Harding's Love Letters, 21st-Century Style

Valentine's Day is just around the corner, which means you surely have one thing on your mind: Warren G. Harding. 

A couple years ago, I created some printable valentines based on Harding's love poems. This year I decided to kick it up a notch by having some artificial intelligence software expand on Harding's ode.

Below is the text that I entered of Harding's poem. (Caution: It's steamy!)

I love your poise

Of perfect thighs

When they hold me

in paradise …

I love the rose

Your garden grows

Love seashell pink

That over it glows

I love to suck

Your breath away

I love to cling —

There long to stay …

I love you garb’d

But naked more

Love your beauty

To thus adore …

I love you when

You open eyes

And mouth and arms

And cradling thighs …

***

Here is what the AI spit out. I removed some redundancies and cleaned up the stanzas a bit, but this is what Harding would produce today if he were a robot:

I love the half grin

On your serene face

Your eyes the sweet blue

Of a boy …

I love the roses

Bumping upon your hips …

I love your blonde hair

Draped in cloud

I love your dewy hair

And all your surfaces

I love your wrinkles and hairs

That together give you an enchanting illusion

Of grace …

I love to wake

Sapphiring in the sun

And clouds

I love you in your nighties …

I love the way you start to falter

With your smile

And your touch …

I love your memories

Of everything I’ve ever done, said, or loved

And how you’ll never let them leave you

And how I’ll never forget them,

Or forget you.

And I will hold this in.

With the crescendo

Of your breathing

And smiling eyes

I love to want to be

With you

Now and forever

***

The AI isn't quite as risque as Harding himself, but it got surprisingly touching at the end. 

If you're struggling to find the perfect words to convey your love, just give the object of your affection Harding's original poem or the 21st-century remake. That should do the trick. 

A Dead President Makes Answer to the President's Daughter (Book Review)

I have discovered an amazing piece of 1920s fanfiction.

I can't remember how I stumbled upon the existence of this book, A Dead President Makes Answer to the President's Daughter, but when I did, I knew I had to have it. I couldn't find much information about it, but the idea that it involved a deceased Warren G. Harding discussing his alleged mistress's book was too good to pass up.

Unfortunately, it's not still in print. The book, written by Anton Shrewsbury Jenks, was published in 1928 by the Golden Hind Press, and is not readily available. Thankfully I was able to find one (in decent shape, no less) for a reasonable price on Amazon.

Some quick backstory in case you're not familiar: Warren G. Harding had at least two well-known affairs. One of them was with a woman named Nan Britton, who, after Harding's death, wrote a book called The President's Daughter to reveal the truth about his having fathered her child, and also as a means of supporting that child, as Harding had not left an inheritance for them.

Britton's book, published in 1927, understandably caused quite a stir. The book was considered so shocking and lascivious that Britton had to self-publish it, and authorities attempted to ban its sale. So naturally, it became an instant hit.

That brings us to this gem, published just months later: A Dead President Makes Answer to the President's Daughter.

I was surprised by how small this book is: 94 pages, but the story doesn't really begin until page 15, the type and margins are large, and there are a lot of blank pages. I read the whole thing in well under half an hour. But that's okay because I realized I was holding an early-20th-century equivalent of McSweeney's-style satire. And it is phenomenal.

The premise is that the author (Jenks) is visiting relatives with his wife and children, but he decides to return home alone for the night. When he gets home, he plans on having a drink but finds the frigidaire has broken down and isn't producing ice, so he decides to go to bed instead. That's when his wife's book, The President's Daughter, catches his eye and he decides to read it.

He becomes enthralled with the book, but after a few hours he also feels physically uneasy, as though something is in the room with him. That's when he realizes the ghost of Warren G. Harding is sitting in his bedroom.

The two men get into a lengthy conversation about the book and the question of Harding's alleged child. Harding seems despondent at not knowing what to think, and he reveals that it was St. Peter himself who alerted him that he had a child. It turns out that there are two levels of heaven, and the higher one is reserved for those who had offspring. If Harding is able to become convinced that the child is his, he will be able to move to that higher heavenly level.

Now, at this point I was confused because the whole premise of Britton's book is that Harding did know about the child. So how did this ghost first hear about it from St. Peter?

I turned the page to find that Jenks wondered the same thing, and that's what he asked Harding: Didn't you know? Harding's response is basically that he let Nan believe that he believed her, but he wasn't really sure what to think. Jenks asks if he believes Nan was with another man, and although Harding is offended that Jenks would question Nan's honor, at the same time, he can't rule out the possibility.

"I worried constantly about her. Whenever we met I kept warning her. I wanted her to exercise the greatest care as to where she went, dined, and slept. God knows I wanted her all to myself. But how could I honestly believe that she was all mine when I saw her so rarely and the world seemed to want her so much?"
With these words the dead man's head sank into his arms. He was weeping softly and bitterly.

Ultimately, Harding cannot know for sure whether the child is his, and he also decides the upper level of heaven is probably too pious anyway and he's better off staying where he is. Then he disappears.

Shocked by what had just happened, and also overwhelmed by the sudden odor of decay, Jenks rushes back to his relatives' house. He arrives in time for breakfast and regales them with the story of meeting Warren G. Harding's ghost. His wife, less than pleased with the whole thing, doesn't believe he had a supernatural encounter. When they get home, she realizes the broken refrigerator is leaking ammonia, the source of both the smell and the hallucination. The book ends thusly:

"But the conversation!" I lamented. "Surely you don't think it utterly valueless?"
She shrugged her pretty shoulders.
"It depends on what people will pay for that sort of thing. You should be able to sell a million copies of that conversation at a dollar and a half a copy."
And the rest is history, as they say. 

Frankly, the whole thing is brilliant. The quick turnaround to take advantage of a hot topic, some "charming" 1920s misogyny, subtle references to Harding's lack of culture, several tongue-in-cheek references to the importance of "a Senator from Ohio," the trolling at the end... It was truly glorious.

So who was this Anton Shrewsbury Jenks? I have no idea. I suspected it was a pseudonym because it just sounds like a pseudonym, and when I looked him up I discovered my suspicions were correct. In the book, Jenks refers to himself as a journalist, but there seem to be no records of anyone with that name, other than this one book. There is speculation that Jenks might really be Samuel Roth, publisher of erotica, political exposés, pornography, and more. Roth appears to have thrived on running afoul of the law and was imprisoned at least five times for distributing obscene literature. He even found himself a potential witness in the Alger Hiss trial.

Thanks to recent DNA evidence, we know that Warren G. Harding was, indeed, the father of Nan Britton's child. If that means he has now made it to the higher level of heaven, I hope it's not too boring for him.

Harding: Before it was Cool

Did you know that yesterday was the anniversary of Warren G. Harding's untimely demise? And did you know that today is the anniversary of Calvin Coolidge taking the oath of office to fill Harding's place?

Celebrate the occasion with my brand-new shirt (inspired by @potus_geeks). Warren G. Harding: He was president before it was Coolidge.

The design is available in both black and white type, and shirts are available in unisex and women's cuts, depending on your preference. The design is also available on items other than shirts, such as mugs, stickers, and miniskirts. (Warren would have appreciated that last one.)

Items are available at Redbubble, and you can use this link to save $10 on a $30 purchase. (First-time customers only.)

While you're shopping, be sure to look for the Raise a Glass to Freedom shirts (available in regular or rainbow colors) and create a whole Presidentress-approved wardrobe.

Presidential Valentines, Harding-Style

Many of our presidents have been amorous-type fellows, possibly none more than Warren G. Harding. Actually, if we're going strictly on numbers there are likely some who exceed him, but none who were able to put their love into quite the poetic...beauty...Harding was.

I figure there are a lot of people out there searching for the perfect Valentine for their sweetheart (or if you're like Harding, sweethearts), so why not get a little help from the man himself?

I've taken a poem Harding wrote to his paramour Carrie Phillips and have made Valentines out of the various verses. Feel free to print off the one you find most appropriate and give it to your flame. Throw in some chocolate, too, because even Harding knew that a Valentine printed off the internet wasn't gonna cut it.

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

Book Review: My Search for Warren Harding

Avid readers will know that I have a wee bit of an obsession with Warren G. Harding. I mean, how can one not, right? (Right?)

Anyway.

Every now and then I see reference to a novel called My Search for Warren Harding by Robert Plunket. I was intrigued enough to put it on my Amazon wishlist at some point, but never motivated enough to buy it. Then a few weeks ago, someone on Twitter asked for funny book recommendations. Someone responded that Assassination Vacation and My Search for Warren Harding were the funniest books they'd ever read.

Now, avid readers will also know that I have a wee bit of an obsession with Assassination Vacation, so having someone equate the two was the shove I needed....almost. I didn't buy it right away, but a few days later, I was stuck at the Atlanta airport for five hours and had run out of things to do, so I went ahead and purchased the Kindle version.

The novel is written from the point of view of Elliot, a graduate student in the 1980s who is trying to get his hands on love letters from Harding that are in the possession of his now-elderly mistress, living in Hollywood. He hatches a plan to rent the woman's pool house and uses various schemes to try to obtain the letters. The premise itself is fairly amusing, even if some of the plot points are rather unrealistic.

Most of the characters are fictitious, although there are some cameo appearances from real people, historical and contemporary ("contemporary" in this case meaning "early 1980s," when the book was written).

The former mistress, Rebekah Kinney, is largely a characterization of Nan Britton, Harding's actual young lover with whom we now know he had a child. In this novel, Kinney (like Britton) had been a young woman from Harding's hometown, they had had an affair and a child, and she had written a tell-all book (called The Price of Love, as opposed to the actual The President's Daughter).  But Rebekah Kinney led a more glamorous life than Nan Britton, hobnobbing with Hollywood celebrities and dabbling in acting herself. As this book opens, she now lives a largely solitary life in a rundown Hollywood mansion.

The existence of a trove of love letters is more reminiscent of Carrie Phillips, Harding's other well-known mistress. Her letters were the basis of the nonfiction book The Harding Affair, and were recently released by the Library of Congress. Nan Britton, on the other hand, held onto only a couple correspondences from Harding, none of which were intimate in nature, which is part of the reason she had a hard time establishing her story as truth.

Okay, so, grad student plots to obtain Warren G. Harding's love letters from a Nan Britton-Carrie Phillips mashup. So far, so good. The first couple chapters were amusing. Not laugh-out-loud funny, or even chuckle-worthy, but interesting enough.

Things start to take a turn when the main character meets Kinney's Mexican housekeeper. Queue the negative ethnic stereotypes. It was cringey, but I reminded myself this was written a long time ago ("a long time ago" meaning "in the early 1980s," which really isn't that long ago at all, but I tried to keep things in "historical" perspective.)

Then comes the chapter where the Elliot's friend brings a gay guy to dinner. Throughout the entire chapter (and the rest of the book), this man is referred to as "the faggot."

Remember when Donald Trump made fun of the disabled journalist and we all thought it couldn't possibly get any worse, and then it continued to? That's basically what this book was like.

The rest of the book basically turns into one giant fat joke about Rebekah Kinney's 20-something granddaughter, Jonica. An example: "Now the inevitable question: how fat was she? I would guess that she tipped the scales at around two hundred pounds. She was fat. She was what you mean by a fat person. She was so fat you wondered how she found pants in that size." Okay, so that paints a picture, and if that had been it, maybe it would have been bearable. But that wasn't it.

The comments like that go on throughout the book. Without exaggeration, probably a good 30% of the book is just a discussion of this character's weight. Also, some major plot points hinge on it. And I guess it's supposed to be funny, but it isn't. I don't just say that because it's insensitive or politically incorrect. I mean that even setting that aside, it just isn't funny.

Besides repeatedly explaining in great detail Jonica's appearance, Elliot also verbally, physically, and emotionally abuses her in an attempt to get his hands on the letters.

Oh, and keep in mind, interspersed with the fat jokes are plenty more comments about Mexicans, Blacks, Jews, and "Orientals," plus additional references to "the faggot."

At one point I decided I just couldn't take it anymore. The book was so despicable---it sounded like something that would have been written by an alt-right internet troll sitting in his mom's basement, if such people knew anything about Warren G. Harding---I just couldn't go on. But I'm also kind of anal about finishing books I start, and I felt a duty to review it here, which I couldn't do if I didn't read the whole thing. Plus I figured I had to be almost done. I checked: 42%. Ugh.

I forged on, though.

Our protagonist doesn't get any less deplorable...in fact, he only grows moreso. Another problem is that, with the possible exception of Jonica, all the characters are unlikable, and even Jonica is sympathetic only because everyone else is so awful to her, not because of any particular redeeming qualities of her own.

Then I got to the end of the book, which I will admit was spectacular. I don't want to spoil things too much in case, for some reason, you decide to read it, but it basically involves a heavy dose of schadenfreude. It felt so good. That's when I realized that we were, indeed, supposed to hate Elliot. (At least I sincerely hope that was the point.)

Now, there were some funny parts. The overall absurdity is pretty amusing. There are some good lines, like when Jonica (who doesn't know her grandfather was a president) says he was "somehow mixed up in oil." The footnotes contain recipes. The acknowledgements become funny once you've reached a certain part of the book and realize who some people are. And like I said, the ending is immensely satisfying in the sense that you might give an evil laugh.

Yet the marvelous ending really isn't enough to justify how painful the rest of the book is. Even if the novel's intent is to make fun of academia, or to serve as a commentary on L.A. culture, or to be an ironic statement about terrible people, or...whatever else, it's not worth wading through the unpleasant, depressing horror needed to get to the ultimate satisfaction. In this case, the end wasn't enough to justify the means.

I'll just stick with Assassination Vacation.

First Ladies' Séance in a Box

Several First Ladies have dabbled in the supernatural, perhaps none more than Florence Harding. In fact, one of the coolest objects I've seen at a presidential site was Florence's séance chair: high-backed and elaborately carved with celestial symbolism. That chair is in Marion, Ohio, but Florence's forays into the supernatural extended to Washington, D.C., as well.

Florence first met a woman named Madame Marcia Champney in 1920 while Warren Harding was seeking the Republican nomination. Madame Marcia was a well known fortuneteller in D.C., and in fact served as Edith Wilson's go-to astrologer. Madame Marcia was able to see that Warren had many affairs (but who wasn't, amirite?), and predicted that if he became president, he would die a sudden death before the end of his term. Despite this ominous forecast, Florence vowed that if Warren won, she would make Madame Marcia the official White House astrologer. As we know, Warren did win, and Florence continued to consult frequently, even obsessively, with Madame Marcia throughout his (brief) presidency.

Many other First Ladies held séances, referred to horoscopes, or believed in other supernatural phenomena. For example, Julia Tyler claimed to have ESP. Jane Pierce and Mary Todd Lincoln held séances to try to communicate with their dead children. Nancy Reagan famously consulted with astrologers in the White House. Hillary Clinton seemed to have taken the "First Lady Occult Club" to another level when she was rumored to have communicated with a long-dead Eleanor Roosevelt. (Upon clarification, it turned out that she just imagined what it would be like to talk to Eleanor, like asking WWERD?...which is something we should all be doing.)

Hillary and Eleanor might not have communicated with each other, but there was another supposed instance of First Ladies picking up vibes from one another: One night Edith Wilson went to bed with an ominous feeling. She awoke to newsboys spreading word of President Harding's death. Ooooo! Coincidence, or something supernatural?

Anyway...in honor of all of our spooky First Ladies and just in time for Halloween, I present a DIY Séance in a Box. Depending on what materials you use, it's actually really fast and easy to make. (Or it can be really complicated and take more than a week. It's up to you.)

Here's what you'll need:

• Empty mint tin (I used a Trader Joe's Gingermint tin)
• Printed ouija board
• Glue
• Velvet or velvety paper
• Tiny printable tarot cards
• Glass marble
• Tiny picture frame
• Resin (optional) and resin molds (also optional)
• Other tiny spooky things

My project was inspired by these instructions. That kit uses a very cool Ouija mint tin, but I didn't have one. What I did have was a lovely tin that had previously contained Trader Joe's Gingermints, so I decided to make that work. You could use any mint tin, really, but it probably helps if it's one with a flat top, rather than one with embossed writing or details.

I searched for some Ouija board images and needed to go through a few before I found one with the right proportions for my tin. I just resized them in a document until I had one that worked, then printed it out on cardstock, trimmed it with scissors, and rounded the corners with a 1" corner punch. (But you can use scissors, too. Or leave them pointy. Whatever.)

I glued the board onto the lid with Tacky Glue, and then brushed on a coat of resin. Now, I realize not everyone has resin lying around. I love how it gave my board a hard, shiny finish, but obviously you can skip this step. I would recommend at least using some kind of top coat or varnish to seal it and give it a little more heft, but that's up to you. (If you want to give resin a try, though, it's really very easy and fun. I use Little Windows resin, but you can find other brands on Amazon or at your local craft store, too.)

The resin did make my board a bit translucent, so if you look carefully you can see some of the writing from the gingermint tin, but I think that gives it extra character. Next time I might add a basecoat or add an extra piece of paper or cardstock underneath, but I might not.

For the planchette, I used resin (colored with a bit of glow-in-the-dark paint) in a mold I got from Etsy. If you don't have resin, you could try forming a planchette out of polymer clay, or you could use a guitar pick like in that other tutorial I linked to. Or maybe carve one out of bone like they did in the old days. (I jest!)

Instead of using real velvet to line my tin, I found some velvet-ish paper in the scrapbooking section of my craft store. It's very thin and more sturdy than fabric, so it was really easy to cut. Then I glued that into the tin with more tacky glue.

There are tons of printable tarot cards online, but I used ones from this site because it doesn't require a ton of paper (just one piece!) and because you can print a back to them! I printed that out on cardstock and spent about five minutes cutting out the tiny cards.

I tried making a crystal ball by gluing a marble to an overturned teacup charm, but I couldn't get anything to adhere to the marble, even after sanding it. So instead I have a "standalone" crystal ball, although I found that it fits nicely inside the planchette hole, so there's that.

I also added a little skull charm for some extra creepiness (I cut off the charm-nubbin with wire cutters and filed the little bits down).

And of course, I needed a picture frame (another charm) to help commemorate the dead. (Yes, that's a tiny photo of Florence Harding. I also printed out Edgar Allan Poe and a raven, because of course.) The photos are just printed on regular paper and then sealed with some packing tape. They slide in and out of the top of the charm, so it's easy to change them depending on what you're going for.

I had planned on adding a candle, too, but decided against it when I realized my interest in fire safety outweighs my interest in necromancy. A birthday candle would fit just fine, but be careful when burning it.

You can add anything else you want: Throw in some tiny runes, a few little crystals, a miniature pendulum, whatever floats your ghost ship.

And there you have it: A portable supernatural kit for all your conjuring needs! (This would also be useful if you have an American Girl doll who starts to show an interest in the occult.)

If you make one of these, let me know how it goes. And tell Florence I say hello.

Warren G. Harding Doll

A few months ago I mentioned that I crochet and that I had made some replica Ida McKinley slippers. Slippers are well and good when your feet are cold, but what about when you want to crochet something less useful?

For a while now I've wanted to crochet a set of presidential dolls, but I wasn't sure how to go about it. Sure, I could probably figure it out on my own, but I didn't want to. I also didn't want to buy a pattern for, say, a Golden Girl and then need to modify it. What I wanted was a set of instructions that I could customize as needed, but that had most of the information there. Then I stumbled upon exactly what I needed: A book called AmiguruME by Allison Hoffman, the person who made the Golden Girls pattern.

Basically the book walks you through the steps of creating custom dolls. There are various head sizes, clothing options, etc. You can make celebrities, family members, whatever. ("Amigurumi" is the art of crocheting cute little stuffed toys, so the "AmiguruMe" name is a play on that.) I put the book on my Amazon wishlist then pretty much forgot about it until a copy arrived on my doorstep near my birthday. (Thanks, Mom!)

It took me a while to decide which president to start with. I wanted one with some kind of distinctive feature that would be easy to express in yarn. I also wanted it to be a president I liked. Lincoln was an obvious choice, but I rarely go for the obvious choices, plus I was a little intimidated by his beard and hat. Taft is always a favorite, but the instructions in AmiguruME don't include techniques for making a more corpulent body, and I didn't want to figure it out on my first attempt. Chester Arthur would be fun, especially with all the possibilities for different pants, but again, I was intimidated by the facial hair. So I settled on another of my favorites: Warren G. Harding. I know, I know: I do too much Harding (that's what she said). Sorry. But he seemed like he would be pretty straightforward, plus he has distinctive eyebrows. (John Oliver described them as "mozzarella sticks covered in...hair.")

On Christmas afternoon, once the kids were busily engaged in their new toys, I sat down to create mine. Although the book walked me through each step, I did make some modifications.

The book gives instructions for a short, wide male head or a long, narrow male head. Harding seems to have a long, wide head, so I went with the short/wide one but added a couple rows to make it longer. I also added a few stitches to create a more prominent chin.

For about a day, all I had was the head and an armless torso. My kids thought it looked like a creepy baby (they weren't wrong) but I thought it looked like the Shah of Iran.

(Frankly, even the finished product looks like him, but I'm trying not to think about that because it's supposed to be Harding, dammit!)

Within a couple days I had added the arms and legs and whatnot.

I do wish the book had given more detail/examples for embroidering the face and creating the hair. Those were the two most difficult parts, and also the features that really make a doll like this. It took me four attempts to get the hair "right," and I wasn't quite able to get the Harding frown down. Still, I think it came out pretty well.

I gave him a lovely hand-crafted wool suit (with removable jacket!) and a bright blue tie to jazz things up a bit.

My daughter asked me this morning what I'm going to do with the doll now, and that's a great question. She said, "It seems like such a waste to spend all that time on it and then just let it sit around." I'm not sure if she's hinting that she wants it or wants me to get rid of it. For now it'll probably sit on my Shelf O' Random Presidential Crap, next to my Hoover bobblehead and Woodrow Wilson puppet. After all, art doesn't need to have a purpose, right?

Presidentress Christmas Carol VIDEOS: 2016

'Tis the season for me to create a president-themed Christmas carol. And I tried. I really did. I have a full verse of a song about William Howard Taft set to the tune of "Good King Wenceslas," but honestly, that's all I'm ever going to have. It's a hard song to deal with, and this has been a crappy year, and I just don't have the inspiration in me.

So...basically, I don't have a new one this year. But what I do have might be even better: Videos of Grover Cleveland and Warren Harding singing the songs I previously wrote for them. You can find my posts (and lyrics) about "Cleveland the Creepy POTUS" here, and "Warren G. Harding" here.

Or you can just watch the videos.

If you're the kind of person who gets really excited about things like these videos, be sure to check out my Holiday Gift Guide, because there's probably stuff on there that you'd like.

Grover Cleveland, Warren Harding, and I wish you a very merry holiday season. Be safe and have fun. Those guys sure did.

The Presidential Mystery Doodle

Dear readers, I need your help in solving a presidential mystery.

As you might remember from my recent post about a bawdy picture that was sent to James Monroe, I'm currently reading a book called Presidential Doodles. I first became intrigued by presidential doodles after reading this post from Mental Floss. There are some fascinating doodles there, but I was especially drawn to the strange bird and goofy-looking face from Warren G. Harding. (Because they look cool, not because of my growing obsession with Warren G. Harding.)

So imagine my surprise as I was flipping through my book and saw these doodles not in the Harding section but in the---gasp!---Benjamin Harrison section. Long-time readers will remember that I consider Benjamin Harrison the most forgettable president, and that I'm actually a bit confused as to why that is.

I had a conundrum on my hands: Who drew the weird bird and creepy face? Harding or Harrison? I decided to do some research, and by "research" I mean that I sent an email to the Harding Home Presidential Site and the Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site to ask which president doodled the doodles.

I heard back almost immediately from the Harding folks: It wasn't him.

It's been a couple weeks now and I haven't yet heard back from the Harrison people. Maybe they have better things to do than worry about some doodles. I'm going to go ahead and assume that my book has it right, and the doodles really are his. That's good news because Benjamin Harrison finally has meaning for me! He's grown a nugget! (If you don't understand what I mean, click the link up above about Harrison being the most forgettable president.)

But there might be an even greater mystery surrounding these doodles. While I was thoroughly scouring the web trying to find the source of the doodles, I came upon a blog post that compared the presidential doodles to album art. Amusing, but not really my thing. In the comments to that post, though, was an interesting observation by someone who said both doodles are "actually drawings that result from a cute story you tell kids" and that the bird one is found in a Little House on the Prairie book.

I'm not as familiar with those books as I should be, so I turned to some people who are. Through their help, I located the bird story, which Ma tells the girls in On the Banks of Plum Creek.

This blog post does an excellent job showing how the story is told/drawn, but if you don't want to click over there, the idea is that the bird's body is a pond, and the feet are houses where people live, and the legs are the path the people in the houses take to get to the pond, etc. By the time you're done telling the story you have the complete bird. (The tail is fish flying out of the pond, and the beak is an old guy's nose. But click over to that blog to get the complete idea.)

Now, I have to admit that Harrison's bird does look like it could be telling that story, although the bird's head is supposed to be a house, and his bird's head isn't a house. But maybe there's another version.

What I'm having a hard time with, though, is finding a story that goes with the face. Now that I've seen that bird story, the face looks like it really could be part of a story like that...but what is it? My exhaustive google searches are too broad to have brought up any results. AND I NEED TO KNOW!

If anyone has any idea what story might go with that face, please let me know! Or make one up. Maybe those little dots are cabinet members or something.

Presidential Christmas Carol 2015

Last year I started the grand tradition of rewriting a popular Christmas song to give it a presidential theme. The other day I posted last year's masterpiece, Cleveland the Creepy POTUS, and now it's time to reveal this year's offering, about Warren G. Harding.

So curl up next to the fire with a cup of hot chocolate and this photo of Harding. Gaze into his eyes and sing this song about him, set to the tune of Frosty the Snowman.

Warren G. Harding 

Was a suave, determined guy. 

He carried on with a bunch of broads,

One who was a German spy.

Warren G. Harding

Was a ladies' man they say.

Forget Teapot Dome, he liked to roam

And bed all kinds of dames. 

There was a girl from his hometown

Whom he was keen to hit on. 

And that is how he got involved

With a mistress named Nan Britton. 

Oh Warren G. Harding

Should have been a bit more cautious

But his whole plan was to get with Nan

All around his senate office. 

Humpity hump hump

Humpity hump hump

Look at Warren go. 

Humpity hump hump

Humpity hump hump

Was she looking for some dough?

Warren G. Harding

Learned Nan was in a family way.

But he said, "That's great, don't bloviate.

I'll help you with our babe."

Down by the seashore

Nan gave birth to Harding's daughter. 

She accepted things like coats and rings

And the cash that he'd allot her. 

He was elected president

But kept their secret life. 

Nan looked forward to the moment when

She'd hear him call her "wife."

Oh, Warren G. Harding

Had to take a trip out west. 

He went and died; people'd say Nan lied

And the truth would be suppressed. 

Scribble and scrawl all,

Nan wrote a tell-all

To make a formal plea. 

She said it was unfair,

She put it all out there.

What return to normalcy?

Notes:

First, that ornament(s) up there? That's the 2014 White House Christmas ornament featuring a train that Harding took (and got to drive for a few minutes!) when he took his fateful trip out west. The train later carried his body back after he died in San Francisco. Good times!

I actually got the idea to write this song shortly after finishing last year's song about Grover Cleveland. The names "Warren G. Harding" and "Frosty the Snowman" go so well together. At the time, I had planned on the song being more about Harding's affair with Carrie Phillips, the potential German spy, but that plan changed a few months ago when DNA testing showed that Harding really had fathered a child with Nan Britton.

In case you've forgotten from your high school history class, Teapot Dome is the name of a major scandal that took place during Harding's Administration. (It involved oil fields, not teapots or domes.) He probably didn't know about it, but since it happened on his watch, he gets the blame.

I wanted to work in the word "bloviate," one of Harding's favorites, and also the term "Return to Normalcy," Harding's campaign promise to help America get back to normal after World War I. (Dave Barry, in Dave Barry Slept Here, questions whether "normalcy" is even a real word. It is, but it sounds fake, doesn't it?)

Anyway, have fun singing this song while wrapping presents or baking cookies. If you go caroling this year, make sure you add it to your repertoire and see how people react!

As my New Year's Resolution, I promise to try to stop writing so much about Harding, because I know other people don't find him as fascinating as I do. We'll see how that goes.

Harding's Mistress was Ahead of Her Time

It has been a few weeks since we learned that Warren G. Harding really did father a child with his alleged-and-now-confirmed mistress, Nan Britton.

Some people think I exaggerated my excitement over that news, but seriously, for days I felt like I was floating on rainbows with little cartoon bluebirds chirping merrily around my head. I imagined that must be how people felt when we walked on the moon. I was actually a bit worried about myself.

I also took advantage of some easy jokes, making and posting these pictures to the Presidentress Facebook page:

I mean, it's easy to joke, right? At the same time, there's a lot about this situation that's very un-funny, and if you'll excuse my posting of those two photos above, I'd like to get serious for a moment.

I've been thinking a lot about Nan Britton and what she must have gone through. So many people didn't believe her, and those who did thought poorly of her. She was a liar at best and a trollop at worst (or is that reversed?). Until the day she died, she knew that people---especially the people who mattered most (i.e., Harding's family, and possibly her own daughter)---thought she had fabricated the whole thing.

Not only that, she had to go through hell just to have and raise her child. Britton dedicated her book to single mothers and their children, and said that she hoped her story would bring them justice. Back in 1919, unwed mothers were not supposed to keep their children, nor was it even possible in most cases.

Nan Britton didn't have the support of society or the government; she just had the stigma, which she tried to avoid by pretending to be married, or by pretending the child was someone else's, or by marrying someone out of desperation to reclaim the child she was forced to give to her sister to raise. Most other women in similar situations were forced to walk away from their children permanently. Britton refused to do that.

As was so often the case then (and to a large degree still is now), Britton took all the burden while the father (in this case Warren G. Harding) got off scot-free. Yeah, his reputation might have suffered a bit, but only after he was dead. Britton had to deal with it for her whole life.

It's easy to paint Nan Britton as...well...easy. But she was more than that. She was a "New Woman," part of the wave of feminism that began in the late 1800s and continued into the 1920s. She was an independent woman during a time when it was only just becoming acceptable for women to be independent. She set off on her own several times, going to new cities, finding work, securing housing, supporting herself, and even embracing her own sexuality (gasp!). I'm not sure if Britton considered herself a feminist or was fully aware of the ground she was helping to break, but she certainly flouted social norms, and I don't see that as a bad thing.

I'll admit I initially felt disdain for Britton, back when I thought she had made up the story for fame or fortune. Yet how often is that still the general reaction when a woman steps forward with claims of sexual contact with a famous, powerful man? How quick are we to dismiss accusations of a beloved comedian or skilled quarterback raping someone? (To be clear, Britton didn't accuse Harding of any wrongdoing, but there are certainly similarities between the way she was treated and the way victims are today.) Yes, there will always be people who make up false accusations, but not nearly as many as the women who are afraid to come forward for fear of being ridiculed, scrutinized, and dismissed, as Britton was.

My opinion as an outsider, especially one nearly 100 years removed from the situation, doesn't matter much, but I do feel bad that I dismissed Britton's claims...though I also admit I held out a strange hope. For some reason I wanted the story to be true, which I suppose explains my excitement over the news that it was.

And of course, we can't forget about Elizabeth Ann, Britton and Harding's daughter. According to some accounts I've read, Britton's descendants always believed the Britton's claims. According to other accounts, they doubted it. My guide at the Harding Presidential Site said that Elizabeth Ann thought her mother fabricated the story, which led to an estrangement between them. Poor Nan had a daughter who thought she was a liar; poor Elizabeth Ann lived her life never knowing with certainty who her own father was. Far from claiming her rightful place as the child of a president, she and her mother were reduced to being viewed as oddities, punchlines, or cautionary tales.

I'm glad the truth is finally out; I just wish for Nan and Elizabeth Ann's sake it could have come a decade or two earlier.

Book Review: "The President's Daughter"

As I mentioned yesterday, I wanted to dedicate a post to my thoughts on Nan Britton's book, The President's Daughter. If you're just joining us, Nan Britton was a young lady who claimed to have had an affair and a child with Warren G. Harding. Harding and his wife were both dead by the time Britton's tell-all memoir came out, so obviously neither was available for comment.

For nearly 100 years, people were left to wonder and debate whether Britton's claims were true. Did Harding really father a child with a woman 30 years his junior? Was Britton just an obsessed fan, looking to get rich or possibly tarnish Harding's reputation?

Britton did not succeed in staking her (or her daughter's) claim to a portion of Harding's estate. Instead, she inadvertently contributed to the nosedive his legacy took after his death. The Teapot Dome scandal---which he was not involved in---rocked his administration. Britton's book and rumors of other affairs and White House orgies painted a picture of a lecherous adulterer. Someone wrote a book suggesting that Harding's death was actually a murder committed by his wife, who was jealous and upset about his transgressions. And there was a persistent rumor that Harding had "Negro blood" in him, which was quite an undesirable claim at the time.

Many people believed Britton's story to be true because it seemed to fit with the image Harding was posthumously developing. Many others---including the Harding family---dismissed her accounts as falsehood. For one, Harding was thought to be sterile due to a case of the mumps. He had no (known) biological children. Also working against Britton was the fact that, in an attempt to protect Harding, she had destroyed all letters and evidence that pointed to their affair. The only documents she could produce were of the professional variety.

The book was considered quite risqué for the time, and there were attempts to have it banned as pornography. It's pretty tame by today's standards, but back then it was considered scandalous. Really, the steamiest line is, "I experienced sweet thrills from just having Mr. Harding's hands upon the outside of my nightdress."

The Plot
So let's talk about the book. I won't go into all the details---this isn't some short pamphlet; it's nearly 500 pages long---but I'll touch on the main points. Even so, the synopsis is pretty long so feel free to scroll down to the "My Conclusion" section if you want.

Britton and Harding both hailed from Marion, Ohio. Harding was the editor of Marion's newspaper, and Nan's father sometimes contributed pieces, so the families knew each other although they don't seem to have been particularly close. Nan developed a crush on Harding when she was 14 and he was running for a senate seat. She taped newspaper photos of him on her wall, the same way girls today might tape up photos of Marco Rubio. (I kid---but I don't know any current teen heartthrobs.)

Britton didn't keep her crush a secret. EVERYONE knew: her parents, her teachers (one of whom happened to be Warren's sister, and who would become a close friend), other kids at school, even Warren Harding himself. At the time he probably thought it was cute. Maybe he was a little flattered. I don't know.

Nan got a wee bit obsessive. Besides taking advantage of opportunities to meet Harding, she would also hang out in a doorway across the street from his newspaper office so she could catch glimpses of him. Her parents didn't know about the stalking, but they were a little concerned about the crush. Her mom tried to make Harding seem unappealing by saying things like, "I saw Mr. Harding standing at such-and-such a place, chewing tobacco!" (Which reminds me a lot of the time my dad ruined my crush on Barry Bostwick by convincing me he was really Ronald Reagan.) But where my dad succeeded, Nan's mom failed. Nothing could sway her.

Britton's family moved away from Marion in 1915, and Nan continued to move around after that, finding secretarial jobs in Cleveland, Chicago, and eventually New York. It was from New York that she first wrote to Harding, hoping he could help her secure a job. He wrote back, and although it was a professional letter, the kind he would send to any constituent or acquaintance, that correspondence is what set their affair in motion. The two met with each other the next time he was in New York, and he took her up to the bridal chamber of the Manhattan hotel. They didn't consummate their relationship at that point, but they did kiss. I guess it helped that Harding had been aware of Nan's intense crush on him. He already knew it was a sure thing.

They maintained their relationship for the rest of Harding's life. Harding would make trips to New York to see Nan, and she would sometimes make her way to Washington. (Their daughter was likely conceived in his senate chamber.)

When Britton found out she was pregnant, she discussed it with Harding, who seemed both thrilled and trepidatious. He bought her some "Dr. Humphrey's No. 11 tablets," which were supposed to induce abortion, but she didn't take them and he seemed okay with that. Ultimately he was supportive of her decision to keep the baby.

A single mother keeping a baby was a much more difficult undertaking then than it is today. Britton had to leave her job and rented a room in New Jersey under the guise of being the pregnant bride of a deployed soldier. She had the baby, Elizabeth Ann, then left the baby in the care of a nurse in New Jersey while she went to Chicago to stay with her sister to find someone to take care of the baby there. Harding was supportive of Britton---emotionally and financially---during this time.

The next couple years are a bit of a whirlwind. Nan and the baby moved a lot, and not always together. When she first moved to Chicago, she placed Elizabeth Ann in the home of a woman who watched her 24/7, but for obvious reasons that wasn't an ideal set-up. Eventually Britton and Harding decided it would be best for Nan's sister Elizabeth to adopt baby Elizabeth Ann. Although this provided a secure environment for Elizabeth Ann, it also created a lot of tension between Nan and her brother-in-law. Nan's sister was content to let Nan act like the baby's mother, while the brother-in-law didn't appreciate the interference. Britton wound up moving back to New York, where she could get a better job, and left Elizabeth Ann with her adoptive parents.

In June of 1923, Harding left for a trip to Alaska and the west coast, and Britton sailed to Europe. Within a few weeks, Harding was dead. Devastated, Nan borrowed money to return to America early. She had hoped that Harding would have left a will or some kind of fund for their daughter, but he hadn't.

Britton became determined to regain custody of Elizabeth Ann, but that would require enough money that she could support them both. When a wealthy man she called Captain Neilsen proposed to her, she let him know that she would marry him only if he would help her get her daughter back. He agreed, they got married, and Elizabeth Ann came to live with them, but it soon became apparent that Neilsen was actually destitute himself and had lied about his wealth. Britton divorced him and did her best to raise Elizabeth Ann on her own. (The girl was sent back and forth between Nan in New York and her sister in Chicago a few more times---I lost track after a while.)

At some point, the financial support from friends and the physical help of Nan's mother weren't enough, and Britton knew she needed to discuss this issue with Harding's family, who until that point knew nothing about the affair. Nan first approached Harding's sister, the one who had been her teacher and who had become a friend. Harding's sister was shocked but seemed to believe Nan, and sent monetary support when she could. At first she was willing to help her get the support of other family members, but her support faded after Harding's brother interviewed Nan and determined she was lying.

A man Britton referred to as Tim Slade was a secret service agent and a confidant of Harding's who knew about the affair and had acted as an intermediary between the two. He also tried to help at first, even suggesting he could ask friends of Harding's to start a fund. Nan tried using that potential public exposure as leverage with the Hardings, but that failed as well.

Left with no other recourse, Britton wrote her book. The book did secure some income for her, but it also left her highly scrutinized. She was labeled a loose woman, a harlot, a liar. Someone wrote another book in rebuttal of hers, and she sued for libel. Unable to produce any proof of her claims of the affair, she lost the suit and wound up withdrawing from society.

My Conclusion
I read the book with a strange mix of sympathy and annoyance. Nan came off as a well meaning young woman, but she was also unbelievably obsessive about Harding. It sort of reminded me of how obsessive Harding seemed in the letters he wrote to Carrie Phillips, so maybe in that way they were a good match.

Britton also appeared very materialistic. When Harding would send her money, she would indulge in new dresses, coats, handbags, etc. Her focus on those things made me question her motives.

The amount of detail in the book made it feel believable, but I wondered if maybe she had taken encounters with other people and substituted Harding into the memories instead. A few things seem unrealistic. For example, Britton and Harding went out in public together. They dined together in the Biltmore hotel after Teddy Roosevelt's funeral and Nan heard a woman say, "There goes Harding!" The woman turned out to be a friend of his. It might not have been a smart move for a man in his position to be seen with his mistress, especially at such a high-profile event. On the other hand, this was the same guy who continued to write intimate letters to and rendezvous with Carrie Phillips after he knew she was under surveillance.

Ultimately, there were some seemingly insignificant parts of the book that convinced me Britton was lying. As I mentioned, she destroyed all personal letters that pointed to the affair, but she kept the few formal, non-incriminating ones. She also kept a rather generically-autographed photo he had signed for her, and one he signed for her sister. It was the strange gushing over these comparatively mundane correspondences that made me doubtful. I mean, if you have a crush on a celebrity and they write a letter or sign a photo with a personal autograph? Sure, be crazy excited about it! But when you already have that celebrity's love-child, haven't you moved beyond getting excited about an autograph?

But, now we know that I (and many others) were wrong. Britton wasn't lying about Harding being her daughter's father. Perhaps her excitement over those few remaining letters and photos stemmed more from the fact that they were all she had left to prove she had ever had contact with him beyond the few encounters in Marion when she was a child. Perhaps the excitement was added or exaggerated by an editor or ghost writer who might have had a hand in the manuscript. Or perhaps the excitement really did fit with her tendency to go a little nuts over him.

There could be other explanations. Perhaps Britton and Harding's affair was not as lengthy or involved as she claims. Maybe they had a one-night stand. Maybe he didn't know about the child and never sent money. Who knows? But Britton's veracity about her daughter's paternity makes me inclined to believe the rest of her story.

Read it for yourself and see what you think.