Part 28

While I still puzzled and grieved over the disappointing note received from Mrs. Votaw, I received a cheering telegram from Daisy Harding. She wired that she had arrived home, the night before my letter reached her, from a trip into Illinois and Indiana. “You can count on me for K and C funds,” she said in her wire. She asked my permission to send the letter she had received from me on to her sister, Mrs. Votaw. The telegram was signed, “Mrs. A. A. Stuart.” I assumed that Miss Harding had not wanted to sign this telegram in her name “Mrs. Lewis” because of the necessity for having it go through the telegraph office where she might be known. However, it occurred to me that the wire itself was so coded that it would have made little difference. I knew that “K” and “C” referred to Kindergarten and Clothes funds, and I was delighted that she wished to send my letter on to Mrs. Votaw.

In the meantime, however, under date of October 5th, 1925, I had written Daisy Harding again, telling her of Mrs. Votaw’s letter to me and ending my letter with the following sentence:

“You know I must know now whether or not you and Mrs. Votaw are interested in helping, because it means looking ahead to Elizabeth Ann’s happiness a long, long way.”

Then, upon receipt of the above telegram from Miss Harding, I wrote her again, under date of October 8th, 1925. I acknowledged her wire and told her she could be sure I would do everything to co-operate in any way she suggested, and that there was no reason why everything should not go along in a perfectly quiet, normal way. Then I wrote, in the same letter, as follows:

“My mother writes from Athens that she is making Elizabeth Ann’s last winter’s dresses over and getting herself in readiness to come East if I want her to--and I certainly do. I have been looking at three-room apartments and shall definitely decide upon one, now that I am sure about being able to have the baby. Oh, it will be such a joy! I am so happy about it.

I have begun again a course in writing and am so interested in making a success of it some day. I read the other night that Mary Roberts Rinehart began when _she_ was twenty-eight--in the evenings when her children were sleeping--and why not try to emulate Mary Roberts Rinehart!... By all means give the letter to Mrs. Votaw.... I hope she is much better.

By the way, I saw T. S. last night for a short time and am having dinner with him tonight at the Waldorf, where he always stops. He had another gentleman, a friend of his, with us, and we talked current events--and I had to leave comparatively early. He is a fine man--and I can assure you he is a man of honor....”

“T. S.” of course meant Tim Slade. I was meeting him every month and having dinner with him at the Waldorf, and he was assuring me he was still working upon Elizabeth Ann’s matter.

Daisy Harding had asked me not to tell Tim, or my sister Elizabeth and her husband, Scott, about my having talked with her. It was comparatively easy for me not to speak about it to Elizabeth and Scott, for I only talked to them in letters, but I unintentionally allowed something to slip one night in talking with Tim, and divulged to him the fact that I had seen and talked with Daisy Harding. However, this was not until some time in November or December, and I had seen Daisy Harding in June of that same year, 1925.

Tim had previously inquired whether I thought I would be able to have the baby with me that winter, and I had told him it was going to be possible, not telling him I had talked with Miss Harding, and allowing him to speculate as he might about the source of the added income which would of course be necessary for such a regime.

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It was with hopeful heart that I met Tim each month at the Waldorf, for I felt so sure that one day he would bring me the news that he had located the fund left, as I fondly thought, for Elizabeth Ann, or if not this news, perhaps the next best, viz., that he had been able to secure substantial funds, either through interesting the Votaws himself, he and the Votaws wishing to surprise me, or by taking the matter to the men whom he had spoken of as Mr. Harding’s most loyal friends, notably among them Charles G. Dawes.

I was physically worn at that time, and, despite Daisy Harding’s willingness to defray part of my expenses, I felt sure I was going to find it beyond my power to carry on. I was ready to accept for my daughter a fund which would in point of fact really be charitable donations from her father’s best friends.

So I suffered Tim’s plans to go on uninterrupted, and hoped and prayed that the Hardings themselves would come to a realization of what they should do for Elizabeth Ann. If a fund of some sort could be established, and Elizabeth Ann given the income therefrom, such income could be in part applied upon our monthly expenses and enable me, through her own income, to have her with me.

I accepted tolerantly Tim Slade’s oft-expressed opinions of the various members of the Harding family, feeling it would be only a matter of time when he would see for himself the characteristics I knew so well predominated _in the hearts_ of the Hardings, no matter what the issue, so long as that issue was _right_. And I felt sure they would come to see that the right thing to do for their brother’s child was to enable her, through their financial help, to share with them some of that money which their brother had made possible for them to enjoy, and further make it possible for her mother to have her. Women like Daisy and Carrie Harding were not the kind of women who would stop in at a meat market downtown to buy some poor street mongrel a piece of meat, as I remember well they used to do in Marion, and then fail to experience that far greater sense of human sympathy and sense of justice where their own brother’s child was concerned.

So Tim Slade’s repeated statement, “They don’t want to part with their money, I tell you,” fell upon deaf ears.

“Gee, if I had known this during the presidential campaign of 1920, you could have had anything you wanted, and I myself could have got you anywhere from $200,000 to a million!” was in substance Tim’s statement to me, “and with only a crook of your little finger, too!” he added.

When I said to Tim that such a request from me would have been as foreign to my thoughts as would have been the idea of threat of exposure of my sweetheart, he replied that the money was going those days to far less worthy causes than mine. He even cited the case of the woman whom I have called Mrs. Arnold, of Marion, Ohio, whose name had been mentioned with that of Mr. Harding during the campaign. “Look what they did for Mrs. Arnold! Why, they sent her to the Orient!” Tim declared. I remembered hearing that she had gone abroad upon the heels of the gossip which arose during the campaign.

“Yes, and they gave Mrs. Harding plenty of money, too!” Tim continued his amazing revelations. “And all the time _you_ held the safety of the Republican Party in your hands!” But, I told Tim, Mr. Harding was the man I _loved_, and moreover he was at the time making ample provision for his sweetheart and our child, and Tim’s implication that I should have taken financial advantage of the campaign situation filled me with resentment. However, as he said, here I was, fighting to keep on my feet, and depending upon my sister and her husband most of the time to keep the child who should have been a first consideration at all times. And I could not but concede that this was true. I knew, though others perhaps would not believe it, that my darling sweetheart had his child constantly in mind, and I could never, never be convinced that he had not made as adequate provision for her, in case of his passing, as he had personally provided for her and me during his lifetime.

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Tim Slade had quite a lot to say about Mrs. Harding. He told me how once, when he was preparing to make a trip to Chicago where he was to meet me at the Congress Hotel to deliver a package, Mrs. Harding had said to him, “Tim Slade, _what are you doing for Warren_?” And Tim, glad of an opportunity to arouse her curiosity, replied blandly that he was doing nothing at all. “Well, you _are_!” she insisted, “and what’s more, I’ll see to it that you are put out--I’ll make you lose your job!”

He said it had infuriated her to think he had such a direct entree to the President and upon a matter about which Mrs. Harding knew nothing. According to Tim, he answered her, “Listen, my dear lady, you couldn’t do a thing to me!” And he said she knew it, and that further infuriated her.

I never quite understood how Tim would dare to defy the First Lady of the Land, but from the things he has told me, such defiance on his part was of frequent occurrence, and yet never lost him his government job in the secret service.

Tim said he _knew_ that my relationship to the President, whatever it was, was of paramount concern to Mr. Harding, to the “boss,” as he so often called him when speaking of the President to me. In this connection he told me how, upon different occasions, when he had received either a telephonic communication from me or a letter, he had gone immediately in each instance to the President, and the President, no matter whether he was occupied with state matters, or a game of cards in his private apartment, had given Tim the strictest attention while the latter delivered his message from me.

Tim, having lived for twenty-one years in and about the White House, knew and was known to everybody from the maid-servants to the Cabinet members, and knew even the gossip of the White House kitchen. It was in this way that I learned from Tim that Mrs. Warren Harding had not been a popular mistress during her brief reign. Tim explained to me that Mrs. Harding wanted her finger on the pulse of every activity in the White House, and it was to this end that she had endeavored to direct even the functionings of the servants’ quarters.

However, our conversations were not entirely taken up with the discussions pertaining to my own difficulties, and I feel quite well acquainted with certain phases of Tim Slade’s own life--his beautiful country home, for which he said he paid $35,000 when he purchased it early in 1924, I think, and his various cars, dogs, social doings, intimate contacts with George Christian and Mr. Christian’s family, and so on.

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Tim early revealed to me what he termed the “inside dope” on _The Marion Daily Star_ purchase by Mr. Brush and Mr. Moore. He said that Mr. Brush would be vitally concerned in seeing that no expose of Mr. Harding’s love-story was made, for it would affect the sales of his paper. Tim was of the opinion that Mr. Brush ought to be asked to contribute to any fund he, Tim, might undertake to raise for Warren Harding’s daughter, because Mr. Brush had benefitted greatly from Mr. Harding’s sale of the _Star_. Just why or how Mr. Brush had gained, I do not remember, though Tim explained it all to me at the time.

But I do remember the incident which led me to think that Tim Slade wanted to approach Mr. Brush as much in his own behalf as in my daughter’s: He said that when Mr. Frank A. Vanderlip came out publicly with statements concerning the sale of _The Marion Daily Star_, Mr. Brush immediately promised to pay him a certain sum of money if he, Tim, would intercede and successfully handle the situation. Tim said that Mr. Vanderlip, on the other hand, called him to his home, or office, and offered him a straight $35,000 a year if Tim would work for _him_. This offer Tim said he refused. What Tim could do for Frank A. Vanderlip, beyond negotiating in the matter about the _Star_, I do not know. In any event, Tim said that he was responsible for having smoothed the matter out for Mr. Brush, but, up until the time he repeated the story to me, he had not received payment for his services.

Evidently, from the interviews which followed with Tim Slade at the Waldorf, he was not allowing any grass to grow under his feet. He told me he had called Mr. Crissinger on the phone and had intimated to him the nature of my problem, and that Mr. Crissinger had been eager to learn the details. “Dick” Crissinger was a Marion man whom Mr. Harding appointed Governor of the Federal Reserve in Washington, and who now holds that position. However, when Tim called Mr. Crissinger the second time, presumably to make a definite appointment with him, inasmuch as Mr. Crissinger had been frank to say he was very much interested in hearing the whole story, Tim said he was informed very curtly by Mr. Crissinger that he knew nothing about the matter nor did he care to know, and that he refused to have anything to do with it at all. I said to Tim that it looked as though Mr. Crissinger had approached someone else in the meantime and had received suggestions as to the attitude he should take.

About George Christian, President Harding’s private secretary, Tim seemed to feel only the one thing which he very often expressed, which was in substance, “Poor old George! If anything else comes to his ears about the Harding Administration, I don’t know what will happen to him!”

How terrible it all was, to be sure! The more Tim told me of Mr. Harding’s “friends,” the more my heart bled for him who had leaned upon them for the same gracious support and loyalty he had so generously bestowed. If such conditions existed, and Warren Harding, having trusted and been betrayed, really knew about them, what heart-break it must have brought! Tim’s revelations were startling, yet the court trials, the talk, and the scandal that had gone on since Mr. Harding’s tragic death all helped to make them seem plausible to me.

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During the summer of 1924, when I was married and doing secretarial work at Columbia University, I had even then been endeavoring, in the evenings, to produce literary work, and in this connection had sent one of my pieces to _The Marion Daily Star_ for consideration. It was a story in dialect, and probably not really available for newspaper use. But I sent it anyway, and addressed my communication to a childhood friend, who has for some years been connected with the _Star_, James Woods. When I was a little girl, “Jimmy” used to live next door to us. He “carried papers,” and Mr. Harding had watched his industriousness and rewarded him with the responsible position he now holds. Jim Woods had taken the manuscript of my story to Roy D. Moore, editor of the _Star_, and Mr. Moore had in turn read it and written Jim a memorandum of considerable length, which Jim in turn sent on to me in explanation of their refusal of my story. In this memorandum, Mr. Moore was generous in his praise for what he termed my native ability, and urged that I persevere and make of myself the writer I desired to be.

I related this incident to Tim Slade. I told Tim I had written a poem, about Mr. Harding, which I wondered if the _Star_ would print. Tim answered that anything I wanted printed in the _Star_ I should just give to him and _he_ would see that Mr. Brush had it published! Of course, such forced publication did not appeal to me and I have not again approached _The Marion Daily Star_ with any of my material.

I told Tim also about having written to Mr. Fred Scobey during that same summer, feeling even then that I might essay to interest one of Mr. Harding’s friends in Elizabeth Ann, in case something happened to me, or, as was growingly obvious, in case I eventually had to ask outside aid.

Tim told me that President Harding had offered the position of Director of the Mint to Mr. Scobey. “Why,” I said, “he _was_ the Director of the Mint, I believe.” Tim answered that he himself had refused the post and Mr. Harding had thereupon tendered it to Mr. Scobey. Tim said, yes, Mr. Scobey had held the position for a while, but had resigned on account of ill-health. I spoke to Tim of Mr. Harding’s fondness for Mr. Scobey. Mr. Harding one time told me how he had handed Mr. Scobey a letter addressed to me in New York with the request that he drop it in the box on his way home; that was in the Senate Office. I had said to him, “_Why_ do you do those things, honey? Mr. Scobey might have _opened_ it!” He said no, he would not open _any_thing, that he was utterly trustworthy. “Why, Scobey’s my best friend, Nan!” Mr. Harding had said to me. No betrayal of trust on Mr. Scobey’s part would ever be entertained in the mind of his friend, Warren Harding. And so it was with the rest of Mr. Harding’s friends. He trusted them all implicitly.

Tim Slade said that the position of Director of the Mint paid only $5,000 a year and that he wouldn’t accept it. I wondered what the secret service men received as salary, for Tim had told me he had been employed in that capacity by the Government for twenty-one years. Mr. Harding must have made it possible, I thought, for Tim to be advanced to a position paying a larger salary, and I recalled how the newspapers had stated, in the Teapot Dome Trial, that Tim Slade was receiving $1,000 a week as manager of a brokerage firm in Washington. In casual conversation about that trial and Tim’s appearance on the witness stand, I said, half-jokingly, “Well, they even published your salary!” And he said he had not received that much.

Tim talked very freely to me about everything and the statement he often made, “They can’t pin anything on _me_!” seemed to indicate that although Tim knew a great deal about everything that was going on, and moreover had gone personally to Mr. Harding to warn the President of conditions which were constantly at work against him, so far as Tim himself was concerned he had kept aloof and could not now be identified with anything of a disagreeable character which had developed as the result of the Harding Administration.

I asked Tim his opinion of Harry M. Daugherty. He said he thought he was “crazy,” and that instead of attempting to write a book, currently rumored as Mr. Daugherty’s purpose, it was Tim’s judgment that he had better “fade out of the picture” as quickly as possible. I remembered the Hardings had spoken of Mr. Daugherty with affection and admiration, but this was only another instance where Tim and Mr. Harding’s people did not seem to agree. Mr. Harding certainly regarded Harry Daugherty as a friend.

Among other newsy items which Tim advanced for my interest and sometimes for my amusement, was the statement that even Brigadier-General Sawyer, personal physician to Mrs. Harding, and remembered by me since childhood for his diminutiveness and pointed goatee, was given to philandering. This and many other stories which I heard seemed so grotesquely incongruous, when I visualized the appearance and idiosyncrasies of the various indulging culprits, that I laughed heartily.

Tim said it was well-known that the Edward B. McLeans, of Washington, were very lovely to Mrs. Harding. Mr. Harding had several times spoken of the McLeans to me, and one time in particular had he referred to Mrs. McLean when we were dining in New York and I was carrying our baby for the fifth month. “Why, dearie, I have known some women to keep their figure almost in normalcy up to the time the baby comes. I remember I attended a reception given by Mrs. McLean just a month before she had a child, and some of us were amazed to learn afterwards that she had given birth to a baby.” This was cited to me in connection with my remaining in the United States Steel Corporation where I was working until July. I, too, Mr. Harding thought, carried my child with slight showing.

It was Mr. Harding himself who pointed out to me the McLean residence when I rode with him in Washington upon my visits there back in 1917-18. But at that time, as Senator, he was not so intimate with the McLeans. In fact, Mr. Harding then seemed to speak of Mr. McLean, as well as Senator Newberry and others, with awe, and I can remember how he used to say such-and-such a person “has a pile of money, Nan,” probably looking up to them somewhat for having acquired the riches which he himself might never possess.

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Meanwhile, during these monthly visits of Tim Slade to New York, “to report to his boss and get his salary check,” I was going ahead with my plans to have my baby and my mother with me in New York under the arrangement worked out by me with the financial assistance Daisy Harding had agreed to provide.

Under date of October 16, 1925, I received a letter from Miss Harding.

“I sent your letter on to sister but it didn’t have the desired effect,” she wrote, “but I’m glad I sent it just the same....” Mrs. Votaw had written her sister Daisy that she had been ill and in the sanitarium, Miss Harding wrote to me, and, following this, she said, “Somehow, I can’t write it in a letter, the whole situation, resulting from the disclosure to her and her husband, especially in regard to him (Mr. Votaw) who just idolized E. A.’s father and therefore can’t and doesn’t want to believe it....” Those had been almost Tim Slade’s identical words to me, “Say, they _don’t want to believe it_!” Miss Harding went on to say that her sister, Mrs. Votaw, could not understand why, if I cared so much for their brother, I should have found it necessary to tell so many people the story about Elizabeth Ann’s identity as our daughter. It occurred to me that in a nation of millions, the real truth was that our story was known to amazingly few! I could count on less than ten fingers those who had heard it from my own lips, and this number included Daisy Harding and Tim Slade as well as certain members of my own immediate family who had been indispensable in the handling of our situation to date. As for the two or three others, friends of mine, they had certainly shown their friendship for me in guarding well the secret entrusted to them. I determined to make a point of this picayunish written parley either to Miss Harding or to the Votaws when I wrote to them. I felt my resentment was justly indulged. If for six and one-half years I could, with Mr. Harding, protect almost to inviolability a secret as colossal as ours, it seemed to me I deserved credit for that much at least.

“As soon as you make arrangements for E. A.’s return to New York, let me know as to schooling, etc., and I’ll help you as much as I can.... I want to help you,” Daisy Harding wrote in this letter. I knew that the school circular I had sent her which specified $165 for Elizabeth Ann’s kindergarten expenses could not as yet have reached her. Miss Harding spoke of having made some investments and promised me some help on my debts as soon as she realized some profit on her investments. Her letter, signed, “Lovingly, A. H. Lewis,” was, on the whole, comforting. It was good to know that at heart she took a sympathetic view of my situation. But what a bitter disappointment that the Votaws should take the opposite attitude!

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Then under date of October 18th, having received Miss Harding’s letter, sent the 16th, I wrote her again, sending her a carbon copy of a letter which I had written to the Votaws, having been inspired to do so by the following incident:

Upon receipt of the letter from Miss Harding which I have quoted above, I determined that I ought now to go directly to the Votaws in Washington and discuss the matter with them. After all, Mr. Votaw, whom Miss Harding had particularly cited as wishing to discredit my story, had probably got only a smattering of it from Daisy, or through his wife second-hand, and I felt a first-hand knowledge might bring him to a clearer understanding of the truth of the matter and a fairer viewpoint concerning the obligation of the Harding family to Elizabeth Ann.