Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-04-20
BEING FIRST LADY.
It's Not Such an Agreeable Function
as Popularity Supposed
BESIEGED BY ALL THE CRANKS.
Monumental Gall Displayed in Some of
Mrs. Harrison's Letters.
MRS. MKEE AND THE REPORTERS
BESIEGED BY ALL THE CRANKS.
MRS. M'KEE AND THE REPORTERS
rvprrrES FOR THR DISPATCH,

Mrs Grant owns that the eight happiest
wears of her life were those passed within
the White House. Not all her predecessors
and successors own to so much; for while
there is the qualification of all pride and
ambition for their lieges, there are many
things that offset and make the cost of such
station. While every one approaches the
White House family with Difference, smiles
and apparent friendliness, ana say only
kind and fattering things, all the under
current Of unfriendly comment and criti-
cism comes to them, too, in different ways
Anybody can do all the Presidents wife
has to do and succeed" said Cabinet Off
GERS wife. Everyone goes to the White
House primed full of remarks, too, and
there is always such lot of people there
that the Presidents wife only needs to say,
so happy to have met you,' and Good
morning or Good evening to them. Now,
If she had to sit down and make converse
tion with these people, and return their
calls and talk, then, too she would have
chance to make blunders and do real work. !"
The mistress of the White House says: II
wish people would not be afraid of me.
There is nothing in my appearance to
frighten or tongue-tie people, or never used
W NC, Dub udll "a pSOplS VIM SOhiS oiC
so embarrassed and excited that they do not
seem to know what they are about, and one
has not time enough in the crush to quiet
them or put them at their ease"
AFoREIGN LADY's AWE.
The daughter of foreign minister once
said: whenever go to the White House
have such a fright. My heart jumps out
of my body when l get near the Blue Room,
nv voice fails, and am almost unconscious
OF what l am doing until the greetings are
past Each time see the President / am
as nervous and frightened as the very first
time was presented to Her Majesty
She told this to a Senator's daughter, who
looked at her curiously and could not un-
derstand the English girls inborn reverence
and awe of a ruler; but scores of people ex-
perience the same terrors. There are stories
of ofice-seekers being admitted to the Presi-
dents oral library, and while they waited
such an awful stage fright came upon them
that they could only stutter and humble
few words OF their long arguments and take
precipitate leave of the kindly and quiet
man who was ready to listen to them.
The want of privacy is what President
Hsrrison's family and past occupants have
complained most Of. The White House
itself is as freely open and public as any
public building in the city, according to the
III.
The publicity of the Presidents life in
creases with the growth of the American
press. With each campaign and administra-
tion more space in the papers is given up to
the most intimate personal life and the
daily doings of such victims. Their portraits
are met everywhere, and every time the
President turns around, or his wife changes
her dress, it is recorded across the whole
country. A file of old newspapers will show
hNNr Al
chronicling has grown up, and past Presl-
dents had family and personal life of COM
psrative privacy.
MRS. HARRISON AND THE PRESS.
''The papers tell you all more of ourselves
than we know" wrote Mrs Harrison to a
friend shortly after the election; "but IT
saves us much letter r-writing. 1 grew quite
tired of reading OF the Harrisons during the
campaign, and 1 hardly know how the
country could have stood much more of it.
l never before knew how great and good and
accomplished 1 was, and if another one had
taken up pen 1 should have claimed the
wings and mounted. I know all that my
obituary could saw"
"The press has been uniformly kind, al
most too kind 10 US, /" said Mrs Harrison a
few days since. Il sometimes think though
that the press has gone mad by the questions
reporters put to me. In the midst of the
campaign someone came to know 'If marriage
was failure For myself decidedly not
Then a woman came olt to Indianapolis to
ask If the hustle should CO. Another one
wanted to know if / thought that women
should propose" A dozen have come and
have written to ask which blossom
] preferred for the national flower
Others have sought me out to know III
women are happy and what should be the
or% %bo hr,5 81
wear the decollete Dress The patent
underwear and the dress reform people
come often. The last of all the conun-
drums was from some one mystifed by the
funny mans allusions in the newspapers,
who wanted to know If the President ate
pie
I" Yes said the President, and will
appeal to the country on that issue and be
supported.
''Then the people who want cooking re-
cipes to print or to sell at their church fairs!
They print them, and 1 read critical COM
ments from all parts of the country
And the crazy quilt people?"
THE CRAZY QUILT CRANKs.
"You might as well shake a red rag at q
bull as say crazy quilt at me. thought
the crazy-quilt rage was over years ago, but
it seems to be at its height just now. They
dreds, and the census must be in the thous-
snds now. Happy Martha Washington
and Dolly Madison, with no one making
crazy quilts in their DAYS! They send me
squares of silk, and ask me to write nv
name on them and to get the ladies of the
Cabinet families to do the same, and they
scold me ii do not hurry about it, or if
decline. as 1 invariably do, without re-
sponse."
The pensioners write to Mrs. Harrison to
know why there is delay in their getting
their papers; and the people who address
the President and receive no answer. or else
a note from Private Secretary Halfori.
write to ask Mrs. Harrison to Law the SUBJ
ject before the President. In every such
case, whether written or verbal, from oldest
friend or anyone, the members of the Presi.
dents family absolutely refuse to prefer re-
quests for of1ces-or ;avors to him. They sec
how worn and harassed he is with the all
day siege for offices, and they will not spoil
his little rest or peace in the private part OF
the house BY anything of that kind.
THE TEMPERANCE FANATICS.
The temperance people cali and write and
exhort Mrs. Harrison as if she were an
abandoned sinner, and they talk to her of
Mrs. Hayes. and hold up Mrs, HAYES as an
example until she must soon dread to hear
the name of that good woman, who was in a
way related TO her. II there were an open
bar in the White House some of the ex-
horters could not be more anxious and earn
est The President and Mrs. Harrison, who
are temperate in all things, have only fol-
lowed established social usages and set be-
fore their puestg what is uSual and