PRESIDENT HARDING’S CAREER.

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1424, 8 November 1923, Page 2

PRESIDENT HARDING’S CAREER.

Since his death more has become known of President Harding’s career in the newspaper world, first as a reporter and then as a proprietor. At odd times when a youth he helped in rtporting village events, and became famous locally as a politician, i hen he bought the decrepit “Marion Star,” and, with his wife’s aid in reading proofs, for which she was very well fitted—she had been a country school teacher —he built up the country newspaper into success. In those days the “Marion Star” was a one-man machine. Its owner was virtually reporter, printer, publisher, editor, and everything cofbined, and these things Mr Harding did well. “Of all the Presidents I have known at Washington in the last 20 years,” writes the Washington correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph, "I count Mr Harding as, perhaps, the most approachable. Like Mr Roosevelt and Mr Taft, he was particularly accessible to ‘my good comrades of the Press’ and his chats with newspapermen at White House, native and foreign alike, were something more than a formality, always entertaining, and very often instructive. During the Washington Conference, I recall, he ruled that all questions by newspaper correspondents—they are usually very much the same in their bearing on public affairs here as the questions in your House of Commons —should be committed to writing, hut he was always ready to answer supplementary questions, and these usually extracted the most information. He started the proceedings by rising from his desk and saying, ‘Well, boys, I’m glad to see you. There’s nothing very new to-day, but if there Is anything to be said I am here to tell it. Fire away.’ Occasionally some distinguished visitor would be admitted to the press conference—l believe Lord Riddell was amongst them during the Washington Conference, where he acted as official spokesman of the British press—but usually the accredited correspondents from all parts of the United States, and, indeed, all parts of the world. Twenty years ago Mr Harding drafted a code for his reporters, which I quote today as illustrating the character of America's ‘most human President.* Remember, there are two sides to every question; get them both. Be truthful; get the facts. Mistakes are inevitable, but strive for accuracy. I would rather have one story exactly right than a hundred half wrong. Be decent; be fair; be generous. Praise rather than denounce.

There is good in everybody; bring out the good and never heedlessly hurt the feelings of anybody.

In reporting a political gathering give the facts; tell the story as it is not as you would like to have it; treat all parties alike; if there is any politics to be played we will play it in our editorial columns. Treat all religious matters reverently. If it can possibly be avoided never bring ignominy to an innocent man, woman, or child in telling of the misdeeds or misfortunes of a relative.

Don't wait to be asked, but do it without the asking; and, above all, be clean, and never let a dirty word or suggestive story get into type. I want this paper so conducted that it can go into any home without destroying the innocence of any child. “This code the President observed in his public career ,and almost alone of political leaders he has made no real enemy.”