The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-01-12
SOME WASHINGTON GOSSIP.
4 GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF MISS
ROOSEVELT'S BALL.

Occurred-The Number of Invita-
in Honor of the Presidents
Daughter--A Brief Description of
Some of the COstUmes-Thc First
state Reception - People who
Come without Being Bidden-A
Little Talk About Literary Folks.
other Matters of Special Interest.
Washington, Jan. 10.-The eagerly
anticipated Roosevelt ball has passed
into the social history of Washington
which is totally unlike the social his
tory of any other city-as the most
brilliant and delightful function of its
kind that ever took place in the exc
cutive mansion. In fact 1t was the
first and only debutante bali on the
White House record-since that myth
ical affair which has recently been said
to have introduced to society the only
daughter of President Grant. never oc-
CURED at all. Coming-out balls and
teas were not considered indispensable
thirty years ago, when Mrs. Nelly
Grant Sartoris was a girl; and al
though the little American Princess"
as she was affectlonately called, was
an universal faVorite and made the
old mansion gay with youth and beau
ty, she had no formal Introduction to
society and there was no ball in the
White House among the many enter
tainments that marked the Grant re-
CINE. So says the lady herself, who
is Just now i'm Washington, visiting
her mother, the aged widow of Gen.
Ulysses S. Grant. Mrs. SaItoris was
much amused at the story so widely
printed in the newspapers; but when
che House was beseged by eager-eyed
reporters from eVry city in TIL Union,
anxious to get at all the details of that
famous ball that never was, and the
Grant door bell was rung all day long,
so continuously that Mrs. Sartoris and
her mother could hardly find time TO
lunch or dine, and the butler grew
cross and weary, 1t ceased to be al
together amusing. The great social
event in the White House during Pres
ident Grant administration was the
marriage OF his daughter to the Eng
lshman, Sartoris; and as that was
nearly three decades ago, it is no Won
der the reporters of to-day-who were
then unborn, or in knickabockers and
pnafores-should get their facts lit
tie mixed.
TO return to the ball that was not
a myth, but a most brilliant ana sat
isfying reality Although the enter
tainment was the first OF it's kind ever
given in the historic East Room, 1t
came as near having no official mean
ing as II is possible for any occurrence
in the Executive Mansion. Thousands
OF roses added beauty and fragrance
TO the scene that flower being given
the great preponderance among the
floral decorations, in honor of Miss
Roosevelt's entry into the rosebud
garden" of debutantes. The mantels
were banked with bushes of roses,
corners and window sills flied in with
rose bushes abloom, and a background
of feathery palms. The electric suns
that stud the white and gold ceiling
were festooned with ropes of smilax
and the same greenery draped the
three crystal chandeliers. Each of
these historic chandeliers, you know,
is composed of $3.50 separate pieces of
cut glass, and when lighted, each prism
seems to catch on its iridescent surface
a thousand flashes of light Some idea
of the scale of the floral decoration
may be gained from the fact that for
this one ball, in the Eastern Room
alone nearly six miles of smilax gar
lands were used. besides 900 cut roses,
400 carnations 500 feet of asparagus
ropes, 400 spikes of narcissus, 800 spikes
of Roman hyacnths, 80 pots of azaleas
1900 pots of maiden hair fern and more
than a ton of crotons and other trop-
ical leaves, besides the miniature for
ests of palms and rose bushes.
With true Republican simplicity. the
cards of invitation announced IA small
dance" but there simplicity ceased
and the affair took on a magnitude of
splendor worthy of Rome in her days
of glory. A thousand invitations were
issued and fully 700 people were pres
emit OF that number about 500 danced,
to the inspiring music OF the two best
bands in the country playing alter
nately. The Roosevelt relatives were
gathered from near and far, even from
across the ocean: schoolgirl chums of
the debutante and old friends and
neighbors of her parents: together with
all the younger men of the corps diplo-
matque in full court dress, officers OF
the army and navy i'm full dress uni
forms, statesmen whose names are
household words on two continents,
and some of the most stately and beau
tiful women in America. The slip of a
girl i'm whose honor all this display
was made stood with her mother in
the Blue Parlor to receive the guests,
while the President wandered about
the rooms chatting with acquaintance.
Mrs. Roosevelt WAS becomingly gowned
I'm white lace over white silk, with a
bunch of blink orchids in her corsage.
There were diamond combs in her
smoothly coiled hair, and around her
neck "a double string of pearls, from
which was suspended a pendant formed
OF three large diamonds. The debu-
tante, who Is tall and graceful girl,
bearing as marked resemblance to
her distinguished sire as youth and
feminine softness will allow, wore an
appropriately simple dress OF white
chiffon with touches of lace about the
low-cut bodice. Her brown hair WAS
rolled UP in the fluffy style of the mo-
ment, her only jewels were the pearls
her parents gave her on Christmas
day and she looked as fresh and fair
as the white rose-buds that formed her
boauet. No better encomium could be
passed upon the Presidents daughter
than TO say that other girls like her,
and that all the intimate associations
Of her days OF comparative obscurity.
are kept up unchanged in the White
House.
There were too many beautiful
gowns at that ball TO describe one
tenth Of them here. IL may be mem
toned as an evidence OF growing good
taste in this twentieth century that the
young girls. though beautifully dressed,
were almost all i'm simple white. and
that there was - marked absence OF
tho lavish display Of Jewels USUALLY