The most interesting callers we had that summer were their Imperial Highnesses, Prince and Princess Kuni of Japan, who were making a tour of the world. They were accompanied by Madame Nagasaki, the wife of the Court Chamberlain who officiated at my husband’s first audience with the Emperor, by Colonel Kukurita, a military aide and Mr. Matsui, Chargé d’Affaires of the Japanese Embassy in Washington. They were escorted by representatives of both the State and War Departments. I had never met these Imperial personages, but when Mr. Taft and Miss Alice Roosevelt were in Japan they had been presented to their Highnesses, so Mr. Taft invited Miss Roosevelt, then Mrs. Longworth, and her husband to meet them.
The day following the visit of the Prince and Princess Mr. Taft left for a long trip through the West and I didn’t see him again until the late autumn when we all returned to Washington.
The social season in Washington always opens with the Cabinet Dinner in December. This is one of the regular State Dinners which are carefully scheduled and jealously regarded as such. The others were formerly the Diplomatic Dinner and the Supreme Court Dinner, but we inaugurated a Speaker’s Dinner, so there are now four. These are state functions pure and simple, but by the exercise of a little art one can manage to make them most enjoyable affairs. To the Cabinet Dinner only the Vice-President and his wife, the members of the Cabinet and their wives and a few especially distinguished outsiders are invited.
The hostess doesn’t have to worry about seating the Cabinet officers because it is all a matter of precedence and is attended to by the Social Executive Secretary. The rank of a Cabinet officer is determined by the date on which his office was created and not, as one might think, by the relative importance of his official status.
The only time when a friendly democracy presents itself to the President en masse is on New Year’s Day. At the New Year’s Reception he receives just as many persons as he can shake hands with between the hours of eleven in the morning and half past two or three in the afternoon. His wife, the wife of the Vice-President and the ladies of the Cabinet receive with him as long as it is physically possible for them to do so. While writing in the third person I am thinking in the first, of course. These were our customs.
Yet if anybody unfamiliar with Washington life imagines that a New Year’s Reception means throwing open the White House doors and admitting the public without consideration of rank or the rules of precedence he is mistaken. The Reception, up to a stated hour, is as carefully regulated as any other function, and I consider the list of the especially favoured most interesting as a revelation of the complexity of Washington’s social life.
Announcement is made that the President will receive at 11:00 a.m.—the Vice-President, the members of the Cabinet and the Diplomatic Corps; at 11:20 a.m.—the Supreme Court, members of the Judiciary of the District of Columbia, former Cabinet officers and former diplomatic representatives of the United States; at 11:30—Senators, Representatives and Delegates in Congress; at 11:45—Officers of the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps and the Militia of the District of Columbia; at 12:15 p.m.—Regents and Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, all the various Commissions, Assistant Secretaries of Departments, the Solicitor General, Assistant Attorneys-General, Assistant Postmasters-General, the Treasurer of the United States, the Librarian of Congress, the Public Printer, heads of all Bureaus and the President of the Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Dumb; at 12:30 p.m.—The Secretary of the Cincinnati, the Aztec Club of 1847, the Associated Veterans of the War of 1846–47, the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, the Grand Army of the Republic, the Medal of Honor Legion, the Union Veteran Legion, the Union Veterans’ Union, the Society of the Army of Santiago, the Spanish Minute Men, the Sons of the American Revolution and the members of the Oldest Inhabitants’ Association of the District of Columbia; at 1:00 p.m.—Citizens.
As all the men present themselves in the dress uniform of their various services or orders, or wearing the decorations they have won in epoch-marking events, one gets a most illuminating view of organised American patriotism.
There is an old system obtaining at the White House known as inviting guests “behind the line.” This means that a chosen few are permitted as special guests to be present in the Blue Room while a reception is in progress. It is a system which has at times been so carelessly regulated as to engender jealousies and dissatisfactions, and we determined if possible to avoid on all occasions any appearance of favouritism. So at our first New Year’s Reception we decided to limit special privileges to the Diplomatic Corps, the wives of Assistant Secretaries and our own house guests. This made the distinction a mere matter of official rank and did away with all possibility of unpleasant comment from distinguished members of civilian society.
For instance, there has always been a delicate question in connection with the Judicial Reception as to whether or not on this occasion the Justices of the Supreme Court take precedence over the members of the Diplomatic Corps. The Justices have always contended that at their own Reception they do, but the unwritten code has it that no person under the
