Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1920-11-02
DEMOCRATS CIRCULATE VI
cIoUS AND DISCARDED LIBEL
ON HIS ANCESTRY.
CHARGES DiSPROVED
MANY YEARS AGO
Old Reports Of Negro Blood in Fam
lily Believed to Have Emanated
From Stealing of Child Of Early
Harding Kin by Indians-All Fam
lily Facts Disprove SANDER.


the democratic camp took for tlimsy
basis a SANDER seventy-fve years old
originating from petty malice in a
neighborhood feud of the frontier
days. 1t was refuted threequarters
Of a century ago.
The authoritative nealogy of the
Harding family shows the falsity ii
the canard with winch poison tom
CUES" in the opposition have sought
to incite race prejudice.
Here Is the Story.
The following story of the matter
has been checked up with Harry Nj.
Daugherty. republican leader in
Ohio, and is considered authentic:
The subterranean accusation
about Senator Hardings ancestry
has been current for weeks, it's pur-
pose well known to the candidate, his
advisers, and friends. Persons who
had visited the border states-ken-
lucky, Maryland, Missouri, West Vir-
ginia and Oklahoma especially-knew
weeks ago that the SANDER was being
whispered and circulated by hand
bills and anonymous circulars. In
some localities men and women who
answered their doorbells late at night
ator Harding's blood was not pure
white.
Canard Unworthy of Retort.
Senator Harding, chatting under
the falsehood, wanted to reply openly
and to denounce the lie, but was adj
vised by careful thinking friends to
ignore the canard on the ground 1t
was unworthy of retort.
'As the campaign neared It's close,
the efforts to discredit Senator Hard
ing have become more openly des-
perate. and dcfamatory circulars
were widely distributed, particularly
in Columbus, Indianapolis and San
Francisco. TIE circulars .were so
called -geneaios.es' of Harding
family.
'"rhere were three sets OF these
manufactured family trees. all maili-
ciously false in their implication,
which was that among the Harding
ancestry was man of colored blood.
They were absurdly incorrect in
their genealogical references. For ex-
ample, one of them referred to Amos
Harding (horn 1854, died 1889 as d
black man and married to Hulda
Trion, described as passing for
white
Where Charges Go Awry.
"As a matter OF fact, these elder
Hardings were not only of unim-
reachs bic white blood, clearly trace
able thru tho authentic history of
town records and family bibles, but
EIulda Trion was not Amos Harding's
wife at all, butt his mother.
Zone of the vicious inventions-the
one attributed to Prof. William Esta-
brook Chancellor of Wooster univer-
sity-states that this same Amos
Harding was a West Indian Negro.
1t is a matter of public record that
Amos Harding was born at Port Jar
Wis, n. VI March 10. 1864, and lived
in the Wyoming valley from 177O to
1900, when he moved to Susquehan-
ma county, PENNSYLVANIA, and thence
to Richmond county, Ohio, where he
died in 1899.
All the Family Facts.
"The official statement issued by
the republican national committee
based on complete examination q:
the Harding family records, contains
all facts concerning birthplaces ana
movements of the various Hardings,
Trions, Trips, Crawfords, Staple
tons, Madisons, Stevens, Dickersons,
Van Kinks and Curries-all folks OF
clean pioneer strain of the purest
Anglo Saxon, German, Scotah- Irish
and Dutch blood. 1t is taken by Sen
ator Harding and his friends to be as
straightforward refutation OF the
current falsehoods as intelligent or
honest minds could wish for.
sit does not, however, explain how
in the petty malice of a. neighbors
quarrel in rural Ohio seventy-five
years ago the story originated that
there was African blood in the Hard
ings. Any one who has lived in the
country knows how one family with
out definite reason will form a last
ing grudge against another family,
sometimes a mere children's quarrel
being sufficient to start long feud.
How the Story Started.
Back in the days Of General
Wayne, Mad Anthony one of the
distinctly related ancestors Of the
present generation had been captured
by Indians as child and was never
restored to her family, a possible
starting point for the original SLAM
der.
I'm the hamlet Of Blooming Grove
70 nf N pf1r
One was the Hardings, a blue-eyed
stock who had fought in the Revolu
tionary war and against the Indians.
Nearby lived the Appleman family,
also of the sturdy, pioneer kind. They
had been friends, but i'll feeling arose
over some trivial fling between tho
neighbors. Itch broke out in the
community-a humiliating visitation
then as now. The people, especially
the children, ate too much buck
wheat This brought out rash and
both the Harding children and the
Appleman children suffered from it
and felt shamed.
Zone day in school one of the
Appleman children turned to a small
Harding and said: If it weren't for
you Niggers we wouldn't have any
itch in this village referring prob
ably to the old Indian tale. The in
suited Harding promptly punched an
Appleman nose. When the tale was
taken back to the Appleman family
it made bad feeling, and there We're
many fights.
Revived, Then a Murder.
From time to time the echoes Of
the silly accusation died away then
something would happen to revive it,
For instance, there was David c.
Butler. a blacksmith in Iberia, o.,
who married a young woman of the
Harding stock. The blacksmith had