The rise of Theodore Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [6]
Twelve fifty-five. A stir at the head of the line. Bonnets are adjusted, with much bobbing of artificial fruit; ties are straightened, vests brushed free of popcorn. The gates swing open, and two bowler-hatted policemen lead the way down the White House drive. As the crowd approaches the portico, nine-year-old Quentin Roosevelt waves an affable greeting from his upstairs window. The officers eye him sternly: Young “Q” has a habit of dropping projectiles on men in uniform, including one gigantic, cop-flattening snowball that narrowly missed his father.35
The music grows louder as the public steps into the brilliantly lit vestibule. Sixty scarlet-coated bandsmen, hedged around with holly and poinsettia, maintain a brisk, incessant rhythm: Roosevelt knows that this makes his callers unconsciously move faster. Ushers jerk white-gloved thumbs in the direction of the Red Room. “Step lively now!”36
Shuffling obediently through shining pillars, past stone urns banked with Christmas-flowering plants, the crowd has a chance to admire Mrs. Roosevelt’s interior restorations, begun in 1902 and only recently completed.37 (One of her husband’s first acts, as President, had been to ask Congress to purge the Executive Mansion of Victorian bric-a-brac and restore it to its original “stately simplicity.”) These changes come as a shock to older people in line who remember the cozy, shabby, half-house, half–office building of yesteryear, with its dropsical sofas and brass spittoons. Now all is spaciousness and austerity. Regal red furnishings accentuate the gleaming coldness of stone halls and stairways. Roman bronze torches glow with newfangled electric light. The traditional floral displays, which used to make nineteenth-century receptions look like horticultural exhibitions, have been drastically reduced. Rare palms tower in wall niches; vases of violets and American Beauty roses perfume the air.38
Here the Roosevelts live in a style which, to their critics, seems “almost more than royal dignity.”39 Formality unknown since the days of George Washington governs the conduct of the First Family. Even the President’s sisters have to make appointments to see him. During the official diplomatic season, beginning today, the White House will be the scene of banquets and receptions of an almost European splendor. (The President spends his entire $50,000 salary on entertaining.)40 Roosevelt’s practice, on such occasions, of making dramatic entrances at the stroke of the appointed hour, offering his arm to the lady who will sit at his right, looks like imperial pomp to some. “The President,” says Henry James, “is distinctly tending—or trying—to make a court.”41
Roosevelt himself scoffs cheerfully at such gibes. “They even say I want to be a prince myself! Not I! I’ve seen too many of them!”42 He is merely performing, with meticulous correctness, the duties of a head of state. Within the confines of protocol he remains the most democratic of men. He refuses to use obsequious forms of address when writing to foreign rulers, preferring the informal second person, as a gentleman among gentlemen. Nor is he impressed when they address him as “Your Excellency” in return. “They might just as well call me His Transparency for all I care.”43
Yet some citizens are bent on killing this “first of American Caesars.” Last year a man walked into the President’s office with a needle-sharp blade up his sleeve. Ever since then, White House security has been tight.44 Uniformed aides confiscate bundles, inspect hats, draw pocketed hands into open view. All along the corridor, Secret Service men stand like statues. Only their eyes flicker: by the time a caller reaches the Blue Room, he has been scrutinized from head to foot at least three times. Roosevelt does not want to leave office a day too