The Author
FOREWORD
The author desires to express gratitude to the many public-spirited men and women who have shared her earnest in the cause sponsored by this book; also to those friends whose knowledge and review of the facts herein recorded have contributed to their chronological correctness.
The author early sought legal counsel regarding the use of the letters from which she has quoted in this book, and others unmentioned by her. She was advised that the copyright of these letters remains with those who wrote them and she has therefore been obliged by law to paraphrase them or quote only partially. The originals of all these letters from President Harding, Mrs. Ralph T. Lewis (Abigail Harding), Mr. Heber Herbert Votaw, Mrs. Heber Herbert Votaw (Carolyn Harding), Tim Slade (as he is called in this book), Hon. James M. Cox, Democratic nominee for President in 1920, Mr. C. E. Witt of the Picture Publicity Bureau of the Republican National Committee during the Harding Campaign, and others, are in the possession of her publishers and may be read by any persons whose request appears justified.
The
President’s
Daughter
1
I was born in Claridon, Ohio, a very small village about ten miles east of Marion, Ohio, on November 9th, 1896. My father, a physician, was at that time practising under the supervision of his cousin, an older physician who had an established practice of long standing. My mother, who had received some of her high school training in Marion, where she had come from New Philadelphia, Ohio, to live with her maternal grandmother, was teaching a country school in Claridon when father met her. I was still a baby and my older sister Elizabeth about three when we moved to Marion, where we settled permanently.
Inasmuch as this book has much to do with President Harding and myself, I may sketch briefly the friendly relations which existed early between our families: