The President's Daughter (Britton)/Chapter 140
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 anything, 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.