But now, after all the ignorance, ill-feeling and prejudice displayed in the most unjust attacks upon Mr. McKim, those whose judgment is worth anything, and that includes the whole body of the people of the United States, rejoice in their hearts that the greatest of American architects was given a free hand to adapt to modern needs, but also to preserve in its dignity and beauty, this most appropriate official home of the Head of the Republic.
These observations may not be in place just here, but they occurred to me on the first evening of my occupancy of the White House, and I congratulated myself that I was to enjoy the results of that successful reconstruction of what had been a most uncomfortable mansion.
The President’s Study, as it is now called, is the only room of the old Executive offices which has not been changed into a sleeping room. It is now the President’s more personal office where he can receive callers more privately than in the new office building. A small bronze tablet under the mantel tells, in simple words, the history of the room. Here all the Presidents since Johnson held their Cabinet meetings, and here the Protocol suspending hostilities with Spain was signed in McKinley’s administration. A picture of that event, painted by Chartran, hangs in the room and conveys a remarkably vivid impression of the men who had a part in it. The faces of President McKinley, of Justice Day, who was then Secretary of State, and of M. Cambon, the French Ambassador, are especially striking. This room, in which there had been a great many personal mementos gathered by Mr. Roosevelt in his interesting career, also looked, after their removal, rather bare on that evening of my first inspection and, save for the pictures and the tablet, had little in its character to make real in one’s mind the great events that it had witnessed. Yet, as I roamed around that evening, the whole house was haunted for me by memories of the great men and the charming women whose most thrilling moments, perhaps, had been spent under its roof, and I was unable to feel that such a commonplace person as I had any real place there. This feeling passed, however, for though I was always conscious of the character which a century of history had impressed upon the White House, it came, nevertheless, to feel as much like home as any house I have ever occupied. That Study, which seemed at the moment so much a part of American history and so little even a temporary possession of the Taft family, was later hung with amusing cartoons illustrative of events in Mr. Taft’s career, with photographs of his friends, and with what are called at Yale “memorabilia” of his varied experiences, and it became, in time, for us all, peculiarly his room.
The Blue Bedroom, where we had slept the night before as guests of the Roosevelts, belongs to one of the four corner suites and I planned to give it to my sister Eleanor, Mrs. Louis More, and her husband, while the smaller room in the same suite I assigned to Miss Torrey, our Aunt Delia—and during our administration apparently the country’s “Aunt Delia.” She had been staying with us at the Boardmans’ and was probably enjoying the Inauguration of her nephew more than anyone in Washington. The last of the suites, which was exactly like the blue suite except that it was hung in pink brocade, I gave to my husband’s sister and brother-in-law, Dr. and Mrs. Edwards of San Diego.
When I had finished my explorations and arrangements I glanced at the clock in the Pink Room and discovered that I had no time to lose before beginning that important toilet which would make me ready for the Inaugural Ball, the last, but not the least of the Inaugural functions.
I hurried to my room and found the hairdresser waiting for me. I sat down with a feeling of great comfort and submitted myself with hopeful patience to her ministrations. But she was so overcome by the greatness of the occasion that, although she was quite accustomed to the idiosyncrasies of my hair, she was not able to make it “go right” until she had put it up and taken it down twice, and even then it was not as perfectly done as I had fondly hoped it would be. I believe this hairdressing process made me more nervous than anything else in the whole course of the day.
While it was going on, my new gown lay glittering on the bed, where the maid had placed it, and I was very anxious to get into it. It had given me several days of awful worry. It was made in New York and the dressmaker had promised that I should have it at least a week before it was needed so that any necessary changes could easily be made. But day after day went by and no dress—the third of March arrived and then I began, frantically, to telegraph. I finally received the reassuring advice that the dress was on its way in the hands of a special messenger, but the special messenger was, with many other people, held up for hours by the blizzard and did not arrive at the Boardmans’ until
