Republican Warren Harding on course to land American presidency
Washington, 3 November 1920 - Early signs from the United States indicate that Republican candidate Warren G. Harding will become the next president.
Voting took place yesterday and cabled telegrams from the Reuters Agency this morning, sent after the polls had closed, report that the Republicans have made major gains in New York, Connecticut and several other eastern states.
Returns from Kansas suggest a two to one vote in favour of Harding over his Democratic rival, James M. Cox. The Kansas numbers are considered significant given that it was here that the electoral tide swung in favour of outgoing president Woodrow Wilson in 1916.
The Democratic-aligned New York Evening Post yesterday evening published an article which forecast that Harding would secure an electoral college vote of 352 to Governor Cox’s 179. The target that needs to be reached to secure election is 266.
The total number of ballots cast is expected to register somewhere between 20 and 30 million, with women, voting in a US presidential election for the first time, reported to have turned out in larger numbers than men at many polling centres.
This presidential campaign has been one of the fiercest ever, with the League of Nations providing the sharpest line of division between the two candidates.
Governor Cox’s platform was seen to favour America taking a senior role in post-war world politics, a policy sometimes referred to as ‘Wilsonism’, while Harding and his party played up ‘Americanism’. As the Irish Times editorialised yesterday, the international concern about a Harding presidency is that it will see the United States turn in on itself and devote most of its energy and resources on domestic affairs rather than on the regeneration of the world order.
For Irish separatist aspirations, a Harding presidency will certainly come as a blow. Whereas Governor Cox has expressed sympathy for Irish independence and had pledged himself to bringing their political demands to the League of Nations, the Republican candidate, to the annoyance of Irish sympathisers, has claimed that the Irish question is a domestic matter for Great Britain.
British Pathé footage of Warren G. Harding on his election as President of the United States of America
[Editor's note: This is an article from Century Ireland, a fortnightly online newspaper, written from the perspective of a journalist 100 years ago, based on news reports of the time.]
