(2 of 3)
The gang's graft, according to Means, came in part from the sale of protection to big New York bootleggers. Means's account of how this graft was collected: he would engage two rooms at a Manhattan hotel. On the table of one room would be placed a huge glass bowl with money in it. 'Leggers would arrive at prearranged hours with their tribute in $1,000 bills. Means would watch them from the next room as they dropped their money into the bowl and departed. In this way 'leggers bought protection without putting money in anybody's hands. Declares Means: "Never once was I shortchanged! . . . My sales usually ran about $65,000 per day. . . . Fully $7,000,000 passed through my glass bowl."
Boldly Means charges Daugherty with being a "master salesman" of Department of Justice privileges, including paroles, pardons, Federal judgeships, liquor withdrawals, dismissal of charges.
More intimate, more startling, more insinuating are Means's allegations involving President and Mrs. Harding. Washington used to hear many a muffled story of the couple's domestic difficulties. It is to these tales that Means gives new currency.
He was, he declares, first assigned in October 1921. to do private investigation for Mrs. Harding, then involved with a fortune-teller called Madam X who had told the President's wife that she was "a child of destiny." On her order, he sneaked into a married woman's apartment to recover communications between Madam X and Mrs. Harding and accidentally found letters from Dr. Charles E. Sawyer,† Harding's physician, to the married woman. These he turned over to Mrs. Harding, who, he says, was scandalized at having the White House desecrated.
He tells of being summoned to the H Street house early one morning after a wild party at which a girl had been seriously injured by a crack on the head from a bottle. "I saw," writes Means, "President Harding leaning against the mantel. He looked bewildered." Means carried the unconscious girl to a hospital, where, the inference is, she died. This affair, says Means, led him to knowledge of what Jess Smith called "the President's philandering gaieties"—and the name of Nan Britton, a Marion, Ohio, girl, 30 years Harding's junior.
Means, according to his story, was summoned later to the White House by Mrs. Harding who said:
"Warren Harding has had a very ugly affair with a girl named Nan Britton— I want you to find out just when their improper relations began."*
On these orders Means says he went to Chicago, artfully ransacking the girl's sister's apartment until he found Nan Britton's diaries and letters from Harding.
These he claims he eventually turned over to Mrs. Harding, confirming her worst fears, precipitating a White House scene. Means was next sent to secure Harding presents to the mother and daughter and bring them back to Mrs. Harding, evidence to confront her husband with his alleged infidelity. On Mrs. Harding's order, Means declares he investigated President Harding's capacity as a father and Nan Britton's past life. He reported that a specialist said Harding could have had children, that Nan Britton had had no other known lovers.