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So, under date of May 15th, 1926, I wrote to the Vice-President of the United States, Charles G. Dawes, as follows:
“Brigadier-General Charles G. Dawes,
Washington, D. C.
My dear Sir:
There is a matter of grave importance which I would very much like to discuss briefly with you.
It concerns an individual in whom a mutual friend of yours and of mine was intensely interested.
Inasmuch as it is a matter both private and personal, it is impossible of discussion with your secretary or anyone else who might represent you in ordinary affairs of business.
Will you be good enough to grant me a brief interview?
Respectfully,
(Miss) Nan Britton”
I would go to him as soon as he replied to my letter, and I was sure he would reply in the affirmative and grant me an interview. Even though he were the Vice-President, he would be accessible to a citizen of the United States if that citizen could produce a letter of such friendliness as that which I would show him I had received back in 1917 from Mr. Harding. I was entirely unafraid to discuss my matter for Elizabeth Ann with anyone, even the King of England, and I would put it squarely to General Dawes as to whether he thought I had asked for more than was Elizabeth Ann’s due when I requested from the Hardings $50,000 for her. I would explain to him that I was willing to continue carrying my own indebtedness if I could obtain justice for my child and Warren Harding’s. Tim Slade had said Mr. Dawes had been willing to help raise a fund for Elizabeth Ann, and, though I did not understand Tim’s sudden curtailment of the discussion of his plans in this respect, I would straighten it all out in General Dawes’ mind when I saw him.
Tim had said to me that he had not divulged my identity to the various men with whom he had talked, but Miss Harding’s letter to me, in which she said her husband had learned the story from Hoke Donithen, had inclined me to believe that perhaps Tim had forgotten in some instances to be discreet. In the case of my letter written to General Dawes, I was sure that the letter itself, with correct signature, would immediately attach itself in the mind of Mr. Dawes to the story Tim had told him, no matter how much or how little of it he was acquainted with.