The National tribune., 1910-01-06
INTEREST AT The
WHITE HOUSE.
The President Makes Things Move
at a Lively Pace.


leading off in interest at the threshold
of the New Year. President Taft, not
Congress, has been winning the daily
headlines. The lawmakers have at
tracted attention chiefly, as they jour
neyed to the big, square, white-waIled
building adjoining the Presidents resi-
dence and as they pushed inside the
big oval Office to talk it over"
For the President has been making
things hum all thru the holidays and
even into the period when Congress
begins again to deliberate. 1t has be-
come trite saying that the ponder
Gus wheels of legislation move slowly
at the start. Their movement was al
most imperceptible for quite a time in
early December. There is hardly more
momentum now; but all that will
change with so many people on the
ground, with plans prepared for
Winter of work. Those ever-recurring
appropriation bills, calling for { billion
dollars of the country's money every
year, alone suffice to give every regular
session of Congress good round task.
Accordingly. it has been we'll that
President Taft has filled the public
mind with a few ideas about the cur
rent necessities of Government that he
mas been calling in the Senators and
Representatives, railroad Presidents,
tdpldiilS VI lluuSlIS ana IIle like III
discussing programs. The days of bliz-
yards and severe weather ran into mild
days, with the slush and the snow upon
the asphalt, and the President was still
grinding away at the conferences, which
began in November after the Western
return, and at those special messages,
one upon corporations and another upon
conservation. No golf at Chevy Chase,
with three inches of snow upon the
swardi No automobile rides over the
slushy suburban roads, but plenty of
tramping on foot. The President has
not been at loss for relaxation from
the cares of Office. He was up early,
drilled away at business, and many an
afternoon when the sun was getting low
in the west, he put on his old clothes
and started out for tramp that would |
have done credit even to the athletic |
Roosevelt
The President as a Pedestrian.
Indeed, during the holidays and early
January, President Taft has established |
his reputation as a pedestrian. 1t is I
notable how few Presidential stunts
OF that kind set people to talking and !
even oyertop in general interest the |
graver things of state. Roosevelt was
a great walker, but he preferred to |
walk in Rock Creek Park or in Mary-i
land Or Virginia he almost invariably |
rode in a carriage out to the city lin
fts, and there began his tramping in the
open country. He did not care muclIf
about walking in the town. He would
walk to church Of an occasional SUM-
day. but a stroll down Pennsylvania |
avenue, the most important thorough
fare in town, or along F street through /
the heart of the shopping district did
not especially appeal to him. President |
Taft, on the other hand, likes to walk !
in town. The crowded thoroughfare ap- |
peals to him. He has been more on |
Pennsylvania avenue, f street and other |
principal thoroughfares of the city dur |
ing the last month than all of his prede- |
cessors since Grants time. He has not
only walked the streets just as any pri- |
yate citizen would, going where he
pleased, but he has walked into stores /
to shop for articles that he wanted, and
the latest was visit to the New Willard
to meet an old-time friend, Horace H.
Lurton, whom he has just elevated to
the Supreme Bench.
1t has long been recognized at the |
White House that President can safely |
go almost anywhere in Washington, pro-
yided his going has not been adver- |
tised. Washington people are not so
curious as many others, who see less of
officialdom. To be sure, they crane
their necks when they note the Presi- |
dent on the sidewalk; but they will not |
form crowd around him when he /
pauses to admire something in show |
window. 1t is a great city of cranks, |
but there is almost no danger of the |
President encountering them, when he |
makes up his mind about o'clock in !
the afternoon that in few minutes he |
will go out for walk. If any forward |
person were disposed to accost the |
President and appeal to him for any
thing, he would be politely shunted |
aside by Capt. Butt, the Army Aid, |
HVho ALWAYS walks with the President |
Many tongues have been wagging be-
cause the President went to a hotel to /
call upon the new Associate Justice. |
That was in violation of all the prece-
dents and the conventionalities, TheI
President is supposed to make no calls I
like that. Men come to him: he does
not go to them. But, after all, it was
only a call upon an old friend with
whom he served upon the United States
Circuit Court bench for seven years