USA > Indiana > A biographical history of eminent and self-made men of the state of Indiana : with many portrait-illustrations on steel, engraved expressly for this work, Volume I > Part 107
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boat, with a view to joining some regiment there, but į failed to find a suitable opening. Coming up to St. Louis, he fell into the toils of a neatly dressed, wily- tongued, and handsome recruiting sergeant of the 2d Dragoons, was enlisted and sent down to Jefferson bar- racks, where he was taken sick within a few weeks. After two months of hospital life he was discharged, thoroughly cured, for the time, of his military fever; but for eighteen months he was a sufferer from disease. During Mr. Harding's illness at the barracks he was near enough to " death's door" to listen at the key- hole, and thinks he would have gone through had it not been for the exasperation caused by an innocent re- cruit. He owned a horse which proved to be the best in the company, and was coveted by all the recruits. One ambitious young warrior, thinking to get ahead of his comrades, came over to the hospital one morning and insisted on an interview with the dying man, though he had no previous acquaintance with him. On being admitted, he persuasively reminded Mr. Harding that he was going to die, and calmly asked him to re- sign his claim to the horse in his visitor's favor. In- dignation at the fellow's want of delicacy inspired the sick man with a determination to get well-and he did. Mr. Harding's first experience in editorial life was in Charleston, Illinois. While a compositor in the Com- mercial office at Cincinnati, Mr. William Harr, pub- lisher of the Charleston Courier, made him a proposi- tion, which was accepted, by which he became half proprietor and sole editor of that journal. The Courier was a fuzzy-looking concern when he took hold of it. The type was old, and the editing had been mainly done by a pair of superannuated shears, which fell fero- ciously afoul of the nearest exchange when copy was wanted, and sawed indiscriminately, biting off an article at the most convenient paragraph to make it fit. If the Courier was conscious of any thing, it was of the deep- seated " Americanism " of its principles, represented by the cut of a section of muskmelon with an American flag stuck in it, the curious thing doing duty as an edito- rial figure-head. By inheritance and predilection Mr. Harding was a Whig, but the Whig party was dead. Know-Nothingism was too narrow-minded and illiberal to comport with his ideas of justice, and Democracy was too nauseous a dose to swallow. The young giant, Republicanism, had just been born, and was growing vigorously ; but Coles County, which had been settled almost exclusively by Kentuckians, was strongly pro-
slavery, and utterly opposed to any thing which even squinted at Free-soil. Nevertheless, Mr. Harding defied the prejudices of the place by making the Courier an out-and-out Republican paper, and in the heated can- vass of 1856 did excellent service. From an obscure sheet the Courier lecame widely known all over the state, and Mr. Horace White, of the Chicago Tribune,
wrote to Mr. Harding, consulting him in regard to the preparation of a state platform which would give least offense to the old Whig pro-slavery element in South- ern Illinois. Mr. Harding's paper was the first in the Union to suggest the nomination of John C. Fremont for the presidency, and he (Mr. Harding) was elected secretary of the district Republican central committee. Mr. Harding withdrew from the Courier, and, in com- pany with his brother William, started the Ledger, which attained a large circulation in a short time. Owing to unhappy domestic affairs he finally sold out the Ledger and returned to Cincinnati, where he ob- tained a situation as reporter on the Commercial, with Fred Hunt and W. D. Bickham as co-workers. After several months' experience, at the suggestion of M. D. Potter, the publisher, Mr. Harding retired, being satis- fied that, while he had plenty of ability as a writer, his modesty, taciturnity, and lack of that superlative degree of impudence known as "cheek," interfered with his success as a news-gatherer. Leaving Cincinnati Mr. Harding went South, and after a brief period of typo- graphical experience obtained a situation as associate editor of the Houston (Texas) tri-weekly Telegraph. After six or eight months of service, becoming satisfied that war was imminent, he accepted the advice of the editor of the Telegraph, and left Texas before the storm burst, and returned to Cincinnati. Shortly after the outbreak of the War of the Rebellion, Mr. Harding enlisted in the 2Ist Indiana Regiment, Colonel James W. McMillan, and accompanied the regiment to Baltimore, where it remained for nearly eight months. During that time he wrote occasional letters to the Cincinnati Commercial. When General Butler organized his New Orleans expe- dition he made a requisition on Governor Morton for one Indiana regiment, and the Governor designated the 2Ist, simply because it was the only Indiana regiment which had a regular correspondent in its ranks, thus enabling him to keep track of its doings and hear of its grievances. It was a lucky chance for the 21st, as it sent them into a fine climate, a country teeming with food, where they had enough fighting to do to relieve the monotony of camp-life, and comparatively few hard- ships to undergo. Had it not been for Mr. Harding's letters the regiment would have gone into the Army of the Potomac. After a year's service Mr. Harding was promoted to the position of second lieutenant. In 1864 he resigned, and went to work on the New Orleans Times as city editor. After some six months' experience on the Times he resigned his situation and came North, his wife being unwilling to go to New Orleans. Shortly after arriving in Indiana he was employed on the Indi- anapolis Journal as city editor, Colonel W. R. Holloway at that time being the publisher. He afterward served on the daily Herald-as the Sentinel was then called- published by Hall & Hutchinson ; and then on the Sen-
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tinel under Lafe Develin's management, and again under Richard Bright. At one time, when the Sentinel was in the hands of William Henderson as assignee or receiver, Mr. Harding and Rufus McGee did all the editorial and local work thereon, and got out a paper which was admitted by competent judges to be the best in the city at the time. It was in the year 1867 that Mr. Harding and Marshall G. Henry started the Saturday Evening Mirror. Mr. Henry, now dead, became discouraged, and sold out to John R. Morton. The Mirror pros- . pered, and was converted into a daily, Judge F. M. Finch putting about four thousand dollars of capital into the concern. The daily Mirror had a remarkable career of about twelve months, during which it attained a large circulation and became quite popular. It brought to light the celebrated correspondence between Colonel Cumback and Governor Baker, the publication of which defeated Mr. Cumback's aspirations for the United States Senate after he had received the caucus nomination. The Mirror also discovered and brought forward Hon. Daniel D. Pratt, who was elected to the Senate after the Cumback bolt. Owing to a disagree- ment with his partners, Mr. Harding sold out of the Mirror, and, the intestine strife still continuing, it was afterward sold for a mere song to the News, at that time an infant enterprise. Thus perished the most promising newspaper enterprise ever built up on so small an outlay of capital. After leaving the Mirror, Mr. Harding went to work on the Journal, at a salary of fifty dollars per week; but, the situation not being congenial, he resigned, and resuscitated the weekly Mirror, which was shortly after consolidated with W. B. Vickers's paper, Town Talk. Mr. Harding sold out to Vickers and moved to Cincinnati, where he worked on the Enquirer until the establishment of the famous Louisville Ledger, when he became one of the remarkable corps of editors who assisted the lamented Colonel Clusky in making the various departments of that wonderful periodical " cawnsist." He was recalled from Louisville to take charge of the evening Journal, which he managed until the St. Louis Democrat was purchased by the Hassel- mans and Fishbacks, when he became one of the illus- trious Indiana colony that invaded that city. After a " brief but brilliant " career in St. Louis, Mr. Harding was discharged for writing a letter to the Chicago Times containing more information about the small-pox than it was deemed prudent to disseminate. Returning to Indianapolis he started the Saturday Ilerald with A. C. Grooms, and within the first six months bought out Mr. Grooms's interest and resold it to S. N. Bannister. As there was no field for the Herald at the time, it had a vigorous struggle with adversity for the first few years of its existence. Every body seemed determined that it should die, and every week an " authoritative " rumor would be started to the effect that that number would
be the last. Notwithstanding the fact that it never per- mitted a pay-day to go by without discharging its obli- gations to its employés in full, cautious compositors would sometimes get alarmed and insist on being paid off in the middle of the week. Nothing but Mr. Hard- ing's great ability and tenacity of purpose could have made the Herald live and flourish. A field was finally made for it, and now it is the most prosperous, promis- ing, and influential weekly newspaper in the state. When Mr. Harding started it he resolved to continue it, no matter what obstacles he had to encounter. He vowed it should live, if he was compelled to reduce it to the size of a sheet of foolscap. It was not one of those fortunate journals which are induced to exist for the high and holy purpose of filling a gaping and " long- felt want." It was not " urged " to exist. It began to live fully conscious of the ruggedness of its path, and it fought valiantly for every inch of ground it now occu- pies. It created a want and filled it at the same time. It has demonstrated the fact that a newspaper can thrive even under a mountain of disadvantages if it has the vital principle strong within it. The Herald, from the beginning, was an original thing in news- papers. It had neither prototype nor antitype. It patterned after no precedent in style or spirit. With- out being sensational it has been remarkable. Capti- vating and interesting, it is always surprising its readers with some new feature, and treating them to some worthy thought on timely subjects. It has been literary in its character, at the same time keeping the local field well harvested, and not permitting matters of general interest to escape it. No matter how thoroughly the daily papers sweep up the chaff of a local event, every body wants to hear what the Herald thinks of it. Its account usually contains grains of interest not garnered by the daily press, and presents those already known in more attractive style. "What the Herald says" be- comes the opinion of thousands of thinking minds who have learned to rely upon its judgment. As a literary paper it might be said to have developed a state liter- ature, having brought into distinction many talented writers before unknown. While the Herald has always been dignified, its dignity has not been of the stilted and stupid order. It is dignified by reason of its good sense, force, penetration, and ability, and not because of any mannerism or conformity to established prece- dent. It has made its mark in the domain of burlesque literature, ridiculing shams of every grade and complex- ion, and by means of its force in that direction making the world more honest. It has very appropriately been called " a regular fool-killer." "Imitation is the sincerest flattery." The Herald has been imitated all over the West. It has been the prototype of numerous successful weeklies. Strangely enough, those who are most known are often- est least known. Mr. Harding is one of these. No
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man who is so widely known is more generally misun- - derstood. No man has more or truer friends, and none has meaner enemies. His bitterest and most implacable foes are men and women with whom he has never come in contact, and who know absolutely nothing about him. His kindness is as well known as his severe justice, though not generally given the same prominence in the summing up of his character. Mr. Harding's force of character, prominence, and influence, make every occurrence in which he takes a part, and every opinion he promulgates, matters of interest to the pub- lic. As he is a leader in thought, it is only natural that he should often be misunderstood and misrepre- sented, which is the emblem of superiority conferred by weaker minds. The simple truth is, there is not a kinder-hearted or more generous man in the profession, nor one readier to forgive an injury or do a favor; though by many he is credited with a degree of heart- lessness not common to any thing higher in the order of creation than devils. The common, but erroneous, opinion in some circles is that he is violent in his ha- treds, irreconcilable, revengeful, and quarrelsome. His fearlessness in attacking hypocrisies and shams, and the merciless ridicule he has heaped upon popular fallacies, have made him many enemies among those who are un- able to distinguish between the province of the journal- ist and the spite of the individual, though in reality there was, there is, no gentler, kinder man. His great- est admirers and warmest friends are the people who know him best. Mr. Harding has often been described as a man who enjoys spearing his fellow-men with an envenomed pen, for the simple delight of seeing them writhe. No statement in regard to him could be more untrue. He has been merciless only when mercy would have been weakness, and he is always just. His writing possesses the peculiar quality of incisiveness, and car- ries with it the force and stress of his great individual- ity. A three-line paragraph written by him possesses more power to enrage or delight than a column of the same import from many another pen. Mr. Harding excels in what is known as descriptive writing. He has " The thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns." a rare faculty of depicting scenes, and seizing upon the Mr. Harding's religious predilections have been as willfully and disagreeably misunderstood and perverted as was possible. Of the conventional hypocrisy which often passes for orthodox religion he has long been guiltless. In his impressionable and "salad " days he went through the gradient of spiritual regeneration, first in the Methodist, then in the Campbellite Church, and finally came out a rationalist. He has been ac- cused of "ridiculing religion," "robbing God," and "making war upon the gospel." Not so. He respects sincerity and honesty in any one's religion; but de- mands the inalienable right of untrammeled opinion for all, and punctures hypocrisy and villainy within the physical peculiarities, personal traits, habits, and char- acteristics of individuals, so as to make the reader sce them in his mind's eye as they are. His style has not inaptly been designated "word-painting." It might more appropriately be called the etching of literature, as it is the thought stripped of superfluous verbiage, and expressed in the clearest, most concise, and terse manner. There is no fine shading or elaborate filling in. It is neither graceful nor polished, forcefulness being its chief distinction. Mr. Harding is a clear thinker, and a logical controversialist in the discussion of problems which may be worked out by purely mental processes, but is not ready in the matter of historical | Church as readily and effectually as out of it. Person-
knowledge and the recollection of names and dates. He gets right at the point of any thing without a use- less word, being severely economical with adjectives, and choosing only such verbs as are conspicuous for force rather than euphony. As a paragrapher, he is generally admitted to be without an equal in the Indi- ana press. He can put the facts and fancies of a col- umn into six positive and dazzling lines, which con- tain all there is to be told of an event, together with his opinion of it. In a contest of writing against space, the editor of the Herald would fall disgrace- fully behind every body else. He has no talent for amplification whatever. Mr. Harding is witty. His wit is not of the feeble order which passes for smartness in the "funny" columns of newspapers. It is quick, in- cisive, and significant, and without the cruelty that is so often the chief attribute of wit. He is also addicted to that milder form of satirical ingenuity called humor. His sense of the ludicrous is great, and he freely do- nates whatever riches he finds of that kind to his read- ers. He has no imagination. He never indulges in fantastic flights of fancy, nor drifts off into a poetic trend. He can be pathetic; but it is the grand pathos of deep feeling, not the elegant emotional verbosity which is so often mistaken for pathos. It might be said of George Harding, as of Dean Swift, that "hate to fools" is his great quality. He was never imbued with the foolish idea which wastes many a fine intellect, that genius is all sufficient because it is genius, and can afford to scorn labor. Mr. Harding has always been industrious. He works very rapidly, writing almost as swiftly as his hand can move, and accomplishes more in a day than many a writer could in two. He is un- doubtedly doing the best work of his life now. His judgment is maturer, his perceptions truer, and his range of thought greater, than ever before. His mind has been ripened by experience and refined by time-an illustration of that "increasing purpose" which Tenny- son assures us " through the ages runs," that
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ally, Mr. Harding is fine Jooking. He is large and well proportioned, with an erect carriage, and quick, firm step. He has the enviable art of growing handsome with added years. Time has refined the ruggedness of his features, and added benignity to his expression. He has a finely shaped, well-poised head, a dark, bronzed complexion, and singularly brilliant and expres- sive brown eyes. His face inclines to roundness, and his nose seems to be resting at a point where it is in- clined to go up but has not yet started. His hair is iron gray, and he wears a mustache, black, with a tint of gray, which appears to have as great an individuality as its owner. He has a natural dignity of manner, and is usually taciturn, saying little, but listening ably, and laughing honestly at any stroke of humor. As a jour- nalist, Mr. Harding is famous, successful, and useful. His work has been scattered over a wide territory. His influence has been felt by many minds. He has helped to make the world honester and ignorance weaker. As a man, he is below no one. His fine in- tellect and rare qualities of heart more than outweigh the mistakes of his life.
ARLAN, LEVI PINKNEY, superintendent of public schools for Marion County, Indiana, was born on the third day of March, 1853, on a farm in Warren Township, Marion County, Indiana, a few miles east of Indianapolis, on the Brookville state road. He is the son of Austin Bishop Harlan and Eliz- abeth Lorinda Harlan, whose maiden name was Con- well. His mother was of Scotch-Irish extraction, and his father of Scotch and English genealogy. Nathan Harlan, his. grandfather, came to Indiana from Ken- tucky in 1814, and settled near Connersville. He was then about twenty years of age. There he married, in 1817, Martha Patsey Reid, who was born in South Car- olina in 1799, and came to Indiana with her parents in the year 1814. They settled on a farm in Marion County, and afterward entered some land on the Brook- ville state road, adding to it by purchase. On this they cleared a farm and brought up a family of ten children. Mr. Harlan died in 1847, his wife surviving him eighteen years. Austin B., the fourth child of Nathan and Mar- tha, purchased the farm of which he inherited a portion. It has been in the family for more than fifty years, and Austin still lives there and follows the plow. The Har- lans have always been active in politics, a number of the members of the family attaining to places of high responsibility in the councils of state and nation. Not- able among these are: Hon. Aaron Harlan, member of Congress from Ohio; Hon. James Harlan, United States Senator from Iowa, also Secretary of the Interior under President Lincoln ; and Hon. John M. Harlan, Associate
Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. The last is from Kentucky. There is a distant relationship existing between these gentlemen and the subject of this sketch, they all tracing their ancestry to the same stock five generations back. Austin B. Harlan, the father, has been a local politician for twenty-five years, and for eighteen years he has held public office, either deputy real estate appraiser, school trustee, or Justice of the Peace. The early education of the subject of this sketch was obtained in the district school of his neighborhood, he attending in the winter months, and assisting his father on the farm during the summer season, with the exception of one summer spent as clerk of a merchant in Indianapolis. At an early age he exhibited a fond- ness for books, and showed a decided inclination to leave the farm and get to the school-house, where he could uninterruptedly continue his studies. He was frequently found in the field with a book, where, during "rest periods," he would improve the time in reading. He finished what are known as common branches and entered algebra and a high-school course at the age of fifteen. He obtained a certificate of qualifications to teach in the common schools of the state at the age of sixteen, reaching an extraordinarily high average for one so young-ninety-six and five-eighths. This exam- ination was conducted by Professor William A. Bell, then county examiner of Marion County, and now editor of the Indiana School Journal. Professor Bell was school examiner for three successive years, and, while Mr. Har- lan taught in the county, did much to develop his powers as a teacher. He commenced giving instruc- tion in 1870, at the age of seventeen. He taught the winter school in the district adjacent to the one which he himself had attended, with marked success. At its close he entered the North-western Christian Uni- versity, at Indianapolis, and remained there for two terms, and attained a class standing of one hundred per cent in Latin. While still in school he ranked high in mathematics and the sciences, and enjoyed the con- fidence of the professors and his fellow-students. He taught the following year in a district near his home, and at the close of the term was employed to give in- struction to a school where the powers of a disciplina- rian were needed, giving satisfaction to his employers. During the summer months he continued the study of the branches usually taken up at college, and attained a fair degree of proficiency in Latin, mathematics, his- tory, and the sciences. He was again asked to teach where he had labored the year before, and did so during the full school year (ten months), making a reputation as an instructor, an institute worker, and a disciplina- rian, which did credit to so young a man. After teach- ing three years, as narrated above, he removed to Chi- cago, Illinois, and began the study of law July 1, 1873, entering the office of Montgomery & Waterman. After
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prosecuting his studies one year he returned to his native township for the purpose of teaching, in order to secure means to further his legal education. His hands and brains had furnished the means by which he educated and clothed himself. He taught in the village school at Irvington, Indiana, the following year, and at the close of the term was appointed by the board of commissioners of Marion County superintendent of the Marion County schools, being at the time of this designation twenty- two years old, probably the youngest of any person ever chosen to such a position in the state. He entered on the duties of the office June 4, 1875, and has filled the position since with ability and success. Mr. Harlan is an original thinker and a ready talker, quick in his per- ceptions, with a strong judgment, and has a logical mind. He possesses a keen understanding of human nature, and makes friends of those with whom he comes in contact. He is regarded as one of the best county superintendents in the state. He has been a member of the Indiana Educational Association since 1874, a member of the executive committee of the State County Superintendents' Association for three years, and secre- tary of the County Superintendents' Convention twice, in 1876 and 1877. He has done a large amount of work in the educational field in the various institutes held in the state, and delivered public lectures in every township in Marion County and in a large number of counties in the state. He is a reader of considerable merit, and has given public readings on different occa- sions which elicited favorable comment. He has a fine literary taste, and numbers among the volumes of his library the finest works in prose and poetry of the last century. No public offices have been held by him ex- cept the one he is occupying at present, to which he was elected June 7, 1875. By a decision of the Su- preme Court of Indiana, in a suit brought by a former superintendent, he was declared out of office, but the same decision put in force another law, one of the pro- visions of which was that the superintendent should be elected by a county board of education. The board unanimously elected him, July 26, 1876, to fill the place thus declared vacant, less than a month after the publica- tion of the decision. He was re-elected June 4, 1877, for two years. In January, 1876, he was selected by the editor of the Indianapolis daily Republican (Mandeville G. Lee) to take a trip to the Centennial grounds at Philadelphia, and to New York, Washington, and other points, and write letters to his paper. This was satis- factorily done and the letters published. On the same trip he corresponded with other journals. He has done considerable miscellaneous newspaper work from time to time, contributing occasionally to the Indianapolis Journal and Sentinel, and to the Chicago Times. Neither his grandfather nor his father were members of any Church. He, however, joined the Methodist
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