book I

have the following clipping from a March 4, 1921, paper, the day of his inauguration:

“The sun struck the inaugural stand in such a manner as to make his head appear in a halo. It was so marked that there was comment on it from the crowd.”

He was, to me, almost divine. I remember once, in 1920, the first time he came out to see me at my sister Elizabeth’s (6103 Woodlawn Avenue, Chicago) in June of that year, that we were “talking things over,” I on his lap. My elbow accidentally struck his ribs. “Ouch, dearie!” he exclaimed. I apologized and asked if I had hurt him. “No, you just poked me in the ribs!” he laughed. “Ribs!” I echoed, “Have _you those things_?” I shall never forget his low laugh as he hugged me.

It seemed to me I had never heard Warren Harding speak so feelingly as on that afternoon when he addressed his home town people and the great throng of visitors who had come from miles over the country to hear him. I well remember how he ended his speech, with a quotation from a piece my mother often used to recite. It was the concluding verse of Will Carleton’s poem, “The First Settler’s Story,” and goes:

“Boys flying kites haul in their white-winged birds, But you can’t do that way when you’re flying words. Thoughts unexpressed may sometimes fall back dead, But God Himself can’t kill ’em, once they’re said!”

He must have been inspired by knowledge of all the gossip that had surrounded his campaign, and I wondered, standing there in the bright sun, bare-headed, again adoring my hero from afar, how there could live one who would open his lips unkindly about Warren Gamaliel Harding!

In front of me stood Lois Archbold, as I shall call her, a neighbor and former teacher of mine. She had been a life-long friend of our family and my sister Elizabeth and I had each experienced the school girl “crush” on her which we usually developed upon our teachers. She and her sister were probably as strong Democrats as lived in Marion, and I was surprised to see Lois there in view of all the severe things I had been told by Miss Harding had passed her lips during the recent campaign--things so unkind that even Daisy Harding, who had up to that time been a friend of Miss Archbold and her sister, and had accepted their politics good-naturedly, ceased to speak to both of them on the street. And even I had been tempted to follow suit when I was in Marion in November of 1920 and Daisy had repeated to me these things when I went to visit with her during her luncheon hour at the high school or at her home.

Miss Harding had told me how her brother Warren had been instrumental in helping the Archbold sisters to better positions, and she had related how he had jocosely inquired of them on the morning of the Presidential election which way they intended to vote! Politics never stood in Mr. Harding’s way where friendship was concerned. Still, both the Archbold sisters had been frank to sponsor the cause of James M. Cox, Democratic candidate for President in 1920, and there is every reason to believe that they cast their votes for him. And now to see Lois Archbold right in front of me listening to Mr. Harding speak! I was amazed.

There was all about me the sound of clearing of throats and blowing of noses, and my own eyes were wet when Mr. Harding ceased speaking. But you may be sure it was by far the greatest surprise I had received for a long time to behold Lois Archbold’s eyes streaming with tears when she, unconscious of my presence in the immediate crowd, turned to walk away. It was to me only another triumph for my beloved Warren.

_77_

When we returned to Judge Mouser’s the judge was sitting on the porch, and his remark to his wife was, “Dell, one of us ought to go over to Dr. Harding’s and say how-do-you-do to President and Mrs. Harding.” Dr. Harding was the President’s father. His home was the social headquarters for the presidential party. After considerable discussion, Mrs. Mouser decided she herself would go and convey the Judge’s compliments to the President and his wife.

“But you must come along with me, Nan,” she said turning to me.

I insisted I did not care to go, fearing Mr. Harding might disapprove for some reason, but Mrs. Mouser naturally could not see why I objected to going.

“You adore Mr. Harding so, Nan, and always have, so I can’t see why you object to going over--it’s just a matter of form, anyway.” So it did seem up to me to accompany her and in the end I consented.

Annabel, or else young Mrs. Grant Mouser (I have forgotten which), drove us over but would not go in with us.

We found that Mr. Harding had gone off with the Dr. Carl Sawyers, Sr. and Jr., and Brigadier-General Charles G. Dawes to play golf, but Mrs. Warren Harding was receiving informally in the living-room of Dr. Harding’s home. With her we found Mr. and Mrs. “Ed” Uhler, and it seems to me another person whom I cannot recall now was there also.

If I had any personal misgivings as to the spirit of Mrs. Harding’s greeting they were entirely without foundation, for, after shaking hands with Mrs. Mouser, she held out her hand to me with a smile. “Why, how-do-you-do, Nan? How are you?” she inquired pleasantly. If I had ever had reason to doubt that Warren Harding’s love for another woman was suspected by his legal wife, I was with this meeting disarmed of all further semi-pleasurable apprehension that I was the person Florence Harding would name! As a matter of frank truth, it was never that I particularly cared whether or not she did discover it, but Mr. Harding’s statement to me that “she’d raise hell, Nan!” had been my cue for guarding well a situation which Mr. Harding had termed his “greatest joy.” In the past year and a half, Tim Slade has stated to me that if Florence Harding had known the love Warren Harding and I bore to each other, the qualities latent in her temperament would not have released him but might very possibly have sought some form of retaliation. What a strange love, I thought, that would hold the happiness of one’s husband in a vise! But my solicitude for Mr. Harding’s peace of mind insured every cautionary measure on my part.

There in the familiar atmosphere of Dr. Harding’s home, it occurred to me that perhaps now Mrs. Warren Harding might drop her patronizing manner and become natural; certainly the Uhlers, genuine people, inspired such naturalness, for I knew them to be as good friends as the Hardings had in Marion. In my Harding