After I had fallen asleep in the early morning hours, thinking—with faith in the prophet—to wake up and find a smiling world, I was roused by loud, crackling reports which seemed to be in the immediate vicinity of my windows. I got up and looked out. It was light enough for me to see that the world was ice-bound and that the storm, instead of abating, had increased in violence. The crackling I had heard was the noise of twigs and tree limbs breaking with the weight of the ice which encased them. It didn’t look hopeful for the Inaugural Ceremonies, and I had a ludicrous vision of a haughty, gold-laced parade sliding, rather than marching with measured precision, down Pennsylvania Avenue, striving to maintain its dignity while it spasmodically lost its footing. But mine was rueful mirth.
In the morning Mr. Taft found President Roosevelt in the great hall below, genially alert.
“Well, Will,” he exclaimed, “the storm will soon be over. It isn’t a regular storm. It’s nature’s echo of Senator Rainer’s denunciations of me. As soon as I am out where I can do no further harm to the Constitution it will cease.”
“You’re wrong,” said Will; “it is my storm. I always said it would be a cold day when I got to be President of the United States.”
It was really very serious. Railroad and telegraphic communications were paralysed all along the Atlantic Coast. Wires were down in every direction and traffic of all kinds was at a practical standstill. Thousands of people, on their way to Washington for the Inauguration, were tied up at points outside the city and it was impossible for awhile even to get a telegram in or out. However, Inaugurations do not wait for fair weather and the programme had to proceed.
About half past ten I saw the President and the President-elect, in a closed carriage, accompanied by Senators Knox and Bacon of the Inaugural Committee, and a brilliant mounted escort, start on their slippery way toward the Capitol. The Inauguration ceremonies would not take place until twelve o’clock, but there were a number of bills waiting for the signature of Mr. Roosevelt, and it was necessary for him to go early to the office of the President at the Capitol to attend to this and other final business details.
Before they left the White House it had not yet been decided whether or not the Inauguration would take place out of doors. Mr. Taft regretted exceedingly the necessity for disappointing thousands of people, but at the same time he recognised the danger of exposing the crowds to the wet and penetrating cold, and he considered, especially, the impossibility of asking Chief Justice Fuller, who was then over seventy years old and very frail, to brave a blizzard, even for the purpose of administering a Presidential oath. However, he decided to wait until the weather had given its ultimate indication before changing the programme. He said afterward that as he drove to the Capitol there were many brave citizens in the streets who gave voice to as hearty cheers as could possibly be expected under the circumstances.
I was being taken care of by Captain Archibald Butt, so I had nothing except the weather to worry about. With a last hopeless look out of doors I proceeded to don my Inauguration finery, feeling duly thankful that it was not too springlike in its character. The newspapers say I wore a purple satin suit, and a small hat trimmed with gold lace and a high white aigrette. This is as good a description as any, though it might have been more flattering, considering the importance I attached to the subject. I remember the hat perfectly. The aigrette was not quite as high as it started out to be. It had nearly met an untimely end at a reception the day before where it collided with a lighted gas-jet. Fortunately it was put out before it was greatly damaged, but it had to be trimmed down some, and I imagined that it exuded a faint odour of burning feathers.
At least two years before the election, when no one could anticipate who would be the next President, President Roosevelt had announced at a Cabinet meeting that he did not intend to ride back to the White House with his successor. It was a precedent which he did not like and which he desired to break. Mrs. Roosevelt went, with her family and friends, directly from the White House to the station to wait for her husband to join her after the Inauguration. It was about half past eleven when Captain Butt and I started in a limousine for the Capitol where we arrived to find the “scene set” for the ceremonies in the Senate Chamber.
Our children were already in the gallery, waiting eagerly. It was an event in their young lives never to be forgotten, and I believe that Robert and Helen were in properly receptive moods. My son Charlie, however, seems not to have been so confident. Charlie is a great lover of adventure stories and it is a favourite tradition in the family now that he carried with him to the Senate Chamber a copy of “Treasure Island” with which to while away the time in case the Inaugural address should prove too long. Charlie was only eleven years old and I consider it a great tribute to his father’s eloquence that “Treasure Island” was not opened that day.