Presidential Passage: Warren G. Harding in Wrangell
President Warren G. Harding’s 1923 “Voyage of Understanding” is the only time a sitting U.S. president has ever visited Wrangell. Though he died a month later, his trip helped to define what Wrangell means to America.
President Harding (center) greets an audience from the back of a train in 1923. (photo credit: Wikipedia Commons)
The Voyage of Understanding
Warren G. Harding was sworn in as the 29th President of the United States on March 4, 1921. His predecessor, Woodrow Wilson, saw his presidency consumed by avoiding, and ultimately entering, World War I in Europe. Harding knew the United States was weary from war, and the nation was ready to turn its focus back home.
In the mid-term elections of 1922, Harding’s Republicans lost seventy seats in the U.S. House and seven seats in the U.S. Senate. Despite the losses, the Republicans maintained control of Congress, but Harding could not ignore the political winds blowing against him.
In early 1923, President Harding announced a “Voyage of Understanding.” Harding, cabinet secretaries, and the Speaker of the United States House planned to criss-cross the country by train to meet with ordinary Americans in small towns and large cities. The multi-stop tour would allow Americans of all stripes to hear and meet their leaders in person.
Members of the Voyage of Understanding included (left to right): President Warren G. harding, U.S. Speaker of the House Frederick H. Gillett, Interior Secretary Hubert Work, Agriculture Secretary Henry C. Wallace, Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover, and Alaska Governor Scott C. Bone.
But Harding’s voyage would be historic for another reason. He announced he would visit Alaska, which no president had ever done. The public’s curiosity about Alaska was high. Its untapped natural resources attracted President Harding. At his first stop on the Voyage of Understanding, Harding told the crowd in Grafton, West Virginia:
“I am going to Alaska so that the Government may know better, and may be helpful in revealing to you, this treasure land of ours which is nearly as large as one-third of the mainland of the United States and whose boundless resources are as yet undeveloped.”
Days later on June 29, President Harding told an audience in Dillon, Montana:
“I am going to Alaska to learn more about that Territory, and I am immensely in earnest about it. We have in Alaska a domain as large as one-third of continental United States, and yet we are allowing it to lie undeveloped and even to go backward.”
While Harding intended to bring attention to Alaska’s natural resources, Wrangell eyed an opportunity to bring attention to itself.
Photograph of Wrangell, identified as the “City of the Islands,” from the Commemorative Book for Harding’s trip to Alaska. (photo credit: Ohio History Connect)
Invitation to Wrangell
J.W. Pritchett, the editor of the Wrangell Sentinel, had one thing in common with President Harding: they were both newspapermen. Harding began as a newspaper editor, expanding his business and using it to ride into political office in Ohio. Both Harding and Pritchett understood the role newspapers played as a local economic booster.
After the doldrums of World War I and Spanish Influenza, Americans were ready to have fun. Tourists came aboard ships from ports like Seattle and Victoria to see Alaska’s beautiful scenery, but also to take in the unique Indigenous culture. In 1922, fur-trader Walter C. Waters opened his Bear Totem Store to display curios and carvings to eager tourists.
J.W. Pritchett knew exactly how to pitch Wrangell as a unique stop for Harding’s visit. In a letter dated May 28, 1923, Pritchett wrote to the president:
“The Wrangell Commercial Club on behalf of the citizens of the second oldest town in Alaska extends to you a most cordial invitation to include Wrangell in the itinerary of your proposed trip to Alaska. We believe our totems and wonderful collection of Indian relics would interest you. And at the same time your visit to Wrangell would afford a welcome opportunity for our people to extend fond greetings to the first President of the United States who has ever visited Alaska.”
Weeks later, Alaska Governor Scott C. Bone informed Wrangell that Harding would visit the town. Governor Bone wrote:
“I am definitely advised from Washington that the Transport Henderson, bearing the President and party, will leave Tacoma on July 5th, reaching Ketchikan July 7th and Wrangell July 8th. The party will probably tarry at Wrangell two or three hours... The arrangements for the reception at Wrangell will, naturally, be under your direction and it is especially desirable that the American flag be in evidence everywhere by way of patriotic greeting.”
The USS Henderson in 1920. It served as a transport vessel across the Atlantic Ocean after World War I. It became Harding’s vessel for passage to Alaska and British Columbia. (Photo credit: Wikipedia Commons)
With that, Wrangell had exactly one month to prepare. Governor Bone included $100 for expenses, and the town council voted to spend $250. The town council coordinated with local groups to set up committees to oversee the myriad tasks. The Tlingit, who numbered roughly one-third of Wrangell’s population, were asked to paddle canoes out to Harding to welcome him to Wrangell.
The U.S. Customs House sits to the left, while the Courthouse sits to the right. In 1868, the U.S. Army constructed these buildings as part of Fort Wrangel, but quickly abandoned them. They became hubs of business and civic activity. (photo credit: Mike and Carolyn Nore Collection)
The Court House was selected as site for Harding’s address. It was a spot conveniently located near the dock, allowing Harding’s party easy access. But it was also a place heavy with history. The Court House was the seat of American power in Wrangell, having been constructed in 1868 as part of the original garrison of Fort Wrangel. Over decades, it had been a hospital, gold rush dancehall, Indian boarding school, court house, and it would now welcome the President of the United States.
In recognition of J.W. Pritchett’s efforts, Wrangell’s town council unanimously awarded him complete, unfettered access to President Harding.
Mayor J.G. Grant of Wrangell formally invited everyone Petersburg to come to Wrangell, writing:
“Wrangell would appreciate having all Petersburg meet President Harding here on July 8th and extends a cordial invitation to all who will be able to come on that date.”
Despite the amount of planning, there was no preventing the potential for politics.
The U.S. Capitol building photographed in 1923. (photo credit: Wikipedia Commons)
Politics
President Harding could escape the heat, humidity, and scandals of Washington, D.C. by coming to Alaska, but he could not escape politics. Even though Wrangell is nearly 3,000 miles from Washington, D.C., decisions made in the nation’s capital played an important role in Wrangell every day.
Statehood
Alaska was not yet a state. As a territory, it could cast no votes for president, had no voting members of Congress, and relied entirely upon the federal government for administration. Even Alaska’s governor, Scott C. Bone, was appointed by President Harding. Alaska’s only voice in Washington, D.C. was Daniel Sutherland, a non-voting delegate to Congress.
By 1923, Wrangell was actively petitioning the U.S. government build the Etolin Harbor Breakwater. For several years, it had failed in Congress, but the town persisted and leaned on Daniel Sutherland to make it happen. To earn the right to self-governance through statehood, Alaska needed to prove to the president and Congress that it could support itself economically.
Timber
Southeast Alaska’s millions of acres of tree-covered islands looked like a fortune just waiting to be chopped down. As American growth expanded at home, the demand for timber grew, as well. It was everywhere you turned in southeast Alaska, scarce a patch of land without a tree on it. Governor Scott C. Bone later predicted pulp and paper mills in Alaska’s future. He said:
“All in the rain belt, and unhampered by fire, there had at that time hardly been a dent in these colossal stands of spruce, hemlock and cedar. The obvious inquiry was why Alaska, through this timber, was not supplying in large part the wood pulp and print paper demands of the country.”
Salmon
While the supply of timber seemed unlimited, the fight over the scarcity of salmon was about to boil over. For years, canneries based outside of Alaska had seized traditional Tlingit salmon streams and constructed fish traps. The salmon was canned and shipped south by the corporation, leaving little economic benefit behind in Alaska.
Things got worse in 1922 when Harding’s Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover, successfully established a fisheries reservation system in southwest Alaska which threatened to expand to southeast Alaska. The system would exclude independent fishermen from fishing while assuring that canneries could continue to operate as usual.
For the Tlingit, who had always relied upon salmon for diet and cultural traditions, this was a critical threat to their way of life. William Lewis Paul, the first Tlingit lawyer, led the Alaska Native Brotherhood and used his influence to gain passage aboard the USS Henderson as it traveled from Metlakatla to Ketchikan. With less than an hour available, William Paul pressed his case upon Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover. Fred Paul, son of William Paul, quotes his father as telling The Alaska Fisherman newspaper:
William Paul
“Mr. Hoover is what he has been from the first, a special interest man whose friends are among the packers, not because he is bad or corrupt, but because he belongs to that class; he thinks as they do, he likes them. He cannot understand us, the little fellow, who has never been able to earn more than a couple of thousand dollars per year. He understands money, millions of it and power, plenty of it. We’ll say that our interview was a draw. Mr. Hoover did not change his mind, and we will not change ours.”
Indian Citizenship
But William Paul faced another challenge that was even closer to home. In March 1923, his mother, Tillie Paul-Tamaree, was arrested for encouraging fellow Tlingit elder Charlie Jones to vote in the previous fall election. The federal government argued to a grand jury that Charlie Jones was not a U.S. citizen, even though he was had lived in Wrangell since before the United States arrived. Both Charlie Jones and Tillie Paul-Tamaree faced jail time and steep fines if convicted. William Paul took the case and prepared for trial in the fall of 1923.
Politics followed the president wherever he went. Harding made his historic Alaskan landfall on July 8, 1923 when he landed in Metlakatla, followed shortly after in Ketchikan (watch video). It was his 32nd wedding anniversary, but he never mentioned it in his speeches.
After a short visit in Ketchikan, the USS Henderson set course into the night for Wrangell.
Wrangell’s boardwalk Front Street decorated with 48-star American flags stretching between buildings, while men and women in fine clothes mingle on the boardwalk. (photo credit: Michael and Carolyn Nore Collection)
Welcoming the President
It was the morning of Monday, June 9, 1923, but it looked like the 4th of July. American flags hung from the storefronts and between buildings. People dressed in fine clothes gathered on the boardwalk of Front Street among the flags, awaiting the arrival of President Harding.
Harding was supposed to arrive the day before. With nothing to do, Petersburg and Wrangell organized a baseball game, which Petersburg won 18-12.
Harding’s biographer, Joe Mitchell Chapple, accompanied Harding on the Voyage of Understanding. In Life and Times of Warren G. Harding, Chapple described their arrival aboard the USS Henderson:
“Wrangell is one of the oldest names in the history of Alaska. The town that bears it is over a thousand miles distant from Mt. Wrangell and the Island of Wrangell. Like Ketchikan, it is built on the side of the mountain, with business buildings and streets planted on tall green stilts above the muddy waters of the Stikine River...
In the morning boat crews from the destroyer were met by quaint war vessels of another and more ancient kind—the war canoes of the Indians painted in gay, barbaric designs, and manned by natives in equally colorful war blankets.”
A Tlingit-style canoe filled with men in suits prepares to greet President Warren G. Harding in Wrangell, Alaska. In the bow and the stern, men stand wearing traditional Tlingit robes over their suits. (photo credit: Wikipedia Commons)
The Wrangell Sentinel of July 12, 1923 described the scene:
“A few minutes before the Presidential party came ashore a group of Natives rowed around the Henderson in a war canoe that was 40 head pilot years old. Chester Worthington, wearing an Indian blanket, was in command with Eddie Berkeley as pilot. The decks of the Henderson were crowded with people who seemed both interested and pleased at the sight. Many pictures of the canoe and its occupants were taken by members of the party.”
The Tlingit canoe sits in the foreground, while a navy destroyer sits at a distance aways. (photo credit: Greg McCormack)
The Tlingit canoe greets the launches carrying President Harding and his entourage to the dock in Wrangell. (photo credit: Greg McCormack)
As a navy band on board the ship played, President Harding and his entourage disembarked the USS Henderson for smaller launches which carried them toward the dock in Wrangell.
President and Mrs. Harding sitting in the back of a launch taking them between the USS Henderson and the Wrangell dock. (photo credit: WhiteHouseHistory.org)
The July 10, 1923 New York Times wrote:
“The party landed here this morning to find the town, once the chief trading section of the Hudson Bay Company, decorated with flags and flooded with the sunshine of a perfect Summer day. Here the party saw their first Totem poles. The President and Mrs. Harding were presented a huge basket of strawberries, nearly twice the size of the berries they have been accustomed to in Washington, and a bouquet of mammoth peonies.”
President Harding and his entourage headed the short distance up the hill, past the large crowd, to the front of the Court House.
President Warren G. Harding giving a speech in front of the Court House in Wrangell, Alaska. (photo credit: Michael and Carolyn Nore Collection).
Harding’s Speech
The New York Times reported there was an audience of one-thousand turned out to hear the president speak. The latest census counted 821 people living in Wrangell. Combined with the reported 75-100 visitors from Petersburg, Harding’s audience consisted of just about everyone in Wrangell and those living in outlying areas.
Harding and his men lined up along the boardwalk in the center of the Court House. The president stood front and center, his secretaries flanking him on his left. On his right, his wife, Florence, slumped on the porch steps, wrapped in a heavy coat and wide-brim hat that cast a shadow over her face. Two uniformed naval officers stood at attention on either side of Harding.
Presbyterian minister Robert J. Diven began the ceremonies by welcome Harding and making lighthearted remarks. He was followed by Governor Scott C. Bone, who formally introduced the president. Without the benefit of sound amplification or notes, Warren G. Harding gave this speech:
“Ladies and Gentlemen:
It affords me great pleasure to receive so cordial a welcome at Wrangell and to be able to greet you. One thought expressed by your spokesman a moment ago appealed very strongly to me. He said we would find here a happy and more or less contented people. I wonder if that is not about the greatest thing in life. Men may acquire riches; they may attain fame; they may exercise great power and sometimes great influence, beneficent or otherwise; but I know of nothing in the world to be so cherished as the possession of happiness. If your happiness in Alaska is comparable to the sunshine this morning and is in any way a reflex of the beautiful scenery through which we have been traveling you are a most fortunate people.
I cannot see very much difference between Alaska and other portions of the wonderful West. When we get off the boat we find bearing the colors ahead of us a splendid representation of the American Legion.”
Wrangell’s first American Legion post, established inside one of the old Fort Wrangel garrison buildings. (photo credit: The American Legion Weekly Volume 4, 1922)
From Harding’s vantage, he could look straight ahead and to his right to see Wrangell’s new American Legion post, named for Merlin Elmer Palmer, who served in World War I. Harding remarked:
“You in Alaska probably did more in the Nation’s hour of trial in the effort to preserve civilization than did some of the States. It is good to know that up here are legionaires who will be the spokesmen and sponsors for American patriotism for a generation or more to come. It is a delight to enjoy this magnificent view.
I believe I will merely bring a message of congratulation and leave all promises until we are better informed about conditions obtaining in the various sections of Alaska. The simple, honest truth is that we have come in order to know you better.
If I may be credited with one desire more than another it is to act as an apostle of understanding. I have been trying to preach understanding ever since I came to the Presidency, for I believe that understanding is the remedy for nearly all our ills. If there are conditions which ought not to exist we need only to understand them in order to correct them; if there are relationships which are not fortunate, then we need only to understand them and the remedy will be easy. If the nations of the world could have a complete and ample understanding each with the other, there never would be war. Intelligent understanding is the most desirable possession among peoples and nations of which I can conceive. So officers of your government have come to this wonderful land, first of all to understand conditions better and to ascertain what is essential here in order to promote progress and add to your happiness and to your opportunity.
I do not mind confessing to you that we have come just a little bit selfishly also, for we wanted to enjoy this matchless scenery, these tremendous expanses of mountain and water, to breathe your invigorating air, and to absorb something of the strength and the wholesomeness of the lives you in this territory live. Thus far we have been more than delighted.
It has been a pleasure to meet you, fellow citizens; it has been good to look upon you; it has been good to drink in the wonders of nature; aye, and it is good to feel that there is before you and before our country a glorious and inspiring future. I want to thank you for the cordiality of your greeting and to wish you the best of good fortune in all your undertakings. [Applause.]
I take it that you would like to greet and hear from some of the members of the official party who are traveling with us, and I shall ask Governor Bone to introduce them.”
With that, Governor Bone introduced Florence Harding, who bowed and smile at the applause she received.
Interior Secretary Hubert Work addresses the crowd in Wrangell. President Harding, to his right, looks towards the ground.
Governor Bone introduced Secretary of the Interior Hubert Work. The Wrangell Sentinel reported:
“Dr. Work stated that so far he had not found Alaska to be much different from the great west. He said the secret of the greatness of the west was that it had been built up by people from the east who were handpicked—that the most virile, energetic and ambitious people of the east had been the ones who had came west and developed the country.”
Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover addresses the crowd in Wrangell as President Harding and fellow members of the Voyage of Understanding stand behind him. (photo credit: Michael and Carolyn Nore Collection)
The Wrangell Sentinel reported that Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover spoke briefly:
“He spoke chiefly of the fishing industry and the importance of conserving the fish of Alaska in order that the supply be depleted as was done years ago on the Atlantic coast.”
The Secretary of Agriculture, Henry C. Wallace, was the next to speak. The Wrangell Sentinel reported:
“He said that people of this particular region have considerable dealings with the Forest Service, and that in the interest of efficiency it had been so arranged that 95 per cent of the decisions having to do with the Forest Service in Alaska are now being made by men here on the ground.”
The final speaker recognized by Governor Bone was the Speaker of the House, Frederick H. Gillett. Gillet’s remarks were brief but were described by the Wrangell Sentinel as being “a felicitous nature and well received.”
At the end of ceremony, the public formed a line, and the roughly one-thousand people assembled shook the hands of the president and first lady.
Young George Elton Barnes, son of Acting Mayor George Barnes, pets a puppy sitting on the lap of First Lady Florence Harding. (photo credit: Ohio History Connection, California Museum of Photography)
President Harding, a masterful newspaperman, saw a photo opportunity when a dog approached the first lady. The Wrangell Sentinel wrote:
“Buddie, a young thoroughbred collie belonging to U.S. Deputy Marshal H.D. Campbell succeeded is getting into the limelight while the President was here. Buddie selected a place for himself on the lawn at Mrs. Harding’s feet. She admired him so much that she had her picture taken with him. Just then little Elton Barnes Jr., came along, and the President said, ‘Now we can have a real picture,’ and he stood the little fellow at the side of Mrs. Harding and the dog. Junior at once began petting the dog and smiling.”
Governor Bone and Mrs. Harding stand for a photograph in front of a business on Wrangell’s Front Street. (photo credit: California Museum of Photography)
Governor Bone escorts Mrs. Harding down the walkway to the dock in Wrangell, Alaska. (photo credit: California Museum of Photography)
After only a few hours, Harding and his entourage left Wrangell and set course for Juneau. That evening, Harding remarked to his biographer, Joe Mitchell Chapple, about the effect of the people of Wrangell on him. Chapple quoted Harding as saying:
“You know, I do enjoy meeting these people... They help me more than I can tell them. They have preserved the sturdy spirit of the pioneer, and without our pioneers and frontiers we are likely to lose the self-reliance and upstanding courage which have made our nation grow.
Can you conceive of anything finer than you see here? Where men rear robust, educated families with the right ideals, making happy homes-where they go ahead and do things without fear or favor? Alaska is going to work out her own problems if I judge these people aright, for, first of all, they have that great heritage of health which means so much.”
Chapple ended this story, “He sighed as he said these words, and his voice was that of a tired man.”
A two-page spread showing Harding’s Alaska voyage from McClure’s Magazine, October 1923.
Exploring Alaska
In total, President Harding made eleven stops in Alaska: Metlakatla, Ketchikan, Wrangell, Juneau, Skagway, Anchorage, Nenana, Fairbanks, Cordova, and Sitka. At each stop along the way, Harding was photographed with locals, made speeches, and spread his gospel of natural resource development.
For historians writing accounts of Harding’s visit to Alaska, one event looms larger than all the rest: Harding’s “Golden Spike” in Nenana, which marked the symbolic completion of the Alaska Railroad.
President Harding swings a hammer to pound in the final “golden spike” to complete the Alaska Railroad. (photo credit: Alaska’s Digital Archives)
In fact, Harding’s visit to Nenana was no more historic than his visit to any community along his Voyage of Understanding. His presence alone made every stop historic, but the image of a United States president swinging a hammer proved to be a pinnacle moment for Harding, showing him as strong, industrious, and building the country. It was good the publicity for Harding, but even better publicity for Nenana and the Alaska Railroad.
President Harding addressing Husky Stadium in Seattle, Washington. (Photo credit: Wikipedia Commons)
Return voyage
On his return trip south, Harding addressed an audience of 45,000 at Husky Stadium in Seattle, Washington. He boldly declared, “Alaska is destined for ultimate Statehood.” Harding discounted concerns that Alaska’s northern climate prevented it from attaining a sizable population. Harding pointed to European cities in high latitudes, remarking:
“Stockholm, the Venice of the North,’ with its 400,000 people, is in the same latitude as Juneau, our Alaskan capital. Glasgow, one of the world’s greatest work-shops, with over a million inhabitants, if translated in its own latitude to the Pacific Coast of America, would be the metropolis of Alaska. Copenhagen, with its 600,000 guardians of the Baltic portals, is in almost exactly the same latitude as Wrangell, Alaska. This study of latitudes and locations seems likely to help us in projecting a picture of the future Alaska.”
With that, Harding and his entourage headed for San Francisco.
A headline from the August 2, 1923 Wrangell Sentinel.
Wrangell Mourns
On August 2, 1923, the public was shocked to learn that President Harding died of illness in San Francisco. The Wrangell Sentinel published the news of Harding’s death, noting “nowhere is there greater poignancy of grief than in Alaska.”
One month after Harding’s visit, Wrangell gathered in the Redmen’s Lodge to mourn the president. The task of addressing the audience fell to the same men who had welcomed Harding the previous month. Acting Mayor George Barnes opened the service. Reverend H.P. Corser offered a prayer and benediction, and Reverend Diven offered a eulogy. The August 9, 1923 Wrangell Sentinel quoted Reverend Diven as saying,
“Many considered the President inactive because he was not spectacular. But had we had a man in his stead for president who was more spectacular and less thoughtful our nation might be in a well nigh hopeless condition today. The President sought to direct the trend of our national life toward thoughtfulness, calmness and friendliness. The President well realized that organized hate could never promote the world’s best interest, while he considered friendship the mightiest force in our national life.”
The photo of George Barnes Jr. with Florence Harding appeared throughout newspapers, including this clipping from the August 6, 1923 Menominee Herald-Leader.
Photo entitled “clouds over southeast Alaska.” (photo credit: Wikipedia Commons)
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Understanding Alaska
Through Harding’s voyage, the public came to understand something of Alaska better — and became more curious. As J.W. Pritchett anticipated, the attention brought people to Wrangell. The Chicago Commerce of July 21, 1923 wrote:
“The visit of President Harding to Alaska is not only giving him an opportunity of viewing this vast country but it is also giving publicity to Alaska which she has not had since the days of the gold rush twenty-five years ago. Generally, the public thinks of Alaska as a forbidding primeval land of ice, snow, Indians, Eskimos and dog teams. But the mean temperature of the east coast cities, Juneau, Ketchikan and Wrangell, is about the same as St. Louis, Mo.”
The January 17, 1924 Wrangell Sentinel remarked:
“Eight hundred advance bookings for Alaska reported by the Admiral Line shows that increasing interest that is being taken in this Northern territory. Year by year the tourist travel to Alaska is increasing, and the recent visit of the late President Harding concentrated attention on Alaska.”
While President Harding died, the booster spirit did not die with him. Herbert Hoover became president in 1929, continuing the policies he and Harding had set for Alaska. Nobody in Wrangell in 1923 realized they were seeing speeches by two U.S. presidents.
By 1924, the U.S. Congress authorized spending on the Etolin Harbor Breakwater, a long-sought capital project. The breakwater would ensure that fishing boats could stay protected inside the harbor year-round, rather than having to leave in the fall. Speaker Gillett’s visit to Wrangell, and witness to its unprotected harbor, may have helped ease the passage of the budget.
Workers in 1924 building the Etolin Harbor Breakwater in Wrangell off Shustak Point.
The rise of tourism in Wrangell was no side-effect of Harding’s visit, either. Wrangell’s economic boosters intentionally positioned everything about the town, including its unique Tlingit heritage, to attract tourists. The successful visit of Harding and his entourage painted Wrangell as a favored destination for visitors coming through southeast Alaska.
The only other president to ever visit Wrangell was Ronald and Nancy Reagan, who paid an impromptu visit on July 30, 1992 aboard a pleasure boat. Like the Hardings, the Reagans landed in July at the dock near the north end of Front Street, mingled with locals, and stayed only a few hours. Both occasions affirmed Wrangell’s status as a destination for tourism, even by U.S. presidents.