Vol. 4, Issue 4

Harding Home Presidential Site

380 Mt. Vernon Ave.

Marion, OH 43302

hardinghome.org

ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED

December 2017 January February 2018

President Harding’s attention to fallen soldier

triggered newsboys’ gift of Laddie Boy statue Sometimes seemingly random events have a close tie, if

you look beneath the surface. Such is the case of a life-sized statue

of President Warren Harding’s dog, Laddie Boy, and a

heartbreaking story of a Boston newsboy.

In 1917, not long after the United States declared war on

Germany and the rest of the Central Powers, a 15-year-old, curly-

headed newsboy from Brookline, Mass., was inspired to lie about

his age and join the American effort. He soon found himself a

member of Company H, 101st Infantry, 26th American

Expeditionary Forces. Albert E. Scott, affectionately known to

family and boyhood friends as “Scotty,” sailed with his comrades

to France and, during the next nine months, participated in some of

the major battles of World War I along the Western Front.

An automatic rifleman, Scotty was in some of the worst

of the fighting during the Aisne-Marne offensive in July 1918. In

action at Trugny Woods on July 21, the 16-year-old “voluntarily

posted himself on an exposed flank to cover a means of approach

of an enemy attacking party,” the Boston Post reported.

“Absolutely alone, he opened fire on the enemy, killing and

wounding many and fully stopping the flank attack before he

himself was killed by a sniper’s bullet.” General John Pershing

recommended Scotty for a Distinguished Service Cross, which was

awarded to the teenager’s mother.

Scotty, recognized as a hero across America, was

especially dear to the hearts of his fellow newsboys in Boston.

They raised $2,000 to pay for a tableau, showing the moment of

Scotty’s death. Harding was unable to attend the dedication in

1921 at what is now known as Albert Edward Scott Memorial

Square in Brookline, but wrote a warm letter to the group from a

newspaperman’s point of view.

Just two years after the dedication of Scott’s memorial,

the president died. The same group of Boston newsboys which

treasured Harding’s recognition of Scotty, now wanted to honor

the only president engaged in newspapering. It commissioned

sculptor Bashka Paeff to produce a lifelike Laddie Boy statue.

Today, she is well known for three particular statues: a relief in

Kittery, Maine, depicting the sacrifices of World War I soldiers; a

fountain sculpture of a small boy with a bird at Boston Public

Gardens; and a relief of the Battle of Lexington, Mass., in that city.

The boys, aided by men across the country who had not

forgotten their boyhood jobs of hawking the news on street

corners, collected 19,314 pennies. Paeff, in turn, melted down the

pennies to make the bronze statue.

Laddie, too, did his part. He posed 11 times for Paeff in

her Boston studio. He was brought to the studio by Harry Barker,

the president’s former secret service agent who owned Laddie after

Harding’s death and who resided in the Boston area. The statue

was intended as a special gift for Florence Harding, but she died in

1924 before the statue was completed. When the statue was

finished in 1926, it went to Barker. He loaned it for exhibit at the

nation’s Sesqui Centennial International Exposition in

Philadelphia, then donated it to the Smithsonian Institution. The

bronze Laddie has not been on exhibit there for many years and is

in storage.

Laddie Boy seems to be giving sculptor Bashka Paeff a look of approval when he sees the

finished bronze statue of himself. The statue is at the Smithsonian Institution but has not been on

exhibit for many years. (Photo in Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution)

The tableau showing Scotty’s body slumped over his automatic rifle after being killed by

a sniper on July 23, 1918. (Photo by City of Brookline, Mass.)

President Harding Golf Outing

May 6 @ Marion Country Club

1 p.m. shotgun start

Call 800-600-6894 or email shall@hardinghome.org

to register your four-person team ($400 per team)

and/or

Sponsor a tee/green sign with your business name/logo for $100

All proceeds benefit the Harding Home Presidential Site

By Shannon Morris

In May 1921, President Warren

Harding hosted one of the world’s premier

scientists, Marie Curie, at the “People’s

House.” While the event undoubtedly was

an honor for both the president and Curie,

the underlying reason for Curie’s visit to the

United States actually was rooted in a little-

known commercial venture.

“Madame Curie,” as she was

known worldwide, was perhaps the most

famous scientist in the world at the time,

having already become the first winner of

two Nobel Prizes (in Physics, in 1903, and

in Chemistry, in 1911.)

Born Maria Sklodowska in Poland

in 1867, the young scientist left her home in

Warsaw in 1891 to further her education at

the University of Paris. While there, she met

her new lab partner, the French scientist,

Pierre Curie. Their work together, first in

the area of chemistry, led to some personal

chemistry, as well, and they were married in

1895.

At about the same time, French

scientist Henri Becquerel was researching in

the newfound area of radiation, centering

around the element uranium. His work

inspired the Curies to expand their research

into the same discipline. One of their first

achievements was isolating and extracting the

extremely rare radioactive elements polonium

(named after Madame Curie’s native land of

Poland) and radium (from the Latin word for

“ray”). But the Curies felt that their most

important achievement would be to find the

practical applications of radioactivity. Their

subsequent research led to the discovery that

radioactivity could be used to shrink

cancerous tumors and could also be used in

the new application of X-ray devices.

Unfortunately, the rarity of these two

elements, not to mention the difficulty in

extracting them, resulted in very high costs:

one gram of radium, for example, cost

$100,000 (U.S.) in the early 1900s — that’s

$2.7 million in today’s money.

Pierre Curie passed away in 1906

after a carriage accident, leaving Marie to

carry on their research studies. Upon Pierre’s

death, Marie took his place as professor of

general physics on the faculty of the

University of Sorbonne in Paris, becoming

the first woman to hold such a high position

at that lofty institution. Madame Curie

formed the Institut de Radium in Paris to

focus on the practical applications of radium,

especially in the field of medicine.

In the 1910’s, Madame Curie

realized the one gram of radium she had to

conduct her research was not enough, and she

learned that the United States had 50 grams.

Still, a professor’s salary certainly did not

allow any type of investment.

Enter Mrs. Marie Meloney, a

leading American socialite, former

Washington Post and New York World

reporter, editor of “The Delineator” women’s

magazine and confidante of Eleanor

Roosevelt.

In May 1920, Mrs. Meloney heard

of Madame Curie’s plight and was

sympathetic to her situation. Mrs. Meloney

formed the “Marie Curie Radium Fund” in an

effort to raise enough money to purchase one

gram of the rare element. And, because

women were in the final push that summer to

secure the right to vote through the 19th

Amendment, she wanted American women to

lead the way to help this outstanding female

scientist. This clever plan, which highlighted

the importance of women to society and

helped Madame Curie at the same time, was

extremely successful. By the spring of 1921,

more than $100,000 had been raised.

So, how did this fundraising effort

bring the Hardings into the picture? An

arrangement was made to present the radium

to Madame Curie in a White House

ceremony, hosted by President and Mrs.

Harding. On May 20, 1921, an assembly of

scientists from America, France and Poland

gathered at the White House to see the

Hardings formally give a small vial of radium

to the grateful scientist. (Don’t worry, the

radium was merely a replica — the president

really didn’t handle radioactive materials

with his bare hands.)

In presenting the gift to Mrs. Curie,

President Harding captured the significance

of the moment for both Madame Curie and

the women of America when he said,

“Today, we greet you as foremost among

scientists in the age of science, as a leader

among women in a generation which has

seen woman come tardily into her own.”

In keeping the focus on women,

Madame Curie presented Mrs. Harding —

not the president — with a book about her

husband, Pierre. In a handwritten dedication

in the book, which is in the Harding Home

collection, the normally autograph-shy

scientist wrote,

“To Mrs. Warren G. Harding —

In grateful appreciation of the reception at

the White House,

May 20, 1921

Marie Curie”

Mrs. Harding was given something

else that day — one of the golden keys which

unlocked the box containing the radium.

Madame Curie held the other.

Shannon Morris is

Assistant Site Manager

of the Harding Home.

It’s spring break time —

at least that’s what the Hardings would say

Look beneath the surface for different version

of Madame Curie’s 1921 trip to White House

Madame Marie Curie poses with President Warren Harding

and Florence Harding at the White House on May 20, 1921.

(Library of Congress)

Like many of us, Warren and

Florence Harding dreamed of the sandy

beaches, warm breezes and palm trees of

Florida when snow hit Ohio. So it’s only

appropriate that we travel south with them as

best we can.

The Fireside Chat, scheduled for

6:30 p.m. on January 18 (at no charge) at the

Marion Public Library, not only will

highlight the antics of the “Marion Crowd” in

Daytona Beach and St. Augustine, but will

kick off the 2018 schedule of Harding Home

events.

For most of the Hardings’ married

life, they traveled to Florida in February or

March most years, joining such Marion

notables as Amos and Caroline Kling, Dr.

Charles and Mandy Sawyer, and George and

Lydia Christian in the Daytona Beach area.

Some of the older Marionites would stay for

the whole winter, while the younger set

would come and go. Florence’s father built a

house in 1907 that was at the center of the

Marionites’ social lives.

The Marion Crowd (what the group

called itself) spent their vacations doing

normal vacation-type things — bicycling on

the beach, strolling through tropical gardens,

shopping and frolicking in the ocean waves.

The Marionites traveled by train to a much

sparsely populated Daytona, which may beat

the bumper-to-bumper traffic or the airline

headaches they likely would experience

today. Other programs and events scheduled

are:

Annual Harding Home Waffle

Breakfast: 8:00-11 a.m. April 14 at Tri-

Rivers Career Center, Marion; $7 at the door,

$6 in advance. Using Florence Harding’s

recipe, Harding Home researcher Jon

Andersen (a chef in real life), will whip up

batches and batches of waffles. Finish them

off with strawberry, blueberry, or maple

syrups, or be adventurous and eat them the

way Warren Harding liked them — with

chipped beef and gravy! We’ll also provide

crisp bacon strips and beverages. Proceeds go

to Harding Home operations.

Annual President Harding Golf

Outing: 1 p.m. shotgun start on May 6 at the

Marion Country Club. This increasingly

popular golf outing gives you a chance to

gear up your golf game for the upcoming

summer. Foursomes are $400, and tee/green

sponsorships are $100 each. Proceeds benefit

Harding Home operations.

Around the Circle Tour: This

series of programs will take us — literally —

to the Marion County villages of Caledonia,

LaRue and Prospect, as well as to Galion

(near Warren Harding’s birthplace of

Blooming Grove). Jon Andersen and Sherry

Hall will tell audiences how each village they

visit fits into the Harding story. The

programs will be in June and August, with

times, days and places to be announced. No

charge.

Warren G. Harding Symposium:

July 20-21-22 at Ohio State University

Marion and Marion Technical College

campus. The symposium theme will be

announced soon. The Friends of the Harding

Home brunch at 11:30 a.m. on July 22 wraps

up the weekend.

87th Annual Scout Pilgrimage: 3

p.m. Oct. 14 at the Harding Memorial. Boy

and girl scouts from Marion and beyond

honor President and Mrs. Harding at the

Harding Memorial. No charge.

Betrayed trust: Warren G.

Harding and the Veterans Bureau

Scandal: 6:30 p.m. Nov. 8 at the Marion

Public Library, no charge. Andersen will lead

our discussion about the dark side of

Harding’s well-intentioned service for World

War I’s injured soldiers, thanks to the antics

of Director Charlie Forbes.

Warren G. Harding surveys the waves along Daytona Beach around 1905. In addition to bicycling in his “casual attire,” he also

liked to drive an automobile on the hard-packed sand — just as people like to do today. (Ohio History Connection)

Florence Harding’s father, Amos Kling, built this 2 1/2

story house on a sleepy road in Daytona Beach in 1907.