He was born on November 30, 1884 in Portland, Oregon, United States, the son of Charles Cupp Poling and Savilla Ann Kring. Both parents were United Evangelical ministers; indeed, his mother was the first woman the denomination ordained. Poling grew up in a series of parsonages in the Willamette Valley.
In 1904 he received his B. A. from Oregon's Dallas College.
After studies he was licensed to preach by the United Evangelical Church and was assigned to a church in Canton, Ohio, where his parents had once lived.
Poling's evangelical faith led him to social reform. A staunch prohibitionist, he became active in the temperance movement after accepting a church in Columbus, Ohio, in 1907. Five years later the Prohibition party nominated him for governor. Barnstorming the state in a red automobile, he drew a record "dry" vote that caused the defeat of the Republican candidate and thereby pushed that party toward Prohibition. In 1914-1915, Poling and his wife were part of the Flying Squadron of America, which crisscrossed the country to gather support for Prohibition.
After Poling became the leader of the International Society of Christian Endeavor in 1915, he moved his family to Boston. His wartime experiences, including his accidental gassing, became the basis for Huts in Hell (1918), his first popular book.
After the Armistice he returned to Europe to survey religious needs. In 1919 he participated in the Interchurch World Movement's investigation of the American steel strike; he was shocked by the strong-arm tactics used by the steel corporations to break the strike. A year later he accepted an associate pastorate at the New York Marble Collegiate Reformed Church, the oldest congregation in the city. He was the church's minister from 1923 to 1930, when other duties led him to resign.
During the 1920's, Poling also gave a series of radio talks to youths on the National Broadcasting Company; they were published in three volumes. From 1926 to 1965, Poling edited the Christian Herald, a Protestant interdenominational monthly that sponsored a children's home, a summer camp, the Bowery Mission, and orphanages in China and Korea. Poling's energy seemed boundless, and in 1927 he became head of the World's Christian Endeavor Union.
He and his wife traveled in the United States, to Europe, and in 1935-1936 and 1938 around the world. They met world leaders, carried peace messages, and visited Christian orphanages in the Far East. In 1936, with world tensions rising, Poling accepted the pastorate of the Baptist Temple, associated with Temple University, in Philadelphia. In 1944 he endorsed Roosevelt, and he offered to resign from his pulpit; his offer was refused, and he continued at the Baptist Temple until 1948.
In the postwar period Poling's major interest was anti-Communism. He advocated universal military training and admired such men as General Douglas MacArthur. He continued to be a reformer and in 1951 even ran for mayor of Philadelphia as an antimachine Republican, but he lost to Joseph S. Clark, a reform Democrat. A few years later the Polings moved to New York City.
He died in Philadelphia.
Daniel Alfred Poling was the leader of the International Society of Christian Endeavor, he took a leading role by organizing a frontline Chaplain Corps in France. His ministry at the New York Marble Collegiate Reformed Church was noted for such innovations as street preaching in front of the church. He also was the author of famous work Huts in Hell. Besies, Poling was an important part of the "China lobby, " supporting Chiang Kai-shek's Chinese Nationalist government in exile on Taiwan.
Poling had always considered himself an independent Republican. An early admirer of Theodore Roosevelt, he favored the prohibitionist Herbert Hoover over the "wet" Alfred E. Smith in 1928. During the 1930's he opposed President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, and he backed Wendell Willkie in 1940. However, during World War II he became acquainted with Roosevelt, whom he came to see as a compassionate, Christian statesman.
A pragmatist within the Prohibition party, Poling negotiated among party leaders, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and the Anti-Saloon League in efforts to obtain a constitutional amendment banning liquor.
On September 25, 1906, he married Susan Jane Vandersall; they had four children, two of whom became ministers. His wife died in 1918, and on August 11, 1919, Poling married a widow, Lillian Diebold Heingartner. They had one child and adopted another, and Poling adopted her two children.
In 1941, following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Poling's son Clark, who had been ordained, considered volunteering for the regular army.
