His campaign as presidential nominee of his party, and his election to the Presidency on his fifty-fifth birthday with a plurality of seven millions, were the expression of the confidence of the American people.
It was just about dinner time on election day that a delegation called at the Marion home to see Senator Harding. This proved to be a group of employees of the Marion Star who called to show their pride and satisfaction in him by presenting him with a printer’s gold make-up rule. He went out on the front porch to thank them and was choked with the emotion the gift aroused. When he got his voice in order, he said:
“I don’t know of any call that has aroused my emotions more than this has. I have worked with you and I have tried to be honest with you, and God knows, if I am called to responsibility, I am going to be honest with everybody in the world. I don’t know if I can meet these responsibilities fully, but I know I can meet them with the same honesty that I have treated you.
“I am just a plain ordinary fellow, but I can be on the square, and that’s all there is to it.”
He had the distinction of being the first Senator elected to the Presidency while serving in that office and also the first active newspaper man to wear the presidential toga.
The outstanding feature of President Harding’s administration was the Conference on Limitation of Armaments which met on November 12, 1921. To it the President invited Great Britain, France, Italy, Holland, Belgium, Portugal, Japan, and China to send delegates. Secretary of State Hughes presided. Those who attended were Prince Tokugawa, Ambassador Jusserand, Albert Sarrault, M. Viviani, Premier Briand, Senators G. Pearce Underwood, Elihu Root, Lodge, and Schanzer, Lord Balfour, Ambassador Geddes, Sir Robert Borden, Sir John Salmond, and Srinivasa Castri.
The voice of American womanhood was heard when the President appointed four well-known women as members of America’s advisory council. These women represented ably the various schools of feminine thought of our land. They were Mrs. Thomas G. Winter, of Minneapolis, President of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs; Mrs. Charles Sumner Bird, of Boston, leader of the National League of Women Voters of Massachusetts; Mrs. Kathrine Phillips Edson, of Los Angeles, author of many welfare projects for women, and an active suffragist; and Mrs. Eleanor Franklin Egan, well-known writer and authority on the Far East.
The presence of the women added to the importance of the social functions arranged; not since the war had the city been as festive and the entertaining as general as during the session of the Conference.
Those close to President Harding, who knew how staunchly he believed in the men he picked for positions of honour and trust, believed his illness greatly aggravated by the disclosures of the Senate investigation of the oil scandal, which had already brought dishonour to one of his Cabinet and was threatening to involve others in high places.