Many years ago, I wrote in my book about Capitol Hill scandals about President (then-Senator) Warren Harding, and the baby that he had fathered out of wedlock. Harding hushed up the scandal by paying off his paramour. Unsurprisingly, this previous payoff came up in the news recently in relation to a very current scandal— and now court case— involving a Presidential payoff.
The current article mentioned that Harding’s mistress had published a book in 1927 about their affair, a book that is, since the beginning of the year, in the public domain. Which gives me as good a reason to have another look at this story.
Senator Harding was remarkably unconcerned about becoming a father in this fashion. Britton had described the day that she believes the child had been conceived during a tryst in the Senate office building. She describes how the Senator dealt with the imminent arrival of the child:
On September 22nd, just one month before the baby was born, I made a trip to Washington, stopping while there at the Capitol Park Hotel near the Railroad Station. I telephoned Mr. Harding immediately upon my arrival, at the Senate Offices, and he told me afterward that the man who answered the phone was Heber Herbert Votaw, his brother-in-law, “Carrie’s husband.” When he heard me on the other end of the wire he seemed so pleased and said that he would come right over. Which he did.
I shall never forget how he rejoiced to see me, even in the shape I was in! I remember we sat by the window, I on his lap, and talked about everything. […]
He proved me with ample funds to tide me over my confinement period and to buy our baby’s layette, found out about trains for me as he always did, and took me to the station.
The book goes on in this vein for 470 pages, and, had it not been for the negative reviews by H. L. Mencken and Dorothy Parker, and an ill-advised lawsuit pursued and lost by Britton, it might have been completely forgotten. Fortunately, one copy did end up in the University of California library system, and it is this that can be read at the HathiTrust, if you are so inclined.
There is, however, one other important fact that I did not include in my write-up of the affair in 2012, mainly because its final chapter had not yet been written. When I did my research, there was no definitive proof that Elizabeth Ann Britton was indeed the daughter of Warren Harding. Three years later, Jim Blaesing the son of Elizabeth Ann Blaesing (nee Britton) had his DNA tested against that of Harding’s grandnephew and grandniece. Ancestry.com confirmed that, with 99% likelihood, they were related, and that Jim was therefore the President’s grandson.
It would have been nice to know that when I wrote my book, to add that final, definitive, period to the story, but better late than never.