Early life Born on a farm, Harding was the eldest of eight children of George Tryon Harding and Phoebe Dickerson Harding; his ancestry combined English, Scottish, and Dutch stock. His father later left farming to become a physician. Following a mediocre education at local schools in Ohio and three years at Ohio Central College, Harding tried his hand at several vocations until in 1884 he bought a struggling weekly newspaper in Marion, Ohio, to which he devoted himself. Seven years later he married Florence Kling De Wolfe (Florence Harding), and she proved instrumental in transforming The Marion Star into a financially successful daily paper. Soon Harding, a man of little discernible intellect or imagination, found himself invited to join leading corporate boards and fraternal organizations. As he began to associate with the state’s movers and shakers, he was drawn into Republican Party politics. A handsome man who was always well dressed and well groomed, Harding looked like a leader. It was his outward appearance rather than any internal qualities that contributed most strongly to his political success.

Political career Harding was elected a state senator (1899–1902) and lieutenant governor (1903–04), but he was defeated in his bid for the governorship in 1910. On most issues he allied himself with the conservative (“Old Guard”) wing of the Republican Party, standing firm against U.S. membership in the League of Nations and always supporting legislation friendly to business. He achieved national visibility when he was chosen to nominate William Howard Taft at the 1912 Republican Convention, and in his next campaign he was elected U.S. senator (1915–21). When the 1920 Republican Convention deadlocked over its selection of a presidential nominee, party leaders turned—supposedly in a smoke-filled room in Chicago’s Blackstone Hotel—to the handsome, genial Ohioan as a compromise candidate. Paired with vice presidential candidate Calvin Coolidge, Harding eschewed a speaking tour in favour of a “front porch” campaign—similar to the one conducted by fellow Ohioan William McKinley 20 years earlier—in which Harding read carefully scripted speeches to delegations of visitors at his Marion home. After eight years of the administrations of Pres. Woodrow Wilson, during which Americans had been asked to sacrifice greatly to reform the United States and to aid the Allied cause in World War I, Harding’s undemanding call for a return to normalcy was precisely what war-weary disillusioned voters wanted to hear. Harding won the election by the largest landslide to date, capturing some 60 percent of the popular vote. In a speech to a special session of Congress on April 12, 1921, he outlined the direction which he thought the country should take in the coming four years, saying in part: Harding, Warren G.: Campaign button Button from Warren G. Harding's 1920 presidential campaign. Americana/Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Get exclusive access to content from our 1768 First Edition with your subscription. Subscribe today I have said to the people we meant to have less of government in business as well as more business in government. It is well to have it understood that business has a right to pursue its normal, legitimate, and righteous way unimpeded, and it ought have no call to meet government competition where all risk is borne by the public Treasury. There is no challenge to honest and lawful business success. But government approval of fortunate, untrammeled business does not mean toleration of restraint of trade or of maintained prices by unnatural methods. It is well to have legitimate business understand that a just government, mindful of the interests of all the people, has a right to expect the cooperation of that legitimate business in stamping out the practices which add to unrest and inspire restrictive legislation. Anxious as we are to restore the onward flow of business, it is fair to combine assurance and warning in one utterance. …