Recollections of full years

by Helen Herron Taft

The only time when a friendly democracy presents itself to the President en masse is on New Year’s Day. At the New Year’s Reception he receives just as many persons as he can shake hands with between the hours of eleven in the morning and half past two or three in the afternoon. His wife, the wife of the Vice-President and the ladies of the Cabinet receive with him as long as it is physically possible for them to do so. While writing in the third person I am thinking in the first, of course. These were our customs.

Yet if anybody unfamiliar with Washington life imagines that a New Year’s Reception means throwing open the White House doors and admitting the public without consideration of rank or the rules of precedence he is mistaken. The Reception, up to a stated hour, is as carefully regulated as any other function, and I consider the list of the especially favoured most interesting as a revelation of the complexity of Washington’s social life.

THE TAFT COTTAGE AT BEVERLY, MASSACHUSETTS

Announcement is made that the President will receive at 11:00 A.M.—the Vice-President, the members of the Cabinet and the Diplomatic Corps; at 11:20 A.M.—the Supreme Court, members of the Judiciary of the District of Columbia, former Cabinet officers and former diplomatic representatives of the United States; at 11:30—Senators, Representatives and Delegates in Congress; at 11:45—Officers of the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps and the Militia of the District of Columbia; at 12:15 P.M.—Regents and Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, all the various Commissions, Assistant Secretaries of Departments, the Solicitor General, Assistant Attorneys-General, Assistant Postmasters-General, the Treasurer of the United States, the Librarian of Congress, the Public Printer, heads of all Bureaus and the President of the Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Dumb; at 12:30 P.M.—The Secretary of the Cincinnati, the Aztec Club of 1847, the Associated Veterans of the War of 1846–47, the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, the Grand Army of the Republic, the Medal of Honor Legion, the Union Veteran Legion, the Union Veterans’ Union, the Society of the Army of Santiago, the Spanish Minute Men, the Sons of the American Revolution and the members of the Oldest Inhabitants’ Association of the District of Columbia; at 1:00 P.M.—Citizens.

As all the men present themselves in the dress uniform of their various services or orders, or wearing the decorations they have won in epoch-marking events, one gets a most illuminating view of organised American patriotism.

There is an old system obtaining at the White House known as inviting guests “behind the line.” This means that a chosen few are permitted as special guests to be present in the Blue Room while a reception is in progress. It is a system which has at times been so carelessly regulated as to engender jealousies and dissatisfactions, and we determined if possible to avoid on all occasions any appearance of favouritism. So at our first New Year’s Reception we decided to limit special privileges to the Diplomatic Corps, the wives of Assistant Secretaries and our own house guests. This made the distinction a mere matter of official rank and did away with all possibility of unpleasant comment from distinguished members of civilian society.

For instance, there has always been a delicate question in connection with the Judicial Reception as to whether or not on this occasion the Justices of the Supreme Court take precedence over the members of the Diplomatic Corps. The Justices have always contended that at their own Reception they do, but the unwritten code has it that no person under the rank of President or Vice-President ever takes precedence over an Ambassador who is the direct representative of his sovereign.

We settled this question by inviting the heads of all Missions to the Blue Room where they were greeted by the President before he took his place in the receiving line, and where they were permitted to remain as long as they desired, being, as it were, a part of the receiving party. This was a solution which satisfied everybody and pleased the Diplomats particularly.

A great many special arrangements are necessary for a New Year’s Reception at the White House. For every state occasion or any large function there are always many extra footmen, policemen, guards, waiters, cloak room attendants and ushers on hand, but on New Year’s Day the array of them would be most imposing if they were not almost lost in the midst of a thronging populace. All the people who come to these receptions do not pass the receiving line. Many of them find points of vantage in the vicinity merely to look on, and yet the President shakes hands with from six to eight thousand of them before the gates are closed. I have seen the line of waiting people stretching out through the spacious grounds, down the street, around a corner and out of sight at a time when I had already given up in utter exhaustion. And the way the carriages come and go in perfect order, without a hitch, each coachman with his card of a particular colour telling him just where to make his exit, was a thing I never could understand.