As my husband had an engagement to attend a “smoker” which was being given to him at the New Willard Hotel by a large gathering of Yale men, the party broke up very early and, as soon as the last of the guests had gone, I went immediately to my rooms. We had been assigned to the suite in the southeast corner, known in the White House as the Blue Bedroom.
This Blue Bedroom gave me food for interesting reflection. Conspicuous, under the mantel against the side wall, I found, on a bronze plate, the following inscription (which I read as I struggled with my hooks): “In this room Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, whereby four million slaves were given their freedom and slavery forever prohibited in these United States.” It is only a state bedroom now, having been made so by the plans of the McKim restoration which was accomplished during the Roosevelt administration, but it was once Lincoln’s Cabinet room, a room in which he lived through many terrible days during the Civil War. It seemed strange to spend my first night in the White House surrounded by such ghosts.
I went to bed reasonably early, hoping that I might have a good, long sleep and get up refreshed and ready for an eventful day. But the press of circumstances was against me. My mind was never more wide awake. In spite of my determination to rest, I went carefully over the whole Inaugural programme. I wondered if this had been done, if that had been attended to. I worried over many petty details with which I had no reason to be concerned. I suppose I must have been excited, a condition quite rare with me, but then, too, the weather had something to do with it. Never was seen such a night in Washington. It will be remembered that Mr. Moore, the Chief of the Weather Bureau, had prophesied that the storm of the third would pass and that the Fourth of March would dawn as clear and bright as any Inaugural Committee could wish. He made himself very popular with the anxious officials, who were expending their energies in the preparation of a fair weather programme, but his popularity was short lived. He afterward learnedly explained that some wholly unprecedented thing had happened in the wind currents, causing a “flareback”—whatever that may be. It was a memorable “flareback” in any event, not to be forgotten by those who were so seriously inconvenienced by its results.
After I had fallen asleep in the early morning hours, thinking—with faith in the prophet—to wake up and find a smiling world, I was roused by loud, crackling reports which seemed to be in the immediate vicinity of my windows. I got up and looked out. It was light enough for me to see that the world was icebound and that the storm, instead of abating, had increased in violence. The crackling I had heard was the noise of twigs and tree limbs breaking with the weight of the ice which encased them. It didn’t look hopeful for the Inaugural Ceremonies, and I had a ludicrous vision of a haughty, gold-laced parade sliding, rather than marching with measured precision, down Pennsylvania Avenue, striving to maintain its dignity while it spasmodically lost its footing. But mine was rueful mirth.
In the morning Mr. Taft found President Roosevelt in the great hall below, genially alert.
“Well, Will,” he exclaimed, “the storm will soon be over. It isn’t a regular storm. It’s nature’s echo of Senator Rainer’s denunciations of me. As soon as I am out where I can do no further harm to the Constitution it will cease.”
“You’re wrong,” said Will; “it is my storm. I always said it would be a cold day when I got to be President of the United States.”
It was really very serious. Railroad and telegraphic communications were paralysed all along the Atlantic Coast. Wires were down in every direction and traffic of all kinds was at a practical standstill. Thousands of people, on their way to Washington for the Inauguration, were tied up at points outside the city and it was impossible for awhile even to get a telegram in or out. However, Inaugurations do not wait for fair weather and the programme had to proceed.
About half past ten I saw the President and the President-elect, in a closed carriage, accompanied by Senators Knox and Bacon of the Inaugural Committee, and a brilliant mounted escort, start on their slippery way toward the Capitol. The Inauguration ceremonies would not take place until twelve o’clock, but there were a number of bills waiting for the signature of Mr. Roosevelt, and it was necessary for him to go early to the office of the President at the Capitol to attend to this and other final business details.
Before they left the White House it had not yet been decided whether or not the Inauguration would take place out of doors. Mr. Taft regretted exceedingly the necessity for disappointing thousands of people, but at the same time he recognised the danger of exposing the crowds to the wet and penetrating cold, and he considered, especially, the impossibility of asking Chief Justice Fuller, who was then over seventy years old and very frail, to brave a blizzard, even for the purpose of administering a Presidential oath. However, he decided to wait until the weather had given its ultimate indication before changing the programme. He said afterward that as he drove to the Capitol there were many brave citizens in the streets who gave voice to as hearty cheers as could possibly be expected under the circumstances.
I was being taken care of by Captain Archibald Butt, so I had nothing except the
