White House gossip

by Edna M. Colman

President and Mrs. Harding enjoyed a family luncheon party on their arrival at the White House.

The absence of the usual parade and the review was a real disappointment to the crowds along the way.

When Mr. Harding had been approached by the Inaugural Committee on plans for the biggest celebration ever known and the most brilliant ball of history, he was at first inclined to approve, but pressure was brought upon him and he vetoed the entire plan, asking that the celebrations be made just as simple as consistent with the dignity of the position. Confronted with this ultimatum, decorations and seat building stopped, and those not interested in the Charity Ball of the evening promenaded the brilliantly lighted Avenue.

The first official act of the new President was to order the gates opened and the public admitted to the grounds which had been closed so long. This was done upon his return from the Capitol. The Wilson sheep had been sent back to their home at Bel Air, and dogs were installed, Laddie Boy winning popularity for himself from the time he appeared.

Mrs. Harding set to work at once to banish the gloom and silence of the large rooms. She filled every possible nook with flowers and threw wide the doors to invite the public again to see the interior of the mansion.

From the home on Wyoming Avenue, occupied while Mr. Harding was in the Senate, came all of the household goods, and soon the bareness and cheerlessness that followed upon the exodus of the Wilsons with all of their lovely foreign gifts disappeared. Mrs. Harding was a housekeeper of the most efficient type, and with her husband resumed the custom of holding daily receptions. She kept Miss Harlan as her secretary and was unusually approachable. She had bulbs planted all over the lawns where the Wilson sheep had roamed. She sent away to a factory for bird houses for the trees.

The advent of a new Mistress of the White House is always the signal for the limelight to be turned upon her by the world at large. No detail of her life, family history, characteristics, accomplishments, limitations, or appearance is overlooked, and trying beyond description is the ordeal of the first few weeks of every woman who finds herself elevated to this position.

The price of residence in the White House is the loss of personal liberty and of freedom of speech and action. For every waking minute of the twenty-four hours, the man and the woman who accept this high honour must ever keep before them the rules, restrictions, and customs which tradition has fastened upon the place. To independent folk, much of this is exceedingly irksome.

Mrs. Harding, close to her husband in age, for thirty years his companion, co-worker, partner, sweetheart, wife, and adviser, the one person who believed in him more completely than any other human being, and who inspired him to real achievement, was as distinct among women as her husband was among men.

As in the case of her husband, all the events of her life contributed to equipping her for the discharge of her White House obligations, and not even her most bitter critic will deny that she established a régime that will go down in history as a tribute to her as a citizen and as a charming, gracious hostess.