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.
[Illustration:
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----”
[Illustration: Early likeness of Mr. Harding--cut from a campaign
poster by the author in 1910 and hung on the wall of her room when she
was fourteen years old]
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.
I entered six weeks late but through the out-of-school-hours’ tutoring
of my dear teacher and friend, to whom I will give the name of Miss
Helen Anderson, I was enabled to catch up with the class very quickly.
I studied hard. The Carter family was an intellectual one and Mr.
Carter early began to dictate to me in the evenings, which was a great
help. I received A’s in everything when the spring came and I was
graduated.
In early spring, in April I believe, there was a request made to the
Y. W. C. A. Employment Bureau for a stenographer for one whom I shall
call Mrs. Emma Laird Phelps, publicity manager for Ignacy Paderewski,
the famous pianist, and I went to be interviewed. I had several hours
in the afternoons which I knew I could devote to this work and in that
way make some extra expense money. Mrs. Phelps hired me after giving
me some trial dictation, and I was launched upon my first stenographic
position! During this employment I had occasion to do some special work
with Mme. Paderewski and in this connection I met her famous husband.
Inasmuch as I had, when in high school, not been allowed much freedom
where boys were concerned, I knew comparatively little about them. I
had had my ideal American in my heart for years and all others paled
into insignificance beside him. True, I had endeavored to weave romance
several times into friendships with boys I had known in Marion, after I
became almost seventeen years of age and was a junior in high school,
when mother permitted a few “dates”--few and far between. But somehow
these fellows, as well as those I met after I left Marion--in Cleveland
and in Chicago--all seemed to have things “wrong with them.”
However, I was beginning to receive attentions from men whom I would
meet even casually, and the fact that I was able to hold a secretarial
position, and had been the only one in my class at Ballard to attempt
such a thing before graduation, strengthened my faith in myself and
tended to dignify me in my own estimation.
_11_
When spring came, and graduation day was drawing near, I decided I
might now safely appeal to Warren Harding to help me to a position
in the business world. I felt sure I could do myself credit and he
would not have to be ashamed to recommend me for a position. I could,
of course, have depended upon many other sources for situations, and
in fact Mrs. Phelps kindly intimated that the Paderewskis might wish
to take me to California with them, Mme. Paderewski having evinced a
certain fondness for me. But I had other plans. Mr. Harding’s words to
my mother back in Marion in 1914, “Maybe I can do something sometime
for Nan,” recurred to me again and again. So one afternoon I stayed at
school and wrote, after many revisions, and after destroying dozens of
sheets of perfectly good Y. W. C. A. paper, and without saying a word
to a soul, the following letter, a carbon copy of which I retained:
New York City
May 7, 1917
HON. WARREN G. HARDING
UNITED STATES SENATE
WASHINGTON, D. C.