[1] He then attended Trinity College Academy, a school in Sioux City built on land purchased from Harrington's parents by the Order of St.

[2] He attended the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, where he played football for Knute Rockne,[3] as a second-stringer on the legendary "Four Horsemen" team that dominated all opponents in the 1924 season.

This prompted Harrington, a 9th district resident, to withdraw from the race for Lieutenant Governor to accept the Democratic nomination to replace Gillette on the ballot for the U.S. House of Representatives.

[7] In the months before the United States' entry into World War II, Harrington declined to support President Roosevelt's departures from a policy of strict neutrality.

[8] At the time, his support for strict neutrality and split with Roosevelt, whose popularity in Iowa had declined after 1936, likely matched the views of many of his constituents.

[9] Thus, after he voted to declare war following the Pearl Harbor attack, he entered in May 1942 in the Army Air Forces, where he was commissioned as a captain, and took a leave of absence from Congress while becoming a candidate for re-election.

"[10][11] However, before the 1942 general election, President Roosevelt issued an order as commander-in-chief that forced members of Congress serving in the military to resign from one position or the other.

On November 29, 1943, while serving in the Air Corps as a security control officer in Rutland, England, Harrington suffered a fatal heart attack.