler  to 
ask  his  wife  to  pay  the  money  to  Mrs.  Smith.  Butler 
replied  that  his  wife  denied  that  she  owed  any  money 
to  Mrs.  Smith.  Thereupon  Smith  told  Butler  that  he 
had  a  nigger  for  a  wife.  Butler  replied  by  throwing  a 
piece  of  iron  at  Smith — a  piece  about  an  inch  square 
and  ten  inches  long.  This  iron  hit  Smith  on  the  side 
of  his  head,  and  down  he  went.  Butler  immediately 
ran  to  him  and  picked  him  up  and  carried  him  into  a 
house  nearby. 

They  sent  for  a  doctor  who  treated  the  skull  frac- 
ture. A  few  days  later  fever  developed  and  the  doctor 
bled  him,  the  same  doctor  who  afterwards  taught 


89 

George  Tryon  Harding  all  the  medicine  he  ever  knew. 
A  fortnight  later  Smith  died. 

In  1850  the  grand  jury  of  Morrow  county,  which 
had  just  been  created  out  of  Crawford  county  in  the 
wilderness,  indicted  Butler  for  manslaughter,  and  he 
was  tried. 

The  defense  was: 

1.  He  was  justified  in  killing  Smith  because  his 
wife  was  not  a  negro  woman. 

2.  Smith  died  of  malpractice. 

3.  He  had  no  malice,  because  he  immediately  tried 
to  re^''"^^  Smith.  It  was  only  a  hot  instant  of  wrath 
betv  een  friends.    He  was  a  man  of  good  character. 

The  prosecuting  attorney  was  a  famous  lawyer, 
namx  ;d  Columbus  Delano.  We  have  sent  men  to  a  dozen 
statss  to  find  the  copious  notes  that  Delano  kept  of 
this  trial. 

We  saw  at  Mt.  Gilead  the  original  brief  records  of 
the  indictment  and  steps  in  the  course  of  the  trial 
which  was  in  the  court  seven  years.  In  the  midst  of 
the  search  of  this  record  the  investigator  was  con- 
fronted by  a  low-browed,  square- jawed  heckler  whose 
only  business  apparently  was  to  maintain  the  curtain 
of  darkness  over  the  skeletons  of  family  history  just 
as  the  same  investigator  found  another  busy  guardian 
had  extracted  the  pardon  papers  in  the  same  Butler 
case  from  the  files  at  the  State  House  at  Columbus, 
but  fortunately  too  late  to  prevent  photographic  copies 
being  made  of  the  papers  by  the  man  who  beat  the 
vandal  on  the  job.  There  was  intense  neighborhood 
feeling  aroused,  mostly  against  Butler.  On  this  the 
Hardings  countered  as  best  they  could. 

The  jury  found: 

1.  That  it  was  not  slander  to  call  Mrs.  Butler  a 
negro,  since  the  Hardings  were  always  so  called.  But 
even  if  untrue  it  was  no  justification  for  the  act. 


40 

2.  That  Smith  died  of  the  fracture,  not  of  the  bleed- 
ing by  the  doctor. 

3.  That  he  was  of  good  character  and  recom- 
mended mercy. 

Butler  was  sentenced  to  the  penetentiary  for  five 
years. 

After  two  years  he  was  pnrdoned  by  the  Governor 
on  a  petition  presented  by  the  Harding  relatives. 

Two  other  killings  have  been  charged  to  the  same 
feud.  The  country  people  decline  to  take  the  Hardings 
as  all-white.  When  they  try  to  escape  from  this  social 
classification,  quarrels  result. 

As  we  have  shown  elsewhere,  contrary  to  the  sup- 
position of  our  kind  New  England  and  other  far-away 
Northern  friends,  it  is  NOT  the  presumption  in  Bloom- 
ing Grove  that  every  child  is  white  until  the  opposite 
is  proven.  Blooming  Grove  is  a  Fugitive  Slave  district. 
More  than  half  the  people  have  colored  blood.  The  pre- 
sumption is  that  there  is  colored  blood  somewhere  in 
the  ancestry.  This  is  not  charged  as  a  crime,  but  as  a 
fact.  There  is  nothing  "bar  sinister"  about  it.  Warren 
Harding  is  not  a  white  man's  illegitimate  son  nor  was 
his  father  before  him.  We  are  not  engaged  in  slander 
and  libel  but  in  science. 

If  Warren  Harding  turns  out  "to  be  the  best  Presi- 
dent since  Lincoln,  engaged  skilfully  in  cleaning  up  the 
awfulness  left  by  the  Democrats  and  by  the  miserable 
internationalist  and  invalid  Woodrow  Wilson,"  as  the 
Republicans  say,  then  we  should,  all  of  us,  seek  to 
marry  our  sons  to  colored  girls;  though,  of  course,  not 
our  girls  to  colored  men.  The  Dickersons  have  told  us 
they  were  horribly  shocked  at  what  their  daughter  did. 
Nevertheless,  if  Warren  proves  to  be  a  very  great  man, 
we  may  have  to  come  to  just  this. 

When  the  report  M^ent  out  through  the  country  that 
Warren  Harding  has  negro  blood,  the  city  editor  of  the 


,  ,  -  ^^ 

Republican  POST  INTELLIGENCER  turned  to  his 
most  experienced  of  reporters  and  said,  "There  is  a 
niece  of  Warren  Harding  living  here  in  Seattle:  I  don't 
know  who  she  is  or  where  she  lives;  take  the  photog- 
rapher and  find  her ;  we  will  print  her  picture  and  show 
up  the  'bughouse'  professor  out  there  in  Ohio." 

The  city  editor  did  not  know  that  his  information 
came  from  William  Chancellor,  colored,  aged  sixty-five, 
a  Republican  trying  to  get  votes  for  his  friend. 

It  took  the  reporter  two  days  to  find  the  woman. 
He  brought  back  the  photographer  and  had  the  pic- 
tures developed,  but  he  refused  to  write  any  story,  and 
the  city  editor  was  wroth  within  him.  In  an  hour  or 
so  the  developed  plates  came  down  from  the  sky  room. 

The  city  editor  looked  at  them  and  he  told  the  vet- 
eran reporter  this:  "That  college  professor  out  in 
Ohio  is  not  so  bughouse  after  all." 

And  the  veteran  reporter  told  this  to  the  people  of 
Seattle  after  the  election ! 

But  the  people  have  not  yet  seen  the  pictures  of  the 
niece  of  Warren. 

When  Professor  Chancellor  was  city  school  super- 
intendent of  Washington,  Senator  Joseph  B.  Foraker 
took  very  great  interest  in  the  colored  people.  He  sent 
a  letter  of  introduction  for  a  woman  to  Professor  Chan- 
cellor asking  the  appointment  of  the  woman  to  a  posi- 
tion in  the  schools,  saying  that  she  was  a  quadroon 
and  desired  to  go  into  the  colored  schools. 

She  was  a  sister  of  Warren  Harding. 

Later  she  became  a  policewoman  in  Washington, 
where  she  served  until  Warren  was  chosen  President. 

In  October,  1920,  she  was  living  in  a  colored  board- 
ing house  with  a  colored  landlady. 

She  is  now  in  the  soldiers'  reconstruction  work,  and 
passes  for  white ;  that  is,  she  tries  to  do  so. 

Would  a  white  man  allow  a  sister  to  be  a  police- 


42 

woman  in  Washington  when  he  was  United  States 
Senator?  We  think  not.  Warren  allowed  his  sister  to 
do  this  dangerous  and  vile  work — in  Washington,  one 
of  the  foulest  cities  on  earth  in  sex-morals. 

This  sister  is  a  far  abler  and  better  person  morally 
than  her  brother  in  the  White  House. 

We  are  not  making  war  on  women ;  if  we  were,  we 
could  tell  much  more. 

It  is,  however,  the  black  sheep  of  this  family  who 
has  risen  to  the  top,  where  Daugherty  can  be  regent 
over  him  and  President  in  fact 

The  husband  of  this  sister  of  Warren's  has  never 
supported  her,  and  told  various  persons  that  there  were 
obvious  reasons  why  he  desired  no  children  by  her; 
they  are  childless  by  intention,  he  says.  They  do  not 
keep  house  together  as  he  is  a  white  man,  of  French 
descent,  the  reasons  are  obvious  enough.  But  he  is  low 
enough  himself  morally  to  bask  in  the  sunshine  of  the 
favor  of  the  President  and  get  money  through  him. 

It  is  painful  to  observe  that  Warren  Harding  and 
the  Duchess  do  not  invite  these  neighbor  kinsfolk  to 
the  White  House  and  introduce  them  to  their  friends. 

The  masquerader  there  is  playing  a  very  difficult 
role. 

Warren  Harding  has  alive  now  one  father,  ONE 
BROTHER,  SIX  SISTERS,  and  some  thousand  other 
kinsfolk  descended  from  his  own  great-grandfather, 
Amos  Harding,  the  man  who  had  the  two  women  at  the 
same  time  bearing  him  children. 

Why  are  they  not  often,  many  of  them  at  a  time, 
in  the  White  House? 

Several  of  them  are  very  rich.  One  is  a  Chicago 
millionaire,  C.  E.  Harding.  Another  has  a  fine  store 
in  Salt  Lake  City.  His  own  brother  is  a  physician  in 
Columbus,  Ohio. 

Are  they  ashamed  of  him,  or  is  he  ashamed  of 


43 

them;  or  are  they  all  afraid  of  the  CUMULATIVE 
EVIDENCE  when  viewed  together? 

On  Thanksgiving  D?y,  1920,  after  election,  Warren 
gave  a  dinner  party  to  six  men  belonging  to  the  Re- 
publican Associated  Press.  No  women  were  present 
except  the  "Duchess."  But  old  George  Tryon  Harding 
sat  alone  in  a  restaurant  in  a  town  famous  among 
traveling  men  for  its  lov/-class  eating  places,  and  ate 
his  dinner  alone,  the  father  of  the  President-elect.  Was 
this  the  way  a  white  man  would  have  treated  his  di- 
vorced father,  living  in  comparative  need? 

Why  are  these  thousand  kinsfolk  alienated  from 
this  man  in  the  White  House  ? 

Would  the  kinsfolk  of  a  white  man  there  be  so 
afraid  to  exhibit  their  interest  in  him? 

When  William  Henry  Harrison  was  President, 
thirty-five  of  his  kinfolk  lived  with  him  in  the  White 
House. 

Zachary  Taylor  filled  it  with  sons,  daughters, 
cousins,  aunts. 

Jefferson  made  it  a  boarding  house  for  kin  and 
friends — free  board. 

Roosevelt  kept  a  lot  of  guests  going  and  coming, 
proud  to  have  them  all. 

But  there  is  a  pall  upon  the  White  House  now ;  it  is 
not  the  pall  of  negro  blood,  but  something  worse ;  it  is 
the  pall  of  fear  of  exposure.  Open,  frank,  honest  ad- 
mission long  ago  would  have  cleared  the  atmsophere; 
but  Warren  and  Fall  and  Daugherty  and  the  Duchess 
?nd  Hays  must  play  the  game  as  it  is.  They  dealt 
themselves  this  hand. 


CHAPTER  V 


'HE  LOOKS  LIKE  A  PRESIDENT' 


When  Warren  Gamaliel  Bancroft  Harding — for  such 
is  his  name,  if  it  is  not  really  Warren  Gamaliel  Winni- 
peg Bancroft  Harding,  as  his  father  first  said  in  the 
Presidential  campaign — first  came  before  the  country 
as  the  Republican  candidate,  the  Republican  proponents 
of  this  singular  human  phenomenon,  a  mestizo  in 
American  big  politics,  started  a 

BATTLE  CRY 
"Warren  looks  like  a  President." 

This  did  catch  the  people. 

What  is  it  to  "look  like  a  President?" 

There  were  the  big  men  physically,  viz.: 

Weight  Height  Party 

George   Washington 200     6  ft.  2  in.     None 

Thomas  Jefferson 170     6  ft.  1  in.     Democrat 

William  Henry  Harrison  _..170     6  ft.  2  in.     Whig 

Zachary    Taylor 225     6  ft.  0  in.     Democrat 

James  Buchanan 180     6  ft.  0  in.     Democrat 

Millard    Fillmore 200     6  ft.  4  in.     Democrat 

Abraham  Lincoln 165     6  ft.  4  in.     Republican 

Grover  Cleveland 275     6  ft.  0  in.     Democrat 

William  Howard  Taft 325     6  ft.  2  in.     Republican 

Woodrow  Wilson 180     6  ft.  1  in.     Democrat 

It  does  not  appear  that  there  has  been  any 
monopoly  of  big  men,  physically  considered,  by  the 
Whig-Republicans. 

Nor  does  it  appear  that  only  big  men  have  made 
good  Presidents.  The  following  were  relatively  small 
men,  viz.: 

44 


45 

Madison,  Jackson,  Van  Buren,  B.  Harrison,  McKin- 
ley.  Roosevelt  was  a  heavy  man  but  only  5  feet  9 
inches  in  stature.  He  weighed  225  pounds  most  of  the 
time  he  was  President,  but  most  of  his  life  he  was  un- 
der 200  pounds. 

Warren  Harding  is  6  feet  tall  and  weighs  over  200 
pounds.  He  has  a  large  face  and  long  narrow  head :  no 
other  President  looked  like  him.  He  has,  it  is  said, 
dignity.  So  had,  in  a  very  marked  degree,  James 
Buchanan. 

Is  the  requisite  posture,  tall,  upstanding,  eyes  to 
the  front,  searching,  self-reliant  pose?  Warren  has  it 
not.  He  does  not  stand  well.  He  never  looks  anyone 
in  the  eye. 

It  is  said  by  his  admirers  that  he  has  "a  beetling, 
craggy  brow  v/ith  deep-set  eyes."  Then  he  is  compared 
with  Black  Dan  Webster.  But  Black  Dan  had  eyes  on 
fire,  black  and  alive,  very  wonderful  eyes.  He  made 
all  his  great  speeches  without  notes.  He  had  the  divine 
fire,  no  doubt.  Put  the  two  heads  side  by  side  in  the 
front  and  sideways  both,  and  see  not  resemblance,  but 
the  eternal  differences.  Black  Dan  was  a  Black  Pict, 
straight  from  the  purest  blood  of  Scotland,  and  had 
brains  that  matched.  The  obscure  gray  eyes  of  Warren 
Harding  contradict  the  craggy  brow.  Still  people  keep 
his  face  on  view  in  their  parlor  windows  even  now ;  he 
saved  the  Republican  party  from  defeat ;  he  kept  it  to- 
gether. The  party  was  more  important  than  the  nation 
and  the  world. 

Warren  Harding  is  big;  he  is  wide  with  a  curved 
back;  and  with  long  prehensile  weak  hands  but  with 
heavy  arms.  His  underpinning  is  frail  relatively.  He 
has  a  posture  exactly  the  opposite  of  that  of  a  well- 
trained  soldier.  Besides  John  J.  Pershing,  who  is  every 
inch  a  soldier,  or  Leonard  Wood,  he  is  a  slouching 
civilian. 


46 

This  brings  up  the  question  that  was  raised  im- 
mediately after  his  election  by  his  announcement  in  the 
press  that  he  had  ordered  many  suitable  garments  for 
his  work  as  President.  Afterwards  he  denied  that  he 
had  ordered  so  many ;  the  managers  told  him  to  do  this. 
He  had  an  idea  that  clothing  makes  a  difference  in 
Presidents. 

George  Washington  loved  good  clothes.  But  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  did  not.  Washington  was  born  to  good 
clothes.  Theodore  Roosevelt,  who  was  by  far  the  rich- 
est of  the  Presidents,  had  a  great  variety  of  attire,  but 
he  preferred  his  outing  clothes  to  any  other,  and  old 
clohes  at  that. 

Jackson  dressed  well  when  on  parade — otherwise 
he  dressed  in  the  plainest  way — in  old  clothes. 

Jefferson  had  no  interest  at  all  in  clothes. 

The  man  who  thinks  first  of  how  to  dress  in  a  new 
office  has  something  the  matter  with  his  mind.  He 
sees  the  externalities  of  his  functions.  Arthur  was  af- 
flicted with  a  passion  for  good  clothes.  So  was  Kaiser 
Wilhelm  II. 

Beginning  at  fifty-two  years  of  age  in  order  to 
fight  arterio-sclerosis  by  advice  of  sanitarium 
physicians,  Warren  Harding  took  up  golf ;  he  can  make 
a  very  long  drive.  His  score  being  usually  about  95, 
In  other  words,  he  is  not  a  natural  athlete ;  he  does  not 
ride  horses,  though  brought  up  in  the  country ;  he  does 
not  swim  or  play  tennis ;  or  take  long  walks.  He  does 
not  dance;  he  never  has  boxed  or  wrestled;  he  did  not 
play  baseball  or  football;  of  course,  he  never  had  the 
athletic  training  of  college. 

Like  every  other  man,  he  is  entitled  to  every  ounce 
of  credit  that  he  can  weigh  in.    What  is  this  ? 

Roosevelt,  Taft  and  Wilson  drank  no  alcoholic  stim- 
ulants and  smoked  and  chew  no  tobacco.  McKinley 
smoked  tobacco.    Harding  uses  tobacco  in  every  form, 


47 

including  even  cigarettes,  and,  of  course,  he  drinks. 

The  Anti-Cigarette  League  published  a  cartoon 
showing  him  caught  in  eight  different  poses  smoking 
cigarettes.  Since  that  time  he  has  been  careful  not  to 
be  snapped  with  even  a  cigar  in  his  mouth.  He  is  very 
shrewd  in  such  matters. 

Experts  in  heredity  have  discovered  a  very  import- 
ant law ;  that  a  hybrid  tends  to  slough  off  as  he  grows 
older  the  traits  of  the  shorter-lived  races  that  have  en- 
tered into  his  making.  This  law  is  working  for  Warren- 
The  negro  is  a  short-lived  race.  That  blood  is  dying  in 
him.  The  question  is  whether  if  he  lives  to  be  a  hun- 
dred years  old,  his  Dutch  or  his  Indian  ancestry  will 
win  the  mastery ;  both  races  are  long-lived.  To  those 
who  survive  him  the  matter  is  worth  following  up. 

The  Indian  has  the  trait  of  seeming  to  think  hard 
for  a  long,  long  time ;  he  requires  a  very  long  time  to 
"make  up  his  mind."  His  decisions  in  ages  past  have 
generally  been  far  from  wise ;  but  he  has  acquired  the 
reputation  for  being  very  wise  all  the  same.  Truth  is 
that  there  is  no  rule  about  this  matter;  some  men 
decide  quickly,  and  are  geniuses  because  they  decide  so 
many  issues  well.    Few  Indans  have  shown  genius. 

The  Dutch  have  taken  much  time  to  decide  and 
have  generally  decided  wisely;  but  few  Dutchmen  are 
geniuses. 

The  long  thinker  is  usually  dull  and  stupid.  If 
while  he  is  thinking,  he  is  getting  new  facts,  then  he 
does  well  to  take  time.  Otherwise,  long  deliberation 
is  stupidity  or  senility. 

Before  he  became  President,  even  in  the  campaign, 
in  order  to  get  votes,  but  sincerely,  he  told  everyone 
that  he  intended  to  "keep  the  doors  of  the  White  House 
open  for  anyone  to  come  and  see  him ;"  this  has  a  beau- 
tiful sound.  But  no  sooner  had  he  come  to  the  White 
House  than  like  every  olher  man  since  Jefferson  he 


48  ■' 

found  that  the  American  people  are  too  many  for  one 
man.  He  has  had  to  make  appointments  and  not  many 
a  day  at  that.  He  spoke  derisively  of  the  plan  of 
Woodrow  Wilson  before  his  illness  to  allot  two  hours 
a  day  to  callers,  and  just  so  many  minutes  to  each 
caller,  never  over  fifteen.  On  this  basis  he  saw  ten  or 
twenty  a  day.  But  why  not  keep  the  doors  of  the 
executive  offices  always  open? 

Totally  inexperienced  in  such  executive  work,  never 
having  managed  even  "THE  STAR,"  Warren  Harding 
was  unaware  that  a  President  has  from  300  to  1000 
pieces  of  mail  each  day;  that  he  is  always  getting 
resignations  and  making  appointments  to  office;  that 
he  must  read  and  sign  no  end  of  documents  of  all  kinds. 
The  clerical  work  is  enormous. 

Even  in  his  convalescence,  Woodrow  Wilson  spent 
four  hours  a  day  in  merely  signing  necessary  state 
papers,  and  did  other  work  a  few  minutes  at  a  time. 
Thanks  to  his  wife  and  good  medical  care,  he  survived. 

There  is  no  way  of  turning  this  work  off  upon  the 
Cabinet  Secretaries;  they  are  clerks  by  law  and  the 
President  is  solely  responsible.  The  Controller  of  the 
Treasury  must  see  the  name  of  the  President  himself 
upon  thousands  of  documents  before  he  allows  the 
Treasury  to  make  any  payment.  It  will  take  a  change 
in  the  Constitution  itself  to  change  this. 

But  what  is  the  personality  of  the  President?  Why 
is  it  that  the  Republicans  are  sendng  out  so  many  "pen 
pictures"  of  the  man?  When  the  Wayne  County  dele- 
gation of  Republicans — Ohio — 300  strong,  came  back 
from  Marion  in  the  Presidential  campaign,  they  were 
strangely  silent.  The  people  asked  them  to  tell  what 
Warren  was  like  and  they  flunked  out  on  this  ques- 
tion.   What  is  he  like? 

In  his  early  days  he  applied  for  admission  to  a  cer- 
tain secret  society ;  and  he  failed  in  three  lodges.    Then 


49 

he  was  admitted  to  one  for  one  degree  only.  He  was 
blocked  for  all  others  until  after  he  was  elected  Presi- 
dent.   What  is  the  personality  of  such  a  man  ? 

The  many  "pen  portraits"  are  due  to  the  fact  that 
he  is  an  enigma  to  all  those  who  do  not  understand  a 
very  simple  fact ;  a  mirror  flat  in  the  sunlight  reflects 
all  the  sky  and  clouds ;  and  it  very  closely  resembles 
deep  blue  water.    Jump  in  and  what  happens? 

This  is  the  trouble  with  Warren.  A  very  great  man, 
a  candidate  against  him  for  the  Republican  nomination, 
went  from  New  York  to  see  him  in  an  interview ;  after 
the  interview  he  had  nothing  to  say  about  Warren. 
He  was  baffled,  as  every  other  intelligent  man  is. 

Warren  Harding  has  no  progi'am ;  he  has  no  depth ; 
he  reflects  what  is  near  him  that  appeals  to  a  very  few 
primitive  instincts.  He  is  genial  enough;  and,  in  a 
light  way,  affable;  but  how  can  a  man  who  has  never 
studied  American  history  or  government  beyond  the 
elementary  school  books  converse  on  politics  and  juris- 
prudence and  economics  with  a  University  President? 
He  can  seem  to  listen.  As  his  pastor,  Reverend  Doctor 
McAfee,  says  in  an  interview  in  the  New  York  World, 
he  is  an  "eloquent  listener." 

Before  proceeding,  we  have  a  word  to  say  about 
this  same  C.  F.  McAfee.  He  is  a  Baptist  who  went  to 
Marion  to  the  church  where  Harding  goes  occasionally, 
just  five  years  ago ;  that  is,  in  1913,  when  Harding  was 
United  States  Senator.  Being  a  preacher,  he  looks 
professionally  for  the  good  in  men,  and  for  nothing 
else.  He  knows  nothing  of  the  past  of  this  man.  He 
has  no  familiarity  with  his  Washington  life.  Because 
Warren  pays  his  church  dues,  or  rather  Mrs.  Warren, 
he  regards  him  as  a  useful  church  member,  though  ad- 
mitting that  he  is  never  at  prayer  meeting,  has  no 
Bible  class,  and  makes  no  personal  contribution  to  the 
Christian  World,  Warren  is  a  devout  Christian,  and 


50 

three  daj^s  afterwards  he  had  a  stroke  of  paralysis. 
This  is  not  cause-and-effect,  but  it  shows  the  mental 
and  physical  instability  of  the  man  who  is  cited  as 
authoritj^  for  the  fine  Christianity  of  Warren  Harding-. 

Of  course,  being  a  Baptist,  he  wished  Warren  to 
win.    Even  preachers  are  human. 

But  to  go  back  to  the  question.  It  is  "incredible" 
that  a  man  who  has  so  little  mental  life  should  have 
been  Lieutenant  Governor  and  United  States  Senator. 
Yet  exactly  this  has  happened.  Those  who  are  familiar 
with  colleges  knovv^  that  the  college  president  is  often 
a  distinctly  confused  and  ignorant  man ;  that  is  what 
the  trustees  desire  in  order  to  manage  the  college 
through  a  dummy.  It  even  happens  in  business  that  a 
big  man  in  the  concern  is  confused  and  ignorant. 

Warren  Harding  is  very  ignorant.  He  has  asked 
many  times — What  is  an  association  of  nations?  He 
knows  no  geography  outside  of  the  United  States,  and 
he  knows  this  but  little,  as  is  shown  by  his  going  to 
Point  Isabel  in  P'ebruary. 

He  knows  no  Latin  and  no  foreign  language;  he 
knows  only  English  words,  and  not  even  English  gram- 
mar and  rhetoric.  He  did  nothing  in  business  as  an 
accountant. 

But  a  man  may  be  both  ignorant  and  confused  and 
at  the  same  time  shrewd  according  to  his  ov^^n  lights. 
When  he  was  nominated  so  suddenly,  he  turned  to  his 
advisers  and  asked,  "Is  not  this  too  premtiture?"  He 
knew  that  the  convention  had  been  brought  up  with 
money,  and  he  was  afraid  that  Hiram  Johnson,  Wood 
and  Lowden  would  "blow  up"  on  him,  as  they  did  not. 

Only  Nicholas  Murray  Butler  "blew  up,"  and  he 
apologized  in  order  to  save  his  Presidency  of  Columbia 
University. 

Hunger,  lust,  vanity — these  are  the  dominant  in- 
stincts, together  with  a  gaming  passion,  a  love  of  play- 


51 

ing  for  good  stakes.  He  is  a  born  adventurer ;  does  this 
show  the  truth  of  the  story  of  the  neighbors  that  his 
great-grandfather,  Amos  Harding,  was  a  pirate? 
Warren  is  no  open  fighter;  he  prefers  to  get  at  the 
backs  of  men,  as  the  RepubHcan  Convention  proved. 

We  are  very  plain  and  direct  here. 

There  have  been  several  great  public  political  crimes 
by  great  parties  in  the  history  of  the  United  States, 
backed  apparently  by  the  people. 

One  was  the  Mexican  War. 

Another  was  the  P^'ugitive  Slave  Act,  together  with 
the  infamous  Dred  Scott  Decision  which  made  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  President,  because  they  permitted  free 
speech  in  those  days  and  lese  majeste  did  not  rule  as  it 
does  today  in  our  cowardly  times.  Stealing  the  Presi- 
dency from  Tilden  was  a  crime  in  1876-7. 

But  a  far  greater  political  crime,  organized  by  a 
great  party,  was  the  rejection  of  peace  for  the  world 
and  the  setting  back  of  the  clock  of  time  for  all  hu- 
manity a  thousand  years.  The  injury  for  the  present 
is  irreparable. 

Therefore,  bad  as  Polk  was,  bad  as  Taney  and 
Buchanan  were,  politically  bad  as  Hayes  was,  this 
Warren  Harding  will  go  down  into  history,  the  history 
of  the  world,  as  still  worse.  Perhaps  a  Harriet 
Eeecher  Stone  and  an  Abraham  Lincoln  will  arise  to 
show  the  whole  deviltry  up. 

The  private  morals  of  Polk  and  Buchanan  and 
Hayes  were  spotless ;  and  the  only  sin  of  Taney  was 
that  he  had  defended  many  smugglers  of  slaves  when 
a  young  lawyer.  Even  if  the  private  morals  had  been 
always  what  his  pastor  says  he  believes  they  have 
been,  this  would  not  save  him  from  the  condemna- 
tion of  the  just.  Pilate  appears  to  have  been  a  very 
good  man  in  his  private  morals. 

Big,  lazy,   slouching,   confused,   ignorant,  affable, 


52 

yellow  and  cringing  like  a  negro  butler  to  the  great, 
such  is  the  man  who  has  been  used  by  Lodge,  Smoot, 
Penrose,  Knox,  Harvey,  Daugherty,  to  ruin  Woodrow 
Wilson  for  the  time  being  and  to  crash  the  hopes  of 
mankind  for  world  peace. 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE  PLUTOCRACY 

It  was  in  the  days  of  President  William  McKinley 
that  Americans  began  to  see  the  conversion  of  the 
American  social  order  into  a  plutocracy,  and  when 
Theodore  Roosevelt  came  down  from  Mount  Marcy  in 
the  Adirondacks  to  succeed  him  after  his  death  at  the 
hands  of  a  foreign-born  and  foreign-reared  anarchist, 
the  first  question  that  was  asked  of  him  was  what 
would  be  his  disposition  toward  this  developing  plu- 
tocracy. What  he  said  was  very  different  from  what 
he  did — for  which  the  would-be  plutocrats  never  for- 
gave him ;  but  bided  their  time  and  waited,  and  plotted, 
until  they  made  an  election  to  order  in  1920,  of  which 
we  have  spoken  fully  elsewhere. 

But  what  is  the  plutocracy? 

It  certainly  is  not  capitalism,  which  is  a  very  good 
economic  scheme. 

Capitalism  is  a  plan  by  which,  through  the  organ- 
ization of  corporations,  all,  even  those  with  but  small 
savings,  may  contribute  to  the  permanent  tools  of  pro- 
duction— buildings,  lands,  machinery,  materials,  work- 
ing funds,  credits. 

Plutocracy  could  exist  even  without  corporations, 
through  the  very  admirable  system  of  private  property 
personally  owned  with  full  liabilities  for  every  debt 
against  every  partner.  Nevertheless,  corporate  prop- 
erty lends  itself  easily  to  the  schemes  of  plutocracy. 

Far  back  in  the  nineteenth  century,  when  Governor 
of  the  State  of  New  York,  Silas  Wright,  who  had  been 
a   United   States   Senator,   and   who   was  the   actual 

68 


54 

author  of  the  famous  Wilmot  Proviso  against  slavery 
in  the  free  States,  which  was  directed  against  the  Fugi- 
tive Slave  Act,  but  destroyed  by  the  Dred  Scott  De- 
cision in  1857,  prophesied  that  corporate  property 
would  become  a  curse  to  America.  This  is  why  he  was 
impeached  by  his  Legislature  and  removed  from  the 
Governship.  Unhappily  he  died  in  the  very  year  when 
the  common  people  were  organizing  to  secure  for  him 
the  nomination  of  the  Whigs  to  the  Presidency, 

The  great  slaveholders  were  a  plutocracy  that  held 
all  the  South  and  the  great  Atlantic  Coast  cities,  includ- 
ing New  York.  All  together  the  slaveholders  had  about 
one  billion  dollars  worth  of  domestic  chattels  in  human 
form,  but  more  or  less  off  color  frm  Caucasian,  though 
many  of  them  had  the  best  white  blood  of  the  South, 
a  condition  due  rather  to  the  race  customs  of  the 
primitive  negroes  than  to  the  advances  of  the  younger 
white  men.  In  Africa,  as  in  Tahiti  today,  it  is  the  cus- 
tom of  the  girls  to  be  promiscuous  until  after  marriage. 
But  small  as  a  billion  dollars  looks  to  Americans  now 
when  single  corporations  are  said  to  have  that  much 
and  more  of  property,  commercially  valued,  it  M'as 
fully  one-tenth  of  all  the  wealth  of  America  prior  to 
the  Civil  War. 

A  plutocracy  does  not  necessarily  own  all  the  prop- 
erty of  a  people.  It  needs  only  to  own  the  public  press, 
the  pulpit,  the  larger  banks,  and  the  larger  business 
enterprises ;  thereby  it  owns  the  government. 

Such  was  the  power  of  the  slavery  plutocracy  that 
in  1862  the  F)oard  of  Aldermen  of  New  York  City  voted 
to  form  the  State  of  Tri-Insulae  in  order  to  secede  from 
the  Union  and  to  help  the  South  overseas  and  by  resist- 
ing he  draft. 

The  end  of  the  war  broke  that  plutocracy  and 
started  new  wealth,  especially  in  great  railroads  to  the 
Pacific. 


55 

Oil,  steel,  railroads  and  banks  are  now  the  main 
interests  of  the  plutocracy  that  began  to  form  in  the 
days  of  McKinley  when  Hanna  was  the  real  President. 
Then  we  called  them  "trusts"  and  "syndicates"  and 
"pools." 

By  no  means  all  the  rich  are  "plutocrats,"  and  not 
all  the  plutocrats  are  very  rich.  Plutocracy  is  a  sys- 
tem. Henry  Ford  is  not  a  plutocrat,  though  undoubt- 
edly one  of  the  richest  men  in  America,  Truman  H. 
Newberry,  who  ran  against  him  and  bought  the  elec- 
tion to  the  Senate  and  thereby  defeated  the  League  of 
Nations  Covenant,  is  but  a  small  multi-millionaire  com- 
pared with  Ford.  But  Newberry  belongs  to  the 
plutocracy  and  Ford  fights  against  it.  The  core  of  the 
plutocracy,  of  course,  consists  of  men  and  of  the  estates 
of  men  of  very  great  wealth.  In  order  to  avoid  being 
misunderstood,  we  name  a  few  of  the  very  rich  men 
and  families  that  belong  to  the  plutocracy :  The  Rocke- 
fellers, George  H.  Baker,  the  Guggenheims,  Judge 
Gary,  the  Noyeses,  of  Washington. 

Vast  as  is  the  wealth  of  the  Morgan  bankers,  the 
firm  does  not  belong  to  the  plutocracy  for  the  sufficient 
reason  that  it  realizes  the  fallacy  of  the  proposition ; 
plutocracy  in  a  free  land  under  Magna  Carta  and  the 
Federal  Constitution,  is  certain  to  invite  its  own  ruin. 
There  are  said  to  be  now  in  this  land  seven  men  or 
estates  worth  over  $100,000,000  each ;  and  37,000  mil- 
lionaires. When  we  have  real  publicity,  we  shall  learn 
from  the  income  tax  reports  just  who  these  million- 
aires are.  But  it  is  safe  to  say  that  not  one-half  of 
them  belong  to  or  care  anything  about  the  plans  of  the 
plutocracy  other  than  to  prevent  dog  eating  dog  and 
being  themselves  devoured  by  yet  richer  men. 

The  plutocracy  as  a  developed  system  now  owns 
control  of  the  major  enterprises  in — 

1.  Steam  railroads. 


66 

2.  Iron  and  steel. 

3.  Coal  and  oil. 

4.  Newspapers,  magazines  and  books. 

5.  Meats. 

6.  Grain  elevators. 

7.  Pulp  and  paper. 

8.  Money  and  banks, 

9.  The  national  government  and  many  state  and 
city  governments. 

10.  The  real  estate  of  several  great  and  many  small 
cities. 

11.  National  and  city  debts. 

12.  Many  churches,  but  not  all,  nor  half. 

13.  Many  colleges  and  universities,  but  not  all. 

14.  Wholesale  trade. 

15.  Foreign  trade. 

16.  Rubber. 

17.  Lumber. 

It  desires  to  own  these  enterprises  clean  through, 
and  all  others  also.  It  desires  to  reduce  the  ordinary 
man  to  being  an  animal  interested  only  in  space  and 
things  and  what  and  how,  while  it  owns  time  and  cause 
and  why — that  is,  the  future.  It  wishes  to  put  all 
wage-earners  where  the  colored  slaves  were  in  1860, 
and  to  treat  all  poor  men  not  on  wage-payrolls  as  "poor 
white  trash."  It  hates  trade  unions,  closed  shops,  col- 
lective bargaining,  independent  livelihoods,  including 
small  tradespeople. 

The  plutocracy  is  smart  enough  to  spread  broadcast 
such  false  ideas  as  these,  viz. : 

1.  Paper  money  is  just  as  good  as  gold.  How  can 
the  people  know?    They  never  see  gold  any  more. 

2.  The  man  who  works  hard  can  make  a  fortune 
and  die  rich.  Give  us  all  you've  got.  This  is  too  ob- 
vious a  lie  to  be  worth  answering. 

3.  Saving  money  is  the  highway  to  success.     This 


'      57 

draws  the  herring  over  the  trail  of  the  men  who  grew 
very  rich  in  totally  different  ways  from  savings  their 
wages. 

The  poor  have  too  many  children.    This  is  wicked. 

5.  In  the  next  world  God  will  right  the  wrongs  of 
this  one.    Endure  for  this  life — endure  us. 

6.  Reformers  are  all  weak-minded. 

7.  A  bank  account  is  a  man's  best  friend.  In  view 
of  the  ease  with  which  a  rich  man  can  seize  legally  the 
bank  account  of  a  poorer  enemy,  this  is  fraud.  God, 
who  is  Right,  is  a  man's  only  worthwhile  friend. 

8.  Own  your  own  home,  and  slave  for  us,  because 
it  will  be  hard  for  you  to  sell  it  when  out  of  work  and 
anxious  to  get  to  some  other  employers. 

9.  It  is  a  good  thing  for  a  great  nation  to  have  a 
great  national  debt;  it  makes  the  government  stable, 
and  develops  a  class  opposed  to  revolutions. 

10.  It  is  unsafe  for  the  people  to  pick  their  own 
rulers;  they  do  not  know  how  to  judge  men;  let  us 
hand-pick  them. 

Such  are  the  ideas  that  the  plutocracy  is  forever 
having  reiterated  in  its  own  papers  and  by  its  own 
preachers. 

In  your  own  town,  no  matter  where  that  town  is, 
you  will  certainly  see  the  evidences  of  encroachments 
of  the  plutocracy.  It  destroyed  Tom  Johnson  in  Cleve- 
land and  made  Myron  T.  Herrick  and  Mark  Hanna  be- 
fore him.  It  fought  James  M.  Cox  in  Dayton  in  1920. 
It  smashed  Augustus  F.  Heinze  in  Montana  and  New 
York.  It  is  after  Henry  Ford  in  the  motor  car  busi- 
ness, of  which  it  controls  perhaps  one-third,  including 
General  Motors. 

In  some  lines,  the  plutocracy  is  having  poor  going; 
it  cannot  master  the  farm  ownership  and  operation 
problems  yet,  nor  does  it  have  good  success  in  the  re- 
tail trades. 


58 

It  does  not  own  over  one-third  of  the  tobacco  busi- 
ness. It  is  after  the  motion  picture  industry,  but  is 
making  a  poor  showing  as  yet.  It  has  done  but  little  in 
gold  and  silver,  though  it  owns  copper  mining.  It  has 
failed  in  every  fishery  corporation  scheme,  it  has  been 
buncoed  by  its  own  plans  for  the  ownership  of  sea- 
transportation  and  makes  generally  but  poor  success  in 
electric  railways.  It  has  failed  to  secure  the  California 
citrus  fruits  lands. 

If  America  has  actually  the  value  of  sixty  billions 
of  gold  dollars  in  business  of  all  kinds — measured  by 
the  gold  standard,  not  by  this  pseudo-money  of  paper 
and  ink — the  plutocracy  may  have  already  the  control 
of  one-fourth  and  power  in  another  fourth.  America 
may  be  worth  in  gold  in  all  §150,000,000,000;  but  even 
now,  most  of  this  is  free  from  the  plutocracy.  What 
the  plutocrats  wish  is  all  of  it. 

What  are  the  keys  to  the  position  of  the  plutocracy  ? 

1.  The  Associated  Press — news  service  carefully 
edited  to  help  the  plutocrats. 

2.  The  U.  S.  Steel  Corporation — our  biggest  busi- 
ness with  almost  two  billions  of  assets  in  the  watered 
currency  of  today. 

3.  The  Standard  Oil  interest — thirty-two  compan- 
ies all  owned  by  the  same  rich  men.  These  spread 
into  Mexico  and  Canada,  into  Mesopotania  and  China, 
and  all  over  the  earth. 

4.  Certain  great  banks,  including  the  National  City 
Bank  of  New  York,  the  Continental  and  Commercial 
National  Bank  of  Chicago,  the  Guaranty  Trust  Com- 
pany of  New  York,  the  Mellon  National  Bank  of  Pitts- 
burgh. 

5.  The  Ncvn^  York  Central  Railroad,  the  Reading, 
etc.  (Not  so  much  the  Pennsylvania,  which  has 
110,000  different  stockholders). 


59 

6.  Certain  Protestant  Churches  and  the  Mormon 
Church. 

7.  Certain  organs  of  opinion,  conspicuously  the 
Wall  treet  Journal,  the  Chicago  Tribune,  the  Saturday 
Evening  Post,  the  Philadelphia  Ledger,  Washington 
Post,  the  New  York  Herald,  the  Cleveland  News,  the 
American  Magazine. 

8.  The  Republican  party. 

Anyone  who  keeps  one's  eyes  on  these  will  know  the 
plans  and  intentions  of  the  plutocracy. 

What  does  the  plutocracy  desire  now  ? 

The  right  so  as  to  blacklist  any  man  needing  em- 
ployment or  credit  in  business  that  he  will  be  unable 
to  make  a  living  under  the  Stars  and  Stripes.  It  is  to 
be  made  free  of  libel  to  represent  as  dishonest,  or  in- 
subordinate, or  incompetent,  or  insane  any  man  who 
resents  his  treatment  anywhere  by  any  employer.  The 
blacklist  is  to  be  universal. 

Private  personal  bargaining  with  every  employer; 
as  in  one  great  business  where  the  employment  man- 
ager refuses  to  talk  with  any  two  men  at  any  one  time  I 
Hire-and-fire  at  their  own  will. 

Unlimited  paper  "money,"  inflated  credits,  inflated 
prices. 
-    Liquidated  wages — that  is,  deflated  wages. 

A  subsidized  merchant  marine. 

A  higher  protective  tariff,  always  higher  and 
higher. 

Taxation  on  the  poor;  exemption  for  the  rich. 

Wars  and  munitions  for  war  with  a  great  govern- 
ment market,  and  with  voluntary  enlistments  for  the 
rich. 

All  higher  teachers  of  "learning"  to  be  Republicans. 

No  Democratic,  Socialist,  or  reform  magazines  or 
papers  of  any  kind ;  as  a  step  thereto  second-class  mail- 
ing privileges  only  for  the  Republican  papers. 


60 

Suppression  of  mail  service  of  the  first-class  to  all 
persons  not  recommended  by  the  Republican  National 
Committee  as  safe. 

The  present  national  debt  to  be  refunded  and  con- 
tinued. 

How  does  plutocracy  operate  in  the  economic  field  ? 

By  funding  into  the  future  all  its  hopes  of  gain  and 
selling  the  securities — so-called — to  the  gullible  people. 

The  plutocracy  began  to  do  this  far  back  in  the 
eighteenth  century.  But  the  present  century  sees  this 
scheme  in  all  its  glory.  Enterprises  are  capitalized 
at  sixteen  per  cent,  twelve  per  cent,  ten  per  cent,  six 
per  cent,  and  in  peculiarly  audacious  instances  at  even 
four,  three  and  two  per  cent  of  the  hope  of  gain.  Take 
a  case: 

A  man  has  an  oil  well  and  some  leases.  He  forms 
a  company  and  tells  the  suckers  that  his  well  is  pay- 
ing a  thousand  dollars  a  day  profit;  that  is,  a  third  of 
a  million  a  year.  At  sixteen  per  cent,  this  would  enable 
him  to  capitalize  at  $1,800,000,  which,  as  things  go, 
would  not  be  criminal  if  one  could  be  sure  that  the  well 
would  operate  (say)  a  hundred  years.  But  the  man 
never  stops  at  this;  he  argues  to  the  suckers  that  the 
leases  will  produce  ten  such  wells,  and  that  ten  per  cent 
on  their  money  would  be  fine.  The  result  is  that  he 
gets  them  in  on  the  basis  of  a  reliable  income  of 
$3,000,000  a  year,  funded  at  ten  per  cent;  and  he  sells 
out  his  well  for  $30,000,000,  less  commissions  to  the 
promoters. 

This  is  not  an  extreme  case. 

Or  take  the  case  which  is  historical — of  the  U.  S. 
Steel  Corporation.  When  its  common  stock  was  floated, 
it  was  not  worth  a  dollar;  the  whole  issue  of 
$600,000,000  was  water.    But  the  stock  was  sold  at  par! 

Then  the  corporation,  through  its  subsidiaries,  went 
to  work  to  put  value  into  the  common  stock;  and  the 


61 

first  thing  to  do  was  to  get  the  Republicans  into  power 
under  Taft  to  raise  the  steel  tariff. 

The  next  thing  to  do  was  to  water  the  currency  so 
as  to  make  a  gold  dollar  do  the  work  of  two  dollars 
and  get  the  earnings  into  the  big  banks. 

This  automatically  inflated  the  inventories  of  the 
Steel  Corporation.  Soon  every  share  of  the  common 
stock  was  worth  in  book  value  over  $100. 

Where  do  the  bondholders  come  in  who  paid  gold 
dollars  for  the  bonds  ?  Well,  Andrew  Carnegie  got  the 
bonds,  and  he  gave  them  away  to  colleges  and  libraries, 
letting  the  rich  out  neatly.  That  is  why  colleges  with 
endowments  have  found  their  endowments  so  reduced 
in  purchasing  power.  But  only  the  insiders  are  sup- 
posed to  understand  such  difficult  matters. 

The  common  people  are  too  dull  to  see. 

Such  is  the  plutocracy  and  such  are  its  ways ;  there- 
fore, it  had  to  make  an  election  to  order  in  1920. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT  AND  THE 
PLUTOCRACY 

The  REGENCY— Florence  Kling  (de  Wolfe)  Hard- 
ing, Harry  M.  Daugherty,  Boies  Penrose,  Le  Roi  Faine- 
ant (King  Donothing)  Warren  Gamaliel  Harding, 
Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives  Frederic  H. 
Gillett,  steel  multi-millionaire;  Senators,  who  are  mil- 
lionaire plutocrats  are,  Colt,  Frelinghuyson,  Hale, 
Knox,  Lodge,  IsIcCormick,  McKinley,  Smoot,  Warren 
(father-in-law  of  General  J.  J.  Pershing),  Wolcott, 
Wadsworth. 

Cabinet    Secretaries — Mellon    (multissimo    million- 
aire),   Hoover,    multi-millionaire;    Daugherty,    Hays, 
Davis,   Wallace,   Fall,   Weeks,   Denby.     Only   Hughes 
loves  personal  liberty. 

Where  does  the  Supreme  Court  stand? 

Holmes  and  Brandeis,  both  from  Massachusetts, 
love  freedom,  and  may  be  relied  upon  to  oppose  the 
Massachusetts  bloc  composed  of  Senator  Lodge, 
Speaker  Gillett  and  Secretary  Weeks.  Clark  and  Pitney 
have  human  feelings.  The  rest  are  plutocratic — White, 
McKenna,  McReynolds,  Day  and  Van  Devanter. 

On  the  same  day  that  the  United  States  Senate 
voted  to  "pay"  Colombia  $25,000,000  blackmail,  to  help 
"oil,"  April  20,  1921,  the  New  York  Tribune  financial 
page  published  this,  viz.: 

Standard  Oil  in  Colombia 

"Evidence  accumulates  that  the  Standard  Oil  in- 
terests consider  the  Colombian  oil  fields  among  the 
most  promising  for  future  operations.    Several  months 

62 


G3 

ago  the  Standard  Oil  Company  of  New  Jersey  acquired 
control  of  the  International  Petroleum  Company,  Ltd., 
and  yesterday  came  the  announccmen  that  this  con- 
cern has  acquired  one  of  the  larger  islands  in  the  har- 
bor of  Barranquilla,  Colombia,  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Magdalena  River,  According  to  reports  in  the  finan- 
cial district  yesterday,  the  company  will  build  a  re- 
finery with  a  daily  capacity  of  25,000  barrels.  Inter- 
national Petroleum  was  formerly  owned  by  the  Tropical 
Oil  Companj^  controlled  by  the  Benedum-Trees-Treat- 
Crav/ford  interests,  of  Pittsburgh." 

Standard  Oil  represents  billions  of  dollars  of  prop- 
erty. 

The  United  States  Senate  is  four  times  as  powerful 
as  the  House  of  Representatives,  and  since  it  has  only 
a  fourth  as  m^any  members,  each  Senator  is  sixteen 
times  as  powerful  as  a  Congressman  in  the  House,  The 
Speaker  is  the  third  most  powerful  officer  of  the  Gov- 
ernment— the  Chief  Justice  and  the  President  alone 
surpassing  him  because  of  his  power  to  form  com- 
mittees even  under  the  new  rules. 

In  the  Senate,  there  are  but  few  friends  of  hum.an 
rights,  only  a  few  like  Norris  and  Kenyon ;  though 
there  are  several  who  lean  toward  freedom  as  against 
plutocracy  with  this  puppet  doing  the  shadow  work  in 
the  White  House.  Pomerene,  to  whom,  among  others, 
Harding  admitted  his  social  classificatioji  as  a  negro; 
Borah,  Cummins,  Culberson,  Johnson — these  have  not 
entirely  gone  over  to  the  view  that  corporate  property 
is  immortal  and  divine. 

The  real  hope  for  the  friends  of  freedom  is  in  the 
Supremo  Court,  and  that  m_ay  easily  be  overturned, 
now  that  five  men  are  ready  to  quit.  The  best  friend 
of  the  ordinary  man  in  public  life  is  Kenesaw  Mountain 
Landis,  the  Federal  Judge,  which  is  one  reason  why  he 
took  the  baseball  supervision,  knowing  that  he  could 


64 

never  become  a  Supreme  Court  Justice,  as  he  merits 
becoming.  Even  Hughes  may  forget  Nagna  Charta  and 
the  United  States  Constitution  in  his  present  sur- 
roundings. 

A  PICTURE 

Three  thousand  years  ago,  Moses  came  down  from 
Mount  Sinai  with  the  Tables  of  the  Law  that  were  to 
end  the  CAUSES  of  personal  hatreds  among  men.  He 
found  that  while  he  had  been  listening  to  the  thunders 
and  to  the  voice  of  God,  the  people  had  made  a 
GOLDEN  CALF  and  were  dancing,  singing  and  shout- 
ing in  its  worship. 

In  AJpril,  1921,  President  Warren  Harding  stood  in 
a  square  in  New  York  City  and  read  a  paper  on  the 
Monroe  Doctrine,  pledging  that  if  any  nation  should 
attack  the  South  American  States,  he  would  set  afoot 
the  army  and  hoist  anchor  for  the  navy  and  fight ;  and 
the  great  men  of  many  nations  looked  up  at  him — 
university  graduates,  jurists,  publicists,  scholars — wor- 
shipping the  GOLDEN  CALF  of  today — oil,  rubber, 
guano,  gold  in  Columbia,  Peru  and  South  America.  And 
Woodrow  Wilson,  who  brought  from  Versailles  a  new 
Table  of  the  Law  to  end  the  causes  of  national  hatreds 
among  men,  sat  remembering  the  thunders  of  German 
guns  against  Paris  and  the  voice  of  God  in  the  hearts 
of  statesmen  at  the  Peace  Conference,  sat  quietly  in 
his  library  in  Washington  and  waited  and  will  wait  un- 
til the  worship  of  the  Golden  Calf  is  exposed  once  more 
as  a  fraud  and  delusion  and  snare  of  the  peoples. 

Warren  was  thinking  of  the  eighteen  billions  of 
dollars  that  Europe  now  owes  to  the  plutocrats  of 
America. 

He  was  thinking  of  Japan  armed  to  the  teeth  and 
ready  to  strike. 


65 

He  was  thinking  of  Mexico  that  he  may  yet  invade, 
as  Polk  invaded  that  land  to  please  the  slavelords. 

He  was  thinking  of  Great  Britain,  mistress  of 
the  seas,  and  of  the  American  war  program  to  build  a 
navy  as  big  as  the  biggest  and  the  best  of  all. 

He  imagined  that  wars  must  come  and  go  forever, 

BUT 

Has  slavery  been  outlawed? 

Has  polygamy  passed  from  civilized  lands? 

Has  the  saloon  been  abolished  from  America  foi- 
ever? 


(fcRAWF  ORD 
COUNTY 

OBUGYRdS 


M  A  R  I  0  H 
COUNTY 

Omariojj 

i 


•Iberia  CorriQrs 


!^ew  Caledonl  a 


0 

Mt.GILEAD 

MORROW 
COUNTY 


LITTLE  AFRICA— HARDING  LAND 

When  will  wars  end?    When  will  the  God  Mars  be 
slain? 


66 

In  the  day  that  America  joins  the  League  of  Nations 
and  ceases  to  obey  the  plutocrats  in  worshipping  their 
golden  image. 

But  Warren  has  no  son  to  go  to  war. 

Little  Africa  consists  of  three  counties,  where  for 
a  hundred  years  has  raged  the  feud  between  the  whites 
and  the  mestizoes.  In  it  live  almost  a  thousand  de- 
scendants of  Amos  Harding  and  ten  thousand  other 
hybrids. 

At  Blooming  Grove  Warren  was  born;  here  David 
Butler  killed  Amos  Smith  in  1849.  At  Steam  Corners 
lives  the  mother  of  Warren's  chauffeur ;  a  woman  who 
remembers  him  as  a  baby.  Here  also  lives  other  peo- 
ple who  know  all  the  history  of  Harding  Corners.  At 
Iberia  was  the  seat  of  the  little  teacher's  school  to  train 
for  rural  work  to  which  Warren  went  two  years.  It 
was  called  a  college,  but  it  did  not  require  for  admis- 
sion even  a  rural  elementary  school  diploma. 

At  Gallon  lives  a  man  who  went  to  school  with  him 
and  roomed  with  him  at  Iberia. 

At  New  Caledonia  lives  the  bankers  who  remember 
him  as  a  school  mate  there. 

At  Marion  lives  Dr.  George  Tryon  (or  Tyrone) 
Harding,  Wan-en's  father. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 
FAKE  BIOGRAPHS  OF  W.  G.  HARDING 

We  have  printed  elsewhere  in  this  book  the  valid 
and  various  proofs  that  old  William  Chanceller,  of 
Mount  Gilead,  negro,  and  the  many  other  friends  of 
*'Nig"  Harding  in  his  boyhood  days,  told  the  truth  to 
the  negroes  of  America  when  they  said,  as  they  did  in 
the  pulpits  of  ther  churches  that  Warren  Gamaliel  Ban- 
croft is  a  negro  in  part  himself,  and  that  he  was  per- 
fectly willing  to  admit  this  until  ambition  to  rise  in 
politics  got  the  better  of  what  little  sense  of  truth- 
fulness he  has.  Here  we  propose  to  take  up  a  few 
points  from  the  various  articles  that  have  been  printed 
about  him  in  Republican  and  Baptist  organs. 

In  an  article  published  by  the  aged  Abie  Gunn 
Baker  in  THE  CHRISTIAN  HERALD  during  the  cam- 
paign, she  told  a  story  of  how  the  mother  of  the  mother 
of  Warren  discovered  at  church  that  her  daughter  was 
deeply  interested  in  George  Tryon  Harding,  his  father. 
(We  assume  here  that  Tryon  is  the  right  way  to  spell 
this  middle  name,  though  we  have  stated  elsewhere 
that  Tyrone  appears  to  be  the  family  name,  not  Tryon). 
It  appears  that  one  day  at  church  the  daughter,  their 
youngest  child,  failed  to  enter  the  church  with  her 
parents,  but  lingered  outside.  Right  in  the  midst  of 
the  service,  in  walked  her  daughter  on  the  arm  of  her 
soldier  mate.  After  church  Mrs.  Dickerson  asked  the 
girl  what  was  the  meaning  of  the  affair.  She  replied 
that — so  Mrs.  Baker  says — George  was  already  her 
husband.    This  makes  a  perfectly  good  story,  for  Mrs. 

67 


68 

Baker  does  not  neglect  to  say  that  this  young  woman 
was  a  full  year  older  than  her  mate,  which,  of  course, 
was  the  truth. 


DR.   GEORGE   TYRON   HARDING, 
Father  of  the  President 


But,  unfortunately,  this  story  does  not  "gee"  with 
the  interview  printed  in  McClure's  Magazine  after  the 


69 

election  from  the  lips  of  George  Tryon  Harding,  father 
of  Warren.  This  old  man  said  to  the  interviewer  that 
his  wife  was  a  year  younger  than  himself,  which  was 
false,  and  also  that  he  married  her  with  the  full  ap- 
proval of  the  parents  on  both  sides. 

Let  us  look  into  the  war  dates  in  order  to  get  the 
truth  itself  from  these  conflicing  yarns,  and  from  cer- 
tain facts  that  are  indisputable. 

Warren  Harding  was  born  November  2,  1865.  His 
father  was  released  from  the  army  on  furlough  in 
March;  it  was  a  furlough,  and  he  went  back  in  the 
service.  This  credibly  establishes  the  paternity  of  the 
boy,  which  no  one  doubts.  But  when  did  the  marriage 
take  place? 

Old  George  Tryon  Harding  says  that  they  had  a 
long  courtship  and  often  went  out  together.  If  so, 
when?    George  served  three  years  in  the  army. 

Now  the  truth  is  that  these  two  persons  spent  much 
of  their  later  lives  trying  to  agree  as  to  dates,  places, 
persons  variously  reported  by  them  to  have  celebrated 
their  wedding  for  them,  and  they  never  agreed.  Nor 
did  Mrs.  Harding  ever  possess  a  marriage  certificate, 
nor  was  any  license  ever  issued  by  any  court  officer. 
This  does  not  concern  the  legitimacy  of  the  TEN  chil- 
dren, but  it  happens  to  concern  the  fact  that  one  was 
white  and  the  other  was  not.  It  happens  to  explain 
why  the  Dickersons  allowed  their  youngest  child  to 
stay  at  home  with  them  for  a  half  year  after  Warren 
was  born ;  but  then  made  her  move  out. 

The  true  story  of  George  Tryon  Harding  after  this 
event  when  he  got  his  white  wife,  wthout  the  courtesy 
of  asking  her  parents,  is  this,  viz.:  They  got  a  piece 
of  land  for  him  and  made  him  work  it.  They  got  Doc- 
tor McCuen,  the  only  white  physician  in  the  place,  to 
allow  George  to  study  with  him  privately  so  that  in  the 
course  of  time  George  Tryon  became  first  a  veterinary 


70 

then  a  country  doctor.  When  Warren  was  fifteen 
years  old,  the  father  adventured  into  Marion,  where  he 
got  a  practice  with  servants,  colored  people  and  cattle 
and  horses,  higher  than  which  he  never  rose.  We  shall 
return  to  this  later. 

In  these  same  two  articles,  according  to  Doctor 
George,  he  never  had  any  other  love  than  his  wife, 
Elizabeth  Dickerson.  Yet  the  court  records  of  Marion 
County,  Ohio,  show  indisputably  that  no  sooner  was 
the  old  lady  laid  in  her  grave  in  1907,  than  the  old  man 
married  a  widow  who  had  a  son  and  four  thousand  dol- 
lars. She  is  now  living  in  Muncie,  Ind. ;  three  years  later 
than  the  marriage,  she  got  a  divorce  from  George  T. 
on  the  ground  that  he  had  been  trying  to  cheat 
her  out  of  her  money.  The  court  allowed  her  to  take  as 
her  alimony  a  small  house  that  belonged  to  one  of  the 
Hardings.  She  has  come  out  with  an  affidavit  that 
•her  real  reason  for  desiring  a  divorce  was  that  George 
T.  was  too  much  nigger  for  her  to  endure  him.  She 
has  been  seen  and  interviewed  often  by  Republican 
and  Democratic  reporters,  but  it  has  seemed  impolitic 
to  their  newspapers  to  tell  the  story.  Of  course,  her 
last  name  is  Harding  now;  her  first  name  is  Endora, 
and  she  can  be  seen  by  any  one  who  cares  to  find  her 
in  Muncie. 

So  much  for  the  testimony  of  George  T.  Harding 
that  he  never  loved  but  one  woman.  This  bears  out 
her  story  that  he  tried  to  cheat  the  second  Mrs.  Hard- 
ing. But  it  makes  him  out  a  gay  deceiver  of  women 
once  more  in  his  old  age.  Of  course,  he  deceived  his 
real  mate,  Elizabeth  Dickerson,  by  proposing  to  wish 
to  support  her. 

The  old  man  and  the  old  writer  of  the  Harding 
story  have  both  tried  to  make  out  that  he  was  a  good 
provider  for  his  large  family,  and  that  Mrs.  Elizabeth 
was  a  very  happy  woman. 


71 

Unfortunately,  for  the  beauty  of  this  story,  it  hap- 
pens that  the  very  naive  Warren  has  himself  spoiled  it 
by  spilling  some  facts.  One  thing  that  he  has  said  in 
an  interview  is  that  whenever  the  children  got  hungry, 
they  either  went  down  the  road  to  Grandmother  Dick- 
erson,  or  up  the  road  to  Grandfather  Harding  and  got 
food  in  plenty.  Another  of  these  naive  statements  was 
that  they  always  ate  at  their  grandparents  on  feast 
days  and  often  on  Sundays.  Still  another  was  that  the 
children  all  worked  at  the  neighbors'  as  soon  as  they 
were  big  enough  to  do  anything  at  all.  Still  another 
statement  v/as  that  their  only  real  poverty  was  in  re- 
spect to  clothes.  Now  we  have  but  to  add  two  or  three 
more  facts  to  get  the  whole  situation.  One  fact  is  that 
Mrs.  Dickerson  Harding,  mother  of  Warren,  went  out 
as  midwife  and  also  as  nurse  and  even  as  servant  fre- 
quently. A  second  is  that  the  George  Tryon  family  got 
their  little  farms  from  their  blood  kin  as  tenants.  A 
third  is  that  all  the  children  had  very  much  cut-down 
educations.  In  other  words,  the  father,  mother  and 
children  were  drifters  in  a  rich  countryside,  protected 
from  poverty  by  the  good  nature  of  all  their  neighbors 
and  by  the  pity  that  they  felt  for  a  white  woman  with 
a  black  husband,  so-called.  Of  course,  this  was  un- 
usual, though  there  were  many  negroes  about.  Mixed 
unions  were  not  the  common  thing.  Fifty  years  ago, 
more  than  half  of  the  Blooming  Grove  people  had  negro 
or  Indian  blood,  or  both. 

Another  of  the  pleasant  fictions  in  which  the  Re- 
publicans have  indulged  is  the  printing  of  the  alleged 
birthplace  of  Warren.  This  is  a  house  only  thirty 
years  old.  His  log  cabin  shack  was  burned  down  long 
ago.  Indeed  the  family  occupied  it  only  a  few  months, 
and  the  truth  is  that  his  mother  gave  him  birth  in  her 
own  bed  chamber  at  the  Dickerson  house,  for  at  this 
time  the  two  were  not  yet  living  in  a  home  together. 


72 

We  have  the  affidavit  from  the  present  Dickerson 
family  that  they  acquiesced  in  the  mating  solely  be- 
cause their  sister  was  pregnant  when  they  found  it  out 
that  she  intended  to  consort  with  this  negro  youth 
from  the  army. 

It  is  important  here  to  recall  that  of  the  more  than 
3,000,000  boys  in  blue,  no  less  than  275,000  were 
negroes,  and  no  less  than  700,000  were  foreign-born. 
Colored  men  and  boys  with  firearms  helped  to  whip  the 
Southern  whites,  who  did  not  arm  their  loyal  negroes. 

Mrs.  Harding  herself  often  said  that  she  "married" 
George  T.  only  because  he  wore  soldier  stripes  and 
blue. 

It  may  be  worth  while  to  take  the  picture  of  her  as 
she  is  portrayed,  first,  by  the  Republicans ;  second,  by 
her  neighbors ;  third,  by  the  photographer, 

Mrs.  Baker  says  that  she  was  tall  and  willowy,  with 
a  lovely  singing  voice,  and  very  industrious.  She  had 
light  brown  hair,  and  was  pale. 

The  neighbors  report  that  she  was  always  over- 
worked ;  that  she  did  not  have  very  much  interest  in 
anything  except  babies  and  sick  people;  and  that  she 
was  always  penniless.  They  say  that  she  was  very 
amiable. 

The  picture  of  her  that  has  come  down  shows  her 
at  forty  years  of  age,  with  very  dark  hair,  a  thin,  an- 
xious face,  and  poorly  dressed.  On  the  other  hand,  her 
children  are  fat  and  cheerful  in  their  early  pictures. 

Of  course,  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Harding  was  a  very  good 
woman,  but  having  poor  judgment;  else  she  would  not 
have  taken  up  with  this  imposter.  She  had  TEN  chil- 
dren and  was  as  good  a  mother  to  them  as  any  woman 
in  poverty  can  be. 

She  was  the  youngest  of  all  her  family,  their  pet; 
the  Dickersons  were  among  the  superior  people  of  the 
neighborhood,  far  above  the  Hardings.    Her  union  with 


73 

this  George  Tryon  was  a  heavy  blow  to  her  old  parents. 
It  came  when  she  was  twenty-one  years  old,  and  she 
was  wthout  anything  more  than  a  very  elementary 
rural  schooling.  Her  parents  and  her  mate  never  cared 
for  books ;  nor  did  she  make  a  reading  man  of  her  son, 
Warren. 

It  is  also  to  be  remembered  that  these  ten  children 
were  never  at  home  together.  Warren,  the  eldest,  had 
cut  loose  long  before  the  youngest  was  bom. 

There  are,  of  course,  hundred  of  stories  afloat  about 
how  the  President  of  the  United  States  behaved  when 
he  was  a  boy,  and  what  he  did.  These  are  not  of  the 
Lincoln  type.  There  are  no  stories  of  study  late  into 
the  night ;  or  of  kindness  to  animals.  They  are  indeed 
the  stories  of  a  people  who  were  crude  and  illiterate 
and  who  took  some  of  the  serious  things  of  like  as 
jokes.  One  Harding  himself  tells.  Once  when  he  was 
going  to  Grandfather  Harding's  to  spend  Thanksgiving 
with  them,  on  the  way  near  the  farmhouse  he  saw  the 
turkey  gobbler  that  was  to  be  the  piece  de  resistance 
for  the  repast,  and  he  threw  a  stone  and  killed  it.  His 
grandfather  could  not  find  the  bird,  and  they  had  to 
have  chicken  instead;  but  later  the  dead  fowl  was 
found  and  they  charged  Warren  with  the  killing.  This 
he  stoutly  denied  until  they  proved  it  on  him,  when  one 
and  all  took  the  affair  as  funny.  This  does  not  strike 
one  as  a  white  people's  way  of  dealing  with  such  a  mat- 
ter; and  when  one  looks  upon  the  face  of  Charles  A. 
Hfirding  in  his  daughter's  home  in  Blooming  Grove, 
one  does  not  take  the  face  for  that  of  a  pure  Caucasian, 
either. 

All  the  neighbors  report  that  Warren  was  very  dis- 
obedient when  a  child  and  had  to  be  soundly  thrashed 
by  one  or  the  other  parent ;  he  had  an  especially  violent 
temper.     Once  he  was  expelled  from  school,  and  the 


74 

teacher  would  not  take  him  back ;  but  the  family  moved 

to  another  farm,  and  he  started  on  again. 

The  peregrinations  of  these  George  Tryon  Hardings 
were  from  Blooming  Grove  to  Steam  Corners,  a  mile 
away ;  here  now  lives  the  very  aged  mother  of  his  motor 
car  chauffeur.  She  lives  a  widow  with  an  old  man  a 
widower.  This  old  woman  is  a  chair-bound  invalid  of 
large  size,  with  many  stories  to  tell  of  Warren,  whom 
she  tended  when  he  was  a  baby.  There  was  a  story 
diligently  circulated  by  the  Republicans  throughout 
Ohio  among  the  white  people  that  their  candidate  was 
born  in  Pennsylvania  and  was  not  a  Blooming  Grove 
man  at  all.  The  women  of  several  cities  still  believe 
this,  and  old  Mrs.  Blacksten,  which  is  the  name  of  this 
aged  woman,  was  furious  at  the  denial  that  this  par- 
ticular man,  for  whom  her  son  worked,  was  the  Repub- 
lican candidate  for  the  Presidency.  She  also  insisted 
that  she  had  often  seen  him  naked  and  that  he  was 
dark  like  all  the  Hardings.  But  on  this  point,  the  testi- 
mony of  all  was  unanimous. 

She  admitted,  as  did  all  the  Hardings,  that  there 
was  a  story  afloat  that  they  had  negro  blood ;  but  this 
did  not  interest  her.  Negroes  were  too  common  to 
disturb  her  peace. 

Another  story  is  that  when  Warren  was  about 
twelve  years  old  he  was  employed  to  do  some  field 
work  in  September;  he  was  to  get  fifty  cents  for  the 
day;  and  he  worked  just  five  minutes,  saying  then  that 
the  work  was  too  hard;  it  was  shucking  corn.  This 
story  is  told  by  the  son  of  the  farmer  who  employed 
Warren,  who  at  this  time  had  no  power  to  stick  to  any- 
thing. Perhaps  if  he  had  possessed  this  power,  he 
would  have  not  become  useful  to  the  Republican  pluto- 
crats later;  he  does  not  possess  much  pertinacity  even 
yet. 

The  rural  schools  lasted  about  five  months  in  Mor- 
row County  at  this  period,  and  Warren  went  to  them 


75 

until  he  was  fifteen  years  of  age,  though  he  was  not  a 
regular  pupil  in  attendance  nor  at  all  apt  in  his 
studies. 

From  Steam  Corners  he  went  to  New  Caledonia, 
where  there  still  live  many  persons  who  remember  his 
few  years  there  quite  well.  Two  of  them  run  the  bank 
there.  He  seldom  knew  his  lessons;  but  big  for  his 
age  and  hearty.  They  always  called  him  "Nigger,"  be- 
cause he  looked  so  black  when  wet  with  the  water  when 
they  went  swimming  together. 

At  Iberia  there  was  a  small  school  with  the  grand- 
iloquent name  "Ohio  Central  College."  This  name  has 
fooled  all  the  Republican  biographers  of  Warren,  who 
imagine  that  he  was  very  brilliant  and  got  into  col- 
lege at  fifteen  years  of  age.  These  people  do  not  know 
the  educational  history  of  Ohio,  and  they  mean  not  to 
learn  it. 

This  institution  was  founded  in  order  to  educate 
the  fugitive  slaves.  It  was  a  one-building  philanthropic 
affair  maintained  by  gifts  from  religious  people  in 
small  sums.  It  never  had  any  endowment.  The  whole 
affair  represented  an  investment  of  but  a  few  thousand 
dollars.  To  this  day,  a  college  can  be  founded  in  Ohio 
by  any  one  who  gets  $100,000  together.  Iberia  Col- 
lege never  saw  any  such  sum.  It  had  sometimes  two 
or  three  teachers,  some  times  four  or  five.  The  boys 
and  the  girls  had  to  room  out  where  they  could,  except 
such  as  did  manual  labor  for  their  tuitions,  for  whom 
there  were  provided  in  the  recitation  hall,  the  only 
building,  some  beds,  occupied  by  two  or  three  together. 
The  school  had  a  very  general  collection  of  studies. 
They  took  an  illiterate  and  gave  him  lessons  in  read- 
ing. They  took  a  big  boy  or  girl  who  wished  to  be- 
come a  rural  teacher  and  taught  him  some  United 
States  history  and  grammar  and  arithemetic.  This 
was  the  course  that  Warren  pursued.     In  all,  at  this 


76 

time  there  were  forty  or  fifty  young  persons  all  from 
the  neighborhood  going  to  Iberia  College.  There  were 
no  courses  such  as  the  title  indicates;  none.  Even  to- 
day, "a  business  college"  is  not  a  college. 

At  seventeen  years  of  age,  Warren  quit  this  school 
and,  according  to  his  own  statement,  went  to  teaching 
winters  and  to  doing  teamster's  work  summers;  and 
also  did  some  railroading.  Professor  Chancellor  and 
the  investigators  for  several  newspapers,  after  spend- 
ing several  weeks  upon  this  phase  of  the  matter  after 
the  election  was  over,  and  he  was  free  to  do  as  he 
pleased  with  their  help,  found  that  no  school  in  which 
Warren  ever  taught  could  be  located,  which  proves 
nothing,  because  many  rural  schools  have  been  burned 
down.  None  of  the  country  people  remembered  that  he 
ever  taught  school.  Nor  did  they  remember  that  he 
ever  did  any  teaming  in  that  neighborhood. 

What  was  found  was  that  in  this  period,  viz.,  while 
Warren  was  from  seventeen  to  nineteen  years  of  age, 
a  man  from  Morrow  County  named  Harding  served  in 
the  United  States  army,  but  deserted  in  the  very  years 
that  Warren  says  that  he  taught  school.  But  this  again 
proves  nothing,  for  there  were  hundreds  of  Hardings ; 
and  the  War  Department  has  declined  to  furnish  the 
evidence  on  the  ground  that  it  never  helps  to  incrimi- 
nate any  man. 

But  it  so  happens  that  when  Warren  was  seventeen 
years  of  age,  he  did  not  know  how  to  play  upon  any 
musical  instrument,  but  that  at  twenty  years  of  age, 
he  knew  several.  It  also  happens  that  he  has  a  very 
good  personal  knowledge  of  many  things  about  the 
army.  It  also  happens  that  he  hates  military  life  and 
is  a  pacifist.  All  this  proves  nothing.  A  physician 
who  had  occasion  to  administer  medical  treatment  to 
Warren  for  several  years  after  he  moved  there,  says 
that  Warren  had  a  mliitai  3'  way  with  him  and  gave 


77 

evidence  of  having  had  troubles  sometimes  associated 
with  military  life.  But  there  is  no  legal  evidence  on 
this  point. 

He  did  arrive  in  Marion  when  he  was  just  about 
twenty  years  of  age ;  he  went  there  to  join  his  father. 
The  next  five  years  are  all  within  the  evidence.  Many 
persons  have  written  them  up.  Jack  Warwick,  in  par- 
ticular, did  so  in  Republcan  newspapers;  he  had  been 
his  printing  partner  for  a  while. 

But  hundreds  of  persons  now  alive  in  Marion  and 
elsewhere  remember  this,  the  worst  period  of  Hard- 
ing's life. 

He  came  to  Marion  to  a  fiimily  hard  pressed  to  get 
food  and  shelter.  He  was  a  roustabout.  He  did  what- 
ever his  hands  could  find  to  do,  and  he  did  not  do 
these  things  well.  He  gave  no  evidence  to  anyone  of 
having  any  future. 

At  this  time,  Marion  was  undergoing  a  very  rapid 
industral  development ;  and  there  v/ere  many  strangers 
coming  into  the  city,  especially  foreigners  and  negroes. 
No  one  ever  then  thought  of  Warren  as  anything  else 
than  a  colored  man.    He  was  still  called  "Nig." 

He  did  not  take  up  any  regular  work,  did  not  try 
to  become  a  machinist  in  the  steel  works.  He  felt  out 
of  the  current.  But  he  had  plenty  of  muscular  strength, 
and  good  wits,  and  by  keeping  on  with  his  parents,  to 
whom  he  had  now  returned,  he  managed  to  get  along. 
He  was  a  persistent  frequenter  of  saloons  and  played 
all  the  familiar  games,  crap  included.  He  liked  to  go 
to  the  skating  rink,  and  get  in  with  the  various  girls. 

Marion  never  was  a  clean  city,  and  Warren  felt  at 
home  in  it  soon.  A  few  persons  were  making  fortunes 
in  it;  and  they  cared  nothing  whatever  save  for  their 
money. 

The  man  who  roomed  with  Warren  Harding  for  the 
two  years  that  he  spent  in  reviewing  the  elementary 


78 

courses  in  preparation  for  becoming  a  teacher,  himself 
a  pro-German  during  the  World  War,  as  he  now  insists, 
but  who  voted  against  him  all  the  same  in  November, 
1920,  explains  that  the  only  peculiarities  of  Warren 
during  the  two  years  that  he  knew  him  were  two :  He 
liked  to  talk  all  the  time  in  the  debates  that  the  boys 
had  and  to  give  declamxations  and  to  write,  though  no 
one  could  understand  what  he  had  to  say,  and  he  liked 
to  make  friends;  he  would  make  up  with  anyone.  He 
had  outgrown  the  childish  hot  temper  and  was  notably 
affable.  In  other  words,  the  higher  instinct  from  his 
superior  heredity  in  this  respect  were  getting  control. 

Now  this  explains  why  Warren  became  a  printer 
and  joined  with  two  partners  in  a  little  paper.  The  city 
had  one  paper,  which  was  successful;  but  the  Hard- 
ings  were  red-hot  Republicans,  as  why  should  not  all 
G.  A.  R.  negroes  be  Republican?  The  leading  paper 
was  Democratic. 

The  Republican  party  has  been  a  machine  for  ex- 
tracting more  than  a  hundred  million  dollars  every 
year  for  the  G.  A.  R.  pensions  out  of  the  ultimate  con- 
sumers for  the  benefit  of  the  protective  tariff  lords 
and  of  the  "old  soldiers."  It  set  free  the  negroes  and 
it  gave  to  them  the  franchise.  Negroes  belong  in  the 
Republican  party. 

The  problem  was  how  to  get  press  and  paper  to- 
gether and  get  out  a  daily  issue. 

Originally,  it  appears  that  the  Hardings  became  as- 
sociated with  this  fantastic  enterprise  in  the  following 
manner:  About  1884  from  a  small  printing  office  in 
Marion  was  occasionally  issued  a  small  paper  dubbed 
the  scandal  sheet  and  whose  proprietors  were  in  finan- 
cial straights.  J.  O.  Sickles,  with  a  little  money,  and 
Jack  Warwick  with  a  little  experience,  in  a  spirit  of 
venture,  took  over  the  plant.  As  natives  of  Caledonia 
they  knew  Warren  Harding,  who  at  this  time  was 


71) 

temporarily  working  on  the  Democratic  paper  of 
Marion.  He  also  had  a  little  experience  and  better  ac- 
quaintance in  Marion  and  having  nothing  else  to  offer 
him  to  join  them  in  the  enterprise,  Sickles  and  War- 
wick offered  him  a  third  interest  to  join  them  in  their 
shop.  So  the  arrangement  stood  until  Sickles  withdrew 
full  of  experience  but  lighter  in  pocketbook.  His  in- 
terest was  disposed  of  to  Dr.  George  Tryon  Harding 
for  promissory  note  and  several  vacant  lots  of  little 
value.  Eventually  the  note  was  paid,  which  accounts 
for  the  doctor's  claim  to  having  financed  the  enter- 
prise. The  doctor  admitted  his  inability  to  consider  the 
deal  for  cash. 

At  this  time  he  was  forty-three  years  old,  encum- 
bered with  a  little  real  estate  of  doubtful  value  and  the 
care  of  eigh  living  children,  a  ninth  and  middle  one  hav- 
ing died  just  previously  of  diphtheria,  under  his  per- 
sonal care.  The  oldest  man  of  the  group  was  Jack 
Warwick,  so  far  as  we  can  find  out.  Warren  set  type, 
wrote  news  and  fed  the  presses ;  occasionally  he  got 
advertisements.  Their  support,  small  as  it  was,  came 
from  three  sources — soreheads  against  the  Democratic 
daily,  bitter  partisan  Republicans,  and  persons  who 
sympathized  with  the  young  men.  They  were  bucking 
a  monopoly  at  a  time  when  Marion  had  some  ten 
thousand  people. 

What  with  paper  to  pay  for  even  at  the  then  low 
price  of  paper,  and  the  small  subscription  list,  and  very 
few  advertisers,  generally  the  week  showed  no  money 
to  distribute  for  the  livings  of  the  partners.  At  this 
time,  Warren  borrowed  money  from  friends — "hand- 
outs." There  are  persons  who  then  lived  in  Marion  and 
are  still  alive  who  say  to  this  day  Warren  has  never 
paid  them  back.  True  or  false,  such  is  his  reputa- 
tion.    We  have  explained  elsewhere  how,  with  this 


80 

reputation,  he  was  able,  in  1920,  to  get  a  large  major- 
ity of  the  votes. 

It  has  been  reported  that  the  change  in  the  original 
partnership  was  due  to  the  progressive  tendency  of 
Warren  and  the  disagreement  about  the  installment 
of  a  telephone  in  the  office,  but  his  partner  says  that 
the  change  was  due  to  financial  causes  of  which  one 
was  the  result  of  a  trip  by  Warren  to  Chcago,  taking 
with  him  $150  of  partnership  money  with  which  to 
secure  a  second-hand  press  for  the  shop. 

He  stayed  ten  days,  came  back  penniless,  without 
having  shipped  or  paid  for  the  press,  but  with  the  tale 
of  a  swell  time.  Jack  Warwick  then  undertook  the  trip 
with  complete  success,  at  less  cost  of  time  and  money. 
Not  long  after,  Sickles  left  the  business.  Whether  this 
or  Warren's  version  is  the  real  cause  of  Sickles  leav- 
ing, one  thing  is  true,  and  that  is,  that  Sickles  is  the 
man  who  started  Warren  G.  Harding  in  the  newspaper 
game. 

At  this  time  there  was  in  Marion  a  very  rich  man, 
said  to  have  been  at  the  time  the  richest  man  in  the 
little  city,  a  banker  named  Amos  Kiing,  His  age  was 
about  fiftyfive.  He  had  three  children,  two  sons  and 
a  daughter.  This  girl  had  united  herself  with  a  man 
named  Harry  de  Wolf,  but  she  did  not  take  the  situa- 
tion as  very  serious,  frequenting  the  skating  rink  of 
the  little  city  and  neglecting  her  one  child,  a  boy,  and 
this  mate.    What  we  here  report  is  a  court  record. 

So  flagrant  was  her  style  of  living  that  her  father 
would  have  nothing  to  do  with  her.  Unhappily,  her 
mother  was  dead. 

Harry  decided  to  get  an  annulment  of  the  mating. 
Each  set  up  a  date  when  an  alleged  wedding  took  place. 
Harry  set  a  date  that  showed  that  the  boy  was  bom 
soon  after  the  union;  while  Florence  set  up  a  much 
earlier  date.     In  he  court  on  the  show-down,  it  ap- 


81 

pearecl  that  there  had  never  been  any  wedding.  The 
court  would  not  even  construe  the  case  as  a  common 
law  marriage,  but  did  in  a  fashion  release  Harry,  who 
soon  after  married  and  went  to  Colorado,  where, 
after  begetting  two  more  children  who  concern  this 
record,  he  died.  He  claimed  he  got  tuberculosis  from 
drinking,  and  that  the  conduct  of  his  first  mate  drove 
him  to  drink. 

At  the  skating  rink  long  before  the  annulment  of 
the  relation  by  the  court,  Warren  became  acquainted 
with  Florence,  as  did  many  other  men.  Gradually,  in 
her  way,  but  with  inherited  thrift,  she  acquired  enough 
money  to  buy  a  house  of  her  own.  This  house  was  not 
given  to  her  by  her  father,  as  the  Republicans  falsely 
allege. 

Years  went  by.  Florence  Kling  de  Wolfe,  so-called, 
made  it  a  habit  to  spend  hours  every  day  at  the  print- 
ing shop,  often  publicly  caressng  Warren.  She  begged 
him  to  marry  her.  Warren  did  not  see  this  at  first; 
but  in  view  of  the  saving  of  rent,  he  did  take  her  as 
his  wife.  Kling  was  even  angrier  than  ever.  He 
bought  the  mortgage  on  the  building  rented  by  Warren 
and  his  partners  and  tried  to  force  them  out.  The  legal 
contests  resulting  are  a  part  of  the  common  gossip  of 
Marion  to  this  day.  Florence  Kling  became  business 
manager  of  the  paper  to  show  her  father  what  blood 
could  do.  She  never  went  to  his  house,  and  Warren 
was  forbidden  to  go  there. 

This  warfare  between  Amos  H.  Kling  and  his  son- 
in-law  and  daughter  is  what  made  each  of  them  what 
they  have  become.  To  fight  the  richest  man  of  a  city 
is  in  itself  a  course  that  creates  sympathy.  New  peo- 
ple came  in  who  did  not  remember  the  old  situation, 
and  who  would  not  believe  the  old  stories.  There  was 
no  sudden  reform  in  the  young  man  or  his  six-years'- 
older  wife;  but  they  had  a  fight  to  keep  alive,  to  get 


82 

I'ood  and  clothing.  Warren  never  ceased  to  frequent 
the  saloons  and  to  play  poker,  which  he  playec^  well 
enough  not  to  lose  money.  But  he  began  to  see  that 
work  is  a  necessity.  His  notion  that  Amos  would  re- 
lent and  give  money  to  his  daughter  died  out,  and  there 
grew  in  its  place  a  desire  to  show  the  old  man  that  he 
could  get  along,  without  him.  Florence  went  among 
the  bankers  and  borrov/ed  money  to  put  the  STAR  on 
its  feet.  They  sold  stock  on  the  co-operative  plan  to 
their  own  printers;  mostly  they  employed  women  and 
young  men ;  but  they  got  a  very  good  editor  named  Van 
Fleet.  And  the  Republicans,  needing  an  organ,  helped 
them  more  and  more. 

There  is  one  picture  given  by  Warwick  that  helps 
to  an  understanding  of  the  relations  of  Warren  to  the 
others.  Every  few  days  he  would  go  out  and  invest  a 
half  dollar  in  chewing  tobacco  that  he  tied  by  a  string 
to  a  post  in  the  composing  room,  and  he  and  the  others 
would  take  their  jacknives  and  whittle  off  a  piece  as 
long  as  it  lasted.  He  was  what  in  Ohio  they  call  "com- 
mon," meaning  that  he  was  just  like  the  other  fel- 
lows; he  "put  on  no  dog."  There  was  a  considerable 
income  from  job  advertising — circulars,  posters,  etc. — 
from  the  tradespeople,  theaters,  etc.  To  this,  Warren 
gave  much  personal  attention,  having  almost  nothing 
to  do  with  the  money  affairs  and  the  outer  office. 

Warwick  left  the  business  and  moved  on,  as  peri- 
patetic printers  will.  He  says  frankly  in  the  series  of 
articles  that  the  Republican  papers  ran,  that  he  had 
no  idea  that  Warren  Harding  would  ever  amount  to 
anything  or  ever  rise  to  great  heights. 

All  Ohio  people  talk  politics,  and  talk  it  most  of  the 
time.  Poker  games  are  a  very  common  scene  for 
political  plans.  Newspaper  offices  talk  politics.  These 
were  the  two  great  interests  of  Warren,  who  saw  so 


83 

much  of  his  wife  at  the  printing  shop  that  he  did  not 
bother  to  spend  his  evenings  with  her. 

About  the  time  when  Harry  de  Wolfe  died  in  Colo- 
rado, without  accomplishing  his  threat  to  kill  Warren 
before  he  did  go  himself,  and  the  time  when  the  one 
de  Wolfe  child  died,  who  had  been  born  to  Mrs.  Hard- 
ing (though  de  Wolfe  at  times  disputed  its  paternity, 
which  he  attributed  to  another  man,  however,  than 
Warren),  the  big  printer  conceived  the  notion  that  he 
would  like  to  get  some  of  this  easy  political  money. 

It  is  well  to  pause  here  and  consider  some  of  the 
peculiar  social  ideas  of  Ohio.  One  is  that  teachers, 
preachers  and  officeholders  belong  to  the  inferior 
classes.  There  are  but  few  States  in  which  these  three 
lines  are  held  in  as  deep  contempt  as  in  Ohio.  But  edi- 
tors were  considered  even  lower,  and  printers  still 
lower.  The  big  men  in  Ohio,  the  high-class  people,  are 
the  rich,  especially  the  bankers.  There  were  so  many 
colleges — seventy-five  at  this  time  used  the  name — 
that  educational  degrees  and  diplomas  were  at  a  dis- 
count. With  such  an  institution  as  Ohio  Central  Col- 
lege using  the  name  we  need  not  wonder  at  this.  Warren 
thought  that  a  political  office  would  get  him  some 
money,  and  he  desired  office  for  this  reason  alone. 

He  was  now  thirty-four  years  old — it  was  1899 — 
and  he  happened  to  live  in  a  senatorial  district  of  the 
State  where  the  Democrats  always  had  easy  pickings 
for  election,  but  where  the  Democratic  Senator  was 
about  through.  Few  Senators  served  over  two  or  three 
terms.  A  very  weak  man  was  being  put  up  by  the 
Democrats.  Warren  had  met  Daugherty,  and  he  now 
got  some  advice  from  him.  Daugherty  agreed  to  send 
out  some  fine  speakers  and  to  make  a  big  fight  for 
him.  Even  then  Daugherty  knew  that  Warren  was 
a  negro,  but  he  thought  that  for  this  very  reason,  if 


84 

Warren  should  win,  he  would  be  a  pliant  servant  for 
himself  in  the  Legislature. 

Warren  got  the  nomination  easilj^  and  all  the  Re- 
publicans anticpaled  that  he  would  be  thoroughly- 
licked,  of  course. 

The  Marion  district  lies  just  northwest  of  Colum- 
bus, the  home  of  Daugherty.  It  was  easy  to  send  out 
many  speakers.  One  more  Senator  for  Daugherty  at 
this  time  in  but  thirty-three  in  all  meant  a  lot  to  him 
in  his  fight  for  power.  Daugherty  was  then  forty 
years  old.  There  was  a  tremendous  fight,  but  it  was 
made  not  by  Warren  Harding,  but  by  old  Amos  Kling 
against  Daugherty  and  against  his  son-in-law  as  a 
nigger. 

Amos  was  then  about  seventy  years  old.  But  he 
jumped  into  the  fray  and  canvassed  every  county,  tak- 
ing several  men  with  him.  He  had  made  many  enemies 
by  refusing  loans  to  farmers.  He  was  not  a  good  pub- 
lic speaker.  Warren  was  kept  hidden  from  the  people 
who  had  never  seen  him  in  order  not  to  verify  the 
charge  that  he  was  colored.  He  spoke  only  where  he 
was  already  known.  The  people  were  told  that  the 
rich  man  was  "a  mean  old  thing,"  who  had  let  his 
daughter  go  to  work  and  would  not  help  her  in  her 
financal  troubles. 

Negroes  were  all  lined  up  sub  rosa  for  their  colored 
brother;  and  the  foreigners  were  told  to  vote  for  the 
poor  man  against  the  candidate  of  the  rich  man. 

The  election  was  close;  but  the  colored  man  won, 
as  colored  men  have  often  won  in  Ohio.  The  talk  of 
race  prejudice  was  worked  where  it  would  work,  and 
the  color  was  denied  wherever  that  seemed  advisable. 
The  result  was  that  Warren  Harding  was  put  on  the 
track  that  eventually  brought  him  to  the  White  House. 

His  nomination  for  Lieutenant  Governor  was 
brought  about  in  1904  in  much  the  same  way  and  he 


85 

was  carried  in  on  a  Republican  landslide  to  Roosevelt. 
Save  Warren  Harding  himself,  no  one  knows  just 
what  he  got  financially  out  of  these  six  years  of  office- 
holding  other  than  salary  and  mileage — the  total  of 
which  was  about  ten  thousand  dollars.  After  that  his 
connection  with  THE  STAR  was  not  taken  by  him 
very  seriously ;  he  did  some  work  as  a  printer,  but  in 
the  main  his  time  was  spent  in  scheming  to  get  into 
the  United  States  Senate.  He  ran  for  the  nomination 
several  times,  once  against  Daugherty  himself — in  or- 
der that  one  or  the  other  should  have  it.  Both  lost. 
But  the  Marion  newspaper  man  benefitted  in  indirect 
ways  by  all  this  political  publicity.  There  are  always 
interests  that  desire  newspaper  support,  and  he  was 
given  small  holdings  in  various  local  enterprises  for  his 
influence — including  a  brewery  and  a  bank.  The  total 
was  not  large,  but  it  was  all  on  the  right  side  of  the 
ledger. 

His  health  was  often  in  sour  condition  from  heavy 
di'inking  and  night  excesses.  Several  attacks  are 
known  to  have  occurred  of  delirum  tremens,  when  he 
was  taken  to  the  Marion  sanitarium  managed  by  Doc- 
tor C.  E.  Sawyer,  now  Admiral  of  the  United  States 
navy,  and  personal  attendant  upon  his  very  distin- 
guished patient. 

Let  no  person  imagine  that  THE  MARION  STAR 
was  a  great  money  maker.  The  Hardings  together 
have  never  entirely  owned  it.  There  have  been  other 
stockholders  and  heavy  debts.  It  is  improbable  that 
the  average  amount  of  money  available  to  the  Hard- 
ings from  the  property  from  1904  to  1920  has  been 
over  three  thousand  dollars  a  year;  and  it  is  very 
doubtful  whether  in  any  year  it  ever  has  earned  for 
them  over  five  or  six  thousand  dollars.  It  is  no  gold 
mine.    And  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  this  represents 


the  labor  of  Mrs.  Harding  rather  than  of  her  husband 
since  1899. 


87 

When  Amos  Kling  died  of  the  disappointment  in 
seeing  his  plans  to  ruin  his  son-in-law  defeated  and  to 
rid  himself  of  the  disgrace  of  having  such  a  person  in 
his  famly,  he  left  an  estate  of  over  a  million  dollars; 
but  not  one  dollar  to  them.  The  sentimental  race 
equalitarians  may  object  to  this.  Strangely  enough, 
he  made  some  provision  for  the  other  two  children  of 
poor  de  Wolfe,  not  much  but  enough  to  show  that  he 
had  a  warm  heart  after  all.  These  are  the  two  chil- 
dren whom  Harding  and  his  wife  in  one  interview 
claimed  as  their  own,  together  \^'ith  the  two  little  chil- 
dren of  one  of  these  two,  already  now  married,  but 
without  a  drop  of  Kling  or  Harding  blood. 

How  can  these  things  be? 

How  did  Jezebel  ever  get  to  be  Queen  over  Israel? 
How  came  Nero,  Caligula,  Galba,  Claudius  to  rule  in 
Rome?  How  did  Catherine  de  Medici  ever  get  her 
power?  How  did  it  happen  that  Aaron  Burr  was  once 
Vice-President  of  the  United  States? 

He  was  defeated  for  the  Presidency  itself  by  ONE 
VOTE. 

There  are  m.any  stories  told  of  how  seriously 
Kling  took  this  marriage  of  his  daughter  to  Warren 
Harding.  To  one  sheriff  of  a  county  in  the  district  he 
told  that  it  was  hell  just  to  be  alive  with  such  a  per- 
son closely  related  to  himself. 

A  man  who  had  been  a  business  associate  for  many 
years,  but  who  witnessed  the  wedding  of  the  two  (de- 
scribed by  Kling  in  unprintable  words),  was  ordered 
never  to  speak  to  him  again ;  and  shut  out  from  all 
loans  from  the  Kling  bank. 

Much  has  been  made  of  an  alleged  reconciliation  be- 
tween Warren  and  Kling.  The  facts  are  that  in  his 
extreme  old  age,  Kling  decided  to  marry  again;  and 
the  woman  whom  he  chose,  believed  that  his  hatred  for 
Florence  was  shortening  his  life.     She  persuaded  him 


88 

to  allow  his  daughter  to  come  to  see  him  occasionally. 

At  the  time  of  his  trip  to  Florida,  the  newspapers 
were  told  that  many  years  before  then,  Warren  had 
visited  Amos  Kling  in  his  Florida  home.  This  was  not 
Amos  Idling  at  all,  but  a  son  of  one  of  Kling's  brothers. 
And  it  was  not  a  visit  but  a  mere  afternoon  call  for 
a  few  minutes. 

Amos  Kling  had  no  Florida  home;  he  went  there 
several  times  to  stay  in  hotels. 

It  will,  of  course,  be  said  that  he  should  have 
brought  up  his  daughter  better ;  if  so,  she  would  never 
have  bought  Warren  Harding  for  a  husband ;  and  with- 
out her  to  pay  his  bills,  he  would  have  been  a  plain 
failure  and  soon  out  of  life  itself.  She  has  been  what- 
ever good  genius  he  has  had.  She  has  run  his  cam- 
paigns for  him,  and  she  has  written  the  best  speeches 
he  ever  read.  The  rise  of  Florence  Kling  will  remind 
students  of  history  of  Theodosia,  wife  of  Justinian,  and 
of  Catharine  de  Medici  in  their  origin  and  success. 

The  campaign  for  the  United  States  Senatorship 
in  1914  tells  the  inside  of  Ohio  politics.  Daugherty 
and  Harding  had  been  getting  in  bad  for  several  years ; 
1914  saved  them. 

Until  Judson  Harmon  became  Governor  of  Ohio 
and  Timothy  S.  Hogan  became  State  Attorney  General 
for  various  vicious  election  methods,  Ohio  had  nothing 
to  learn  from,  and  something  to  teach  to,  even  the 
Republican  Gas  Ring  in  Philadelphia. 

Hogan  now  has  a  law  office  from  which  he  can 
look  down  upon  the  State  Capitol  of  Ohio  in  Colum- 
bus ;  in  ability  and  character,  in  personality,  and  in  his 
actual  record  until  he  was  unhorsed  by  the  righteous- 
ness that  is  in  him,  he  is  one  of  the  best  men  Ohio 
or  any  other  State  has  ever  produced. 

We  hear  much  of  the  ignorance  of  the  country  folk 
in  the  Appalachians.    They  are  far  away  from  civiliza- 


89 

tion;  but  the  ignorance  of  many  country  folk  in  Ohio 
is  quite  as  dense.  They  read  no  papers ;  they  have  no 
books,  perhaps  not  even  a  Bible;  magazines  are  un- 
known to  them.  They  do  know  that  there  is  a  Govern- 
ment at  Washington,  but  its  relations  to  themselves 
are  unguessed  at.  They  do  not  understand  the  govern- 
ment even  of  Ohio.  One  such  county  was  Adams ;  not 
far  from  Cincinnati,  upon  the  Ohio  River.  Here  voters 
were  bought  not  "in  blocks  of  five"  as  in  the  old  days 
of  1880  in  Indiana,  but  wholesale;  everyone  sold  his 
vote.  This  county  was  not  the  only  offender;  but  it 
was  one  of  the  worst.  Into  this  county  Attorney  Gen- 
eral Hogan  went  and  punished  those  who  had  broken 
the  Ohio  Corrupt  Practice  Act,  the  convicted  offenders 
include  both  the  bribers  and  the  bribed.  By  it  no  one 
can  legally  talk  about  politics  within  a  certain  pre- 
scribed distance  of  the  polling  booth.  And  only  the 
regularly  appointed  officers  can  help  even  a  blind 
man  to  vote. 

By  convicting  and  securing  the  punishment  of  some 
hundreds  of  persons,  Hogan  made  himself  hated  by 
politicians  of  all  parties.     He  exposed  too  much. 

In  addition,  he  is  a  very  brilliant  speaker,  and  many 
leaders  hated  him  as  being  far  abler  than  themselves. 

And  he  is  a  Roman  Catholic,  There  is  a  notion 
in  some  parts  of  Ohio  that  a  Roman  Catholic  is  a 
good  deal  worse  than  an  infidel  or  an  atheist.  In  some 
parts  of  Ohio  it  is  taught  to  the  children  that  even 
an  Episcopalian  is  a  Catholic  and  an  enemy  of  the 
Republic.  To  be  a  Roman  Catholic  Democrat  is  to 
arouse  a  fury  of  resentment  in  some  persons  who  pro- 
fess to  be  disciples  of  Jesus  Christ.  But  the  Democrats 
decided  to  risk  the  United  States  Senatorial  campaign 
in  Ohio  all  the  same  upon  this  glorious  apostle  of 
honest  government;  and  Daughertj^  accepted  the  chal- 
lenge by  running  Warren  G.  Harding  against  him.     It 


90 

looked  to  many  as  though  Warren  was  in  for  another 
defeat;  but  what  with  the  anti-Catholics,  the  wets,  the 
G.  A.  R.,  the  negroes,  the  politicians  of  both  parties, 
the  hide-bound  high-tariff  and  stand-pat  Republicans, 
the  race-sentimentalists  who  believe  in  race-equality 
provided  it  does  not  concern  their  own  daughters, 
Daugherty  proved  to  be  the  better  guesser,  and  Warren 
Harding  went  in  in  the  off-year 

In  commenting  upon  this  result,  Professor  William 
Estabrook  Chancellor,  the  white  man,  not  the  colored 
man  named  William  Chancellor  who  worked  for  the 
Republicans,  said  in  a  letter  to  one  of  his  friends  in 
New  England:  "You  say  that  the  election  of  Hard- 
ing as  Senator  proves  that  he  cannot  have  any  negro 
blood.  Just  how  you  figure  this  out  I  cannot  under- 
stand. You  are  a  Republican  and  in  politics.  Suppose 
that  a  brilliant  Roman  Catholic  attorney,  who  hates 
corporations  when  they  are  dishonest,  had  shown  up 
your  party  to  the  tune  of  several  hundred  bribers  and 
bribed,  would  you  have  voted  for  him  or  for  a  colored 
man  who  was  loyal  to  your  party?  You  are  yourself 
a  rabid  race-equalitarian.  You  belong  to  the  people 
who  voted  to  give  the  franchise  to  the  negro  because 
your  fathers  voted  for  Charles  Sumner.  There  are 
400,000  negroes  in  Ohio.  Would  you  have  played  them 
double  in  this  case?  I  judge  not.  What  the  vote  for 
Harding  proved  was  not  that  he  has  no  colored  blood, 
but  that  a  majority  of  Buckeyes,  of  whom  I  am  one  by 
birth,  and  two  generations  of  forefathers,  like  a  com- 
placent, convenient  black  Republican  tool  better  than 
a  fine-spirited  white  Democrat;  and  it  proves  nothing 
else." 

They  now  have  their  black  man  in  the  White  House, 
and  after  a  while  they  will  learn  what  this  means. 
That  light  house  will  prove  to  be  a  track  combers  lure. 

It  is  a  curious  thing  that  in  every  group  photograph 


91 

ever  taken  where  Warren  appears  he  has  shown  the 
deepest  color.  This  was  commented  upon  even  in 
1914 — what  does  it  mean?  When  a  person  has  negro 
color  it  shows  in  photographs  because  they  register 
depth  of  pigmentation.  There  is  no  way  to  avoid  this 
except  to  be  skinned  and  have  a  new  skin  grafted  on. 

It  was  about  1906  when  he  left  the  Lieutenant 
Governship  that  Warren  Harding  began  seriously  to 
try  to  get  rid  of  the  story  that  he  has  colored  blood. 

Then  also  his  father  began  to  show  some  spirit  in 
the  matter.  But  when  Warren  arrived  in  Washington, 
he  met  there  in  the  Senate  several  men  who  knew 
the  truth.  One  by  one  he  took  them  aside  and  asked 
them  to  keep  the  matter  quiet,  admitting  its  truth. 
One  such  was  Senator  Atalee  Pomerene,  who,  however, 
has  told  many  persons  about  the  affair.  Pomerene 
has  now  given  out  that  he  will  not  run  again  in  1922 
for  the  United  States  Senatorship  from  Ohio.  He  can- 
not stomach  the  notion  of  serving  in  the  Senate  under 
a  negro  President. 

There  are  many  stories  about  this  consciousness 
that  they  are  now  playing  a  part,  both  father  and  son. 

In  1905,  there  was  preaching  in  Marion  a  man  who 
is  still  a  preacher,  but  now  located  elsewhere  with  both 
Republicans  and  Democrats  in  his  congregation.  This 
good  man  reports  that  one  evening  in  the  year  cited. 
Doctor  George  Tryon  Harding  told  his  wife,  in  a  con- 
versation not  sought  by  her  upon  a  public  street  corner, 
that  because  he  was  a  negro,  he  found  it  hard  to  make 
a  living,  and  asked  her  to  ask  her  husband  to  recom- 
mend h*m  to  the  people  of  their  church.  A  very  close 
relative  of  this  preacher,  then  and  now  living  in 
Marion,  says  that  the  wife  reported  this  to  her,  and 
that  she  saw  Doctor  George  Tryon  Harding  soon  there- 
after and  that  he  admitted  saying  this,  and  asked  her 
for  help.    At  this  time,  his  oldest  son  was  Lieutenant 


92 

Governor,  and  a  daughter  was  teaching  in  the  Marion 
High  School,  where  she  still  teaches. 

When  Professor  Chancellor  went  first  to  Marion, 
on  the  errand  of  trying  to  find  out  the  record  of  this 
man — he  has  often  given  public  addresses  there — five 
high  school  boys,  all  of  the  same  car,  told  him  that 
they  always  called  Harding  a  "nigger,"  and  his  sister 
also.  One  of  these  boys  was  himself  a  negro,  and  he 
was  the  only  one  among  them  who  was  not  wearing 
a  Cox  button.  As  we  have  seen,  Marion,  however,  went 
for  Harding;  and  we  have  given  the  reasons. 

Yet  the  Republican  Board  of  Education  and  City 
School  Superintendent  have,  since  the  election,  named 
the  city  high  school,  the  Harding  High  School,  and 
thereby  insulted  all  the  white  youth  in  attendance; 
they  have  done  more  than  this — they  have  forbidden,  in 
what  was  once  free  America,  their  teachers  to  discuss 
the  politics. 

It  is  perfectly  safe  to  predict  that — 

1.  The  name  of  the  Harding  High  School  will  be 
changed  soon. 

2.  This  order  for  silence  will  be  rescinded  soon,  for 
it  is  not  only  infamous,  but  is  also  detractive  to  the  Re- 
publicans themselves.  It  so  happens  that  there  is  on 
the  Marion  (Harding)  High  School  staff  a  woman 
who  was  Chairman  of  the  Marion  County  Democratic 
Committee,  and  who  in  that  capacity  made  speeches 
about  the  League  of  Nations ;  of  course,  she  knew  the 
truth  about  the  color  of  the  Hardings,  and  she  told  it. 
The  order  forbidding  her  to  talk  politics  was  passed 
after  the  election.  Next  time,  the  women  of  Mai-ion 
County  will  vote  Democratic  because  that  order  inter- 
feres WITH  THE  GOD-GIVEN  RIGHT  0?^  ALL 
WOMEN  TO  TALK. 

Of  course,  this  order  is  contrary  to  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States. 


So  was  the  order  to  seize  and  destroy  the  manu- 
scripts of  Professor  Chancellor. 

Let  the  Republicans  fill  up  the  cup  of  their  in- 
iquity; they  Vv'iU  drink  it  themselves.  Like  Haman, 
they  have  built  a  gallows  upon  which  they  themselves 
will  be  hung  until  they  are  dead,  as  dead  as  the  Whig 
and  Federalist  parties. 

There  lives  in  Marion  a  native-born  old  man,  who 
has  been  a  judge  of  court,  a  cripple  and  an  invalid  in 
his  old  age. 

After  the  election,  getting  a  six-foot  young  pro- 
German,  with  a  German  name,  to  help  him,  Doctor 
George  Tryon  Harding,  cane  in  hand,  on  a  public  street 
attacked  this  old  man  because  he  told  exactly  what 
the  Black  Republicans  had  been  paid  to  tell  other  Black 
Republicans  that  the  Hardings  are  niggers.  This  was 
fully  reported  in  the  newspapers,  even  the  Republican 
ones,  which  took  great  delight  in  the  anecdote. 

But  it  made  Democratic  votes  all  the  same.  1922 
and  1924  Vv-ill  show  a  come-back. 

Suppose  that  the  Republicans  could  silence  free 
speech  in  America,  as  they  have  gagged  the  press  v/ith 
money.  Where  would  their  own  children  come  in? 
You  can  stop,  let  our  Republican  neighbors  understand 
this,  free  public  speech;  but  you  can  never  stop  mouth- 
to-ear  gossip  and  slander;  but  can  you  stop  sub  rosa 
pamphlets  ?  Try  it  and  see.  What  tyrants  have  failed 
to  do,  the  plutocracy  will  quickly  fail  in  trying  to  do. 

A  gang  of  Republicans  at  night  entered  the  office 
of  a  rich  old  Democrat  in  Marion  and  stole  all  his 
papers.  He  had  been  corresponding  with  other  free 
Americans  about  the  negro  ancestry  of  Warren  Hard- 
ing. Cannot  the  Democrats  retaliate?  Where  is  this 
crime  going  to  end? 

Old  Doctor  George  Tryon  Harding,  everyone  of 
whose  neighbors  resents  his  presence  on  their  street, 


94 

in  his  interview  with  McClure's  Magazine  ended  the 
stuff  by  saying  that  he  had  some  scores  to  settle 
with  those  who  have  been  lying  about  him.  He  him- 
self told  one  of  the  richest  Republican  women  in  the 
city  that  he  knew  that  he  had  negro  blood  and  that 
some  people  said  that  he  had  Indian  blood.  This  same 
admission  was  made  many  times  in  the  presence  of 
former  business  partners  of  Warren.  For  what  is  he 
seeking  Indian  revenge?  In  order  himself  to  be  am- 
bushed some  night  and  taken  away  to  some  remote 
cave  for  a  few  years?    You  reap  what  you  sow. 

Truth  is  that  the  Republicans  are  sowing  the  wind, 
and  that,  of  course,  they  must  reap  the  whirlwind. 

Already  old  Mrs.  George  M.  Pullman  has  died  of 
the  shame  of  the  discovery  that  she  spent  two  mil- 
lion dollars  trying  to  get  her  son-in-law  chosen  for  the 
Republican  nomination.  Half-Indian  Jake  L.  Hamon 
is  dead  in  the  same  horrible  mess.  Where  is  this  Re- 
publican horror  to  end?  They  are  inviting  the  wrath 
of  God. 

What  James  I.  could  not  kill;  what  cost  Charles  I. 
his  head;  this  is  the  spirit  of  liberty.  For  this  Peter 
Zenger,  in  1735,  made  his  fight  in  New  York,  for  the 
right  to  find  and  speak  the  truth  in  the  fear  of  the 
Almighty  only. 

Nevertheless  pressed  by  his  ambitions  and  by  his 
brunet-aged  wife,  Warren  Harding  has  been  trying  to 
convince  himself  that  he  has  too  little  negro  blood  to 
count.  He  is  too  ignorant  to  know  that  THE  PAST  IS 
ADAMANT.     It  takes  a  dull  man  to  try  to  change  it. 

In  this  fierce  struggle  in  his  mind,  WaiTen  went, 
in  1915,  to  Washington.  He  was  absent  in  the  next 
five  years  from  1300  roll  calls  for  votes.  He  voted  wet 
when  he  did  vote,  and  he  voted  anti-suffrage.  He  made 
very  few  speeches,  none  of  them  long.  Every  time  the 
tariff  was  mentioned  he  showed  some  interest.  There 


95 

are  several  reasons  for  this.  He  stopped  what  little 
schooling  he  has  experienced  when  he  was  seventeen 
years  old,  an  epoch  when  the  school  world  was  under 
the  control  of  high  protective  tariff  teachers;  and  he 
has  learned  nothing  since.  The  other  reason  is  that 
the  manufacturers  of  Marion  are  high  protective  tariff 
men,  and  own  the  banks  also ;  he  has  always  catered  to 
them  in  THE  STAR.  That  is  why  THE  STAR  exists. 
Every  negro  desires  a  master.  He  reverences  the 
man  who  can  tell  him  what  is  what  and  how  to  do  it; 
he  never  asks  why;  that  is  too  much  for  his  type  of 
brain  tissue.  Who  has  financed  his  political  cam- 
paigns anyway? 

No  poorer  record  was  ever  made  in  the  United 
States  Senate  by  a  man  serving  five  and  a  half  years 
than  was  made  by  this  man ;  he  was  merely  a  creature 
of  his  creators,  and  not  a  good  one  in  some  ways  at 
that.  But  he  looked  well,  and  he  prevented  a  free 
trade  Democrat  from  filling  the  place  and  the  news- 
papers also  with  his  arguments. 

While  much  more  might  be  told  in  detail  of  the 
record  of  Hardng  until  the  political  campaign  of  1920, 
there  is  nothing  worth  telling  beyond  more  corrobora- 
tion of  the  main  point.  He  was  in  training,  severe 
training  for  the  business  of  doing  just  what  his  mas- 
ters of  the  plutocracy  were  to  tell  him  as  President 
to  do. 

There  were  fully  fifty  thousand  negroes  in  New 
England  at  the  time  when  the  Hardings  say  they  moved 
out  of  Connecticut.  Many  other  negroes  also  moved 
out. 

There  are  still  negroes  and  Indians  of  almost  pure 
blood  living  in  Caucasian  clothes  and  according  to  Cau- 
casian manners  in  New  England.  Proving  (?)  that 
they  came  from  New  England  does  not  prove  that  the 


»6 

Harding  blood    is   all   white.      They   evidently   know 
nothing-  of  New  England. 

It  is  quite  possible  that  the  Harding  pose  is  a  com- 
bination of  Indian  chief  and  Ethiopian  chief  also.  It 
worked  beautifully  in  the  Presidential  campaign  of 
1920.    As  it  had  also  worked  in  the  Senate. 


CHAPTER  IX 
RACES  OF  MANKIND 

It  is  wicked  to  assert  the  equality  of  men  or  of 
races. 

The  glory  of  men  is  in  that  all  differ — one  star 
differeth  from  another. 

It  is  wicked  to  desire  the  amalgamation  of  all  races ; 
and  only  the  unscientific  imagine  that  this  will  ever 
come  to  pass  in  America. 

Climates  vary  too  much;  the  original  germ  plasms 
differ  too  much.  Ideas  differ  too  much.  Abilities  to 
make  livings  and  other  adjustments  to  one  another  and 
to  the  earth  differ. 

The  man  who  believes  that  ultimately  all  Ameri- 
cans will  be  light  saffron  :v  ellow  knows  nothing  of  his- 
torical anthropology. 

The  differences  between  men  and  the  races  of  men 
concern  everything  that  man  is. 

Men  have  different  gods;  they  have  different 
brains,  different  skins,  different  sense,  powers,  differ- 
ent instincts. 

The  wickedness  consists  in  denying  the  truth ;  it 
consists  also  in  asking  one  man  to  do  something  be- 
cause other  men  can  do  it.  It  relieves  the  great  and 
strong  from  doing  what  they  should  do  for  the  lesser. 
It  is  thoroughly  unchristian. 

There  are  many  races,  and  the  men  of  each  race  dif- 
fer from  one  another. 

There  are  in  America  representatives  of  every  race 
and  hybrids  of  them  all. 

The  so-called  white  race  consists  of  brunets  and 

f7 


98 

blonds  and  gfi'ades  between — the  melanchroics,  the 
xanthrochroics,  and  the  grades. 

All  whites  have  thin  skins  and  can  blush;  that  is, 
their  blood  cells  fill  up  and  make  them  redder  upon 
the  moment  when  there  are  strong  emotions  of  cer- 
tain kinds. 

Negroes  cannot  blush ;  nor  can  Indians.  This  does 
not  mean  that  they  do  not  feel  shame;  but  that  they 
do  not  show  it  uncontrollably. 

The  true  negroes  are  all  black  or  brown.  The  true 
Indians  are  all  reddish  brown. 

There  is  a  typical  negro  head  shape.  There  is  a 
typical  white  head  shape.  There  is  a  typical  red  head 
shape  for  the  Indians.  No  pure  negro  has  a  head 
shaped  like  the  head  of  any  white  man;  the  same  is 
true  of  the  Indian. 

In  America,  there  aie  very  few  true  negroes ;  nearly 
all  negroes  have  Portugese  or  Spanish  blood,  for  the 
sufficient  reason  that  the  slave  traders  saw  to  it  that 
every  negress  who  came  into  America  had  a  half -white 
child,  white  in  the  sense  that  the  Moor  or  Portugese 
or  Spaniard  is  white.  This  is  all  well  told  in  the 
book  on  the  Slave  Trade  by  a  great  negro  named  W.  E. 
Burghardt  Du  Bois,  who  has  negro,  French,  German, 
Portuguese  and  Dutch  blood.  Only  five  per  cent  of 
city  negroes  are  all  negro;  and  in  the  rural  districts 
the  proportion  does  not  rise  above  twenty-five  per  cent 
anywhere. 

To  say  in  America  that  any  colored  man  is  all  black 
is  a  very  risky  thing  so  far  as  the  truth  is  concerned ; 
he  probably  has  at  least  some  white  blood  of  the  brunet 
stocks,  if  not  of  the  blond  stocks. 

The  typical  negro  head  is  relatively  long,  often 
fully  eight  and  a  half  inches  long.  The  white  man 
seldom  has  a  head  over  seven  and  three-quarters  inches 
long.    The  negro  sometimes  has  a  head  even  a  half-inch 


&9 

longer,   while   such   a  head   is  very,  very   uncommon 
among  white. 

The  typical  negro  head  is  relatively  not  of  large 
measure  from  the  ear  entrances  over  the  forehead ;  sel- 
dom more  than  thirteen  inches ;  most  of  them  measure 
but  twelve  inches. 

The  white  man's  head  is  usually  fourteen  inches  in 
this  measurement. 

The  negro  has  a  low  crown;  his  head  seldom 
measures  over  the  crown  from  the  ear  to  entrance 
over  thirteen  inches. 

The  white  man  seldom  goes  under  fourteen,  and 
often  rises  to  fifteen  and  a  half. 

The  negro  has  a  large  measurement  over  the  back 
head  at  its  greatest,  often  fourteen  inches;  while  the 
white  man  seldom  goes  above  this. 

Under  the  back  head  of  the  negro  measures  entirely 
different  from  the  white  man ;  he  has  little  or  no  lobes. 
His  back  head  comes  to  a  peak  in  the  level  of  the  ears. 
The  white  man  has  a  square  or  round  back  head.  Look 
at  Warren  Harding,  side  view. 

Here  the  negro  comes  to  about  nine  inches,  while 
the  white  man  goes  to  ten. 

This  peak  is  unmistakable. 

Theodore  Roosevelt  was  mainly  Dutch  and  Kelt, 
partly  Huguenot  French. 

The  friends,  so-called,  of  Warren  Harding  claim 
that  he  is  also  French,  Dutch  and  Kelt-Scotch.  Take 
their  two  faces,  the  two  front  views,  their  two  side 
views,  and  see  which  is  the  truth. 

No  one  imagines  that  Warren  Harding  is  a  black 
or  even  a  brown  negro.  He  has  china  blue  white  eyes ; 
his  flatterers  call  them  gray. 

These  eyes  are  set  deep  in  caverns  under  the  eye- 
brows and  this  by  analogy  is  not  a  human  compliment. 


100 

There  is  typical  negro  body  pose, 
view  of  Warren  Harding. 


Look  at  the  side 


PRESIDENT   WARREN   GAMALIEL   HARDING 


In  a  social  study  more  recently  of  Washington  city 
negroes  and  colored  men,  it  was  found  that  only  one 
in  eight  is  self-supporting;  the  other  seven  live  upon 
women,  their  mothers,  their  wives,  their  sisters,  even 
their  grandmothers  and  daughters. 


101 

Of  these  self-supporting  city  negroes,  very  few  are 
self-directing,  and  he  has  never  supported  his  wife. 

The  buck  nigger  does  not  support  any  one  else  even 
when  he  works. 

It  is  when  one  gots  into  the  psychic  life  that  one 
realizes  the  differences  between  races  and  the  indi- 
viduals within  the  same  race. 

Take  the  dominant  traits. 

The  dominant  of  the  red  man  is  revenge.  An- 
other powerful  trait  inclination  to  do  as  he  pleases. 
But  at  home  his  squaw  rules  him,  and  hoes  the  com 
in  the  garden  while  he  hunts  beasts  and  men.  Why 
does  Warren  Harding  call  his  wife  the  Duchess 

Pride  and  vanity  consume  alike  the  black  man  and 
the  red  man ;  each  must  save  his  face  from  the  shame 
of  the  kinds  he  understands.  Each  is  a  consummate 
actor ;  each  is  forever  on  the  masquerade  in  public. 

To  work  like  a  nigger  means  only  to  work  hard 
under  the  lash.  All  blacks  and  all  reds  hate  work.  A 
humble  delight  in  work  is  a  trait  reserved  to  the  yellow 
man  rvd  cl:<e  white  man. 

Very  few  white  men  have  either  pride  or  vanity; 
so  ra'^'c  are  these  traits  in  white  men  that  one  always 
notice?  and  remarks  them  when  present  in  individuals, 
and  marks  them  with  scorn. 

The  negro,  especially  the  colored  man,  loves  words ; 
he  is  musical  and  loves  the  sound  of  long  words,  espe- 
cially those  with  "r"  and  "1"  in  them.  But  he  does 
not  understand  the  meaning  of  words.  One  has  but  to 
read  the  writings  and  speeches  of  Warren  Harding  to 
see  that  he  knows  no  grammar,  has  no  rhetoric  and 
uses  words  for  their  mellifluousness,  not  for  their 
meanings.  His  message  to  Congress  on  April  11,  fully 
illustrates  this.  For  instance,  the  impossible  use  of 
derive,  where  he  spoke,  using  derive  intransitively, 
without  any  object. 


102 

1.  "The  remaining  obstacles  which  are  the  inherit- 
ance of  capitalistic  exploitation  must  be  removed  and 
labor  must  join  management  in  understanding  that  the 
public  which  pays  *  *  *" 

2  «<=::  *  *  ^jjg  public  to  derive  and  simple  justice 
is  the  right  and  will  continue  to  be  the  right  of  all  the 
people." 

3.  "The  staggering  load  of  war  debt  must  be  cleared 
for  ordinarily  funding  and  gradual  liquidation.  We 
shall  hasten  the  solution  and  aid  effectively  in  lifting 
tax  burdens  if  we  strike  resolutely  an  expenditure." 

4.  "Less  of  government  in  business  as  well  as  more 
business  in  government." 

5.  "There  is  no  challenge  to  honest  and  lawful  busi- 
ness success,  but  government  approval  of  untrammelled 
business  does  not  mean  toleration  of  restraint  of  trade 
or  on  maintained  prices  by  unnatural  methods." 

We  submit  here  a  few  gems  from  the  message  of 
Warren  Harding  to  Congress  when  it  met  in  special 
session  in  April.  These  are  all  taken  from  a  single  part 
of  this  very  important  document,  which  one  Massa- 
chusetts Congressman  pronounced  as  the  splendid  ut- 
terance of  our  great  chief,  the  President,  Allen  T. 
Treadway. 

1.  What  the  great  President  meant  by  the  first  sen- 
tence is  known  only  to  himself.  What  are  the  people 
to  "derive?" 

2.  Since  when  did  the  grammarians  permit  "ordi- 
narily" to  be  used  as  an  adjective  modifier? 

3.  What  is  it  "to  strike"  resolutely  an  expenditure? 

4.  What  is  this,  a  sentence  ? 

5.  The  last  sentence,  like  the  first,  is  a  meaning- 
less jumble  of  words. 

One  can  now  tell  an  original  production  by  Hard- 
ing; it  is  a  collection  of  more  or  less  melodious  words 


103 

that  have  no  content,  no  grammar,  and  no  rhetorical 
propriety. 

The  dominant  trait  of  a  white  man  is  love  of  his 
own  family,  especially  of  his  wife  and  children,  but 
also  of  his  parents  and  other  near  blood  kin. 

Another  very  strong  trait  of  the  white  man  is 
prudence,  far-sightedness. 

Still  another  is  a  genuine  love  of  truth.  He  will 
work  to  find  the  truth,  the  facts,  the  principles,  for 
the  mere  sake  of  knowing  them. 

The  white  man  loves  industry  itself;  he  enjoys 
work. 

He  loves  property;  and  keeps  all  that  he  can  of 
what  he  makes. 

He  pities  the  poor,  the  sick,  the  unforunate. 

One  has  but  to  think  of  the  negro  and  of  the  In- 
dian in  these  terms  to  see  how  wide  apart  the  races  of 
men  are.    Neither  knows  pity. 

There  is  even  a  difference  in  respect  to  their  sex 
life — all  men  have  more  or  less  lust.  But  with  the 
white  man  it  results,  in  nearly  all  cases,  in  a  passion 
to  possess  one  woman  and  to  support  her  publicly — to 
own  her  through  her  affections. 

The  white  man  who  is  typical  will  not  marry  an 
unchaste  woman.  He  may  be  terribly  selfish  about 
this,  but  it  is  his  race-instinct  that  makes  him  feel  so. 

We  hear  veiy  much  about  the  enormous  amount  of 
divorce  in  America;  but  the  common  facts  are  these: 
It  is  possible  to  go  into  whole  churches  and  into  whole 
villages  and  not  to  discover  among  all  the  people  there 
a  single  case  of  divorce  or  adultery. 

It  is  sometimes  urged  that  everywhere  there  is  vice 
but  that  in  some  such  groups  this  is  hidden;  this  is 
pure  cynicism. 

While  the  white  man  is  not  universally  chaste  be- 
fore marriage,  he  is  seldom  unchaste  after  marriage. 


104 

Other  traits  might  be  enumerated  to  distinguish 
the  pure  races  by  typical  individuals. 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  there  are  no  pure  races. 
The  anthropologists  know  the  truth.  There  are  in 
America  entire  families  all  of  whose  children  will  have 
within  an  eighth  of  an  inch  in  every  measurement  ex- 
actly the  same  style  of  head,  boys  and  girls  alike. 

Here  it  should  be  remembered  that  red  and  black 
Kelts  are  twins,  the  hair  color  being  a  mere  trick  of 
old  MOTHER  NATURE. 

Anthropologists  have  taken  many  measurements, 
even  of  first  cousins,  to  find  that  they  are  almost 
identically  alike. 

Where  children  in  the  same  family  differ  radically, 
there  is  evidence  of  hybrid  origin.  Here  again  it  must 
be  remembered  that  national  poltical  names  are  mean- 
ingless. There  is  not  the  slightest  difference, 
anthropologically,  between  a  German  Saxon  and  Eng- 
lish Saxon;  or  between  a  German  Wurttemberger  and 
an  English  Angle,  for  these  are  the  same  people  in  dif- 
ferent habitats,  slightly  different,  not  enough  to  modify 
the  body  or  the  mind. 

The  Keltic  Pole  is  exactly  the  same  as  the  Rhenish 
Kelt  and  the  Irish  also. 

Anthropology  cuts  under  governments  to  realities. 

Now  when  one  comes  to  investigate  a  large  fam- 
ily such  as  the  Harding  kin  numbering  now  almost  or 
quite  one  thousand  descendants  of  old  Amos  Harding, 
one  discovers  that  he  is  dealing  with  mongrels,  with 
hybrids  with  mestizoes. 

This  is  apparently  a  hateful  thing  to  say;  but  the 
people  who  started  it  were  the  Republicans  who  set  out 
to  organize  eveiy  new  woman  colored  voter  for  their 
man,  on  the  ground  that  he  had  negro  blood.  Other- 
wise, it  would  never  have  reached  the  ears  of  the 
scientists. 


You  cannot  eat  your  cake  and  have  it ;  the  price  of 
the  vast  negro  vote  is  white  investigation. 

When  the  tissue  sheets  prepared  by  the  Republicans 
first  went  out,  and  the  news  reached  New  England, 
those  provincials  imagined  that  William  Chancellor, 
Professor  of  Political  Economics,  Wooster  College, 
which  is  the  exact  way  that  some  of  the  sheets  read, 
was  asserting  that  some  Harding  white  man  had  vio- 
lated race  ethics  by  perpetrating  a  white  child  upon 
an  unfortunate  negro  wench.  As  we  have  said  before, 
the  name  of  the  Professor  of  Politics  who  had  been 
also  Professor  of  Economics  at  the  College,  was  Wil- 
liam Estabrook  Chancellor,  and  the  real  Chancellor 
who  got  out  (or  in  whose  name  these  sheets  were  got- 
ten out)  was  a  black  negro  in  the  Harding  district. 
But  to  proceed  to  the  facts.  This  black  negro  desired 
every  one  to  know  that  all  the  Hardings  were  black; 
that  there  was  no  "bar  sinister"  about  it;  that  this 
Warren  Harding  belonged  to  his  race  just  as  he  him- 
self did,  and  that  they  were  all  Republicans  from  boy- 
hood up. 

When,  contrary  to  his  desire,  William  Estabrook 
Chancellor  became  involved  in  this  because  he  would 
not  lie  about  his  belief,  for  he  believed  that  these 
negroes  were  telling  the  truth,  as  indeed  they  were,  he 
soon  discovered  that  the  "bar  sinister"  was  all  a  part 
of  the  New  England  tradition ;  that  there  had  been  in 
Ohio  no  white  Harding^ ;  that  what  these  white-colored 
Hardings  men  had  done  was  to  take  as  mates  the  igiTor- 
ant  white  girls  of  their  own  neighborhoods,  and  he 
found  that  there  had  been  very  little  bother  about 
marriage  with  any  of  them.  They  simply  mated  al- 
most always  for  life.  Morals  were  not  involved  save  as 
it  is  immoral  to  mix  races,  and  perhaps  immoral  not 
to  have  a  public  marrage. 

In  that  back  country  they  were  not  supporting 


106 

ministers  or  justices  of  the  peace;  they  were  busy- 
trying  to  support  themselves  and  breed  children. 

Now  the  evidences  are  many  that  all  the  Hardings, 
descendants  from  Amos,  have  negro  blood,  as  we  have 
told  elsewhere.  But  to  any  anthropologist — we  are 
quoting  here  from  one  of  the  hundreds  of  letters  that 
Professor  Chancellor  wrote  before  he  left  for  parts  un- 
known in  order  to  escape  the  lawlessness  of  certain 
persons  nominally  in  the  pay  of  the  Government,  but 
actually  the  tools  of  plutocracy  trying  to  defeat  his 
law  suits — the  best  evidence  is  in  the  father  and  ten 
children  born  to  him.  These  TEN  offspring  of  George 
Tryon  Harding  II,  could  not  have  born  of  parents  of 
pure  race.  No  one  imagines  that  the  mother  was  the 
cause  of  the  exceeding  variety  of  types  in  this  brood ; 
ihe  was  at  least  nearly  all  white.  She  may  possibly 
have  had  some  Indian  blood,  but  there  is  no  direct 
evidence  on  this  point.  Any  who  read  this  must  get 
over  the  notion  that  most  of  the  country  people  around 
Blooming  Grove  were  white  people;  mostly  they  were 
colored  people  like  the  Plardings. 

Of  these  TEN  Harding  children,  of  whom  Warren 
is  the  oldest,  not  eight  as  Warren,  through  Jack  War- 
wick would  have  you  believe,  nor  five  as  the  Republi- 
cans falsely  said  in  order  to  conceal  the  black  ones  from 
the  public  gaze,  some  were  very  black,  and  two  were 
quite  light,  and  Warren  was  almost  as  light  as  these 
two.  One  finds  in  these  TEN  children  all  shades  from 
dark  brown  to  very  light  yellow  or  lemon  green  or  saf- 
fron, for  the  color  of  the  three  who  are  most  nearly 
white  is  hard  to  name. 

Color,  though  the  popular  means  of  discrimination, 
is  by  no  means  the  most  useful  means  to  the  an- 
thropologist. Mental  and  moral  traits,  physical  modes 
of  functioning,  and  race  consciousness  count  far  more 
than  color. 


107 

After  he  grew  up  why  did  not  Warren  Gamaliel 
Harding  resent  his  nickname  "Nig"?  For  the  suffi- 
cient reason,  as  he  has  told  United  States  Senators, 
that  he  is  proud  of  having  negro  blood.  Every  man 
is  secretly  proud  of  his  race  elements,  as  he  ought  to 
be.  The  white  man's  notion  that  the  black  man  envies 
him  is  silly  in  itself.  The  black  man  despises  him;  so 
does  the  yellow  man,  and  so  does  the  red  man. 

It  is  true  that  Warren  has  the  eye  of  the  white  man ; 
but  his  sister,  Mary,  had  the  dark  brown  eye  of  the 
black  race.  Would  any  one  accuse  her  mother  of  hav- 
ing had  sexual  relations  with  any  other  man  than  her 
ostensible  husband?  One  of  the  children  who  died 
was  very  dark. 

Did  Warren  Harding  keep  his  promise  that  he  would 
bring  together  all  his  family  and  let  them  be  seen  at 
the  White  House,  in  order  to  satisfy  the  American 
people  on  this  point  ?  He  did  not.  Indeed,  such  a  course 
might  have  had  most  serious  consequences.  His 
father  shows  plainly  in  his  color,  his  manner,  his  walk, 
that  he  is  partly  negro.  But  why  was  not  all  this  dis- 
covered long  ago?  It  was.  The  Hardings  never 
passed  for  white  and  never  tried  to  do  so  until  after  the 
death  of  Amos  H.  Kling  in  the  period  when  Warren 
was  Lieutenant  Governor.  Not  even  then  was  there 
any  sudden  move.  Herrick  would  not  have  stood  for 
this.  But  as  the  family  fortunes  slowly  improved, 
Warren  slowly  dropped  his  colored  kin. 

At  Blooming  Grove,  it  is  said,  that  in  the  past  fif- 
teen years,  Warren  has  visited  there  but  once,  and 
even  then  he  passed  through  on  a  motor  car  tour,  and 
did  not  stop  or  get  out  of  the  car.  His  own  relatives 
told  this  to  the  reporters  of  several  newspapers  as  well 
as  the  friends  of  Professor  Chancellor. 

But  Warren  is  not  a  pure  negro.  One  finds  in  him 
many  mixed  traits  with  some  dominant.    The  Ameri- 


108 

can  people  would  like  to  know  now  at  the  begrinning 
of  his  administration  what  his  dominant  trait  is,  and 
what  his  other  influential  trats  are. 

His  dominant  trait  is  a  love  of  ease.  He  likes  to 
be  well  provided  for.  To  have  plenty  to  eat,  plenty  to 
wear,  warm  housing,  tobacco  to  smoke,  chew  and  take 
as  snuff,  for  he  revels  in  tobacco  and  in  times  past 
plenty  to  drink,  for  which  habit  in  its  final  stages  he 
was,  on  several  occasions,  treated  in  the  private  sani- 
tarium of  Dr.  C.  E.  Sawyer,  who  has  just  been  made 
an  Admiral  in  the  United  States  navy,  where  at  public 
expense  he  will  continue  as  Warren's  private  physician. 
This  appointment  also  conveniently  limits  unwelcome 
scientific  observation. 

Give  Harding  ease  and  he  is  at  peace  with  the 
world.  He  cares  nothing  whatever  how  the  ease  is 
secured.  Because  he  loves  ease,  he  is  the  perfection 
of  procrastination ;  he  hates  to  come  to  the  time  when 
he  must  do  something.  Do-nothing  would  be  a  far 
beter  name  for  him  than  Harding. 

His  next  trait  is  caution,  which  he  gets  not  from 
his  Dutch  ancestry  but  from  his  negro.  He  has  no 
prudence,  no  prevision;  he  never  bothered  to  learn 
geography  on  the  notion  that  some  day  he  might  be 
a  member  of  the  Senate  Foreign  Affairs  Committee; 
he  knows  nothing  of  international  law  or  of  ordinary 
law,  in  the  prospect  that  some  day  he  might  become 
the  head  of  our  foreign  affairs  as  president.  But  he 
has  caution;  he  looks  about  circumspectly.  He  does 
nothing  but  waits  with  his  eyes  half  open  and  his 
ears  wide  open  to  adjust  himself  to  the  turn  of  affairs. 
He  is  the  typical  man  to  whom  things  happen  but  who 
is  ready  for  them  when  they  happen.  These  are  jungle 
traits. 

He  loves  to  appear  more  than  what  he  is.  This  is 
the  negro  again.    He  likes  to  be  well  thought  of.    He 


109 

is  a  born  imposter,  poseur,  mimic,  masquerador.  But 
he  has  no  taste  in  this  show.  His  wife  has  tamed  down 
his  orig-inal  love  of  loud  clothes  and  loud  colors. 

His  desire  to  keep  out  of  trouble  is  another  trait. 
He  can  sidestep  all  blows.  He  makes  no  decisions  that 
can  possibly  be  avoided.  This  trait  is  in  subordhiation 
to  his  male  trait  of  love  of  ease,  lie  will  move  rather 
than  take  a  blow. 

He  hates  fight ;  in  which  respect  he  is  no  Kelt  like 
Andrew  Jacskon ;  and  no  Dutchman  like  Theodore 
Roosevelt.  These  men  loved  fighting  for  its  own  sake ; 
Warren  hates  it.    He  is  a  born  pacifist. 

The  Phillips  case  illustrates  his  sex  instincts.  Mrs. 
Phillips  is  the  wife  of  a  dry  goods  man  in  Marion,  very 
showy  and  vain,  with  a  passon  for  men.  Jim  Phillips 
is  a  poor  little  fellow  who  is  the  part  owner  of  a  store 
there. 

This  woman  has  m.ade  herself  useful  to  men  of  a 
kind.  She  got  in  with  Warren,  who  as  usual,  paid  no 
attention  to  his  own  wife  who  is  passee  through  years. 

On  frequent  occasions,  even  after  the  nomination, 
he  and  Mrs.  Phillips  visited  together  at  Upper  San- 
dusky. It  is  said  that  Herrick,  who  knew  about  this, 
went  to  Jim  Phillips  and  offered  to  send  both  him- 
self and  the  woman  to  Japan,  with  an  income  guaran- 
teed monthly  so  long  as  Warren  was  President.  It  was 
reported  in  every  stage  of  the  affair  just  what  was 
paid.  The  stake  was  $25,000  down,  and  $2,000  a 
month.  The  Phillips  went  to  Japan  early  in  October, 
but  not  until  Mrs.  Phillips,  who  is  a  very  talkative 
woman,  had  told  all  her  friends  just  what  she  was  to 
receive.  All  that  Warren  said  even  privately  was  that 
he  could  get  another  woman. 

Some  of  Warren's  affairs  with  the  ladies  were  al- 
most disastrous,  as,  for  instance,  in  the  case  where  the 
police  of  the  city  of  Washington  were  called  to  the 


110 

house  of  his  regular  lady  friend  to  sober  him  up  and 
stitch  the  cuts  in  his  back  which  resulted,  according  to 
her,  from  a  dispute  over  finances.  Those  interested 
may  find  and  read  it  in  the  police  records  of  1918.  This 
woman,  who  is  about  thirty-five  years  old,  was  never 
even  rebuked  for  this  almost  fatal  attack  upon  a  mem- 
ber of  the  greatest  deliberative  body  of  the  world. 

This  matter  was  given  to  the  Democratic  National 
Committee  by  the  Department  of  Justice  and  the  Wash- 
ington police;  but  the  Democrats  were  too  decent  to 
use  it,  despite  the  intense  provocation  from  the 
abominable  stories  told  of  Woodrow  Wilson  in  order 
to  counteract  the  truth  of  this  incident,  which  was 
official. 

In  sex  morals  Warren  advocates  no  reservations. 
His  marriage  itself  is  evidence  of  this,  for  he  married 
a  woman  whom  we  saw  in  the  earlier  part  of  this  book 
had  lived  with  a  man  and  born  him  a  child  without  any 
marriage.  It  should  be  remembered  that  the  marriage 
was  due  to  no  delusions  on  either  side.  Only  in  the 
sequel  did  it  appear  which  had  won  the  higher  prize. 

The  passion  to  use  plenty  of  words  that  sound  well, 
and  the  total  inability  to  use  them  correctly  is  another 
trait  of  Warren's.  It  is  on  record  that  he  makes  sen- 
tences several  hundred  words  long  without  any  sub- 
jects. 

What  are  these  psychical  traits?  Negro,,  Portu- 
guese, Dutch! 

He  has  no  thrift ;  he  has  no  sense  of  property ;  he 
has  never  managed  business  affairs.  He  does  not  keep 
his  own  business  accounts.  His  wife  manages  for  him. 
As  in  many  other  negro  families,  the  woman  is  the 
main  works. 

Are  there  any  evidences  of  Indian  blood  of  which 
he  has  admitted  publicly  ? 


in 

A  certain  reticence  and  strutting  pride  in  his  big 
body. 

We  have  discussed  the  latter  trait  elsewhere. 

His  reticence  is  what  has  misled  some  people  to 
thinking  that  he  has  no  negro  blood;  but  here  the  In- 
dian has  mastered  the  black  man. 

It  has  been  urged  that  Warren  Harding  cannot  be 
a  negro  because  he  is  "no  fool."  Who  says  that  the  full 
grown  negro  is  a  fool  ?  Certainly  not  those  who  know 
the  negro. 

Not  one  fool  in  a  million  lives  to  be  fifty-six  years 
old  and  to  weigh  two  hundred  pounds  and  to  live  as 
master  in  a  house  that  cost  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
dollars.  Of  course,  Warren  Harding  is  not  only  no 
fool,  but  he  is  one  of  the  cleverest  men  in  America. 
He  has  put  it  over  on  110,000,000  people. 

As  John  D.  Rockefeller  is  the  biggest  man  in  prop- 
erty in  the  United  States,  so  Warren  is  for  four  years 
the  biggest  in  government. 

As  to  instincts  he  is  "deep,"  with  the  depth  of  the 
Indian,  full  of  subterfuges  and  of  ambush  and  of  coun- 
ter-marching. He  lay  in  ambush  and  trapped  the 
American  people. 

One  day  he  called  two  small  children  in  from  the 
street  in  Marion  and  had  himself  photographed  with 
them  as  Grandpa  Harding  and  his  two  gi'andchildren ; 
the  parents  were  furious,  but  the  newspapers  ran  the 
pictures  in  a  thousand  cities.    He  is  a  clever  man. 

But  neither  he  nor  Mrs.  Harding  love  children. 
They  lost  her  child  by  de  Wolf.  They  have  never 
adopted  any  other  children,  not  even  black  ones. 

Warren  loves  games  of  chance  with  all  the  passion 
of  the  negro ;  but  he  plays  a  good  game  of  poker.  This 
is  Dutch. 

In  a  certain  stage  of  dissolution,  the  black  pig- 
mentation of  the  octeroon,  hexdecaroon,  which  about 


112 

measures  this  man,  the  pigment  breaks  into  blotches; 
these  blotches  can  easily  be  observed  on  Warren's  neck. 

It  is  another  trait  of  the  thinly  colored  man  to  take 
on  heavy  tan ;  v^hen  he  came  home  from  the  Carribean, 
all  the  newspapers,  even  the  Republican  ones,  reported 
that  Harding  has  a  very  heavy  coat  of  tropic  tan;  he 
was  swart  and  almost  black.  The  same  statements 
were  repeated  when  he  came  back  from  Florida.  But 
generally  Warren  resort^  as  do  his  sisters,  to  cos- 
metics in  order  to  make  himself  look  more  white  than 
he  really  is. 

When  he  was  in  Nashville,  he  had  been  so  thor- 
oughly bleached  by  his  barber  and  so  entirely  covered 
with  talcum  powder  and  rouge  as  to  appear  like  a  man 
in  a  mask.  His  brunet  wife  has  enameled  when  she 
travels  in  order  to  appear  a  very  white  woman. 

His  sisters  always  wear  veils  in  public.  They  carry 
parasols  even  on  cloudy  days. 

Of  all  his  family  of  TEN  brothers  and  sisters,  only 
three  have  married.  One  is  almost  white,  the  brother 
in  Columbus,  who  is  said  to  have  two  children ;  a  second 
is  Mrs.  Remsberg,  who  lives  in  California,  and  who 
married  a  German,  is  said  to  have  three  children.  He 
is  the  third  to  marry.  Two  died  as  children.  The 
other  five  never  married.    Why  not? 

There  is  a  club  of  colored  millionaires  in  Chicago 
to  which  only  millionaire  negroes  whose  wives  are 
white  women  can  be  admitted.  Does  his  second  cousin, 
C.  E.  Harding,  belong  to  this  club  ? 

This  is  the  Harding  who  is  now  having  the  family 
genealogy  revised  at  any  cost  in  order  to  cut  out  all 
the  evidence  that  he  and  the  other  descendants  of  old 
Amos  Harding  are  all  negroes  in  part. 

This  is  the  Harding  who  recently  loaned  a  twelve- 
year-old  daughter  to  the  President  to  live  in  the  White 
House  for  a  while  and  fool  the  American  people.    She 


113 

appears  to  be  a  nice  child,  with  curls.  It  is  said  that 
this  Harding  is  very  close  to  Mrs.  Georgia  Harding 
Hamon,  who  supplied  a  million  dollars  to  the  campaign 
for  the  nomination. 

Until  he  found  how  angry  the  American  people 
were  at  being  fooled  with  regard  to  himself,  Warren 
Harding  used  to  boast  that  he  was  a  man  of  the  future 
and  that  in  the  course  of  time  all  Americans  would 
be  mestizos  like  himself  and  the  rest  of  the  Hardings. 
But  where  do  the  Puritans  and  Cavaliers  come  in  from 
Massachusetts  and  Virginia?  Is  Old  England  to  have 
no  representation  in  the  future  American?  Some  of 
us  who  have  English  blood  will  take  a  look  into  this 
matter  whether  the  Afro-American  of  no  English 
blood  permits  it  or  not. 

Take  the  Cabinet.  Hughes  is  a  brunet  Welshman, 
insensitive  to  the  color  of  the  President. 

Mellon  is  an  Irishman.    He  hates  the  British. 

Daugherty  is  an  Irishman. 

Davis  is  a  Welshman. 

Hoover  is  a  German  by  ancestry. 

Wallace  is  Scotch.    So  is  Denby. 

Fall,  Hayes  and  Weeks  appear  to  be  Scotch-Irish. 

Where  is  the  Englishman? 

Of  course,  it  is  easy  to  answer  that  they  are  "all 
Americans".  Why  then  the  appeal  to  the  German  vote, 
the  Irish  vote  ?  To  every  race  under  the  canopy  except 
the  English? 

It  was  said  in  the  campaign  that  Harding  would 
appoint  negroes  to  high  office.  He  virtually  promised 
this  in  the  Oklahoma  speech,  and  there  are  many 
negroes  angered  because  so  far  he  has  not  seemed  to 
do  so.     But  take  the  D.  R.  Crissinger  matter. 

Crissinger  was  born  in  Blooming  Grove,  and  has 
always  been  a  friend  of  Warren's  and  a  Democrat. 
When  Warren  was  nominated,  he  organized  the  negroes. 


114 

of  that  section  for  Warren.  He  arranged  the  William 
Chancellor  propaganda.  He  is  now  the  Controller  of 
Currency  under  Plarding.  Is  he  a  white  man  ?  Few  in 
Blooming  Grove  are  white  all  through.  He  does  not 
look  like  an  all-white  man.  Blood  is  thicker  than  water ; 
is  race  thicker  than  politics  ? 

The  law  of  Ohio  says  that  the  charge  that  a  man 
has  negro  blood  is  no  slander.  The  jury  in  the  now 
famous  David  Butler-Amos  Smith  case,  elsewhere  told, 
said  it  was  no  slander  for  Smith  to  call  the  wife  of 
Butler,  a  Harding,  a  nigger.  The  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  makes  no  discrimination  between  races. 
Why  then  does  Warren  now  care?  He  does  not  care. 
The  whole  movement  to  suppress  the  truth  about 
Warren  is  the  work  of  the  people  who  do  not  believe 
in  the  justice  and  the  wisdom  of  the  pronouncement 
of  Harding  in  Oklahoma  and  elsewhere  that  no  dis- 
crimination should  ever  be  made ;  and  Warren  thereby 
gets  everything  coming  and  going.  He  professes  race 
equality  and  practiced  it  in  his  own  marriage;  but  he 
takes  the  help  of  those  who  hate  the  notion. 

There  will  be  a  showdown;  the  state  of  public 
opinion  in  the  Union  demands  it. 

So  long  as  instincts  are  registered  in  grey  matter 
called  nerve  tissue,  and  so  long  as  the  distribution  and 
the  amount  of  grey  matter  in  a  brain  do  make  a  great 
difference  in  conduct,  the  American  people  will  decline 
generally  to  endorse  the  notion  that  the  negro  is  as 
good  as  the  white  man;  and  will  resist  all  contamina- 
tion of  a  people  by  inferior  blood. 

How  is  to  be  explained  then  in  the  light  of  Ohio 
politics  that  the  people  have  taken  no  interest  in  the 
fact  that  Warren  Harding  has  negro  blood  ? 

Many  other  negroes  have  served  in  the  Ohio  State 
Legislature.  There  were  two  in  those  of  Harding's 
time  who  admitted  this  in  their  legislative  directory 


115 

lives,  and  there  were  others  who  simply  said  nothing 
about  the  matter. 

Ohio  is  full  of  sentimentalists  who  believe  in  giving 
the  colored  brother  a  chance — that  is,  a  chance  to  rule 
the  whites.  A  very  distinguished  preacher  told  Pro- 
fessor Chancellor,  as  he  has  reported  to  us  in  a  letter 
in  the  period  before  he  went  away,  that  if  the  white 
women  of  the  South  will  not  receive  colored  men,  so 
much  the  worse  for  the  white  women. 

Men  of  this  kind  are  sentimentalists.  It  so  happens 
that  this  preacher  never  admits  any  negroes  into  his 
church,  however.  He  is  himself  but  one  generation 
from  the  Old  Country,  which  shows  an  important  phase 
of  the  matter. 

To  most  foreigners,  coming  into  the  United  States, 
the  Afro-American  is  a  native,  and  because  he  knows 
the  ropes,  the  foreigner  often  finds  the  colored  man 
very  helpful.  The  colored  man  plays  up  to  him.  Being 
socially  inferior,  he  delights  in  the  implicit  faith  that 
the  "Dago"  or  the  "Hunky"  has  in  him.  To  the  ignor- 
ant foreigner  the  color  is  meaningless.  This  is  espe- 
cially true  of  the  brunet  foreigner  in  dealing  with  the 
colored  American,  who  may  be  lighter  in  shade  than 
himself. 

This  does  not  mean  that  the  dark  brunet  Welshman 
or  Dutchman  or  Jew  or  Spaniard  is  lower  than  the 
colored  man ;  far  from  it.  What  it  means  is  that  the 
foreigner  has  not  learned  to  look  at  the  brain  case  of 
the  man,  at  his  walk,  or  to  consider  the  intelligence 
with  which  he  speaks.  More  than  this,  often  the 
brunet  white  man  from  Europe  has  married  a  colored 
woman  thinking  her  to  be  white,  from  which  more  than 
one  tragedy  has  followed  under  the  Mendalian  law. 
When  the  colored  man  or  woman  complain  of  social 
discrimination,  the  foreigner  sympathizes,  for  to  him 
all  social  discrimination  is  unjust.     That  there  ought 


116 

to  be  race  discrimination  is  beyond  his  understanding. 
Another  factor  has  helped  to  make  a  mess  of  the  deal- 
ings with  the  negroes  by  foreigners.  There  have  been 
four  sources  of  race  contamination  from  negroes  in 
the  history  of  Europe: 

First,  from  the  very  earliest  ages,  there  were  emi- 
grants out  of  Africa,  mostly  slaves  by  capture  in  war, 
but  not  all.  Homer  in  his  first  poem  speaks  of  the 
"blameless  Ethiopians,"  meaning  that  these  blacks 
were  so  dull  and  ignorant  that  they  could  not  be  blamed 
for  what  they  did.  That  was  three  thousand  years  ago. 
There  were  tens  of  thousands  of  Ethiopian  slaves  in 
Egypt  when  the  children  of  Isreal  were  there.  These 
slaves  and  others  were  constantly  allowed  to  live  every- 
where among  the  whites;  and  though  many  of  them 
were  eunichs,  still  some  of  them  were  able  to  produce 
offspring  of  their  own  pure  negro  blood  or  mixed  with 
those  of  other  slaves  and  occasionally  with  the  native 
free  persons.  This  contamination  greatly  increased 
among  the  Romans.  And  it  persists  to  this  very  day 
when  rich  and  powerful  men  bring  up  from  African 
and  Asian  travels  these  blacks  and  after  employing 
them  for  a  time,  let  them  go.  One  of  the  great  Medici 
married  a  negress  and  the  race  showed  the  signs  of  it 
to  its  very  end.  Alexander  Dumas  had  negro  blood; 
so  had  Robert  Browning,  which  is  one  reason  why 
the  father  of  Elizabeth  Barrett  objected  to  that  mar- 
riage. Perhaps  this  is  one  reason  also  why  Robert 
Browning  is  so  obscure  and  uses  words  so  strangely; 
there  is  a  Browning  cult  that  professes  to  get  mean- 
ings in  Browning  that  no  one  else  of  common  sense  can 
find ;  there  is  also  growing  up  a  Harding  cult  likewise. 

There  was  one  mighty  delivery  of  negroes  into 
Europe  when  Hannibal  marched  the  Carthegiiian 
troops  over  the  Alps  from  Spain  through  F^^'V  .'.  into 
Italy  and  kept  them  a  year  at  Cannae ;  he  had  negro  sol- 


117 

diers  and  negro  slaves  with  him ;  and  the  marks  of  that 
migration  are  seen  in  Italy  to  this  day  in  the  appear- 
ance of  the  people,  for  these  Cartheginians  never  went 
home  again.  They  were  defeated  in  battle  and  hid 
themselves  in  the  mountains  and  swamps  to  reappear 
again  as  peasants  and  slaves.  He  had  an  army  of 
more  than  a  hundred  thousand  with  many  women  camp 
followers.  In  a  world  that  had  only  a  few  millions 
then,  this  was  a  proportionately  very  large  number. 

The  same  thing  occurred  when  the  Spaniards  sent 
the  Armada  against  the  British.  Their  quarter  of  a 
millicr.  '  .'J'oi  s  and  soldiers  were  shipwrecked  upon  the 
coasts  of  several  countries,  Holland,  Scotland,  Ireland; 
and  these  people  in  many  instances  were  negroes. 

Worse  than  these  cases  was  the  keeping  of  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  soldiers  in  the  Netherlands  by  Spain 
in  the  period  that  culminated  with  the  terrible  Duke  of 
Alva.  There  are  marks  to  this  day  in  some  parts  of 
the  lowlands  and  the  Rhinelands  that  show  what  negro 
contamination  may  do.  Now  the  only  reason  why  the 
contamination  has  not  gone  farther  is  because  of  race 
instinct  where  these  negroes  went.  Mostly  they  were 
men.  Mostly  when  they  were  caught  they  were 
castrated;  but  in  some  instances  they  were  allowed  to 
marry  and  to  breed.  Some  of  the  immigrants  from 
Europe  show  the  positive  signs  of  negro  blood;  this 
especially  is  true  of  Sicilians  and  of  South  Italians  and 
of  the  Rhineland  peoples. 

All  such  brunets,  all  who  feel  in  their  bones  that 
their  color  and  their  peculiarities  are  due  to  negro  blood 
have  been  eager  to  give  the  Afro-American  a  place 
at  the  very  side  of  the  true  white  man  in  America. 
They  have  done  this  in  Ohio.  In  the  last  campaign 
many  a  man  and  woman  who  passed  for  white  and 
whose  origin  is  wholly  European  for  hundreds  of  years 


118 

out  of  race  sympathy  voted  for  Warren  Harding.  And 
he  knew  this  as  has  been  shown  elsewhere. 

But  perfectly  pure  races  did  the  same  thing.  Why 
should  not  the  Germans  in  America  who  still  love  Ger- 
many more  than  the  United  States  not  support  the  race 
contamination  that  this  inter-marriage  means?  Why 
should  they  not  seek  the  desruction  of  the  Americans 
who  are  descended  from  the  British  Isles  and  Danish 
and  Scandinavian  and  French  stocks?  Very  few  blond 
or  tawny  Germans  themselves  ever  many  negroes  or 
colored  people.  Why,  in  the  competition  of  races  should 
they  hesitate  to  back  Harding  and  break  the  power  of 
their  rivals?  They  believe  in  the  long  run  America 
is  to  be  Germanized.  Of  course,  to  the  Germans  who 
love  our  country,  who  are  millions  in  number,  the  very 
idea  of  race  contamination  as  a  means  of  destroying 
British  stocks  is  abhorrent.  They  also  are  loyal  Ameri- 
cans to  the  core. 

Many  Jews  have  supported  every  negro  that  has 
run  for  office  on  the  theory  that  it  will  forward  the 
day  when  Jerusalem  rules  the  world  to  have  America 
made  rotten.  Good  Jews  realize  their  best  hope  is  in 
pure  American  institutions. 

Many  very  poor  people  of  all  races  have  supported 
the  negro  candidates,  including  Harding,  because  they 
hate  the  successful  white  rich. 

Now  in  many  states  the  contest  is  without  interest ; 
they  have  few  negroes  to  consider.  Their  climates  or 
their  industries  are  such  as  not  to  give  the  negro  any 
real  foothold.  But  in  other  states  there  is  a  profound 
interest  in  the  struggle.  Ohio  in  the  North  is  not  favor- 
able climatically  for  the  negro;  but  all  the  state  is 
favorable  industrially  to  him. 

In  some  states  the  negro,  though  numerous,  is  made 
into  a  caste  and  reduced  to  social  degradation ;  in  such 
state  he  is  overpowered. 


119 

A  state  where  he  does  not  count  because  he  is  rare 
is  Massachusetts ;  a  state  where  he  is  in  virtual  slavery 
yet  is  South  Carolina.  A  state  where  the  question 
what  to  do  about  him  is  vital  is  Ohio. 

The  time  had  to  come  when  Ohio  and  the  Nation 
should  face  the  issue  and  it  arrived  last  November. 
We  now  have  the  issue  with  a  negro  as  President  in  the 
White  House  and  with  messages  coming  from  that 
White  House  that  are  meaningless  in  their  content  but 
ominous  in  their  force  for  the  future.  Where  there 
should  be  light  and  leading,  there  is  nothing  but  con- 
fusion. 

A  gross  insult  has  been  heaped  upon  the  white  peo- 
ple of  the  South  by  placing  this  man  there,  but  the 
sycophant) sh  women  of  the  Northwest  seem  to  be  do- 
ing what  they  can  to  ameliorate  the  social  taboo  upon 
the  present  residents  there. 

A  recent  picture  of  a  visiting  delegation  shows 
something  of  the  situation;  the  President  is  looking 
one  way  and  the  white  woman  another;  it  is  the 
characteristic  of  the  President  never  to  look  one  in  the 
eye.  This  is  not  a  black  man's  trait,  however,  it  is  the 
trait  of  the  thief,  of  the  man  who  has  looted  something, 
as  has  looted  the  Presidency  by  lying  about  his  an- 
cestors. 

To  the  negro,  the  uncured  primitive,  lying  is  not 
a  vice  but  a  virtue;  and  successful  lying  indicates  far 
more  ability  and  therefore  more  merit  than  successful 
truth-telling,  which  requires  only  memory  and  not 
judgment  or  shrewdness.  How  is  this  to  be  reconciled 
with  the  all-known  Harding  habit  of  reading  his 
speeches,  both  those  written  for  him  and  the  few  pre- 
pared by  himself,  which  may  easily  be  separated  from 
the  others  by  their  superiority  in  singular  inventions  of 
words,  grammar  and  rhetoric.  Only  Warren  ever  in- 
vented "involvement"  and  "normalcy."     The  explana- 


120 

tion  is  that  in  him  the  primitive  negro  is  removed 
three  generations  back  in  one  line  and  somewhat 
farther  in  another  line. 

Unlike  his  great  predecessor,  McKinley,  Harding  is 
afraid  to  trust  himself  to  extemporaneous  speech,  be- 
cause he  loses  his  subjects  and  predicates,  and  contra- 
dicts himself  within  a  few  lines. 


CHAPTER  X 
WHAT  IS  THE  CABINET? 

Reviewing  the  political  scene  after  some  weeks  of 
the  new  administration,  one  finds  that  in  order  to  un- 
derstand it  one  must  look  carefully  into  the  composi- 
tion of  the  Cabinet,  into  the  history  of  Ohio  politics, 
and  into  the  history  of  the  Presidency  itself.  What 
has  been  taking  place  is  the  logical  outcome  of  the 
past.  The  people  are  not  now  informed  as  to  the 
inside  moves  nor  have  they  been  assisted  in  their 
natural  desire  to  get  under  the  surface  of  things  into 
the  realities  of  what  really  is  theirs  and  of  what  they 
are  paying  for,  with  their  own  money.  It  is  not  a  Re- 
publican notion  that  the  Government  belongs  to  the 
people. 

It  is  commonly  supposed  that  the  causes  for  the 
appointment  of  Cabinet  officers  lie  somewhere  in  some 
conception  of  the  public  welfare.  It  will,  therefore,  be 
profitable  to  look  into  these  Cabinet  positions  for  the 
truth.  Three  of  these  positions  usually  attract  con- 
siderable attention — the  Treasury,  the  State  and  the 
Attorney  Generalship.  In  the  case  of  the  present 
Cabinet,  they  deserve  much  more  rigid  scrutiny  than 
they  have  as  yet  received. 

The  oldest  in  seniority,  as  we  discover  upon  turn- 
ing the  authoritative  and  learned  pages  of  the  college 
professors  and  publicists  who  have  written  upon  the 
subject,  are  State,  Treasury  and  War.  State  deals 
with  foreign  affairs  and  keeps  all  the  archives  of  the 
Nation,  so  far  as  these  are  stored  with  the  treasures 
of  our  history,  including  the  originals  of  all  treaties 

121) 


122  •  ■ 

and  laws.  It  is  relatively  unimportant  in  financial 
charges,  even  now  spending  of  this  wild  currency,  un- 
harnessed from  gold,  which  is  the  only  money,  but 
eight  or  nine  millions  of  dollars  a  year.  But  the  Secre- 
tary of  State  does  manage  the  Nation  as  a  whole  un- 
der the  President,  of  course,  in  respect  to  war  and 
peace ;  and  in  case  of  the  demise  of  both  President  and 
Vice-President,  would  succeed  to  the  Presidency  itself. 
To  the  world  outside  of  America,  he  is  our  greatest 
man,  none  other  officer  excepted.  In  almost  every 
other  government  among  civilized  nations,  this  office 
would  be  accounted  as  the  Prime  Ministry  itself.  In 
social  prestige,  the  State  Department  leads  because 
the  Secretary  meets  all  the  foreign  ambassadors  and 
ministers,  including  those  from  lands  with  kings,  nobil- 
ity and  aristocracy,  at  social  functions  delightful  to 
rich  Americans  and  tufthunters  upon  equal  terms.  The 
women  make  the  Department  of  State  the  first  in 
sanding;  few  women  are  really  democratic. 

According  to  the  newspapers,  with  their  carefully 
schooled  reports,  the  reasons  that  forced  the  appoint- 
ment of  Charles  Evans  Hughes  were  as  follows,  viz. : 

1.  The  administration  needed  for  its  chief  secretary 
a  man  in  whom  the  people  had  confidence,  though  just 
what  "people"  was  not  specified.  On  this  basis,  only 
two  names  were  considered  by  the  Cabinet  makers — 
those  of  Hughes  and  of  Elihu  Root.  There  were  many 
objections  to  Mr.  Root;  he  had  been  in  several  Cabinets 
before  and  was  far  past  three  score  years  and  ten. 
He  had  very  much  a  mind  of  his  own ;  and  at  heart 
was  FOR  the  League  of  Nations. 

2.  He  was  very  rich  and  had  great  wealth  in  to- 
bacco enterprises,  especially  cigarettes;  and  the  com- 
mon people  regarded  him  as  essentially  an  agent  of 
corporate  property. 

3.  Mr.   Hughes    had   been   a   very   successful   law 


123 

teacher,  a  very  successful  investigator  of  public 
scandals,  a  fairly  successful  governor,  a  highly  credit- 
able member  of  the  United  States  Supreme  Court;  al- 
most the  winner  of  the  Presidency  when  candidate  upon 
the  Republican  ticket  in  1916 ;  and  in  the  very  recent 
years  a  very  successful  lawyer  with  inclinations  to- 
ward honesty  and  toward  fair  treatment  of  labor  and 
of  those  who  claimed  the  right  of  free  speech. 

In  truth,  the  moral  position  of  Mr.  Hughes  is  that 
of  a  lawyer  trained  in  the  principles  of  Blackstone 
and  of  the  old  individual  freedom.  He  is  a  good  man 
with  a  mind  furnished  with  the  notions  of  a  hundred 
years  ago.  That  he  charged  the  miners  of  Indiana, 
according  to  report,  $150,000  but  goes  to  show  his 
moral  position.  He  sold  himself  to  them  at  a  fair  price, 
as  great  lawyers  do,  and  he  gave  them  value.  He  is 
not  a  philanthropist ;  nor  as  a  lawyer  does  he  play  the 
part  of  Robin  Hood,  getting  big  fees  from  the  rich  and 
turning  about  and  helping  the  poor  freely.  He  is  the 
very  opposite  of  Robert  G.  Ingersoll,  and,  doubtless, 
congratulates  himself  thereon. 

Personally,  Secretary  Hughes  is  reticent,  modest, 
polite,  intellectual,  aloof,  judicious,  fair-minded,  dili- 
gent, even-tempored,  refined.  In  tastes  he  is  domestic, 
and  he  loves  music,  playing  a  small  organ  and  sing- 
ing with  his  family  in  hours  of  leisure. 

But  to  imagine  that  these  were  the  moving  con- 
siderations for  his  choice  as  the  first  man  under  the 
new  chief  is  to  give  evidence  that  one  is  really  "out  of 
politics,"  for  one  then  would  disclose  that  one  had  no 
politics  inside  himself. 

The  new  President  is  a  Baptist,  the  first  of  his  de- 
nomination to  become  the  head  of  Government.  Not 
only  is  Charles  Evans  Hughes  a  Baptist,  but  he  is  also 
the  foremost  Baptist  layman  in  America,  not  excepting 
even  the  Rockefellers  themselves,  for  he  has  been  the 


124 

Moderator  of  the  Baptist  national  meetings  and  in 
other  offices  and  services  has  made  himself  their  main 
layman.  What  he  says  goes  in  a  denomination  of 
many  millions. 

2.  OIL  is  the  key  to  this  political  phase;  always 
in  American  politics,  the  speculative  business  man, 
by  getting  behind  a  candidate,  puts  him  across.  Oil 
went  behind  the  Republican  candidate,  as  the  protective 
tariff  men  and  the  bankers  got  behind  even  Abraham 
Lincoln  in  1860  and  1864.  There  is  nothing  wicked 
in  this  in  itself;  the  speculative  business  man  has  the 
right  to  vote  for  his  own  pocket.  But  oil  is  Rocke- 
feller. The  Rockefeller  interests  desired  righteous  oil 
to  win  rather  than  unrighteousness  tobacco  as  leader 
before  the  world.  There  is  oil  to  be  had  elsewhere 
than  in  the  United  States,  and  the  State  Department 
should  have  the  right  views  on  oil. 

3.  It  so  happens  that  the  Pulitizer  Estate  owns  two 
great  Democratic  newspapers,  the  New  York  World 
and  the  St.  Louis  Post-Dispatch,  and  these  two  papers 
and  others  all  led  with  them  were  the  only  ones  that 
were  fair  to  Professor  William  Estabrook  Chancellor  in 
the  effort  that  he  had  made  to  get  all  the  peculiar 
facts  of  the  Harding  ancestry  studied  by  the  American 
people.  Moreover,  the  World  had  some  special  in- 
vestigators out  even  after  the  election  to  look  into 
all  the  facts.  THE  WORLD  is  an  organ  of  public 
opinion  that  volues  the  truth.  It  also  so  happens  that 
Charles  Evans  Hughes  has  very  close  connections  with 
the  Pulitzer  Estate  due  to  the  will  of  Joseph  Pulitzer 
himself,  and  unless  common  reports  err,  he  has  been 
drawing  the  not  inconsiderable  salary  of  $36,000  a  year 
as  the  paid  trustee  and  legal  counsel  of  that  estate  ever 
since  the  death  of  Mr.  Pulizer.  Reports  on  this  point 
may  be  in  error,  but  the  fact  that  the  Pulitzer  heirs 
are  tied  up  to  Mr.  Hughes  is  well  known.    The  appoint- 


125 

men  of  Mr.  Hughes  would  not  in  itself  control  the  edi- 
torial opinion  of  those  great  newspapers,  but  since  his 
appointment,  the  entire  public  that  knows  anyhing 
about  newspapers  knows  that  the  edge  of  hostility  to 
Mr.  Hughes  and  to  the  Administration  is  off.  The  edi- 
torial and  the  reportorial  staffs  of  newspapers  owned 
by  rich  nien  are  not  wholely  free,  and  no  man  of  sense 
supposes  that  they  can  be  free.  Moreover,  the  search 
into  the  records  of  the  Harding  ancestry  by  that  paper 
ceased  after  the  announcement  of  the  appointment  of 
Mr.  Hughes.  To  capture  the  two  best  organs  of  the 
Democratic  party  by  one  appointment  was  a  very 
shrewd  move.  They  remain  nominally  Democratic,  of 
course.  What  in  the  way  of  awkward  situations  for 
Mr.  Hughes  may  yet  develop  remains  to  be  seen.  He 
is  not  the  owner  of  the  properties;  and  the  heirs  are 
not  at  heart  Republicans. 

4.  A  fourth  real  cause  for  the  appointment  of  Mr. 
Hughes  was  to  weight  the  Cabinet  against  other  per- 
sons who  were  to  be  in  it;  to  draw  the  herring  across 
the  trail ;  to  put  up  a  smoke  screen. 

Nevertheless,  Mr.  Hughes  is  a  sizable  man,  a  credit 
to  the  Republicans,  at  least  75  or  80  per  cent  of  what 
the  Secretary  of  State  should  be;  he  is  not  a  Webster 
or  a  John  Hay;  but  he  is  on  the  whole  satisfactory. 
Though  neither  energetic  nor  affable,  neither  scholarly 
nor  profound,  yet  he  merits  classification  as  at  least  a 
Cabinet  star  of  the  second  magnitude;  the  entire  visi- 
bles  being  stars  of  six  magnitudes.  Some  think  that 
big  men  are  again  grooming  Hughes  for  the  Presidency 

Consider  the  case  of  Secretary  Mellon  of  the  Treas- 
ury ;  he  was  forced  upon  the  President  by  Senator  Boies 
Penrose,  of  Pennsylvania.  Mr.  Mellon  is  the  richest 
man  who  ever  drew  a  salary  from  the  United  States 
Government,  richer  than  any  Senator  has  ever  been, 
even  Senator  Clark,  of  Montana,  the  copper  king.    No 


126 

one  knows  what  he  is  worth,  nor  could  even  himself 
find  out.  He  is  too  rich  to  make  it  worth  while  to  esti- 
mate his  wealth  unless  one  is  looking  for  his  income 
tax  returns.  Like  every  active  plutocrat  in  business, 
Mr.  Mellon  is  richer  some  years  than  others.  He  was 
born  rich,  for  his  father  made  a  great  fortune.  He  has 
increased  this  fortune  many  times.  He  may  be  worth 
$200,000,000. 

The  Mellon  National  Bank  of  Pittsburgh  is  one  of 
the  greatest  of  all  the  Standard  Oil  Banks  of  America. 
OIL  spoke  and  Mellon  went  in.  Almost  three  score 
and  ten  years  of  age,  Mr.  Mellon  is  a  very  great  master 
of  American  business.    He  is  a  steel  king  himself. 

Tn  his  defenses,  to  justify  his  appointment,  it  was 
said  that  no  money  will  be  wasted  by  the  National 
Government  while  "Andy"  Mellon  is  Treasury  chief; 
but  this  statement  assumes  that  the  head  of  the  Treas- 
ury controls  the  money  affairs  of  the  Nation,  which  is 
absurd.  Of  course,  the  influence  of  any  plutocrat  of 
his  type  would  be  for  economy ;  but  it  will  be  influence 
only.  A  Government  that  spends  four  billions  of  dol- 
lars a  year  cannot  be  much  influenced  by  any  one 
officer  of  the  executive  branch. 

What  Mr.  Mellon  will  do  is  to  preserve  the  present 
money  system  by  which  banks  get  twice  as  much  paper 
as  they  hold  gold  in  reserve  while  it  is  illegal  for  any 
private  citizen  to  have  gold.  This  means  that  where 
a  bank  has  five  millions  in  gold,  it  may  lend  out  ten 
millions  of  paper  instead  and  of  getting  interest  on  fiv« 
millions,  which  would  be  (say)  $300,000  a  year,  get- 
ting (say)  $600,000,  which  is  very  nice  for  the  stock- 
holder of  big  banks  authorized  to  issue  the  wild  cur- 
rency known  as  FEDERAL  RESERVE  notes. 

Personally,  Mr.  Mellon  is  a  philanthropist;  giving 
away  vast  sums  of  money  every  year.  He  has  been, 
of  course,  a  lifelong  friend  of  both  J.  Pierpont  Morgans 


127 

of  New  York  and  London.  He  is  almost  as  rich  as 
either  of  them  was  or  is.  He  is  morally  a  very  good 
man  according  to  the  individualist  scheme  of  things. 
He  is  shy,  reticent,  quiet,  self-effacing,  diligent, 
gloomy,  patient,  wise,  far-sighted,  far,  very  far,  beyond 
most  men.  That  he  plays  a  gentleman's  game  of 
poker,  he  does  not  "bet  a  million"  after  the  fashion 
of  the  late  John  W.  Gates,  was  no  objection  to  him  on 
the  part  of  the  best  poker  player  of  Marion,  and  should 
not  be  any  objection  to  him  from  anyone  else.  It  is  his 
only  sport. 

Yet,  because  he  has  had  no  public  experience  in 
office  and  is  by  no  means  a  statesman,  he  must  be 
ranked  as  a  star  of  the  second  magnitude.  He  is  no 
Alexander  Hamilton  or  Albert  Gallatin  or  William  G. 
McAdoo. 

The  third  appointment  of  importance  was  that  of 
Harry  M.  Daugherty  to  be  Attorney  General.  This  is 
the  most  criticized  and  the  most  censured  of  all  the 
appointments.  It  is  purely  personal.  Elsewhere  we 
have  recounted  the  story  of  Ohio  politics,  which  in- 
cludes the  story  of  Mr.  Daugherty.  Here  it  is  enough 
to  say  that  he  is  a  business-getting  lawyer.  He  knows 
how  to  go  out  and  get  suits  and  clients  while  his  part- 
ners furnish  the  law  service.  During  the  World  War, 
he  and  others  built  an  envelope  factory  and  got  a  con- 
tract to  make  envelopes  for  the  Post  Office  Depart- 
ment. This  contract  with  the  factory  he  sold  to  Day- 
ton envelope  makers  for  just  twice  what  the  facory 
cost  him,  giving  him  a  profit  of  $300,000.  How  much 
of  that  he  could  keep  for  himself  is  unkwnown.  No  one 
ever  accused  him  of  being  a  book-learned  lawyer.  He 
has  been  a  very  shrewd  party  politician  all  these  years. 
He  made  Senator  and  President  Harding.  He  has  long 
been  his  political  Mentor;  and  in  that  he  has  made 


128 

good.    He  is  an  Irishman,  of  course,  like  Mr.  Mellon, 
and  he  is  vindictive  against  his  political  opponents. 

He  is  the  "star  of  bale"  in  this  Cabinet,  and  he  may 
prove  the  ruin  of  the  man  whom  he  has  used  so  skil- 
fully. He  remembers  both  his  friends  and  his  enemies, 
which  is  bad  for  a  man  who  has  so  much  power  as 
the  Attorney  General  necessarily  possesses.  He  is 
"the  wettest  of  the  wets."  If  he  develops  a  sense 
of  scrupulous  honesty,  it  will  be  a  miracle  of  regenera- 
tion. The  best  that  can  be  made  of  the  matter  is  to  sayi 
that  the  American  people  had  full  warning  before  the 
election  in  the  columns  of  various  papers. 

There  is  a  notion  that  a  President  has  the  right  to 
pay  his  political  debts  by  putting  his  lifelong  friends 
into  high  places.     It  is  a  thoroughly  wicked  notion. 

Believing  what  he  does  and  cherishing  his  natural 
instincts  to  reward  and  to  punish  by  using  the  Gov- 
ernment itself  to  advance  his  own  cause,  Mr.  Daugh- 
erty  is  a  danger  to  the  freedom  of  many  individual 
Americans.  With  him,  America  becomes  a  land  not  of 
laws  but  of  men.  With  a  few  more  Irishmen  like  him 
— which  many  Irishmen  are  not — this  country  would 
become  another  Ireland,  and  the  peace  of  our  homes 
would  be  turned  into  chaos  and  fued. 
He  also  is  a  poker  player. 

As  the  foundation  for  the  Cabinet,  we  have,  then, 
two  stars  of  the  second  magnitude,  and  one  star  of  bale. 
The  other  members  of  the  Cabinet  are: 

John  W.  Weeks War 

Edwin    Denby Navy 

Hency  C.  Wallace Agriculture 

Albert   B.   Fall Interior 

James  J.  Davis Labor 

Will  H.  Hays Postoffice 

Herbert  C.  Hoover Commerce 

Secretary  Weeks  is  a  millionaire  banker.     He  was 


129 

put  in  because  he  represents  Massachusetts  and  there- 
fore Multi-millionaire  Senator  Henry  Cabot  Lodge,  the 
personal  enemy  of  Woodrow  Wilson ;  and  because  he  is 
very  rich ;  and  in  sympathy  with  the  Federal  Reserve 
bloating  of  the  currency.  He  s  a  star  of  the  sixth 
magnitude.  Of  course,  he  has  executive  ability,  and 
equally,  of  course,  he  is  no  statesman  at  all. 

Edwin  Denby  is  of  higher  material.  He  is  a  thor- 
oughly trained  man  of  affairs,  a  millionaire,  very  re- 
actonary  but  very  much  of  a  patriot  all  the  same.  He 
had  the  personal  courage  to  go  into  the  fighting  zone  in 
the  naval  service,  begining  as  a  marine,  though  well 
past  forty  years  old  then.  He  ranks  as  a  star  of  the 
third  or  fourth  magnitude.  He  was  put  in  partly  to 
catch  the  Loyal  Legion  men;  but  mainly  because  he 
belongs  to  the  Truman  H.  Newberry  wing  of  the  Re- 
publican party  in  Michigan.  Newberry  is  the  multi- 
millionaire who  defeated  Henry  Ford  by  spending  a 
million  dollars  for  the  election.  Was  adjudged  guilty 
in  court,  but  who  is  too  rich  to  be  punished  or  even 
put  out  of  the  Senate.  Denby's  father  was  Minister 
to  China,  and  he  is  himself  well  informed  regarding 
the  Far  East. 

Secretary  Wallace  is  a  man  of  personal  charm,  a 
millionaire,  a  forward  looking  man,  an  agricultural 
statesman,  tinctured  by  some  false  notions  of 
economics,  such  as  price-fixing,  but  not  withstanding 
this,  very  much  of  an  asset  to  the  Administration,  a 
growing  man.  He  is  a  star  of  the  second  magnitude 
or  third.  Unfortunately,  he  will  not  bear  much  weight 
against  other  elements  in  the  Cabinet. 

Next  to  Daugherty  among  the  objectionables  is  Al- 
bert B.  Fall,  whose  relation  to  the  supporting  situation 
has  been  recounted  in  the  chapter  upon  the  Hamon 
case.  Fall  is  in  OIL.  No  one  knows  how  rich  he  is; 
by  some  he  is  styled  a  millionaire,  which  is  doubtful. 


He  has  been  a  war-with-Mexico  jingo  for  many  a  year. 
Temperamentally,  he  is  unsound.  He  has  no  guiding 
and  controlling  principles  of  action ;  but  is  the  natural 
agent  for  the  forces  in  whatever  environment  he  may 
have  about  him.  He  thinks  that  Mexico  vi'ill  never  be 
safe  for  American  plutocrats  until  an  American  army 
has  taught  the  Mexicans  respect  for  American  rights. 
He  is,  therefore,  a  natural  imperialist.  There  is  Oil  as 
well  as  COPPER  and  SILVER  in  Mexico.  He  is  a  sec- 
ond star  of  bale. 

If  we  have  a  war  with  Mexico,  we  may  charge  it  to 
Secretary  Fall  and  the  Multissimomillionaire  William 
Randolph  Hearst.  Fall  is  in  the  Cabinet  to  prepare  the 
war  for  the  lords  of  metals  and  petroleum. 

Will  H.  Hayes  is  a  nice  lad  who  organized  the  nation 
for  the  Republicans  by  spreading  agents  provocateurs 
to  lie  about  all  the  Democrats,  especially  about  Wood- 
row  Wilson  and  James  M.  Cox.  He  is  suave,  neat,  a 
Presbyterian  elder,  a  very  handy  clerk  to  the  great. 
He  has  no  intelligence,  no  sense  of  the  public  welfare, 
no  ethics  beyond  small  personal  matters  such  as  not 
swearing  or  playing  poker.  He  has  been  put  in  to 
change  as  many  postmasters  as  possible  from  Demo- 
crats to  Republicans. 

As  the  monkey  who  was  put  forward  to  do  the  dirty 
work  of  the  Republicans,  Hayes  was  apt.  But  he  is  not 
dangerous  to  the  public  welfare  because  he  is  not  in- 
telligent and  willful  enough  to  do  anything  alone. 
When  he  talks  of  ''the  NigKts  of  Labor"  in  the  P.  O. 
Department,  he  is  fooling  only  himself. 

He  is  a  very  small  star  of  bale. 

One  wonders  how  some  men  ever  arrive ;  among 
such  is  the  case  of  Secretary  Davis,  once  a  miner  with 
a  union  card,  now  a  millionaire  and  the  national  or- 
ganizer of  a  great  secret  order.  He  is  nobody.  He  can 
do  nothing  for  the  department ;  he  has  no  views  on  pub- 


131 

lie  matters ;  he  fills  in  nicely.  In  such  a  Cabinet  a  real 
labor  man  would  be  as  unhappy  as  a  colored  gentleman 
alone  on  an  iceberg  in  the  Arctics. 

Last  is  Herbert  C.  Hoover,  who  might  have  been 
President,  and  who  is  playing  now  for  the  Presidency. 

There  were  two  reasons  for  naming  Mr.  Hoover, 
real  reasons.  He  owns  THE  WASHINGTON  HERALD, 
a  small  morning  daily  in  the  National  Capital ;  that  is, 
he  owns  the  realty.  The  Noyes  family  owns  the  fran- 
chise of  all  four  Washington  papers ;  and  the  family  is 
Republican,  voting  in  Maryland,  for  the  people  of  the 
District  of  Columbia  have  no  votes. 

This  gives  the  Administration  directly  a  Washing- 
ton organ.  Of  course,  Hughes  is  very  close  to  two 
papers  as  we  have  seen,  and  Mellon  is  very  close  to  the 
great  Pittsburg  GAZETTE-TIMES,  which  is  owned  by 
close  business  associates.  Some  other  men  have  news- 
paper interests;  but  Secretary  Hoover  actually  does 
own  the  HERALD. 

The  other  reason  is  that  public  opinion  requires  a 
strong  disinfectant  in  the  Cabinet.  Mr.  Hoover  has 
some  false  notions,  such  as  the  desirability  of  "export- 
ing capital"  from  America  to  help  the  rest  of  the  world, 
which,  of  course,  only  means  that  the  labor  of  the  poor 
in  our  land  shall  be  exploited  to  help  our  plutocrats 
conquer  the  earth. 

But  even  the  sun  has  spots;  and  Mr.  Hoover  has 
shown  in  many  fields  superb  executive  abilities,  a 
warm  heart  for  all  men,  a  tremendous  talent  for  get- 
ting people  together  and,  in  short,  genius.  He  is  a 
star  of  the  first  magnitude — on  next  to  the  poorest 
ARC  of  the  Cabinet  horizon ;  but  he  was  too  decent  to 
decline.  He  should  have  been  either  Secretary  of  State 
or  of  the  Interior  or  of  the  Treasury.  He  turned  to 
Harding,  and  if  he  had  not  turned  to  him,  who  knows 
what  the  result  might  not  have  been? 


132 

But  individualities  are  not  in  themselves  much; 
the  real  question  is  what  groups  and  cliques  will  form 
in  the  Cabinet,  which  is  already  apparent. 

Group  1 — Hughes,  Wallace,  Hoover. 

Croup  2 — Daugherty,  Hays,  Fall. 

Group  3 — Denby,  Weeks,  Mellon,  Davis. 

Mellon  will,  therefore,  hold  the  balance  of  power, 
because  of  the  size  of  his  group  and  of  his  own  prestige 
with  it. 

From  their  past  records  as  the  world  viewed  them 
these  men  ranked  before  they  went  into  the  Cabinet 
like  this: 

1.  Hoover 

2.  Hughes  — High 

3.  Mellon 

4.  Wallace 

5.  Denby  _p^.^ 

6.  Weeks 

7.  Davis 

8.  Hays 

9.  Fall 
10.  Daugherty 

But  like  all  men,  they  had  their  records  to  make 
when  they  got  together  and  into  their  new  lines. 

When  men  do  get  together,  strange  things  result 
from  the  social  relationships  that  come  to  pass  from 
personal  likes  and  dislikes. 

A  srong  illustration  of  this  was  the  bitter  political 
enmities  of  Cannon  and  Clark;  but  they  happened  to 
like  one  another  and  personally  were  on  very  friendly 
terms,  when  they  could  forget  politics.  Publicly,  they 
said  terrible  things  about  one  another;  but  privately 
they  often  hobnobbed  together.  This  does  not  nean 
that  they  framed  up  deals  against  the  world  t  help 
one  another  politically.     Far  from  it.     Thev    ..nder- 


— All  below  par  as  undesir- 
ables, pernicious. 


18S 

stood  that  they  were  enemies,  and  yet  they  had  friendly 
feelings  through  it  all. 

It  is  impossible  that  men  like  Hoover  and  Daugherty 
ever  could  agree  on  much  of  anything  political;  they 
are  as  far  apart  as  the  Equator  and  North  Pole.  But 
even  so,  it  is  within  the  limits  of  possibility  that  they 
may  become  personal  friends,  though  very  unlikely. 

What  is  impossible  is  that  Hughes  will  ever  be  the 
warm  personal  friend  of  anyone  in  the  Cabinet.  He 
will  not  be  the  center  of  a  Cabinet  family.  Mellon  also 
is  a  PBrson  aioof  from  all  others  in  that  group.  Nor 
can  President  Harding  hmself  become  the  center,  for 
no  President  can  forget  that  these  secretaries  are 
clerk.<  only.  They  are  irresponsible  to  the  public. 
Whatever  they  do,  he  must  stand  for,  or  fire  them. 

Weeks  also  belongs  to  this  aloof  and  superior  type 
of  person,  who  is  never  a  bond  of  union.  Wallace  is 
not  a  man  of  strong  will  power.  If  the  Cabinet  ever 
does  come  together,  it  will  be  through  Hoover,  or  pos- 
sibly Denby.  Hays  is  laughed  at  quietly  behind  the 
scenes.  Davis  is  nobody  at  all.  Daugherty  is  the  low- 
est of  them  all  in  character,  and  they  all  know  it.  Fall 
is  not  much  better. 

The  question,  therefore,  is — How  will  the  Cabinet 
function  ? 

As  a  three-group  affair,  it  must  fail. 

The  question  becomes  that  which  is  already  sug- 
gested— which  way  will  Mellon  turn  those  who 
naturally  are  with  him?  Will  he  join  the  Hoover 
group,  or  the  Daugherty  group? 

For  Mellon  to  go  with  Hoover  means  that 
Daugherty  will  have  to  get  out,  as  some  years  ago 
Ballinger  had  to  quit  the  Taft  Cabinet  as  an  impos- 
sible. Ballinger,  of  Washington,  had  too  noisome  a 
past;  Belknap  in  the  days  of  Grant  was  a  very  heavy 


ir,4 

load.  A  century  ago,  George  Washington  had  to  drop 
a  man  for  the  same  reason. 

Even  so,  Harding  will  have  paid  his  political  debt 
to  Daugherty. 

But  if  Mellon  decides  to  be  practical,  then  he  will 
go  with  Daugherty ;  and  Hughes  will  face  the  question 
whether  or  not  a  man  is  known  by  the  company  he 
keeps.  Hughes  is  the  titular  head.  With  a  majority 
against  him,  he  would  be  out  of  face. 

Weeks  will  incline  to  go  with  Daugherty;  but 
Denby  may  hesitate.  Either,  however,  will  follow  Mel- 
lon, the  plutocrat. 

The  vast  power  of  private  wealth  will  steadily  force 
Mellon  to  the  front,  and  it  may  be  that  friction  will 
result. 

In  respect  to  their  private  fortunes,  the  general 
opinion  is  that  Hoover  is  second  in  wealth ;  but 
whether  he  is  worth  five  millions  or  fifteen,  no  one 
knows. 

Next  comes  Weeks,  with  several  millions. 

Denby  is  probably  fourth  in  respect  to  private 
estate. 

Davis,  Hughes  and  Wallace  are  commonly  supposed 
to  be  in  the  millionaire  class. 

No  Chairman  of  a  Republican  National  Committee 
needs  to  remain  poor.  But  what  Hays  has  now  is  un- 
known to  the  public.  Daugherty  is  supposed  to  be 
worth  less  than  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  in  the  pres- 
ent Cabinet;  he  is  unknown  to  the  public.  Possibly, 
Hays  is  in  this  class. 

The  total  wealth  of  the  Cabinet  is,  of  course,  by 
far  the  greatest,  many  times  as  great  as  any  other. 
Even  leaving  out  Mellon,  one  learns  that  the  Cabinet  is 
a  bunch  of  very  rich  men.  Most  Cabinets  are  made 
up  of  poor  men.  This  is  the  Cabinet  of  millionaires. 
Certainly   five  are   millionaires,  and  two   are   multi- 


136 

millionaires.    How  rich  will  they  be  if  they  serve  four 
years  ? 

It  is  unpleasant  to  think  of  a  man  like  Daugherty  in 
a  position  to  exercise  selfish  use  of  power.  The  Ai- 
torney  General  can  set  loose  tremendous  forces.  Noth- 
ing in  the  record  of  this  man  inspires  confidence  that 
he  will  not  play  the  game  to  help  the  rich  and  to  help 
himself.  But  which  of  the  rich  will  he  favor?  To 
be  rich  is  to  be  a  contestant  with  many  other  rich  men 
to  gain  more  wealth  or  at  least  to  hold  one's  own. 

Suppose  that  a  poor  man,  suppose  that  a  poor  col- 
lege professor  exposes  or  gets  in  the  way  of  a  man 
like  Daugherty?  What  will  happen  to  him?  To  his 
mail  ?  To  his  personal  freedom  ?  Suppose  that  a  news- 
paper should  undertake  to  oppose  this  bunch?  Would 
Hughes  be  of  any  avail  to  them  ?  Hughes  is  set  aside 
for  international  affairs.  Daugherty  and  Hays  and 
Fall  will  manage  the  domestic  matters,  the  sources 
of  supply,  the  enemies  of  the  plutocracy. 

Hughes  is  no  Andrew  Jackson  to  accumulate  wrath 
unto  a  day  of  wrath  and  outbreak.  What  is  Hoover, 
next  to  the  tail-ender  in  the  Cabinet.  And  he  is  too 
rich  to  see  the  world  and  human  life  just  as  the  poor 
man  seeking  to  be  free  sees  it. 

The  great  game  of  liquidating  wages  goes  on:  this 
means  the  reduction  of  wage-earners  to  virtual  slavery, 
if  the  wage-earner  is  ruined,  what  will  become  of  the 
retail  merchant,  the  pastor,  the  teacher,  the  lawyer? 
Even  the  physician  and  the  journalist  cannot  live  in  a 
mendicant  world. 

With  such  a  Cabinet,  one  wonders  what  kind  of  a 
new  Supreme  Court,  President  Harding  and  the  United 
States  Senate  intend  to  create  after  the  very  old  men 
go,  as  five  of  them  should  already  be  gone  ? 

Will  "Injunction  Bill"  Taft  be  paid  for  allowing  the 


1S6 

League  to  be  defeated  by  being  made  Chief  Justice?  If 
so,  how  will  that  help  labor  and  the  oppressed? 

The  Republicans  pronounce  this  "a  great  Cabinet;" 
it  is  great — for  their  purposes  of  forwarding  the  day 
when  the  plutocrats  will  snap  their  fingers  at  the  labor- 
ing people  and  say  safely,  "Take  it,  or  leave  it  and 
starve  to  death."  An  empire  like  that  of  the  latter 
days  of  Rome  marches  on. 

This  Harding  Cabinet  is  a  reflex,  of  course,  of  the 
confused,  unprincipled  mind  of  the  man  himself.  It 
contains  good  and  evil  unbalanced. 

In  age,  it  is  excessive.  Several  are  sixty  and  over. 
It  is  a  Cabinet  of  OLD  MEN. 

Kipling  once  wrote  of  them,  "They  will  take  up  the 
ropes  that  constrained  their  youth  to  bind  on  their  chil- 
dren's hands.  They  will  call  to  the  waters  below  the 
bridges  to  return  and  replenish  the  land ;  they  will  har- 
ness horses,  Death's  pale  horses,  and  scholarly  plow 
the  sands." 

But  Kipling  did  not  know  these  Old  Men,  these  El- 
der Statesmen  of  America.  They  are  working  for 
their  own  interests.  Their  game  is  to  keep  whatever 
for  the  past  they  can  and  to  stop  all  the  progress  into 
a  fairer  world  from  happening,  that  they  can. 

Their  god  is  Personal  Success.  Their  country  is 
the  country  of  the  rich. 

THE  WANDERERS 

From  city  unto  city,  Homer,  the  sweet  singer,  begged 

his  bread. 
Because  he  told  the  living  the  songs  of  heroes  who 

were  dead. 

Pure  Dante,  fate-announcer,  went  on  exile  for  his  God ; 
He  ate  their  salt  at  others  tables,  and  on  their  stairs 
he  trod. 


137 

"Oh,  beggars,  be  damned!"  so  say  the  lords  of  power 

and  fear  and  food, 
They  left  our  country  for  our  obedient  country's  good. 

In  brutal  foolishness,  we  tramp  the  hearth-fires  of  the 

sages  out; 
Comes  patient  Time,  and  puts  the  furious  multitudes 

to  rout. 

Whom  the  fathers  thought  but  "madmen"  in  their  own 

dark  night. 
The  children  crown  immortal  on  radiant  thrones  of 

light. 

They  hated  the  lords  of  ill-got  wealth  and  pitied 
poverty ; 

They  fought  the  cruel  legal  lawless  and  loved  the  tran- 
quil free. 

Who  were  "the  just  made  perfect?"  The  starved  or 

jailed,  exiled  or  maimed, 
The  quarry  of  kings  dungeoned,  slain  by  cross  or  fire, 

or  ashamed. 

Behold!     The  Son  of  Man  no  place  had  to  lay  His 

sovereign  head — 
Beyond  the  Gates  of  Pearl,  He  rules  the  living  and 

the  dead. 

They  yielded  up  the  Present  to  make  the  Future  theirs, 

and  saw 
From  far  the  glory  of  the  shining  of  the  moral  law. 

Now  this  is  the  Law  forever — Only  the  best  shall  rule. 
And  all  the  good  shall  be  happy  from  Yuletide  unto 
Yule. 

What  the  country  of  free  Americans  needs  are  two 
PROCLAMATIONS  upon  every  billboard  and  at  every 
crossroad. 


138 

Proclamation  1.— INVITATION. 

Let  the  rich  come  to  the  Executive  Departments 
and  let  us,  the  rich,  do  business  with  them.  What 
rich?  Well,  the  protective  tariff  manufacturers  espe- 
cially, and  the  OIL  men.  We  are  rich,  and  we  know 
how  you  feel.    Be  at  home  in  Washington. 

Proclamation  2.— WARNING. 

Let  the  rich  who  are  importers  and  exporters  or 
international  bankers,  except  the  Morgans,  stay  away 
from  Washington.  Let  the  rich  who  manufacture  in 
open  competition  with  the  world  stay  away.  Let  the 
rich  who  are  merchants  or  landowners  stay  away.  And 
let  all  the  poor  and  most  of  the  middle  class  stay  away. 
This  is  not  your  day.  Let  the  little  bankers  also  stay 
away.  Yours  is  to  play  our  game  for  us,  and  profess 
to  like  it. 

But  where  is  Warren  Gamaliel  Harding  in  all  this? 
Where  has  he  always  been?  He  is  ready  with  the  rub- 
ber stamp  just  behind  the  scenes.  He  is  Warren  Yea- 
and-Nay-and-Wait  till  someone  else  makes  up  my  mind 
for  me. 

Much  has  been  said  about  the  importance  of  geo- 
graphical distribution  of  Cabinet  members.  In  this 
Cabinet — 

Pennsylvania  has  two,  Mellon  and  Davis. 

New  York  has  one,  Hughes. 

Massachusetts  has  one.  Weeks. 

Ohio  has  one,  Daugherty. 

Indiana  has  one.  Hays. 

Arizona  has  one.  Fall. 

California  has  one.  Hoover. 

Iowa  has  one,  Wallace. 

Michigan  has  one,  Denby. 

Massachusetts,  however,  has  Speaker  Gillett,  of 
the  House  of  Representatives.  A  poor  man  is  worse 
off  in  Massachusetts  than  in  any  other  American  State. 


139 

A  creditor  can  seize  even  the  beefsteak  off  his  table 
or  the  clock  on  his  wall,  for  debt  or  even  claim  of  debt. 
The  poor  are  slaves,  white  slaves,  there. 

But  Mellon,  Davis,  Hays  and  Fall  all  mean  Boies 
Penrose — Weeks  and  Denby  mean  Henry  Cabot  Lodge. 

Only  Hughes,  Hoover  and  Wallace  mean  themselves. 
And  of  these  Hoover  in  no  sense  represents  California 
interests,  for  he  is  both  a  patriot  and  internationalist. 
Senator  Hiram  Johnson  hates  him.  It  is  an  unfortu- 
nate animosity,  for  Johnson  is  far  from  the  worst  of 
the  Republicans. 

Hughes  never  was  a  leader,  thugh  he  has  often 
four-flushed  trying  to  lead.  Hoover  is  a  leader,  and 
he  has  four-flushed  but  once  so  far  in  his  life.  But 
when  did  the  haunch  of  the  dog  ever  select  his  course? 
Davis  is  the  tail  of  the  Cabinet,  the  mixer  and  the 
jollier  for  that  plotting  group. 

For  seriousness,  for  gloom  that  actually  dulls  the 
knife  that  is  used  to  try  to  cut  it,  where  could  we  turn 
and  get  more  of  this  than  in  Hughes  and  Mellon? 
There  are  but  two  really  genial  souls  unafraid  of  any- 
one else,  glad  to  welcome  the  next  fellow  in  this  lot — 
Davis  and  Wallace.  Even  Hoover  likes  to  hide  away 
with  a  few  papers  and  statistics  and  frame  up  his  plans 
alone.  Hays  passes  for  a  mixer,  but  he  mixes  with 
rich  and  stand-pat  Republicans  only.  As  for  Warren 
himself,  whoever  saw  him  in  a  crowd  anywhere  than 
hidden  away  from  too  close  a  view — if  he  could  ar- 
range it? 

As  for  being  spendthrift  hosts  at  public  functions, 
not  these  millionaires.  They  are  one  and  all  thrifty, 
even  those  who  inherited  wealth — Mellon,  Weeks  and 
Denby.    This  is  perhaps  well. 

To  understand  this  Cabinet,  one  must  understand 
Daugherty ;  and  to  understand  him,  which  he  does  not 
desire,  one  must  understand  Ohio  politics. 


140 


CHAPTER  XI 
OHIO  POLITICAL  HISTORY 

Ohio  is  the  most  political  State  in  the  Union.  In 
Ohio,  politics  is  the  real  religion.  More  persons  talk 
politics  in  Oho  per  thousand  of  the  population  (and 
they  talk  politics  longer  and  with  more  acerbity)  than 
in  any  other  State.  Everything  in  Ohio  gives  way  to 
this  first  interest.  If  there  were  anything  in  the 
notion  that  public  interest  insures  honesty  and  honor 
in  politics,  then  Ohio  would  be  the  cleanest  State  in 
the  Union.  Of  course,  it  is  not  the  worst  State,  be- 
cause in  Ohio  there  is  a  fight  between  the  two  great 
parties  for  supremacy,  and  while  in  general  the  Repub- 
licans have  been  the  winners,  yet  there  have  been 
enough  Democratic  periods  to  keep  the  war  very  much 
alive. 

In  Ohio,  the  Republicans  start  with  two  enormous 
groups  behind  them — all  the  negroes  and  most  of  the 
Grand  Army  of  the  Republic,  who,  until  recent  years, 
have  polled  a  very  heavy  vote.  The  negroes  number 
now  about  400,000  of  persons  with  race-consciousness 
and  class-consciousness  that  they  have  colored  blood. 
This  means  that  they  make  one-twelfth  of  the  popu- 
lation. In  Columbus,  they  now  number  fully  45,000  in 
a  population  of  327,000.  Of  course,  many  negroes  are 
members  of  the  G.  A.  R.,  which  vote  accounted  for 
about  a  quarter  of  a  million  until  recently.  Occasion- 
ally, when  a  colored  man  loses  race-consciousness  and 
class-consciousness,  he  may  vote  the  Democratic 
ticket.  In  truth,  there  is  no  better  camouflage  for  the 
light-colored  negro  who  intends  to  "cross  the  line  and 


141 

become  white"  than  to  become  an  open  and  ardent 
Democrat  in  some  part  of  the  State  where  his  history- 
is  unknown. 

When  a  party  can  count  certainly  upon  fully  one- 
eighth  of  the  entire  population  as  its  own,  it  has  to 
win  only  three-eighths  more  in  order  to  establish  itself 
in  power. 

The  Democratic  party  has  had  as  its  center  the 
War  Copperheads,  who  thought  that  blood  should  not 
be  spilled  to  keep  the  South  in  the  Union.  This  ele- 
ment was  small  always. 

For  its  economic  composition,  Ohio  has  a  rural  and 
a  city  distribution — fishermen  on  the  lake,  miners  in 
the  East  and  South,  farmers  everywhere,  a  wonderful 
development  of  railroads,  surpassed  by  no  other  State 
in  the  Union  in  distribution  per  square  mile,  and  six 
large  cities,  Cleveland,  Cincinnati,  Toledo,  Akron, 
Dayton  and  Columbus,  third  in  point  of  numbers,  at 
the  very  center.  These  are  both  industrial  and  com- 
mercial cities.  The  manufactures  of  Ohio  run  mostly 
in  the  metals  rather  than  in  textiles  or  paper. 

In  the  years  of  the  life  of  Warren  Harding,  Ohio 
has  undergone  a  transformation  from  being  mainly 
rural  to  being  mainly  urban.  The  ealier  elements  in 
the  population  were  these,  viz. : 

In  the  North,  New  England  settlers,  largely  from 
Connecticut. 

In  the  South,  Virginia  settlers. 
In  the  middle  sections,  these  were  infiltrated  by 
the  Pennsylvania  Dutch. 

At  various  points,  there  were  Germans,  such  as 
Cincinnati  and  the  Miami  Valley,  and  in  the  middle 
counties. 

The  last  part  of  the  State  to  be  settled  was  the 
northwest,   including  the  marvellously  rich   Maumee 


142 

Valley,  which  was  very  densely  wooded  and  was  and 
yet  is  swampy. 

But  sixty  years  since  the  Civl  War  began  have 
changed  the  scene.  The  New  England  element  has 
spread  everywhere,  though  but  thinly,  for  the  fam- 
ilies are  small. 

The  old  German  element  has  prospered  and  spread 
very  widely,  but  has  tended  to  spread  not  as  single 
families  but  in  groups  and  communities  or  wards  of 
cities.  For  practical  purposes,  except  in  respect  to  the 
names,  this  old  German  element  does  not  differ  from 
the  Anglo-Saxon  New  England  and  Virtinia  elements. 
It  has,  however,  been  reinforced  by  new  German 
streams,  some  of  which  has  tended  to  weaken  their 
love  of  liberty. 

In  greatest  part,  the  Virginia  element  has  stayed 
in  the  south  of  the  State.  Great  numbers  of  negroes 
and  colored  people  have  come  in  from  the  South.  They 
have  had  but  small  families  and  poor  success,  but  they 
have  persisted  in  the  immigration  none  the  less.  The 
climate  of  the  State  in  the  north  is  ill-adapted  to  the 
negro  constitution. 

Tens  of  thousands  have  come  from  the  Old  World — 
Ohio  is  a  favorite  point  for  Hungarians,  Poles,  Italians, 
Russian  Jews,  Greeks,  but  not  for  Scandinavians, 
Dutch,  English,  Irish,  or  the  other  peoples  that  in  such 
numbers  have  come  across  the  seas  to  try  their  for- 
tunes in  the  New  World. 

There  is  a  new  Ohio — Industrial,  urban,  disorderly, 
ignorant,  unambitious,  inferior. 

Unfortunately,  the  rural  districts  in  many  parts  of 
the  State  have  fallen  into  intellectual  and  moral  de- 
cay hrough  losing  their  ablest  men  and  women  to  the 
cities ;  they  lack  their  normal  leaders  born  among  them 
and  familiar  with  their  desires  and  notions.  Rural 
Ohio  is  no  longer  full  of  reading  people. 


143 

Three-quarters  of  all  the  college  and  university- 
students  of  the  State  come  from  the  cities  and  towns 
from  four  thousand  to  one  hundred  thousand  in  popula- 
tion, and  not  from  the  thinly  settled  rural  districts  or 
from  the  six  great  cities. 

This  change  from  the  old  intellectual  and  moral 
Ohio  to  the  present  social  state  has  been  attended  by 
some  very  severe  political  struggles. 

The  first  that  may  perhaps  be  mentioned  is  the 
struggle  between  the  CITIES  and  the  RURAL  DIS- 
TRICTS, or  FARMERS.  This  has  been  chiefly  a  strug- 
gle over  taxes.  The  farmers  have  claimed  that  the 
cities  have  all  the  moneys  and  they  have  the  most 
of  the  taxes.  Of  course,  because  the  cities  have  the 
banks,  they  have  control  of  the  credits. 

The  second  struggle  has  been  between  Cleveland 
and  Cincinnati.  Fifty  years  ago  Cincinnati  was  the 
great  city ;  now  Cleveland  has  almost  doubled  the  popu- 
lation. 

The  third  struggle  has  been  between  the  *'drys" 
and  the  "wets." 

The  fourth  struggle  has  been  between  the  corpora- 
tions and  the  citizens  who  have  little  or  no  corporate 
properties  or  claims. 

A  fifth  struggle  has  been  between  old  forms  of 
wealth  for  the  older  elements  in  the  population  and 
the  new  forms  of  wealth ;  lands  against  paper 
securities. 

A  sixth  struggle  has  been  between  the  men  who 
could  vote  and  the  women  who  could  not. 

A  seventh  struggle  has  been  between  the  old  fam- 
ilies and  the  new  immigrants. 

All  these  struggles  have  registered  themselves  at 
the  polls  and  in  the  State  Legislature. 

It  was  in  1899  that  Warren  Harding  broke  into 
Ohio  State  politics.     Daugherty  was  already  known 


144 

then;  for  he  is  half  a  dozen  years  older  than  the  man 
whom  he  has  made,  and  he  began  at  an  earlier  age. 

The  Governors  of  Ohio  since  that  time  have  been 
as  follows,  viz.: 

George  K.  Nash,  Myron  T.  Herrick,  John  M.  Patti- 
son  (died  in  office),  Andrew  D.  Harris,  Judson  Har- 
mon, James  M.  Cox,  Frank  B.  Willis,  Cox  again,  Harry 
L.  Davis  (now  in  office) . 

Nash  was  a  lawyer  and  a  politician.  He  was  part 
and  parcel  of  the  Hanna-Dick-Daugherty  machine 
which  was  at  bitter  enemity  with  the  Foraker-George 
B.  Cox-Bushnell  machine. 

Hanna  was  a  Cleveland  steamboat  and  steel  man, 
who  made  a  great  fortune,  was  amazingly  energetic, 
fought  Tom  L.  Johnson  in  Cleveland,  put  William  Mc- 
Kinley  into  the  White  House,  loaned  to  him  enough 
money  to  pay  his  unfortunate  business  debts,  and 
owned  him  body,  soul  and  breeches,  so  that  McKinley 
never  named  a  man  to  office  until  Hanna  had  told  him 
to  do  it,  and  finally  bribed  his  way  through  the  Ohio 
Legislatui'e  and  became  a  Senator  of  the  United  States. 
He  was  a  bitter,  violent  enemy  of  Theodore  Roosevelt, 
and  a  warm  personal  friend  of  many  of  the  vilest 
men  and  women  in  the  part  of  the  United  States  that 
he  knew.  Fortunately,  he  died  at  a  compartively  early 
age,  in  1904,  and  by  being  cleared  away,  left  some  op- 
portunity for  Roosevelt,  when  President,  to  get  some 
good  work  done.  He  is  the  father  of  Dan  R.  Hanna, 
who  owns  the  CLEVELAND  NEWS,  and  is  now  di- 
vorced from  his  fourth  wife;  and  also  of  Ruth  Hanna 
McCormick,  wife  of  United  States  Senator  Medill  Mc- 
Cormick,  of  Illinois,  who  is  one  of  the  owners  of  the 
CHICAGO  TRIBUNE,  said  by  itself  to  be  "the  great- 
est newspaper  in  the  world,"  perfectly  correct,  though 
not  unpatriotic  a  paper  that  fights  Mayor  William 
Hale  Thompson  of  Chicago,  millionaire  boss  of  that 


145 

city,  and  now  also  of  the  State  of  Illinois ;  is  not  utterly 
hopeless  as  a  moral  agency. 

Hanna  was  not  quite  the  worst  man  that  American 
politics  has  put  forward;  Burr  was  worse.  Nor  was 
William  McKinley  the  worst  or  even  weakest  Presi- 
dent whom  we  have  had;  in  truth,  he  ranks  well  when 
compared  with  some.  He  was  at  least  a  gentleman  by 
instinct.    Hanna  made  him. 

Who  is  the  Hanna  of  Harding?  He  says  that  he 
desires  to  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  the  Martyr  Mc- 
Kinley. God  forbid  that  he  should  be  required  to  fol- 
low all  the  way- 

Hanna  was  "wet."  He  was  a  bulldozer;  he  was 
corrupt  to  the  center ;  but  he  had  intelligence  and  fore- 
sight and  vigor.  Like  Boss  Croker,  he  worked  all  the 
time  for  his  own  pocket.  But  he  was  an  abler  man  far 
than  the  Tammany  boss. 

Dick  was  a  machine  man  from  Akron,  who  became 
United  States  Senator,  an  untiring  worker  for  the  Re- 
publican party,  sometimes  well-to-do,  sometimes  poor 
from  bad  business  ventures.  He  was  a  man  of  but 
little  natural  ability.  He  was  the  typical  party  politi- 
cal worker. 

Daugherty  was  the  Columbus  part  of  this  machine ; 
a  man  who  knew  the  State  Capital,  and  also  worked 
hard  for  the  party.  He  spent  Hanna's  money  for  him 
skilfully  and  hid  the  work  well  enough  for  the  time 
being. 

Foraker  was  the  Cincinnati  lawyer,  a  Standard  Oil 
man,  an  orator,  who  had  been  Governor  of  the  State  in 
times  past.  He  was  always  known  as  the  leader  of 
this  negro  vote,  though  himself  a  white  man.  He  be- 
came United  States  Senator,  and  on  the  floor  of  Con- 
gress and  in  the  lobbies  and  in  the  departments,  he 
spent  much  time  working  for  his  various  clients,  per- 
sonal and  corporate.     He  was  a  natural  born  worker 


146 

for  his  friends,  whether  the  public  benefited  thereby 
or  not.  He  became  rich  through  corrupt  methods,  but 
finally,  through  the  efforts  of  Theodore  Roosevelt  and 
of  William  Randolph  Hearst,  he  lost  his  seat  in  the 
Senate.  It  was  a  strange  alliance,  denied  by  both  per- 
sons, but  effective  nonetheless.  Hanna  always  claimed 
that  Hearst  aroused  the  enmity  of  the  people  against 
McKinley  through  attacks  upon  himself  in  order  that 
Roosevelt  might  become  President — a  claim  that  en- 
raged Roosevelt. 

The  frightful  cartoons  of  Davenport  against  Hanna 
in  the  Hearst  papers  were  cited  as  the  moving  cause 
of  the  murder  of  McKinley  by  Czolgoez  in  1901.  If  big 
business  had  refrained  from  its  efforts  to  make 
America  a  plutocrat's  Paradise,  the  cartoons  would 
never  have  been  necessary  to  arouse  the  people.  But 
as  the  murderer  had  never  learned  English  and  had 
been  in  this  country  only  a  few  years,  and  had  come  as 
an  anarchist  with  the  avowed  purpose  to  tear  down 
the  Government,  the  claim  of  Hanna  is  far-fetched.  He 
probably  never  saw  any  Davenport  cartoon. 

Whatever  else  is  true,  this  is  true  that  the  suc- 
cession of  Roosevelt  to  the  Presidency  was  a  most 
fortunate  event  for  America  at  that  time. 

The  succession  of  Johnson  in  1865  to  Abraham 
Lincoln  was  an  unmixed  calamity ;  and  that  of  Arthur 
to  Garfield  in  1881  was  very  regrettable.  But  McKin- 
ley never  really  was  President.  Hanna  was  regent 
over  him. 

Who  is  regent  over  his  disciple,  Harding? 

Hearst  downed  Foraker;  but  George  B.  Cox  gave 
way  only  when  the  Angel  of  Death  called.  He  was 
the  boss  of  Cincinnati;  very  rich,  living  in  a  magnifi- 
cent home  without  visible  means  of  support.  No  city 
was  ever  owned  by  any  boss  more  tightly  than  Cox 
owned  Cincinnati.     How  he  acquired  this  control  is 


147 

mysterious  but  not  impossible  to  learn.  He  kept  all  his 
promises,  delivered  the  goods,  told  the  truth  to  his 
friends  was  as  silent  as  the  grave;  otherwise,  was  a 
cheerful,  amiable,  healthy  person,  who  had  a  genius 
for  getting  offices  and  contracts  for  the  faithful  and 
for  being  paid  himself  as  part  of  every  bargain. 

Bushnell  has  passed  with  very  little  record.  He 
was  State  Governor  once. 

Such  were  the  two  machines  in  the  same  party.  It 
was  Cleveland  and  Columbus  then  against  Cincinnati. 

Nash  was  Governor  while  Harding  was  State 
Senator.  He  fell  in  with  the  Daugherty  machine  first ; 
but  was  silent  enough  and  hid  himself  enough  in  the 
background  not  to  antagonize  the  Cincinnati  people. 

At  this  period,  State  Senator  Warren  G.  Harding 
was  about  thirty-five  years  old,  wife  forty-one  years 
old,  who  ran  his  business  for  him,  and  with  a  father- 
in-law  who  hated  him  and  called  him  a  "nigger"  to  his 
face  and  behind  his  back  and  who  would  not  allow  him 
to  enter  his  home.  He  was  always  called  by  the  nick- 
name, "Nig,"  at  this  time;  but  if  anyone  had  told  him 
that  he  would  be  President  of  the  United  States,  he 
would  not  have  taken  it  seriously,  for  all  that  he  al- 
ready had,  had  been  given  to  him  by  others.  He  was 
only  a  printer  who  did  not  try  to  edit  or  write  for  his 
own  paper,  which,  in  fact,  was  his  wife's.  There  was 
an  "able  editor"  in  the  payroll  by  the  name  of  Van 
Fleet.  State  Senator  Harding  was  the  creature  of 
the  circumstances. 

The  issues  in  the  period  of  Governor  Nash  were 
these,  viz. : 

1.  Economy  in  State  expenditures.  This,  of  course, 
was  pressed  by  the  farmers. 

2.  Annual  reports  by  corporations,  which  were  still 
free  from  inspection.     This  also  was  pressed  by  the 


148 

farmers  and  likewise  by  the  older  property  interests, 
such  as  lands. 

3.  Legislation  to  protect  labor.  This  showed  the 
influences  coming  from  the  new  industrial  life  oj  the 
State.    The  cities  and  the  miners  asked  for  this 

4.  Better  supervision  of  penal  and  reformatory  in- 
stitutions. Back  in  1900  conditions  were  even  worse 
than  they  are  now  in  these  institutions  in  Ohio. 

5.  Reduction  and  abolition  of  the  State  tax  levy 
and  leaving  all  taxes  to  be  collected  by  the  counties 
as  such. 

6.  An  annual  tax  upon  coiTDorations. 

7.  Full  immediate  payment  of  the  State  debts. 

8.  Revision  of  the  State  game  laws. 

It  does  not  appear  that  Warren  Harding  exerted  or 
tried  to  exert  any  influence  upon  these  matters,  but 
he  voted  right;  that  is,  he  found  out  what  Hanna 
wanted,  and  he  filled  in  accordingly. 

Then  came  what  looks  like  an  astonishing  thing — 
Harding  was  nominated  for  the  Lieutenant  Governor^ 
ship  in  1904 ;  he  had  been  tried  out  as  presiding  officer 
of  a  State  Republican  Convention  and  found  safe; 
he  would  stand  without  hitching  and  go  without  whip- 
ping; and  do  what  he  had  been  told  to  do.  Myron  T. 
Herrick  was  the  candidate  for  Governor ;  and  Theodore 
Roosevelt  was  candidate  for  President.  Herrick  and 
Harding  went  in  on  the  Presidential  tide.  It  matters 
but  little  now  that  in  order  to  win,  Roosevelt  lied  about 
the  campaign  contributions  from  the  life  insurance 
companies  as  charged  against  him  by  Alton  B.  Parker. 
Later  he  apologized,  but  Cortelyou  had  the  money  to 
use;  and  they  won. 

This  raises  the  question  who  Myron  T.  Herrick  was 
and  is. 

This  man  came  from  a  family  on  a  farm  in  the 
north  of  Ohio,  without  education,  and  almost  without 


149 

morals.  But  he  got  in;  he  married  a  well-to-do  lady 
of  Dayton ;  he  got  into  banking  in  Cleveland ;  and  soon 
he  was  a  millionaire.  He  is  a  positive  person,  of  strong 
constitution,  without  the  capacity  of  feeling  any  nausea 
over  political  rottenness.  He  has  since  been  Ambassa- 
dor to  France,  and  confirmed  to  go  again.  He  has  be- 
come part  of  the  vast  banking  fraternity  of  Cleveland, 
and  is  of  unknown  wealth,  perhaps  ten  or  twenty  mil- 
lions. 

He  is  the  larger  owner  of  the  DAYTON  JOURNAL, 
which  is  published  by  the  Burkham-Herrick  Company, 
and  which  libelled  Professor  William  Estabrook 
Chancellor  in  the  last  campaign,  by  charging  that  he 
had  retracted  that  which  he  had  not  done.  He  had 
done  nothing,  and  he  retracted  nothing.  This  is  why 
he  has  been  lost  to  the  people  and  is  living,  if  at  all,  in 
some  spot  unknown  even  to  his  own  family.  We  have 
elsewhere  explained  who  did  publish  the  reports  re- 
garding the  Harding  ancestry. 

Of  course,  as  Lieutenant  Governor,  Warren  Hard- 
ing had  nothing  of  importance  to  do  with  legislation. 
He  was  always  addressed  even  at  this  time  by  Gov- 
ernor Herrick  as  "Nig"  Harding.  But  the  Governor 
was  rich  and  Harding  was  really  only  a  printer. 

Though  at  this  time  there  came  a  great  change  in 
Ohio  politics  through  the  grant  to  the  Governor  of  the 
veto  power,  Herrick  got  almost  nothing  done.  This 
Legislature  over  which,  in  the  upper  branch,  Warren 
Harding  presided,  passed  a  law  legalizing  race  track 
gambling,  but  Herrick  was  decent  enough  to  veto  it. 

The  Legislature  was  thoroughly  reactionary.  It 
killed  a  bill  for  improving  the  state  banks,  another  to 
regulate  the  new  interurban  electric  lines,  a  third  to 
improve  the  state  militia,  and  it  brought  together  the 
State  and  the  National  elecions,  which  has  helped  the 
bosses  to  control  the  State  Government,  as  it  was  in- 


150  '  ■ 

tended  to  do.  This  bill  was  a  measure  to  strengthen 
the  politcal  machines  of  Cleveland,  Cincinnati,  Colum- 
bus and  Toledo.  The  more  officers  are  voted  for  in 
one  election,  the  less  the  people  think  about  the  minor 
ones.  Then  the  politicians  can  do  as  they  please  about 
filling  such  offices. 

The  Herrick  administration  refused  to  revise  the 
school  code  of  the  state.  This  code  was  in  very  bad 
shape.  It  allowed  the  poorer  districts  to  have  little  or 
no  schooling,  and  in  most  of  the  counties  there  was 
absolutely  no  supervision  of  any  kind.  Educators  had 
been  reading  a  famous  book  by  City  School  Superin- 
tendent VV.  E.  Chancellor,  who  afterwards  became 
Professor  of  Politics  and  Economics  at  the  College 
of  Wooster;  he  had  served  in  several  large  Eastern 
cities,  such  as  Patterson,  N.  J.,  and  Washington,  D.  C, 
and  they  wished  to  try  out  in  Ohio  his  ideas  regard- 
ing supervision  and  small  school  board.  But  Herrick 
passed  all  the  subject  up  with  the  contempt  that 
Napolean  displayed  for  Pestalozzi ;  it  was  a  matter  for 
childi'en  not  for  men. 

For  the  new  code,  Harding  had  nothing  to  say. 
Himself  not  even  a  graduate  of  a  rural  high  school, 
education  was  meaningless  to  him,  as  it  is  today.  Has 
he  not  "succeeded"  far  beyond  the  college-reared  men  ? 
Why  get  an  education  when  by  standing  by  at  con- 
venient places,  one  can  do  better  still  ? 

Of  course.  Boss  Cox,  of  Cincinnati,  was  opposed  to 
the  school  reform  plans.  Ninety-eight  per  cent  of  all 
the  moneys  spent  by  the  Cincinnati  school  board  for 
books  was  spent  with  one  single  book  company, 
friendly  with  Cox. 

In  this  period,  both  Herrick  and  Harding  did  all 
that  they  could  to  block  a  local  option  bill  upon  the 
liquor  question,  and  what  legislation  was  passed,  was 


151 

entirely  acceptable  to  the  liquor  people;  it  left  all  the 
downtown  sections  of  the  cities  full  of  saloons. 

After  this,  Harding  wont  back  to  the  city  of  Marion 
with  the  increased  prestige  of  having  served  as  State 
Senator  and  as  Lieutenant  Governor,  and  his  father- 
in-law,  Amos  H.  Kling,  was  dead.  He  tried  to  get 
nominations  for  various  offices  but  failed.  He  even 
had  one  run  against  Daugherty;  but  it  was  all  under- 
stood among  friends. 

Where  was  Harding  and  where  was  the  MARION 
STAR  while  the  great  Roosevelt  fight  went  on  for  bet- 
ter political  and  economic  conditions  in  the  nation,  and 
while  Ohio  was  trying  under  Pattison  and  Harmon  to 
better  its  own  state  of  affairs? 

These  were  some  of  the  reforms  actually  ac- 
complished, viz.  : 

1.  A  two-cent  a  mile  railroad  rate  for  passengers. 

2.  Liquor  licenses  were  raised  from  $350  to  $1,000 
a  year. 

3.  A  county  local  option  bill  became  law. 

4.  The  Smith  One  Per  Cent  measure  became  law. 
This  was  then  a  step  in  the  right  direction. 

5.  An  employer's  liability  bill  was  passed. 

6.  Children  were  required  to  go  to  school  until  six- 
teen years  of  age. 

7.  The  State  Board  of  Public  Works  was  organized. 

8.  A  corrupt  practices  act  tended  to  the  improve- 
ment of  conditions  at  elections. 

9.  Public  service  corporations  were  placed  under 
government  regulation, 

Judson  Harmon  was  next  to  the  best  Governor  that 
Ohio  ever  had;  the  best  Governor  was  James  M.  Cox. 
The  former  would  have  made  one  of  the  greatest  of 
Presidents,  and  the  latter  was  in  fact  the  opponent  of 
Mr.  Harding.  It  is  a  main  purpose  of  this  book  to  ex- 
plain how  it  has  come  about  that  a  man  without  anv 


152 

principles  of  thought  or  conduct  or  decision  upon  the 
really  important  matters  of  Ohio  and  National  states- 
manship became  the  head  of  Government  when  others 
vastly  superior  in  each  party  were  passed  over.  That 
Harmon  is  a  really  great  lawyer  and  a  fine  business 
man  and  a  statesman  also,  every  intelligent  citizen 
knows,  and  that  he  is  a  far  more  trustworthy  person 
for  the  public  interests  than  the  man  now  in  the  White 
House  is  likewise  plain ;  but  the  powers  behind  the 
scene  do  not  desire  the  welfare  of  the  nation,  not  even 
that  of  their  own  posterity;  they  desire  power  now. 
Through  Harding,  they  have  it.  HARDING  HIMSELF 
ON  MASQUERADE  IS  THE  MASK  FOR  THEM- 
SELVES. He  is  the  affable  negro  butler  waiting  at 
the  front  door  of  their  palace  of  brigandage.  He  does 
not  desire  power  or  applause  or  even  a  front  seat;  what 
he  desires  are  the  comforts  and  luxuries  of  life;  and 
these  they  have  given  to  him  for  some  years  past. 

The  measures  that  were  put  through  by  Cox,  who 
defeated  Willis  three  times  for  the  Governship  and 
was  defeated  by  him  once  on  the  claim  that  he  had 
"made  the  Legislature  a  rubber  stamp  for  the  Gov- 
ernor," included  these  items,  viz.: 

1.  A  thoroughly  workable  employer's  liability  and 
workmen's  compensation  scheme.  This  is  the  best  sys- 
tem in  the  United  States.  It  is  not  popular  with  the 
very  rich. 

2.  Better  state  highways  and  a  county  system  to 
assist  these  highways.  This  slowly  became  popular 
with  the  farmers  and  was  much  desired  by  the  mer- 
chants. It  has  made  the  motor  truck  a  real  competitor 
with  the  steam  and  electric  railways. 

3.  Censorship  of  the  motion  pictures,  not  so  good  as 
it  should  be,  but  far  better  than  in  many  other  States. 

4.  State  aid  in  the  anti-tuberculosis  campaign. 


153 

5.  Supervision  of  wild-cat  securities — the  so-called 
"blue  sky"  laws. 

6.  A  new  reformed  penitentiary  and  a  very  greatly 
improved  system  of  paroling  prisoners. 

7.  Restriction  of  th  elabor  hours  for  women  and 
children. 

8.  Municipal  home  rule. 

9.  A  state  liquor  license  commission. 

10.  Various  legislative  commissions,  including  one 
to  study  mothers'  pension,  the  State  school  system,  and 
a  farm  credit  system. 

11.  A  State  Department  of  Agriculture. 

12.  Decrease  of  the  State  elected  officers  in  the  in- 
terest of  a  short  ballot  with  a  few  responsible  men. 

13.  Increased  suffrage  for  women. 

14.  Some  financial  relief  to  cities. 

15.  A  State  home  for  crippled  children. 

16.  Creation  of  a  bipartisan  board  of  pardons  and 
clemacy  of  two  persons  under  the  governor  to  give  all 
their  time  to  this  duty. 

17.  The  whole  movement  for  defeating  pro-Ger- 
manism in  the  World  War,  so  far  as  this  was  a  State 
matter. 

18.  Complete  prohibition. 

19.  Complete  woman's  suffrage. 

20.  Actual  economy  under  the  supervision  of  the 
State  Auditor,  who  became  the  candidate  of  the  Demo- 
crats for  the  Governorship  in  1920,  but  was  defeated 
in  the  general  debacle  of  the  Democrats. 

In  the  midst  of  all  these  Cox  reforms,  Frank  B. 
Willis  served  one  term  during  which  his  motto,  "Let 
the  people  attend  to  their  own  business  and  the  Gov- 
ernor keep  out  of  the  fray,"  resulted  in  the  fact  that 
"What  is  everyone's  business  is  no  one's  business."  He 
is  commonly  considered  the  poorest  Governor  Ohio 


154 

ever  had,  bar  none,  but  he  was  elected  all  the  same 
to  the  United  States  Senate. 

The  presence  of  this  man  in  Ohio  politics  would 
be  an  enigma  anywhere  else  than  in  this  State  of  too 
much  politics.  It  may  be  well  to  pause  a  few  moments 
to  consider  the  man  himself. 

Frank  B.  Willis  served  a  term  or  two  in  Congress, 
and  when  he  was  defeated,  he  wept  tears  in  public. 
He  vowed  that  he  would  never  go  again  to  Washing- 
ton until  he  went  to  some  worthwhile  office  again.  He 
is  the  sentimentalist  supreme. 

He  has  a  wonderful  voice,  the  best  voice  of  any 
speaker  in  American  public  life  excepting  only  Wil- 
liam Jennings  Bryan ;  it  is  loud  and  deep,  marvel- 
lously loud,  a  foghorn  voice,  but  pleag^nt. 

He  is  a  thorough  gentleman. 

He  is  and  always  has  been  an  ardent  prohibitionist. 

He  remembers  the  faces  of  his  friends  and  ac- 
quaintances. 

He  once  taught  various  subjects  in  a  little  college 
in  the  West  of  the  State  and  filled  every  office  that 
he  could  with  its  graduates.  He  is  now  its  most 
prominent  alumnus. 

He  has  a  passion  to  speak  anywhere  at  any  time, 
and  is  a  very  frequent  speaker  at  educational  meet- 
ings, especially  high  school  commencements  and  wom- 
en's clubs. 

He  knows  the  history  of  Ohio,  and  has  a  speech 
upon  it  that  claims  half  the  great  men  of  America  for 
Ohio.    This  is  very  popular. 

He  is  scrupulously  free  from  bribe-taking,  and  does 
not  even  associate  with  corruptionists.  He  is  a  very 
devout  Methodist. 

Why  then  is  he  not  a  valuable  man  in  public  life? 

He  is  the  man  who  nomnated  Harding  at  the  Chi- 
cago Convention  in  a  speech  ending  with  the  exhorta- 


155 

tion,  "Come  on,  boys  and  girls,  let's  make  him  Presi- 
dent!" 

1.  Frank  B.  Willis  is  to  all  serious  and  intelligent 
men  a  joke.    Why?    Because  he  is  an  undeveloped  boy. 

2.  He  has  no  knowledge  of  or  interest  in  the  larger 
problem  of  American  life. 

3.  He  has  no  knowledge  of  human  nature ;  but  as- 
sumes that  everyone  else  is  an  innocent  as  himself. 
He  cannot  discern  between  man  and  man. 

4.  He  is  a  total  failure  in  getting  anything  done; 
he  prefers  to  talk. 

He  has  been  a  pawn  upon  the  chess  board  of  Ohio 
politics,  and  is  now  advanced  to  the  King's  row  again 
in  Washington.  By  being  in  the  Senate,  he  has  kept 
some  abler  man  out,  in  this  case  a  Cincinnati  manu- 
facturer, who  is  a  philanthropist  and  a  man  of  high 
attainments.  Like  a  baloon,  he  has  floated  again  into 
the  National  Capitol  itself.  This  man  expects  to  be- 
come President.  After  Harding  and  Taft,  will  America 
ever  again  tolerate  an  Ohio  President? 

Of  course,  he  is  not  a  personal  friend  of  the  present 
President;  their  tastes  are  too  different;  but  he  has 
played  the  game  for  him.  A  megaphone  bass  voice  is  a 
mighty  asset.  This  man  is  Ike  the  late  Julius  Caesar 
Burrows,  of  Michigan,  who  rose  to  the  Senatorship  on 
his  own  wind. 

Did  Warren  Harding  put  hs  shoulder  to  the  wheel 
and  work  with  the  "drys?"  He  did  not.  Instead,  he 
allowed  the  Marion  Brewery  to  give  to  him  three 
shares  to  keep  him  quiet  as  the  ostensible  head  of  the 
STAR  daily  newspaper. 

Did  Warren  Harding  give  the  women  a  lift  toward 
equal  suffrage?  It  might  be  supposed  that  with  a 
wife  who  was  his  financial  genius  he  would  favor 
woman  suffrage ;  but  he  did  nothing  for  their  cause. 

Did  Warren  Harding  at  any  time  help  the  fight 


166 

against  the  seizure  of  the  Ohio  canals  by  the  railroads 
and  corporations  gratis  ?     No ! 

Did  he  work  for  the  great  revision  of  the  State 
Constitution  in  the  period  when  he  was  still  at  home 
in  the  State?    He  did  not. 

Did  he  ever  at  any  time  support  any  progressive 
measure  ?     No ! 

What  did  he  do  all  through  these  critical  years? 
Wait.  He  did  not  even  listen.  He  was  not  interested. 
It  has  been  said  truthfully  of  some  men  that  they 
seemed  to  have  a  prevision  of  high  destinies.  Not  so 
this  man.  Abraham  Lincoln  thought  that  some  day 
he  would  be  President.  So  did  Wilson.  Garfield  had 
the  same  dream.  Harding  has  had  no  illusions.  Is  this 
evidence  of  high  powers?  Some  would  have  us  think 
so.  Some  really  profess  to  believe  that  great  men  do 
not  know  that  they  are  great. 

Of  course,  some  great  men  do  underestimate 
themselves.  Napoleon  did  that.  BUT  George  Wash- 
ington never  hid  himself  from  public  view.  Except 
in  seeking  the  Presidency,  Harding  has  never  over- 
estimated himself;  as  he  said,  naively,  after  the  elec- 
tion, more  than  once,  "It  was  a  bigger  job  than  I 
thought." 

Willis  did  not  secure  the  Presidency  for  Harding  by 
his  speech  at  the  Convention,  though  he  seems  to 
thnk  that  he  did  so.  We  have  reports  of  many  eye- 
witnesses that  it  was  the  saddest,  most  anxious,  hottest 
mass  of  men  ever  gotten  togeher  for  any  such  pur- 
pose. There  was  sadness  because  the  realized  what 
they  were  being  put  up  to  do;  there  was  anxiety  be- 
cause they  were  afraid  that  they  would  be  discovered 
in  regard  to  what  all  the  crooks  among  them  were  be- 
ing paid  for  doing;  and  there  was  heat  because  it 
was  less  hot  outside  than  in,  terrific  as  the  heat  was, 
than  the  hotness  of  their  sculs  at  one  another  because 


157 

they  were  not  being  given  a  free  choice,  and  because 
some  were  being  paid  much  more  money  and  were  be- 
ing promised  much  finer  offices  than  others  were. 
Willis  cheered  them  a  bit  just  as  any  other  vaude- 
ville performer  might  have  done,  and  his  speech  re- 
quired less  real  ability  than  do  most  of  the  stunts  of 
acknowledged  comedians. 

It  is  well  to  go  back  for  a  brief  second  considera- 
tion of  the  Ohio  State  Legislature.  No  State  Legisla- 
ture in  America  is  really  free  from  bad  influences  and 
clear  of  bad  methods  of  legislation ;  but  few  are  worse 
than  Ohio.  So  far  as  committee  chairmanships  are 
concerned,  these  are  arranged  before  hand  by  the  great 
bosses,  seldom  themselves  members  of  the  Legislature. 
In  addition,  there  are  steering  committees  that  help 
the  passage  of  some  bill  and  block  the  progress  of 
others.  A  few  insiders  run  these  steering  commit- 
tees. Then  there  are  party  caucuses  at  which  the 
things  to  be  tried  in  the  name  of  the  party  are  de- 
termined behind  closed  doors.  What  between  the 
bosses,  the  steering  committees  and  the  caucuses,  the 
welfare  of  the  public  becomes  a  matter  difficult  to  re- 
member even  by  the  honest  men  in  the  Legislature. 

Let  us  take  an  illustration.  In  1902,  the  Hanna- 
Dick-Daugherty  machine  controlled  the  Legislature, 
and  Nash  was  governor.  Both  Hanna  and  Boss  Cox 
of  Cincinnati  were  on  hand.  Hanna  gave  out  the  state- 
ment that  he  would  regard  every  vote  for  a  Foraker 
man  as  a  vote  against  himself;  he  had  been  elected  by 
one  majority,  to  the  United  States  Senate,  and  he  had 
not  forgotten  what  that  had  cost  in  money  and  anxiety. 
He  meant  to  try  for  re-election  in  1904.  Foraker  was 
trying  to  get  into  the  Senate  by  getting  Dick  out.  The 
State  was  to  be  redistricted  for  Congressional  Repre- 
senatives,  and  gerrymandering  could  be  fixed  in  such 
a  way  to  help  Hanna  or  hurt  him,  help  Foraker  or  hurt 


158 

him.  Here  Daugherty  stepped  in  and  made  Hanna 
surrender  to  himself  for  his  own  two  personal  candi- 
dates, the  speakership  and  the  clerkship  of  the  House, 
which  positions  men  named  McKinnon  and  McEleroy 
secured  in  consequence.  But  in  the  Senate,  the  Foraker 
men  won.  Then  came  on  a  struggle  for  the  chairman- 
ships and  in  the  Senate  Cox  defeated  all  the  plans  of 
Hanna  and  Daugherty.  In  the  House,  the  Daugherty 
men  won.  Speaker  McKinnon  was  enabled,  through 
his  office,  to  gerrymander  in  a  special  bill  the  Twelfth 
Ohio  Congressional  District,  exactly  as  Daugherty  de- 
sired. 

In  1904,  Hanna  got  everything  that  he  asked  from 
the  Ohio  Legislature.  After  the  death  of  Hanna  in 
this  year,  the  machine  was  taken  over  by  Dick  and 
Herrick,  Boss  Cox  ceased  to  fight  the  men  from  the 
North  of  the  State.  In  respect  to  one  of  the  most  im- 
porant  measures  at  this  time — that  of  abolishing 
Spring  elections  in  the  State — the  CLEVELAND 
PLAIN  DEALER  said  that  it  "brought  out  the  most 
amazing  example  of  subserviency  to  party  bosses  in 
the  entire  histoiy  of  legislation  in  Ohio."  See  issue 
of  March  11,  1904. 

While  we  are  looking  into  this  matter,  it  is  profit- 
able to  remember  that  Hanna  vv^as  a  "wet."  Those  who 
think  that  liquor  destroys  human  abilities  do  well  to 
forget  the  case  of  Mark  Hanna ;  he  was  wet  by  example 
as  well  as  by  precept.  Herrick  was  just  as  wet;  per- 
haps this  is  a  cause  contributory  others  why  he  desires 
the  opportunity  to  return  to  France  as  Ambassador 
from  America.  But,  of  course,  the  present  crowd  in 
control  of  the  Republican  party  are  all  "wets" — Am- 
bassador to  Great  Britain  George  B.  McClellan  Harvey 
included.  Of  course,  also,  the  British  and  the  French 
are  "wets."  This  makes  these  leading  Republicans 
pei*sonae  gratae  in  Europe.     The  pious  hypocrites  of 


159 

the  churches  who  voted  for  the  Republican  party  in  the 
last  election,  themselves  pretending  to  be  "dry,"  knew 
what  the  truth  was. 

When  Harry  M.  Daugherty  as  Attorney  General  of 
the  United  States  declared  recently  that  the  only  way 
he  knew  in  which  to  make  the  States  dry  was  to  drink 
them  dry,  he  Vv'as  merely  reciting  his  life-creed.  Hanna, 
Herrick  and  Daugherty,  the  makers  of  Harding,  were 
all  "wets."  But  for  the  death  of  Hanna  upon  February 
15,  1904,  the  Brannock  Local  Option  Bill  would  not 
have  been  passed  in  April  of  the  same  year. 

It  is  well  to  remember  that  Hanna  was  the  enemy 
of  Tom  Johnson,  the  reform  Mayor  of  Cleveland,  who 
brought  up  Newton  D.  Baker,  Secretary  of  War  un- 
der President  Wilson.  This  concerns  the  hatred  of 
Dan  Hanna  against  Wilson,  which  was  personal  be- 
cause of  his  father.  And  as  has  been  shown  else- 
where in  detail,  it  concerns  the  kind  of  attacks  made 
by  WaiTen  Harding  upon  President  Wilson. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  recount  here  something 
of  the  relations  of  Theodore  E.  Burton  and  of  William 
Howard  Taft  to  these  matters  in  detail.  But  to  do  so 
would  carry  far  afield.  It  is  enough  to  recite  that 
Burton  is  a  legal  light,  a  scholar  and  a  banker,  who  has 
stood  for  clean  politics  so  far  as  he  has  been  able  to  do 
so  within  the  ranks  of  the  regulars  of  the  Republican 
party.  He  is  a  bachelor  and  not  rich.  He  attained  the 
United  States  Senatorship  and  is  now  back  in  the 
House  of  Representatives.  Burton  has  consistently  op- 
posed everything  that  Hanna  stood  for.  There  is  a 
story  of  the  time  when  Harding  was  chosen  to  preside 
over  a  Republican  State  Convention  at  Dayton  twenty 
years  ago.  Everything  that  the  bosses  desired  done 
was  done,  much  to  the  digust  of  Burton,  who  told  this 
to  Harding  himself  at  the  end  of  the  affair  in  no  un- 
certain language. 


160 

Burton  almost  belongs  in  the  same  rank  with  the 
late  Allen  G.  Thurman,  the  war  horse  of  the  Democ- 
racy of  Ohio,  and  a  United  States  Senator  two  genera- 
tions ago.  But  the  Republican  leaders  in  the  interests 
of  the  plutocracy  have  taken  up  the  little  men  and 
have  turned  down  the  great  one. 

It  is  an  illustration  of  what  Burton  was  and  is, 
that  when  in  Congress  he  came  in  his  own  person  to 
Columbus  and  appeared  before  two  committees  of  the 
House  and  Senate  and  argued  for  the  adoption  of  the 
Australian  ballot.  This  was  just  before  the  death  of 
Governor  Pattison,  and  according  to  the  newspapers 
of  the  time,  Hanna  and  Boss  Cox  then  got  the  bill 
defeated. 

As  for  Taft,  he  sold  out  to  Harding  in  the  last 
campaign,  as  he  had  so  often  sold  out  to  the  rotten 
powers  of  the ,  darkness  of  Republicanism  in  times 
past,  not  for  money,  perhaps  not  from  promise  of 
place — though  we  shall  see  what  comes  as  to  that; 
but  in  the  main,  because  he  is  at  heart  a  complaisant 
man  who  prefers  to  keep  on  good  terms  with  Brother 
Charles,  the  multissimo-millionaire,  and  with  his  wife's 
sister  of  the  the  steel  independents,  Jones  &  Laughlin, 
Pittsburgh.  Taft  has  no  capacity  for  self-sacrifice — 
such  as  Roosevelt  certainly  did  have,  nor  has  he  the 
courage  of  his  very  great  friend. 

There  was  a  fundamental  difference  politically  be- 
tween Johnson  and  Hanna  as  to  the  proper  authority 
for  the  granting  of  street  railway  franchises.  John- 
son asserted  that  the  cities  where  these  were  to  operate 
should  grant  them,  while  Hanna  asserted  that  every 
franchise  should  come  from  the  State.  Each  of  these 
men  had  large  railroad  interests;  but  there  was  this 
difference  that  Hanna  was  willing  to  pay  money  to 
legislators  to  get  franchises  while  Johnson  was  not. 
On  this  point.  Burton  stood  with  Johnson,  which  did 


161 

not  please  Hanna.  What  Johnson  was  after  was  a 
three-cent  carfare  in  Cleveland  for  his  people  there. 
Hanna  was  no  philanthropist  of  this  kind. 

A  tremendous  home  rule  sentiment  was  built  up  by 
Johnson,  which  today  controls  Ohio,  very  largely.  Bur- 
ton stood  for  this  also. 

If  we  could  trust  the  reports  of  the  newspapers 
for  the  period  when  Harding  was  State  Senator  and 
Lieutenant  Governor,  the  lobby  employed  by  the  great 
corporations  numbered  from  150  to  200  men,  and  the 
votes  necessary  to  carry  or  to  defeat  single  measures 

cost  the  corporations  from  $500  to  $1,000  each.  Of 
course,  there  were  members  who  went  down  to  the 
Legislature  poor  men  and  who  remained  such;  but 
there  were  more  men  who  grew  comfortably  well  off 
by  the  sales  of  their  votes.  Such  was  the  Legislature 
of  Ohio  at  the  period  when  Harding  got  his  formatve 
training.  There  is  no  evidence  that  he  was  even  paid 
anything  for  any  vote;  or  that  he  acquired  any  prop- 
erty through  this  period.  He  has  never  been  well-to- 
do.  The  pleasure  that  his  wife  expressed  at  being 
allowed  to  go  to  New  York  to  buy  clothes  after  the 
election  of  her  husband,  and  her  statement  that  at  last 
she  felt  that  she  "could  afford  to  have  nice  things" 
was  real.  The  newspapers  reports  that  the  Hardings 
were  worth  several  hundred  thousand  dollars  were 
absurd.  The  property  that  they  occupied  in  Marion 
cost  but  a  few  thousand  dollars,  and  the  STAK  build- 
ing with  all  its  machnery  represents  nothing  in  the 
nature  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars ;  it  is  dingy 
and  small.  They  owned  but  little  else  in  November, 
1920.  The  Republican  pictures  of  the  Warren  Hard- 
ing as  a  great  newspaper  man  of  business  was  nothing 
but  "campaign  talk."  The  house  in  Washington  owned 
when  he  was  Senator  is  by  no  means  a  great  affair. 


it\2 

The  STAR  is  a  co-operative  entei-prise  and  has 
many  small  stockholders. 

We  may  take  one  more  look  at  this  Legislature  in 
which  Warren  Harding  sat  as  Senator,  sat  and  did 
nothing  but  "vote  right;"  that  is,  as  the  bosses  told 
him  to  do.  The  Senators  were  of  an  average  age  of 
forty-two  years;  the  Representatives  were  two  years 
older  on  the  average.  There  were  sevnty-five  mem- 
bers in  both  branches  together,  a  mere  handful  as  com- 
pared w^ith  many  State  Legislatures.  As  Harding 
never  went  to  college,  this  was  his  higher  education. 
He  was  one  of  the  younger  members.  In  respect  to 
their  educations,  there  is  this  curious  fact.  Not  much 
over  one-third  of  them  had  been  to  high  school;  but 
most  as  many  had  been  to  college ;  this  means  that  the 
men  who  had  gone  through  high  school  had  gone  to 
college  also. 

Among  so  many  who  had  nothing  but  elementar>' 
schooling,  Harding  was  at  home.  He  said  but  little, 
though  he  was  usually  present  and  voted.  Almost 
one-half  of  all  the  Senators  were  lawyers,  mostly 
trained  in  private  law  offices  in  country  towns. 

In  this  same  Senate,  twenty  had  had  previous  ex- 
perience in  the  Legislature,  while  the  other  thirteen 
members  were  political  neophytes  "greenhorns." 

The  sessions  lasted  but  three  months  nominally, 
though  the  actual  committee  and  other  work  length- 
ened somewhat  the  time  put  in  by  the  more  serious 
and  important  men. 

More  than  half  of  all  the  members  were  mcimbcrs 
of  the  Masonic  order ;  at  this  period  Harding  was  net  a 
member  of  this  order,  though  he  became  such  later, 
and  after  his  election,  was  raised  to  the  very  high 
degree  of  thirty -second  at  a  special  convocation.  This 
was  done  regularly.     It  is  said  that  all  but  two  men 


163 

who  have  been  inaugurated  President  were  Masons; 
but  this  cannot  now  be  verified. 

After  Harding  ceased  to  be  Lieutenant  Governor, 
he  seems  to  have  lost  what  little  interest  he  ever  had 
in  State  affairs.  Very  few  editorials  that  appeared  in 
the  Marion  STAR  dealt  with  State  problems ;  and  prob- 
ably he  wrote  not  many  even  of  these,  for  he  returned 
to  his  work  as  foreman  of  the  composing  room,  where 
he  was  happy  setting  up  type  and  seeing  to  the  press 
work,  while  his  wife  managed  the  outer  office  and 
Editor  Van  Fleet,  with  his  assistants,  furnished  copy. 

When  he  became  United  States  Senator,  as  we 
have  told  elsewhere,  and  went  to  Washington,  Colum- 
bus passed  out  of  his  mind.  He  never  tried  to  come 
back  as  did  Hanna  and  Foraker  and  manage  the  State 
also.  He  had  no  light  to  throw  upon  State  problems, 
;ind  he  had  no  axes  to  grind,  for  the  selection  was  by 
popular  vote. 

Before  leaving  this  phase  of  the  matter,  it  is  worth 
while  to  notice  that  if  Governor  Ha?  ,i:on  had  not 
forced  the  "corrupt  practices  act"  through,  Harding 
would  never  have  become  Senator,  for  this  legislation 
cost  Attorney  General  Timothy  S.  Hogan  his  defeat 
when  he  ran  against  Harding  in  1914.  Hogan  w^as  the 
man  who  sent  several  hundred  bribers  and  bribees  to 
the  penitentiary  in  Adams  County  and  thereby  made 
himself  very  unpopular  with  politicians  generally. 

It  is  well  to  note  also  that  Harding  stayed  gen- 
erally with  the  politicians  from  the  middle  and  North 
of  the  State,  the  growing  parts,  especially  with  the 
Columbus  men.  He  did  not  consort  with  the  rural 
people  or  much  with  those  from  Cleveland  or  Cincin- 
nati. Indeed,  in  general,  he  kept  out  of  the  limelight 
and  out  of  the  centers  of  the  conflicts  and  made  but 
few  enemies. 

Whatever  the  other  "boys"  did,  he  did,  from  chew- 


164 

ing  and  smoking  and  drinking  and  and  playing  poker, 
to  all  the  rest  so  far  as  he  could  afford  their  pleasures ; 
he  was  no  Puritan.  There  was  some  talk  about  his 
colored  blood  even  then,  but  he  was  inoffensive  and 
never  resented  his  nickname.  The  richer  men,  who 
were  few,  saw  but  little  of  him.  Week-ends  he  often 
went  home  to  Marion.  He  never  kept  house  in  Colum- 
bus, but  boarded.  He  had  a  brother  and  a  sister  both 
living  there,  one  a  physician  and  the  other  a  teacher  in 
the  school  for  the  blind,  being  herself  blind.  This  sis- 
ter, Mary,  is  very  dark,  and  was  never  considered  any- 
thing but  colored.  His  brother  is  very  light  com- 
pexlioned  and  only  Southernors  or  anthropologists 
would  question  his  white  race.  This  brother,  Charles, 
secured  a  very  much  better  education  than  Warren 
ever  cared  to  try  to  get.  He  is  a  reputable  physician 
with  a  modest  general  practice,  who,  doubtless,  ex- 
ceedingly regrets  that  his  brother  has  brought  the 
family  affairs  to  light.  Indeed  he  has  said  so 
vigorously. 

In  a  city  of  327,000  people  with  32,000  negroes  who 
admit  that  they  are  negroes  and  with  at  least  12,000 
more  v/ho  have  negro  blood  but  do  not  admit  this  to 
others,  this  brother  was  getting  along  nicely  until  the 
exposures  came  through  the  over-zeal  of  other  negroes, 
including  his  father's  friend,  William  Chancellor,  black, 
of  Mt.  Gilead.  We  have  explained  this  elsewhere. 
It  comes  in  here  because  Brother  Warren  went  to  see 
Brother  Charles  without  talking  about  it  very  much 
to  other  Senators.  With  his  nickname,  "Nig"  Warren, 
was  something  of  a  handicap  to  his  more  successful 
younger  brother  at  this  period.  He  was  also  much 
darker,  which  was  unpleasant  to  realize.  Mary,  how- 
ever, was  not  recognized  publicly  by  the  family;  and 
when  she  died,  she  was  not  cared  for  by  undertakers, 
but  by  the  family  itself. 


16B 


CHAPTER  XII 
PRESIDENTIAL  HISTORY 

In  the  third  place,  as  we  have  said,  the  policy  of 
Harding  in  the  White  House  cannot  be  understood 
without  some  knowledge  of  the  history  of  the  Presi- 
dency beyond  what  the  pretty  school  histories  report. 
Here  we  shall  draw  heavily  upon  a  long  article  that 
Professor  Chancellor  wrote  and  published  some  time 
ago  in  one  of  the  greatest  newspapers  of  the  Conti- 
nent or  the  world,  for  he  is  one  of  the  leading  authori- 
ties upon  the  subject. 

In  this  article,  William  Estabrook  Chancellor — not 
the  negro  Chancellor,  but  the  white  man  who  was 
dragged  into  this  thing  by  the  black  man  who  told  the 
truth  for  the  benefit  of  his  race  and  as  he  believed  of 
Harding  himself — pointed  out  that  the  Presidents  of 
the  United  States  have  been  of  three  types — the  lead- 
ers, he  consultants,  and  the  subservient.  There  is  a 
Faying  that  the  Presidency  is  whatever  any  man  in 
the  office  chooses  to  make  of  it — a  power,  an  influence 
or  a  tool  of  the  plutocracy.  This  is  not  wholly  true, 
for  when  the  President  is  not  supported  by  a  party  be- 
hind him  in  both  Houses  of  Congress,  he  cannot  be  a 
power  in  our  Government  of  checks  and  balances,  where 
responsibility  is  located  everywhere  and  nowhere. 

George  Washington  was  a  power,  a  leader.  The 
Vice-President  was  John  Adams,  who  often  spoke  on 
the  floor  of  the  Senate  for  George  Washington  and 
upon  twenty-two  important  occasions  gave  the  tie  vote 
for  him.  Which  shows  how  very  difficult  a  position 
even  Washington  was  in,  and  he  was  one  of  the  four 


166 

greatest  men  that  the  Nation  so  far  has  produced  in 
public  life,  the  other  three  being  Franklin,  Lincoln 
and  Roosevelt.  No  one  else  ever  controlled  Wash- 
ington. He  was  a  big  man  physically,  the  greatest 
athlete  of  his  times  when  a  young  man,  an  incom- 
parable wrestler  and  horseman.  Washington  was 
especially  apt  as  a  writer  as  the  twelve  volumes  of  his 
writings  show,  and  he  left  as  many  that  were  never 
published.  By  profession  he  was  a  civil  engineer,  and 
he  was  fourth  richest  man  in  America  as  a  business 
man  and  merchant  in  flour. 

John  Adams  as  President  was  a  leader,  but  his 
following  failed  him.  He  had  been  a  professor  in 
Latin  schools. 

Thomas  Jefferson  was  the  greatest  political  philoso- 
pher of  our  history;  he  v/as  the  man  who  bought 
liouisiana.  He  liked  to  get  advice  and  then  to  do  as 
he  pleased.  He  was  a  leader,  a  thinker  and  a  power, 
and  his  memoiy  yet  lives  green  and  fresh  and  will  live 
forever.  He  believed  in  making  America  a  land  for  the 
common  man,  a  place  where  freemen  would  be  happy 
in  their  freedom.  He  was  an  inventor,  some  of  his 
inventions  being  the  present  wheelbarrow,  the  re- 
volving chair  now  used  in  offices  and  the  letter  copy- 
ing press.  He  was  a  first-class  scientific  farmer  and 
brought  many  African  and  European  farm  plants  to 
America.  He  had  Congress  with  him.  He  founded  the 
University  of  Virginia. 

James  Madison  wrote  more  of  the  Constitution 
than  did  any  other  man.  But  in  the  Presidency  he 
belonged  to  the  consultant  type  and  took  too  much 
advice  from  other  men;  he  went  to  war  with  Great 
Britain  because  Henry  Clay  told  him  to  do  so.  But  he 
was  not  habitually  subservient.  He  was  a  great  polti- 
cal  scholar,  a  thoroughly  educated  man  like  Jefferson. 

In  the  succession  to  these  great  men,  where  is  little 


1«7 

Warren  Harding?  It  is  a  shameful  thing  to  present 
such  a  contrast  to  the  world. 

James  Monroe  was  merely  a  consultant  President, 
John  Quincy  Adams  wrote  the  Monroe  Doctrine  for 
him.    But  he  was  no  one's  tool. 

John  Quincy  Adams  wiis  a  born  thinker  and  scholar, 
a  great  diplomat,  a  great  lawyer;  after  he  left  the 
Presidency,  he  did  the  greatest  thing  for  human  liberty 
that  has  been  done  by  any  American,  greater  even 
than  the  preservation  of  the  right  to  worship  where 
and  when  one  will,  which  was  due  to  the  work  of  Jef- 
ferson in  Virginia,  He  preserved  the  right  of  petition 
to  Congress  and  of  having  the  petitions  read  before 
that  body  in  House  and  Senate.  He  gave  his  life  to 
this  work  for  twenty  years,  and  he  died  after  making 
a  speech  there  in  the  Capitol. 

But  he  had  no  following  as  President.  No  one  ever 
managed  him  for  a  minute  after  he  grew  up,  not  even 
his  father,  John  Adams. 

Then  came  the  most  terrific  person  that  America 
has  known  in  public  life,  Andrew  Jackson,  who,  at  a 
banquet,  where  he  was  too  sick  to  eat,  told  the 
Southerners  this:  ''The  Union,  it  must  and  shall  be 
preserved."  This  was  the  man  who  brought  the  new 
West  and  the  common  man  into  public  offices.  He 
broke  the  bureauoracy  of  the  past,  the  officeholders' 
ring. 

Andrew  Jackson  is  the  general  whose  soldiers  at 
New  Orleans  shot  1200  Britishers  in  the  foreheads,  and 
who  lost  but  seven  men  themselves  in  that  fight.  He 
reduced  the  Southern  Indians  to  subjection  to  the 
American  military  power.  No  man  ever  controlled 
him.  By  killing  one  man  who  slandered  his  wife  and 
by  threatening  to  kill  others,  he  made  it  unsafe  to 
slander  women  falsely. 

Martin  Van  Burean  was  one  of  the  greatest  lawyers 


168 

in  America.  He  was  a  power  in  the  Jackson  period. 
Because  of  the  Democratic  two-thirds  vote  rule,  he  lost 
the  renomination  to  the  Presidency. 

He  always  did  as  President  what  "Old  Hickory" 
told  him  to  do ;  otherwise,  he  was  a  power.  He  did  not, 
however,  take  the  bit  in  his  teeth  and  run,  as  the 
forceful  men  have  done.  He,  like  Jackson,  believed 
that  Gold  is  the  only  money;  and  in  their  time  the 
United  States  was  entirely  out  of  debt.  He  is  the  man 
who  caused  imprisonment  for  debt  to  cease  in  New 
York  State  and  eventually  throughout  the  Nation. 
He  was  true  democrat.  He  would  be  remembered 
even  if  he  had  never  been  Presidnt,  as  most  other  men 
in  the  White  House  would  have  been  rememberd  by 
Amricans  for  a  century  or  two. 

After  serving  thirty  days,  William  Henry  Harri- 
son died.  He  wan  an  energetic  old  man,  and  would 
probably  have  made  a  name  for  himself  as  an  inde- 
pendent person.  At  the  very  first  Cabinet  meeting, 
when  his  Secretary  of  State,  the  great  orator,  Daniel 
Webster  told  him  something  that  he  did  not  like,  his 
reply  was,  "William  Henry  Harrison  is  President." 
He  had  been  a  military  hero,  winning  the  battle  of 
Tippecanoe  against  the  Indians. 

John  Tyler  was  nobody,  a  mere  subservient  tool  of 
the  slavery  interests. 

James  Knox  Polk  had  been  Speaker  of  the  House 
in  Congress.  He  also  was  the  tool  of  the  slavery 
lords.  And  he  died  of  mortification  one  month  after 
he  left  the  White  House  because  so  many  decent 
men  thought  that  the  Mexican  War  should  never  have 
been  fought. 

Will  Warren  Gamaliel  Harding  also  let  the  lords 
of  power  lead  us  again  into  a  war  with  Mexico? 
Mexico  has  oil,  rubber,  copper  and  silver,  and  the  lords 
of  power  Cvould  have  new  and  greater  palaces  and  finer 


169 

yachts  if  we  should  let  a  few  hundred  thousand  of 
our  boys  and  men  die  in  the  dust  and  heat  of  that 
terrible  land. 

Taylor  opposed  the  slave  lords  and  died  after  two 
years'  service;  he  was  a  very  independent  man,  a  rich 
slaveholder  himself  and  a  war  hero,  but  no  coward 
when  big  men  of  business  talked  to  him.  "Old  Rough 
and  Ready"  was  a  man  whom  Warren  Harding  might 
well  study  now. 

Fillmore  advocated  the  Fugitive  Slave  Act.  No 
more  needs  to  be  said. 

Notwithstanding  a  fine  name,  Franklin  Pierce  was 
nobody. 

James  Buchanan  also  was  a  mere  abject  tool  of 
the  slavelords;  and  because  Abraham  Lincoln  showed 
him  up  in  the  Lincoln-Douglas  debates,  Lincoln  became 
President. 

Lincoln  is  now  the  most  beloved  of  all  Americans, 
and  is  considered  the  best  writer  also.  He  had  a  great 
way  of  consulting  everyone  and  then  doing  exactly  as 
he  pleased.  Often  he  did  what  every  big  man  of  the 
times  told  him  not  to  do.    Will  Harding  ever  do  this? 

Johnson  did  as  he  pleased,  not  wisely. 

Is  Warren  Harding  a  Lincoln  in  the  making,  or  a 
Buchanan? 

Is  this  period  one  when  the  lords  of  money  and  cur- 
rency and  securities  and  labor  slaves  must  be  shown 
up?  It  is  well  to  remember  at  this  stage  that  Lin- 
coln was  very  unpopular  with  most  big  men. 

The  most  corrupt  of  all  Presidents  was  Ulysses  S. 
Grant.  He  was  merely  the  tool  of  the  men  who  had 
made  fortunes  in  the  Civil  War.  He  did  whatever  the 
Drcxels  asked  him  to  do,  and  Belknap  with  the  Star 
Route  Ring  wrecked  him  historically.  He  admitted 
"borrowing"  of  the  Drexels  on  his  own  account  while 
President  at  one  time  $150,000.    But  the  G.  A.  R.  still 


170 

calls  him  "a  great  President."  He  had  been  a  "great" 
General  with  five  times  as  many  soldiers  as  Robert  E. 
Lee.    That  is,  he  had  great  armies. 

Hayes  was  no  tool.  He  was  rich  enough  to  do  what 
he  pleased.  He  never  talked  with  any  one  without  hav- 
ing a  shorthand  writer  on  hand  keeping  notes.  No  man 
could  see  him  quietly  alone. 

Garfield  died  soon  after  his  election. 

Arthur  was  a  pleasure-loving  gentleman,  who  did 
what  the  New  York  politicians  asked. 

Cleveland  was  a  terror  in  the  Whte  House,  He 
went  in  for  Civil  Service  reform.  He  was  a  powerful 
man  who  worked  harder  than  any  other  President  be 
fore  him  except  Washington  and  Lincoln.  He  did  take 
advice,  perhaps  too  much,  but  he  was  not  subservient. 
He  believed  in  gold  as  the  only  money  and  revived  the 
Jackson  traditions. 

Only  great  bankers  now  have  gold ;  what  will  Hai-d 
ing  do  about  this?  Jackson  broke  the  United  States 
Bank  because  it  also  believed  in  having  "real  money" 
only  for  the  rich. 

Benjamin  Harrison  came  in  between  the  two  terms 
of  Cleveland,  who  had  a  majority  of  the  popular  votes, 
however,  in  all  three  elections.  He  added  six  Republi- 
can States  to  the  Union  out  of  the  territories  in  order 
to  control  the  Senate  in  Congress.  He  was  the  rich 
man's  President,    But  he  was  also  a  great  lawyer. 

The  modern  time  in  American  history  began  with 
McKinley  and  world  expansion. 

In  order  to  understand  it,  we  need  to  consider  what, 
in  the  light  of  the  present,  has  been  the  most  import- 
ant American  public  question,  and  what  the  other  great 
issues  have  been. 

By  far  the  greatest  question  has  been,  of  course, 
how  to  realize  democracy,  how  to  give,  as  Lincoln  put 
it,  "to  ev(!]'y  man  the  equal  chance." 


171 

Who  have  stood  for  this? 
Jefferson,  Jackson,  Lincoln,  Roosevelt. 
Who  have  been  the  agents  of  the  aristocrats? 
Conspicuously,    Polk,    Fillmore,    Pierce,   Buchanan, 
Grant,  McKinley,  Taft. 

That  is  the  one  first  and  main  issue. 
Where  will  Harding  stand  ? 

The  second  great  question  has  been  how  to  bring 
prosperity  to  the  land,  how  to  make  Americans  gen- 
erally happy. 

The  leaders  in  this  movement  have  been 
Washington,  Jefferson,  Jackson,  Van  Buren, 
McKinley,  Roosevelt,  Wilson. 
The  men  who  have  stood  not  for  the  the  general 
prosperity  but  for  the  power  of  the  great  and  rich 
and  well-born,  have  been 

John  Adams,  Monroe,  Tyler,  Polk,  Fillmore. 
Pierce,  Buchanan,  Grant,  Taft. 
The  third  question  has  been  how  to  expand  our 
lands. 

The  leaders  in  this  have  been 
Washington,  who  tried  to  get  Canada  to  come 
in;  Jefferson,  Madison,  Polk,  Taylor,  Lincoln, 
Johnson,     Grant,     B.     Harrison,     McKinley, 
Roosevelt. 

The  opponents  of  this  have  been,  curiously  enough, 
Lincoln,  v/ho  opposed  taking  Mexican  sessions,  and 
Cleveland;  and  outside  of  the  Presidency,  two  very 
great  men,  Hamilton  and  Webster. 

The  fourth  question  has  been  whether  to  go  abroad 
and  get  International  power. 

The  leaders  in  Internationalism  have  been 
Jefferson,  both  Adams,  Monroe,  Polk,  Tay- 
lor, Buchanan,  Lincoln,  Grant,  B.  Harrison. 
McKinley,  Taft,  and  by  far  the  greatest  of 
them  all,  Wilson. 


172 

The  opponents  have  been 

Washington,  Hayes  and  Cleveland. 

The  fifth  question  has  been  that  of  honest  gold 
money  instead  of  mere  paper  currency. 

The  leaders  of  this  have  been 

Washington,    Jackson,    Van    Buren,    Hayes, 
Cleveland. 

Those  who  have  sinned  against  the  pocketbooks  of 
the  common  man  (who  is  no  banker)  have  been  Lin- 
coln, Grant  and  Wilson. 

Here  let  us  record  the  names  of  three  great  states- 
men who  have  cared  to  keep  America  gold  honest — 
Alexander  Hamilton,  Albert  Gallatin  and  John  Sher- 
man. 

A  sixth  question  has  been  how  to  raise  money  for 
the  National  Government  and  whether  in  doing  so  to 
have  a  protective  tariff. 

Before  the  Civil  War,  the  protective  tariff  was 
relatively  unimportant,  because  the  Government  spent 
but  little  money.  The  only  man  who  cared  much 
about  it  and  who  became  President  was  John  Quincy 
Adams.    All  taxes  were  low. 

Since  that  time,  the  j^dvocates  of  a  strong  pro- 
tective tariff  have  been  Lincoln,  Grant,  Hayes,  Gar- 
field, B.  Harrison,  McKinley,  Taft. 

The  opponents  have  been  Cleveland  and  Wilson. 

The  question  of  an  income  tax  was  never  import- 
ant until  very  recently  when  much  more  money  was 
demanded. 

Wilson  advocated  this,  and  McKinley  and  Taft 
were  against  it. 

No  President  has  ever  favored  prohibtion  of  the 
liquor  traffic.    Wilson  and  Harding  are  both  "wets." 

Another  tremendous  question  now  looms  before  us, 
and  the  question  where  Harding  stands  will  have  to 
be  answered  by  him  at  once.    What  about  paying  the 


173 

present  National  debt;  is  it  to  be  a  burden  upon  our 
children's  children  forever  like  the  British  consols  and 
a  means  for  establishing  and  mantaining  a  moneyed 
aristicracy?  There  are  individual  men  who  own  each 
more  than  one  million  of  these  more  than  twenty  bil- 
lions of  dollars  of  National  debts. 

The  Victory  Loan,  the  fifth  war  issue,  comes  due 
in  April,  1923.  Does  Warren  Harding  intend  to  repay 
it  or  to  refund  it,  and  if  so,  at  what  rate  of  interest  ? 

The  amount  is  about  $2,225,000,000. 

To  own  one  million  dollars  of  this  debt  means  to 
have  an  income  of  $47,500  a  year  from  the  taxes  and 
toil  of  the  American  people. 

Of  course,  long  ago,  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  ceased  to  be  anything  more  than  a  fetich,  for 
the  Supreme  Court  has  become  a  perpetual  constitu- 
tional convention  deciding  as  it  will  what  accords  under 
the  new  conditions  wth  the  old  letter  and  the  old 
spirit  and  what  does  not.  Abraham  Lincoln  and  the 
"implied  war  powers"  ended  all  the  old  philosophical 
liberals;  the  latter  won  out  of  hand.  When  Theodore 
Roosevelt  made  his  immortal  speech  in  Kansas  on  "the 
new  nationalism,"  he  but  put  the  seal  of  his  states- 
manship upon  the  matter.  Strict  construction  in  a 
work  of  international  trade,  of  wireless  telegraphy,  of 
great  newspapers  is  impossible.  It  means  that,  except 
for  wars,  money  postoffice,  and  a  few  such  matters, 
each  State  could  and  should  go  it  alone. 

That  is  now  undesirable,  of  course.  Still,  there 
are  echoes  of  the  thing.  There  are  atill  citizens  who 
who  do  not  believe  that  because  it  is  unsafe  to  put 
liquor  in  the  South  and  in  such  negro  States  as  Ohio, 
Indiana  and  Illinois,  it  is  therefore  also  wicked  to  allow 
the  people  of  Massachusetts  and  of  California  to  have 
wine  at  their  meals  or  beer. 

The  foodless  saloon  always  was  a  crime.    But  that 


174 

does  not   make   the  farmer  who   has   cider  criminal 
morally. 

Strict  construction  would  have  made  the  discus- 
sion of  uniform  divorce  laws  and  a  national  statute 
on  the  subject  a  real  issue.  It  would  have  allowed 
the  various  States  to  make  experiments  in  many  lines 
in  order  to  find  what  legislation  is  really  best  for  the 
American  people  in  each  part  of  the  country  and  in 
each  epoch  of  development. 

What  will  Warren  Harding  make  of  the  problem 
of  the  construing  of  the  Constitution?  He  has  never 
studied  Latin,  nor  law,  nor  jurisprudence,  nor 
economics,  nor  anything  above  a  rural  school  course  in 
a  back  country  district  plus  some  pedagogy  in  order 
to  teach  in  rural  schools;  and  there  is  no  evidence 
whatever  that  he  did  teach  even  one  day. 

There  is  a  myth  that  one  of  the  greatest  of  Presi- 
dents, Abraham  Lincoln,  "knew  nothing."  This  is  a 
vicious  lie ;  for  he  studed  the  entre  high  school  course 
in  Springfield,  111.,  under  the  veteran  high  school  prin- 
cipal evenings  for  four  years,  and  he  was  also  one  of 
the  best  lawyers  in  Illinois.  To  compare  Harding  with 
Lincoln  is  deliberate  endeavor  to  fool  the  American 
people. 

The  Nation  now  has  $6,250,000,000  of  currency  out 
in  circulation,  of  which  over  $3,000,000»000  is  new  cur- 
rency compared  with  a  total  of  but  $2,250,000,000 
nearly  all  gold  and  silver  in  1913. 

This  means  that  the  bankers  have  a  vast  amount  of 
currency  without  gold  backing  that  they  lend  to  the 
people  at  six  and  seven  per  cent,  and  costs  them  on]\' 
the  government  charge  for  printing.  It  is  a  scandal. 
What  does  Harding  intend  to  do  about  ths  ? 

It  should  be  slowly  but  steadily  retired  within  not 
over  ten  years.     What  will  be  his  policy?    Does  he 


175 

think  that  the  more  paper  currency  a  Nation  has  the 
richer  it  is? 

Ask  the  Russians  who  now  have  $65,000,000,000 
in  eirculaton,  yet  are  in  desperate  poverty.  Paper  cur- 
rency impoverishes  any  nation. 

We  may  now  return  to  McKinley  and  to  the  begin- 
nings of  modem  times  in  the  United  States.  With  him. 
America  expanded  into  and  across  the  Pacific  and  into 
the  West  Indies.  A  great  President  faces  all  the  major 
questions  of  his  times  with  full  front. 

The  greatest  question  of  the  times  for  McKinley 
was  whether  or  not  to  help  Cuba  and  the  Philippines 
to  go  free  from  Spain;  he  answered  affirmatively;  in 
the  main,  because  men  like  Roosevelt  were  ready  to 
act  under  him.    He  did  a  statesmanlike  thing  then. 

The  worst  fault  of  McKinley  was  that  he  filled 
every  office  at  the  dictation  of  Mark  Hanna,  and  that 
only  toward  the  end  of  his  life  did  he  see  our  world  re- 
lations as  unfortunately  influenced  by  a  too  high  tariff. 
But  we  have  had  poorer  and  weaker  Presidents.  Mc- 
Kinley grades  well  with  the  whole  list.  He  was  a  good 
lawyer;  an  excellent  public  speaker;  not  afraid  to 
stand  upon  a  platform  without  notes  and  tell  his  story. 

To  equal  him  Warren  needs  to  study  law  five  or 
ten  years.  This  is  the  first  but  not  the  only  require- 
ment. It  would  be  wise  for  him  also  to  pick  out  a 
Regent  with  the  abilities  of  Mark  Hanna. 

Roosevelt  undertook  more  things  than  any  other 
Pi-esident  save  Wilson.  He  taught  the  plutocrats  that 
the  Government  OF  the  people  belongs  TO  the  people, 
not  to  the  plutocracy.  He  did  a  hundred  other  great 
things.  He  had  a  p0l3npha.se  mind ;  he  was  a  hunter  of 
game,  big  and  small;  a  historian  and  naturalist  and 
essayist ;  a  world  traveller,  a  loud,  if  not  very  effective, 
public  speaker;  though  easily  in  the  second  rank,  far 
superior  to  Harding ;  a  thorough  business  man  who  left 


176 

the  largest  estate  of  all  the  Presidents  by  far;  the 
father  of  many  children  and  grandfather  of  many 
more ;  with  a  very  admirable  record  as  a  man  in  all  his 
dealings  with  women. 

Warren  Harding  in  his  seat  is  morally  a  crime. 
What  will  he  do  about  the  conservation  of  natural  re- 
sources which  Roosevelt  began?  Warren  Harding 
plays  golf ;  T.  R.  did  not  play  golf ;  he  was  no  old  man. 
He  rode  horseback;  he  played  tennis;  he  walked  and 
swam  streams,  when  they  got  in  his  way;  he  went 
camping  and  delighted  in  the  storms  that  drove  Warren 
out  of  Point  Isabel  because  they  were  "too  severe." 
Roosevelt  did  not  know  what  bad  weather  was. 

Roosevelt  read  books;  old  books,  new  books,  hun- 
dreds every  month.  What  books  has  Warren  Harding 
ever  read?    Roosevelt  did  not  play  poker  all  night. 

But  Roosevelt  was  a  poor  judge  of  men,  being  too 
generous  in  respect  to  them.  He  selected  Taft  for  the 
Presidency  and  it  was  a  very  bad  blunder  for  him- 
self. Taft  was  a  very  good  executive  when  he  had 
a  right-minded  man  to  tell  him  what  to  execute.  Taft 
is  of  the  judicial  temperament,  and  he  has  too  many 
rich  relatives,  though  honest  and  poor  himself. 

Even  Taft,  however,  being  a  first-class  lawyer,  is  a 
head,  shoulders,  trunk,  limbs  to  the  knees,  higher  than 
Warren  Harding;  but  has  he  sold  out  to  him  in  order 
to  become  Chief  Justice?  Did  he  sell  out  the  League 
to  Enforce  Peace?  He  organized  this  and  was  Presi- 
dent of  it.  If  he  has  done  so,  and  it  looks  like  it  very 
much,  for  the  League  to  Enforce  Peace  is  dead,  then 
he  classes  with  the  most  despised  history. 

The  accusations  made  against  Woodrow  Wilson  by 
the  plutocrats  who  have  captured,  piratically,  the  ma- 
chinery of  the  once  good  Republican  party,  are  these, 
viz.: 

1.  He  went  it  alone;  he  consulted  none. 


177 

2.  He  got  very  rich  through  the  war. 

3.  He  is  morally  vile  and  always  has  been. 

4.  He  lives  remote  and  above  the  rest  of  us,  an 
isolated  hermit  of  a  man. 

5.  He  is  only  a  professor,  a  bookman,  a  scholar. 

6.  He  wrote  too  much,  he  sent  too  many  letters  to 
Germany. 

7.  He  cares  too  much  for  the  peace  of  the  world; 
and  is  willing  to  sacrifice  the  interests  of  America  to 
the  good  of  humanity. 

8.  He  bossed  the  peace  conference,  and  made  the 
Allies  do  just  what  he  wished. 

9.  He  spent  too  much  time  in  gayeties  in  Paris, 
and  was  too  much  flattered  by  the  common  people. 

10.  He  has  been  too  much  under  the  influence  of 
women,  especially  his  two  wives,  and  the  wives  of 
other  men. 

11.  He  is  sickly  by  nature. 

12.  He  has  done  too  many  things  to  do  them  all 
well. 

13.  He  is  pro-British  and  anti-German. 

14.  He  was  flimflammed  by  Clemenceau  and  the 
rest. 

Such  has  been  the  program  of  ruin  that  the  plu- 
tocrats accomplished.  It  sounds  like  just  what  it  is, 
bedlam.  It  sounds  like  a  reflex  of  the  minds  of  Warren 
and  the  Duchess. 

This  book  is  not  a  defence  of  Thomas  Woodrow 
Wilson,  Presbyterian  elder,  and  once  President  of 
Princeton  University.  Time  will  judge  him.  Time  will 
show  him  as  one  of  the  world's  great  thinkers. 

But  there  is  required  a  mere  statement  of  the  truth. 

So  far  fiom  going  it  alone  in  the  Peace  Conference, 
he  was  attended  by  more  than  a  hundred  experts  and 
by  many  clerks;  he  had  made  the  most  elaborate 
preparation  of  all  the  statesmen  present. 


]78 

It  is  silly  for  men  to  write  books  and  articles  try- 
ing to  show  that  Woodrow  Wilson  did  not  avail  himself 
of  ALL  THE  INFORMATION  that  a  man  who  lives  on 
24  hours  a  day  like  the  rest  COULD  GET  as  he  moved 
along.  Many  a  night  he  had  almost  no  sleep  for  month 
on  month.  He  was  in  conference  or  preparing  notes 
for  conferences  and  committees.  For  shameless  paid 
mercenary  mendacity  the  work  of  such  men  as  Judson 
C.  Welliver,  who  became  head  of  the  publicity  work  of 
the  Republican  National  Committee  after  serving  as 
critic  for  them  in  Europe,  passes  the  dreams  of 
Munchaisen  and  Machiavelli.  He  did  this  for  money. 
As  for  Robert  Lansing,  what  he  has  revealed  is  that 
he  is  a  sorehead  and  that  Wilson  saw  how  incompe- 
tent he  was.  The  same  is  true  of  the  Englishman, 
Keynes,  whose  ax  Wilson  would  not  grind  for  him.  An- 
drew Tardieu  has  exposed  all  this  lying  in  his  book  on 
the  Treaty. 

If  he  got  very  rich  through  the  war,  where  is  his 
wealth?  His  second  wife,  the  widow  of  the  jeweler, 
Norman  Gait,  of  Washington  was  a  woman  of  wealth 
before  he  married  her.  There  is  not  the  slightest  evi- 
dence that  even  with  the  savings  of  a  salary  of  $75,000 
a  year,  Woodrow  Wilson  and  his  wife  together  are 
worth  even  a  million  dollars,  and  of  this  total  the  Gait 
estate  accounts  for  nearly  all.  Norman  Gait  died  child- 
less and  left  all  to  his  widow.  The  Republicans,  as  we 
saw  in  the  account  of  the  campaign  itself,  instructed 
their  paid  agents  provocateurs  to  say  that  Mrs.  Wilson 
was  worth  twenty  million  dollars  and  Woodrow  him- 
self as  much  more.  Where  is  this  forty  millon  dollars 
hidden  ?  It  would  take  the  brain  of  a  mestizo  to  trump 
up  such  a  story.  Or,  possibly,  Will  Hays  invented  it 
He  was  Chairman  of  the  Committee  that  hired  these 
agents  to  lie. 

Forty  million  dollars  represents  the  total  wealth  of 


179 

the  ordinary  city  of  20,000  people.  Or  all  the  farms 
of  a  county  with  a  farming  population  of  as  many. 
Who  paid  this  to  Wilson?  Is  it  in  his  vest  pocket? 
No,  indeed,  but  the  lie  is  charged  up  against  Welliver, 
Scott  C.  Bone  and  Will  Hays  on  the  Book  of  the  Day  of 
Judgment. 

Wilson  is  a  Presbyterian  elder.  So  is  Hays.  If 
Wilson  is  morally  vile,  why  does  not  Hays  undertake 
to  have  him  removed  from  his  eldership  ?  The  proposi- 
tion that  a  university  president  in  America  can  be 
morally  vile  is  itself  detestable,  Warren,  who  never 
went  to  college,  may  believe  this ;  but  no  college  gradu- 
ate will. 

There  is,  of  course,  a  cult  in  America  that  tries  to 
make  out  that  Yale,  Harvard,  Princeton,  Ann  Arbor 
and  all  other  universities  are  abominations.  This  cult 
is  a  curse  to  the  land.  Those  foul  parrots  say  that 
Mrs.  Wilson  I.  died  because  Woodrow  Wilson  was  un- 
faithful to  her.  If  so,  why  did  her  death  cause  him  to 
be  so  ill  for  months  that  he  contemplated  resigning  the 
Presidency?  Why  did  not  his  grown  daughters  re- 
pudiate him?  Why  did  his  wife's  family  immediately 
publish  contradictions  of  all  the  stories  of  inharmony  ? 
Why  is  Professor  Anson,  of  Texas,  still  one  of  Wilson's 
closest  friends,  being  his  first  wife's  brother?  No, 
these  .stories  were  all  hatched  in  the  disgusting  experi- 
ences of  such  people  as  Mrs.  Warren  and  her  paramour, 
and  duly  proven  in  her  divorce  from  De  Wolfe  in  court. 

If  Woodrow  Wilson  lives  remote  from  the  rest  of 
us,  how  would  these  Republicans  wish  him  to  live?  In 
an  apartment  house  or  in  a  tenement  in  some  slum? 
They  charge  in  the  next  breath  that  he  frequented  the 
vile  places  of  Paris.  If  he  went  alone,  remote  and  aloof, 
how  do  they  know  it  at  all  ? 

It  is  quite  true  that  he  is  now  a  cripple  for  life 
from  a  form  of  paralysis.    Does  no  decent  man  ever 


180 

have  a  stroke  of  paralysis?  He  got  this  while  on  a 
speaking  trip  among  American  people,  believing  that 
he  must  come  into  close  contact  with  the  millions.  He 
was  driven  to  do  this  by  the  hideous  flood  of  calumnies 
set  on  by  the  Republicans,  whose  names  will  be  forever 
anathema  maranatha  to  decent  posterity.  We  mean 
Lodge,  Penrose,  Harding,  Knox,  Smoot,  the  Mormon, 
and  all  their  like. 

If  Woodrow  Wilson  had  been  "only  a  professor," 
the  Republicans  would  never  have  feared  him.  A 
"professor"  is  a  kind  of  Ichabod  Crane,  a  ridiculous 
person  who,  because  he  can  do  nothing,  teaches  how 
to  do  it;  so  they  say. 

The  letters  sent  by  Woodrow  Wilson  did  more  dam- 
age to  the  German  cause  than  whole  mountain  piles  of 
bombs;  they  broke  the  morale  of  the  German  people, 
and  made  them  doubt  their  rulers  who  were  qui^e  as 
abominable  as  the  Republican  plutocrats.  They  t  roke 
the  support  behind  the  lines,  which  is  more  mpoitant 
than  the  lines  themselves. 

The  peace  of  the  world  is  the  peace  of  America; 
when  the  world  will  not  fight  because  it  hates  war, 
then  my  son  and  your  son  will  not  have  to  fight. 

He  did  boss  the  Peace  Conference;  and  the  Repub- 
licans are  now  trying  to  unscramble  the  eggs,  as  J.  P. 
Morgan  put  it.  The  Covenant  is  the  whole  of  the  Peace ; 
without  it,  the  Peace  is  but  temporary. 

Woodrow  Wilson  spent  no  time  in  the  gayeties  of 
Paris,  because  there  were  no  gayeties.  All  that  is  mere 
pro-German  talk.  France  lost  a  million  dead  and  two 
million  more  wounded  in  a  population  of  but  fifteen 
million  adult  men.  Of  course,  to  save  tme,  the  diplo- 
mats did  eat  together. 

It  is  quite  true  that  Wilson  has  been  much  under 
the  influence  of  good  women,  his  mother,  his  first  and 
second  wives.    But  for  his  second  wife,  who  has  nursed 


181 

him  faithfully  and  attended  to  much  business  for  him, 
he  would  have  been  dead  by  now,  and  a  great  man  dead 
is  a  statesman,  of  course;  then  Henry  Cabot  Lodge 
could  have  delivered  a  funeral  oration  grandiloquently. 

If  being  influenced  by  good  women  is  a  crime,  let 
us  have  more  of  these  crimes.  All  these  Mrs.  Wilsons, 
all  three,  were  very  smart  women,  it  so  happens,  espe- 
cially the  last.  When  a  man  is  loved  by  very  smart 
women,  who  have  the  right  to  do  so,  is  that  a  sign  of 
incompetence  ? 

As  to  his  being  sickly  by  nature,  perhaps.  So  was 
Roosevelt  as  a  boy.  In  college  Wilson  was  the  best 
boxer  among  the  thousad  men;  Princeton  has  men 
students  only.  After  he  came  out  of  college  he  was 
the  football  coach  for  two  years.  Physically,  he  bears 
a  very  close  resemblance  to  the  ex-champion,  Willard. 
He  is  tall  and  very  strong  muscularly. 

It  is  true  that  at  the  end  of  the  Presidency,  he  broke 
down  in  health. 

So  did  Theodore  Roosevelt  at  the  end  of  his  seven 
years. 

Polk  survived  but  one  month. 

The  average  expectation  of  life  for  the  man  who 
leaves  the  Presidency  after  two  terms  is  fourteen 
years;  the  actual  realized  average  is  seven  years. 

The  Presidency  of  the  United  States  is  the  biggest 
job  i»^  '■!*  world. 

lae  giant  Washington  lived  but  three  years  after 
leavini?  the  Presidency  and  died  at  an  age  not  much 
greater  than  that  of  Wilson  now.  He  was  very  ill 
while  President  for  more  than  a  year. 

Taylor  died  from  the  work  while  in  office ;  so  did 
William  Henry  Harrison.  The  record  is  really  far  worse 
than  the  statistics  sound.  We  have  had  but  two  men 
survive  two  consecutive  terms  of  office  since  the  Civil 
War,  Grant  and  Roosevelt.    Each  lived  about  ten  years. 


182 

Each  was  a  young  man  when  he  finished,  for  these  two 
were  the  youngest  of  all  the  Presidents.  Grant  was 
but  fifty-three  at  the  end  of  his  two  terms  and  Roose- 
velt but  fifty-one.  Cleveland  had  two  terms,  but  not 
consecutive;  he  also  survived  about  ten  years.  The 
surgeons  said  that  McKinley  died  when  he  was  shot  be- 
cause his  health  had  been  broken  by  his  toils  of  office. 
His  constitution  had  no  vital  reserves. 

All  this,  of  course  will  be  made  use  of  by  Repub- 
licans v/ho  will  argue  that  now  that  Harding  is  in 
office,  we  should  praise  him  with  the  loot.  McKinley 
did  not  lie  himself  into  office.  On  this  argument,  the 
burglar  and  murderer  would  always  be  safe.  Mrs. 
Harding  already  complains  of  unpleasant  stories.  Why 
dd  she  use  such  against  a  good  woman,  the  real  First 
Lady,  Mrs.  Wilson? 

No  doubt  that  Wilson  had  done  too  many  things  to 
do  them  all  well.    So  has  every  other  great  man. 

As  for  his  being  pro-British  and  anti-German,  what 
should  he  have  been?  Neutral,  while  our  boys  were 
being  shot  down?    Gassed?    Starved  in  prison  camps? 

At  a  Jackson  Day  banquet  in  Ohio,  Professor  Wil- 
liam Estabrook  Chancellor,  the  white  historian,  and 
not  the  black  neighbor  of  Warren  Harding,  made  a 
speech,  which  is  reported  to  us  as  follows,  viz.: 

"Ladies  and  Gentlemen:  We  have  heard  much  as 
to  the  causes  w^hy  the  Democrats  were  beaten  by  the 
Republicans  in  the  last  election.  But  in  one  aspect  of 
the  situation  I  rejoice.  The  Republicans  lied  about  the 
situation  and  about  the  men.  They  bribed  many.  They 
terrorized  the  women  by  telling  them  that  the  League 
meant  war.  They  predicted  that  our  factories  would 
close  down  because  the  Republican  capitalists  would 
not  use  their  funds  if  Cox  should  be  elected.  They 
appealed  to  every  mother  and  wife  whose  man  had 
])een  drafted.    They  appealed  to  the  farmers  who  de- 


188 

sired  a  better  price  for  their  wheat  and  wool.  They 
told  the  postal  clerks  that  Burleson  was  a  Democrat 
and  their  enemy.  They  organized  the  negroes  by  say- 
ing that  if  the  Democrats  had  their  way,  they  would 
disfranchise  them.  They  told  the  League  advocates 
that  Warren  was  a  pro-I^aguer.  They  told  the  anti- 
Leaguers  that  Warren  was  for  America  only  first,  last 
and  all  the  time.  They  told  the  big  capitalists  that 
they  would  reduce  the  income  tax.  They  told  the  rail- 
roaders that  they  would  raise  their  wages.  They  tore 
out  of  the  Democratic  party  every  man  and  woman 
whom  fear,  self-interest,  greed,  "patriotism,"  fasely 
so-called ;  pride  of  country,  any  and  every  class  interest 
could  reach.  They  told  the  ministers  that  all  the  lead- 
ing Democrats  were  on  the  straight  road  to  hell.  We 
have  left  a  period  when  Woodrow  Wilson  was  holding 
high  ideals  of  a  world  of  peace  and  righteousness  and 
humanity  and  world  brotherhood  before  us  into  a 
period  that  reminds  me  of  Jerusalem  and  the  Dead 
Sea.  There  is  a  story  that  no  living  creature  can 
cross  that  Sea.  Its  waters  are  pestilential ;  its  heat  is 
terrific;  its  ordors  cut  the  lungs.  But  I  for  one  re- 
joice that  I  belong  to  the  irreducible  minimum  of  the 
Democrats  who  could  not  be  bribed,  terrorized,  seduced, 
misled  to  the  shoi-es  of  that  Sea  down,  down,  down  to 
its  abyss  twelve  hundred  feet  below  the  decent  levels 
of  Old  Ocean  and  more  than  a  half  mile  below  the 
Holy  City.  Nevertheless,  as  I  stand  with  you  upon  the 
high  hills  of  Mount  Zion,  I  watch  with  interest  the 
flight  across  the  Dead  Sea  of  one  Black  Crow." 

The  achievements  of  Wilson  during  his  eight  years 
read  like  romance. 

He  led  an  army  of  two  millions  across  the  Atlantic 
and  organized  a  reserve  of  two  millions  more,  the  best 
equipped  army  in  the  history  of  the  world,  and  next  to 


184 

the  largest,  the  only  larger  army  being  that  of  Ger- 
many itself. 

He  secured  within  a  few  years  $32,000,000,000  of 
funds  for  the  war,  by  far  the  great  supply  of  currency 
and  bonds  that  the  world  ever  saw. 

The  percentage  of  graft  in  the  spending  of  this 
money  was  so  small  as  to  be  negligible.  Many  of  the 
men  who  spent  money  were  Republicans.  He  used  men 
from  both  parties  freely,  too  freely  when  their  in- 
gratitude to  him  is  considered. 

Pershing  is  a  Republcian,  and  has  a  father-in-law 
worth  twenty-five  million  dollars,  a  United  States  sen- 
jitor  from  Wyoming.  He  commanded  the  troops.  On 
the  ocean,  Admiral  Sims  is  a  Republican.  Benedict 
Crowell,  who  was  the  head  of  army  purchases,  was  a 
Republican.  Gates  who  headed  supplies  in  Europe  was 
a  Republican.  Hoover  was  a  Republican,  and  so  was 
Garfield.  Yet  all  the  errors  of  the  war  are  charged 
to  Wilson  and  the  Democrats. 

Nevertheless,  Wilson  was  the  head  of  the  Govern- 
ment, and  Wilson  won  the  war  so  far  as  America  ever 
did  win  the  war. 

He  organized  the  Federal  Reserve  Banking  System 
that  has  taken  the  money  power  from  Wall  Street  and 
distributed  it  in  twelve  regional  cities. 

He  began  the  Farm  Loan  System. 

He  made  prohibition  effective,  though  opposed  to 
it  on  principle. 

He  worked  hard  for  and  helped  woman  suffrage 
win. 

He  put  across  the  income  and  excess  profits  taxes 
that  made  the  rich  bear  the  heavier  burdens,  as  they 
can.    Thereby  he  relieved  the  poor. 

His  worst  mistake  was  in  permitting  the  inflation 
of  the  currency  with  paper. 

It  has  been  said  that  he  blundered  when  he  asked 


185 

the  American  people  to  elect  Democrats  to  Congress. 
What  has  the  history  of  the  past  two  years  proven? 
What  is  the  present  opinion  of  America  about  Truman 
H.  Newberry,  of  Michigan,  a  Republican?  His  vote 
defeated  the  Peace. 

Wilson  obeyed  no  man,  and  he  made  the  Presidency 
powerful. 

The  Constitution  in  Article  II  says  that  "The 
Executive  power  shall  be  vested  in  a  President  of  the 
United  States."  Where  do  we  wish  the  power  vested? 
In  a  Regency  to  be  managed  by  Mrs.  Warren  Harding, 
the  Duchess ;  H.  M.  Daugherty,  and  Boies  Penrose?  Or 
do  we  v/ish  to  have  the  Senate  run  the  country? 

The  Presidents  look  like  this:  USED  ALL  THE 
POWERS  OF  OFFICE  WELL:  Washington,  Jefferson, 
Jackson,  Lincoln,  Cleveland,  Roosevelt,  and  Wilson. 
BADLY:    Polk  and  Grant. 

Very  few  others,  possibly  Madison  and  McKinley, 
will  even  be  mentioned  in  the  histories  of  five  thousand 
years  from  now  except  by  mere  name  to  fill  the  list. 

Where  is  Warren  Harding  headed?  For  the  same 
oblivion  as  the  rest?  He  has  already  pledged  himself 
not  to  act  precipitately.  This  means  not  to  act  with- 
out finding  out  what  the  big  men  desire.  That  is  what 
every  negro  butler  instinctively  does;  he  wishes  to 
have  his  master  decide  for  him. 

No  President  has  ever  resigned  and  no  negro  ever 
commits  suicide;  we  tried  to  mpeach  one  man  but 
failed.  Reform  is  possible.  Most  Presidents  steadily 
grow  less  and  less  popular;  what  will  be  the  fate  of 
Harding? 

J.  Adams,  J.  Q.  Adams,  Van  Buren,  Pierce,  Polk, 
Buchi^nan,  Hayes,  who  was  not  elected  properly  though 
he  got  the  legal  papers ;  B.  Harrison,  Taft,  each  served 
one  term.    What  is  to  be  the  case  with  this  man  who 


186  .  .    ,       .  . 

went  in  by  the  methods  of  an  election  made  to  order 
for  him  by  the  looters  of  America? 

The  Peace  Treaty  will  gradually  fade  out  from  the 
views  of  man,  as  nations  and  world  conditions  change; 
but  the  League  of  Nations,  with  already  forty-two 
actual  members,  will  never  die  out.  Clemenceau  and 
Sonnino  and  Lloyd  George  may  have  controlled  the 
terms  of  the  peace,  but  Woodrow  Wilson  laid  down 
the  railroad  tracks  into  the  far  remote  future  of  the 
human  race.  This  part  of  their  work  will  be  forgotten 
like  all  peace  treaties,  but  the  League  will  no  more  be 
forgotten  than  will  the  Code  of  Justinian,  Magna 
Charta  and  the  American  Federal  Constitution,  the 
ground-work  of  all  modern  democracies.  In  the  storm 
of  present  day  politics,  Wilson  at  home  was  apparently 
beaten — on  the  theory  that  Cox  was  "his  man,"  but 
in  the  long  run  of  humanity  across  the  ocean  of  Time, 
Wilson  will  be  remembered  as  the  man  who  charted 
the  course.  So  far  from  being  beaten  at  Versailles, 
he  won. 

Wilson  stood  for  these  things,  each  eternally  right, 
viz.: 

1.  The  principle  of  self-determination  for  all  peo- 
ples, which  means  the  right  of  little  nationalities 
against  great  empires,  the  conformity  of  boundary  lines 
with  race  and  other  natural  delimitations. 

2.  The  necessity  of  machinery  and  organization  to 
bring  the  nations  of  the  world  into  parliament  with  one 
another,  and  thereby  to  establish  a  confederation  of 
mankind. 

3.  The  paramount  wickedness  of  war — to  avoid, 
which  is  the  first  business  of  mankind. 

On  this  subject  we  have  found  two  pieces  of  verse 
by  William  Estabrook  Chancellor,  which  we  reprint 
here: 


187 
The  League  is  Dead.     Long  Live  the  League 

They  said,  "His  day  is  done,  and  all  he  sought 

Forever  into  vanity  has  passed." 
Lo,  History  to  her  verdicts  comes  not  fast ! 

The  troubled  people  oft  for  a  time  are  caught 
In  snares  that  crafty  men  have  wrought. 

The  clock  ticks  on,  and  only  right  ways  last. 
He  set  mankind  upon  a  program  vast. 

What  others  dreamed,  he  shaped,  and  for  it  fought. 
Was  he  defeated?    The  battle  comes  and  goes. 

Empires  and  nations  in  the  chains  of  peace 
He  helped  to  harness.    Though  him  we  failed. 

His  plan  is  fact,  which  shall  dissolve  our  woes. 
Inveterate  thinker,  thou  shalt  give  surcease 

From  care,  and  men  will  say,  "His  soul  prevailed." 


CHAPTER  XIII 
HAMON  AND  HARDING 

The  relation  of  the  now  world-known  Hamon  mur- 
der case  to  the  Harding  candidacy  is  orally  familiar  to 
most  intelligent  Americans ;  the  story  is  told  here  with 
much  brevity,  though  in  itself  the  most  interesting 
phase  of  the  whole  political  history  of  the  Presidential 
campaign  of  1920.  It  so  happened  that  the  mere  fact 
that  Professor  Chancellor,  through  his  many  news- 
paper acquaintances  and  friends,  was  thoroughly  in- 
formed about  the  Hamon  phase  was  a  potent  cause, 
perhaps  the  most  potent  cause,  of  his  being  encouraged 
to  get  out  of  the  reach  of  the  Republican  plutocrats 
for  a  time. 

Jake  Hamon  was  about  forty-five  years  old  at  the 
time  of  his  murder  by  Clara  Smith,  who  was  acquitted 
for  reasons  and  from  causes  of  the  most  exciting 
nature.  As  the  people  of  Ardmore  and  Rankin  and 
Oklahoma  City,  where  Hamon  was  best  known,  put  it 
to  Professor  Chancellor,  when  he  surveyed  the  field: 
"Someone  had  to  kill  Jake;  perhaps  it  was  best  Clara 
do  it." 

Jake  was  a  big-bodied  man  some  five  feet  nine 
inches  tall,  claimed  German  and  Indian  blood,  and  had 
an  indescribable  complexion,  like  the  Mississippi  in  a 
freshet  at  sunset.  He  may  have  had  Spanish  or 
Portuguese  blood.  According  to  the  business  standards 
and  practices  of  Oklahoma  and  the  Oil  country,  he 
was  an  exceedingly  able  business  man.  At  any  rate, 
being  on  the  ground  floor  from  the  start,  he  made  and 
lost  millions,  and  died  with  an  estate  and  reported  in 

138 


189 

the  newspapers  after  appraised  at  $5,000,000  assets,  to 
$1,800,000.  Public  opinion  credits  him  with  having 
conveyed,  in  trust,  at  least  ten  millions  in  assets  to 
others,  as  anchors  to  the  windward  in  the  event  of  a 
smash-up  of  various  speculative  enterprises ;  but  public 
opinion  may  be  totally  wrong.  At  the  worst,  he  died 
worth  three  millions  and  more. 

Ten  years  ago,  he  already  had  a  wife  and  children 
in  Kansas,  the  wife  being  Georgia  Harding,  cousin  of 
Warren  G.  Harding,  then  a  politician  of  Ohio.  She  was 
colored  like  himself  and  made  no  claims  to  being  any- 
thing else.  They  lived  in  a  world  of  all  races  and  of  all 
mixtures  of  all  races,  Chinese  included,  and  Mexican. 
Color  was  nothing — a  joke. 

But  Jake  had  the  traits  of  his  primitive  people ;  one 
trait  being  that  he  was  a  born  polygamist  and  woman- 
chaser.  Already  among  other  women  he  had  taken 
Clara  Smith.  This  was  as  deliberate  on  her  part  as 
his ;  he  saw  her  in  a  store  tending  a  customer,  followed 
her  up  took  her  to  his  office,  and  made  a  deal  with 
her  to  educate  her  as  his  private  secretary  for  the 
usual  consideration  exacted  by  loose  grls.  She  was 
then  eghteen  and  understood  what  the  affair  was.  He 
sent  her  to  a  private  school  in  Lawrence,  Kansas,  and 
while  she  was  still  in  that  school  learning  English 
and  shorthand,  sent  for  her  often  to  see  him  in  Topeka, 
for  purposes  easily  surmised. 

Clara  was  a  brunette  and  slight  in  person,  and  has 
negro  blood.  She  used  rouge  and  cosmetics  and  got 
herself  up  regardless  of  expense.  Jake  was  "making  a 
million"  a  year  and  often  that  much  a  month. 

Among  all  the  women  Jake  fancied,  Clara  developed 
most  ability. 

When  not  drunk,  Jake  was  not  only  amiable,  but 
even  agreeable  and  polite.  He  was  seldom  more  than 
a  quarter  drunk.     "He  could  stand  as  much  likker  as 


i90 

any  man  in  Oklahoma,"  was  the  way  the  men  on  the 
street  put  it.  But  occasionally  he  did  get  very  drunk; 
then  he  was  a  demon,  all-furious  Indian.  Then  Clara 
was  the  only  one  who  could  even  partially  tame  him. 
Such  sprees  lasted  usually  several  days. 

They  drove  over  the  praries  and  planes  together, 
looking  up  petroleum  and  refineries  and  pipelines  and 
railroads  and  markets.  They  occupied  adjoining  rooms 
in  hotels,  or  when  hotels  were  crowded,  the  same  room. 
At  last  some  of  the  rich  eastern  operators  who  were 
using  Hamon  to  stalk  yet  bigger  pi'ey  objected,  and 
for  appearances  sake  Jake  married  Clara  off  to  a 
worthless  nephew  whom  he  prevented  from  ever  see- 
ing her  alone.  After  that  they  traveled  as  uncle  and 
niece,  a  very  raw  proposition,  but  in  a  very  raw  land. 

Occasionally  Jake  visited  his  legal  wife  with  the  re- 
sult that  she  bore  one  more  child  to  him.  Clara  had 
no  children.  Mrs.  Georgia  at  last  agreed  to  accept  a 
fine  apartment  and  plenty  of  money  and  to  live  in 
Chicago  without  her  man. 

Jake  L.  Hamon  built  the  city  of  Rankin.  He  helped 
make  the  city  of  Ardmore.  He  was  a  power.  He  even 
went  in  for  Boy  Scouts  and  Y.  M.  C.  A.'s.  He  was  a 
spender  and  a  mixer.  When  people  complained  about 
his  morals — for  he  had  women  friends  besides  Clara, 
stationed  at  various  points,  though  Clara  was  the  head 
of  the  harem — men  said,  "Oh,  it's  Jake's  way;  we  can 
not  change  him."  They  ate  together  in  hotels;  they 
even  went  together  to  the  homes  of  friends.  Every 
one  knew  the  situation.  Jake  gave  to  Clara  the  finest 
of  motor  cais  and  of  clothes.  She  worked  hard  for 
him  when  with  him,  writing  his  telegrams  and  letters 
and  mending  his  clothes.  She  developed  an  expert 
knowledge  of  oil  and  oil  men. 

Then  came  the  amazing  news  to  Georgia  Harding 
that  her  cousin  was  going  to  try  to  become  President. 


101 

Jake  also  heard  of  it.  They  had  never  broken  with  one 
another;  they  met  and  talked  over  what  they  could  do. 
Then  thej-  went  to  Ohio  to  see  Warren.  Both  of  them 
knew  him,  of  course.  Warren  sent  them  to  H.  M. 
Daugherty,  who  said  that  what  he  most  needed  was 
money.  Jake  said  he  had  enough.  We  have  been  un- 
able to  get  all  the  details  of  what  was  actually  given  by 
Jake  to  Warren  Harding's  nomination  campaign  and 
later  spent  by  him  for  the  election,  naturally.  Jake 
did  not  much  care;  he  had  enough  to  see  it  through. 

But  the  common  report  is  that  H.  M.  Daugherty 
got  in  all  for  the  nomination  campaign  in  Ohio  two 
hundred  thousand  dollars,  and  won  most  of  the  dele- 
gates with  this  money.  He  admitted  spending  one 
hundred  thousand  dollars. 

There  was  a  hot  fight  for  the  Oklahoma  delega- 
tion. Jake  won  the  State  Committee  Chairmanship  at 
a  cost  of  forty-six  thousand  dollars.  But  Lowden  got 
the  instruction  to  the  delegates  to  support  him  for  the 
nomination. 

Meantime,  Daugherty  had  opened  offices  for  Hard- 
ing in  Chicago,  with  more  of  Jake's  money.  It  is  be- 
lieved that  the  direct  office  expenses  were  seventy- 
eight  thousand  dollars. 

Then  came  the  Convention.  P^or  a  money  considera- 
tion, the  Oklahoma  delegation,  after  a  few  ballots, 
abandoned  Lowden  for  Harding;  this  is  said  to  have 
cost  in  all  directly  another  $50,000,00.  Other  delega- 
tions were  bought ;  other  Harding  votes  were  secured ; 
and  of  the  total  how  much  came  from  Jake  is  un- 
knouTi,  The  total  was  something  like  $300,000.00. 
It  was  not  a  convention  of  "cheap  skates."  Some  dele- 
gates went  home  with  net  profits  of  $25,000.00, 

Jake  went  into  the  campaign  with  the  definite 
promise  of  being  made  Secretary  of  the  Interior  in  the 


192 

event  that  Harding  won.  With  this  power  American 
Oil  would  win  Mexico. 

In  all,  Hamon  spent  from  $900,000  to  $1,500,000. 
We  give  the  two  extremes  of  the  Oklahoma  estimates. 
There  are  three  living  persons  who  know  how  much 
Hamon  spent — H.  M.  Daugherty,  Clara  Smith  Hamon, 
now  in  the  vaudeville  field,  and  Ketchum,  the  manager 
of  the  Hamon  estate.  This  raises  the  question  of  the 
debts  of  $1,800,000.00.  It  appears  that  Hamon  bor- 
rowed from  Standard  Oil  Banks  and  companies  all  the 
monies  he  spent  with  the  understanding  that  when  he 
got  to  be  Secretary  of  the  Interior  and  opened  up 
Mexico  to  the  Standard  Oil  Interests,  the  notes  were  to 
be  charged  over  to  profit  and  loss.  On  this  claim, 
since  by  being  killed,  he  was  unable  to  become  Secre- 
tary of  the  Interior,  the  Hamon  estate  is  trying  to  get 
the  notes  cancelled  for  the  benefit  of  Georgia  Harding 
Hamon  and  her  three  children. 

Harding  did  win,  and  Harding  went  out  to  Okla- 
homa to  see  his  cousins.  Already,  the  word  had  reached 
himself  and  the  Duchess  that  Hamon  had  an  inamorata 
who  might  be  in  the  way  in  Washington ;  they  desired 
Georgia  to  get  the  limelight,  not  Clara.  Eastern 
women  disfavor  the  Clara  Smiths  of  the  oil  country. 

Hamon  had  for  his  cousins  a  fine  banquet  at  Okla- 
homa City,  and  at  this  affair  Mrs.  Warren  Gamaliel 
Harding  put  her  right  hand  upon  the  shoulder  of  the 
oil  king  and  called  him  "Our  dear  Jake,"  and  told  the 
people  how  grateful  she  was  for  the  terribly  hard  work 
he  had  done  to  win  Oklahoma. 

They  took  Jake,  but  not  Clara,  down  to  Point  Isabel, 
Texas.  There  was  a  big  storm  down  there  but  the  ex- 
ternal storm  was  not  so  great  as  the  one  inside  the 
fishing  camp,  where  Senators  Fall,  Hale  and  Freling- 
hysen  told  Jake  Hamon  to  go  back  and  clean  house, 
while  Warren  and  Florence  Harding  sat  sadly  by  and 


193 

watched  Jake's  Torment,  for,  as  we  shall  see,  Jake 
loved  his  tall,  lithe,  clever,  attractive  quadroon  woman. 
But  he  wished  to  make  a  very  great  fortune,  and  he 
wished  the  honor  of  being  in  the  Cabinet.  Really,  he 
thought,  ''Where  do  they  get  that  stuff?  What  is  the 
matter?    Ain't  Clara  satisfied?" 

But  he  went  back  home,  first,  to  Rankin  and  told 
the  city  officials  to  send  all  the  "Dames"  and  "Skirts 
sky-hooting,"  which  they  did.  Then  he  went  down  to 
Ardmore  and  he  saw  Clara  and  he  told  her.  All  that 
she  asked  was  this:  "Her  clothes  and  motor  cars  and 
jewelry  and  $1500.00  cash  to  begin  again." 

This  made  him  think  that  Clara  did  not  love  him, 
and  he  went  out  and  took  several  drinks.  When  he 
came  back  he  was  somewhat  drunk.  He  went  to  Clara's 
room  and  expostulated  with  her.  But  she  only  sent 
him  away  again.  Then  he  took  some  more  drinks. 
By  this  time  anger  at  her  and  desire  for  her  had  got- 
ten the  better  of  his  temper,  and  he  started  to  whip 
her.  She  resisted.  Then  he  hit  her  again;  and  she 
took  up  a  little  pearl-handled  revolver  and  pointed  it 
at  him.  He  seized  a  chair  and  rased  it.  Clara  swung, 
like  a  cat,  behind  him,  and  "plugged"  him  one.  It  en- 
tered his  back  behind  his  liver  and  he  ran  out  into  the 
hallway  and  into  another  room.  Clara  rushed  after 
him,  and  put  her  arms  around  him;  but  others  who 
had  heard  the  shot  came  in,  and  he  said  to  them: 
"Well,  the  girl  has  got  the  old  man  at  last." 

A  few  days  later  Jake  died. 

All  this  might  have  come  out  at  the  trial,  but  the 
Standard  Oil  Company  said  "NO." 

Only  that  part  was  allowed  in  the  record  which  ex- 
plained why  Clara  had  the  revolver.  And  how  she  shot 
him.    And  what  he  said. 

The  jury  had  no  desire  to  hang  a  woman  or  even 
put  her  away  for  life;  also  she  might  run  around  and 


tell  all  she  knew.  Therefore,  they  made  her  and  her 
parents  comfortable  by  acquitting  her  on  the  ground 
of  self-defense. 

She  is  now  at  large  and  she  may  tell  her  story. 
This  is  the  story  we  have  told. 

This  is  no  Evelyn  Thaw  ruined  girl  story.  It  is 
merely  the  brutal  outline  of  the  plutocracy  and  it's  tools 
in  the  raw  west. 

And  Senator  I'all,  who  did  the  advising  of  Hamon, 
will  have  to  answer  in  the  highest  court  where  all  men 
have  their  Great  Assize,  how  he  adjusted  his  own  con- 
science to  his  part  in  the  business.  He  asked  Hamon 
to  do  something  which  was  virtually  suicide. 

Through  this  dead  man's  money,  or  that  of  the 
Standard  Oil  men,  many  of  whom  are  very  religious, 
Warren  Harding  lives  in  the  White  House.  It  is  a  sick* 
ening  fact  for  decent  men  to  endure.  How  the  White 
House  can  ever  be  cleared  of  the  odor  of  this  pertoleum 
is  a  serious  problem  for  the  future  of  our  American 
social  order. 

Hamon,  bad  as  he  was,  was  a  better  man  than  the 
man  whom  he  placed  there  in  the  White  House,  and  he 
played  a  finer  game. 

The  American  Press  all  know  this  story ;  but  they 
have  preferred  to  let  the  friends  of  Professor  Chan- 
cellor here  and  now  tell  it. 

We  dare  them  to  start  a  war  in  Mexico,  once  that 
the  public  knows  this  story. 

Will  the  nerve  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior  hold 
out? 


CHAPTER  XIV 
THE  ELECTION  MADE  TO  ORDEB 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  desirable  to  make  clear  why 
the  Republicans  were  so  tremendously  concerned  about 
winning  the  election  of  1920.  They  made  an  extra- 
ordinary effort,  an  effort  hitherto  unequalled  in  Ameri- 
can political  history,  and  there  was  a  campaign  un- 
equalled in  its  violence  of  street  and  countryside  gossip 
and  final  newspaper  filth,  whence  the  sluice  gates  of 
Republican  billingsgate  were  opened  upon  a  man  in 
no  way  responsible  for  telling  that  which  was  charged 
against  Harding. 

The  Republican  campaign  really  began  as  soon  as 
Woodrow  Wilson  decided  to  go  to  France  to  represent 
the  Republic  as  he  had  the  full  constitutional  right  to 
g.  He  was  the  head  of  the  Government,  commander- 
in-chief  of  the  army  and  navy,  head  of  foreign  affairs, 
head  of  expenditures.  First,  the  Republicans  tried 
to  show  that  legally  he  could  not  go  outside  of  the 
three-mile  limits  of  our  coasts;  if  he  did,  the  Vice- 
President  would  automatically  succeed  him,  but  it  was 
shown  that  Theodore  Roosevelt  had  gone  outside  of 
those  limits,  and  this  settled  that  notion.  Then  in 
succession  came  arguments  that  it  was  unwise  to  do  so, 
unsafe  lest  the  chief  be  assassinated,  undignified,  im- 
practicable, monarchical,  etc.  This  line  of  argument 
showed  that  the  real  trouble  lay  in  the  desire  of  the 
Republicans,  who,  in  the  election  of  1918,  had  won 
control  of  Congress,  to  control  the  foreign  affairs 
through  the  Senate  Committee  on  Foreign  Affairs. 

But  there  was  more  behind  the  situation  than  the 

196 


196 

surface  revealed.  There  were  ancient  grudges.  Wood- 
row  Wilson  was  an  interloper  upon  the  national  politi- 
cal scene,  while  some  of  the  Senators  had  served  for 
many  years.  The  Democrats  never  were  good  diplo- 
mats ;  all  the  brainy  and  nice-mannered  diplomats  were 
Republicans.  It  was  true  years  and  years  ago  that 
Thomas  Jefferson  had  gotten  the  Louisiana  Territory 
for  the  Republic,  and  that  Polk  had  gotten  a  big  slice 
farther  southwest;  and  a  few  details  like  that;  but  in 
general  the  Republicans  were  far  more  competent  than 
the  Democrats  in  foreign  affairs.  Also,  they  took 
more  interest  in  the  commerce  and  finance  of  the 
foreign  lands  than  did  the  Democrats ;  they  cared  more 
about  the  welfare  of  the  business  interests  and  of  the 
business  men. 

There  was  another  bunch  of  ancient  grudges.  Wood- 
row  Wilson  was  a  graduate  and  former  President  of 
Princeton  University,  while  Henry  Cabot  Lodge  was 
a  graduate  of  Harvard.  It  was  intolerable,  it  was  even 
unseemly  for  Princeton  to  head  the  diplomatic  business 
of  the  nation  when  a  Harvard  man  was  available  in  the 
person  of  Henry  Cabot  Lodge.  Moreover,  the  Massa- 
chusetts Senator  had  been  the  maker  and  adviser  of  no 
less  than  Theodore  Roosevelt,  greatest  of  all  Ameri- 
cans; he  had  far  more  experience  than  Woodrow  Wil- 
son had,  and  again,  Senator  Lodge  had  written  many 
histories  in  competition  with  Wilson,  which  histories, 
until  Wilson  became  President,  sold  decidedly  better 
than  those  of  Wilson.  Moreover,  Lodge  came  from 
old  New  England  families  and  had  the  colonial  hatreds 
and  distrusts  of  Europe  and  especially  of  England  in 
his  bones.  It  would  never  do  to  send  over  Wilson,  when 
it  was  so  much  better  to  send  over  the  very  distin- 
guished Senators.  Again,  Lodge  was  very  rich,  worth 
millions  by  inheritance  and  natural  increase,  while 
Wilson  was  worth  nothing  and  had  a  wife  in  business, 


197 

a  wife  who  indeed  had  gone  every  year  to  Paris  to 
buy  jewels  and  jewelery  at  wholesale,  a  business 
woman;  it  was  shocking.     She  was  behind  it  all. 

The  far  worst  of  all,  if  a  Democrat  made  the  Treaty 
of  Peace,  it  would  be  for  FREE  TRADE  among  the 
nations,  and  that  would  ruin  the  rich  protected  manu- 
facturers of  New  England  and  of  Pennsylvania. 

But  Woodrow  Wilson  went. 

In  1918,  the  Republicans  had  filled  the  ears  of  the 
common  people  and  society  folks  alike  with  gossip  of 
the  horrible  moral  character  of  the  sage  from  Prince- 
ton, hoping  thereby  to  elect  Hughes.  But  what  they 
said  in  1916  was  nothing  to  what  they  now  prepared 
to  say  in  1920. 

As  soon  as  Wilson  landed,  Judson  C.  Welliver  was 
there  also.  Then  began  at  once  a  series  of  defamatory 
articles  of  subtle  and  even  open  attack  upon  Wilson 
such  as  the  world  has  never  seen  since  the  days  of  the 
Roman  Empire,. 

It  is  unnecessary  here  to  repeat  the  calumnies,  for 
they  have  been  told  elsewhere  in  this  book.  Wilson 
was  wholly  unfit.  The  world  had  gone  after  another 
false  Messiah. 

This  stuff  was  sent  home  daily  to  the  great  Repub- 
lican magazines  and  nev/spapers.  It  was  talked  of  in 
the  Senate  and  House,  especially  in  the  lobbies.  There 
is  a  saying  in  Scripture  Revelations,  last  chapters,  that 
perfectly  fits  their  case,  "They  had  made  and  they  be- 
lieved their  own  lies." 

In  the  meantime  at  home,  they  were  working  out 
several  problems,  and  they  were  doing  the  work  well. 

They  hired  agents  provocateurs  to  go  about  among 
the  people  at  their  daily  tasks  and  tell  them  that  Wil- 
son was  this,  that  and  what  else.  They  went  out  among 
the  Republicans  and  told  them  to  organize  and  save 
the  country  (?)— Oh,  no,  SAVE  THE  GRAND  OLD 


198 

REPUBLICAN  PARTY.  This  phrase  began  by  the 
Autumn  of  1918  to  have  the  sanctity  of  a  religious  con- 
fession— We  must  save  the  paiiiy. 

It  had  split  under  Taft  into  two  parties,  and  it  had 
been  defeated  under  the  leadership,  so-called,  of 
Charles  Evans  Hughes.  It  looked  like  a  dead  cock  in 
the  political  pit. 

They  went  out  among  the  rich  and  began  to  raise 
funds  through  various  appeals  to  restore  the  business 
men's  party. 

They  found  a  cheerful  youth  who  had  the  air  of 
sanctity  from  being  an  elder  in  a  Presbyterian  countrj^ 
church  in  Sullivan,  Indana,  and  who  had  a  name  that 
suggested  the  amiable  and  the  easy  and  the  bucolic — 
Will  H.  Hayes,  not  William.  He  knew  Indiana  politics 
which  are  not  less  bad  than  Illinois  politics  and  almost 
as  void  of  ideas  as  Ohio  politics.  This  man  they  made 
Chairman  of  the  Republican  National  Committee,  and 
they  gave  him  money  to  go  around  everywhere  and 
get  the  boys  together. 

Raise  the  money.  Get  the  money.  Send  in  the 
money.  These  were  the  slogans.  Of  course,  this  re- 
iterated suggestion  worked.  The  Americans  are  an 
impressionable  people. 

There  was  another  problem — Whom  to  nominate? 
The  managers  did  a  very  clever  thing  here;  they  de- 
cided to  permit  an  acrid,  vigorous,  determined  and 
costly  lot  of  pre-convention  campaigns  in  order  to 
create  the  impression  that  only  the  Republican  nomina- 
tion was  worth  anything.  It  would  not  matter  whom 
the  Democrats   named. 

They  had  another  aspect  of  this  plan.  If  the  cam- 
paigns for  nominations  cost  a  lot,  the  people  would 
get  used  to  the  notion  that  the  election  must  cost  a  lot 
more. 

And  there  was  a  third  aspect  also.    The  candidates 


199 

would  get  so  tired  fighting  one  another  that  they 
would  all  fall  in  behind  the  winner,  and  make  it  a 
united,  harmonious  party,  because  no  one  had  money 
or  nerve  enough  to  bolt. 

By  the  advice  of  Scott  Ferris  and  of  Carter  Glass, 
when  he  went  into  the  Congressional  campaign  in 
1918,  President  Wilson  made  the  very  great  technical 
blunder  of  asking  for  a  Democratic  Congress  to  sup- 
port him  in  the  Peace  dealings.  This  was  very  im- 
portant to  have,  as  the  event  showed,  but  it  was  very 
bad  politics  to  say  so. 

President  Wilson  went  to  Paris  and  around  in 
Europe  twice  and  in  all  was  there  about  six  months. 
He  did  not  spend  his  entire  time  as  President  there, 
as  the  Republicans  tried  to  make  out.  Nor  did  he  lay 
aside  all  domestic  business,  as  they  alleged.  He  was 
attending  to  the  most  important  governmental  proposi- 
tion that  the  world  ever  faced — its  lasting  peace 
through  a  machine  to  permit  the  keeping  of  peace 
among  the  nations  forever. 

Remember  these  dates: 

Wilson-Taft-Hughes  campaign,  1912. 

Wilson-Hughes  campaign,  1916. 

War  declared  against  Germany  for  cause  April, 
1917. 

Armistice  and  victory,  November,  1918. 

Congressional  election,  November,  1918. 

Wilson  in  Paris  December,  1918,  to  February,  and 
April  to  June,  1919. 

Wilson  stricken  on  tour,  September,  1919. 

Active  campaigns  for  nominations  began  December, 
1919. 

Republican  National  Convention,  June,  1920. 

Democratic,  July. 

Election,  November,  1920. 

President   Wilson   came    home    from    his    temfic 


200 

strain  in  Europe  worn  out  physically,  and  he  found 
tha  this  personal  prestige  had  been  broken  by  the  in- 
famous gossip  from  the  organization  headed  by 
Welliver,  This  Welliver  became  Publicity  Director  of 
the  Republican  National  Committee.  Therefore,  Wil- 
son went  out  among  the  people  from  Coast  to  Coast  to 
let  them  see  him,  and  seeing  him,  hear  his  argument. 
It  is  historically  false  to  say  that  if  he  had  been  a 
stronger  man  he  could  have  endured  anyway.  Abra- 
ham Lincoln,  as  his  portraits  show,  was  a  broken  man 
in  April,  1865,  when  he  was  assassinated;  tradition 
calls  him  a  very  strong  man.  The  mighty  Washington, 
compelled  to  endure  violent  and  merciless  detraction, 
died  but  two  years  after  he  left  the  Presidency.  Wo 
have  discussed  this  elsewhere.  Whatever  such  crea- 
tures as  the  aristocratic  Lodge,  the  plutocratic  Pen- 
rose, the  Mormon  millionaire  Smoot,  and  the  rest  o! 
the  group  that  set  about  to  ruin  Wilson,  may  think  re- 
garding themselves,  historians  will  record  the  truth, 
which  is  that: 

1.  They  set  power  and  success  above  truth  and 
right. 

2.  They  attacked  a  man  morally  better  than  them- 
selves for  political  purposes  only,  knowing  that  they 
were  lying  and  organizing  lies. 

3.  They  set  the  interests  of  the  Republican  poli- 
ticians above  the  interests  of  the  American  people. 

4.  And  they  defeated  world  peace. 

They  have  filled  up  the  cup  of  their  iniquities,  and 
we  have  set  them  in  condemnation. 

There  were  several  great  campaigns  organized  for 
the  Republican  nomination. 

First  comes  Leonard  Wood,  Major  General  of  the 
U.  S.  A.,  long-time  friend  and  military  mentor  of  Theo- 
dore    Roosevelt     and     Progressive.       He     advocated 

1.  The  League  of  Nations. 


201 

2.  Universal  military  training. 

3.  Moderate  tariff  and  world  trade. 

He  had  a  fine  record  as  an  executive  in  many- 
capacities. 

He  was  supported  by  most  of  the  Eastern  Pro- 
gressives, and  in  particular  by  Colonel  Procter,  of  Cin- 
cinnati, the  soap  multi-millionaire  and  philanthropist. 

Professor  William  Estabrook  Chancellor  gave  out 
early  in  the  Spring  that  if  Wood  did  secure  the  Republi- 
can nomination  with  a  decent  Vice-Presidential  candi- 
date, he  would  turn  Republican.  He  did  this  from  per- 
sonal regard  for  General  Wood,  his  education  and  an- 
cestry in  New  England. 

This  ends  the  Republican  falsehood  that  Professor 
Chancellor  was  a  hide-bound  partisan  Democrat,  which 
everyone  who  knows  him,  knows  is  utterly  false. 

He  is,  however,  now  a  party  Democrat  since  his 
treatment  by  the  Republican  National  Committee  and 
present  Administration.  He  believes  that  the  Republi- 
can party  has  sold  out  to  the  plutocracy. 

Second  comes  Governor  Frank  A.  Lowden,  of  Il- 
linois. 

He  is  a  lawyer  who  never  practiced  much,  but  who 
married  a  daughter  of  the  great  builder  of  sleeping 
cars,  George  M.  Pullman,  and  who  has  attended  to 
the  business  affairs  of  the  Pullman  estate  since  then, 
a  genuine  plutocrat  of  the  plutocrats.  He  is,  of  course, 
a  very  industriaus,  capable  business  man,  not  without 
ability  in  politics. 

This  man  represented  the  standpatism  of  the  Re- 
publican party  in  the  Middle  West.  He  began  a  great 
campaign.  He  spent  in  all  some  two  million  dollars, 
which  happened  to  be  thirty-three  per  cent  more  than 
William  Cooper  Procter  spent  for  Leonard  Wood;  but 
unfortunately,  being  a  business  man,  and  not  a  public 
leader,   he  did  not   use   the  Procter-Wood   methods. 


202  -         .  -  - 

Procter  went  in  for  publicity  for  his  man;  he  opened 
headquarters,  had  an  enormous  amount  of  posters 
printed  setting  forth  the  excellence  of  his  candidate, 
advertised  him  in  a  thousand  or  more  newspapers  and 
magazines,  sent  him  on  a  tour  of  the  entire  country 
and  bought  up  no  delegates.  Lowden  did  but  little  pub- 
licity work.  Instead,  he  bought  up  political  bosses 
right  and  left  and  delegates  galore;  he  was  caught  in 
Missouri  getting  two  men  for  the  low  price  of  $2,500 
each,  which  was  absurd.  This  got  into  the  newspapers, 
and  the  publicity  was  damaging.  Unfortunately,  the 
CHICAGO  TRIBUNE  was  not  for  Lowden,  but  for 
Wood,  and  allowed  the  information  to  get  wide  read- 
ing. Lowden  desired  what  the  Republican  plutocrats 
all  desired,  which  we  have  shown  elsewhere. 

Then,  third,  there  was  Hiram  Johnson,  who  broke 
Hughes  in  1920  in  California,  and  who  beat  Herbert 
Hoover  in  the  Republican  primaries  out  there. 

Johnson  is  a  United  States  Senator  and  for  a 
time  he  was  Governor  of  California,  with  a  very  fine 
record  of  performance  for  the  public  welfare.  He  had 
a  real  program. 

He  supported  several  measures  in  1920  in  the  very 
wide  speaking  campaign  upon  which  he  went. 

1.  He  favored  no  I^eague  whatever  with  European 
nations.  He  was  nationalistic  in  an  extreme  form.  "Let 
America  stay  at  home." 

2.  He  favored  legislation  to  help  the  wage-earners. 

3.  He  looked  upon  the  Non-Partisan  league  of  the 
Dakotas  with  pleasure;  the  farmers  could  trust  him 
not  to  let  the  grain  elevator  and  railroad  men  take  all 
the  profits. 

There  were  other  candidates  before  the  people,  but 
these  three  were  the  leaders;  they  had  most  of  the 
delegates.  The  others  included  Nicholas  Murray  But- 
ler, who  had  been  a  friend  both  of  Roosevelt  and  of 


208 

Taft,  and  is  President  of  the  greatest  university  of 
the  country,  and  Calvin  Coolidge,  of  Massachusetts, 
who  had  raised  against  the  Boston  police  the  slogan. 
"Law  and  order!"  And  among  the  "others"  was 
Warren  G.  Harding,  of  Ohio.  Few  imagined  that  he 
would  win. 

Not  trusting  at  all  the  amounts  given  by  the  vari- 
ous managers,  it  is  still  true  that  relatively  the  sums 
expended  for  Butler  and  Coolidge  were  negligible ;  per- 
haps a  hundred  thousand  dollars  each.  Why  anything 
at  all? 

We  have  told  elsewhere  how  vast  was  the  sum  se- 
cretly expended  for  Warren  Harding.  Harding  had  no 
program.  He  supported  nothing.  He  was  "available" 
for  any  platform  whatever. 

Johnson  was  an  orator,  a  demagogue,  perhaps,  but 
an  orator.  Side  by  side  with  him  was  United  States 
Senator  William  E.  E.  Borah,  also  an  orator.  Butler 
was  an  educator  and  philosopher,  incidentally  himself 
rich,  a  good  speaker,  a  better  writer,  a  political  expert 
in  New  York  State.  Coolidge  was  a  fair  lawyer,  a  life- 
long officeholder,  poor  in  purse,  and  no  plutocrat.  We 
have  tried  to  show  elsewhere  abundantly  what  Harding 
really  was. 

The  real  strength  of  the  different  men  among  the 
delegates  as  among  the  people  was  by  no  means  shown 
at  any  time  by  the  votes  cast  in  the  Convention,  The 
delegates  had  been  chosen  in  general  in  two  different 
ways — by  old-style  state  conventions  and  by  new-style 
party  primaries.  In  some  cases,  the  conventions  or  the 
primaries  had  instructed  the  delegates  for  whom  to 
votes  in  the  convention. 

The  strength  of  Wood  consisted  in  the  fact  that 
most  of  his  delegates  actually  did  believe  in  him  and 
came  from  States  that  had  instructed  them  to  vote 
for  him  as  nominee.     The  weakness  of  Johnson  con- 


204 

sisted  in  the  fact  that  though  his  delegates  were  in- 
structed for  him,  generally  they  were  ready  to  abandon 
him.  Politicians  are  not  generally  men  who  fancy 
Hiram  Johnson. 

Lowden  was  strong  at  first  because  his  men  had 
been  bought  and  paid  for,  and  had  to  deliver  their 
votes  accordingly. 

But  Daugherty,  of  Ohio,  Avho  had  most  of  the  Ohio 
votes  for  Harding,  seven  only  being  for  Leonard  Wood, 
had  predicted  two  weeks  previously  that  "at  2:11  a.  m. 
in  some  hotel  room  a  dozen  men  sitting  together  would 
pick  the  man,  and  that  day  the  Convention  would  nomi- 
nate him."  What  Daugherty  predicted,  he  knew  would 
come  to  pass. 

Let  us  now  take  a  glance  at  some  things  that  Pro- 
fessor William  Estabrook  Chancellor  knew  already. 
Business  took  him  to  Lima,  Ohio,  early  in  June.  At  a 
hotel  there,  he  sat  at  a  table  next  to  the  table  where 
was  seated  a  party  of  men  whom  he  knew.  One  of 
these  men  was  the  paid  agent  of  the  standpat  Re- 
publicans who  happens  to  be  president  of  a  small  col- 
lege and  also  of  a  national  association  dealing  with 
world  questions,  his  name  is  familiar  to  many,  John 
Wesley  Hill.  This  man,  long  in  the  pay  of  the  Re- 
publicans, goes  about  the  country  making  speeches 
ostensibly  for  religious  ends,  but  always  containing  at- 
tacks upon  Democratic  interests.  This  Doctor  Hill  at 
his  table  arose  and  in  a  very  loud  voice,  told  the  entire 
roomful  of  men  eating,  "V/ell,  I  wish  everyone  to  know 
that  we  are  going  to  have  a  safe  and  sane  President 
next  time;  he  is  an  Ohio  man,  and  his  name  is  Warren 
Harding.  I  have  just  seen  him;  I  am  on  my  way  to 
the  Chicago  Convention,  which  will  certainly  nomi- 
nate him." 

This  was  not  a  banquet ;  he  said  it  because  he  was 
being  paid  to  create  sentim.ent  for  Harding.    He  won. 


205 

In  another  chapter  we  have  told  where  the  money 
came  from  to  nominate  Harding. 

Professor  Chancellor  was  present  at  the  Chicago 
Convention  all  day  when  Harding  was  nominated.  He 
talked  with  many  of  the  delegates.  He  saw  what  hap- 
pened. But  not  until  March  of  the  present  year  did  he 
get  the  whole  inside  of  the  case;  what  we  now  tell  is 
the  substance  of  what  was  told  to  him  by  Oklahoma  oil 
men,  members  of  the  Oklahoma  delegation,  and  what 
Professor  Chancellor  himself  saw  at  the  Convention. 

There  is  nothing  in  this  report  that  should  surprise 
any  intelligent  man  who  read  the  newspapers  of  the 
time.     It  explains  the  inside  of  what  occurred. 

The  last  day  was  smeltering  hot;  after  a  very  hot 
night. 

All  night  long,  in  rooms  taken  by  Colonel  George  R. 
McClellan  Harvey,  the  insiders  had  been  working  out 
the  plan  to  land  Harding  that  day.  It  cost  them  $50,000 
to  turn  the  Oklahoma  delegation  from  Lowden  to  whom 
it  was  pledged  to  Harding.  The  runners  came  in  from 
time  to  time  to  tell  Harding  and  Harvey  and  Daugherty 
and  the  others  present  how  the  business  of  getting  the 
delegates  was  going  forward. 

One  Republican  leader  came  in  at  midnight  and  said 
that  he  had  three  questions  to  ask  Hardng  before  he 
would  let  his  State  swing  to  Harding.  Harding  asked 
what  the  questions  were. 

First,  the  man  asked,  "Have  you  ever  been  bank- 
rupt?" 

Second,  he  asked,  "Have  you  ever  had  any  trouble, 
public  trouble,  over  women?" 

Third,  he  asked,  "We  hear  that  there  is  a  rumor 
among  the  Johnson  men  that  you  have  negro  blood; 
what  about  this?" 

To  the  first  queslon,  Harding  answered  a  point- 
blank  "No." 


206 

He  had  a  long  answer  to  the  second,  which  went 
well  enough. 

Daugherty  answered  the  third  by  saying:  "Ohio 
elected  Harding  United  States  Senator.  Is  not  that 
enough?" 

The  State  leader  went  out  and  aligned  his  men  for 
Harding;  since  the  election,  he  has  been  doing  some 
tall  swearing.    He  handled  a  lot  of  the  Harding  money. 

At  8  o'clock  a.  m.,  the  delegates  had  already  been 
told  that  on  the  day  they  would  be  able  to  go  home, 
for  Harding  was  "the  man.*' 

At  noon  they  were  a  wretched,  gloomy  lot,  anxious, 
fearing  exposure,  and  many  of  them  really  fearing  de- 
feat in  the  Autumn.  They  have  experienced  some- 
thing worse  than  defeat;  they  have  experienced  the 
chagrin  of  discovering  that  under  Harding,  they  have 
but  a  shadow  for  President. 

As  soon  as  the  Convention  was  called  to  order  that 
morning,  the  colored  delegates  of  whom  there  v^^ere  in 
attendance  176  in  all,  not  counting  the  alternates,  in  a 
total  of  not  quite  1,000  delegates,  withdrew  as  usual  to 
the  sidewalk,  leaving  their  proxies  in  the  hands  of  the 
chairmen  of  their  State  delegations.  They  were  to  be 
voted  in  blocks  according  to  the  number  of  their  State 
delegates.  This  solved  the  problem  for  the  bosses  in 
respect  to  one-sixth  of  all  the  votes,  or  one-third  of 
the  number  necessary  to  nominate.  No  one  knows  how 
much  these  colored  brothers  were  paid  for  their  votes 
each  except  the  bribers  and  the  bribed ;  but  a  group  of 
told  Professor  Chancellor  that  they  were  anxious  to  get 
home  and  spend  their  money ;  and  when  he  asked  them 
how  much  they  got,  they  said  their  travelling  expenses, 
their  board  bills,  their  incidentals  and  their  wages. 
None  came  away  emptyhanded.  They  were  serving 
the  interests  of  their  common  country  and  ours  by 
making  a  living  in  politics.     They  were  handled  by 


207 

Frank  H.  Hitchcock,  former  United  States  Postmaster 
General,  who  makes  a  specialty  every  four  years  of  fix- 
ing the  Southern  delegates  in  the  Republican  Conven- 
tion. Hitchcock  went  to  Washington  to  be  a  Govem- 
ment  clerk  at  $1,600  a  year  about  1900;  and  when  he 
got  through  with  the  Taf  t  steamroller  work  in  the  Re> 
publican  Convention  of  1912,  he  was  rated  in  Washing- 
ton at  $600,000;  he  is  a  bachelor  who  has  found  his 
proper  work  in  the  field  of  National  politics.  South- 
erners and  New  Englanders  traded  in  negroes  for  plan- 
tation slaves  and  for  breeding  stock;  Hitchcock  has  a 
new  wrinkle.  He  trades  in  negroes  for  political  slaves 
to  use  in  Republican  Conventions.  It  was  with  very 
great  pleasure  that  the  negroes  did  vote  for  Harding, 
because  they  were  told — 

First,  that  he  has  negro  blood. 

Second,  that  he  would  appoint  negroes  to  many 
more  offices  than  any  other  President  has  ever  done. 

But  they  were  wise  enough  not  to  vote  for  even 
their  colored  brother  until  they  got  the  cash  for  doing 
so.    The  negro  is  not  in  politics  for  his  health. 

No  negro  ever  gets  a  place  as  a  delegate  in  a 
Democratic  Convention.  When  the  negro  race  leams 
to  split  their  vote,  then  Democrats  will  give  some  of 
them  places  in  their  counsels.  But  while  the  race  votes 
solid,  it  can  be  nothing  but  a  chattel  of  the  party  for 
whose  candidates  the  race  votes. 

Ballot  after  ballot  was  taken.  Slowly  the  strength 
faded  away  from  Butler  and  Johnson  and  Lowden  to 
Harding,  who  came  through  with  a  small  majority  in 
sight  at  the  beginning  of  the  eighth  ballot.  There  was 
a  swing  to  Harding,  but  no  stampede.  Slowly  the  votes 
bought  were  delivered,  and  the  delegates  looked  sicker 
and  sicker. 

To  appease  their  angry  consciences,  they  stam- 
peded to  Calvin  Coolidge  for  Vice-President. 


208 

The  Wood  delegates  never  abandoned  their  man.  It 
was  a  question  for  several  days  whether  the  General 
and  his  followers  would  not  bolt. 

Nicholas  Murray  Butler  advertised  the  Wood  cam- 
paign as  one  financed  by  the  war  munitions  manufac- 
turers ;  but  for  this  he  apologized,  bringing  out  thereby 
the  fact  that  the  Wood  campaign,  wise  or  unwise,  was 
a  philanthropic  effort  of  a  multi-millionaire  to  make 
a  good  man  President.  Whether  Wood  decided  to  re- 
main in  the  Republican  camp  because  he  was  already 
promised  something  or  not,  only  he  and  a  few  others 
can  tell.  But  he  was  soon  publicly  announced  as  the 
head  of  the  Philippine-Japanese  inquiry  and  not  much 
later  the  prediction  was  made  that  he  would  become 
the  head  of  the  Republican-managed  University  of 
Pennsylvania,  at  Philadelphia.  Both  predictions  came 
true.  He  is  now  in  the  Far  East  on  the  Government 
business  indicated  and  he  has  already  been  elected 
head  of  that  great  University,  which  he  will  adorn  and 
manage,  as  well  as  any  Republican  can  manage  a  uni- 
versity. 

Republicans  do  not  believe  in  truth  and  freedom; 
otherwise,  they  have  many  good  qualities  as  educators. 

The  delegates  went  home,  and  going  home,  they 
expressed  many  a  fear  that  they  were  in  for  a  licking. 
But  Will  H.  Hays  and  Judson  C.  Welliver  and  the  pluto- 
crats told  them  not  to  be  afraid ;  that  victory  was  cer- 
tain. 

Harding  announced  his  front  porch  campaign  and 
his  desire  to  meet  the  people  at  his  own  home.  Then 
began  the  most  deliberate  lying  of  a  continued  and 
systematic  kind  that  America  ever  saw  in  any  Presi- 
dential campaign. 

When  a  train  of  visitors  ran  to  Marion,  it  was 
credited  with  many  times  the  actual  number  of  dele- 
gates.    One  afternoon  a  delegation  entirely  failed  to 


209 

show  up,  but  all  the  papers  next  day  printed  the  speech 
and  told  about  "the  aplause  of  the  great  crowd." 

All  the  Marion  tradespeople  were  coerced  into  plac- 
ing many  pictures  of  the  black  face  of  Warren  in  their 
windows.  The  slogan  was,  "Elect  Harding  and  bring 
business  to  Maron." 

Doctor  George  Tryon  Harding  buttonholed  all  his 
neighbors  and  many  others,  begging  them  to  "Help 
elect  my  boy."  In  some  instances,  Democrats  pro- 
tested that  the  "boy"  was  a  negro,  but  the  old  man 
nevertheless  persisted  in  his  appeal. 

The  banks  kept  at  it;  they  even  sent  out  letters  to 
other  banks.  Inquiries  started  regarding  the  colored 
blood,  but  the  banks  in  order  to  "bring  business  to 
Marion"  either  ignored  the  inquiry  or  denied  the  truth. 

When  the  local  Democratic  newspaper  printed 
10,000  copies  of  the  true  photograph  of  George  Tryon 
Harding  and  needed  more,  the  photo  original  was  stolen 
in  the  office  of  the  rival  newspaper  to  which  the 
postcarrier  had  delivered  it  by  "mistake."  When  the 
Democratic  Postmaster  was  asked  by  other  postmasters 
and  others  also  as  to  the  truth  about  Harding,  he  was 
told  if  he  told  the  truth  and  the  Republicans  won,  he 
would  lose  his  job. 

THE  STAR  got  all  the  Associated  Press  news  on 
time;  but  the  Democratic  paper  found  itself  in  many 
difficulties,  even  to  spies  among  its  own  employes, 
paper  upon  which  to  go  to  press,  etc. 

The  Republicans  set  out  to  prove  to  America  that 
Marion  was  "all  for  Harding." 

They  promised  to  Father  James  M.  Dennison,  of 
the  local  Roman  Catholic  Church  the  consulate  at 
Rome,  Italy,  for  his  support;  which  brought  in  the 
Catholic  vote. 

They  threatened  the  employes  of  the  iron  and  other 


210 

works  in  Marion  with  business  depression  and  no  wages 
if  the  Democrats  won. 

They  sent  men  out  among  the  farmers  to  tell  them 
that  Wilson  was  the  cause  of  the  low  price  of  their 
wool. 

This  is  told  at  the  present  point  in  order  to  show 
how  the  Republicans  succeeded  in  making  all  the  visi- 
tors feel  that  Harding  would  win  his  home  town,  and 
therefore  was  not  a  negro. 

At  this  very  time,  at  one  and  the  same  time,  they 
were  sending  light-colored  negroes  to  every  part  of 
Ohio,  Indiana  and  Illinois  to  tell  the  colored  people  that 
Warren  was  one  of  themselves.  This  was  preached  in 
many  churches. 

We  may  turn  from  this  now  to  the  Democratic 
situation.  The  doctrine  of  Fate  is  an  easy  one;  the 
Democrats  are  now  trying  to  comfort  themselves  by 
saying  that  they  never  had  a  chance.  What  is  the 
truth? 

Neither  Republicans  nor  Democrats  foresaw  that 
Tennessee  would  confirm  the  Amendment  for  equal 
suffrage.  If  they  had  foreseen  this,  neither  would 
have  dared  to  nominate  the  men  they  did.  Not  fore- 
seeing the  woman  vote,  the  Democrats  thought  only 
of  what  the  men  would  say  about  the  candidates. 

There  were  three  leading  candidates,  and  really  no 
dark  horses  anywhere  on  the  horizon  or  in  the  woods. 

One  was  William  G.  McAdoo,  "the  Crown  Prince." 
He  was  the  son-in-law  of  Woodrow  Wilson,  and  Wilson 
himself  was  never  popular  with  the  leading  Democratic 
politicians.  He  was  popular  enough  with  the  working 
people ;  but  he  had  no  other  strength.  The  politicians 
believed  that  Wilson  would  kill  the  chances  of  the 
Democrats  with  McAdoo  at  the  head.  America  desires 
no  dynasty  in  the  White  House,  thongh  the  Repub- 
licans are  now  heading  T.  R.,  Jr.,  who  is  rich,  for  that 


211 

place.  T.  R.  left  almost  three  millions  of  an  estate, 
and  his  children  by  marriage  are  worth  fifty  or  sixty 
millions.  T.  R.,  Jr.,  has  a  very  rich  wife.  We  say  this 
in  order  to  get  the  minds  of  Americans  ready  for  an 
attempt  to  create  a  Roosevelt  dynasty. 

McAdoo  was  "dry"  and  pro-suffrage.  The  Tam- 
many outfit  of  New  York  "had  no  use  for  him." 

A.  Mitchell  Palmer,  the  handsomest  man  in  politics, 
was  frightfully  handicapped  by  coming  from  Pennsyl- 
vania, being  in  the  Wilson  Cabinet  and  being  bitterly 
anti-Boche. 

He  was  "impossible"  according  to  the  politcians. 
W.  G.  McAdoo  had  money,  and  though  not  of  the  plu- 
tocracy, could  get  a  big  campaign  fund;  but  Palmer 
could  get  no  money  for  the  campaign. 

Then  there  was  "our  own  Jimmy  Cox"  of  Ohio, 
from  Harding's  own  State,  the  best  Governor  Ohio 
ever  had,  worth  "millions"  and  a  great  campaigner. 
Cox  was  "it." 

There  were  but  two  possible  objections  to  him:  one 
was  that  he  also  reputed  to  be  "wet";  and  the  other 
was  that  he  had  a  divorced  wife  living,  a  cousin  of 
Warren  Harding's.  In  all  other  respects,  he  filled  the 
bill.    He  could  carry  Ohio  surely. 

They  would  capture  the  progressives  by  naming 
Franklin  D.  Roosevelt,  cousin  of  T.  R.,  whose  wife  also 
was  a  cousin  of  T.  R.  It  was  certainly  a  fine-looking 
team. 

But  the  women  got  the  vote. 

Then  the  Democrats  dug  up  the  unpleasant  fact 
that  the  wife  of  Harding  had  been  "married"  before, 
and  was  a  "divorced"  woman.  This  the  Republicans 
answered  truthfully  enough  by  stating  that  Mrs.  Hard- 
ing was  not  running  for  President,  that  her  "first 
husband"  was  dead;  and   in  fact  he  had   not  been 


212 

married  to  her,  and  therefore  could  not  have  been  di- 
vorced from  her.    This  has  been  shown  elsewhere. 

The  religious  sentimentalists  are  now  face  to  face 
with  this  problem — whether  to  vote  for  a  divorced  man 
or  for  a  man  who  had  married  a  discarded  woman. 
They  decided  quite  generally  to  do  what  looked  best, 
what  "public  morals"  required;  they  decided  to  vote 
for  the  colored  man.  They  were  much  disconcerted 
about  this  color  business  from  the  fact  that  the  white 
Republicans  told  one  story  and  the  colored  Republicans 
anottier ;  perhaps,  Warren  would  not  put  colored  people 
into  high  office  at  least. 

It  was  proven  that  Warren  Harding  owned  brew- 
ery stock;  but  the  sentimentalists  swallowed  this  fact. 
The  stock  was  only  three  shares  anyway  and  had  been 
donated  to  him  for  his  influence. 

The  Democrats  figured  that  James  M.  Cox,  owner 
of  two  newspapers  and  of  a  line  of  oil  stocks,  would 
be  treated  sympathetically  at  least  by  American  news- 
papers and  by  the  plutocracy.  Here  they  made  a  great 
mistake.  The  Associated  Press  does  not  like  the  Cox 
syndicate,  end  the  Standard  Oil  Company  does  not 
like  the  Pure  Oil  Company.  Each  desires  a  monopoly, 
of  course. 

More  than  this,  the  plutocrats  resented  the  things 
that  Cox  had  done  for  the  workmen's  compensation 
acts  that  have  made  Ohio  rightly  famous  in  all  the 
land.     Cox  had  been  "too  good  to  labor." 

The  Republicans  discovered  that  Harding  had  a 
printer's  union  card,  while  Cox  had  none ;  this  they 
used  with  great  effect.  Never  does  the  richer  man  de- 
feat the  poorer  when  the  people  find  the  comparative 
facts  out.  The  Republicans  asserted  that  Cox  was 
worth  twenty  millions  of  dollars  and  was  trying  to  buy 
the  Presidency.  In  20  out  of  23  Presidential  cam- 
paigns, the  poorer  man  has  won,  since  1828. 


tl3 

Cox  himself  made  three  moves  that  look  to  many 
now  like  serious  mistakes. 

First,  he  chased  the  wild  goose  in  Washington, 
Oregon  and  California.  He  imagined  that  he  could 
carry  the  Coast.  This  took  him  away  from  the  East 
where  Warren  was  doing  the  front  porch  work.  The 
trip  around  the  circuit,  getting  out  to  see  the  people, 
looks  well ;  but  few  future  candidates  will  try  it.  Cox 
made  votes  out  on  the  Coast;  but  he  lost  more  votes 
in  the  East  by  leaving  the  battle  ground. 

Second,  he  relied  upon  but  one  issue.  No  candidate 
ever  wins  with  one  issue.  It  is  true  that  the  League 
of  Nations  Covenant  was  worth  all  the  time  that  he 
gave  to  it;  but  the  voters  did  not  see  this. 

Third,  he  asked  the  Democratic  platform  men  not 
to  mention  the  colored  blood  of  the  Hardings  because 
it  appeared  to  involve  his  three  children  by  his  first 
wife.  He  thought  of  his  posterity  rather  than  of  his 
country.  The  Republicans  falsely  charged  that  the 
Democrats  were  secretly  using  this  story;  but  the 
truth  was  that  the  Democrats  frowned  upon  it. 

There  were  doubtless  other  Democratic  errors.  One' 
may  have  been  the  failure  of  Cox  to  declare  himself  on 
the  wet  question  unequivocally;  he  said  only  that  he 
would  "enforce  the  laws."  If  he  had  gone  either  way, 
to  say  that  he  disliked  prohibition,  as  Wilson  did,  or 
that  he  firmly  believed  in  it,  he  would  have  kept  more 
votes.  It  is  true  that  Harding  was  equally  equivocal ; 
but  Harding  had  the  inside  of  the  running. 

It  is  also  probable  that  the  Democratic  Manage- 
ment at  headquarters  was  incompetent.  It  had  no 
policy;  it  had  no  faith  in  victory;  it  would  spend  no 
money  beyond  what  was  in  sight;  it  used  too  few 
speakers  and  too  little  ink  and  paper;  it  was  loyal  to 
Cox;  but  it  was  the  loyalty  of  a  very  conservative, 
rich   business   man   who   would   not  risk   too   much. 


214  ■ 

George  White  is  still  in  charge  of  the  Democratic 
National  Committee  affairs;  but  he  lacks  steam  and 
will  to  win.     He  is  temperamentally  too  cautious. 

When  Cox  got  back  from  the  wild  goose  chase,  full 
of  wrath  that  the  newspapers  had  given  to  him  so 
little  space,  he  made  a  few  speaches  that  drove  War- 
ren off  the  front  porch;  Warren  got  a  speech  from 
Wallace,  the  agriculture  man,  that  he  read  out  in  Min- 
nesota, and  that  pleased  the  farmers. 

In  the  East  every  week  after  his  return,  Cox  did 
gain  ground;  but  he  was  totally  in  error  when  a  fort- 
night before  the  election  at  Baltimore,  he  predicted 
his  own  victory,  and  actually  believed  that  himself. 
A  campaigner  never  can  tell  what  the  people  are  really 
going  to  do. 

At  the  Baltimore  meeting,  a  woman  judge  there, 
after  hearing  him,  said  to  her  neighbors  this,  "My, 
that  was  a  fine  speech;  if  he  were  not  so  bad  a  man, 
I  would  vote  for  him."  Asked  wherein  he  was  bad, 
she  replied,  "He  has  two  wives." 

Nine  million  women  voted;  perhaps  three  million 
of  them  voted  for  Cox.  Except  the  poor  white  trash, 
so-called,  all  the  white  women  of  the  South  stayed  at 
home.  This  is  why  Cox  lost  Tennessee.  Wherein  lay 
the  Republican  vote? 

In  the  North,  about  seven  million  women  voted, 
probably  at  least  one  million  of  these  being  negro  or 
colored,  all  of  whom  voted  Republican.  Of  the  six 
million  others  the  Republicans  probably  had,  on  the 
argument  that  Cox  was  a  bigamist,  morally  at  least, 
four  million  votes. 

The  women  voters  netted  to  the  Republicans  about 
six  million  votes,  or  three  million  of  their  total  major- 
ity of  seven  millions.  The  G.  A.  R.  women,  the  W.  C. 
T.  U.  women  and  the  women  allied  with  K.  C.  voted 
Republican  generally. 


"'  215 

On  the  sex  question,  the  women  may  be  counted  to 
go  for  "public  morality",  so-called — that  is,  the  man 
who  is  a  sex-offender  must  be  outwardly  decent.  A 
divorce  is  politically  a  heavy  handicap.  Harding  had 
not  been  divorced.  In  this  fashion,  the  instincts  of 
women  have  gotten  into  politics.  But  the  women  vote 
did  not  decide  the  election. 

Where  were  the  other  Republican  votes 

Many  women  and  some  men  were  resentful  of  the 
universal  draft.  The  United  States  is  no  warlike  na- 
tion universally.  Many  people  believe  that  when  it 
comes  to  fighting,  one  should  have  the  option  whether 
or  not  to  fight — even  for  his  own  protection  and  that 
of  his  family.  This  is  a  very  general  opinion  among 
women.  It  is  called  "conscientious  objection  to  war," 
but  it  is  nothing  else  than  self -protective  fear,  intel- 
lectualized  and  made  hypocritical. 

The  man  who  sets  up  a  conscientious  objection  to 
his  own  fighting  is  a  coward ;  we  ought  to  have  a  con- 
scientious objection  to  v/ar  itself;  but  not  to  fighting 
when  their  is  war  on  between  right  and  wrong  and  we 
are  needed  by  the  right. 

These  conscientious  objectors  all  thought  that 
Warren  Harding  was  really  a  pacifist;  they  judged 
this  from  his  war-record,  whether  truly  or  falsely  is 
not  in  the  present  argument.  He  was  the  anti-war 
man,  and  Cox  was  the  War  Governor  of  Ohio. 

The  fathers,  mothers  brothers  and  other  kin  and 
friends  of  the  soldiers  or  the  released  who  objected  to 
the  draft  may  have  numbered  half  a  million  in  all,  of 
whom  perhaps  two  hundred  thousand  might  have 
voted  otherwise  for  the  Democratic  candidate.  To 
them  the  Republicans  sneered,  "Woodrow  Wilson  won 
the  election  in  1916  on  the  slogan,  "He  kept  us  out  of 
war."    Well,  did  he? 

The  fact  that  the  German  power  went  on  doing 


216 

things  to  us,  and  compelled  us  to  go  into  war;  the  fact 
that  Theodore  Roosevelt  and  other  Republicans  were 
much  more  keen  for  the  war  than  ever  Wilson  was; 
the  fact  that  most  munitions  manufacturers  were  Re- 
publicans, all  these  facts  were  ignored;  and  these 
people  crucified  the  cause  of  peace  out  of  a  grudge 
against  the  Government  in  power  during  the  War. 

Every  genuine  pro-German  in  America  without 
excepton,  whether  ordinarily  Republican,  Democrat  or 
Socialist,  voted  for  Harding.  The  Republicans  got  to- 
gether on  this  count  every  traitor  to  our  country.  They 
ought  to  hang  their  heads  in  shame  for  this;  but  in- 
stead they  think  that  it  was  smart. 

Only  a  few  Germans  who  are  "German"  from  long 
descent  voted  pro-German,  but  most  of  the  recent  im- 
migrants loved  the  "Old  Country"  more  than  the  new. 
This  made  net  at  least  two  million  votes  for  Harding. 

The  anti-British  voted  for  him.  Wilson  comes  of 
ancestry  direct  from  England;  therefore,  he  is  "pro- 
British",  these  Sinn  Feiners  assert.  These  are  the 
people  who  read  the  school  histories  seriously  and  im- 
agine that  our  country  is  still  hated  by  Great  Britain. 
These  are  the  people  who  believe  that  J.  P.  Morgan  is 
a  citizen  of  Great  Britain,  which  the  agents  provoca- 
teurs told  them. 

There  are  in  the  United  States  many  persons  ig- 
norant enough  to  believe  that  J.  P.  Morgan  and  John 
D.  Rockefeller  own  it  all ;  and  both  of  them  are  Demo- 
crats when  there  is  a  Democratic  President  in  Wash- 
ington. 

This  anti-British  vote  was  carefully  nursed  espe- 
cially by  Henry  Cabot  Lodge,  who  has  written  in  most 
of  his  book  how  terrible  the  British  have  been  to  us. 
He  is  kept  in  the  United  States  Senate  by  the  Irish 
Catholic  vote  of  Massachusetts. 


217 

This  vote  of  the  anti-British  netted  Harding  a  mil- 
lion or  so. 

The  male  negroes  of  the  United  States  cast  about 
three  million  votes,  nearly  all  of  them  in  the  Upper 
South  and  in  the  North,  very  few  elsewhere.  Every 
such  vote  went  Republican,  of  course. 

A  majority  of  the  farmers  of  the  North  are  Re- 
publicans on  the  argument  that  a  protective  tariff 
makes  the  workmen  rich  so  that  they  pay  good  prices 
for  the  farmers'  products.  It  is  an  interesting  argu- 
ment because  it  catches  the  gullible.  Leaving  out  the 
tradespeople  of  the  rural  districts  and  others  not  en- 
gaged in  farming,  there  are  perhaps  of  the  men  on  the 
farms  in  all  ten  millions,  of  whom  two-thirds  went 
Republican. 

For  the  whole  land  outside  of  the  South,  the  trades- 
people and  the  jobbers  mostly  went  Republican  be- 
cause they  have  always  been  told  that  "a  Republican 
admnistration  means  good  prices,  big  profits  and  pros- 
perity."   Their  number  is  about  a  quarter  of  a  million. 

The  wonder  is  that  Cox  got  any  votes  at  all. 

The  Republicans  took  the  Bible,  and  the  dictionary, 
and  the  encyclopedia  and  found  converts  for  any  and 
every  cause  on  both  sides.  They  promised  sea  trade 
to  the  seatraders  and  home  manufactures  to  the  manu- 
facturers, big  prices  to  the  farmers  and  a  reduced  cost 
of  living  to  everyone ;  they  promised  lower  taxes,  econ- 
omy, a  big  navy,  social  progress,  etc.,  etc.,  et  infinitum, 
et  nauseam. 

But  nine  million  people  voted  for  Cox  on  the  old 
argument  that  it  is  the  business  of  the  people  to  sup- 
port the  Government,  not  of  the  Government  to  sup- 
port the  people. 

What  did  those  who  went  to  Marion  see? 

They  saw  a  big  office  run  mainly  by  negroes,  with 


218 

a  staff  of  secretaries  writing  the  daily  speeches  of 
Harding. 

They  saw  him  read  speeches  in  type  that  he  had 
never  looked  at  before. 

They  saw  Mrs.  Warren  Harding  running  about 
even  in  the  street  itself  to  interview  people,  not  once 
but  systematically  stopping  even  the  merely  curious 
as  they  went  by. 

They  saw  the  great  men  of  the  Republican  party  in 
twos  and  sevens  and  with  the  delegations  greatly  ex- 
aggerated in  the  reports,  come  to  the  prophet,  "the 
Marionette  of  Marion"  as  Oliver  Herford  put  it,  in 
his  home  town. 

But  they  did  not  see  any  enthusiasm;  they  saw  a 
system  at  work;  all  the  enthusiasm  was  Republican 
political  bunk,  written  in  t  oorder  by  the  paid  prosti- 
tutes of  the  Republican  press. 

We  come  now  to  what  Wood  did  to  help  elect  Hard- 
ing, and  what  the  others  did. 

Wood  went  to  Marion,  and  saw  the  man  who  had 
beaten  him  in  an  unfair  fight.  He  saw  a  man  markedly 
inferior  to  himself,  uneducated,  affable,  full  of  prom- 
ises, adroit  with  the  mysterious  adroitness  of  a  race 
that  has  not  built  the  British  Empire  or  the  American 
Republic  as  has  his  own  race — the  men  from  the  Brit- 
ish Isles.  Wood  then  released  a  few  friendly  speeches 
in  his  behalf. 

Johnson  also  was  reached ;  he  was  lined  up  even  to 
making  speeches  for  Harding.  At  the  present  time, 
it  appears  that  Harding  under  compulsion  of  the  Sen- 
ate situation,  is  keeping  his  promises  to  him  NOT  to 
stand  for  the  League  of  Nations. 

Taft  was  brought  in  with  Elihu  Root;  and  both 
were  told  that  Harding  was  for  the  League  with  reser- 
vations. Taft  as  yet  has  not  received  any  reward  for 
his  betrayal  of  the  great  cause  for  which  he  organized 


219 

the  League  to  Enforce  Peace  (upon  the  official  staff 
of  the  which  now  defunct  League  as  a  speaker  Pro- 
fessor Chancellor  served  and  still  nominally  serves). 

Only  the  credulous,  however,  believe  that  these 
were  the  real  means  relied  upon  by  the  Republican 
managers  to  win  the  election. 

There  was  set  in  operation  a  system  of  spies,  in- 
formers and  agents  provocateurs  the  like  of  which 
has  been  known  but  twice  before  in  the  history  of 
mankind,  once  in  Rome,  once  in  France,  which  system 
is  still  in  operation,  and  is  part  of  the  "overhead  cost" 
of  operating  the  present  plutocratic  social  order. 

We  have  no  qualms  about  telling  the  American 
people  the  stories  invented  by  those  paid  agents  of 
Satan.  They  had  to  do  cuttle  fish  inking  of  the  seas 
in  order  to  conceal  their  own  candidate,  to  send  up  a 
very  dense  smoke  screen  to  hide  their  own  CLOUD. 
They  had  to  enable  Mrs.  Phillips,  the  inamorata  of 
Harding,  to  make  her  getaway. 

But  we  can  save  time  and  paper  and  ink  by  advis- 
ing the  readers  to  read  instead  the  stories  of  crime 
in  the  Old  Testament  and  then  to  have  these  told  about 
Wilson  and  Cox,  their  wives  and  children. 

Wilson  and  Cox,  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  were  linked 
up  closely  by  these  devils. 

The  Republicans  relied  upon  money  to  get  all  this 
work  done. 

They  now  wish  all  this  history  forgotten;  but  it 
is  not  forgotten  or  forgettable.  They  intend  to  play 
the  same  game  in  the  Congressional  elections  of  1922. 
Let  Americans  be  ready  to  meet  them  intelligently 
now. 

We  may  take  as  an  illustration  of  their  methods 
the  work  in  the  Congressional  District  of  Ohio  where 
Professor  Chancellor  has  his  voting  residence,  the 
Sixteenth.    This  District  covers  four  Counties  with  an 


220 

area  somewhat  larger  than  the  entire  State  of  Rhode 
Island.  It  includes  the  County  where  William  McKin- 
ley  lived  and  the  city  of  Canton  in  which  Professor 
Chancellor  has  made  for  all  the  people  many  public 
addresses  including  the  Memorial  speech  before  the 
McKinley  Club  and  the  public  on  the  occasion  of  the 
death  of  Theodore  Roosevelt. 

There  was  to  be  a  new  Congressman,  for  the  former 
Republican  Congressman  Roscoe  C.  McCullough  had 
decided  not  to  try  for  Congress  again  but  for  the  Re- 
publican nomination  for  Governor  which  he  failed  to 
get,  losing  to  a  far  inferior  man,  Harry  L.  Davis,  now 
Governor.  The  nomination  was  won  J.  H.  Himes,  a 
young  enormously  rich  war  slacker  for  the  Republicans 
and  by  Captain  John  McSweeny,  hero  and  wounded 
in  the  World  War  for  the  Democrats.  Himes  spent  a 
million  dollars ;  but  he  reported  no  expenses  at  all.  He 
had  over  one  thousand  paid  workers  in  one  county 
alone  for  over  three  months,  who  did  nothing  but  run 
around  to  see  individuals  and  get  or  keep  them  in  line. 

Captain  McSweeny  spent  eighteen  hundred  dollars. 
Himes  made  two  or  three  speeches,  McSweeny  many. 

Himes  had  his  portrait  upon  every  other  telephone 
and  telegraph  post  and  upon  every  billboard  in  the 
County.  He  advertised  constantly  in  every  newspaper. 
He  had  not  voted  in  any  election  for  nine  years,  but  he 
represented  himself  as  a  very  public  spirited  man 
because  he  had  given  money  to  the  Red  Cross. 

His  paid  agents  in  every  county  told  the  people, 
by  the  whisper  route,  that  McSweeny,  who  is  an 
Episcopalian,  is  a  Roman  Catholic. 

So  high  is  the  standing  of  this  war-hero  with  the 
two  thousand  graduates  of  Wooster  College,  Presby- 
terian and  Republican,  that  they  elected  him  President 
of  the  Alumni  Association;  but  the  paid  agents   of 


221 

Himes  went  about  saying  that  he  was  boyish  and  im- 
mature and  without  executive  ability. 

The  result  was  that  where  McSweeny  was  well 
known  personally,  he  carried  two  counties;  but  he  lost 
the  other  two,  and  the  election  through  lying  by  his 
opponent  who  had  all  the  money  he  could  possibly  let 
loose  at  work  against  the  better  man.  His  wife 
boasted  that  "It  was  worth  a  million  dollars  to  be  able 
to  spend  two  years  in  Washington  as  a  Congressman." 

Of  course,  if  there  had  been  a  Democratic  victory, 
there  would  now  be  a  Congressional  investigation  of 
this  election;  but  plutocracy  makes  it  safe  to  buy 
elections. 

Reports  from  the  mountain  districts  of  Kentucky 
indicate  that  wealth  also  there  did  some  great  work. 
It  may  be  that  some  investigator  will  have  the  money 
and  the  time  and  the  courage  to  go  into  every  State  in 
doubt  in  1920  and  find  out  just  how  the  Republicans 
spent  their  money. 

In  Oklahoma,  Jake  L.  Hamon,  whose  story  we  have 
reported  elsewhere,  now  dead  under  the  law  of  Neme- 
sis, imported  from  Louisiana,  Arkansas,  Texas  and 
Mississippi,  some  30,000  negroes  to  vote  for  Harding 
— at  a  cost  estimated  to  have  required  more  than  a 
million  dollars.  That  there  will  be  a  come-back  from 
this  in  the  next  election  in  that  State  is  certain;  al- 
ready it  has  had  direful  effects  upon  the  general  dis- 
position of  the  farming  people  toward  the  Republicans. 
There  the  Indians,  such  as  could  vote,  mostly  half- 
breeds,  so-called  like  Jake  himself, — the  oil  men,  the 
merchants  and  the  negroes  voted  for  Warren  Harding. 
It  was  perhaps  the  most  disgusting  exhibition  in  all 
the  States  except  Ohio.  The  stench  of  it  has  been  so 
severe  as  to  spread  even  to  Europe.  Famous  writers 
and  journalists  have  found  Oklahoma  in  the  sun  of  a 
frightful  exposure  of  demoralization.    What  with  sex- 


9-'>9 


vice,  fake  stocks,  gambling,  farm  tenantry,  negroes, 
half-breeds  mushroom  oil  men,  and  the  endemic  mal- 
aris,  Oklahoma  has  had  a  blow  to  its  reputation  that 
will  be  remembered  against  the  State  for  many  a  year. 

We  come  at  last  to  the  last  phase  of  the  election. 

D.  R.  Crissinger  of  Blooming  Grove  had  been 
brought  up  as  a  neighbor  with  Warren  Harding,  but 
had  remained  a  Democrat.  His  racial  origin  is  un- 
certain but  his  vouching  for  that  of  Warren  Harding 
raises  doubts;  but  he  found  that  membership  in  the 
Democratic  ranks  was  a  perfect  camouflage.  Still, 
when  Warren  got  the  Republican  nomination,  and  had 
$25,000  to  spare,  Crissinger  saw  the  light  of  the  Re- 
publican noonday,  and  went  over  to  Warren. 

Knowing  all  the  people,  he  organized  the  whisper- 
ing gallery,  tissue  paper,  vest  pocket,  blind  telephone, 
Sunday  sermon,  campaign  for  letting  the  negroes  know 
that  Warren  had  negro  blood.  This  went  along  very 
well  until  the  people  of  the  countryside  who  were 
white  began  to  get  angry.  It  so  happened  that  one  of 
the  negroes  who  was  working  this  campaign  had  the 
name  of  William  Chancellor;  he  s  sixty-five  years  old, 
and  black.  To  the  black  Republicans  and  to  the  White 
Democrats  alike  it  seemed  a  smart  thing  by  the  middle 
of  September  to  try  to  get  the  people  to  believe  that 
this  William  Chancellor,  black,  was  the  William  Esta- 
brook  Chancellor,  who  was  Professor  in  Wooster 
College,  editor  of  an  educational  magazine  of  wide 
circulation  in  Ohio,  and  frequently  speaking  on  the 
platform.  We  have  elsewhere  described  the  rest  of 
this  affair.  But  the  time  came  for  the  Republicans  to 
repudiate  this  line  of  negro  propaganda — not  so  long 
before  the  election  that  the  negroes  who  live  by  their 
ears  should  hear  of  it,  but  just  before  the  election 
when  only  the  whites  who  read  should  hear  of  it.  They 
had  William   Estabrook  Chancellor  ousted  from   his 


223 

college  chair  and  from  the  New  York  Press  Club  and 
falsely  published  in  thousands  of  papers  that  he  had 
retracted  that  which  he  had  never  done.  As  he  him- 
self told  the  Trustees,  he  had  "ceased  beating  his 
grandmother."  But  the  Republican  Trustees  needed 
to  find  for  the  Republican  party  a  scapegoat  on  whom 
to  load  their  own  sins,  and  they  unloaded  them  on  him. 

It  might  be  supposed  that  Professor  Chancellor 
would  have  some  remedy;  that  he  might  have  denied 
the  negro  blood  in  Harding;  but  why  should  he  deny 
what  William  Chancellor  and  many  others  were  paid 
by  the  Republicans  to  assert?  Is  truth  naught?  Not 
until  January  5,  1921,  did  the  St.  Louis  POST  DIS- 
PATCH and  NEW  YORK  WORLD  special  con^espond- 
ent  who  was  putting  all  his  time  on  this  work  uncover 
the  existence  of  this  conspiracy  and  of  William  Chan- 
cellor of  Mt.  Gilead,  who  then  proudly  claimed  that  he 
had  "licked  the  whte  men." 

How  many  votes  were  actually  changed  by  this 
propaganda  and  by  the  alleged  "retraction"  of  the 
negro  story  may  not  even  be  estimated.  Democrats 
say  in  Kentucky  that  it  stopped  the  Republican  land- 
slide, defeated  all  the  inside  work  done  by  National 
Committeeman  Hart,  and  made  useless  the  campaign 
of  young  Theodore  Roosevelt  in  the  mountains  where 
the  name  of  his  father  was  popular.  Republicans 
claim  that  it  added  millions  to  their  vote  in  the  North 
because  it  was  "a  dirty  Democratic  lie." 

Possibly,  the  Professor  himself  may  have  some 
testimony  on  this  point  worth  looking  into — he  re- 
ceived some  240  telegrams  within  two  weeks  prior  to 
the  election,  and  ten  thousand  letters  before  he  had 
to  depart ;  during  the  last  fortnight  when  the  Republi- 
cans were  most  active  among  the  whites,  he  spent  on 
the  average  of  five  hours  a  day  in  long  distance  tele- 
phoning with  strangers  among  whom  was  one  man 


224 

who  lost  his  job  for  lying  about  what  the  Professor 
actually  did  say  to  him.  Professor  Chancellor  has  had 
only  one  story  to  tell ;  he  believed  the  truth  of  the  Re- 
publican missionary  work  among  the  negroes,  he  made 
his  own  investigation,  he  made  no  statement  whatever 
on  the  subject  until  he  was  attacked  by  the  Repub- 
licans themselves  and  urged  by  them  to  lie  in  order  to 
save  his  own  job.    This  is  more  fully  stated  elsewhere. 

But  in  the  final  outcome,  the  Republicans  are  left 
with  a  vast  expense  and  with  a  very  rotten  record  on 
this  point. 

"Twas  a  victory,  sir,  but  it  cost  them  dear!" 

It  is  possible  to  win  a  battle  and  to  lose  a  campaign. 
The  Republicans  lost  the  campaign  when  they  won 
the  November  battle.  They  are  now  exposed  to  all  the 
world  as  the  makers  of  the  first  negro  President  and 
lying  about  it  as  well  as  breaking  their  promises  to 
the  negroes. 

In  all  probability,  James  M.  Cox  will  long  outlive 
Warren  G.  Harding,  who  has  arterio-sclerosis  and  a 
blood  pressure  of  above  200.  The  man  who  survives 
his  enemy  has  an  enormous  advantage  over  him  for 
the  purpose  of  terresterial  reputation.  Cox  will  write 
the  epitaphs  for  Harding. 

It  may  even  be  that  the  semi-invalid  Woodrow 
Wilson,  ex-President,  will  outlast  Warren  Harding. 

At  any  rate.  Cox  and  Wilson  and  Professor  Chan- 
cellor have  many  descendents  each,  and  they  will  keep 
the  memories  of  the  year  1920  green;  what  persons 
will  care  anything  at  all  for  the  reputation  of  Warren 
Harding  after  he  leaves  the  Presidency? 

The  election  of  1920  was  made  to  order;  it  became 
a  vast  hysteria;  it  was  thoroughly  disgusting;  it  has 
left  after-effects  that  will  last  a  long  time.  And  it 
placed  in  the  Presidency  a  man — 


225 

1.  Without  a  program,  ashamed  of  his  ancestry,  and 

afraid  of  exposure. 

2.  Ignorant  of  history  and  international  affairs. 

3.  Who  already  has  brought  down  upon  America  the 

contempt  even  of  the  Japanese. 

4.  Who  has  already  persuaded  America  to  blacken  her 

own  reputation  by  paying  $25,000,000  to  Columbia 
in  South  America. 

CHAPTER  XV 
MRS.  FLORENCE  KLING  (DE  WOLFE)  HARDING 

Professor     Chancellor    wrote    this     letter     to    a 
Southern  lady  at  her  request;  wife  of  a  Justice  of  the 
State  Supreme  Court  and  mother  of  a  Congressman. 
Dear  Madam: — 

You  say  that  you  have  seen  Mrs.  Harding  but  can- 
not understand  her.  You  descrbe  her  as  wearing  a 
heavy  coat  of  enamel  upon  her  face  and  as  being  over- 
dress for  her  age.  It  will  not  be  possible  for  me  to 
tell  any  lady  what  is  the  inside  explanation.  But  I 
can  clear  up  some  matters,  and  keep  within  bounds  of 
polite  correspondence. 

I  ask  you  to  think  of  Madam  Sarah  Bemhart,  who 
has  three  gifts,  viz.,  personal  beauty,  dramatic  genius, 
and  executive  ability,  including  no  small  talent  for 
business.  As  you  know,  great  changes  have  taken 
place  in  the  character  of  Madam  Bernhart  in  the 
course  of  her  life.  Early  instincts  have  been  sup- 
pressed, and  the  best  in  her  has  come  out  splendidly. 
By  race,  she  is  a  French  Jewess.  How  much  of  her 
blood  is  really  Hebrew  and  how  much  Gallic,  no  one 
knows. 

The  Klings  were  Rhinelanders ;  some  believe  that 
they  were  originally  Jews. 

Florence  developed  at  an  early  age  an  inability  to 
go  to  school;  she  became  a  horsewoman,  a  race-track 
and  skating  rink  frequenter.     In  another  social  en- 


226 

vironment,  she  might  have  gone  upon  the  stage.  She 
always  had  a  gift  for  getting  on  with  men.  Where 
others  wasted  what  they  got  in  this  fashion,  she  saved 
her  money.  Her  father  was  a  banker,  but  she  early 
left  home.  Her  only  child  was  bom  when  she  was 
about  twenty.  She  asserted  that  Harry  de  Wolfe  was 
its  father,  and  he  agreed  to  call  the  boy  his  son.  But 
she  tired  of  Harry;  and  they  were  separated  by  the 
Court,  though  no  marriage  was  proven. 

She  saw  in  Warren  Harding  what  no  one  else  saw 
— great  possibilities.  Obviously,  she  was  right,  and 
every  one  else  was  wrong.  He  is  now  President-elect 
of  this  land.  Like  her  father,  she  could  read  character ; 
but  in  this  instance  she  surpassed  him. 

Once  that  they  were  married,  Warren  became  her 
hobby;  she  poured  out  her  life  for  him  and  for  the 
newspaper  on  which  she  worked  like  a  slave.  Her 
neglected  son  died. 

Whatever  her  race,  she  has  had  one  power,  that  of 
persistence;  she  has  stood  for  every  fault  of  her  hus- 
band, who  in  turn  has  surrendered  to  her  calling  her 
The  Duchess — surrendered  everything  except  certain 
habits,  such  as  midnght  revels,  cards,  women  and 
drink.  She  has  run  his  business,  paid  his  bills,  ad- 
vertised him,  praised  him  as  the  greatest  man  living, 
run  his  political  correspondence,  written  his  speeches 
even. 

Being  six  years  older  than  he  and  far  abler,  she 
has  had  him  in  tutelage.  Often  she  has  been  ill,  often 
discouraged,  but  never  baffled. 

You  say  you  do  not  understand  how  she  could  have 
taken  a  man  of  color?  Though  she  is  of  European 
ancestry,  she  is  as  dark  as  her  husband.  The  color 
has  meant  nothing  to  her.  She  knows  nothing  of  the 
Southern  views  of  the  negro,  and  will  never  be  able 
to  understand  your  views.    She  has  never  seen  in  the 


227 

mass  the  genuine  blacks.  At  the  same  time,  she  has 
admitted  that  fear  of  her  father  made  them  avoid 
parentage. 

You  have  probably  seen  the  interview  in  which  she 
described  herself,  not  naively  as  her  husband  has  so 
often  described  himself  with  his  "printer's  rule  and 
union  card,"  but  shrewdly.  She  says  that  she  is 
naturally  a  business  woman,  without  any  interest  in 
philanthropy,  loves  beautiful  things,  likes  action,  de- 
lights in  getting  things  done,  does  not  prefer  much 
domesticity;  and  is  something  like  a  man.  She  is  a 
woman  of  the  world,  and  more  than  a  match  for  her 
husband  who  is  a  man  of  the  world. 

I  venture  to  remind  you  that  Martha  Washington 
"made"  George,  that  Mary  Todd  "made"  Abraham 
Lincoln,  and  that  often  what  we  ascribe  to  the  man 
is  to  be  credited  to  the  wife. 

Warren  Harding  is  a  good  elocutionist,  has  a  big 
figure,  is  solemn  and  reticent,  and  was  born  to  order 
for  her  management. 

You  speak  of  the  moral  character  of  her  husband; 
it  as  as  good  as  her  own;  and  his  sex-character  is  as 
good  as  that  of  Benjamin  Franklin  and  many  another 
man  of  fame  and  power  in  business  and  politics.  As 
to  "the  social  taboo",  it  is  wholly  for  the  women  to 
decide  that.  The  Northern  women  will  probably 
swallow  the  situation. 

We  must  number  Florence  Kling  among  the 
prophets.     She  has  won. 

Very  respectfully, 

PRESIDENTS  AND  GOVERNMENTS 

To  a  former  Student: 

I  appreciate  very  heartily  what  you  have  written 
to  me;  many  of  my  students  have  written  to  me  in 


228 

the  same  spirit.  What  you  say  is  a  very  great  com- 
fort to  me  in  these  circumstances  .  But  I  find  some 
remarks  of  yours  that,  f  you  will  permit  me  to  do  so, 
I  should  like  to  comment  upon  briefly. 

Government  is  simply  a  device  to  enable  people  to 
live  together  peacefully  in  law  and  order;  it  exists  by 
force.  The  State  is  its  chief  form  for  men,  but  Church 
and  School  and  Industry  all  govern  to  an  extent  each. 
It  puts  man  into  power,  some  good,  some  bad;  but 
thereafter  they  govern. 

When  the  Reverend  Doctor  John  Timothy  Stone 
led  his  "lynching  bee,"  as  you  call  it,  he  was  exercising 
in  School  and  Church — for  the  College  of  Wooster  is 
a  church  school — his  undoubted  legal  right  to  govern 
the  institution.  The  only  questions  are  two.  Did  he 
act  according  to  law  and  order,  or  not?  And  in  the 
long  run  will  the  denial  of  the  right  of  academic  free- 
dom serve  the  interests  of  the  nation  and  of  the  church 
schools  in  particular?  He  denied  my  right  not  to  sign 
a  lie  that  he  desired  signed  for  the  advancement  of 
the  Republican  party.  He  invaded  my  citizenship.  He 
denied  all  the  rules  and  regulations  governing  the  col- 
lege and  governing  ordinary  relations  between  man  and 
man.  He  denied  to  me  the  ordinary  rights  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  law,  being  himself  a  red  Kelt.  He  con- 
ducted himself  like  an  angry  chief  of  a  clan  offended 
by  the  unwillingness  of  a  clansman  to  accept  his  feudal 
overlordship.  He  said  that  I  was  "his  man."  I  replied 
that  I  was  "an  American  citizen." 

It  is  far  from  true,  as  some  assert,  that  "the  powers 
that  be  are  ordained  of  God"  in  the  sense  in  which 
lords  use  the  statement,  which  is  falsely  translated 
for  their  benefit.  A  text  without  its  context  is  a 
pretext.  In  this  passage,  Paul  is  considering  the  prin- 
ciples of  right,  the  master  ideas,  as  opposed  to  the 
wicked  notions  of  rulers,  and  what  he  actually  said 


229 

was  this :  "The  ideas  that  endure  are  ordained  of  God" 

as  they  undoubtedly  are.  That  text,  falsely  translated, 
would  have  kept  slavelords  in  power  forever.  The 
powers  that  exist  in  a  democracy  are  ordained  of  men, 
and  they  change  frequently. 

The  Reverend  agent  of  the  Republican  party  in  the 
Wooster  College  Board  of  Trustees  has  been  there  but 
two  years.  Trustees  come  and  go  in  a  democracy. 
Like  the  ambitious  man  in  the  Scripture,  the  word 
translated  "rich"  means  "bounder",  the  Reverend 
politician  came  "running."  It  is  of  such  enterprising 
men,  full  of  pep  and  business  beyond  their  capacites 
to  understand,  that  Jesus  said,  "It  is  easier  for  a  rope 
to  go  through  the  eye  of  a  needle  than  for  a  bounder 
to  enter  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven." 

It  is  a  deliberate  attempt  to  indoctrinate  youth  with 
wicked  and  silly  reverence  for  men  in  power  that 
causes  the  schools  to  teach  youth  that  all  Presidents, 
Governors,  Senators  are  fine  men.  The  American 
people  have  decided  otherwise.  They  refused  to  re- 
elect as  President  more  than  half  of  them  all;  and 
even  so  they  have  re-elected  some  that  should  not 
have  been  tried  even  once.  The  apotheosis  of  men  in 
power  must  be  offensive  to  the  Almighty.  Rich  per- 
sons, pastors  of  big  churches,  famous  men,  generals, 
it  cannot  be  doubted,  are  in  many  instances  very  bad 
and  deserve  reprobation,  not  worship.  As  for  the 
recent  idea  in  America  of  lese  majeste  in  respect  to  the 
President,  it  has  one  purpose — to  enable  scoundrels  to 
terrify  their  adversaries. 

When  you  wish  to  know  the  truth,  to  get  the  facts, 
in  order  to  conduct  your  life  wisely  and  rightly,  go  to 
the  place  where  the  facts  are ;  never  trust  those  inter- 
ested, the  great  men  or  their  agents  or  clerks,  for  the 
truth  is  not  in  them. 

For  myself,  I  delight  in  remembering  Ben  Frank' 


230 

lin;  there  was  a  price  on  his  head  for  many  years, 
offered  by  the  great.  Yet  he  was  the  smartest  man 
this  continent  ever  saw,  and  one  of  the  most  useful  to 
America ;  if  the  King  that  was  on  the  throne  whereon 
he  should  never  have  sat  one  moment  had  won,  Ben 
Franklin  would  be  remembered  in  history  as  a  very 
wicked  rebel. 

You  comment  upon  the  fact  that  at  the  worst  any- 
way America  is  superior  to  Russia.  I  doubt  very  much 
whether  Harding  is  superior  intellectually  to  Lenine. 
It  may  be  that  in  future  histories  Lenine,  who  is  a 
fine  scholar  and  a  Russian  patriot,  who  is  organzing 
a  new  type  of  human  society,  will  be  called  the  George 
Washington  of  the  New  Age.  It  is  true  that  Lenine 
has  set  wars  on  foot;  but  if  we  have  wars  with  Japan 
and  with  Mexico  and  with  Great  Britain,  wars  that 
are  ripening  now,  whose  fault  will  it  be? 

God  forbid  such  wars ;  which  is  why  I  am  FOR  the 
League  of  Nations.  But  the  man  who  has  been  the 
figurehead  in  the  political  campaign  against  the 
League  of  Nations,  will  be  held  responsible  for  future 
wars  if  they  come  during  his  lifetime.  Harding  played 
the  game  for  those  who  are  willing  that  America 
should  go  to  war  again. 

Yours  faithfully, 
To  a  Genealogist: 

I  was  much  indebted  to  you  for  your  suggestion  in 
November  that  I  send  a  man  to  the  Wyoming  Valley 
and  also  to  Orange  County,  N.  Y.,  to  look  up  the  asser- 
tions of  the  Harding  "genealogists",  so-called.  He  has 
spent  two  weeks  in  the  Pennsylvania  field  and  one 
week  in  the  New  York  field,  and  he  has  found  no 
evidences  that  any  Ohio  Hardings  were  ever  in  either 
Wyoming  Valley  or  Orange  County.  In  view  of  the 
many  murders  in  the  Wyoming  Valley  the  notion  ap- 
pears to  be  to  charge  every  hiatus  in  a  record  to  the 


231 

Indian  massacres.  In  this  way,  the  Wyoming  Valley 
has  come  to  be  populated  with  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  ghosts  who  never  saw  it  in  the  flesh.  This  man 
also  went  over  to  New  London,  Connecticut,  trying  to 
find  traces  of  Huldah  Tryon  there ;  but  failed.  That 
also  appears  to  be  a  myth. 

I  am  convinced  that  there  was  a  Huldah  in  the 
Harding  ancestry;  she  appears  to  have  left  her  mark 
upon  the  descendents;  but  in  appearance,  it  is  the 
mark  of  Indian  and  not  of  white  blood.  Over  in 
Georgia,  there  s  a  town  called  Tyrone,  and  it  is  inter- 
esting to  note  that  when  the  first  of  Huldah's  descend- 
ants got  her  name,  they  spelled  it  Tyrone.  This  town 
was  settled  in  part  by  people  from  County  Tyrone  in 
Ireland.  It  was  the  center  for  the  Shawnee  Indians, 
who  were  moved  in  a  lot  to  middle  Ohio.  Just  why 
Warren  Harding  should  prefer  as  ancestress  a  woman 
who  had  the  horrible  blood  of  the  Tyrone  monsters 
of  the  Carolinas  rather  than  the  respectable  blood  of 
an  Indian  woman,  one  wonders.  That  Colonel  Edward 
Tyrone  to  whom  he  is  trying  to  link  himself  through 
Huldah  was  the  frightful  beast  who  sent  Traitor  Bene- 
dict Arnold  on  his  raid  into  Virginia  that  cost  Thomas 
Jefferson  the  lives  of  his  wife  and  one  of  his  daughters 
and  also  his  country  mansion,  which  the  traitor  burned. 

The  Harding  "genealogists"  are  very  inexpert. 
They  do  not  seem  to  understand  that  it  is  not  worth 
while  to  establish  an  ancestry  unless  that  ancestry  is 
honorable.  So  far  they  have  failed  to  connect  them- 
selves with  any  worthwhile  family  among  the  old 
English,  the  French  Huguenots  or  the  Germans  who 
emigrated  in  1850 — all  splendid  people.  They  have 
found  some  Dutch  and  Scotch  forebears  of  good  repute. 
It  is  as  clear  as  day  that  they  have  but  one  notion — 
that  is,  to  establish  all  White  Blood,  of  any  kind  and 
any  country. 


232 

It  really  gets  them  nowhere  to  prove,  which  they 
have  not  yet  done,  that  they  have  New  England  blood ; 
there  have  been  plenty  of  white  rascals  in  New  Eng- 
land, negroes  and  Indians  also.  What  the  genealogists 
have  done  includes  some  very  ridiculuous  things ;  they 
show  that  in  three  successive  generations  the  Harding 
men  married  at  the  ages  of  eighteen,  twenty  and  nine- 
teen years,  and  had  children  one  year  later.  Did  they 
marry?     Were  there  any  such  men? 

They  publish  no  genealogy  for  the  Dickersons; 
yet  Elizabeth  was  their  mother.  They  appear  to  be 
respectable  and  intelligent  white  people.  They  publish 
one  back  generation  for  Mary  Ann  Crawford,  the 
grandmother  of  Warren,  who  married  his  grandfather, 
Charles  A.  Harding,  who  undoubtedly  had  negro  blood. 
It  seems  that  her  mother  was  a  Crawford.  These  Craw- 
fords  claim  Indian  blood.  The  famous  William  H. 
Crawford,  commonly  known  as  "Jack  Crawford,"  who 
was  burned  at  the  stake,  dying  an  heroic  death,  left 
no  children ;  every  pioneer  thought  that  he  had  Indian 
blood.  The  back  generation  gives  them  the  Dutch 
blood  of  the  Van  Kirks;  this  is  a  good  name;  but  it 
has  no  ancestry,  and  may  have  been  taken  by  persons 
not  of  Dutch  descent. 

We  are  unable  to  escape  the  portraits  of  the  ancient 
worthies  whom  Warren  claims  as  his  forebears;  nor 
the  memories  and  pictures  of  his  people  in  the  flesh 
still  living  in  Harding  land.  The  picture  of  George 
Tryon  Harding  I.  represents  a  terrible  person,  like  a 
pirate  indeed,  whch  they  say  that  his  father  really  was. 
This  George  Tryon  (or  Tyrone)  )was  born  in  1790  and 
died  in  18G0,  and  spent  the  first  thirty  years  of  his  life 
in  Virginia,  so  they  say.  But  Professor  Chancellor's 
own  people  live  in  that  very  part  of  Virginia  by  the 
thousands,  and  they  have  no  records  of  any  such  fam- 
ily.   Tidewater,  Virginia,  had  thousands  of  slave?  who 


233 

had  run  away  from  their  masters,  who  were  the  con- 
stant prey  of  pirates,  smugglers  and  slave  traders, 
and  it  so  happens  that  there  is  a  tradition  of  Hardings 
who  were  French  West  Indian  slavers;  this  happens 
to  be  exactly  what  the  Blooming  Grove  people  on  the 
Avhite  side  of  the  feud  say  was  the  origin  of  the  Amos 
Hardng  tribe  that  migrated  there  in  1820.  These 
neighbors  insist  that  Amos  spoke  French. 

Of  course,  much  of  this  popular  interest  in  the 
Hardings  springs  from  total  ignorance  of  the  princi- 
ples of  heredity.  The  popular  notion  is  that  a  man 
springing  from  a  white  woman  and  a  negro  man  would 
be  half -white  and  half-black.  Then  if  this  man  took  a 
white  wife,  their  children  would  be  quadroons,  three- 
fourths  white,  one-fourth  negro.  This  is  the  stage  of 
George  Tryon  Harding  H.,  perhaps. 

So  they  go  on  in  their  classification — mulatto, 
quadroon,  octomoron,  hexdecaroon,  steentharoon,  un- 
til they  think  that  a  descendant  may  be  all-white  vir- 
tually because  the  fraction  of  negro  blood  becomes  too 
small  to  count. 

But  heredity  works  in  no  such  way,  and  all  laws 
based  upon  the  octoroon  as  being  seven-eighths  white 
and  only  one-eighth  negro  are  absurd. 

Traits  generally  descend  almost  in  toto.  They  either 
are  or  are  not  in  the  succession;  and  they  may  dis- 
appear in  a  child  to  reappear  in  a  grandchild  or  great- 
grandchild. 

I  remember  well  a  very  brilliant  negro  mathe- 
matician in  Washington,  coal  black,  whose  father  was 
a  white  man,  a  brilliant  attorney  at  the  bar,  unmarried. 
The  mother  was  not  a  coal  black  negress  but  a  hybrid, 
passing  as  a  quadroon.  This  man  had  inherited  in 
toto  the  black  skin  from  some  remote  forebear  of  his 
mother. 

How  then  explain  the  saffron  lilies — the  persons 


234  ■  .  - 

with  negro  blood  who  are  light  lemon  yellow?  Was 
not  the  pigmentation  diluted?  It  does  not  pass  as 
white  or  as  coal  black.  The  answer  is  simple.  Most 
pure  American  negroes  are  not  coal  black  themselves ; 
only  the  Senegambians  are  coal  black,  and  the  North 
African  pure  Moors  who  are  not  negroes  at  all. 

A  colored  man  may  inherit  a  black  or  dark  brown 
skin,  a  straight,  white  right  angle  face  and  head, 
planitoid  feet  and  a  love  of  work,  a  big  chest  and  a  big 
abdomen;  that  is  three  Gold  Coast  negro  traits  and 
three  Saxon  traits.  He  v/ill  be  a  husky,  ambitious,  able 
man ;  but  this  does  not  qualify  him  to  be  the  father  of 
children  by  a  white  woman.  Yet  this  man  will  cer- 
tainly aspire  to  a  blood  white  wife,  being  just  as  unfit 
to  marry  a  brunet  Caucasian,  of  course. 

Or  take  the  case  by  traits,  and  say  that  the  father 
may   transmit   "A-b-C-d-e-F"   traits:      A,   strong;   b, 
weak;  C,  strong,  etc.,  while  the  mother  is  a  carrier  of 
"a-b-C-D-e-f"  traits. 
One  child  may  inherit  like  this: 
a-b-C-d-e-f. 

But  another  may  inherit 
A-b-C-d-e-F. 

But  it  is  altogether  unlikely  that  any  child  will  inherit 
traits 

A-B-c-d-E-f, 

for  the  sufficient  reason  that  strong  leads  of  B  and  E 
are  not  in  their  germ  plasms  within  recent  generations. 

Apply  this  to  Warren  Harding.  He  has  a  strong 
musical  interest,  playing  several  instruments.  So  had 
his  mother,  while  his  father  comes  in  part  of  a  musical 
race,  the  negro.  But  search  these  ancestries,  both 
mother's  and  father's,  in  Warren,  and  there  is  no  case 
where  the  forebears  were  strong  executive  managers 
of  men.  Warren  is  subservient  to  an  extreme  degree, 
subservient  to  his  wife  and  to  all  strong  natures  with 


235 

whom  he  comes  into  contact.  Now  the  Indian  is  not 
subservient.  But  looking  into  the  line  of  his  brothers 
and  sisters,  we  find  one  of  the  children  at  least — the 
brother,  who  is  strongly  marked  by  personal  inde- 
pendence and  a  distinct  desire  to  be  left  alone  to  live 
his  own  life,  to  be  out  of  all  this  wrangle  over  the  an- 
cestry, and  it  is  easy  to  see  that  he  has  a  very  dif- 
ferent force  of  hereditary  and  instincts  from  those  of 
hs  brother,  Warren. 

The  policewoman  sister  helps  to  interpret  Warren ; 
most  of  the  time  she  has  not  lived  with  her  husband, 
though  not  actively  hostile  to  him  during  the  nearly 
twenty  years  since  they  were  married.  Is  this  the  trait 
of  an  all-white  woman?  If  there  is  any  person  with 
more  conflicting  traits  than  this  sister,  she  would  be 
hard  to  find.  She  likes  to  corral  criminals  and  the 
accused.  At  the  same  time,  the  police  records  show 
that  she  has  been  very  sympathetic  with  wronged  girls 
in  the  city  of  America,  where  more  illegitimate  chil- 
dren per  thousand  of  the  population  than  any  other 
in  the  land — a  record  as  true  of  the  whites  there  as  of 
the  colored  women.  She  takes  marriage  lightly  for 
herself — though  strictly  virtuous — and  lightly  also  for 
these  unfortunate  girls.  (How  this  sympathy  works  in 
her  is  shown  in  her  recent  advice  to  Justice  P.  Stafford 
in  a  matter  of  the  Cole  divorce  case,  which  forced 
Warren  to  disavow  the  act  and  send  her  to  a  Battle 
Creek  sanitarium.  Mrs.  Cole  is  a  Cuban  Mestizo,  with 
whom  Mrs.  Votau  boarded  while  acting  as  police- 
woman) . 

Remembering  the  parental  disregard  for  marital 
forms  and  ceremonies  may  not  this  indifference  to 
marital  relations  be  classed  with  inherited  traits  and 
traced  to  George  Tyrone  Harding  II.,  and  Elizabeth 
Dickerson  ? 

I  must  close  with  this  final  statement ;  my  belief  is 


236 

that  Warren  Harding  and  his  wife  have  been  allowed 
to  get  into  the  limelight  in  order  to  emphasize  the  im- 
portance to  the  American  people  of  knowledge  of 
anthropology  and  heredity  for  our  own  future  and  as 
clinical  material  for  the  study  of  our  mose  serious 
social  questions  of  marriage  and  sex  generally. 

The  social  taboo  upon  these  matters  is  off  so  long 
as  they  live  in  the  White  House. 

Scientists  are  seeking  some  keys  to  his  intellectual 
positions  and  why  he  prefers  brunets  so  close  to  him. 
His  wife  is  brunet.  George  B.  Christian  (Cristiano, 
Portuguese,  translated) ,  his  private  secretary,  who  can 
"kill"  correspondence  and  deny  opportunity  for  an  in- 
terview, is  a  brunet.  D.  R.  Crissinger,  of  Blooming 
Grove,  a  very  intimate  friend,  is  brunet.  Why  does 
he  avoid  blond  Anglo-Saxons  and  blond  Saxon  Ger- 
mans ?  And,  why  *  *  ♦  ?  But  scientists  have  too  many 
questions  of  this  kind  to  set  down  here  and  now. 
To  a  Legal  Friend: 

Your  letter  was  duly  received  among  thousands  on 
thousands.  In  this  vast  outpouring,  only  a  dozen  or  so 
of  all  the  writers  have  censured  me  for  what  I  have 
done  and  failed  to  do;  and  your  censure  takes  such  a 
peculiar  form  that  I  am  answering  it  in  detail  fully  and 
out  of  its  due  order  in  time.  You  say  that  I  managed 
my  case  badly  and  should  have  conducted  my  course 
very  differently.  In  this  censure  for  "failure  so  to 
spring  the  attack  on  Harding"  and  yet  save  my  "college 
chair"  for  my  "later  work,"  which  you  set  up,  you 
make  several  assumptions. 

1.  You  assume  that,  being  fully  informed  as  to  the 
existence  of  the  negro  organization,  including  one  Wil- 
liam Chancellor,  black,  aged  65  years,  I  should  have 
countered  at  once  say,  as  early  as  July.  This  assump- 
tion fails  because  it  is  false  as  to  TIME.  Until  Janu- 
ary, 1921,  I  was  unaware  of  the  existence  of  WillJam 


237 

Chancellor,  I  did  not  know  who  wrote  the  papers  about 
Harding's  negro  ancestry. 

2.  You  assume  that  as  early  as  (say)  August,  I  had 
proofs  that  Warren  Harding  is  colored.  This  assump- 
tion also  is  false  as  to  TIME.  Until  December,  1920, 
I  had  not  heard  of  the  Wilbur-Smith  murder  case ;  nor 
until  late  that  month  did  I  learn  that  Georgia  Harding 
Hamon,  wife  of  murdered  Jake  L.  Hamon,  was  War- 
ren's own  cousin,  and  a  negress  and  where  Harding 
got  his  campaign  money. 

3.  You  assume  that  the  Wooster  College  Board  of 
Trustees  in  ousting  me  from  my  chair  as  full  professor 
for  life  did  so  on  grounds  after  proof  that  I  had  circu- 
lated malicious  libels  of  Warren  Harding  and  followed 
the  college  rules  in  so  doing. 

I  circulated  nothing  prior  to  that  meeting  when  I 
was  removed  without  a  hearing.  Here  your  assump- 
tion that  the  Wooster  College  Trustees  acted  legally 
and  regularly  is  false;  they  acted  as  Republican  poli- 
ticians, as  a  branch  of  the  Republican  National  Com- 
mittee, in  order  to  cover  from  the  public  their  own 
use  of  William  Chancellor  in  getting  the  negro  vote. 
This  assumption  of  yours  is  false  because  they  did  not 
act  as  college  trustees,  but  as  Republicans  aiming  to 
win. 

4.  You  assume  finally  that  I,  a  college  professor, 
was  engaged  in  a  poltical  game;  that  I  had  something 
to  "spring;"  that  I  staked  my  college  chair  to  win  or 
lose. 

This  is  so  totally  false  an  assumption  that  it  is  dif- 
ficult to  deal  with.  Why  should  I  have  lied  as  to  my 
belief  regarding  Warren  Harding — to  the  Wooster 
College  Trustees?  Why  should  I  have  tried  to  save 
myself  by  lying?  A  college  chair  has  pleasant  fea- 
tures. The  Wooster  College  faculty  declined  unani- 
mously to  ratify  my  ouster.    The  Dean  who  was  used 


238 

as  a  tool  by  the  Trustees  has  resigned,  being  utterly 
unable  to  reconcile  himself  to  their  perversion  of  a 
document  that  they  purloned  from  me  through  him 
into  a  "retraction"  of  what  I  never  did.  He  cannot  yet 
reconcile  the  three  virtues,  viz. : 

1.  Truth;  which  he  told. 

2.  Loyalty  to  Wooster  College ;  which  he  showed. 

3.  Honor  as  a  patriot;  which  he  betrayed. 

He  is  man  enough  to  live  without  being  Dean;  no 
other  confession  would  have  been  enough ;  he  gave  up 
the  second  highest  college  office. 

A  college  professorship  that  requires  a  man  to  sign 
anything  that  a  Board  of  Trustees  demands  reduces 
the  professor  to  a  slave.  The  Roman  Senators  and 
plutocrats  bought  and  sold  Greek  teachers  as  slaves. 
Shall  the  American  Senators  and  plutocrats  make 
slaves  of  our  college  teachers? 

You  are  a  lawyer;  I  have  known  you  many  years. 
My  impression  is  that: 

1.  You  should  review  Greenleaf  on  Evidence; 

2.  Read  fewer  Republican  and  plutocratic  news- 
papers. 

You  cannot  understand  my  case  and  my  course  un- 
til you  rid  your  mind  of  what  the  newspapers  said. 
Are  you  aware  that  The  New  York  Times  sent  out  to 
Marion  to  investigate  the  negro  situation  a  reporter 
who  had  been  in  this  country  only  two  years,  educated 
and  trained  in  Norway?  This  man  told  me  that  he 
could  not  tell  a  colored  man  from  a  Chinaman.  I  asked 
him  what  investigation  he  made;  and  he  said  that  he 
had  asked  Harding's  secretary!  Yet  The  New  York 
Times  printed  a  statement  that  Professor  Chancellor 
had  circulated  sheets  against  Harding  for  months ;  and 
did  not  know  William  Chancellor  from  William  Esta- 
brook  Chancellor.  Notwithstanding  which  facts,  it 
printed  on  its  front  page  the  statement  that  it  had 


239 

made  a  thorough  and  complete  investigation  and  that 
Professor  Chancellor  denied,  in  October,  what  he  did 
in  the  preceding  months;  that  is,  my  dear  sir,  what 
blxick  William  Chancellor  did  for  pay  for  the  Republi- 
can party  to  get  negro  votes. 

Possibly  the  fact  that  the  McCormicks,  of  Chi- 
cago and  Washington,  once  gave  $5,000  to  Wooster 
College  and  might  give  more  made  it  seem  judicious  to 
get  rid  of  Professor  Chancellor.  Rev.  Dr.  Stone  had  to 
think  of  the  money  involved.  Wooster  College  is 
heavily  in  debt!     But  is  Gold — God? 

Yours  sincerely, 

THE  PARENTS  OF  HARDING 

To  a  Fellow  Psychologist: 

You  may  remember  my  article  on  the  Hypermoron, 
in  which  I  diagnosed  the  hypermoron  as  being  the  vic- 
tim of  morinoia,  habit-mindedness.  This  article  was 
originallj''  printed  in  the  New  England  Journal  of  Edu- 
cation, Boston,  but  was  extensively  reprinted,  one  issue 
being  in  the  LITERARY  DIGEST.  For  a  while  all  the 
world  talk  of  it. 

You  have  asked  me  to  describe  Warren  Harding 
intellectually  to  you  from  my  personal  study  of  him. 

Let  us  begin  with  his  parents,  and  especially,  his 
mother,  for  Warren  is  more  like  his  mother  than  like 
his  father  which  is  fortunate  for  America. 

Elizabeth  Dickerson  was  born  with  the  same  notion 
that  TEMPLE  THURSTON  advocates  in  the  now 
famous  novel,  THE  GREENBOUGH,  and  that  has  been 
advocated  by  such  novelists  as  Herrick  in  Together, 
and  the  woman  who  wrote  Three  Weeks,  Elinor  Glyn, 
a  notion  that  would  fill  the  world  once  more  with  bas- 
tards. Her  notion  was  that  she  had  the  right  to 
motherhood,  no  matter  what.    On  this  basis  she  united 


240 

herself  to  the  soldier,  George  Tryon  Harding,  who  was 
a  year  younger  than  herself.  When  pregnant  she  woke 
up,  at  her  mother's  and  father's  loud  lamentations,  to 
the  full-grown  men's  and  women's  notion  that  mar- 
riage is  a  condition  sine  qua  non  to  maternity.  But 
George  Tryon  did  not  see  it;  therefore,  she  invented 
the  lie  that  they  had  really  been  married,  but  she  did 
not  know  when  or  where.  On  that  bass,  she  bore  to 
him  TEN  children,  three  boys  and  seven  girls,  a  most 
kaleidoscopic  lot,  three  of  them  black  and  most  of  them 
are  good  specimens  of  the  human  race. 

Now  the  hypermoron  is  an  adult  who  thinks  in 
the  terms  of  fourteen  years  normal  mentality,  which  is 
the  trouble  with  these  novelists  and  the  free  love  ad- 
vocates generally.  The  traits  of  the  hypermoron  are 
these,  viz.: 

1.  No  self-alienation;  they  cannot  see  themselves 
as  others  see  them. 

2.  They  cannot  understand  full-grown  minds. 

3.  They  follow  habits  and  routine. 

4.  They  obey  others. 

5.  They  live  in  the  nearby  facts  and  have  no  princi- 
ples of  action. 

7.  They  love  companionship  and  cannot  live  happily 
alone. 

8.  They  follow  their  instincts  implicitly. 

9.  They  live  in  their  senses,  often  are  musical  and 
artistic. 

10.  They  cannot  conceive  of  human  society,  the 
nation. 

11.  They  are  full  of  memories. 

12.  They  have  no  long  foresight,  and  never  imagine 
themselves  forward  into  the  future. 

13.  They  are  full  of  fears. 

14.  They  may  have  wit  but  they  never  have  a  sense 
of  humor. 


241 

15.  They  are  self-sacrificing  to  others  near  them. 

16.  They  love  home  and  kin. 

17.  They  are  amiable  until  crossed ;  then  they  show 
violent  temper. 

18.  They  are  talkative. 

19.  They  are  naive. 

The  hypermoron  is  the  near-adult,  the  first-class 
fool,  the  almost  full-grown  man.  It  is  harder  to  dis- 
criminate the  hypermoron  from  the  adult  than  any 
other  variety  of  fool. 

Such  was  Elizabeth  Dickerson. 

Such  was  not  her  husband,  so-called. 

He  has  managed  to  live  on  others  skilfully.  His 
daughter,  Abigail,  has  supported  the  little  Marion 
home  in  the  cottage  on  Church  Street,  and  Mrs.  Hard- 
ing has  allowed  him  to  have  rent-free  an  office  in  the 
STAR  BUILDING. 

He  is  no  hypermoron  but  a  full-grown  adult, 
shrewd,  cautious,  cruel,  lazy,  vain,  an  imposter  in  re- 
cent years,  a  divorced  man  now,  bold  or  cunning  as 
the  case  has  required.  Though  very  ignorant,  ignor- 
ant even  of  medicine  and  surgery  which  he  professes, 
he  is  far  from  a  fool.  On  the  contrary,  he  has 
negotiated  a  crooked  course  with  marvelous  skill.  The 
hypermoron  never  really  lies ;  he  does  not  know  how,  or 
see  why  it  may  be  useful  temporarly,  to  lie ;  but  no  one 
takes  the  word  of  this  man,  George  Tryon  Harding. 

The  mother  had  frail  health  but  great  power  to 
work;  the  father  has  had  fine  health,  but  no  disposi- 
tion to  work. 

If  you  will  consider  the  lies  that  Harding  told  dur- 
ing the  campaign,  you  will  see  where  to  draw  the  line 
and  find  in  Warren  the  traits  of  both  parents.  Most  of 
us  have  lived  down  and  risen  out  of  the  period  of  hyper- 
morinoia.  We  can  remember  when  we  fought  the  in- 
stincts in  ourselves  and  defeated  them. 


'AO 


Warren,  who  believes  in  the  high  protective  tariff 
and  in  the  Monroe  Doctrine  and  in  subservience  to  the 
great,  who  lets  others  decide  for  him,  is,  just  now,  at 
fifty-five  years  of  age,  trying  to  evolve  into  adult  man- 
hood. 

Very  truly  yours, 
TRUTH 

A  Letter  to  a  Christian  Friend: 

You  are  the  pastor  of  a  church  supposed  to  be  dedi- 
cated to  Jesus  Christ,  and  I  have  your  letter  accord- 
ingly. What  is  it  that  Americans  do  to  men  who  tell 
the  truth  ?  Do  they  boil  them  in  oil  ?  If  so,  when  the 
souls  arrive  at  the  Gates  of  Pearl,  distilled  from  the 
boiling  oil  of  their  mortal  bodies,  what  do  the  Angels 
of  the  Gates  say  to  them?  Is  it  a  bar  to  the  Gates 
that  one  tells  the  truth  ? 

But  suppose  that  these  souls  only  believed  that  they 
were  telling  the  truth — that  they  tried  to  find  the 
truth  in  every  way  they  could,  but  were  baffled  by 
other  men  in  this  earth.  Still  they  told  only  the  truth 
as  to  their  belief  or  refused  to  lie  about  their  beliefs. 
What  do  the  Angels  of  the  Gates  say  to  such  souls  ? 

In  point  of  reason,  can  the  Angels  of  God  damn  to 
the  fires  of  eternal  punishment  any  persons  who  for 
truth  give  up  home,  children,  kindred,  property,  coun- 
try and  all  familiar  things?  If  Angels  can  do  this, 
are  such  the  Angels  of  God  who  creates  men  to  love 
truth  ? 

Is  there  any  virtue  higher  than  Truth  by  the  test 
of  which  the  Gates  of  Pearl  alone  open?  If  so,  name 
it.  You  object  to  my  telling  the  truth  about  my  be- 
liefs. What  is  it  you  wish  me  to  do?  To  lie?  I  prefer 
to  take  my  course.  If  I  have  made  a  mistake  about 
what  the  Angels  of  the  Gates  will  do,  it  is  a  mistake 


243 

SO  vast  and  terrible  that  every  really  good  man  has 
made  it.  If  all  such  go  to  Hell,  I  shall  have  excellent 
companionship  there. 

You  say  that  my  telling  the  truth  has  damaged  the 
cause  of  Christian  education.  If  so,  I  am  content  that 
"Christian"  education  should  be  damaged  and  utterly 
annihilated.  If  a  college  dedicated  to  Jesus  Christ  can- 
not stand  the  truth,  then  it  ought  to  perish — Even 
Christianity  itself  must  perish  unless  it  is  the  truth. 

I  notice  that  Jesus  said  of  Hmself — "I  am  the 
Truth."  I  notice  that  Pilate  asked— "What  is  Truth  ?" 
I  may  be  wrong ;  but  my  own  guess  is  that  the  Walls  of 
the  City  of  Gold  are  laid  upon  one  clear,  solid,  uni- 
versal, uniform  rock  and  that  this  rock  is  Truth.  If 
I  am  wrong,  and  Truth  is  not  the  rock  on  which  the 
New  Jerusalem  rests,  then  I  must  go  below,  deep 
enough  to  find  the  rock ;  it  may  be  Hell  is  on  the  rock 
of  Truth.  But  I  repeat;  my  guess  is  that  the  Gates 
open  to  those  who  love  Truth. 

If  this  is  error,  and  I  must  submit  to  be  called, 
"Raca,  thou  fool,"  by  you,  I  venture  to  ask  you  to  read 
the  rest  of  the  passage.  If  only  fools  love  Truth,  and 
live  and  die  for  it,  then  I  am  content  that  God  made  me 
a  fool. . 

Death  and  Hell  with  Truth  are  better  than  any 
Heaven  to  be  won  otherwise  than  by  Truth. 

Yours,  sincerely, 

WHAT  IS  A  WRITER? 

To  a  Fellow  Member  of  the  New  York  Press  Club : 

I  received  your  letter  and  thank  you  for  being  plain 
with  me.  You  regret  that  I  was  expelled  without  a 
hearing  and  without  notice  from  the  Club  of  which 
both  of  us  have  been  so  long  members ;  but  you  see  no 
way  to  straghten  the  matter  out. 


244 

I  see  by  the  papers  that  Warren  Harding  has  de- 
clined to  go  to  New  York  and  address  the  Club  because 
of  your  internal  troubles. 

Your  Club,  that  once  was  mine  also,  will  have  more 
troubles  before  I  get  through  with  this  thing. 

You  ask  me  to  try  to  forget  that  I  ever  was  a  mem- 
ber and  say  that  "the  Club  is  in  bad  ordor  just  now 
anyway."  Perhaps  so.  But  the  public  regards  me  as 
properly  blacklisted,  and  I  propose  to  pursue  my  policy 
of  letting  the  public  know  the  truth,  which  will  take  a 
long  time  for  a  man  who  is  forbidden  to  use  the  mails 
even  for  private  letters.  You  will,  however,  get  this 
letter,  for  there  are  ways  to  come  through. 

You  tell  me  that  my  income  from  writing  was  not 
very  important  and  that  probably  I  can  get  ai'  ther 
teaching  position  anyway. 

Evidently,  though  you  do  know  me  quite  well  per- 
sonally, you  know  nothing  about  my  financial  affairs, 
except  that  I  have  written  many  articles  that  have 
been  published  in  newspapers  and  magazines. 

First  and  last,  I  am  a  writer.  In  the  middle,  I  have 
done  other  things. 

The  Republican  Trustees  of  the  College  of  Wooster 
have  undertaken  to  destroy  a  writer — that  is  some 
undertaking,  even  for  multi-millionaires  who  own  the 
present  Government. 

Writers  live  by  what  overthrows  other  men;  their 
troubles  are  their  assets.  They  sell  their  books  and 
articles  because  others  are  interested  in  their  lives  and 
opinion.  The  more  trouble  they  have,  the  better  their 
writings  sell. 

Only  God  Himself  can  overthrow  a  writer;  He  can 
overthrow  even  plutocrats  through  writers.  By  writ- 
ing, Woodrow  Wilson  broke  Wilhelm  HohenzoUern. 

To  keep  me  alive  God  needs  to  do  just  three  things, 
that  is  all: 


245 

First,  keep  my  brains  at  work. 

Second,  keep  me  human. 

Third,  see  that  I  have  food  and  shelter  and  a  very 
few  necessaries  of  life. 

After  doing  this,  God  can  trust  me  to  do  the  rest. 
But  He  must  keep  my  mind  going,  keep  people  inter- 
ested in  humanity  and  see  that  I  have  the  means  of 
mere  life. 

Then  I  will  write  and  write. 

The  mllions  hate  and  distrust  the  millionaires;  the 
whites  fear  the  contamination  of  the  blacks.  All  men 
desire  peace  and  comfort,  and  most  men  desire  justice. 
Therefore,  they  listen  to  what  the  writers  say.  I  fore- 
see an  effort  to  colorize  America.  I  foresee  that  the 
next  demand  by  the  many  millions  of  Afro-Americans 
will  be  this,  viz.: 

A  Force  Act  for  the  South  in  order  that  the  negroes 
may  gain  control  once  more  of  the  State  Governments 
of  the  South.  This  will  mean  at  least  seven  million 
more  black  votes  of  the  men  and  women,  and  the  sup- 
pression of  the  white  Democrats  of  the  South.  The 
negroes  do  not  care  about  plutocracy;  they  are  will- 
ing to  obey  the  business  overlords  provided  that  they 
can  have  whte  women  for  wives.  That  is  what  race 
quality  means,  the  defeat  of  the  white  South  and  the 
drowning  out  of  the  white  blood,  which  may  God  for- 
bid! 

Once  let  the  negroes  vote  generally,  and  there  will 
be  an  avowed  negro  for  the  Presidency,  who  will  pledge 
placi  g  many  negroes  in  high  office — on  the  Supreme 
Cour'  bench  tself,  in  the  Cabinet,  in  the  Senate,  not 
men  ly  one  or  two,  but  many.  Through  these  negroes, 
the  plutocrats  then  can  work  their  will  upon  the  rest 
of  us. 

That  is  the  game,  and  that  is  the  game  the  New 


246 

York  Press  Club  played  when  it  threw  me  out  without 
notice. 

Which  raises  the  question  what  American  journal- 
ists really  now  are. 

I  have  a  pretty  fair  knowledge  of  Amercan  journal- 
ism, magazines  and  books.  Some  men  have  a  more 
intensive  knowledge,  of  course,  of  particular  enter- 
prises than  I  have,  but  my  general  knowledge  is  fairly 
complete.  I  have  been  in  every  large  city  in  America 
and  in  most  of  those  of  Canada,  and  in  many  Euro- 
pean cities  also. 

Some  time  ago  a  New  York  paper  of  wide  circula- 
tion, asked  me  to  write  for  them  an  account  of  my 
actual  personal  relations  with  journalism  and  replied 
that  it  was  ten  times  greater  than  they  had  supposed. 
They  wished  me  to  work  for  them  at  a  salary  that  was 
ridiculous.  In  order  not  to  destroy  my  market  for  the 
future,  I  refrain  from  particularizing  now;  but  it  may 
amuse  you  to  know  that  the  writers  in  the  New  York 
Press  Club  who  moved  to  fire  me  out  came  from  a 
paper  that  offered  me  only  a  few  years  ago  $150  a  week 
to  go  to  Europe  for  them — and  all  expenses,  of  course. 

I  cared  a  thousand  times  more  about  being  of  a  New- 
York  journalistic  standing  than  about  being  a  pro- 
fessor in  a  Republican  Presbyterian  College. 

I  have  published  thirty-eight  books  and  have  edited 
for  publishers  more  than  a  hundred  other  books. 

One  of  my  students  once  undertook  to  make  a  list 
of  all  my  signed  published  articles  and  gave  up  after 
tracing  three  thousand. 

Because  I  was  a  writer,  the  College  of  Wooster  em- 
ployed me,  and  for  no  other  reason ;  and  because  I  was 
a  writer,  they  fired  me,  and  for  no  other  reason.  I 
wrote  an  article  that  was  published  in  the  Times- 
Annalist,  in  which  I  advocated  gold  once  more  for  com- 
mon circulation;  and  that  was  resented  by  the  plu- 


247 

tocracy.    A  man  who  believes  in  honest  money  and  in 

nothing  else  is  a  Bolshevist-anarchist-revolutionist- 
lunatic  NOW  because  the  bankers  of  New  York  desire 
all  the  gold  for  themselves,  and  the  rest  of  us  are  ani- 
mals feeding  at  THEIR  tables. 

Shades  of  Andrew  Jackson!  Shades  of  Albert 
Gallatin !  Great  shades  of  Honest  John  Sherman ! 
Pretty  soon  it  will  be  a  crime  to  wish  to  OWN  a  home, 
because  then  one  who  is  honest  will  be  able  to  laugh  at 
the  LORDS  of  Land,  Still,  then  the  plutocrats  will 
find  a  way  to  steal  a  man's  home  just  as  they  stole  my 
professorship  and  my  membership  in  the  New  York 
Press  Club. 

But  who  are  the  journalists? 

A  few  are  themselves  millionaires — like  Charles  H. 
Grasty. 

A  few  write  so  well  that  they  write  rather  freely 
like  Sir  Philip  Gibbs. 

A  few  are  so  scholarly  that  they  are  respected 
enough  to  have  the  entree  to  almost  any  paper  or 
magazine  of  their  own  party — like  Talcott  Williams, 
who  knows  everything, 

A  few  write  on  papers  that  are,  though  rich,  free 
and  honest,  like  the  New  York  World, 

A  few  papers  try  to  be  free,  like  the  NEW  YORK 
TIMES, 

A  few  are  free,  though  not  rich,  like  the  CLEVE- 
LAND PLAIN  DEALER, 

But  most  journalists 

1.  Earn  so  little  that  they  live  from  hand  to  mouth 
and  do  not  dare  to  think ;  they  write  to  order.  Only  a 
very  brave  man  writes  what  he  thinks  unless  he  has 
TEN  THOUSAND  dollars  in  cash  in  a  good  bank, 
where  the  plutocrats  do  not  know  that  he  has  the 
money. 

Such  a  man  often  cannot  sell  what  he  thinks. 


248 

2.  Are  so  young  and  ignorant  that  they  have  no 
machinery  with  which  to  think. 

3.  Or  have  come  so  recently  into  America  that  they 
do  not  know  us ;  there  are  too  many  foreigners  on  our 
papers  and  magazines.  They  work  cheap  and  destroy 
the  wage  and  piece-rate  scales  for  native  Americans. 

Let  me  tell  you  a  few  instances  of  fact: 

1.  The  business  manager  of  a  great  paper  received 
his  discharge  by  telegraph,  went  to  see  the  owner  at 
his  home,  who  refused  to  see  him.  To  his  death  later, 
this  journalist  never  knew  why  he  had  been  discharged 
after  years  of  success. 

How  can  a  profession  be  free  when  such  things 
happen  ? 

2.  A  freelance  writer,  blacklisted  by  several  great 
papers,  sent  a  dispatch  through  regarding  which  the 
city  editor  wired,  "That  is  a  peach  of  a  story!" 

He  waited  and  waited  and  waited  two  months  for 
payment,  and  then  got  a  check  for  $300.  But  the^ 
never  used  his  story.    It  cost  him  $150  just  to  wait. 

3.  A  man  sent  to  a  very  great  newspaper  a  fine 
article ;  it  was  accepted ;  it  did  not  appear.  The  writer 
read  the  paper  diligently,  and  at  last  a  paragraph 
came  out.  Then  another.  In  the  end,  it  was  all 
printed;  but  it  had  lost  all  its  force.  And  the  busi- 
ness office  never  paid  him. 

4.  A  man  wrote  an  article  that  soon  appeared.  He 
was  sent  to  a  distant  city ;  and  he  was  never  paid. 

5.  A  man  was  ordered  to  go  for  a  determined  sum 
to  a  foreign  land  to  write  up  some  newsy  stuff.  He 
sent  back  one  article  that  appeared ;  then  he  sent  five 
others  in  succession  that  never  appeared.  He  asked 
for  an  explanation  and  pay,  which  he  never  got.  The 
paper  had  changed  his  busness  manager,  and  that 
ended  his  claim  unless  he  sued,  which  would  have 
caused  him  to  be  blacklisted.    Later  he  found  that  an- 


249 

other  writer  on  the  paper  had  objected  to  his  articles 
because  his  own  opposed  his  views.  This  writer  at 
home,  who  did  not  know  the  facts,  killed  the  stuff  from 
the  field,  and  BROKE  the  outside  man,  who  did  know. 

I  might  give  many  other  cases. 

You  say  that  such  things  are  the  ordinary  condi- 
tions of  human  life;  they  are.  Newspapers  should  be 
superior  to  ordinary  methods  and  conduct.  The  world 
needs  truth  ;  it  needs  truth  far  more  than  it  needs  shoes 
and  oatmeal  and  coal. 

In  the  present  situation  with  slaves  for  writers, 
with  frightened  men  with  eyes  bulging  lest  the  front 
office  or  the  downstairs  office  or  the  capitalist  behind 
the  works  GETS  him,  the  newspapers  are  not  telling 
the  truth  to  us  Americans. 

"First  of  all  the  truth"  is  a  blind  to  fool  us.  They 
put  this  on  the  corner  of  their  front  pages;  but  the 
truth  itself  is  not  in  them. 

What  is  the  remedy  ?  The  ownership  of  the  papers 
by  the  men  who  write  them,  and  then  an  enlightened 
public  opinion  to  back  up  the  writers. 

You  will  say  that  the  country  newspapers  are  so 
owned.  Possibly  in  some  instances;  but  while  the 
Associated  Press  is  itself  plutocratic,  the  country  news- 
paper can  be  truthful  only  in  the  "hay  fields,"  where 
they  operate  for  the  "hay"  facts. 

America  is  an  empire  of  great  cities.  Forget  the 
State  lines.  What  counts  is  what  New  York,  Chicago, 
San  Francisco,  Washington  tell  us.  You  can  test  a 
great  civilization  by  its  great  cities,  and  nowhere  else. 
The  farmers  cannot  save  the  nation.  The  cities  rule 
us.  To  them  the  farmers  send  their  best  of  all  kinds 
and  sorts — their  sons  and  daughters  included. 

I  now  ask  the  merchants  of  the  OBVIOUS  who  run 
most  of  our  newspapers  to  observe  and  consider  that  a 
CLOUD  looks  like  MASS  and  SUBSTANCE;  but  it 


250  .  -  ^  .. 

floats  and  is  lighter  than  air,  for  it  floats  high,  and  the 
aviators  fly  through  it. 

It  was  OBVIOUS  that  some  man  named  "William 
Chancellor"  was  being  used  to  circulate  tissue  paper 
sheets,  etc.,  throughout  the  land  from  Pittsburgh  to 
Chicago. 

It  was  obvious  that  this  name  was  attached  to  the 
title  of  Professor  of  Political  Economics,  Wooster 
University. 

It  was  not  obvious  that  the  first  wife  of  James  M. 
Cox  was  herself  a  Harding  and  that  therefore  HE 
would  not  back  such  a  propaganda. 

It  was  not  obvious  that  Professor  William  Esta- 
brook  Chancellor,  Professor  of  Politics,  NOT  Political 
Economics,  which  is  illiterate,  was  too  much  the 
friend  of  James  M.  Cox  to  go  into  any  such  thing,  and 
had  too  much  common  sense  to  do  it  anyway. 

It  was  not  obvious  that  this  was  amove  of  the 
negroes  themselves,  backed  by  local  Republican  leaders, 
such  as  D.  R.  Crissinger,  and  known  to  Harding  him- 
self, in  order  to  get  the  negro  vote  all  out  and  the 
sympathetic  white  vote  with  it. 

It  was  not  obvious  that  the  argument  to  Chancellor 
of  Wooster,  that  in  order  to  save  his  chair  he  must  call 
other  men  liars,  when  he  believed  them  to  be  telling 
the  truth,  would  not  work.  The  Trustees  of  Wooster 
did  not  go  to  Wooster  that  afternoon  in  order  to  oust 
Chancellor;  they  went  in  order  to  get  him  to  sign  a 
lie  as  to  his  beliefs.  Therefore,  the  New  York  Press 
Club,  under  orders  direct  and  indirect,  from  Medill 
McCormick,  of  the  Chicago  Tribune, 

Myron  T.  Herrick,  of  the  Dayton  Journal, 
Theodore  N.  Noyes,  of  the  Washington  Star, 
Edward  H.  McLean,  of  the  Cincinnati  Enquirer 

and  Washington  Post, 
Dan  R.  Hanna,  of  the  Cleveland  News, 


251 

on  the  ex  parte  evidence  of  one  Reverend  Doctor  John 
Timothy  Stone,  that  the  Wooster  College  Board  of 
Trustees  had  ousted  Chancellor  after  trial,  which  was 
a  lie,  and  believing  in  the  obvious,  which  was  another 
lie  to  the  effect  that  he  had  "retracted"  that  which  he 
never  did,  expelled  him  instanter,  which  was  an  offense 
to  Anglo-American  law. 

When  the  right  time  comes,  I  propose  to  get  this 
fact  before  the  bar  of  American  public  opinion.  In  the 
meantime,  I  watch  with  interest  the  investigation  into 
the  affairs  of  the  New  York  Press  Club. 

If  that  turns  out  well,  I  intend  to  ask  the  Club  this 
question:  How  does  it  happen  that  there  has  arisen 
in  very  high  public  life  at  last  a  man  who  for  the  first 
time  in  American  history  is  so  peculiar  that  a  writer 
must  be  PREVENTED  from  writing  his  life,  prevented 
by  all  the  vast  resources  of  the  Amerocan  government  ? 
No  other  President  ever  objected  to  anyone's  writing 
his  life. 

It  is  said  in  reply  that  the  writer  intended  to 
prove  that  this  President  has  a  peculiar  ancestry.  Is 
this  President  sacred  like  Nero  in  a  Golden  Palace? 
Can  truth  be  written  of  all  white  men,  but  not  of  men 
NOT  ALL  WHITE  ?  Is  Negro  Blood  sacrosanct  from 
publicity?  Are  the  negroes  our  overlords?  It  is  ob- 
jected that  the  truth  would  cause  public  indignation  or 
worse.  No,  not  the  truth  in  th  words,  but  the  placing 
of  such  a  man  in  supreme  power,  that  is  the  cause  of 
this  fearful  dread;  it  is  exposure  that  they  fear. 

But  if  this  man  is  not  exposed,  he  will  be  re-elected, 
and  others  like  him  and  worse  will  follow.  The  plu- 
tocracy needs  rubber  stamps  and  tools. 

Very  sincerely, 
To  an  Amateur  Anthropologist : 

There  are,  I  believe,  less  than  twenty  men  in 
America  whose  opinions  on  race  questions  are  worth 


252 

any  thought  at  all — men  who  have  grounding  in  the 
science,  and  who  have  made  field  studies.  The  notion 
that  head  forms  may  change  within  one  generation  is 
too  baseless  in  fact  to  be  considered  seriously;  race 
is  permanent,  lasts  untold  generations.  I  have  seen 
in  the  Near  East  and  here  in  America  persons  who 
look  exactly  like  the  representations  upon  the  Egyptian 
monuments,  and  others  like  those  upon  the  Assyrian 
monuments. 

Some  so-called  "races"  are  not  races  at  all.  And 
some  apparently  different  "races"  are  really  one  race. 
The  red  and  black  Kelts  are  one  race,  differing  in 
hair  color  only;  often  of  Keltic  twins,  one  is  red,  the 
other  black.  Why?  Possibly  the  race  was  formed 
two  (thousand)  years  ago  by  combination  of  Mediter- 
ranean black  stock  and  Teutonic  blond  stock ;  but,  how- 
ever formed,  it  is  now  permanent.  The  genuine  Saxons 
are  one  race,  appearing  with  either  blond  or  tawny 
hair.  In  each  of  these  cases,  the  cephalic  indexes  re- 
spectively are  always  the  same — 80°for  male  Kelts, 
and  78°  for  male  Saxons.  This  index  is  as  reliable 
as  the  law  of  gravitation  or  the  law  of  atomic  valence. 
Almost  all-white  Americans  until  1880  were  either 
feudalistic,  clannish  Kelts  or  Anglo-Saxons,  a  special 
offshoot  of  the  Saxons,  with  Anglo  impusiveness  and 
love  of  freedom  and  energy  forced  into  Saxon  friendli- 
ness and  sympathy,  or  else  Kelto-Anglo-Saxons  and 
hybrids,  good  when  the  Anglo  elements  remained 
dominant. 

When  a  man  sets  up  to  be  ALL-WHITE,  he  must 
establish  hs  race  or  races  scientifically  by  measure- 
ments and  historic  records  in  order  to  satisfy  an  an- 
thropologist. We  are  dealing  here  with  truth,  not  with 
pride  and  assertion.  There  is  no  more  reason  for  tak- 
ing at  face-value  the  genealogical  assertions  of  a  sus- 
pected family  than  for  taking  their  promissory  notes 


268 

at  face-value  without  inquiry;  and  so  far  as  the  in- 
terests of  the  human  race  are  concerned,  there  are  a 
thousand  reasons  why  the  stocks  in  a  man  are  more 
important  than  his  property  assets.  Every  fertile  hu- 
man being  is  a  potential  father  or  mother  of  ALL 
LATER  humanity.  Assume  that  a  man  has  three 
children,  nine  grandchildren,  twenty-seven  great- 
grandchildren, eight-one  great-great-grandchildren,  he 
will  have  in  a  thousand  years  no  less  than 
500,000,000,000  descendants;  in  other  words,  if  the 
earth's  civilization  improves  and  races  intermarry 
freely  as  equals,  which  many  advocate,  his  blood  may 
be  in  every  human  being  of  that  period.  It  so  happens 
that  Amos  Harding,  of  Blooming  Grove,  has  estab- 
lished so  far  a  ratio  of  four,  not  three,  for  his  descend- 
ants. I  consider  this  interesting  and  important  to 
America.  Within  a  few  centuries,  every  American  of 
that  period  may  have  Harding  blood. 

There  are  already  known  to  be  20,000  d6escendants 
of  one  Francis  Powers  who  came  to  this  country  in 
1656.  It  happens  that  they  display  a  remarkably  high 
average  of  abilities,  much  in  the  same  line;  he  evi- 
dently was  a  carrier  of  dominant  traits.  But  in  the 
Harding  instance,  the  dominant  traits  appear  to  have 
come  down  through  Huldah  Tryon,  said  to  have  been 
the  mother  of  Amos.  Naturally,  I  am  interested  in 
Huldah  and  her  descendants.  One  thing  is  certain — 
every  man  who  has  many  descendants  may  be  sure 
that  his  descendants  at  some  future  time  will  either 
come  into  sever  ecompetition  with  her  descendants  or 
will  unite  with  them.  Moreover,  the  present  case  is 
one  where  every  living  human  being  is  interested,  for 
the  present  character  and  ability  of  Warren  Harding 
now  involves  the  welfare  of  all  mankind. 

The  day  has  passed  when  biographers  will  say  that 
a  President  had  such  and  such  a  father  and  such  and 


254 

such  a  mother,  and  let  it  go  at  that.  We  shall  take  the 
interest  in  such  matters  as  the  subjects  of  monarchial 
dynasties  take  in  their  sovereigns.  We  are  learning 
that  hereditary  traits  are  ninety-eight  per  cent  of  life. 
When  a  family  is  notorious  for  doing  no  reading,  for 
not  entering  into  the  methods  of  a  civilization  of  the 
written  record,  and  known  public  law,  we  shall  be  fore- 
warned. When  it  is  notorious  for  being  short-sighted, 
for  having  only  near-range  views,  we  shall  be  fore- 
warned. When  it  is  notoriously  subservient,  we  shall 
be  forewarned.  You  cannot  force  into  a  brain  any- 
thing for  which  the  tissue  as  prepared  by  heredity  is 
incompetent  to  get. 

Yours  sincerely, 
THE  CONSTITUTION  AND  THE  PRESIDENT 

The  latest  apologist  for  the  President  now  in  office 
is  one  William  H.  Crawford,  who  describes  himself  as 
"a  life-long  Democrat,"  who  has  known  him  for  twenty 
years.  This  writer  has  an  article  in  THE  WORLD'S 
WORK  for  May,  a  magazine  that  in  its  editorials  of 
the  same  issue  deals  manfully  with  the  inability  of 
the  President  to  formulate  a  policy  in  foreign  affairs. 

Mr.  Crawford  ends  by  describing  the  President  as 
"A  man  under  whom  the  power  of  the  executive  will 
voluntarily  fall  lower  than  it  has  for  the  last  twenty- 
five  years.  Incidentally  there  are  many  who  believe 
with  Mr.  Harding  that  the  reduction  of  Presidential 
authority  is  urgently  necessary  for  the  preservation 
of  our  democratic  form  of  government. 

If  the  Presidency  under  Harding  falls  lower,  any 
lower  than  it  fell  under  McKinley  and  Taft,  God  save 
the  American  people! 

Earlier  in  the  article  he  said,  "Furthermore,  Mr. 
Harding  has  no  desire  or  intention  to  dominate  the  en- 


255 

tire  government.  We  will  have  for  the  first  time  in 
many  years  three  separate,  distinct,  and  independent 
branches  of  the  Government." 

Now  this  statement  is  nothing  less  than  subversive 
of  the  Constitution  itself.  There  was  no  intention  to 
make  the  President  ''coordinate"  with  the  other  offi- 
cers. It  is  true  that  the  Presidency  is  confined  by 
"checks  and  balances,"  but  the  President  is  not  set  up 
as  merely  the  equal  with  others.  A  rigid  examination 
of  the  Constitution  and  of  the  statutes  carrying  it  out, 
and  also  of  the  decisions  of  the  United  States  Supreme 
Court  shows  this,  viz. : 

As  compared  with  the  President,  the  Supreme 
Court,  which  is  nominated  by  the  Presidents,  con- 
firmed by  the  Senate,  is  more  powerful  than  any  man 
in  office — this  is  the  peculiarity  of  our  American 
Federal  system. 

As  compared  with  the  Senate,  through  his  veto,  he 
equals  seventeen  Senators. 

Through  his  poM'er  to  nominate  or  withhold  nomi- 
nations and  his  power  to  make  recess  and  ad  interim 
appointments,  the  President  is  ten  times  as  powerful 
as  the  Senate. 

Through  his  power  to  initiate  treaties  and  to  man- 
age all  foreign  affairs,  he  is  ten  times  more  powerful. 

Through  his  "implied  war  powers,"  he  is  infinitely 
more  powerful. 

Being  Commander-in-chief  of  the  army  and  navy, 
he  is  all-powerful  as  compared  \vith  the  Senate.  It  is' 
true  that  he  cannot  "declare  war;"  but  Polk  showed 
that  he  can  "make  war"  and  that  the  Congress  must 
back  him  up.  Only  one  power  really  confines  the  "war 
powers"  of  the  President ;  that  is,  public  opinion. 

In  respect  to  the  House,  the  President  is  again, 
through  his  veto,  equal  to  many  Representatives — 
mathematically  consdered,  to  seventy-three  of  them. 


366 

But  the  House  has  only  one-fourth  of  the  power  of  the 
Senate  anyway.  The  President  is  very  much  more 
powerful  than  Congress,  on  the  whole.  In  respect  to 
Mrs.  Harding,  the  writer  of  this  apology  says:  "There 
is  evidence  everywhere  that  she  has  been  a  helpmate 
and  advisor  to  the  President  in  his  upward  climb." 

Then  he  adds,  "As  an  admirer  of  Wilson  I  was  more 
than  exasperated  at  what  I  consider  the  unjust 
calumny  heaped  upon  him  during  the  campaign  for 
partisan  political  purposes  and  was  inclined  to  attri- 
bute it  partly  to  the  nominee  of  the  Republican  party ; 
consequently,  I  came  to  my  task  certainly  with  no 
prejudice  favorable  to  the  new  President." 

Professor  Wlliam  Estabrook  Chancellor,  when  at 
Marion,  himself  heard  Mrs.  Harding  tell  some  visiting 
ladies  that  she  was  "afraid  that  those  dreadful  stories 
about  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Wilson  were  true."  In  a  letter  to 
one  of  his  friends,  he  said  that  he  was  within  fifteen 
feet  of  her  when  she  said  this,  standing  on  the  side- 
walk, talking  to  visitors  in  a  motor  car.  It  was 
abundantly  in  evidence  that  the  agents  provocateurs 
"of  the  Republicans,  both  men  and  women,  were  in  the 
closest  relations  with  the  Hardings. 

Early  in  this  article,  Mr.  Crawford  said,  "Previous 
to  his  nomination,  my  study  of  him  was  superficial, 
for,  to  be  perfectly  frank,  I  have  never  considered  that 
he  was  sufficiently  important  as  a  national  figure  to 
merit  a  closer  scrutiny."  There  is  a  notion  frequently 
expressed  that  in  the  Presdency  men  often  display  un- 
expected powers.  Perhaps  so.  But  in  that  office,  they 
never  display  knowledge  that  they  never  had.  The 
Presidency  does  not  give  to  a  man  information  and 
science.  When  the  cold  historians  of  later  times  tackle 
this  man,  they  will  write  something  worse  than  the 
expressed  fears  of  this  apologist.  They  will  recount 
the  ruin  his  election  brought  to  the  world. 


CHAPTER  XVIIT 

PROFESSOR    CHANCELLOR   AND   THE    PEOPLE 

Objection  has  been  made  to  one  taking  part  in  poli- 
tics by  Professor  W.  E.  Chancellor  on  the  ground  that 
he  is  "ignorant  of  the  American  people."  This  is  ex- 
actly the  opposite  of  the  true  objection,  which  is,  that 
he  knows  the  American  people.  The  only  cause  why  he 
is  not  now  out  lecturing  among  the  people  before  large 
audiences  is  because  the  present  Administration  is 
afraid  of  him  and  is  illegally  using  its  power  for  its 
personal  politics.  If  Professor  Chancellor  does  not 
know  the  American  people,  who  does?     Notice  these 

facts :  ,,dMjM 

1.  Ohio:  Lived  in  the  State  from  birth  tiir twelve 
years  of  age;  and  in  adult  life  nine  years. 

2.  Massachusetts:  Studied  in  Worcester,  Amherst 
and  Cambridge ;  taught  in  Watertown ;  ten  years. 

3.  New  Jersey:  City  School  Superintendent  in 
Bloomf ield  and  Paterson ;  nine  years. 

4.  New  York:  Married  a  native  of  New  York  City, 
where  he  lived  five  years  as  student  and  teacher  and 
editor.  Member  of  New  York  Clubs.  Many  business 
connections.  Wife,  a  niece  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher  and 
related  to  other  famous  families. 

5.  Washington,  D.  C. :  City  School  Superintendent, 
Chairman  Architectural  Commission,  university 
teacher;  three  years. 

6.  Connecticut:  City  School  Superintendent  at 
Norwalk  four  years. 

7.  Nebraska:  College  President  at  Lincoln,  one 
year. 

257 


258 

8.  Illinois:  Taught  in  Chicago  at  the  University 
of  Chicago  two  summers  and  has  visted  the  city  two- 
score  times. 

Professor  Chancellor  has  given  courses  of  lectures 
for  six  weeks  in  the  States  of  Washington  and  of  Iowa, 
each.  He  has  given  lectures  in  nearly  every  State  of 
the  Union,  including  every  county  of  Vermont,  fourteen 
counties  in  Pennsylvania,  etc.  He  has  travelled  nearly 
400,000  miles  in  the  United  States.  His  ordinary  mail 
even  when  in  the  qUiet  life  of  a  college  professor 
averaged  20  letters  a  day,  or  6,000  a  year ;  he  received 
over  10,000  letters  in  his  political  campaign. 

No,  the  trouble  with  Professor  Chancellor  is  that  he 
knows  too  many  persons  and  too  many  facts,  knows 
America  too  well.  What  we  desire  is  to  let  the  Ameri- 
can people  know  the  truth  about  his  treatment  by  the 
politicians  of  the  present  Administration.  We  are  cer- 
tain what  the  people  will  think,  feel,  say  and  do. 

Is  this  the  American  form  of  a  Dreyfus  case? 
France  saw  the  light  at  last. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

ACCEPTED  GENEALOGY 

The  Family  Genealogy  of  Warren  Gamaliel  (Ban- 
croft Winnipeg  Harding)  as  prepared  by  W.J.Harding, 
of  Keystane,  Iowa,  and  handed  to  the  staff  cor- 
respondent of  the  New  York  WORLD  as  the  authentic 

genealogy.    When  shown  by 

to on  October  18,  1921, 

he  said :  "As  a  man  born  a  Virginian,  I  can  have  but 
one  answer :  white  people  in  Virginia  did  not  give  such 
names  to  their  children,  nor  have  so  many  wives  per 
man. 

1.  John,  b  1567,  d  1637,  wife  unknown. 

2.  Richard,  b  1595,  d  1657,  two  wives,  second  name 
Elizabeth  (last  name  unknown). 

3.  Stephen,  b  1623,  d  Feb.  20,  1698,  wife  Bridget 
Estance  (French). 

4.  Abraham,  b  date  unknown,  d  Nov.  23,  1694,  wife 
Deborah  (last  name  unknown) . 

5.  Stephen,  b  1681,  no  other  record. 

6.  Abraham,  b  June  14,  1720,  d  1788,  wife  unknown. 

7.  Abraham,  b  1740,  d  date  unknown,  wife  Huldah 
Try  on  (Tyrone?). 

Children  of  John  were  Richard,  Amos,  John, 
Lemuel,  Oliver,  Joseph. 

Children  of  Abraham  and  Deborah  were  Israel, 
Stephen,  John,  Mercy,  Lydia,  Deborah,  Thomas. 

Children  of  Stephen,  wife  unknown,  were  Abraham, 
Stephen,  Thomas,  Israel. 

Children  of  Abraham,  wife  unknown,  were  Abra- 
ham, John,  Amos,  Lemuel,  Oliver,  Bice. 

259 


260 

(According  to  the  investigation  of  Professor  Chan- 
cellor and  of  the  WORLD,  all  the  foregoing  "genealogy** 
is  faked) . 

8.  Amos,  b  March  10,  1764,  d  July  10,  1839,  wife 
Phoebe  Tripp,  married  1794.  Migrated  to  Ohio,  1820, 
by  which  time  "they"  had  seventeen  children.  (The 
record  shows  that  one  of  them  was  born  November  18, 
1795,  and  another  March  15,  1796.  It  also  shows  that 
Phoebe  bore  one  child  in  1785  and  the  last  in  1813.  But 
the  neighbors  say  that  the  man  had  two  mates,  which 
explains  the  phenomenon  of  two  children  born  within 
117  days  of  one  another!  The  second  mate,  who  was 
the  widow,  was  a  comparatively  young  woman,  at  the 
death  of  this  interesting  Amos.) 

The  names  of  the  children  of  Amos  were  Abigail, 
George  Tryon,  William  Tripp,  Solomon,  Mordecai,  Rice, 
Wealthy,  Ebenezer  S.,  Benjamin  F.,  Huldah  Jane,  John, 
Chauncy,  Mahala,  others  unknown  to  genealogist. 
Abigail,  b  1785,  d  1861,  m  James  Sterns. 

George  Tryon,  b  June  5,  1790,  d  Jan.  9,  1860,  first 
wife  Ann  Roberts,  b  date  unknown,  married  1812,  d 
1815,  second  wife  Elizabeth  Madison,  b  1800,  d  1869, 
married  1816. 

William  Tripp,  b  July  15,  1792,  Hindale,  married  date 
unknown ;  second  wife  Mary  Otis,  married  datt^  un- 
known. 

Solomon,  b  Jan.  31,  1794,  d  Feb.  17,  1872.  Three 
wives,  dates  of  marriages  unknown.  Their  names  were 
Anna  Wheat,  Eliza  Lathrop,  Susan  Mason. 

Mordecai  Rice,  b  Nov.  18,  1795,  d  March  15,  1870. 
First  wife  Susan  Newton.  Second  wife  Martha  Steel. 
Dates  of  marriages  unknown. 

Wealthy,  b  (note  the  date  and  compare  with  above) 
March  15,  1796,  d  1887.  Two  husbands,  dates  of  mar- 
riages unknown ;  names,  Joseph  Baker,  Hiram  Wells. 

Ebenezer  S.,  b  1799,  d  1882,    Two  wives;  dates  of 


261 

marriages  unknown;   names,   Mary   Webster,   Naomi 
Wilson. 

Benjamin  F.,  b  1801,  d  April  13,  1838.  Wife  Anna 
Jackson.  Date  married  unknown. 

Huldah  Jane,  b  Ppril  10,   1805,  d  Sept.  13,   1877. 
Married  Amos  Webster,  date  unknown. 

John,  b  July,  date  unknown,  1807.  Married  Alvirah 
Dunham,  date  unknown. 

Chauncy  C,  b  Jan.  14,  1809,  d  Dec.  8,  1880.  Married 
Rachel  Story,  date  unknown. 

Mahala,  b  1813,  d  date  unknown.  Married  Richard 
Fields,  date  unknown. 

(This  very  remarkable  Amos  who  had  sevcnlf^^'ii 
children,  the  birth  dates  and  names  of  the  third,  fifth, 
eleventh,  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  being  unknown  to  the 
genealogist,  had  no  less  than  nineteen  son-in-laws  and 
daughter-in-laws  for  the  known  twelve  children,  and 
he  had  ninety-eight  known  grand  children  by  these 
twelve  children.  It  will  be  observed  that  in  but  few 
instances  is  the  date  of  the  marriage  known.  The 
date  of  ^b^  marriage  of  George  Tryon  (Tyrone)  II.,  to 
Elizf  beib  Dickerson  is  also  unknown;  v/hy?) 

CtiUiren  of  Abigail  were  Amosa,  Justice,  Lydia. 
Rhoca,  Silas,  Mercenam  Otis,  Wealthy,  Polly,  Phoebe, 
(Stearnes). 

Of  George  Tryon  by  Ann  were  Huldah,  Phoebe  Ann ; 
by  Elizabeth  were  Oliver,  Perry,  Charles  A.,  Miranda. 

Of  William,  who  though  having  two  wives  appar- 
ently died  young,  Eloridge  T.,  Eliza  F.  Rice,  Lois  U.,  by 
which  wives  unknown. 

Of  Solomon,  who  had  three  wives,  A.  Major,  L. 
Lothrop,  Tary,  Alexander  L.,  Delilah,  Charlotte,  George 
Washington,  Harrison,  Alfred  Avery,  by  which  wives 
unknown. 

(Some  of  these  names  bear  out  the  contention  that 
Amos  came  from  Virginia,  as  the  neighbors  say.) 


362 

Of  Mordecai,  by  two  wives,  Thos.  Newton,  Jas.  Har- 
vey, Lucinda,  Susan  J.,  Mordecia,  Rice,  Rosalinda  (who 
was  coal  black) ;  Edward  S.,  Louisa  J.,  by  which  wives 
unknown. 

Of  Wealthy,  by  two  husbands,  Har.  A.,  Emily  Ann 
Stephen  P.,  Emmans  Artemissa  John  M„  Susan,  Wil- 
liam, Sidney,  Corydon,  Charles  E.,  Mary  E.,  by  which 
husbands  unknown. 

Ebenezer  S.,  by  two  wives,  Wealthy,  Charles,  Cle- 
ment, Mary,  Ebenezer,  Lewis  N.,  Lydia,  by  which  wives 
unknown. 

Benjamin,  by  Anna  Jackson,  Benjamin  E.,  Philena, 
and  two  names  unknown.  (He  died  young,  which  may 
have  saved  the  life  of  his  own  wife.) 

Hildah  Jane,  by  Amos  Westley  L.,  Welcome  A.,  Wil- 
son J.,  Hilah  Jane,  William  W,,  Celestia,  Zoradia,  Amos 
C,  (Webster). 

John,  by  Alvira  Thomas  D.,  Lucius  T.,  Merrit, 
James,  Benjamin,  Solomon,  Mary,  Sarah,  Martha. 

Chauncy,  by  Rachel  Nehemiah,  Horace  H.,  Harriet 
S.,  Jotham  D.,  Amos  J.,  Hiram  R. 

Mahala,  by  two  husbands,  the  name  of  one  un- 
known, James  E.,  Maiy  A.,  Mahala  S.,  Lorenzo,  George 
Washington,  Joseph  E.,  Artemisa  J.,  John  D.,  Julius 
E.,  Lucius  T.,  Wilson  W.,  Margaret  A.,  Richard  A., 
Florence  C. 
THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS  AND  COMING  WARS 

The  left  wing  of  the  coalition  styled  in  November, 
1920,  "the  Republican  party,"  told  the  people  that  the 
League  of  Nations  meant  wars  and  more  wars  in  which 
America  would  be  compelled  by  the  Covenant  to  en- 
gage. The  right  wing  denied  that  the  Republican 
party  was  opposed  to  the  League,  and  asserted,  as  did 
the  Democrats,  that  the  League  meant  peace  for  all  the 
Nations  that  joined  it  as  concerns  one  another.  There 
are  now  forty  Nations  within  the  League;  the  larger 


363 

ones  not  in  it  are  the  United  States,  Russia,  Germany 
and  Turkey.  Smaller  ones  not  in  it  are  Austria  and 
Hungary. 

Now  what  are  the  facts  at  the  time  that  this  law 
suit  is  being  prepared?  Premier  Hughes,  of  Australia, 
is  urging  the  entire  British  Empire  to  arm  itself  on 
sea  and  land  against  the  United  States,  and  the 
Dominion  of  Canada  Government  is  debatng  whether 
to  follow  Australia;  while  the  British  Imperial  Gov- 
ernment at  London  has  announced  that  if  America 
adopts  the  policy  of  "ship  for  ship,  man  for  man,  with 
every  other  nation,"  the  British  will  none  the  less  pur- 
sue even  as  against  the  United  States,  their  policy  of 
"twice  as  great  as  any  other  nation," 

At  the  present  time,  these  are  the  wars  threaten- 
ing or  now  preparing,  ivz. : 
Out  of  the  League  In  the  League 

of  Nations  versus  of  Nations 

1.  U.  S.  A Great  Britain 

2.  Germany  France 

3.  Russia  Poland 

4.  U.  S.  A Japan 

5.  Turkey  is  now  at  war  with Greece 

6.  U.  S.  A.  is  trying  to  bulldoze  Mexico, 

which  may  mean  "armed  interven- 
tion." 

7.  Russia  is  fighting  Persia. 

This  means  that  there  are  now  going  or  threatened 
no  less  than  seven  (7)  wars.  But  there  is  NOT  ONE 
WAR  going  or  or  threatened  between  Nations  within 
the  League  as  against  one  another. 

In  1914,  1915  and  1916  most  Americans  insisted 
that  the  United  States  would  never  become  involved  in 
the  World  War;  but  the  Lusitania  and  the  one-ship-a- 
week  order  of  the  German  Kaiser  in  January,  1917, 
brought  us  in  all  the  same. 


264 

What  are  some  of  the  causes  leading  to  wars  now  ? 
1.  Japan  resents  our  international  attitude  on  the 
race-question.  We  have  race-equality  in  the  United 
States  for  Caucasions,  Ethiapians  and  Indians ;  but  not 
for  the  Japanese  and  Chinese.  Yet  the  yellow  men  re- 
gard themselves  superior  alike  to  the  Indians,  the  Ethi- 
opians and  the  Caucasions. 

Japan  must  find  room  for  a  truly  surplus  popula- 
tion. They  have  60,000,000  in  an  island  less  than  the 
area  of  New  England,  New  York,  New  Jersey  and 
Pennsylvania,  with  a  poorer  range  of  natural  resources 
and  a  worse  climate.  Manchuria  and  Mongolia  are  im- 
possible because  Nature  forbids  a  large  population 
there.  China  is  already  overcrowded.  Japan  desires 
to  expand  into  the  Philippines,  into  Mexico  and  into 
the  United  States.  Victory  in  war  is  her  only  way 
of  escape. 

Japan  believes  in  the  Divinity  of  Kings  and  in  mili- 
tary power,  and  hates  our  democracy  and  looks  upon 
our  claims  to  being  "peaceful"  as  hypocritical.  She 
means  to  get  the  help  of  Great  Britain  and  to  whip 
us  thoroughly. 

Japan  regards  our  claims  of  race-purity  and  race- 
supremacy  for  the  whites  as  hypocritical  and  sees  in 
our  President  a  colored  mestizo  like  the  Presidents  of 
most  of  the  South  American  Republics. 

Japan  grew  rich  through  the  Russo-Jap  and  World 
Wars,  hates  and  fears  Christendom,  is  heathen  at 
heart,  and  anxious  to  try  out  her  strength  against  the 
boastful  white  peoples. 

2.  Great  Britain  resents  the  superiority  now  of 
New  York  in  the  commerce  of  the  world.  Canada  is 
trying  to  clear  with  London  direct  through  Quebec  in- 
stead of  as  now  through  New  York.  Great  Britain  can- 
not destroy  the  United  States,  but  by  victories  on  the 


266 

sea  and  on  the  coasts  she  might  destroy  the  prestige  of 
the  United  States  as  the  foremost  of  all  nations. 

Canada  resents  the  Young  Tariff  Act  furiously,  as  a 
direct  attack  upon  her  western  farmers.  She  is  trying 
to  get  "nationality"  by  having  an  ambassador  in  Wash- 
ington, which  we  have  already  questioned  on  the 
ground  that  she  has  no  independent  sovereignty,  and 
therefore  cannot  have  diplomatic  recognition  of  am- 
bassadorial or  even  ministerial  grade. 

There  is,  so  it  is  declared  by  some,  no  real  similar 
ity  between  the  people  of  Great  Britain  and  those  of 
the  United  States  other  than  blood  and  a  few  such  mat- 
ters as  language  and  literature.  The  entire  British 
Empire  recognizes  social  inequality — nobles,  middle 
class  and  peasantry.  The  British  are  an  aristocracy 
with  the  pronounced  social  ideas  and  customs  of  an 
aristocracy.  The  United  States  may  have  an  economic 
aristocracy,  but  everything  else  is  democratic.  The 
nobility  and  upper  classes  of  the  British  Empire  from 
England  out  into  every  possession  would  rejoice  to  seT 
American  democracy  set  back  by  a  war-defeat. 

And,  unfortunately,  upon  this  side  of  the  United 
States,  there  are  many  persons,  many  forces,  many 
causes  making  for  war  with  Great  Britain.  Among 
them  are  these,  viz.: 

Oil  in  Mexico  and  elsewhere. 

Sinn  Fein. 

Pro-Germanism. 

Tradition  regarding  the  War  of  Independence  and 
the  War  of  1812. 

Sensational  newspapers  trying  for  circulation. 

American  tariffs. 

3.  Russia  will  go  on  fighting  for  many  years  to 
come  while  she  eases  out  into  a  totally  different  social 
state  from  that  under  the  Romanoffs.  We  may  be- 
come involved  in  such  warfare,  however,  sincerely  we 


266 

seek  to  avoid  it.  We  are  after  international  trade,  and 
the  masters  of  such  trade  will  not  stop  at  so  small  an 
obstacle  as  the  objection  of  humble  persons  against  be- 
ing soldiers  in  their  wars  of  business. 

Analysis  similar  to  these  might  be  made  of  the 
other  wars  now  brewing,  while  the  Harding  Admini- 
stration tries  out  his  revolutionary  notion  of  a  Secretary 
of  State  carrying  all  the  burdens  of  foreign  policy  with- 
out direct  responsibility  to  the  people  and  the  chief  of 
the  Government  evades  all  the  burdens  and  over- 
throws all  the  precedents. 
THE   DISTRICT  OF  COLUMBIA   GOVERNMENT 

A  man  is  known  by  the  appointments  that  he 
makes.  Warren  G.  Harding  has  appointed  as  District 
Commissioner  a  man  now  seventy  years  old,  who  has 
been  a  candidate  for  this  high  office  in  Washington 
continually  for  over  thirty  years,  the  overlord  of  the 
colored  people  in  the  largest  population  of  colored  peo- 
ple of  all  the  cities  of  the  world,  Timbuctoo  included. 
Born  and  reared  in  the  District,  two  years  in  attend- 
ance at  a  Catholic  school,  with  no  other  education — 
he  has  never  voted,  for,  much  as  Vice-President 
Coolidge  was  astonished  at  this  information,  no  native 
resident  of  the  District  can  vote;  yet,  calling  himself 
"a  Democrat,"  he  bolted  Cox  and  supported  Harding, 
to  the  extent  that  talk  in  Washington  can  support  any- 
one. His  power  is  due  to  his  control  over  the  blacks  in 
Washington,  which  in  turn  is  largely  due  to  the  fact 
that  he  is  of  enormous  size,  weighing  in  his  prime  350 
pounds.  He  owns  real  estate  connected  with  the  night 
life  of  the  National  Capital,  and  can  afford  under- 
ground passage  to  the  President  if  required. 

Roosevelt  tried  to  suppress  him ;  Taf t  laughed  at 
him;  Wilson  made  his  life  miserable  by  trying  to  en- 
force the  laws  against  him ;  but  now  he  is  in  power  over 
the  police  and  the  teachers  and  everyone  else. 


267 

This  man  will  have  charge  of  the  expenditures  of 
twenty  and  more  millions  of  dollars  a  year.  He  is  so 
ignorant  that  a  few  years  ago,  he  made  a  protest 
against  the  teaching  of  algebra  and  of  psychology  in 
the  public  schools  as  a  waste  of  money.  The  Republi- 
can party  and  the  President  can  make  this  man  use- 
ful in  many  ways  to  themselves.  He  has  long  been  a 
tool  of  the  District  grafters  in  real  estate,  contracts 
and  other  corruption.  Of  course,  he  has  ability;  as 
every  political  boss  must  have.  His  name  is  a  joke,  and 
disgraceful — James  F.  Oyster — but  his  present  power 
will  make  his  appointment  a  serious  matter  to  Ameri- 
cans. He  is  crude,  profane,  a  heavy  drinker,  vile,  and 
in  all  ways  an  example  of  the  "powers  of  darkness," 
but  Harding  likes  him. 

Toutfini. 


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