Harrison was elected. He was sixty-eight when he arrived in Washington in February, 1841, and was in delicate health, but affected a vain pretense of robustness. Though the day was chilly, with snow thinly covering the streets and a cold rain falling, he declined to enter a carriage, and walked half a mile to the City Hall with his hat in his hand, bowing to the people on either side of the street. At the hall he stood on the portico, still uncovered, while the Mayor made a speech of welcome and he responded. His exposure gave him a cold which, following his fatigues and excitement, brought on a serious nervous attack, and this was not improved by the prospect of a wearisome inaugural ceremony. He had only a common school education, but had read a good deal, particularly ancient history. Mr. Webster, whom he had selected for Secretary of State, recognizing his literary limitations, composed an excellent inaugural address and carried it to him, saying in explanation: “I feared lest, with all you are called upon to do just now, you might not find time to do anything of this sort.”
“Oh, yes,” answered Harrison, cheerfully, producing a packet of neatly written sheets, “I attended to all that before leaving home.”
Webster tactfully contrived to induce him to exchange manuscripts, “so that each author could read the other’s production, and whichever proved the better could be used.”
But the next day Harrison handed back Webster’s paper with the remark: “If I were to read your address, everybody would know you wrote it. Mine is not so good, but at least it is mine, and I shall prefer my own poor work to your brilliant one.” As a last resort Webster offered to revise Harrison’s address, and Harrison consented, though very reluctantly. Webster struggled with his task a whole day, chopping out paragraph after paragraph of classical citations. When a lady that evening inquired what he had been doing to make him look so ill, he exclaimed: “You’d be ill, too, if you had committed all the crimes I have. Within twelve hours I have killed seventeen Roman pro-consuls—dead as smelts, every man of them!”
Though compelled to sacrifice so much of his antique lore, Harrison was not to be argued out of his resolve to ride a white horse to and from his inauguration, having read of sundry great Romans who thus traversed the Appian Way. He refused, too, to wear an overcoat on the fourth of March, notwithstanding that he had a heavy cold, and that a stiff gale was blowing which searched the vitals of most men in thick garments. Nor would he consent to cover his head while delivering his address, which was a protest against executive usurpation, the corruption of the press, and the abuses of party spirit. Few who heard it realized how near they had come to witnessing no inaugural ceremony that day. It had been arranged that Harrison should join the procession for the Capitol at the house of a friend whom he was visiting, but he was in such a state of nervous exhaustion that he fainted twice before the time came to start. His companions bathed his temples with brandy, and the physician they called in forbade his going out of doors unless in a carriage; but he would hear to no change of plans, and managed, by sheer force of will, not only to perform his part at the Capitol, but to hold an afternoon reception at the White House and in the evening to look in at two or three balls with which the Whigs were celebrating their triumph.
During the fortnight that followed, he did his best to conceal his increasing feebleness, even going in person to market every morning when he was able. But a succession of colds presently ran into pneumonia, and the office-seekers hounded him not the less cruelly after this. Just one month from the day of his inauguration, death came to his relief. Mrs. Harrison, who had been too ill to accompany him to Washington, never saw him from the day he parted with her in Ohio till his body was brought back to her for burial.
CHAPTER VII
“THE SPIRIT OF GREAT EVENTS”
JOHN TYLER, the first Vice-president to receive promotion to the Presidency in mid-term, was at his home in Virginia when Harrison died. He came to Washington at once and took lodgings at a hotel, where, two days later, he was sworn in by Chief Judge Cranch of the Circuit Court of the District. His administration was not picturesque in the usual sense; the most it gave people to talk about was his narrow escape from impeachment for deserting the party which elected him. But his unpopularity bore valuable fruit for Washington. When the partisan excitement was at its highest pitch, a company of local politicians went to the White House one night and, drawn up in front of it, “groaned” their disapproval of Tyler’s conduct. To protect the Presidential office from further indignities of that sort, a bill was introduced in the Senate to establish an “auxiliary guard” for the defense of the public and private property against incendiaries, and “for the enforcement of the police regulations of the city of Washington,” with an appropriation of seven thousand dollars to equip a captain and fifteen men with the proper implements to distinguish them in the discharge of their duty. This was the foundation of the Metropolitan Police force, which now numbers seventy-five officers and more than six hundred privates.
Life at the White House was simple in Tyler’s time. The President was in the habit of rising with the sun, lighting a fire that had been laid overnight in his study, and working at his desk till breakfast was served at eight o’clock. At this meal he insisted on having the ladies of his family appear in calico frocks. In the evening all the household would gather in the green parlor and pass an hour or two in entertaining any visitors who happened in, interspersing conversation with piano music and old-fashioned songs. It was Tyler who introduced the custom of periodical open-air concerts by the Marine Band; and on warm Saturday afternoons the garden south of the White House was a favorite resort of the best people of the city, while the President would sit with his family and a few invited guests on the porch, listening to the music and responding to the salutations of his acquaintances. Tyler is rarely suspected of possessing a strong sense of humor; but he must have smiled when he signed an official letter to the Emperor of China, in which he described himself as “President of the United States of America, which States are Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Louisiana, Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas, and Michigan”—an array which so impressed the mind of the Celestial despot that the envoy who presented the missive got everything he asked for.
Tyler lost his wife soon after he entered the White House, and his daughters presided over the domestic life there. He was fond of young society, and one of the belles who appeared pretty regularly at his parties was Miss Virginia Timberlake, daughter of the unfortunate naval purser and the lady whose cause Jackson and Van Buren had championed. Another was Miss Julia Gardiner of New York, who so captivated him that at one of his receptions in the second year of his term he made her a proposal of marriage. As she described it afterward, she was taken wholly by surprise, and gave her “No, no, no!” such emphasis by shaking her head that she whisked the tassel of her crimson Greek cap into his face with every motion. The controlling reason for her refusal, she explained, was her unwillingness to leave her father, to whom she was devotedly attached; but an accident soon changed the whole face of things.