Red Lodge daily news combined with Carbon County news., 1934-03-07

k created free and equal' and has
FL elected more than one President be-
cause he was born In a log cabin
~ or some such humble dwelling place,
there have been times when 1t has
not been averse to limitations of royalty In af-
fairs of government. 1t has accepted dictator
ships and despotism-sometimes benevolent and
sometimes not s0-in fact If not In name, and
In various other ways 1t has departed rather far
from the tradition of pure democracy.
1t would resist to the utmost the comforting OF
any such title as king or emperor upon Its
Chief Executive, but once upon a time 1t con-
ferred the unofficial title of princess upon the
daughter of a President and rejoiced In doing so.
And for a time princess Alice" daughter of
President Theodore Roosevelt, was a symbol In
the minds of the American people quite as much
as the prince of Wales Is a symbol In the minds
of the English. The reasons which could be as
signed to that fact are various.
Perhaps the best one lies In the fact that she
appeared on the scene at the "turn of the CEN
fury" when, as one writer has expressed 1t,
America was just beginning to feel its interna-
tional oats" so 1.-THE public that idolized her ia
ther made of Princess Alice q heroine after the
pattern of Its own desires and dreams" And
they felt somehow justified In comforting royalty
upon the daughter of their President when, a
lew years ldLtIy SIZE Weul OH II RTduu Jour Oh
the Orient and everywhere was received like a
crown princess AMI presented with lavish gifts
Another possible explanation lies in the fact
that, like her father. she was a vivid personality
which naturally attracts attention to itself but
withal remains ~unspolled by much lime-lighting
and keeps the common touch" without condo
s~cending. SO the American public accepts such
a personality as zone of our own kind and then,
paradoxically, exalts 1t to a pedestal of her0-wor-
ship or invests 1t with robes of royalty.
When Alice Roosevelt was q child she could
spend hours of time pretending / was a fiery
horse, preferably cream-colored, like Cinderellas
horses, able at a bound to cover vast regions of
the earth, and also able at will to turn into some
thing quite different, such as a princess with
very long hair, or an extremely martial prince"
There's something a bit prophetic about that, for
in her future career she was to cover some OF
those regions, to become a princess" by popu-
lar acclaim. to talk with cowboys and kings,
emperors and expresses and gypsies, to behold
a multitude of pageants and all sorts of people
and things" So it's quite appropriate that she
should choose for the title of her "reminiscences
the two words Crowded Hours" and that book,
published recently by Charles Scribner's Sons,
Is a record Of the crowded hours In the life of
Alice Roosevelt Longworth, she who was-and
still Is to many Observation-Disclosures Alice"
To some extent a political history Of the Unit
ed States during the last quarter Of a century,
In that she has been a participant In, as well as
an observer Of that history during that length Of
time, "Crowded Hours" Is even more interesting
as a lively memoir of the great and near great
whom she has encountered In that center Of all
political activity, Washington, d.. c. Before her
father had left the White House she had mar
rled a man destined for future political lmpor-
tance-Nicholas L~ongworth, congressman from
Ohio, later speaker of the house of representa-
tives and a man whose friendships among all po-
litical factions made him unique. SO, as his wife,
the 'reign of Princess Alice continued long
after her father had left the White House.
princess Alice" was initiated into politics
when she was only six. Her father was appoint
ed federal civil service commissioner and she
was taken to the White House to meet the first
President she was to know-'the small, bearded
Harrison; and later / have a memory Of Mrs.
Cleveland ~there-young, lovely and friendly"
Some OF her characterizations of later Presidents
and their First Ladies are not so kindly, but
they are the opinions of q strong personality
strong In dislikes as we'll as likes-and interest
ing because of that as well as because they are
ased upon drst-hand knowledge.
The first Of the vivid memories of Princess
Alice's' crowded hours are Of the Spanish-Amer-
lean war, which was a sort Of a ~glorihed picnic
to Alice and the other young Roosevelts. A visit
to Camp Wyckoff, where her fathers regiment
was stationed, was an exciting experience In
more ways than one. "At fourteen and a half,
II was in love with one Rough Rider, | was In
love with twenty, even though / did have a pig
tail and short dresses"