White House gossip

by Edna M. Colman

Mrs. Wilson’s social régime was simple, making up in genuine hospitality and sincere enjoyment whatever it may have lacked of the glitter and brilliance of former administrations. Each individual came away from her receptions with a warm glow of satisfaction because of her sincere personal greeting. Never did she look bored, even when toward the last, just before her illness began, she was obliged to sit down. Generations of gentle ancestry had bequeathed a courtesy that was as much a part of her as her soft wavy brown hair and expressive dark eyes.

Formerly Ellen Axson of Georgia, the daughter of a clergyman, Mrs. Wilson had been reared in the cultural atmosphere of a Southern home, and educated according to the best traditions of the old South. She had studied art in New York during the period of her engagement to Woodrow Wilson. She continued her studies in spite of the demands of a growing family and a thoroughly domesticated husband. Following Governor Wilson’s election to the Presidency, she put a collection of her paintings on exhibition at the Arts & Crafts Guild in Philadelphia, the proceeds from whose sale were sent to the Martha Berry School of Georgia. Mrs. Wilson also made a gift to Goucher College of which one of her daughters was a graduate. After coming to the White House, she managed to devote some time to art work, fitting up a studio in the attic, where some of her best canvases were completed.

When Mrs. Wilson first came to Washington, she became interested in the work of the Woman’s Department of the National Civic Federation, the District Branch of which, with Mrs. Archibald Hopkins in charge, was busily working to clean up the alleys and eliminate the slums. The pitiful condition of many of the old coloured people living in poverty and squalor had a peculiar appeal to her. The condition of the children tugged at her sympathies, too. She not only attended the meetings of the District Branch of the Federation, but made any number of personal tours of inspection through some of the worst of the city’s twenty-three miles of alleys and slums.

One of Mrs. Wilson’s earliest expeditions was to Goat Alley, considered the worst of its kind in the city. She was accompanied by Mrs. E. P. Bicknell, chairman of the committee on housing of the National Civic Federation, Mrs. Archibald Hopkins, and two Secret Service men. She traversed the entire length of the alley on foot and was so impressed by the conditions she found there that she accepted the position of honorary chairman of the advisory board of the housing committee, in order to help actively with the clean-up work.

Mrs. Wilson never indorsed any cause simply by letting her name be used; so, in the duties of honorary chairman, she worked as energetically as the rest of the members of the committee. This was only one of many, many trips she made through the dirty and dismal byways of the city.

Never did she manifest the aversion and disgust she must have felt, but went as any serious-minded, interested woman would who sought to see conditions for herself and the way to better them. She stopped repeatedly to talk to the children and their parents. There are scores of poor alley dwellers who will always treasure the wonder of the moment when the gentle First Lady of the Land stepped down from her splendid limousine and walked through their midst, with a pleasant word and a friendly handshake for any and all who greeted her. Time and again she went home with her dainty gloves stained and grimy. Partly as a result of her interest, a bill was introduced in Congress for the reclamation of such pest spots.

Mrs. Wilson was also a frequent visitor to the library of the blind, where her daughter Miss Margaret, often sang.

Early in her régime as Chatelaine of the White House she began investigating the sanitary conditions of the various big government departments. Through her interest, all of the departments now have rest rooms, sanitary drinking cups, and little branch hospitals where first aid may be given in case of illness or accident.

The Bureau of Printing and Engraving received one of Mrs. Wilson’s first visits, and all suggestions made by her were most gladly received and carried out, with the result that the new building was equipped with one of the finest rest and lunch rooms for its employees of any in the country. Just a few days before her death, Mrs. Wilson received a letter from Public Printer Ford of the Government Printing Office expressive of the appreciation of himself and the seventeen hundred women who work there, for her efforts in also securing a rest room for them.

Among some of the other reforms and improvement projects for the Capital City in which Mrs. Wilson was interested were such matters as enforcement of school attendance laws, regulation of child labour, supervision of dependent and neglected children, provision for the care of the feeble-minded and for the treatment of drug victims, a parental school, open-air schools, playgrounds and recreation centres, public comfort stations, public baths and wash houses; legislation to promote the use of school buildings as social recreation centres—in fact, anything that tended toward the good of humanity.