The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1908-07-26
Who WILL Be QUEEN
OF WHITE HOUSE
Three Interesting Girls Candi-
dates to Succeed Ethel
Roosevelt.
ALL OF THEM ARE WORTHY
MISS HELEN TAFT, MISS GRACE
BRYAN AND MISS DESDEMoNIA
cHAFIN HAVE CHARMS WHICH
IRE PRONOUNCED.

Washington, D. c., July 25.-When
Chief Justice Fuller administers the
oath of Office to the president on
March 4, 1909, new debutante will
reign in the White House.
During the seven months that re-
main in President Roosevelt's term
Miss Ethel Carrow Roosevelt will hold
the enviable position. She will make
her formal bow next winter
after few weeks of joys which were
once those of her sister Alice, her
reign in the executive mansion will be
at an end and she will yield her hon
ors to a successor.
Who will be the White House de-
butante-Miss Helen Taft, Miss Grace
Bryan or Miss Desdemonia Chain of
Chicago?
Misses Taft and Roosevelt Chums.
Miss Taft and the presidents daugh-
ter are old friends. They spent their
House and were later associated as
students at the National Cathedral
schools for girls.
Miss Bryan, younger daughter of the
democratic nominee for president,
knows little of the life within the ex-
ecutive mansion except as she may
have seen 1t from the long line of WIS.,
itors at some of the state receptions.
Miss Chain is the youngest OF this
trio of social aspirants, being but 10
years old. Like Miss Bryan, she is
a western girl, democratic, vivacious,
and pretty, hardly realizing the prom
inence of her position should her faith
er be chosen as the next president of
the United States.
All Four Like Outdoor Life.
Among the four girls, Ethel Roose-
welt, Helen Taft, Grace Bryan, and
Desdemonia Chain, there is pretty
contrast The first three are Miss
Chains senior by two years, and all
are typical American girls in that they
are lovers of out door life and are as
full of enthusiasm as four bright, spir-
tied girls could be. But they are wide
ly different.
The daughter of the president has
developed in quite a different sort of
girl from what was predicted When
she was tot running about the White
House and slipping in at the most for
NAL gatherings of the social season.
she was regarded as something of a
tomboy. She rode her wheel with the
boys of the family and their friends.
Shocks the Fastidious Ones.
She was up on young Archie's pony
before anybody could stop her, and
it was vaguely limited that Miss Ethel
was materially concerned in bit of
unconventional fun the younger mem
bers Of the family had at one Of the
first state receptions given after her
father assumed the reins Of Office. and
which pretty nearly shocked the ultra
fastidious.
When Miss Roosevelt was a student
at the National Cathedral school for
girls she reminded one of straight.
high growing flower. She carried
herself erect, her head thrown back.
and her soft, wavy hair dressed SIM
ply at the back of her neck with a
just reached her shoe tops, and she
looked the child she was. every inch.
Many false alarms were sent out
about the date of Miss Ethel's debut
at the White House. and when she was
withdrawn from the National Cathe-
dral school-or rather did not resume
her studies last fall-every one was
convinced she would be among the
buds of the winter.
She was not formally brought out,
although she attended all the state
functions at the White House when
she was in Washington, and was quite
as much in the social whirl as her ED
er sister. Mrs. Nicholas Longworth.
She mingled among the guests in the
blue room. where the special friends
and the presidents family are invited
and would then wander out into the