The telephone startled us. Mr. Harding jumped up to answer it. He said,
“You’ve got the wrong party.” Almost simultaneously, however, there
was a rap at the door. Then it was unlocked from without and two men
came in. I could hear them speaking to each other before they entered.
One man asked my name. I whispered to Mr. Harding, “What shall I say
to them?” curiously enough not feeling much fear in the distress of
the situation. I never could explain this to myself except that I
loved Warren Harding so much that if he were with me it didn’t matter
what happened. “Tell them the truth!” he said. “They’ve got us!” He
seemed so pitifully distressed. So I told the man my name, where I
lived, where I worked, in answer to queries put to me gruffly. All this
information he wrote down on a pad. Mr. Harding sat disconsolately on
the edge of the bed, pleading for them to allow me to go. He seemed to
base his plea on the argument that we had not disturbed any of their
guests, and for this reason we should be allowed to depart in peace.
“I’ll answer for both, won’t I?” he entreated them. “Let this poor
little girl go!” They told him he should have thought of that before,
and other things I thought were very unkind considering he had not
bound and dragged me there; I had come of my own free will. I remember
he told them I was twenty-two years old, and I, not realizing that he
wanted to make me as old as he safely could, interrupted him and stated
truthfully that I was only twenty.
To almost every argument he advanced in my behalf they answered,
“You’ll have to tell that to the judge.” They intimated that they
were sending for a police-patrol. I did become frightened then. About
that time one of the men picked up Mr. Harding’s hat. Inside was his
name, “W. G. Harding,” in gold lettering, and upon seeing that name
they became calm immediately. Not only calm but strangely respectful,
withdrawing very soon. We completed our dressing.
We packed our things immediately and the men conducted us to the side
entrance. On the way out Mr. Harding handed one of them a $20 bill.
When we were in the taxi, he remarked explosively, “Gee, Nan, I thought
I wouldn’t get out of that under $1000!”
We went to Churchill’s for dinner and he returned to Washington on the
midnight train.
Some time later, upon the occasion of one of his visits, Mr. Harding
told me that he had found out something he had not then known: namely,
that a member of the House of Representatives or of the United States
Senate cannot be detained for any reason whatsoever when he is enroute
to Washington to serve the people. At the time of our almost tragic
adventure Mr. Harding had been “enroute,” for he had stopped to be with
me in New York on his way back to Washington from some city where he
had delivered an address.
Shortly after that, a week or ten days probably, he came over again. We
took a taxi ride. Mr. Harding asked the taxi man where we could find a
nice, quiet place where we could feel assured of not being disturbed.
I shall never forget how much fun we had over this drive. The taxi
driver nodded and turned the car into Riverside Drive. On and on we
sped, and we both wondered where under the sun the place was to which
he was driving us. When we reached Riverside Drive and One Hundred
and something (this was before the Drive was cut through to Dyckman
Street), the driver stopped the car beside a lonely wood, jumped out
and disappeared into the wood. I shall never forget how funny it seemed
to us. “Well,” laughed Mr. Harding, “he is an accommodating driver
anyway!” In about ten or fifteen minutes the driver returned. “Say,
George,” Mr. Harding said, “we want a _hotel_.” “Yes, sir,” the driver
replied, without glancing around, and with every indication that he
understood all along but was just carrying out a little program of
his own. Back down the Drive we went and into 60th Street. He stopped
in front of a hotel of his own selection, hopped out and went in and
almost immediately returned. “This is all right, sir,” he said.
It was a rather shabby place but we felt fairly safe. However, in
hotels of that character there was always the fear of being raided.
We never had any trouble, however, and we went there several times,
probably six or seven in all.
_19_
On August 11th, 1917, I received from Mr. Harding my first gift. It was
a wrist-watch--a birthday present, given in advance of my twenty-first
birthday because I was so in need of a time piece. With it, or rather
in the same mail, came a letter from Mr. Harding. The Daniels had been
informed that “Dean Renwick,” the young man I had met in Chicago and
with whom I was still carrying on a desultory correspondence, had been
sent to Washington on war-work (though he had not), and I named him as
the donor of the wrist-watch. However, they always accused me of having
received it from Mr. Harding, I suppose because the letter accompanying
its receipt was obviously from him, bearing the United States Senate
return. Mrs. Daniels always inspected the mail carefully.
The letter I received was written merely for me to show because I had
told Mr. Harding that I wished he would write something I could show to
Mr. Close. He therefore wrote this, and sometime later another, which
formal letters, in view of the many love-letters I was receiving, were
jokes to us.
The above-mentioned letter stated that he had seen Mr. Filbert of the
United States Steel Corporation when the latter was in Washington,
and had been told by him that I was doing nicely in the Welfare
Department and “promised to become a most valuable addition to their
force.” Mr. Harding also wrote, “I hope you like the place as much
as he reports liking you, and ... find it a desirable avenue to an
agreeable career.... _Making good_ counts with them.” Then he assured
me of his very best wishes for my success and, which made me smile
affectionately, “the happiness which goes with it.” He knew that our
love for each other provided the abundance of that happiness.
I received a good many letters from Mr. Harding at the Steel
Corporation. He usually sent them in plain envelopes. He used blue
envelopes very frequently; these were of very tough fibre but not
weighty. His letters varied in length from one to sixty pages. He wrote
me a great deal, he said, sitting within hearing distance of the Senate
proceedings. And I received a special delivery letter almost every
Sunday morning, for which my landlady usually signed. What glorious
awakenings those Sunday morning letters used to bring!
In the fall--in November of 1917--I moved next door to 611 West 136th
Street, and from then until the spring of 1919 I lived with Mr. and
Mrs. P. J. Johnson, as I shall call them. I am sure Mrs. Johnson often
wondered who my “man of mystery” was. The one and only picture on my
dresser was the photograph of Mr. Harding which he had sent me while
I was still living with the Carters. Naturally I stayed out all night
with him and I am sure Marie Johnson never believed I was staying with
“one of the girls” as I used to tell her.
One evening I walked into my rather exclusive boarding-place, which
was at 136th Street and Riverside Drive in a private apartment.
About twenty people ate there, among them the former wife of Carlyle
Blackwell, the moving-picture actor, and several girl friends of mine.
One of the girls called out to me, “Oh, Nan, I saw you at the Grand
Central Station this afternoon with a stunning iron-gray haired man.
How you were hanging on his arm! What I know about _you_! I knew who he
was, all right!” I probably blushed, but there was nothing left for me
to do but admit it. Afterward I doubted her statement for I don’t think
Mr. Harding was very well-known then in New York. Mr. Harding had been
obliged to return to Washington at four that afternoon, which accounted
for the fact that I was dining at my boarding-place that evening.
I always loved my room at the Johnson’s. The room I occupied at
Daniels’ next door had been one right off the kitchen, the maid’s room
really, and the one I secured at Johnson’s was larger, far better
furnished, and lighted by electricity instead of gas as the former room
had been. The Johnsons were young, very attractive, and heartily in
sympathy with my love-affair, though in the two years I lived with them
I could not introduce them to my “mysterious sweetheart.”
Next to my bed stood a good-sized table on which I wrote to my beloved.
There was a reading lamp with a shade of yellow and green. Above the
table hung a large oval mirror. My letter-writing oftentimes extended
into the early morning hours and there was something companionable
about sitting there with my reflection. Not only was it companionable
but it was satisfying to glance more than occasionally into the mirror
and smile at the girl who smiled back at me knowing, as I knew, that
she was the sweetheart of the man who was to me easily the most
desirable man in all the world. I studied the features of this girl
in the mirror, studied them interestedly, minutely, to discover for
myself just _why_ he had chosen to love her! Sometimes, after I had
been talking most intimately to my lover on the small ruled pad before
me, I would glance up and catch the soft lights in the eyes of the girl
in the mirror which were the tell-tale lights of worshipping love or
languishing passion. And with flushed cheeks and fast-beating heart I
would bring my letter to a close, exchange exultant smiles with the
girl in the mirror, and jump into bed.
_20_
It was during my visit to my mother in New Philadelphia, Ohio, her
old home town where she was teaching in 1918, that I, desiring to see
my mother settled in a larger city, wrote Mr. Harding for a suitable
letter to use as an introduction to the Superintendent of the Cleveland
Public Schools. I had talked this whole situation over with Mr. Harding
in person, and the letter which I sent him from New Philadelphia was
merely to advise him that I was now ready for his proffered letter of
introduction in behalf of my mother. Of course I told my mother nothing
about the previous talk with him.
Mr. Harding always gave me very explicit instructions, whether it was
where to meet him and the hour, or, as in this case, how to proceed
in a given situation, and the letter received from him, which I have
before me now, clearly indicates this characteristic. With the letter
to me he enclosed one to Dr. Frank T. Spaulding, then Superintendent
of Public Schools in Cleveland, and one to Mr. Mark Thomson, then
President of the Board of Education. The letter to Mr. Thomson has been
mislaid or lost but I have retained the one addressed to Dr. Spaulding.
To me, Mr. Harding wrote more than a full-page, single-space, letter.
He suggested that I apply in behalf of my mother, going to Cleveland
enroute East after my vacation. He wrote that I should “speak frankly”
to the Cleveland officials concerning my mother’s age. “... there may
be a limitation of age in the beginning of employment of teachers under
the Cleveland system,” he explained.
“I am sure you will have the tact and understanding to go into these
matters quite fully in Cleveland ... if I had the opportunity of going
to Ohio, I should be delighted to make a personal inquiry at Cleveland
in your mother’s behalf. I do not think there is a possibility of my
going to the home state until some time in July and this matter, of
course, must be settled at a very early time....”
Then, in an informal, chatty tone, he wrote, “I was interested to note
of your visit to Marion and hope you had an enjoyable visit there. I
have not been in the old town myself since early in last February....”
What fun to read these things and to know that he had only the week
before received from me a letter in fullest detail about my visit to
Marion, my time having been divided among his sister’s, Mrs. Sinclair’s
and my chums’ homes!
I was quite accustomed to receiving lengthy letters from Mr. Harding
where there were instructions to be given me, and I am afraid I paid
less heed to his counsel in this case than it warranted. I always
felt so confident when I attempted to gain admittance anywhere and
was privileged to use his name, because I knew he would “back me up
strong,” as he so often assured me. Therefore, fortified with two
letters and these addressed to the principal officials in the Cleveland
schools, I made ready to take my mother there immediately instead
of abiding by his advice to stop there myself enroute East and make
preliminary inquiry.
This matter of changing positions was entirely my own idea and not at
all instigated by my mother. Mr. Harding had smiled when I explained
to him, “If mother were in Cleveland she would be on a direct line
from New York. New Philadelphia is so inaccessible when I take my
vacations!” Considering that I made all of one or two trips a year
to Ohio (!) this argument could hardly have been expected to work
substantially in behalf of the desired change, but Mr. Harding always
accepted tolerantly even my flimsiest reasoning. Naturally I hastened
in this instance to build up my case.
When mother saw how earnestly I had sought to make possible an
interview with the Superintendent of Public Schools in Cleveland, she
consented reluctantly to accompany me to Cleveland. She read very
carefully Mr. Harding’s letter to Dr. Spaulding. Mr. Harding had
written all that was necessary, _I_ was sure, to obtain an excellent
position for mother, possibly an immediate principalship! I couldn’t
quite understand my mother’s persistent skepticism. In fact, she
didn’t even seem enthusiastic about making the trip.... “I have known
Mrs. Britton for as much as twenty years and know her to be a woman
of sterling character and very notable intellectual capacity....
I have known the family for a great many years and have known of
Mrs. Britton’s attainments during all of that time.... If you have
a vacancy in your schools I am confident you will find her a very
desirable member of your teaching staff, who is well able to give quite
as satisfactory account of herself as the numerous teachers which
Cleveland has taken from my home town of Marion....”
With characteristic assurance I handed this note to the gentleman into
whose presence mother and I were ushered with due ceremony. He read it,
I thought, with indifferent interest. When he had finished he shrugged
his shoulders slightly, lifted his eyebrows, and looked from mother to
me. Mother seemed embarrassed. I was not. I showed plainly that _I_
wished to represent my mother in this matter when the gentleman before
us inquired frankly why mother had not applied direct. I was not used
to this kind of reception! I stated for my mother that _she_ was not
particularly interested in changing positions but that _I_ wanted her
to teach in the Cleveland schools. And Mr. Harding, as United States
Senator from Ohio, was also interested in having her placed there.
The gentleman and my mother exchanged glances. The gentleman’s eyes
lighted as though with sudden comprehension. “Um.... I see!...” He
turned to me. All at once, as I returned his look, I wilted inside. How
well I knew the meaning of that look! It was the inevitable result of
my oft-lamented little-girl appearance. I had encountered it too many
times. In this instance, as in dozens of others before it, it provoked
the tone of voice I deplored--the patient, explanatory, slow tone, the
unmistakable talk of an elder to a child....
But, although the letter on which I had banked 100% had failed in its
mission, I was entirely unwilling to recognize that the Cleveland age
limit had anything whatever to do with it. I immediately fixed in my
mind a descriptive noun which was sufficient to me to explain the whole
situation. “Democrat!” I whispered to mother with a curl of my lips as
we went down in the elevator. Poor mother! How often has she suffered
in silence for her children’s whims!
And it was a long time, try as he would, that even Mr. Harding could
persuade me that the fact that mother was beyond the age limit of
thirty-five years disqualified her immediately for consideration as a
beginning teacher in the Cleveland Public Schools.
During the years I was Mr. Harding’s sweetheart, I always, even from
the first, helped my mother financially. Mr. Harding used to say,
“Let’s take a taxi to such-and-such a place,” but I would say, “Let’s
walk,” and he very often accused me affectionately of wanting to save
that money so that I could send it to my mother. Of course it would
not have been possible for me to send her anything had it not been
for his generosity, and he was glad, more than glad, as he told me
repeatedly, to make it possible so long as no comment was made or no
wonder excited. When I started to work in the United States Steel
Corporation my salary was $16, and my room rent $4 per week, and it
was obviously impossible for me to do much on the balance. Mr. Harding
was always interested, and very sympathetic toward the position in
which my mother had suddenly found herself upon father’s death. He has
often said to me, “Nan, dearest, you know how much I would like to
help you to make it easier for your mother, don’t you?” I surely did.
Often also he expressed the feeling that Howard, my younger brother,
should be bearing the heavy load of responsibility. “He should be the
bread-winner, Nan,” Mr. Harding would say to me. But “Doc,” as we
called him, was scarcely more than a child, with far less sense of
responsibility toward the family than had Elizabeth and I, both his
seniors.
_21_
Mr. Harding’s attitude about my taking on any possible confidantes was
a very decided one. From the first he begged me to keep our secret
and tell it to no one. It seemed to me that he most of all warned me
against my mother’s knowing. It has many times occurred to me that this
solicitude on his part came from his keener wisdom about mothers in
general as well as, in my particular case, his knowledge of my mother’s
conventionality.
It was during our first sweetheart days, although it seems to me it was
before my complete surrender to Mr. Harding, that I visited in Marion,
and, with the longing to talk with someone I really loved and respected
besides my beloved Mr. Harding, I put my case _hypothetically_ to his
sister “Daisy.” She recalled that I had done this when I first talked
with her about the whole matter in June of 1925, and she also recalled
her answer which I had in the meantime, immediately after my visit with
her, repeated to her brother Warren. She had said, when I asked her
what _she_ would do if _she_ were in love with a man whom she could not
marry, but who might want her to belong to him anyway, “Don’t do it,
Nan; the world is against you; no matter how much you love each other,
_don’t_!” I had repeated this to Mr. Harding. I remember he said, as he
has often said about Daisy, “Dais’ is a good girl, Nan, but, dearie,
_any_one would tell you _that_! Anyone would advise you against it
who didn’t know how much I love you!” This intimation of his loving
protection strengthened my decision that ours _was_ an exceptional case.
And he did love me too! With the first forty-page love-letter of
which I have spoken and which came to me at the Colonial Hotel in
Chicago in June of 1917, came also from Washington a snapshot which I
have preserved, though the corners are frayed from much kissing and
handling. I wrote him that I had kissed it many many times. He wrote,
“Don’t waste any more kisses on a likeness, Nan, when the original
yearns for your kisses.” The only thing I did not like about that
cherished likeness was that he told me a woman had snapped it!
[Illustration: Snapshot received by the author in June, 1917, with a
forty-page letter from Mr. Harding]
In this connection an incident occurs to me which he related to me upon
one of our earlier visits. He told it to me at dinner, with reference
to annoying requests from petty office seekers who employ all kinds of
bribery to gain their ends.
One such individual, a man, had an even more ambitious wife, who
desired to see her husband lifted to a certain post and chose Senator
Harding as the intercessor. Mr. Harding said that the lady called
him on the phone and requested that he stop in on his way home one
evening--she wished to see him “on business.” He said he thought
nothing about it and accordingly stopped at her apartment, naturally
expecting to find her husband home also. The lady herself answered
his ring, however, and Mr. Harding said when he followed her into the
living-room he observed with bewilderment and embarrassment that she
was becomingly _en negligee_, and the way in which she dropped down
upon the comfortable couch and spread the flimsy folds of her negligee
gracefully about her could mean but one thing. He told me with such
adorable embarrassment of her frankness and of his own confusion. I can
imagine well all of this because I know his innate sense of delicacy
and refinement. It was probably with difficulty that he excused
himself, for I am sure women of that type do not let their prey go
easily. The thing of course that pleased me about the story was his
assurance that he couldn’t ever “fall for” anybody but me.
I think it was late fall of 1918 when Mr. and Mrs. Harding went to
Texas to visit their friends, Mr. Fred Scobey and his wife. Mr. Scobey,
Mr. Harding told me, had a large warehouse in San Antonio and was
rather wealthy.
I failed to hear from Mr. Harding upon the occasion of that trip South
as soon as I felt I should, and so I wired him at Scobey’s, in care of
the warehouse. I received a wire in return, though I have forgotten
the contents, except for the love allusion. It was sent to me either at
the Steel Corporation or at 611 West 136th Street. He told me later in
New York how they had all gone off on an island somewhere and he just
didn’t seem to have a minute to himself to write me.
_22_
Earlier that fall, on August 17, 1918, to be exact, Mr. Harding had an
engagement in Plattsburg, New York, to address an audience. He wrote
inviting me to come up there for the day, enclosing ample funds, and
told me with his usual explicitness the exact train to take out of New
York at night which would land me in Plattsburg in the morning. He
stopped at a hotel which I recognized recently in a post card picture
as the New Witherell. I arrived about 8.00 o’clock in the morning
and went to the same hotel, registering, I believe, under the usual
fictitious name of Christian.
I shall never forget how the sun was streaming in at the windows of
that room in the hotel when Mr. Harding opened the door in his pajamas
in answer to my rather timid knock. His face was all smiles as he
closed the door and took me in his arms.
“Gee, Nan, I’m s’ glad t’ see you!” he exclaimed. I just loved the way
he lapsed into the vernacular when we were alone together. My room was
not far from his and I had deposited my bag before going to him. He
asked all about these things--when I arrived, how I had registered, and
where my room was located.
Then we planned our day. He was to speak that afternoon and gave me the
direction and location of the training-ground where his address would
be delivered, and explained that he would not be able to see me after
the luncheon hour for the people in charge would take possession of
him. But we could, he said with adorable enthusiasm, have the whole
blessed morning together.
Oh, how happy that made me! There were really so few times when we
could be together with a feeling of utter safety, and the sunshine, the
occasion and the beauty of the place itself all pointed propitiously to
a red letter day in our calendar of happiness.
I met him about half an hour later, by arrangement, in a grove near the
hotel, and together we strolled toward the main street of Plattsburg
and out into the country. But first Mr. Harding stopped at a corner
store and bought some smokes. I was proud of the new dress I was
wearing and thought Mr. Harding’s smile betrayed approval as he joined
me outside the store, cigarettes in hand, and surveyed me with beaming
countenance.
I accused him affectionately of having made a reconnaissance of the
outskirts of the village prior to my arrival, for certainly it seemed
to me he could have chosen no lovelier spot than the sunny meadow where
we spent the morning. It sloped gently down to a winding stream, and
on one side there was a thick wood. The ground was soft and the grass
high. It was sweet to hold his head on my lap and have him just lie
there looking up at the blue sky.
We were both full of loving reminiscences and future plans, and Mr.
Harding included in his musings certain things bearing upon his
position as senator. I realize the paucity of political allusions
in this manuscript, but the reader is to remember that while he was
moving in the most active governmental circles at that stressful period
in the history of our country, when I was with Mr. Harding alone
our conversation was not principally political but warmly personal.
However, when he chose to confide his problems and little worries to
me it made me very proud and I took them very seriously. Right then he
was up against a problem which was causing him considerable anxiety:
the folks back home had scheduled him for a speech in December, I think
he said, and he was supposed to call upon some fellow senator to
accompany him to Marion and make an address also.
“La Follette would be fine,” he mused with emphasis as he chewed
thoughtfully on a stalk of timothy, “but he doesn’t want to do it.”
“Why?” I inquired.
“Oh, principally because he is small of stature compared with me and a
bit sensitive on that score; I can understand that perfectly, although
he is a convincing speaker and I think would make a sensation in
Marion....”
How well I could appreciate just how keen Mr. Harding was to give our
home town one of the best speakers the United States Senate could
boast! I suggested with some timidity Hiram Johnson, or Borah of Idaho,
both of whom I judged from my morning perusals of the New York papers
were picturesque enough certainly, and seemed to make the Senate
sit up and take notice. He discussed various senators ruminatively
and explained patiently why he could not ask this one or that one.
When I interposed certain remarks or suggestions he would smile
appreciatively; I suppose there was an element of naivete about my
suggestions of which I was blissfully unaware. He was quite talkative
that day, telling me something of the friendship which existed between
him and Mrs. Harding and the Frelinghuysens. The circumstances of
our companionship that day were highly conducive to deliberate and
confidential meditation, though these things interested me far less
than our intimate personal discussions.
“Do you like my dress, sweetheart?” I could not help asking.
“You bet!” he replied, with admiration, sitting up to examine it more
closely.
“Guess how much I--you--paid for it?” I challenged.
“Oh, I couldn’t guess, dearie. How much?”
“Thirty-five dollars!”
“Honestly, Nan?”