New Britain herald., 1923-07-10
HARDING ADMIRES :.
 CLEVER IMPOSTOR
President Admits Being Taken in
 by Smooth Young Man

Washington, July 10.-President
 Harding has confessed to character.
 istic often ascribed to Americans b,
 foreigners-a fondness for being bun.
 coed when it is done painlessy.
 The confession was made in letter written to Colonel George B. Chris tan, father of the secretary to the president. and has background ex- tending into the days when Warren c. Harding was editing the Marion Star. It was then that a stranger dropped into Marion one day, called on Editor Harding and introducing himself as a member of the Virginia branch of the Harding family, men tioned that his cash in hand had unex- pectedly run low and that small loan would be useful. The president then as now, was proud of the name of
 Harding" and he extended the loan.
 A few days later MT. Harding met Judge Scofield, a leading citizen of Marion and close friend. and told the story of the strangers call. When he finished Judge Scofield announced that he had been visited on the same day by the same gentleman, who de- scribed himself as a distant cousin named "scofeld," and a member of the scofleld family of Virginia The judge. like the editor, extended tinan- cial aid.
 MT. Harding and Judge Scofield had many hearty laugh over the incident and they laughed even more heartily on learning several weeks later that Myron T. Herrick, then Cleveland business man but since governor of Ohio and ambassador to France, also had helped out in the hour of need "a cousin by the name of Herrlck from Virginia who needed carfare home" But gradually MT. Harding ceased to think of 1t, until the other day he re- ceived a letter from Colonel Christian, recalling the visit of the Virginia cousin" and saying that he himself had been recently victimized in a similar way.
 Both Were "Touched'
 '.I am in receipt Of your letter" President Harding wrote in reply, "in which you tell me of the call upon you by the breezy and companicnable | chap who, after the fashion of the | gentleman who was named Harding one day, Scofield another day, and | Herrick another day, took you in for | a small loan which would accommo- | date him on his virtuous way. I can | only sympathize with you. You re- | member the chap who represented | himself to me as a Harding from Old Virginia, and recall that presented | him to you and that he took you in as well as me, and that you and he l fought over some of the battlefields of the Civil War without your detect ing any fraud in him. but you did es- cape being touched as I was for q small draft upon my cash account.
 Somehow, I have always enjoyed | being buncoed by that fellow. He was so clever about it that he skinned me without wounding me. One encoun- ters so many confidence men in the activities of our present-day life that it is a pleasure to meet up with an artist who can skin you without your having felt 1t. The thing that gets on my nerves most is the cruder and bolder confidence man who tries to , put something over on me, and 1 know that he is trying 1t, and yet he | thinks me susceptible enough to be l wholly innocent of his plans.
 "In other words, when you are talk