The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-03-02


 many years a member of the White House
 staff. And Tom Pen," as little Tad Lincoln affectonately called him, was not far from the truth. The ordeal how ever, is harder on the President who
 must stand in one place for two hours and
 shake the hands of rarely less than 2O00
 people. It takes a hardy, outdoor man, such as the present incumbent of the White House, with muscles toughened by tennis playing and by lifting hardmouthed
 horses over hurdles, to stand such a test.
 General Grant soldier as he was. is said
 to have suffered great pain in his arms for days after a large reception, while General Washington escaped all such trib-
 utes to popularity by never shaking hands at his principal levees.
 There have been many other changes
 since President Washington and Mrs. Washington set up the American court in
 the mansion of Robert Morris in Philadel-
 phia, which was added to and redecor- ated for the purpose and rented to the
 government for 5000 year. Here the
 first President received every other Tues
 day from 3 to in the afternoon, his guests forming in a circle in the dining room, and he passing around to bow to each in turn. He wore his sword ana carried a cooked hat under his arm at these receptions when he appeared as the head of the new nation, but when Mrs.
 Washington received he appeared at her levees as a private citizen with the hat
 and sword conspicuously absent.
 Int al be a in all matters had become evident in the people for in Washington's second term there were many who openly criticised his bow. It was too formal. and his man
 ner was too reserved He could be some thing of a dictator, it is true for when Citizen Genet refused to enter the eXecu- tive mansion because portrait of Louis XVI hung in the hall, offending his re-
 publican spirit, Washington promptly had him recalled. Before this, when New York was the capital of the United States, and the executive mansion was on the corner of Cherry street and Franklin Square there were many dinners, private theatricals and a few balls, besides the levees, although Mrs Washington did not
 care for balls. She preferred her after
 moons, where coffee and cake, and the first ice cream were served, and quiet
 dinners with Robert Morris, Benjamin
 Chew, Edward Shippen and Dr. Rush to
 enliven her guests.
 When Washington was city without
 houses, and Georgetown city without
 streets" as 8 witty French traveller described it, John Adams and his clever wife braved the bottomless mud of the roads from the east and came to the unfinished White House. To see the great east room with It's dignifed sim l plicity and it's coterie of distinguished l guests that graces each of the four great
 semi-official receptions each season, one
 smiles to recall a passage from Mrs. l Adams letters: 'The great unfinished
 audience room I made drying room of l to hang clothes in" For there were only
 six chambers finished, not fires enough,
 and only a little oval room on the second | floor for the public levees, the first be- l ing on New Years Day, 1891.
 1 Jefferson, to accentuate the great de- 1 mocracy of his spirit, did away with the | Ievees that he fancied savored too much | of court life, and held each year two | public receptions, one on January l, and one on July A. Mrs. Madison, fond of
 driving over to Cherry Alley, Georgetown.
 or out to Blandensburg for tea, had her
 social seasons rather broken into by | British intervention. Yet when the Whlte | House had been rendered uninhabitable | by the fire. she moved her democratic
 court to the famous Octagon house, and l so great was her hospitality the day | that the Treaty of Ghent was signed in
 one of her upper rooms, that her servants,
 even, were incapacitated for work by
 too frequent potations in the wine that | flowed freely in the cause of peace l Mrs. Madison held many levees, and 1 mingled freely with her guests. The tim
 id and awkward were her especial care 1 Once seeing an embarrassed county youth stand against the wall for half l an hour or so, she went over to chat with him. The boy had his coffee cup | still in his hand, and being oVer-aWed | by the approaching presence, dropped
 the saucer on the floor and trust the cup | in his trousers pocket. Mrs. Madison | ordered more coffee, commenting on the | pushing of the crowd and when she went | away, the fattered youth drew out the
 cup and thought she had never know or | his embarrassment.
 There were some warm times in the | White House in Jackson's time. Becuase l he championed the gay Peggy O Neal, | then Mrs Eaton, wife of Jackson's sec | retary of war, he brought down the wrath of the cabinet ladies, and not being aple | to manage these as he had managed all | other people, Jackson suffered distress or | spirit until his cabinet was Wen-nisht
 disrupted and he had sent his niece Mrs. | Donelson, the then mistress of the White | House back to Tennessee in tears. Mrs Fillmore, once clever school mistress
 eager for additional intellectual papu- lum, was the one who first had DOCKS se- lected for White House library. She held
 evening levees despite weak ankle, and
 divided her home loving spirit with the
 public who clamored for receptions.
 Poor Mrs Lincoln, who came at very
 trying season, won the disapproval of SO
 cety by spending much of her time shop-