# Recollections of Full Years/Chapter 17

​THE members of my family, and especially my children, are prone to indulgence in good-natured personalities and they like to make the most of my serious attitude toward my domestic responsibilities, saying that I make them three times as difficult as they need be by a too positive insistence on my own methods.
Perhaps I did make the process of adjusting the White House routine to my own conceptions a shade too strenuous, but I could not feel that I was mistress of any house if I did not take an active interest in all the details of running it. The management of the White House is, of course, a larger task than many women are ever called upon to perform, and, incidentally, the same "white light that beats upon a throne" sheds its sometimes uncomfortable radiance upon the usually unprepared heads of America's Chief Executive and his family. Accustomed as I had been for years to publicity, yet it came as a sort of shock to me that nearly everything I did, and especially my slightest innovation, had what the reporters call "news value."
I have lived too much in other countries ever to underestimate the importance of outward form, yet I think I may claim a wholesome regard for and a constant acquiescence in the principles of democratic simplicity, though not the kind of "democratic simplicity" which is usually written in quotation marks.
I made very few changes, really. As a matter of fact no President's wife ever needs to unless she so desires, because the White House is a governmental institution thoroughly equipped and always in good running order. Each new mistress of the house has absolute authority, of course, and can do exactly as she pleases, just as she would in any other ​home, but in the beginning I confined my efforts largely to minor matters connected with the house service itself. I wished to install certain members of the house personnel of my own choosing, and this I did. Later I made some changes in a few important social usages.
There are certain duties connected with the White House routime which have been performed by the same employés throughout one Administration after another and each new President's wife finds these men invaluable and wonders, I am sure, how the White House could ever be run without them. For instance, there are Mr. Warren S. Young, who has been for thirty years the Social Executive Officer, and Colonel W. H. Cook, who became Chief Custodian under Lincoln in 1865 and is holding the same office to-day. The duties os each of these men are delicate in the extreme, but they knkow their work down to the minutest detail and it would be difficult to measure the value to the woman who, in public opinion, is wholly responsible for the White house.
As to my own innovations, I decided in the first place to have, at all hours, footmen in livery at the White house door to receive visitors and give instructions to sightseers. Before my time there had been only "gentlemen ushers" who were in no way distinguishable from any other citizen and many a time I have seen strangers wander up to the door looking in vain for someone to whom it seemed right and proper to address a questino or to hand a visiting card. The gentlemen ushers I retained, the head usher, Mr. Hoover, having become invaluable through similar service under every Administration since Cleveland' first, but I put six coloured men in blue livery at the door, two at a time, relieving each other at intervals, and I think many a timid visitor has had reason to be thankful for the change. incidentally they lend a certain air or formal dignity to the entrance which, in my opinion, it has always lacked.
These footmen received everybody who sought to enter ​the White House. If it happened to be a party of tourists they were directed to such parts of the building as are open to the public at stated ours; if it were a caller, either social or official, he or she was conducted to one of the drawing-rooms. But sensible as this information seemed to me, it met a varied criticism from the adherents, sincere and otherwise, of our too widely vaunted "democratic simplicity."
Another change I made was the substitution of a housekeeper for a steward. I wanted a woman who could relieve me of the supervision of such details as no man, expert stweard though he might be, would ever recognise. The White House requires such ordinary attention as is given by a good housekeeper to any house, except, perhaps, that it has to be more vigilantly watched. Dust accumulates in corners; mirrors and picture glasses get dim with dampness; curtains sag or lose their crispness; floors lose their gloss; rugs turn up at corners or fray at the ends; chair covers get crumpled; cushins get crushed and untidy; things get out of order generally; and it is a very large house. Kitchen helpers grow careless and neglect their shining copper pots and pans and kettles; pantry boys forget and send in plates or glasses not polished to perfection; maids forget to be immaculate and linen is not properly handled; they are just like employés in other homes and they need a woman's guidance and control. I engaged my housekeeper before my husband's Inauguration and she reported for duty on the morning of March Fifth.
If I could remember how many turkeys the President gives away every Christmas I could tell just how many persons there are in the White House service. I know it is something like one hundred, but they go to employés of all kinds, to important house officials, to minor officials, to servants of high and low degree, to gardeners, stable boys, chauffeurs and all.
The staff of the White House proper is not so numerous, ​eighteen or twenty perhaps, including cooks, kitchen maids, butlers, boys, housemaids and laundresses. There was one coloured cook, Alice, who prepared the meals for the servants' dining-room and who had been in the White House twenty years.
My head cook, whom I engaged, was Swedish. She was a miracle of a cook, but she displayed a romantic tendency as well. She must have been about forty, apparently quite staid, when she acquired a husband, a policeman on duty at the White House, and, in due course, a baby. She had been maried only a little over a year when her husband contracted tuberculosis. We had always been very much interested in her, deploring the home-making tendency which took her away from us, so when we learned of her misfortune Mr. Taft immediately took steps to have her husband sent to Ft. Bayard, the Military Tuberculosis Sanatorium in New Mexico. The cook, who earned seventy-five dollars a month, put her baby out to nurse and returned to the White House, where we got regular reports as to the progress of the invalid and the infant, each of whom proceeded to do as well as could be expected.
The other servants in the White house are paid the usual wages, from twenty-five to fifty dollars, and are no more and less efficient than other good houseworkers in other homes. The entire White House staff is paid by the Government, the only private servants in our employ bing a Filipino valet who had been with Mr. Taft for a number of years, and my personal maid.
©Harris X Ewing
TWO CORNERS OF THE WHITE HOUSE KITCHEN
My first inspection of the White House on the evening of my husband's Inauguration was casual, but the next I assumed the management of the establishment in earnest and proceeded upon a thorough investigation which resulted in some rather disquieting revelations.
Mrs. Roosevelt, as the retiring Mistress of the White House, naturally would make no changes or purchases which might not meet with the approval of her successor, so I found the linen supply depleted, the table service inadequate through breakages, and other refurnishing necessary. There is a government appropriation to meet the expense of such replenishments and repairs, and every President's wife is supposed to avail herself of any part of it she requires to fit the mansion for her own occupancy.
Perhaps nothing in the house is so expressive of the various personalities of its Mistress as the dinner services which each has contributed. For my part I was entirely satisfied with the quiet taste displayed by Mrs. Roosevelt and contented myself with filling up the different broken sets in her service to the number necessary for one hundred covers. ​I always enjoyed, however, using some of the old historic plates and platters at small luncheons and dinners. There are enough plates left of the Lincoln set to serve a course to a party of thirty. Though I speak of the different designs as expressive of personalities they represent, perhaps, various periods of popular taste rather than individual preference. Samples of all the different services, displayed in cabinets in the long eastern corridor, are among the most interesting exhibits in the White House.
From the day my husband became president I never knew for certain until I entered the dining-room just how many persons there would be at luncheon. He always did credit me with a miraculous ability to produce food for any number of persons at a moment's notice and when he was Governor of the Philippines and Secretary of War I always had to keep an emergency supply cupboard, but I did not feel that I could carry with me into the White House the happy-go-lucky attitude toward the formalities which I had enjoyed in those days, so meting his sudden demands became a slightly more serious manner. His haphazard hospitality was of more concern to the servants than to me, however, and I think it is only his own gift for inspiring respectful devotion on the part of his household staff that ever enables me to keep a cook more than a week at a time.
During our first spring in the White House Congress was in extra session for the purpose of revisiting the tariff and Mr. Taft was in constant conference with the different Senators and Representatives. We had members of Congress at luncheon and dinner daily, and at breakfast quite frequently.
Always, in consultation with my housekeeper and the head cook, I made out the daily menus.
"How many for luncheon, Madame?" was the cook's invariable question.
"I haven't any idea," was my invariable reply. ​If no guests had, to my knowledge, been invited I would give instructions to have luncheon prepared for my family only, emergency provision being a thing understood. My day's plans would then be sent over to Mr. Young, the Executive Social Officer, who had his office in the Executive wing of the buliding, and I would go on about my accustomed duties and pleasures knowing that no surprise would find us quite surprised.
Along about eleven o'clock the house telephone would ring, or a note would be sent over, and announcement would be made that Mr. So and So would lunch with the President and Mrs. Taft. The table would be laid while the kitchen staff stood calmly by awaiting final orders. In another half hour might come the announcement of a second guest, or group of guests, whereupon the amiable butler would have to make a complete change in table arrangements. Only about a half hour before the stated luncheon hour did the cook even consider it saft to begin final preparations, but too often for the maintenance of entire smoothness in domestic routine Mr. Taft would come across from the Executive offices anywhere from a half hour to an hour late, bringing with him an extra guest, or even a number of extra guests whose coming had not been announced at all.
This system, or this lack of system, obtained throughout my four years in the White House, but I and my capable and willing staff, all of whom were devoted to the President, eventually adjusted ourselves to it and I began to take great delight in the informal meeting of so many interesting and distinguished men at our open luncheon table.
I tried to insist that the dinner hour should always be properly respected, and it usually was. While we gave many informal, small dinners,—nearly every night as a matter of fact,—there were crowded into my first season from March until I became ill in May most of the big official ​functions which are a part of White House life always, as well as a number of entertainments which were a part of my own scheme of innovations.
Our first official entertainment was the diplomatic tea on the 12th of march, just eight days after the Inauguration, and before I had time to settle myself in the midst of my own belongings which were to fill the empty spaces left by the removal of Mrs. Roosevelt's personal effects. At this tea we received the entire Diplomatic Corps, including all heads of Missions, and all Secretaries and Attachés, with their wives.
Nothing could be more statelily important. It was the first presentation of the first Diplomatic Corps to the new President and though, having been for several years in Washington society, we knew many of them quite well, the method of procedure was as formal as the State Department could make it. Explicit directions as to the manner in which they were to present themselves were sent in printed form to every diplomatic representative in Washington, but while an almost oppresive dignity marked the proceedings, our wide acquaintance made it possible for us to depart somewhat from the rigid form decreed and to lend to the occasion an air of general friendliness it could not otherwise have had.
It might be interesting to those not familiar with Washington life to know just what the prescribed ceremonies are for such an event. I confess that at first they seemed to me to be rather formidable, accustomed as I was to the dignities of government.
The guests are not received by the President and his wife as they arrive. They are requested to "present themselves (in uniform) at the East entrance and to assemble in the East Room at a sufficient interval before five o'clock to enable them by that hour to place themselves in the order of precedence, each Chief of Mission being immediately followed by his staff and ladies of his Embassy of Legation." ​They are met in the East Room by Secretary of State and other State Department officials, and by some of the aides-de-camp on duty at the White House.
In the meantime the President and his wife took their positions in the Blue Room and exactly at five o'clock the doors are thrown open and announcement is made in the East Room that they are ready to receive.
The Dan of the Diplomatic Corps then steps forward, past the military aides stationed at the door leading into the Blue Room and is presented by the senior military aide to the President. He in turn presents each member of his suits, all of whom pass promoptly on and are presented by another aide to the President's wife, the head of the Mission being presented to her at the end of these ceremonies. Each Ambassador or Minister, in strict order of precedence, passes by and into the state Dining Room where tea and another refreshments are served.
At the conclusion of the presentations the President and his wife usually retire and leave their guests to be entertained for a few formal moments by whomever has been invited to preside at the tea-table, but Mr. Taft and I followed them into the dining-room to have tea with them. I knew this was a departure from established custom, but it seemed a perfectly natural thing for us to do. I forget to take into consideration the attitude of our guests, however. Our unaccustomed presence rather bewildered the diplomats for a moment. There were no rules to guide them in such an emergency and they didn't know exactly what was expected of them. I had finally to instruct one of the aides to announce unofficially to the wives of some of the more important of them that nothing at all was expected, and that they should retire without making any adicus whenever they so desired. I was told afterward that nearly everybody was pleased with the innovation, and in the official White ​House Diary—kept for the purpose of establishing precedents, I suppose—it was recommended that it be followed on all future occasions of a similar nature.
At our first state dinner, given to the Vice-President and Mrs. Sherman, there were thirty-two guests, all Cabinet Officers, Senators and Representatives. To prove my claim to a natural tendency toward simple and everyday methods I need only say that even as the President's wife it seemed strange to me to have our guests arrive without immediate greetings from their host and hostess. Many a time at Malacañan Palace and in other homes I have gone through the not unusual experience of a hostess who spends the last possible moments in putting "finishing touches" to preparations for a dinner, then hurries off to dress in record time that she may be able to meet her first arriving guest with an air of having been ready and waiting for ever so long.
But at the White House the guests assemble in whatever room may be designated and there, grouped in order of rank, await the entrance of the President and his wife. At this first formal dinner of ours the guests assembled in the Blue Room, the Vice-President and Mrs. Sherman being first, of course, and nearest the door leading into the corridor, while beyond them were the Cabinet officers, then the Senators and Representatives in order of seniority.
Upon our appearance the band began to play "The Star Spangled Banner"—which, let me say parenthetically, is almost as difficult a tune to walk by as Mendelssohn's Wedding March—and played just enough of it to bring us to the door of the Blue Room, After we had shaken hands with everybody the senior aide approached Mr. Taft with Mrs. Sherman on his arm and announced that dinner was served, whereupon Mr. Taft offered his arm to Mrs. Sherman and started for the dining-room.
©Harris X Ewing
THE EAST ROOM
The state Dining Room is one of the many splendid results of the McKim restoration and, next to the East Room, is the handsomest room in the White House. It is not so tremendously large, its utmost capacity being less than one hundred, but it is magnificently proportioned and beautifully finished in walnut panelling with a fireplace and carved mantel on one side which would do honour to an ancient baronial hall. A few fine moose and elk heads are its only wall decorations.
We had table-tops of all sizes and shapes, but the one we had to use for very large dinners was in the form of a crescent which stretched around three sides of the room. For any dinner under sixty I was able to use a large oval top which could be extended by the carpenters to almost any size. Indeed, I have seen it so large that it quite filled the room leaving only enough space behind the chairs for the waiters to squeeze their way around with considerable discomfort. On this table I used the massive silver-gilt ornaments which President Monroe imported from France along with his interesting collection of French porcelains, clocks and statuettes which still occupy many cabinets and mantels here and there in the house.
These table ornaments remind one of the Cellini period when silversmiths vied with each other in elaborations. ​Based on oblong plate glass mirrors, each about three feet in length, they stretch down the middle of the table, end to end, a perfect riot of festooned railing and graceful figures upholding crystal vases. Then there are large gilded candelabra, centre vases and fruit dishes to match. In their way they are exceedingly handsome, and they certainly are appropriate to the ceremony with which a state dinner at the White House is usually conducted.
The White House silver is all very fine and there are quantities of it. It is all marked, in accordance with the simple form introduced at the beginning of our history, "The President's House," and some of it is old enough to be guarded among our historic treasures.
When I went to live at the White House I found, much to my surprise, that this silver had always been kept in a rather haphazard fashion in chests, or boxes, in the storeroom. I decided to remedy this even though in doing so I was compelled to encroach somewhat upon the White House custodian's already limited quarters. These quarters are a good-sized office with the house supply rooms opening off it, and a smaller room adjoining. They are on the ground floor just across the wide corridor from the kitchen. At one end of the smaller room I had built a closet with regular vault doors and combination locks. I had the space divided into compartments, with a special receptacle for each important article, and velvet-lined trays in drawers for flat silver, each one of which could be slipped out separately. This silver closet became the joy of Arthur Brooks' life, he being the War Department Messenger who was my right hand man all the time my husband was Secretary of War and who was appointed White House Custodian at our request a short time before Mr. Taft was inaugurated.
I was "at home" informally at the White House about three afternoons a week when my friends came to see me and ​when I received many ladies who wrote and asked for an opportunity to call. I always received in the Red Room which, with fire and candles lighted, is pleasant enough to be almost cosy, large and imposing though it be. I usually had twenty or more callers and I found this a delightful way of meeting and getting close to people as I could not hope to do at the great formal receptions.
As an example of one of these, I might cite my first afternoon reception to the Congressional ladies for which something like four hundred invitations were issued. I intended to carry this off without assistance, other than that rendered by the ladies I had asked to preside over the refreshment tables, but in the end I asked Mr. Taft to receive with me, a task never very difficult for him. There were no men invited, so he had the pleasure of shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries with several hundred women, and he did it without a single protest. I made the mistake on this occasion of receiving in the East Room as the guests arrived, thinking that by so doing I could make the party somewhat less formal. But I only succeeded in having the stairway leading up from the east entrance overcrowded and in making the affair much more formal than it would have been had I followed the usual course of permitting the people to assemble in the East Room and to be received in the Blue Room on their way through to the Dining Room. It amuses me to find that Captain Butt in the Official Diary has carefully recorded all my mistakes as well as my successes for the supposed benefit of other Mistresses of the White House.
I do not wish to convey an impression that life in the White House is all a public entertainment, but there are a certain number of set functions during every season which are as much a part of Washington life as is a Congressional session. But even with teas, luncheons, musicals, small dinners, garden parties and dances coming at short intervals between the more official entertainments, we still had many ​evenings when there were so few guests as to make us feel quite like a family party. Indeed, once in a while we dined alone.
We began immediately, as our first spring advanced, to make almost constant use of the porches and terraces which are among the most attractive features of the White House. The long terrace extending from the East Room I found to be a most delightful promenade for guests on warm spring evenings, while the corresponding terrace leading out from the Dining Room proved most useful for large dinner parties at times when dining indoors would have been rather unpleasant.
With Congress in session nearly all summer Mr. Taft gave a series of Congressional dinners and the last one he had served on this terrace. A curious incident marked the occasion for special remembrance. It was known that one of the Senators invited had never crossed the White House threshold because of his unfriendly feeling toward the administration. He paid no attention whatever to his invitation—a formal one, of course, requiring a formal answer—until the day before the dinner. He then called the White House on the telephone and asked if he would be expected to wear a dress suit. Mr. Hoover, who received the inquiry, replied that evening dress was customary at White House dinners, whereupon the Senator mumbled something at the other end of the line. Mr. Hoover asked him whether or not he intended to come. He replied that he guessed he would, and abruptly rang off.
MRS. TAFT ON THE POTOMAC DRIVE
The north verandah of the White House is pleasant enough, but it lacks the charm of seclusion peculiar to the south portico which runs around the oval Blue Room and looks out upon the broad south garden with its great fountain, and with Potomac Park, the River and Washington's Monument in the background. This soon became our favourite retreat and we used to sit there in the ever lengthening spring evenings, breathing the perfume of magnolia. blossoms, watching the play of lights on the tree-dotted lawns and on the Monument—which is never so majestic as in the night—and realising to the full the pleasant privilege of living in this beautiful home of Presidents.
Mr. Taft had a Victrola in the Blue Room and he never failed, when opportunity offered, to lay out a few favourite records for his evening's entertainment. Melba and Caruso, the Lucia Sextette, some old English melodies, a few lively ragtime tunes; in those delightful surroundings we found a Victrola concert as pleasant a diversion as one could desire. With no applause, no fixed attention, no conversation, no effort of any kind required, my husband found on such quiet evenings a relaxation he was fully able to appreciate during that first trying summer.
That Manila could lend anything to Washington may be an idea that would surprise some persons, but the Luneta is an institution whose usefulness to society in the Philippine capital is not to be overestimated. At least it was so in my day; and for a long time before Mr. Taft became President I had looked with ambitious designs upon the similar possibilities presented in the drives, the river-cooled air and the green swards of Potomac Park. I determined, if possible, to convert Potomac Park into a glorified Luneta where all Washington could meet, either on foot or in vehicles, at five ​o'clock on certain evenings, listen to band concerts and enjoy such recreation as no other spot in Washington could possibly afford.
The Army officer in charge of Public Buildings and Grounds had a bandstand erected in an admirable location at the end of an ellipse, and we decided that the long drive theretofore known as "The Speedway" should be renamed Potomac Drive. Arrangements were made to have band concerts every Wednesday and Saturday afternoon from five to seven o'clock.
Saturday, the 17th of April, the concert began, and at five o'clock Mr. Taft and I, in a small landaulette motor-car, went down to the driveway and took our places in the throng. The Park was full of people. As many as ten thousand crowded the lawns and footways, while the drive was completely packed with automobiles and vehicles of every description. Everybody saw everybody that he or she knew and there was the same exchange of friendly greetings that had always made the Luneta such a pleasant meeting place. I felt quite sure that the venture was going to succeed and that Potomac Drive was going to acquire the special character I so much wished it to have.
I also thought we might have a Japanese Cherry Blossom season in Potomac Park. Both the soil and climate encouraged such an ambition, so I suggested that all the blooming cherry trees obtainable in the nurseries of this country be secured and planted. They were able to find about one hundred only. Then the Mayor of Tokyo, having learned of our attempt to bestow the high flattery of imitation upon his country, offered to send us two thousand young trees. We accepted them with grateful pleasure, but one consignment was found to be afflicted with some contagious disease and had to be destroyed. I watched those that were planted later with great interest and they seem to be doing very well. I wonder if any of them will ever attain the magnificent ​growth of the ancient and dearly loved cherry trees of Japan.
One of the delights of living in the White House is in being able to entertain one's friends from a distance with a confidence that they are being given a real pleasure and an experience of an unusual kind. More often than not we had house guests, old friends from Cincinnati, from New Haven, from the Philippines, from here, there and everywhere; friends with whom we had been closely associated through the years and who felt whole-hearted satisfaction in my husband's attainment of the Presidency.
To be stared at is not pleasant because it keeps one self-conscious all the time, but one gets more or less used to it. And anyhow, I enjoyed a sort of freedom which Mr. Taft did not share in any way. While he would probably have been recognised instantly in any crowd anywhere, I found that in most places I could wander about unobserved like any inconspicuous citizen. It was a valued privilege.
My daughter Helen likes to tell about an experience she had one day in Philadelphia. She was a student at Bryn Mawr College and she went in to Philadelphia to do some shopping. Among other things she had to get herself some shoes. At the shoe store she was waited on by a girl who was anything but intelligently attentive. She had tried Helen's patience considerably by suggesting in a certain nagging way that her superior knowledge of what was "being worn" deserved respect, and that Helen didn't know what she wanted anyhow.
Helen selected some shoes and decided to have them charged to me, and she thought what a satisfaction it was going to be to reveal her identity to the patronising and offensive young person. The young person produced pad and pencil to make out the check.
"Please have them charged to Mrs. William Howard Taft," said Helen with what I am sure was her loftiest air.
"Address?"
​"Washington."
The salesgirl held her pencil poised over the pad and with the familiar expression of satisfaction over a sale accomplished said pleasantly:
"D. C.?"
THE SOUTH PORTICO FROM THE END OF THE GARDEN