Chapter I: Part 1

THE PRESIDENT’S
DAUGHTER _by Nan Britton_

_Published by_
_E_LIZABETH _A_NN
_G_UILD
INC.

_New York, U.S.A., 1927_--------

COPYRIGHT, 1927, _by_ ELIZABETH ANN GUILD, INC.

_All rights reserved_

Including Translations,
Reproductions, Reprinting
in Newspapers or
Periodicals. Quotation
from this book restricted
to three hundred words
except by special permission
of the publishers

_Printed in the
United States
of America_

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

The engraving of the illustrations and the printing of this entire book were done by the Polygraphic Company of America, Inc., New York, who employed the CONTRASTO process of printing.

“There is no such thing as concealment”

--_Ralph Waldo Emerson in
the Essay on Compensation_

“Only by frankness concerning the truth that hurts can we secure a sustained respect for the truth that helps”

--_Glenn Frank, President,
University of Wisconsin_

HER EYES

By NAN BRITTON

Sometimes her eyes are blue as deep sea-blue,
And calm as waters stilled at evenfall.
I see not quite my child in these blue eyes,
But him whose soul shines wondrously through her.
Serene and unafraid he was, and knew
How to dispel the fears in other hearts,
Meeting an anxious gaze all tranquilly:
These are her father’s eyes.

Sometimes her eyes are blue--the azure blue
Of an October sky on mountain-tops.
I do not see my child in these blue eyes;
They are the eyes of him whose spirit glowed
With happiness of soul alone which lies
Far deeper than the depths of bluest eyes--
Whose smile a thing of joy it was to see:
These eyes, this smile, are his.

Sometimes her eyes are of a tired gray-blue,
Filled with the sadness of an age-old world.
And then again my child’s not in these eyes;
These are the eyes of one whom grief assailed,
Whom disappointment crushed with its great weight.
Around his head a halo memory casts,
Reflecting that refiner’s fire which purged
Him clean, and made him what he was.

Sometimes in child-amaze and wonder-blue
Her baby eyes are lifted up to mine.
These only are the eyes she brought with her.
And so I fold her close within my arms
And talk of dolls, and stars, and mother-love,
For well I know that pitifully soon
She will be grown, and then her eyes will hold
Only the deeper lights--his own eyes knew!

_Reprinted by permission from_
THE NEW YORK TIMES

DEDICATION

this Book is dedicated with understanding and love to all unwedded mothers, and to their innocent children whose fathers are usually not known to the world....

_Nan Britton_

THE AUTHOR’S MOTIVE

If love is the only right warrant for bringing children into the world then many children born in wedlock are illegitimate and many born out of wedlock are legitimate.

In the author’s opinion wedlock as a word quite defines itself. Often a man and woman are locked at their wedding in a forced fellowship which soon proves to be loveless and during which the passions of the two express themselves in witless and unwanted progeny. And yet we wonder what is wrong with the world!

The story of my life-long love for Warren Gamaliel Harding and his love for me and our love for our child is told in these pages, together with the family, community, and political circumstances under which this relationship continued for the six and one-half years preceding the sudden passing of the President on August 2, 1923.

The author has had but one motive in writing for publication the story of her love-life with Mr. Harding. This motive is grounded in what seems to her to be _the need for legal and social recognition and protection of all children in these United States born out of wedlock_.

To the author, this cause warrants the unusual and conscious frankness with which she has written this book, and the apparent disregard for the so-called conventions, because she feels that _the issue is greater than all the personal sacrifices involved_.

Indeed, even like frankness on the part of thousands of mothers who could divulge similar life-tragedies might well be added to that of the author’s if such sacrifice would insure the aggressive agitation of a question involving one of the gravest wrongs existent today, with a view toward a legislative remedy.

Because of the political stature of the man-character involved, this fact-story would no doubt get to the public sooner or later, as news, or as court testimony in trials such as have recently involved men who are or have been national figures. In such case the story so sacred to the author would doubtless be garbled by news writers, or told only partially to serve some legal, personal or party interest. The author feels therefore that through her experiences she has been led to see the need for telling it herself, truly and completely, and in making it the basis for an appeal in behalf of the unfathered children of unwedded mothers, in the sincere hope that this book may result in happier conditions for childhood and motherhood throughout these United States of America.

Much consideration has been given by the author to all probable reactions resulting from the publication of this book. The fact that this narrative is bound up with the life of a man who has held the highest office in this land may mean that temporarily he may be misjudged. But the author, who has shrined him in reverent memory, feels in her heart that these revelations cannot but inspire added love for him after his trials and humanities are perceived and acknowledged.

Moreover, the author is obliged to introduce to a none-too-kindly world the daughter of her love-union with Mr. Harding and thus subject her to curious gaze and speculation. The author regrets this as any mother would, but feels that in no way can she effectively show her understanding love for all children except by baring her own experience, in the hope that the notability of the case itself may influence regard for the welfare of children and help to right an old and current wrong.

Nor, indeed, does the author herself hope to escape criticism unless her real motive is definitely apprehended and conceded. It has required no little heart-break on her part to relive the story of her love-life, but it had to be relived in memory that the story might be portrayed truthfully. Only by keeping before her the human cause which impelled the writing, and a constant hope that through her own suffering she might be instrumental in preventing the heartaches of thousands of potential mothers, has this been possible.

Knowing the real President Harding as she does, the author feels that if he could be brought back today to witness the futile struggle the mother of his only child has suffered, he himself would proclaim his own fatherhood, and seek to open eyes blinded by convention to a situation which is depriving thousands of innocent children of their natural birthright in denying them legal recognition before the world. In the author’s opinion, _there should be no so-called “illegitimates” in these United States_.

It is to be remembered that all children must be precious in the sight of our Father, otherwise he would not be a heavenly father, and that Jesus of Nazareth did _not_ say, “Suffer little children born in wedlock to come unto me for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” Jesus loved and honored all little children and didn’t bother at all about who their parents were or about the manner of their birth. He himself was born in a manger which was most unconventional.

As a result of the author’s own personal experiences written in this book, and because of the thousands of prospective mothers who face unknowingly like tragic situations, she feels that an organized effort should be made to secure State and Federal legislation providing the following benefits for unwedded mothers and unfathered children:

_First_: That on the birth of a child the name of the father be _correctly_ registered in the public records, and that failure to do so shall constitute a criminal offense.

_Second_: That every child born in the United States of America be regarded as legitimate whether born within or without wedlock.

The enactment of these statutes would not, in the author’s opinion, detract from the dignity of the marriage-union which automatically legalizes children born therein, but would insure protection for those innocent children born of a love-union in which one or both parents are unmarried.

_Readers of this book who agree with the author that this entire situation constitutes a Cause, and who feel with her that members should be gathered into the Elizabeth Ann League to collectively urge the proposed legislation suggested above to provide social equality among children, are invited to write her a personal letter in care of the publishers {see title page}._

THE AUTHOR

FOREWORD

The author desires to express gratitude to the many public-spirited men and women who have shared her earnest in the cause sponsored by this book; also to those friends whose knowledge and review of the facts herein recorded have contributed to their chronological correctness.

The author early sought legal counsel regarding the use of the letters from which she has quoted in this book, and others unmentioned by her. She was advised that the copyright of these letters remains with those who wrote them and she has therefore been obliged by law to paraphrase them or quote only partially. The originals of all these letters from President Harding, Mrs. Ralph T. Lewis (Abigail Harding), Mr. Heber Herbert Votaw, Mrs. Heber Herbert Votaw (Carolyn Harding), Tim Slade (as he is called in this book), Hon. James M. Cox, Democratic nominee for President in 1920, Mr. C. E. Witt of the Picture Publicity Bureau of the Republican National Committee during the Harding Campaign, and others, are in the possession of her publishers and may be read by any persons whose request appears justified.

_The_
PRESIDENT’S
DAUGHTER

_1_

I was born in Claridon, Ohio, a very small village about ten miles east of Marion, Ohio, on November 9th, 1896. My father, a physician, was at that time practising under the supervision of his cousin, an older physician who had an established practice of long standing. My mother, who had received some of her high school training in Marion, where she had come from New Philadelphia, Ohio, to live with her maternal grandmother, was teaching a country school in Claridon when father met her. I was still a baby and my older sister Elizabeth about three when we moved to Marion, where we settled permanently.

Inasmuch as this book has much to do with President Harding and myself, I may sketch briefly the friendly relations which existed early between our families:

While my father was working up a practice in Claridon, Mr. Harding, then in his twenties, was struggling with Marion’s now well-known newspaper, _The Marion Daily Star_. Father, being himself somewhat of a writer, often wrote humorously to Mr. Harding of his experiences among the country-folk, and these letters were edited by Mr. Harding and published in his paper; I remember Mr. Harding’s telling me how delighted he always was to receive them.

My father always spoke of Mr. Harding with warmest affection, and, later on, was one of Mr. Harding’s strongest advocates despite the fact that my father was a Democrat. It is very likely that they developed mutual regard and affection for each other back in those days of ambitious editor and country doctor. Certainly no finer tributes could be paid any man than those which I have myself heard from Mr. Harding concerning my father.

Mr. Harding’s father was a physician also, and this fact may have strengthened the bond of friendship which early grew to warm regard. As far back as I can remember Dr. Harding had his office in the old _Star_ Building, right across the hall from his editor-son. I believe it is only recently that he has discontinued active practice. I know he has passed his eighty-second birthday.

My mother’s attitude in the matter of my relationship to Mr. Harding has not been conducive to discussion with her about her own early acquaintance with the Harding family, but this I know: she must have been attending high school at the same time that _some_ of the Hardings were, because she is only a few years Abigail Harding’s senior.

There were, as Miss Abigail Harding has often told me, three “sets” of Harding children: first came Warren, the eldest, then Charity, these two forming the first set; then came “Deac” (Dr. George Tryon Harding III, only brother of Warren) and presumably Mary, the sister who was almost blind and who died about 1910, I think, soon after Warren Harding’s mother passed on; then came Abigail, known to everyone as “Daisy” Harding, and lastly Carolyn, the “baby” of the family. It seems to me there was a child who died very early, though I am not sure about this.

My mother had a sister Della who also lived a good part of the time with mother’s and her maternal grandmother, Mrs. Mary Richards, in Marion, and, I believe, went to school there also. Della Williams married a missionary to Burma, India, Howard E. Dudley. Some time after, Carolyn Harding also married a missionary to Burma, Heber Herbert Votaw. Up to that time “Carrie” and “Dell” had been friends, if not intimate at least upon the friendliest kind of terms.

However, their husbands were missionaries of decidedly different denominations. Carrie Harding married a Seventh Day Adventist and my Aunt Dell married a Baptist. So from then on their paths diverged. Diverged indeed so widely that my first recollection of hearing the Hardings discussed at any great length is identified with a heated argument between Aunt Dell and my older sister Elizabeth. I remember that Aunt Dell was almost ferocious in her condemnation of the Seventh Day Adventists and their religion which, to her certain knowledge, she said, was a detrimental influence upon the natives wherever it was promulgated.

At that time Mrs. Carrie Harding Votaw’s cause was warmly espoused by my older sister who, then in high school and in the English class of Miss Abigail Harding, had met and had developed a girlish “crush” upon her sister, the missionary. I cannot forget that argument, which resulted in more or less of a family quarrel (for even my parents’ loyalty was divided) and was responsible for my aunt’s sudden departure. She took occasion to denounce the Seventh Day Adventist religion before a group of her own denomination at a camp meeting and almost immediately flounced out of the city with her very picturesque family.

This must have been about 1908 or 1909. The following year, 1910, I entered high school and _my_ English teacher was Miss Abigail Victoria Harding. Curiously enough, I thought that I could see in this sister of the missionary mannerisms which were decidedly peculiar to my Aunt Dell, whom I had quite adored in spite of the family incident recited above. Up to this time I had remained neutral.

However, seeing Miss Harding day after day, and agreeing heartily with the general dictum that she was a very beautiful woman, I came to idolize her. And thereafter my respect for her sister’s religion was a matter of course. English became my favorite study--a study for which I would neglect if needs be all other assignments. As a matter of fact, Miss Harding inspired me with such pride in my ability to excel that during that year I was made exempt from all final examinations, having kept my grade standing 90 or above.

ABIGAIL VICTORIA (“DAISY”) HARDING
(_now Mrs. Ralph T. Lewis_)
the President’s sister
]

_2_

Nineteen-ten was an epochal year in my life. Ohio was electing a Governor, and the Republican candidate of that famous gubernatorial election was no other than the brother of my adored English teacher! I have often tried to remember how this knowledge was first conveyed to me; whether I had actually known that there was a Warren Gamaliel Harding from hearing conversations about him at home, whether I had been first introduced to his existence through talks with Miss Harding on one of the many “walks home” we used to have; whether I had heard of him through one whom I will call Mrs. Sinclair, whose husband, a judge and a prominent Democrat in Ohio, played cards with Mr. Harding very often; or whether I beheld his picture, ubiquitously displayed in almost every store window on Main and Center Streets, as I walked to and from high school. My early recollections are not so much concerned with actually seeing him as with the unforgettable sensations I experienced after I had once seen him and knew that he was for me my “ideal American.”

If I had ever childishly allied myself with my father’s political party, the Democrats, I withdrew instantly in favor of the party advocated by my mother’s family, and from then on I was a full-fledged Republican.

It must have kept me pretty busy to maintain a high average in school and at the same time become the self-appointed spokesman into which I developed during those stirring pre-election days. Warren Harding and Warren Harding’s future formed my life’s background, and whether or not anyone else credited me with the capacity for such a cumulative emotion as love, _I_ knew that I was in love with Warren Harding.

Certain people, including Abigail and Carolyn Harding, speaking truthfully, could tell you of the spectacle I made of myself those months, and indeed in years that followed, for I talked about their brother incessantly; no, I did not talk, I _raved_. I was fourteen years old, or going on fourteen, an age when one would think a wife of a man Warren Harding’s age (he must have been about forty-five then and Mrs. Harding six or seven years his senior) would be entirely free from any feeling of jealousy regarding a mere child. But I remember well when Mrs. Sinclair telephoned my mother, and with friendly solicitude advised her to curb my girlish enthusiasm, or at least try to quiet me vocally, for my own sake! She said that at the most recent meeting of the Twigs (the most fashionable older ladies’ club in Marion), to which Mrs. Harding also belonged but who was absent on that occasion, “Nan Britton” had been almost the sole topic of conversation, and furthermore the ladies thought it quite scandalous that I should be so freely declaring my adoration for a married man. Of course mother did also, but apparently I didn’t!

My mother used to try to inspire me with antipathy for Mr. Harding and the thing she cited more than anything else was his fondness for tobacco. She would come home from downtown and say, “I saw Mr. Harding standing such-and-such a place, _chewing tobacco_!” But neither this information nor the withering disdain of mother’s grimace affected me in the least. I think he must have given up this habit later on; I know I never saw him in later years use tobacco in any form except cigars and cigarettes.

In order for my adoration to appear more “in form” I conceived the idea of affecting a crush on Mrs. Harding. She was not my “type” of heroine at all, but I used to pretend I was a great admirer of her anyway. I remember how I used to telephone the Harding residence when I thought Mr. Harding might be there and might answer the phone. I would shut myself up in our “back bedroom” which was away from the rest of the house and where the telephone hung on the wall, and then softly give central the number. I was always afraid mother might hear me. Often the maid answered the telephone. When this occurred I would ask for Mrs. Harding. Sometimes she herself would answer. Once, I remember, mother came in while I was calling and demanded to know to whom I was talking. When I said “Mrs. Harding,” she took the receiver and talked with her herself. It may have been that very time when Mrs. Harding informed mother that she could tell Nan that so far as “Warren” was concerned, “distance lends enchantment.” But there were those rare times when he himself answered the telephone, when he would say upon my telling him it was “Nan Britton,” “Well, how-do-you-do, Miss Britton; and how are you?” in that silvery voice I so loved, and I would immediately become so confused and tremble so I thought he must sense it all from the other end of the wire.

I knew the number of the Harding car by heart and could spot it blocks away. One time I had occasion to go to the Union Station to meet someone and when I reached there I saw the Harding Stevens-Duryea parked outside. The Harding dog then was a bull, rather a fearsome looking animal, and he was always in the car whenever it was out. I was so full of love for Mr. Harding that it extended to any possession of his, and when I observed that dignified creature sitting alert in the front seat alone, I walked over to the car to pet him. But he was “on his job” and snapped at me so fiercely that I backed off with all possible speed. Thereafter I confined my manifestations of affection to the Hardings themselves.

_3_

About this time we were asked in school by Miss Harding to write an essay on Sir Walter Scott’s _Ivanhoe_, the particular chapter we had to cover being “The Combat with the Templar.” I think we were given something like a week to complete the writing. I worked upon little else during that time--dreaming over it and sitting up with it into the “wee sma’ hours of the morning.” I prefaced my composition with “Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall,” a quotation I had heard my mother repeat. The fatal day arrived, and I handed in my composition with fear and trembling--albeit with sufficient confidence in its worth to make me wish I had kept a copy of it to read over to myself. I was not conscious that I was being discussed by the pupils in Miss Harding’s other classes until someone informed me that she had read my essay to all of her classes. And then she even read it before my own class! But what was most gloriously compensating for my labor was her statement to me in private that she had taken my essay over to “brother Warren’s” and had read it aloud to him and to Mrs. Harding as a sample of what her better pupils could do. Then my happiness knew no bounds.

Upon the sloping walls of my modest little bedroom hung three or four pictures of Mr. Harding, cut from the election posters and all the same except that I had varied the style of the frames in which they were set, which frames I had purchased with careful reference to size and suitability from Marion’s one and only five-and-ten-cent store! One of these pictures hung directly in front of my bed so that when I awoke in the morning I looked into the handsome face of him whom I loved, and saw his likeness the last thing before turning off my light.

One day father came home and said he had ridden some distance on the street car with Mr. Harding. I was immediately all aflutter and demanded to know just what had been said. Father said he had outlined for Mr. Harding my advancing campaign in his behalf--in short, they had discussed “this foolish talk” of mine. But evidently Mr. Harding’s verdict as to what should be done with me was not strictly condemnatory for his words were, “Bring her into my office sometime! Perhaps if she _sees_ me----”

If I saw him! Unknown to a living soul, I had been for many weeks shadowing the Republican candidate for Governor. His desk, in the newspaper office, which looked down upon East Center Street, was very near the window, and one of my hero’s favorite positions seemed to be to sit in his easy swivel chair with his feet on the windowsill. Across from the _Star_ Building was Vail’s, the photographer’s, studio. Many were the times I stood in Vail’s doorway, sometimes an hour at a stretch, watching those feet from across the street, knowing that when the owner removed them from my sight he would likely use them to carry him home. Then I would follow him to his home on Mt. Vernon Avenue, about a block behind, in a state of high rapture, until he turned into the grounds of the big green house and disappeared. This was an indulgence I did not dare boast about--partly because I was becoming growingly sensitive to the ridicule such confessions usually brought down upon me at home (and my love was too sacred to be made the subject of ridicule), and partly because my tardiness in reaching home from school could not be explained thus to an oftentimes impatient mother who could have found many chores for me had I come directly home.

_4_

There was in Marion a very attractive and extravagant woman whose name, let us say, was Mrs. Henry Arnold. Gossip had it that Mrs. Arnold and Warren Harding were very friendly, and gossip-mongers wondered how Mrs. Harding could be so blind to such a mutual infatuation.

These things reached my ears from the girls at school whose parents kept in close touch with anything smacking of scandal, and very likely discussed these things around the family table. I know I never heard them from my father or mother.

But this knowledge of what was currently thought concerning Marion’s leading citizen and one of Marion’s most beautiful women did not move _me_ to condemnation of either Mr. Harding or Mrs. Arnold. Rather did I sympathize with her in her regard for him, for I could conceive of nothing save a very high-minded friendship existing between him and anybody. And wasn’t it quite possible that she too thrilled to her very finger-tips under his smile? The only thing I regretted was that _I_ was not her age, and that _I_ had not travelled in Europe, and that _I_ was not “in society” or in any kind of position to attract his notice.

Mrs. Arnold had a lovely daughter, Angela, I will call her, about my own age, with golden curls, who had every indulgence loving parents could bestow, and my jealousy was directed solely toward her.

Very often the Harding car would whiz by our house, which was then on East Center Street, on Sunday afternoon, and I knew the occupants were headed for Bucyrus, a town some miles north-east of Marion which distance constituted a “nice drive” from Marion. Once, I remember, there were in the car Mr. and Mrs. Harding, Mr. and Mrs. Arnold, and their daughter Angela, as well as Frank the chauffeur, and of course the bulldog. I was sitting on our front porch. Mrs. Harding waved and blew me kisses and Mr. Harding doffed his hat and bowed. How I envied Angela! I would retire on such nights a most unhappy little girl. But I knew they would be coming back later on in the evening and so I would stay awake. My bed was alongside the window and the window screen opened on hinges like a door. I would swing wide open the screen and hang out of the window. I could see about fifty or sixty feet of street from that window and that part of the street was lighted by the corner street light. But even though it had not been lighted I would have recognized the smooth buzzing of those wheels as the great car sped swiftly past the house on its return from Bucyrus. Many a time I have waited until I knew he was safely back in our town.

Angela Arnold, knowing of my adoration for Mr. Harding, one time stopped my sister Elizabeth on the street and told her to “tell Nan” that her hero had been up to call upon them and had sat the bottom out of one of her mother’s favorite chairs! The truth of it was that it was probably a frail chair and Mr. Harding’s weight had broken it.

_5_

When my youngest brother, John, was born there was much discussion about what he should be called. I immediately attempted to solve the problem by announcing, “Why, he’s going to be named ‘Warren,’ of course!” Father, in cahoots with “his girl,” said we could call him “Warren Le Grand” the latter name for father’s only brother, Le Grand Britton. But Mrs. Sinclair, the judge’s wife, my mother’s friend, seemed to have quite a bit to say in our household and now stepped into the picture. “He’s going to be plain John Britton, isn’t he, Mrs. Britton?” I think she had in mind John the Baptist, much less deserving of a namesake in my opinion than my beloved Mr. Harding. It took a long time for me to recover from this defeat.

In Marion the livery stables rented by the hour one-seated phaetons, drawn by dependable, equine “plugs,” as my father called the drooping animals that jogged about the town pulling the occupants of these pleasure-providing equipages.

Before my doctor-father acquired the small red motor runabout which served to carry him about on his professional calls, he was a good customer at these livery stables, and we children often accompanied him. Often he gave the reins into my small hands and I experienced the thrill of a real charioteer as I called “Giddap!” to the horse and whisked imaginary flies off his back with the reins, even as I had seen my father do.

I have marvelled at what must have been an effort at resigned suspension of parental watchfulness which was responsible for the few memorable afternoons my sister Elizabeth and I enjoyed, unchaperoned, and with fine airs, the use of one of these coveted livery conveyances. One such “drive” in particular stands out in my memory because it is coupled with the memory of the only real “call” I ever made upon the Warren Hardings at their Mt. Vernon Avenue home. This occurred the Sunday following the birth of my baby brother.

I always looked up to Elizabeth with great sisterly reverence for her poise and superior judgment. When she privately voiced to me her resentment that mother and father had not consulted us before adding a baby to the family just when she and I were enjoying associations in high school which demanded dignity in our family circle, I followed suit willingly enough and maintained with her an injured air toward mother and father. I was vaguely confident that divine Providence, in the form of the proverbial stork, could have been appealed to to bestow its infantile goods elsewhere had my sister Elizabeth been allowed to take the situation in hand early enough. Here we were now, Elizabeth seventeen and I fourteen, compelled to admit that we had a tiny, squawking, red-faced youngster in our home. How shamefacedly we responded to congratulations! I might say that within a week or so after the baby’s arrival, both Elizabeth and I were won over to the tiny bundle and became his willing slaves, and, as time went on, yielded him to mother only when he demanded to be fed, spoiling him with attentions which mother deplored with shaking head and futile admonitions. Just so, in our more extreme youth, we were told, had we spoiled Janet, our baby sister.

In our chagrin at having been precipitately thrust into a position of such embarrassment, Elizabeth and I charged an afternoon’s entertainment to father’s livery account, endeavoring to assuage our injured pride by driving about the town. I retain a very vivid picture of my sister, sitting erect, holding the reins, her arms begloved with white kid above the elbows. She wore a black hat which turned up on the left, dropping on the right to accommodate the great red rose which hung heavy with “style” on that side. She wore what seemed to me a stunning blue and white dress. High-heeled slippers encased the small shapely feet which were always my despair. How insignificant and positively ugly I felt, sitting beside her in my gingham dress, occasionally patting my taffy-colored hair which was pulled tightly away from my face and tied with the stiffest ribbons procurable those days.

Mt. Vernon Avenue afforded quite a lengthy drive before one reached the end of the paved road. When we drove past the Harding residence I observed with rapid heart beats my hero sitting on the front porch. Mrs. Harding was with him. Would I dare to suggest to Elizabeth? ... no, I’d better not divulge my thoughts to her ... she didn’t care anything about Mr. Harding and probably wouldn’t want to waste the time to call upon them. We were passing the house. Mr. and Mrs. Harding smiled and waved to us. My heart pounded madly and I felt the heat in my cheeks. A block later I relaxed and breathed deeply. Elizabeth turned to me suddenly. “Say, why don’t we go back and call on the Hardings?” Oh, the blessed intuition of elder sisters! I trembled, but replied enthusiastically, “Oh, yes, let’s!” She turned the horse’s head in the direction of the Harding home.

In front of the house stood the Stevens-Duryea, the big car which sped about town sometimes carrying my hero. It was parked right in front of the hitching-post, and when Mr. Harding observed our intention of stopping he came lightly down the steps and called to us, saying he would tie our horse; he greeted us with smiles and said we should go on up on the porch. With what seemed to me superhuman strength he pushed his car out of the way and hitched our livery nag.

There was a long hanging swing at the end of the porch. Mr. Harding reseated himself there after Elizabeth and I had taken chairs.

The new-baby topic so painful to us was mercifully avoided. I doubt whether Mr. and Mrs. Harding had even read the announcement of our little brother’s birth in their own _Marion Daily Star_, but if they had they showed excellent restraint!

Being so engrossed in trying to realize that I was sitting next to the man I so adored naturally left me quite speechless, but my sister Elizabeth did not suffer from this affliction. In fact, she and Mrs. Harding carried on a most animated conversation, the thing I remember most vividly about it being that Mr. Harding’s oft-interposed opinions invariably met with vigorous protests from his wife who seemed to me to be very sure that _her_ information about so-and-so was the last word in authority upon the subject and whose remark to her husband, I remember distinctly, usually was either, “Now, Warren, you don’t know anything about it!” or, “Well, Warren, _I_ know _better_!” The topics did not concern me but I did question _any_ piece of information which could inspire such disputatious quality in the tone of Mrs. Harding’s voice.

When we left, Mr. and Mrs. Harding accompanied us on the short walk to our carriage. Elizabeth, with vast grown-upness, turned to Mr. Harding. “You know, Mr. Harding, Nan talks of _nothing_ but you! She has little campaign poster pictures of you all over the walls of her room!” Secretly elated that he should actually be told of my adoration in my presence, though outwardly greatly perturbed, I furtively watched the effect it would have upon him. I confess I momentarily forgot all about Mrs. Harding in my eager gaze at her husband’s face. I was used to seeing this information amuse the hearer, when dispensed by my parents, and I wondered just a little apprehensively whether Mr. Harding would treat it lightly. But he smiled understandingly, kindly, comfortingly. I ventured to look at Mrs. Harding then. She did not smile.

“Well, Miss Britton,” my hero said, looking down at me, “I move that you have a _real_ photograph of me for your wall!” This met with no seconding from his wife however, and somehow I wished in the silence which followed his remark that Elizabeth had not brought up the subject of my admiration for him. Now Mrs. Harding would _know_ it was not she whom I admired, as I had tried to pretend, but her husband only. I stole another glance at him. Oh, dear, what was the use of trying to pretend anyway! I just loved him and that was all there was about it. He was like a giant Adonis as he stood there petting the horse before unhitching him for us. I felt so diminutive, so pitifully young! How I adored him!

Memories and revisualizations happily filled my days following this visit ... but, though I waited long and patiently, the weeks passed by and I failed to receive the expected photograph. Oh, it was cruel to be young!

_6_

Our neighbors, the Sinclairs, lived in a large brick house on the outskirts of town, which was surrounded by a spacious lawn dotted with rose bushes of all varieties. Tall trees lined the drives and walks and shaded the grounds throughout.

Mrs. Sinclair often sent her hired man to our house with a basket of lovely green vegetables, fresh from her own garden. Oftener, she would telephone mother to send one of the children with a pail and she would have Emma the cook send back some of the creamy milk of which they had had an over-supply that evening. It often fell to me to “fetch the milk.”

In spite of Mrs. Sinclair’s solicitude concerning the gossip about my frank declarations of love for her husband’s friend, she often suggested to me, with a twinkle in her eye, “Why don’t you stay a little while, Nan? Your hero is coming home with the judge to play cards!” But instead of wanting to linger, I would pick up my heels and fly out the door.

One evening about sunset I swung my pail of milk back and forth as I sauntered leisurely toward home. My eyes were fixed on the grass along the sidewalk where sometimes wild flowers raised their dainty faces and seemed to ask to be gathered. I had just stooped to pick a particularly pretty wild poppy when I looked up--to see Warren Harding approaching! It was too late to retreat, so I walked bravely toward him, one hand literally seeming full of buckets, the other clutching the stem of my pretty wild flower. I wished fervently, in my visible nervousness and hidden delight, that the ground would open and swallow me, bucket, flower and all. My knowledge of father’s talk with Mr. Harding, coupled with the more intimate knowledge of the adoration I had been so publicly boasting, intensified my confusion a thousandfold, and my face burned pitifully.

I did not seem to be advancing, though he seemed to be steadily drawing nearer, and I knew that he recognized me for he began to smile and take off his hat. Then, with a bow that could not have been more gallant had I been a titled lady, and the same smile which has won even the hearts of his enemies, he bade me, “Good evening!” To this day I have not the slightest idea whether I found my voice to answer, but I remember I momentarily recovered sufficiently to look up at him, while all the way home I exulted, “Isn’t he _won_derful! Isn’t he _won_derful!”

(Years later, in May of 1917, when Warren Harding made his first trip to New York in my behalf, he himself asked me if I remembered the incident and confided that the desire to possess me had been born in his heart upon that occasion--the occasion which had so long been enshrined in my own heart as a wonderful memory.)

_7_

Election Eve in 1910 was a memorable occasion for me. I shall never forget the mass meeting in the old Opera House on State Street. Shortly afterward, this theatre burned to the ground, but I cherish still the memory of the hall in which the last meeting I attended was a town rally for my beloved editor, Ohio’s Republican candidate for Governor!

I do not remember that I told anybody where I was going that night. I only know I went along, in all haste, after the dinner dishes had been cleared away, out the back door and down to the Opera House. The theatre was comparatively small, accommodating perhaps seven or eight hundred people, but fully twice as many it seemed to me had crowded in, jamming the narrow aisles and standing wherever there was an available spot for a human being to balance himself. I pushed my way up through the stuffy crowds to the balcony and managed to find a seat onto which I climbed. I took a deep breath. From my post I could see every corner of the stage. The whole theatre was decorated, and even the boxes were beflagged. Two or three dozen people stood or sat in a semi-circle at the back of the stage--the more favored few.

The multitude--it seemed a multitude to me--cheered and whistled and suddenly the applause grew to a deafening roar as the audience rose as in a body to greet the hero of the hour. I bent eagerly forward, my heart in my throat, as he advanced to the edge of the platform and bowed. How dear he was! After comparative quiet was regained, he began his address, in his deep silvery voice, the voice I loved years afterward to listen to across the dinner-table or in more intimate surroundings....

Out on the street great flags floated in the cool breeze and telephone posts and store windows were draped effectively in the American colors. The throngs of people stood about expectantly. I wondered if my father had attended the meeting and whether I had been missed at home ... then down the street in an open carriage with seats facing each other rode the Republican candidate, his wife and a couple of intimate friends. The entire carriage was a mass of red, white and blue; even the horses seemed to sense the importance and enthusiasm of the occasion, and lifted high their beflagged heads as they stepped mincingly along through the cheering lines of people.

Still smiling and bowing and occasionally raising a hand to wave to the people, the editor stood throughout the entire procession, head bared, acknowledging this tribute of the home folks who loved him....

Loved him? Yes. But who of men can essay an explanation of that instinct of the American voter who can hypocritically hail a candidate one day and the following day betray him at the polls?

As I look back upon that election, a state-wide land-slide for the Democrats, putting Judson Harmon in the Governor’s chair, I do not feel as I felt then, saddened beyond words, for events have been witness to the fact that nothing can prevent those who are predestined from “coming into their own.”

(These two episodes, the one of the meeting with Mr. Harding when I carried the pail of milk, and the political mass meeting, I have quoted in substance from an autobiography which I wrote in 1921 at Columbia as one of our class assignments. I took this manuscript down to the White House at that time and Mr. Harding read it, expressing in a letter to me his interest and praising me for having received an “A” on it at Columbia, however cautioning me as usual very lovingly against treading compositionally upon what he thought seemed to be “dangerous ground.” The whimsical expression in his face when we used to discuss his earlier political activities often led me to feel that _he_ had felt far from the hero I had pictured him, and perhaps more like the disillusioned candidate his friends reported him to be after that election, driven by ambitious admirers into a field he would fain have avoided.)

_8_

In June of 1913, when I was a Junior in high school, my father passed on. We had very little money, but my mother managed to keep us together for a year and a half or so. She went back to teaching and was given a position in the Marion Public Schools. My baby brother John was about eighteen months old. My older sister Elizabeth was the pianist in a local theatre, a moving picture house. However, we girls continued to chum with the “best people” up to the time we left Marion, which was in 1915.

My mother had often thought she would like to do Chautauqua work, and it was in this connection that after father’s passing she took occasion to consult Mr. Harding. He had had some experience in this line for I remember my mother took me one Sunday afternoon to hear him, and afterward allowed me to go up and shake hands with him and tell him how much I enjoyed his speech, for which hesitating utterance I received one of his loveliest smiles and a courtly “Thank you kindly, thank you kindly!”

It was upon the occasion of my mother’s visit to Mr. Harding’s office that Mr. Harding, inquiring how “Nan” was, and being assured of my continued admiration of him and any cause he sponsored, said ruminatively, “Mrs. Britton, maybe I can _do_ something sometime for Nan.” I walked for days in the clouds after mother had repeated this to me.

Before we broke up our housekeeping and left Marion, the people had elected Warren G. Harding United States Senator from Ohio. Even in the face of my own difficulties--being thrown upon the world with absolutely no equipment except a high school education and possibly some innate common sense--I felt an ecstatic elation over this victory for my beloved hero, and when Miss Abigail Harding “dared” me to go out to his house and congratulate him, it took less urging than courage to do so. Mrs. Harding came to the door in a pink linen dress. I braved her all right and asked if I might be permitted to speak to her husband. It was late afternoon and he was playing cards with his regular “bunch.” He came out, and I shall never forget his smile--I do not think now it would be too much to say it was a smile of genuine appreciation, for so he assured me in later years--and I thrilled unspeakably under the touch of his hand. Mrs. Harding stood pat; it even seemed to me she curtailed any lengthy remarks Mr. Harding might have been tempted to make just to please me by drawing his attention to the gentlemen in the other room who were waiting for him. But she could have nothing to do with the pressure of a hand-shake which was Mr. Harding’s seal of sincere cordiality to me.

_9_

Sometime during the summer of 1915 I went to Cleveland, Ohio, where, through the influence of friends, I was given a position in the George H. Bowman Company, a china store on Euclid Avenue. I lived at the Y. W. C. A. where I obtained board and room for the nominal sum of $3.50 a week.

My mother was then teaching school in Martel, Ohio, a small village east of Marion, and it seems to me she had one of the younger children with her, though I don’t remember which one. I think my baby brother John was being taken care of by my Aunt Anna in Canton, Ohio. I went from Cleveland a couple of times to Martel, I know, to see my mother.

My position in Cleveland paid me $6 a week, and I was so delighted when my salary was raised a dollar and a half that I sent for my brother Howard whom we called “Doc,” then about sixteen years of age, to come to Cleveland where, through my own influence and good standing at Bowman’s I was able to secure a position for him also. He lived at the Y. M. C. A. down the street from me. I very early assumed responsibilities toward my family.

However, my sister Elizabeth, working her way through music school in Chicago, persuaded me that we two could live more comfortably and happily together there, and after having been in Cleveland about eight months I went to Chicago to join her.

I remember how my brother Doc helped me to gather together the $11 or so carfare to Chicago, and when I boarded the train it was with just thirty cents “over” in my pocket-book. I became very hungry near noontime and the slender lunch I had brought did not satisfy my healthy appetite, so I went into the diner in search of something “cheap.” Apple pie was 15 cents without cheese; with cheese, 25 cents. I dispensed with the cheese because I thought I _must_ tip the waiter 10 cents, and I must have a nickel to phone Elizabeth in Chicago in case she failed to meet me.

I presented my letter of recommendation from the George H. Bowman Company, which read, “We are glad to recommend Miss Nan Britton, who has been in our employ for about a year, as a girl of ability and good character,” and was given a position in Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company, in the china department, soon after my arrival in Chicago. Elizabeth did wonders with her needle to “fix me up” and make me a little more presentable than I had been able to do on my $6 a week. Moreover, in my new job I received $9 a week wages!

The Brittons were never “good managers.” While my father lived we children had everything we needed and more; but father was far too generous for his income, and never denied where it was possible to give. With so little idea of the value of a dollar, mother, Elizabeth and I were all having a pretty hard time.

I had carried on correspondence while in Cleveland with Miss Abigail Harding, “Daisy,” as she was more commonly called at home, but the dissatisfaction I was experiencing because of my seeming inability to get on more quickly had inclined me to less letter-writing. In other words, I knew my ability and I was ashamed of my small-waged position.

Finally, without saying anything to Elizabeth, I wrote to my father’s favorite college classmate, whom I will call Grover Carter, at that time Vice-President of a coal company in New York, asking his advice concerning the possibilities of my working my way through school. I received an immediate reply in which he assured me of his genuine interest and told me he had written to another Kenyon College classmate of my father, in the offices of the Union Stock Yards in Chicago. In due time I received from him a cordial note in which he invited me to dine with him and his family.

In short, I was given a choice of attending a business school in Chicago at the expense of my father’s two college friends or of coming on to New York City to attend school. It was up to me. The latter plan appealed to me, and I remember I felt the very trip East would in itself be an education to me whose travelling experiences had been necessarily limited.

The remainder of the summer of 1916 was then devoted to preparations for my trip East, my Chicago benefactors taking me to Marshall Fields’ where I was outfitted properly from head to toe. I thought my fairy existence had actually begun.

During the summer of 1916, while I was still working at Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company, the Republican National Convention was being held in the Coliseum, not far from my place of business. United States Senator Warren G. Harding, former Lieutenant-Governor of Ohio, was nominating Charles E. Hughes for the Presidency of the United States. Morning after morning I bought the papers, watching the progress of the proceedings with avid interest, most particularly, of course, any mention of my beloved Warren Harding.

In the spring of 1917 when Mr. Harding came over to New York to help me find a position (or rather to place me in one) I told him of how I had followed the convention items in the Chicago papers. He expressed his regret that I had not at that time gotten in touch with him for it would have been a pleasure, he said, to see that I had a “front seat” during the convention at the Coliseum.

_10_

In the fall of 1916 my Chicago benefactors put me on the train for New York and at the Pennsylvania Station in the Big City I was met by Mr. Carter. I was put immediately in school; the school selected was the Ballard Secretarial School for Girls which is an endowed school housed in the Y. W. C. A. Building, which building, Central Branch, was at that time down on 16th Street between Broadway and Fifth Avenue.