At least two years before the election, when no one could anticipate who would be the next President, President Roosevelt had announced at a Cabinet meeting that he did not intend to ride back to the White House with his successor. It was a precedent which he did not like and which he desired to break. Mrs. Roosevelt went, with her family and friends, directly from the White House to the station to wait for her husband to join her after the Inauguration. It was about half past eleven when Captain Butt and I started in a limousine for the Capitol where we arrived to find the “scene set” for the ceremonies in the Senate Chamber.
Our children were already in the gallery, waiting eagerly. It was an event in their young lives never to be forgotten, and I believe that Robert and Helen were in properly receptive moods. My son Charlie, however, seems not to have been so confident. Charlie is a great lover of adventure stories and it is a favourite tradition in the family now that he carried with him to the Senate Chamber a copy of Treasure Island with which to while away the time in case the Inaugural address should prove too long. Charlie was only eleven years old and I consider it a great tribute to his father’s eloquence that Treasure Island was not opened that day.
This Inauguration was said to be, by persons who had seen many, one of the most impressive ceremonies that ever opened the administration of a President. The oath of office is usually administered and the Inaugural address delivered from a large platform erected in front of the Capitol before which ten thousand people can assemble. But the ten thousand people are sure to have been waiting in a massed crowd for an hour or more; they are always tired and uncomfortable, so when they finally discover that few of them can really hear anything, and that they have seen all there is to be seen, they begin to move about and talk, the noise and agitation greatly detracting from the impressiveness of the ceremony. Because my husband’s Inauguration took place in the Senate Chamber it was no less “in the sight of all the people.” There was room on the floor of the Chamber for the whole official personnel of the Government of the United States, resident in Washington. There were the retiring President and his Cabinet, the Justices of the Supreme Court in their robes of office, the Senate and the House of Representatives, besides the foreign Ambassadors and the whole Diplomatic Corps in their brilliant uniforms, while the galleries were crowded with official families and a substantial number of unofficial auditors.
It was a great presence; and the taking of the oath and the delivering of the Inaugural address before assembled national authority and the world’s representatives, in a solemn silence in which every word could be heard, left a deep impression.
As soon as Mr. Taft had finished speaking Mr. Roosevelt walked rapidly up, and giving his hand a mighty grasp, said something which sounded like “Bully speech, old man!” and hurried out of the Chamber accompanied by members of his Cabinet who were to see him off at the station. My husband told me afterward that what he really said was: “God bless you, old man. It is a great state document.”
Since the ex-President was not going to ride back to the White House with his successor, I decided that I would. No President’s wife had ever done it before, but as long as precedents were being disregarded I thought it might not be too great a risk for me to disregard this one. Of course, there was objection. Some of the Inaugural Committee expressed their disapproval, but I had my way and in spite of protests took my place at my husband’s side.
By the time the Inauguration ceremonies were concluded the skies had cleared and the sun had come out. Mr. Taft left the Senate Chamber with the Committee, followed by the assembled dignitaries in the order of precedence. With Captain Butt I hurried from the gallery and joined him in the great hall under the Dome, on his way to the platform on the North Side where the Inauguration would have taken place but for the weather. In front of the temporary structure many people had gathered, and as we descended to the front they called for the new President. In response he stepped to the platform where the Inaugural oath was to have been administered, and bowed repeatedly.
A platoon of mounted Police and our escort, the Cleveland City Troop, with their elaborate and beautiful uniforms somewhat bedraggled by the morning’s sleet and mud, met us at the steps leading down from the platform. We entered the official coach and four and
