White House gossip

by Edna M. Colman

Only once before had the vow of allegiance been taken under such conditions, and that was eighty years previously, when Andrew Jackson was compelled to yield to the weather and prudence and stay indoors.

President Roosevelt and Mr. Taft, with Senators Philander Knox and Henry Cabot Lodge, rode to the Capitol in a closed carriage escorted by Troop A of Cleveland. Behind Mr. Taft’s carriage the Civil and Spanish War veterans and other units of the escort fell into line.

Mrs. Taft and Mrs. Sherman established a precedent in riding with their husbands at the head of the parade on the return trip to the White House, receiving vociferous cheers from the crowds.

The Tafts had been the guests of the Roosevelts the night of March 3d. At breakfast the next morning, it is said that Mr. Taft, after taking a rueful survey of the snowbound city, remarked to the President, facetiously, “I knew it would be a cold day when I became President,” to which the President responded, in kind, “I knew there would be a blizzard clear up to the minute I went out of office.”

After the luncheon for all of the twenty-seven members of the Taft clan and their official guests, the President, bundled in a fur overcoat, made his way, with the Vice President and their party, through the snow to the reviewing stand, where he remained until dark, giving full expression to his approval of the splendid parade in his honour.

Braving the bitter cold, thirty thousand soldiers, sailors, and civilians swung along Pennsylvania Avenue to the music of a hundred bands. Undaunted by the wintry blasts that numbed their hands and stung their faces, they marched between the lines of snowdrifts amid a constant roar of applause. Only three fifths of the original formation had actually appeared. A large number never reached the city until hours after all ceremonies were over, and some failed to come at all. Though marching quickly and efficiently, the heavy service overcoats detracted from the beauty of the procession, since they hid the colours of the uniforms. Fully thirteen thousand of the marchers belonged to famous Republican clubs and organizations. The band of sailors from the fleet was loudly cheered. Sixteen battleships had just completed a fifty-thousand-mile trip around the world, during which they had visited every ocean in the journey of two years, two months, and twenty-two days.

Some idea of the proportions of the blizzard may be gathered from the fact that ten inches of snow fell from 8 P. M. Wednesday night until noon Thursday (March 4th), and the labour of six thousand men with shovels was required to clear the route of the procession from the Capitol to the White House, removing what was estimated to be fifty-eight thousand five hundred tons of snow. Eighteen thousand pounds of sand was used to sprinkle the Avenue, and before the parade was over, dust was flying from the middle of the street over the spectators.

Among the celebrations on March 4th was the annual dinner of the Yale class of 1878, given at the Metropolitan Club with President Taft as the guest of honour. Here he enjoyed himself hugely for nearly two hours before going to the ball. The sons of Old Eli gathered from all parts of the land to do honour to “Big Bill Taft,” and songs, toasts, and speeches made the banquet memorable. Seventy-five of the President’s classmates composed the group that gathered to forget the formalities of the day in song and spirit. No incident of the day pleased Mr. Taft more, and in his address to them he declared that they would always find the White House latchstring on the outside.

The ball at the Pension Office in the evening was once more a picture of bewildering beauty. This happened, through the trend of circumstances, to be the last of the old-time inaugural balls.

The President’s box, a flower-decked affair which extended beyond the first balcony about fifteen feet, had been provided with a huge, handsomely carved mahogany chair, lent for the occasion by a New York admirer. Similar chairs on either side of the throne-like affair were lent by Mrs. A. C. Barney from her famous collection of antiques. The top of the box was crowned with a gold ball surmounted with a golden eagle. Gold-banded fringed curtains of satin and gold columns flanked its sides.