White House gossip

by Edna M. Colman

Mrs. Harding, born Florence Kling, the daughter of Amos and Louisa Bouton Kling, disappointed her wealthy father immeasurably by being born a girl. He bitterly resented that fact. Her mother’s health became so fragile during her little-girlhood that she and her father came to depend upon each other for outdoor companionship which the mother could not share. Being obsessed with disgust over the ignorance of the majority of women in business matters brought to his attention daily in his banking affairs, Mr. Kling decided to take a hand in his daughter’s education and add another study to a programme already filled with the useful and ornamental branches usually planned to fit out a girl. Among these was a study of music that was encouraged and developed to an almost professional degree, and the five hours of daily piano practice carried in its wake much besides the ability to interpret the old masters.

Banker Kling approved of all this and more, so he took his lively little daughter in hand and trained her as he would have trained a first son, in all the details of business and banking. Florence Kling was an apt pupil, and soon she was as familiar with her father’s routine and detail of work as he was. Naturally, the comradeship and understanding between them became very close.

All the joys and sports of her day, the frolics, parties, and good times belonging to girlhood, were also open to this girl, who had a knack of making and keeping her friends. Early in young-ladyhood she became the wife of Mr. De Wolff and the mother of a son. The marriage was not happy, and in the course of time a divorce terminated it. Both Mr. De Wolff and their son died.

As a child, this girl learned to ride horseback, becoming an expert horsewoman, being able to handle any horse she chose to ride. This accomplishment played a prominent part in her friendship with Editor Harding. Gossip declared that they met at a dance and that the mutual interest there created was speedily fanned into love. An ardent courtship followed, much of which was spent by the two riding horseback through the country lanes.

Mr. Kling viewed this budding romance with stern disfavour, for he had little use for the newspaper profession. As the affair progressed, his opposition increased, and he took a high hand in forbidding the marriage. Equally high-spirited, his daughter refused to give up her fiancé just because he was struggling with a one-horse newspaper. She chose her lover in preference to her father, and for seven years Mr. Kling refused to speak to either of them. Later, however, he came to admire his son-in-law and to admit that his daughter’s husband was all that he could desire. Because of the bitter feeling in her family, the young couple were married in the house which Mr. Harding bought and which they occupied as their home during all of their years of life in Marion, and in which the front-porch campaign for the Presidency was conducted.

From the beginning, their domestic life was ideal, that of comrades sharing every problem. In the privacy of their home circle, they were “the Duchess” and “Sonny,” and sometimes these nicknames slipped out more readily than the Florence and Warren. He was always deferential and solicitous to a degree that was a point of pleased observation to the throngs that met them. Mrs. Harding was a notable example of the modern woman whose pride in her husband personally as well as in his career was the outstanding motive of her own life and activities. Apart they were never content.

“I have no ambition for myself. I am content to trail along with Warren Harding. He has the warmest sympathy of any man I know,” she once said, adding, “Even the newsboys were crazy about him, just as crazy as his dogs were.”

In the strenuous pre-election days, Mrs. Harding’s faith in the successful outcome never faltered. She earned her place at his side, for she worked tirelessly night and day in all kinds of weather with all of the energy and more of the astuteness and patience than the average male campaigner. She made countless addresses, wrote reams of campaign literature, and organized numerous clubs of women voters. Furthermore, she kept a check upon every move, and her advice on political matters was the wonder of the old-timers in political wisdom. With it all, she kept out of the fierce limelight.

She stands out among our Presidents’ wives because she was the first woman voter and politician to come to the White House. A trained business woman, possessed of a keen analytical mind, with a gift of executive ability beyond the average, she was also a charming, tactful, gracious hostess. She knew every detail of her housekeeping, and at the White House as well as in her own home, she saw to it that money’s worth was being obtained for money spent.

For thirty years, this woman had studied the political life of her country as well as that of foreign nations. She knew her city, her county, her state, and her country. Great national issues were as familiar to her as to her husband, and the big questions of the day slipped into her conversation as readily as the polite small talk. Frank almost to abruptness, she looked a visitor squarely in the eye and gave him a man’s handshake along with a greeting that matched her friendly smile.