Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-02-28
THE RULES OF RANK.
Bessie Bramble on the Formalities
Of Washington Society.
SECRETARY PRUDEE'S AUTHORITY.
Men Are as Fad as Women in tho Squab-
BILE for Seats of Honor.
THE GUESTS At A CABINET DINNER
CORRESPONDENCE OF THE prspArcH.I

CORRESPONDENTS OF THE pIsPArcH.I
/ WASHINGTON, Feb. N.-Every yeal
when the social season begins in Washing
ton they have no end of a wrangle and
jangle as to order of precedence and official
etiquette. This year the talk and criticism
was as to how the guests were seated at the
Presidents Cabinet dinner-it being claimed
that Mrs. Miller, the wife of the Attorney
| General, was given the seat that should, by
virtue of her rank, have been assigned to
Mrs. Elkins. This momentous matter gave
a subject for gossip to the town, and much
Grundyism was INDUCED in by the sticklers
for forms.
Outsiders may look upon this as a small
matter They will be likely to think that
Mrs. Elkins could eat just as good dinner
in one seat as another. They will jeer at the
idea of court etiquette In democracy.
They will want to know what this
country is coming to anyway. But
| they will speedily be told that law
and order of precedence must be main
tanned, and that it is quite serious thing
to make a mistake in official etiquette
But the many millions of people outside of
Washington will be more disposed to laugh
over the wranglings and janglings as to
place and rank by their representatives
than to regard them with the gravity that
pertains to such matters in official life.
Down to an Exact Science.
The friends of Mrs. Elkins claim that her
seat should have been above Mrs. Miller's
in order of rank at the Cabinet
dinner. But Mr.. Pruden, the assist
ant private secretary of the President,
who is said to have given many years of Sc
we're mental labor to study of this great
question, and who claims to have reduced
the matter of seating guests at the State en-
tertainments at the White House to an ex-
act science, is highly indignant over the
idea that any mistake was made at the Cab
met dinner. The system evolved BY the
brains of Mr.. Pruden has, he asserts, "been
submitted for criticism to some of the finest
jurists and Journalists OF the country" He
quotes the late Secretary Frelinghuysen-
who, he says, was noted for his fine sense of
the proprieties-in support Of his scientific
code for the adjustment of the order of pre-
ccdence
The people Of the country will likely be
interested in knowing how Cabinet officers
rank according to the code of etiquette as
promulgated by the learned men who h0ve
given this subject so much wear and tear of
brains. Here it is: First, the President;
then, in order of precedence, the Vice
President, Secretaries of State, Treasury,
War, the Attorney General, the Postmaster
General, the Secretaries of the Navy, In
terror and Agriculture. Secretary Rusk's
place, therefore. is down foot.
Taking Care of the Ladies'.
According to the rules, the President
must have lady of high degree on each
side of him, Mrs Harrison on his right and
Mrs. Blaine on his left. Mrs. Harrison,
as follows, must be conducted to dinner by
the Vice President, who finds his card
finds his place at her left. If by reason of
"the grip or owing to the necessity of
taking rest from official duty at Fortress
Monroe or ''down South any of the Cab
met officers or their wives should be absent,
the whole diagram is upset, and a new one
must be substituted with due regard to
rank. These changes are what bothers the
brains and vexes the soul of the official who
has the administration of the code of
etiquette in his charge.
The main difficulty in arranging the
guests at a White House dinner is because,
as Mr.. Pruden tells us, the table has two
sides. If there were only one, the
President would head the line and the high
officials would go down in regular order,
with "Uncle Jerry" as the last in the
Cabinet row, and the distinguished guests
below our boss farmer But as it is, it re-
quires deep study and ample knowledge of
court etiquette to get matters arranged in the
heavenly harmony that disarms criticism.
The President sits in the middle of one side
of the table, and his wife opposite, while
I he do 81
Trouble Comes Prom the Fair.
1t is said that the women make most of
the trouble as to rank and precedence They
cannot be made to realize the stern and |
solemn fact that though Scripture and the
civil law have ingrained the statement into
their souls that husband and wife are
one, the code of etiquette, as held |
in the White House, is that "the wives of |
cabinet officers have personally no official |
rank whatever" Mrs. Secretary Blank, or
Mrs. Senator Jones, or Mrs. Speaker-of-the |
House Smith are pronounced upon the high |
authority of Mr.. Pruden to be the most |
preposterous expressions to be found in |
print 1t is BY virtue of their husbands |
rank that cabinet ladies are admitted to |
state dinners and high official functions.
To have their claims to title thus disputed |
as vulgar and pretentious will be sad news
Mrs. Secretary this, or Mrs. Senator that, or
Mrs. Justiee-of-the-Peac Blank. Not
long ago it will be remembered that official
society in Washington-and even in the
country at large-was all torn up over the
question of who was ''first lady in
The land" and who was first in order of
wife of Judge of the Su-
preme Court, or the helpmate of the
Speaker of the House. How it was decided,
We fail to remember, but certainly there
was bill or order of succession passed that
took the Speaker of the House out of the
royal order of descent
Would Like to Be mcAllister.
Mrs Elkins and Mrs. Miller were seated
wrongly according to some of the critics,
put Mr.. Pruden maintains they were rightly
placed under the code of the White House.
indeed, when the newspapers in other cities
presume to criticise and arrange those who
live and move and have their being in the
yery odor of court etiquette and to whom
is forms are the familiar events of daily
ife" He evidently wants to have his code
adopted as a supreme law, and like unto
hose of the Medes and Persians
Looking back, it will be remembered that
he laws of etiquette as lived up to at the
White House and observed in Washington
ociety did not suit Mrs. Blaine and Gail
Hamilton. They thought they should be
evised and improved after their pattern.
Che talk of the gossips at the time was that
hey were so sure that Mr.. Blaine would be
nominated and elected in 1876, that they
lad proceeded to formulate new code OF
manners in society that should go into
fleet when they took up their residence in