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 of The New York Times._
[Illustration: A favorite portrait]
_172_
Those who have not known Warren Harding intimately--and I feel with
all gratitude and humbleness that I was privileged to know him more
intimately than any other human being--cannot fully appreciate those
“deeper lights” of his eyes. They were expressive of the heights
of every emotion experienced by a human heart, and of the greatest
sadnesses ever written into the life of a man. I have read in their
depths these as well as varying intermediate expressions. When he
spoke to me of our child there was in his eyes the longing for open,
acknowledged fatherhood, and my heart cried out against the cruelties
of both the political and social orders which prevented Warren G.
Harding from ever once looking into the eyes of his own little girl.
The great pity of it! The injustice of a man-made law which would
impose the necessity for renunciation of a desire so natural, so fine,
and so normally impelling as that implanted in his heart as her parent!
“Nan darling,” he would say, “I find myself longing to take little
girls in my arms. I never used to feel so deeply moved,” and with this
sweet confession there was wistfulness and pathos in his eyes. And so,
on the way home from my visits to the White House, I would resolve that
he _should_ see her, even if I had to take her at Easter-time when
_all_ little children were permitted to play and roll eggs on the White
House lawn. He might even pick her up and fondle her unremarked!
In my Harding book of clippings the following appears in a paper of
March 28, 1921, a few days after Easter:
“President Harding was a witness of the happy childhood panorama
before him, and he took part in a pretty incident shortly before the
gates were opened to the children.
“Little Winifred Hiser, six years old, in a new spring dress, and
bearing on her arm a basket of eggs, waited in the walk leading from
the White House to the executive offices. She is a daughter of an
employe of the boiler rooms. As she stood there the President came
down the path to his office, intent on starting his daily work.
“Perhaps she epitomized for the President the great crowd of children
which shortly were to shout and run and laugh through the grounds.
President Harding bent down and kissed the little maid twice, and
asked her about the fine time she was going to have.”
But such an experience for his own little girl never seemed possible.
It might have, but for Fear, that monster that hounded us continually,
and finally made him I loved the victim of its vicious poisoning. Fear
of exposure! Fear of the Republican Party! Fear of the Democratic
Party! Fear of society’s condemnation! Fear of our respective families!
Fear of a national scandal! Yes, fear it was that stayed the hand of
Warren Harding, and fear it was that prevented the realization of the
holy dream I had visualized as sweetheart and mother. I used to think
that if only I could see her go on his lap, and hear him talk to her
in the kindly, sweet voice I used to hear him use when he talked with
children everywhere, I would be the proudest and most completely happy
woman in God’s world. It made my throat ache so terribly just to think
of the apparent hopelessness of my hopes. It made the whole attempt at
secrecy so unworthwhile, so really _wrong_, so unnecessary! And, above
all, so futile in the face of its unfair demands upon us.
_173_
Upon completion of the poem, “The Child’s Eyes,” before I had submitted
it for publication, I sent Daisy Harding a copy, but I included no
letter and made no comment. Under date of July 16th, 1926, I received
a letter from her which in tone differed from some of her recent
communications. It was more like the _real_ Daisy Harding I know and
love.
She wrote that as she finished reading my poem she both thought and
said aloud, “beautiful!” “Perhaps it is in the full of poetry your
talent lies. Real poetry must come through true inspiration and it is
evident, very evident, in this one,” she wrote. Other paragraphs were
taken up with discussion of her doings, mainly, she wrote, in getting
back her health. She said frankly that she was glad I appreciated the
money she had been sending me each month because she denied herself to
send it. The investments she had made had not turned out at all well
and she and her husband were having “many blue hours” over them. Would
I please send her Elizabeth’s address? “I see where Alice Copeland
has sued for divorce. Unfortunate,” was a piece of information which
interested me. Alice Copeland (Guthery) was a schoolmate of mine,
daughter of a prominent Marion lawyer. She it was who said to me
in November of 1920, when I went to Marion simultaneously with Mr.
Harding’s overwhelming-majority election, “Nan, do you remember when we
were kids in school you used to say Warren Harding would be President?”
_Did_ I remember!...
I was riding in Marion with this same Alice Copeland one day back in
our Freshman high school days in 1910. Alice was driving the electric
runabout which always identified her those days. We passed the Warren
Harding home on Mt. Vernon Avenue. Alice observed my excitement with
relish: Mr Harding sat with his wife on their front porch! Having
passed the house once, she proceeded to turn around to pass it the
second time. And, as Mr. and Mrs. Harding smiled again and waved,
Alice said to me, “There he is, Nan! There’s your hero! Look at
him--quick!... Nan, why don’t you ‘set your cap’ for Mr. Harding
anyway? You’re so crazy about him ... and Mrs. Harding is sick most of
the time!” Alice always meant these things to be amusing and we all
accepted them in the spirit in which they were said. But I never forgot
that, and one time I repeated it to Mr. Harding. He smiled and said,
“Well, you ‘got’ me all right, you darling!”
_174_
On July 22nd, 1926, I answered Daisy Harding’s letter:
“DEAREST MISS HARDING:
It was indeed gratifying to read that you liked the poem. I don’t want
you ever to forget that it was under your instruction that I developed
a love of poetry and literature; and I love you for having made so
attractive to me the work I now want to do....
You will be sorry to learn that I could not continue my winter regime
through the summer, but had to allow E. A. to return with Elizabeth
and Scott when they motored out. My landlady requested that I vacate
because I could not meet my rent, which I am still endeavoring to
liquidate.
For your information, I might say that unless the knowledge has
reached them from some other source, Elizabeth and Scott are entirely
ignorant of the fact that I have ever talked with you or other
members of your family on the subject of E. A., and unless you have
a particular reason for wishing to acquaint E. and S. with the
situation, I would suggest that it might be well not to tell them; it
was, however, Elizabeth’s suggestion to me long ago that I tell you,
but before doing so I had to persuade myself deliberately that it was
what _he_ would want me to do, and I did not advise them when I did
so. Moreover, I am, as you know, ... Elizabeth Ann’s legal guardian
until she becomes of age, and as such I should be the sole individual
to be consulted. This simplification of responsibility is very
agreeable to me as a mother.
The paragraph immediately preceding has been a bit difficult for me to
phrase, but I know you will understand my spirit in the matter. You
will probably be glad to know that E. A. is to be on the farm this
summer, because it would have been quite outside the realm of the
possible for me personally to afford the country for her--this summer.
Elizabeth may be addressed at Keithsburg, Illinois, care of A. L.
Willits....
Too bad about Alice Guthery; but what is better than separation where
there is discord?...
The other night I dined with one of the men about whom I spoke to you
in March, and he tells me he has apparently lost $50,000, more or
less, in Florida--but that he has well-grounded hopes of recovering
it. It seems everybody just has to “hang on.” I certainly hope that
the natural resources and realities of the State, and their natural
development in spite of the temporary setback due to florid
speculation, may enable you to realize satisfactorily on all the money
you have put in down there.
[Illustration]
With love to you ever, and hoping to hear from you as the impulse
comes to write, I am,
Affectionately yours,
NAN”
Perhaps the letter I received from Daisy Harding on August 9th in
answer to the foregoing might not have aroused in me the rebellious
spirit I felt had it not epitomized the pitiful futility of attempting
to argue for right for right’s sake when a false sense of right
satisfies a people enslaved by a superficial conventionality. _The
social fundamentals were all wrong._
In this letter, Daisy Harding voiced unconsciously the probable
negative decision of the whole Harding family toward my situation, as
well as the attitude of our whole country toward unwedded mothers and
their children.
“I do hope you can make, some day, a name for yourself,” she wrote.
“Then you will have something to offer her for what you have denied
her ... she must suffer, and suffer deeply and bitterly when she knows
all....” I stared back at these sentences which seemed to stand out in
the letter, taunting me with their cruel injustice. “... _something
to offer her for what you have denied her_”! Why, all _I_ had denied
my child was the knowledge of her parentage, and the privilege that
knowledge carried of openly bestowing upon my child the love only a
mother is capable of bestowing. And this latter denial on my part
would cease as soon as the Hardings recognized and assumed their just
obligation toward their brother’s child. She wrote as though I might be
a common woman, one whose life did not justify the role of motherhood,
a woman who must redeem herself through fame before she could merit the
God-given gift of her child!
My daughter “suffer” when she learned that she was the beloved child of
a love-union between her mother and the 29th President of the United
States! There does not live the person who could convince me of that,
and I am willing to undertake the responsibility of rearing my child,
even in her extreme youth, _with the full knowledge of who she is_,
for it will not lessen by one jot the love which she bears to me--her
mother.
“I am so glad you let E. A. go to her grandmother’s ... if she were
my child I’d let stay there for the next two years. I believe _he_
would say the same....” Keep her in the country, away from me, for two
years! A cruel suggestion! That my sweetheart, who had been willing,
yea, eager to do anything in his power to enable me to be with my baby
and to have her with me, would concede that his sister’s suggestion
was the right thing was in my eyes only a pitiful thought to prop an
argument which had been born of a frightened mind, and was in truth a
mere apology for failure on the part of all the Hardings to act fairly
toward Elizabeth Ann.
Miss Harding said my child should have the “quiet, fresh air and
childish freedom” the country affords. This was exactly my idea, as
it would be the idea of any mother, but _I wanted to be with her_,
and this the Hardings were unwilling to make possible to me. I had
therefore been obliged to let her go away from me because I myself was
unable to provide those things which I knew were for her good.
Miss Harding’s query in this letter as to how the money had been
transferred to my sister Elizabeth was entirely superfluous in view
of the fact that I had made it very plain to her and to her brother
that all monies had been transferred through me, personally, from
Mr. Harding to my sister and her husband. As a matter of fact, I had
_insisted_ upon this myself as my idea of added protection to Mr.
Harding. I had even given his brother, Dr. Harding, the dates of
certain cancelled vouchers, for which he asked during our interview.
“Was the money sent through some bank in Ohio?” Miss Harding inquired
in her letter. This was evidently why she had asked for Elizabeth’s
address--to make the inquiry direct to her. Even then there was current
gossip which touched some of the government officials in high places
when Mr. Harding was President. Was her query instigated by those who
themselves would not ask me direct, but sought to allay their fears
through information I might give to Miss Harding? I had no way of
knowing.
Her letter contained another sentence which hurt me but at the same
time aroused in me more resentment than I had known during the whole
course of my appeal to the Hardings. She wrote, “I heard of a case
the other day, where a woman of means thought she could defy the
conventions, but she is realizing now what it means to her son....” To
quote to me an example of what a “woman of means” was realizing through
her indulgence in unconventionality was highly grotesque when at that
very minute I was staggering under the weight of bills long overdue,
even to being unable to send my sister any money toward my child’s fall
clothes. The utter incongruity of a situation where there existed an
amplitude of funds, as was evident with the “woman of means,” and my
own situation, where I was unable to meet the rent for the apartment
which was sheltering the child of Warren G. Harding, is apparent
without any comment from me.
Nor had I, up to that time, even attempted to “defy the conventions”
_openly_! In what way could I more meekly have conducted myself,
both in the expenditure of nervous energy required to protect the
great-hearted man I loved, and, in the later days after his death, in
my efforts to carry on alone and practically unaided, that I might not
be obliged to go to the Hardings and request to have the situation
righted. This would have been justified, even while my daughter’s
father lived, _had mere money been my paramount consideration_. Open
defiance of conventions could have yielded me no greater suffering than
had the growing realization of the hypocrisy which calls itself Justice
and marks out its path according to its own narrow-minded limitations.
Daisy Harding, I am sure, did not believe to be true certain things
which she wrote--unconscious imputations of past wrong-doing on my
part--for she herself had spoken her true feeling when, upon my first
revelations to her, she had said, “Why, Nan, I’ll bet that was brother
Warren’s greatest joy!” _That_ was the _real_ Daisy Harding speaking.
And this sentiment so early and frankly expressed by her would be the
sentiment of all who dare to speak truthfully.
The signature of this letter was merely “Lewis,” written in a somewhat
different hand and with paler ink. When I came to look at it closely
and realized anew how terrified people become who are afraid to face
situations and refuse to stand for Right, the bitter resentment I felt
because of her insinuations gave place to pity.
_175_
What a sorry state of affairs for the greatest country on earth! The
Harding attitude was but the universal social attitude toward all
unwedded mothers: that they have sinned against society and must suffer
the penalty. Indeed, do not ministers all over the country preach
this to a public willing to accept it, because, in most individual
instances, either temptation has not been experienced or else, being
experienced and indulged, has not resulted in actual childbirth? And so
this attitude is generally accepted as Right.
My own situation, which differed and was distinguished only because
it concerned the child of a man who had been placed in the highest
position the greatest republic in the world can offer, led me to the
conclusion that it was high time it was righted, and that little
children should be recognized, not for their parental origin, but for
themselves and _as having every right to legitimacy_, and to every
opportunity that would be theirs if they had been born under the yoke
of legal marriage.
In the chapter entitled “Social Justice,” in Warren G. Harding’s book,
“Our Common Country,” he says: “It will not be the America we love
which will neglect the American mother and the American child.”
If every man, woman and child were to ask this question: “Would
_I_ like to suffer ignominy, neglect, social slights, and unfair
recognition because _my_ mother and father had not been linked by
the bonds of conventional wedlock?” I am sure that the vehemence of
the united “NO!” would resound to the farthest corners of the country,
and that a people, drawn together through great human sympathy and
Christlike forgiveness, would unite to wipe out every stain upon the
motherhood of a nation through measures designed to _protect and honor
every mother’s child_!
[Illustration: The author in 1926]
There would then be laws governing such protective rights, there would
be frank and unashamed admission of fatherhood, and there would be
abstinence of indulgence where there existed unwillingness to make
such admissions, and equal advantages for the so-called illegitimate
as well as the legitimate; and there would be no more shifting of
responsibility upon the mother or upon her family.
And if I could, through my revelations, cause my daughter, as well as
thousands of potential mothers in the world, to recognize the gross
injustice humanity imposes through adherence to a social ruling which
is doing nothing in the right direction and much in the wrong, then,
indeed, we would have an array of intelligence raised against the
present system, in whose place would be demanded such legal measures as
would banish forever the heart-break of myriad lovers and their true
love-children.
I would not change the world. I would not preach recognition of
indiscriminate indulgence where admission of parenthood is denied. I
would not ask anything which is not humanly and divinely right and
possible. But I would, if it were within my humble prerogative and
power, as the mother of Warren Gamaliel Harding’s only child, open the
eyes of those blinded through adherence to hypocrisies which are basely
unfair, and I would bear the glorious fact of what constitutes true
birth legitimacy--which, in a word, is _love_.
_176_
It would have availed nothing to answer Daisy Harding’s letter. Had
there existed the slightest intention on the part of the Hardings to
take up the problem left unsolved by their lamented brother, I would
long before this have learned of their intentions. Nor would my failure
to answer this last letter of Miss Harding’s have debarred them from
concluding whatever plans they were advancing toward the upkeep and
maintenance of their niece.
Warren Harding’s empty wallet, given me by his sister, Carrie Votaw,
was indeed a symbol, unconscious and voiceless. But to me it spoke
eloquently of the universal empty pity, empty sympathy, empty love.
My not answering Miss Harding’s letter provided escape for all. So far
as I was concerned the whole Harding attitude had been summed up in the
last paragraph of Miss Harding’s letter, “I should like to have sent
you some money ... but I couldn’t ... on account of bills I had to pay.”
I would not have felt justified in ever approaching the Harding family
had not that very source of income which had fallen, for the most
part at least, into the hands of those who had not known it before
his death, been the one from which Mr. Harding had drawn the monthly
allowance which he gave into my hands for the care of our child. Surely
my child and his had a title as clear as that of his brothers and
sisters to the generosity he had shown in making his will--a title as
clear as the worded legacies which bore Mr. Harding’s signature.
I know nothing whatever about Mr. Harding’s will as it actually stands.
I have never inquired into it. I am ignorant also of what has gone
on about me since the revelation of my story to certain individuals,
except as I have stated it in this book. My fact-story is set down
just as the events occurred. The intimate details of Mr. Harding’s
death are also shrouded in mystery except as the papers gave them
forth. If I were to state my belief, I would say that his passing was
entirely untimely, and could have been avoided as truly as could the
necessity for this story have been avoided had the laws of the United
States provided for the legal protection and social equalization of all
children.
According to materia medica, Warren Harding died as the direct result
of a cerebral hemorrhage and indirectly from ptomaine poisoning. But
I, the mother of his only child, have never for one moment entertained
such a thought. I believe that under the burden of fatherhood which he
revered but dared not openly confess, combined with the responsibility
of the welfare of the nation he loved, the twenty-ninth President of
the United States truly laid down his life for his people. He died
of a broken heart. And through the voice of the child he loved may
there arise a diviner and more lasting memorial to his memory than any
reared by human hands,--the answer to the plea from the heart of a
mother,--_social justice for all little children_!