[3] Harry and his older brother, Mally, were forced by economic necessity to take a variety of jobs from a relatively early age to help with the family's living expenses.

[3] Instead, after graduating from high school in Washington Court House, Daugherty studied medicine for a year before taking a position as a cub reporter for The Cincinnati Enquirer.

[5] The following year Daugherty was elected secretary of the Fayette County Executive Committee, where he earned a reputation as an intense and astute young political activist.

[8] This placed Daugherty in a difficult position, since his native Fayette County was solidly behind the Sherman faction, which included Governor McKinley and the significant financial clout of Cleveland businessman Mark Hanna.

[15] Daugherty ultimately decided to decline this position, instead opening a new law office in that city, while still remaining a resident and practicing attorney in his hometown of Washington Court House.

[16] Dolby fled but was soon arrested and taken back to the jail at Washington Court House, where signs quickly pointed to an outburst of mob violence.

[17] On October 17 two companies of militiamen arrived at Washington Court House to guard Dolby for his coming transport to the Ohio Penitentiary at Columbus.

[17] Commander of the National Guard forces, Colonel Alonzo Coit, ordered his troops to fire upon the enraged lynch mob, which they did, killing five rioters and wounding fifteen others.

[17] The mob still failed to disperse and fears grew that an armed assault would be launched by furious local citizens on the militiamen defending the jail.

[17] McKinley then called upon Daugherty to shoulder the politically unpopular job of defending Coit at trial, in the face of a wrathful Fayette County citizenry which sought his conviction.

An advisory primary election was held among Fayette County Republicans in March 1896, in which Daugherty narrowly won a bitterly fought race.

The Republican National Committee recognized Daugherty's gifts as an indefatigable partisan and effective stump speaker, however, and sent him out on the road in support of McKinley's campaign for President of the United States in 1896.

[24] Over the next five years Daugherty skillfully built political influence in the Ohio Republican establishment by dealing with leaders of both of the party's major factions.

[27] Hanna's death in February 1904 and a subsequent discrediting of some of his top allies such as George B. Cox on grounds of political bossism again cleared the way for Daugherty's emergence.

[31] He remained fully engaged as a political operative in spite of this major change, however, attaching himself to a powerful state senator named Warren G. Harding.

The decision to propel Harding forward, if the nomination wasn't decided on the first ballot, was made in what became known in American politics as the smoke-filled room in the Blackstone Hotel.

Harding won the nomination after the vote deadlocked between Leonard Wood and Frank Lowden, an event whose possibility Daugherty had suggested months before in an interview.

He ran the campaign based on Harding's affable personality and fairly neutral political stance, advocating a return to "normalcy" after World War I.

[39] Morse, a multi-millionaire who had just begun a fifteen-year prison sentence, pretended to be dying in order to plead for a pardon on humanitarian grounds from President William Howard Taft.

[36] A pair of special prosecutors – Republican Assistant Attorney General Owen J. Roberts and former Democratic Senator Atlee Pomerene – were appointed to conduct a more thorough investigation of the matter.

[36] After taking testimony on the matter the pair cleared Daugherty of wrongdoing, their final report indicating that the Attorney General had neither been aware of the fraudulent oil contracts nor had he taken any bribes related to the affair.

In July 1923, just as Harding was preparing to leave on a working cruise to Alaska, Daugherty's personal assistant, Jess Smith, suddenly committed suicide.

[42] Although as a pious Quaker, Hoover was never part of the President's inner circle, yet was abruptly added to the traveling party on the cruise by a "nervous and distraught" Harding, who apparently sought his counsel.

[43]Returning from his Alaskan trip Harding suffered the first heart attack in what would prove to be the beginning of his terminal last days, finally dying in San Francisco on August 2, 1923.

[44] While new President Calvin Coolidge initially resisted calls to sack Daugherty, Hoover and Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes prevailed upon him to eliminate a man whom they considered to be a corrupt official.

From this man's long-time character, he should never have been in any government.... Coolidge had a high sense of justice and asserted that he had no definite knowledge of wrongdoings by Daugherty and could not remove him on rumors.

The indictment came down one year after Smith[citation needed], Republican political boss John T. King of Connecticut, and former Alien Property Custodian Thomas W. Miller were charged with the same misconduct.

[48] However, the Supreme Court decision to uphold Mail's contempt conviction would also result in the Midland Bank case against Daugherty passing into history.

In the book he claimed that Fall had become Secretary of the Interior by forging Daugherty's signature, and that Smith, his close friend, had killed himself because of diabetes, not a guilty conscience.

Spending many of his final years in Florida and Mackinac Island, Michigan, Daugherty planned to write more books to clear his reputation, but in October 1940, he suffered two heart attacks and was stricken with pneumonia.