The Washington herald., 1916-01-17


The town band is marching down the
main street of Marion. Ohio, past the
courthouse, playing a stirring piece. The
curb Is lined with villagers, peasants and
innocent bystanders. Well up toward the
head Of the procession is young Warren
g. Hardin, scarcely seventeen years of
age, but playing, nevertheless, the cornet,
and making the awfullest face imsgin-
able-after the manner of all cornet play
ers in town bands the world over. His
cheeks are flushed, his mouth is need
lessly puckered, and his eyes glisten
beetle-like under the strain. The reason
he Is making such a wry face is, OF
course, because he desires to show every
body how assiduously he is working and
how difficult it Is to play the cornet; he
has hopes that honest effort will be re-
warded and that he will be promoted to
playing larger, more impressive and loud
er instruments.
A bystander turns to still another by
stander and exclaims:
That young Harding can play a cor
net, by jimminy, about as good as any
body! I'll bet you he'll soon be good
enough to travel!
To suggest that a fellow townsman Is
destined to travel is about as high
a compliment as one can bestow in a
town the size Marion, Ohio. was then.
1t meant that Warren possessed a de-
gree of musical skill which would make
him sought after to go forth and appear
before critical and cultured audiences
in the big cities of the country.
AS a matter of fact Warren's ambitions
did not go that far-not yet. He simply
wanted to play the slip-horn, or slide
trombone, and then to master the tuba.
ma rob drr1y thn .t, nI..y rrr
the ponderous tuba, would be, so Warren
felt, not to have lived in vain.
That was all the glory he yearned for.
A seat in the United States Senate did
not even occur to him. That came years
later. And with all due respect, few
If any of the folks in Marion. Ohio,
thought OF him as a future United States
Senator.
Yet today Warren G. Harding. Junior
Senator from Ohio, comes nearer look
ing the part than almost any other mem
Der of that well known and august body.
Senator Harding Is tall, large, and i'm
portant looking. His face is one OF
sapience, gravity and authenticity. II
is cleanly-chiseled and unmarried by
whiskers or other blemishes. Close-crop-
ped hair. prematurely gray and parted
in the middle or thereabouts, completes
the scheme. In a crowd Warren Hard
ing would never fail TO pass for some
body in particular. He might be an ad-
vance agent a captain of industry, a
statesman, a promoter, an evangelist. OF
a leading man. Persons might differ
as to just what he looks most like, but
all would agree that he looks like some.
thing.
Harding took early to politics. Many
years ago he was fired from job as
reporter on a Democratic paper in Mari
on, for wearing a Blaine campaign hat
one of thoss-big. high gray ones. Clear
apart from politics can we blame the
editor for firing him?
There was another paper in the town
a little old smeary-looking sheet, three
columns wide, and read by nobody-not
even by the proofreader. It was one OF
those clandestine dailies, published sim.
ply because the owner is an optimist
and thinks perhaps 1t may be a better
paper at some time in the future.
Warren Harding and two others bought
this paper, putting in $500 or so apiece,
and assuming a mortgage for the rest
After a few weeks. Harding's partners
grew tired of their publishing activities
and earnestly desired to give up their
part of the struggle. One at time. they
sold out'-which consisted simply Of
turning their share of the mortgage over
to Harding. He. too, wished that he
might sell out. but the trouble was that
he had no partners left to sell out to. So
he had to keep on getting out the paper,
with the result that today 1t is one OF
the most prosperous small town dailies in
the Middle West and yields an income
which enables him to keep hired help and
to carry two extra castings, if need be, on
his running board.
For a number OF years Harding has
been hankering to occupy some political
place of honor and trust. He served as
lieutenant governor of Ohio, and later
ran for governor, but it wasn't the right
year His election to the United States
Senate gave him the biggest thrill of
his career-with one exception. For the
exception we are obliged to go back to
the days when he played the cornet in
the Marion band. There was to be a
big celebration over at Findlay and the
leading feature was to be a big band
contest, in which bands from all over
Ohio would compete for cash prizes.
Now Warren Harding had an idea that
Marion had the best little band of any
small town in the state. He took 1t