this Book is dedicated
with understanding
and love
to all unwedded
mothers, and to
their innocent
children whose
fathers are usually
not known to the
world....
Nan Britton
THE AUTHOR’S MOTIVE
If love is the only right warrant for bringing children into the world then many children born in wedlock are illegitimate and many born out of wedlock are legitimate.
In the author’s opinion wedlock as a word quite defines itself. Often a man and woman are locked at their wedding in a forced fellowship which soon proves to be loveless and during which the passions of the two express themselves in witless and unwanted progeny. And yet we wonder what is wrong with the world!
The story of my life-long love for Warren Gamaliel Harding and his love for me and our love for our child is told in these pages, together with the family, community, and political circumstances under which this relationship continued for the six and one-half years preceding the sudden passing of the President on August 2, 1923.
The author has had but one motive in writing for publication the story of her love-life with Mr. Harding. This motive is grounded in what seems to her to be the need for legal and social recognition and protection of all children in these United States born out of wedlock.
To the author, this cause warrants the unusual and conscious frankness with which she has written this book, and the apparent disregard for the so-called conventions, because she feels that the issue is greater than all the personal sacrifices involved.
Indeed, even like frankness on the part of thousands of mothers who could divulge similar life-tragedies might well be added to that of the author’s if such sacrifice would insure the aggressive agitation of a question involving one of the gravest wrongs existent today, with a view toward a legislative remedy.
Because of the political stature of the man-character involved, this fact-story would no doubt get to the public sooner or later, as news, or as court testimony in trials such as have recently involved men who are or have been national figures. In such case the story so sacred to the author would doubtless be garbled by news writers, or told only partially to serve some legal, personal or party interest. The author feels therefore that through her experiences she has been led to see the need for telling it herself, truly and completely, and in making it the basis for an appeal in behalf of the unfathered children of unwedded mothers, in the sincere hope that this book may result in happier conditions for childhood and motherhood throughout these United States of America.