no avail. Impossible carry on present regime unless more substantially assisted. Must have help immediately. Letter follows.
Nan."
The following letter was written that evening:
"Dearest Miss Harding:
I wired you this morning for $200 and hope to have the answer tomorrow by wire. If I do not hear, I shall simply have to take very definite steps to endeavor to establish Elizabeth Ann's claim to some attention from the Hardings as to their responsibility toward her. And I am determined to do so.
Knowing how kindly you have been disposed to feel toward the whole situation, and loving you as much as I do, I cannot help believing you will do everything in your power to bring about the proper sense of responsibility on the part of every one of the Hardings. However, I have been treated so shabbily by the Votaws that I cannot afford longer to allow sentiment to influence me.
The present regime is impossible without more help and it seems to me I am looking to the right source for it. I want Elizabeth Ann with me—in the winter time at least—but I cannot have her and keep up the expenses of an apartment without outside help. She should have an income of her own independent of anyone else, even her mother. It is her due as Warren G. Harding's child, and I am prepared to fight for it for her. I have lost a great deal of my pride in coming to you folks, and the Votaws' attitude has shown me that they prefer unpleasantness to a very proper acknowledgement of their—and all the Hardings'—obligations.
Mind, it is not as though I were asking anything for my own self—I want only that which is due Elizabeth Ann—an income which will enable me to have her with me as much and as often as I want. If I were alone, I can assure every one of you that I could keep myself. But in having Elizabeth Ann with me, I must go into a great deal of extra expense. I pay $130 a month for a very simple, furnished apartment, in a nice neighborhood. I give my mother $25 a week to feed her and the baby. You have taken care of her kindergarten, and you have also sent me $65 for her winter clothes, receipts for the purchase of which clothing I have kept, and the amount is, I might say, in excess of the $65, inasmuch as she had no winter clothing when she came to me, with the exception of an old coat (which I bought her last winter) and a couple of dresses. She needs another pair of shoes and another dress at this very moment. She is as easy on clothes as any other child, which means that she is normally hard on them.
