Part 35

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_!

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_!

THE END

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Transcriber’s note

Typographical and punctuation errors have been silently corrected.