of those about me. The remembrance of my zealous belligerence may have prompted Mr. Witt's letter of appreciation.
The story to which I allude had to do with the propaganda of a statement that Mr. Harding's family had a strain of colored blood in their veins. I do not know how the promoters supported their story nor whence its origin; I only know that my being revolted at such a suggestion. The first time it reached my ears was one morning when my boss at campaign headquarters received an out-of-town telephone call, apprising him that such a story had been circulated in that particular town, and requesting suitable literature as a means of refutation. Well I remember how he turned to us in the office, repeating what had been said to him over the phone, and how someone in the office said, "Tell them it's a damned lie," and how I reiterated with all the intensity of one who knew better than anyone else the falsity of such story, "Yes, tell them it's a damned lie!" I was defending my own baby.
The following day as I entered the headquarters I found, stacked outside along the corridor and inside our offices, great piles of genealogical sheets, tracing, in diagram form, the Harding stock back to Stephen Harding, who was born about 1624.
It is needless to comment upon the reaction of this piece of unfair and unsuccessful propaganda. All one needs to do is to recall the Harding majority, unprecedented in the history of national elections.
The evening of the election, November 2nd, 1920 (Mr. Harding's birthday), I took a midnight train for Marion, Ohio, with a view to returning to New York and even possibly to the United States Steel Corporation. I had an idea if I could get back to New York I might work out some plan whereby I could have our baby with me, though my ideas as to how such a plan would develop were vague. My sister Elizabeth again promised to watch over her for me, and I myself planned to re-
