The Huge Signed Photograph of President Warren G. Harding As a Printer That Hung in the U.S. Government Printing Office For Years

A one of a kind piece, ex Forbes Collection via the Raab Collection – two decades ago

The Public Printer is the head of the U.S. Government Printing Office, which produces most printed matter for government, including the Congressional Record, presidential reports, Supreme Court decisions, passports, tax forms, internal government documents, and agency publications. Since 1861, newly elected Presidents have chosen new Public Printers, or sometimes reappointed incumbents. The election of 1920 brought to America’s highest office a printer by trade, and a politician by choice – Warren G. Harding.

Harding was a boy when he started apprenticing as a printer. One day a lawyer brought in a brief that had to be set, printed, and ready the following day. The 12-year-old Harding worked into the night and completed the job. Before he went home, the printer put into his hand a gift, a thin piece of steel – a 13-em make up rule- the traditional symbol of a full-fledged printer. The boy was to cherish this memento for the rest of his life: while working at his own newspaper, The Marion Star, as Ohio State Senator and Lieutenant Governor, as U.S. Senator, and as President of the United States.

When Harding took office as President, the Joint Committee on Printing was headed by Utah’s Senator Reed Smoot, and Smoot suggested the name of George H. Carter to be Public Printer. Harding appointed Carter to that post on March 31, 1921. Shortly after he was sworn in on April 5, President Harding presented him with a large photograph showing him [Harding] as a working printer. Handwritten beneath it was this inscription: “To George H. Carter, with the greetings and good wishes of one printer and public servant to another. Sincerely, Warren G. Harding.” This photo held a special place of honor in the Public Printer’s office from 1921 to 1934.

This is that very photograph that hung for those years in the Public Printer’s office. It is an 11 by 16 inch image on a mount measuring 16 by 20 inches, black and white, and shows Harding in shirtsleeves bent over a typesetter. We obtained this photograph privately back in the early 1990s, and sold it to the Forbes Collection. With the liquidation of that collection, we seized the chance to have it back again.

Probably the outstanding printing challenge that came to the Government Printing Office during the Harding years related to one of his greatest accomplishments as President – the printing in record time of the Report and Minutes of the Conference on the Limitation of Armament. After the bitter experience of World War I, Harding and other statesmen wanted to cut back on huge appropriations for military hardware. The President gave his full endorsement to an international naval arms reduction conference held in Washington, DC from November 12, 1921, to February 6, 1922. The outcome was a genuine reduction, with nine treaties being drafted and signed, and Senate ratification for all of them. The report which helped make this possible was printed by the Government Printing Office. Public Printer Carter recalled: “This document made 910 printed pages, every line of which was set by the Government Printing Office in 20 hours. The first form of the fifty- seven 16-page signatures reached the pressroom at 10:30 a.m., and 1,500 complete copies were sent to the bindery by 5:30 p.m. of the same day. Paperbound copies were delivered to the President and Congress at 9:00 a.m. the following morning or 40 hours after the manuscript copy was received by the office. The printing was done on 23 automatically fed presses, which turned out 185,820 impressions, requiring 6,650 pounds of paper for the 3,260 copies issued.”