THE- NEW PRESIDENT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2207, 25 November 1920, Page 4

THE- NEW PRESIDENT.

The now President of the United States, Mr Warren G. Harding', celebrated his 55tli birthday on the day of his election. He was horn on November 2, 18C5, just after the close of the Civil-War in a two-room log cabin out in the woods in .Morrow County, Ohio. His father, who is still living, began his career as a country doctor in the early days of. Ohio and augmented his meagre income by farming on a small scale. Young Harding attended the village school until 14 and then went to a secondary school, dignified by the name of Ohio Central College. He left college at 17. A year of sc.hool-teach-ing followed and then a year in which he read for the law and earned a living as an insurance agent. The turning point of his career came when he joined the staff of a little local newspaper in Marion, Ohio and dofinitely adopted journalism as a profession.' Now proprietor and editor of the Marion ‘•Star,” Mr Harding prides himself on having begun at the lowest rung of the ladder and having gone through every department, mechanical and journalistic. It was not until he was 35 that Mr Harding began his active participation in politics. From 1899 to. 1903 he represented his district in the Senate of Ohio, and in 1904 and 1905 he was Lieutenant-Governor of the State. Prom State politics he entered the national arena as a supporter of Mr W. H. Taft, in his controversy with Theodore Roosevelt, and in 1914 he was elected to the United States Senate by a majority of 100,000. Mr Harding married in 1895 Alias Florence Ming, but has no children. On his father’s side the new President is of Scottish descent. His mother was of -Dutch ancestry. By his political friends. Mr Harding has been described as a ".typical, clean-cut, patriotic American; a man of the people and a servant ol: the people, recognising no aristocracy except that of personal worth ami achievement.” By bis enemies be has been denounced as a “a mere respectable figurehead; a puppet candidate, the slave; hound hand and foot, ol a Senate cabal and big financiers." In his election campaign Mr Harding declared himself as a champion of party government as against personal government, as conceived by Mi' WUson In the Senate debates last year he opposed the League of Nations, but voted for the ratification ol: the Versailles Treaty with the Lodge reservations, though, as he has once declared, “with grave misgivings. ’ Defining his international policy in the course of his election campaign, All Harding declared that whatever action ho might take in international alfairs, would be taken in co-operation with the Senate, and promised "iormal and effective peace as quickly as a Republican Congress can pars its declaration for a Republican Executive to sign.” When the peace bad been secured ho purposed, with the advice ol the Senate, a new approach to the nations of Europe providing lor mutual understanding in them, but one which could not possibly bo misinterpreted as a pledge that the United States would take part in any wars under auv cireumstunees except as if might freely decide for itself that duty demanded such action. THE* DEFEATED CANDIDA ! E.

The career of the defeated candidate for the Presidency, Mr J. M. Cox, Governo 1 ' of Ohio, presents a curious parallel- with that of tho now President. Like Mr Harding, Mr Cox was born in Ohio, spent his boyhood days on a farm; was for a time a teacher, and became a newspaper owner. Mr Cox is live years younger than Mr Harding,