St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-03-31


is indescflbably brilliant. Still, you
might as well furnish barn or a bowl
ing alley and call it a parlor as to think
of using this big room for the living
room for the home life of a private
| family, and if President Harrison
wanted it he couldn't get it, for the
people have monopolized it by the pre-
cedent of generations.
1t is the same with the Green room,
tile Blue room and the Red room. They
are full of beauties in furniture and
hanglngs, but they are as much shut
out from the everyday life of the presi-
dent as the parlor of New England
farmers wife which is busted every
day, but never used except for
company. 1t is in the Blue
room that President Harrison with his
wife standing beside him shakes the
hands of the multitude at big recep-
ton. The room is oval in shape, fin
ished in blue satin fresco, and its diam
cter is about that of country church.
Still, it is hardly large enough for
this purpose, and when the crowd
big for common use. There are many
dining rooms in Washington larger than
the state dining room and can count
on my fingers dozen which are more
beautifully furnished. There are none
OF the conVeniences for serving great
dinner. and these thouSaud-dollar feastS
which the president gives have to be
largely gotten up outside of the house,
and hired walters have to be brought in
to pass the vlctuals. The dining room
used by the family, or the private din
ing room, is at the right of the vesti-
bule. This has to be turned inside out
vnI.tr IA fA sIn fntN In
must be removed and shelves be put
around the room to hold the hats and
coats of the guests. At such receptions
the state dining room becomes ladies'
dressing room, and more fuss is made
in the executive mansion every time
the president receives than you make
in your home when your daughters are
married. Not long ago there was a
mantel bed in the reception room oppo-
site Elijah Halford's Office on the sec
Ond floor. passed through this room
yesterday and noticed that it was there
still. but whether it is used or not do
not know. Think of the president Of
the United States being compelled to
have wardrobe bed in one of his par
lorS. 1t is true no one knows what it is,
but it makes one think of the occupant
of a second-claSs boarding house, who
is trying to keep up appearances, and
pretending to have a suite of rooms
when he gets along with only one.
There is general plan about the
White house which, when once under
stood, makes the building simplicity
itself. If you will take a rectangle
covering one-third of an acre and biSect
it lengthwise by hall eighteen wide
you will have the general plan of the
building. On the ground floor at the
end nearest the treasury the great east
room cuts off part of this hall and runs
the whole length of this building. The
veStibule and the private dining room
and dressing room are on the north of
this hall,and on the south are the green,
blue, red and state dining rooms. All
of the rooms of the building thus go off
from this hall, and all are of the same
length, viz. about tWenty-eight feet.
At the extreme end Of the lower floor
is great shed of glass, covering the
area of several ordinary houses, and
making up the Conservatives of the
White house. This is no part, however,
of the original structure, and it need
hardly be considered as connected with
it.
The second floor is on the same plan.
All of the roumS are big, and three |
The living rooms of the president are at
the west end of the second floor, and
Mrs. Harrison has only four good-sized
bed rooms. 1t takes about hundred !
yards of carpet to cover each one of |
them, and she has turned the lower end |
of The hall into sitting room, and the /
children are using the little private |
office at the northwest corner of the |
building where President Arthur used |
to receive his most intimate friends. III |
addition to these four bed rooms, Two |
of which are in the north and two Oh |
the south side of the building. there is |
q little bed room which WAS originally |
intended for dressing room, Oh The |
southwest corner, aud q servant IS |
lodged in hall bed room just over the
veStibule. which is seven feet wide and |
eighteen feet long. There is an eleva-
tor leading to this floor. and there are |
two or three bath rooms huddied to- |
gether right over the big entrance hail. |
The larger bed rooms have no bath |
rooms connected with them and this is |
the case with the presidents bed room, |
which opens into the office Or library, |
where he receives his callers.
The business offices OF the White !
house take up the whole OF the eaatern |
the big front door you turn to the LETT !
and march up pair OF stairs about five |
feet wide. You note that though the !
carpet is new, the tread OF the oiiico- !
seeker has worn Off its nap, and at any |
hour of the morning you pass tie NEST |
noted men of the country on the stairs. |
They sta. .long as though they owned |
the b..Iding, and most of them think |
they do. When you reach the second |
floor you find that your surroundings |
are those of business establishment |
rather than those ofa private residence.
Two eolored gentlemen stand at guard |
at the door. and gray-haired German,
short and squatty, sits before a little
desk as you enter the hall. He is III
the corner made by the partition which
has been run across the hall to give the
presidents wife sitting room, and as
he looks at you his back is turned to-
ward the door of the room in which the
cabinet meets. This man is Sergeant
Loeffler. He is the presidents messeu-
ger, and he has been here for almost a
score of years. He is, in measure, the
Watchdog of the president, and he car
rieS all the cards of noted visitors into
Mr.. Harrison. He has sometimes to
deal with cranks in case these pass by
the giant form and blue eyes of Colonel
Dinsmore below. Sergeant Loeff1er
makes about the sixth guard you have
passed since entering the White house.
You are motioned by him to the left
and farming your eyes you see a couple
more of celOred guards, one of whom is
the watch dog of the private secretary.
| You go by these into a big reception
room which is over the end of the East
room and which is filled with very or
binary furniture. 1t is here that office
! seekers cool their heels until the presi-
dent is ready to receive them; and it is
here that Col. Crook. the cashier of the
president, sits. In little room beyond
this there is a telegraph room, and here
the president has telephone connec-
tons with all the great departments.
| Next to this there is another Office i'll
which clerks work, and the lower end
! of the big hall has been partiti0ned off
and made into an office. In the south
east corner of the building the eXecu-
| five clerk Mr. Pruden makes M with