Alice Roosevelt
Longworth and her
daughter Faulina
By ELMO SCOTT WATSON
LTHOUGH America is a democracy, be
lieves that it believes firmly in that
phrase from the Declaration of In-
dependence which says “all men are
created free and equal” and has
elected more than one President be-
cause he was “born in a log cabin”
or some such humble dwelling place,
4 there have been times when it has
not been averse to intimations of royalty in af-
fairs of government, It has accepted dictator-
ships and despotism—sometimes benevolent and
sometimes not so—in fact if not in name, and
in various other ways it has departed rather far
from the tradition of pure democracy.
It would resist to the utmost the conferring of
any such title as “king” or “emperor” upon its
Chief Executive, but once upon a time It con-
ferred the unofficial title of “princess” upon the
daughter of a President and rejoiced in doing so.
And for a time “Princess Alice,” daughter of
President Theodore Roosevelt, was a symbol In
the minds of the American people quite as much
as the prince of Wales Is a symbol in the minds
of the English, The reasons which could be as
signed to that fact are various
Perhaps the Lest one lies in the fact that she
appeared on the scene at the “turn of the cen
tury”
“America was just beginning to feel its interna.
that idolized her fa-
ther made of Princess Alice a heroine after the
pattern of its own desires and dreams” And
they felt somehow justified in conferring royalty
4 »
when, as one writer has expressed {it
tional oats,” so “the publie
upon the daughter of thelr President when, a
few years later, she went on grand tour of
the Orient and “everywhere was received like a
crown princess ar esented with lavish gifts™
Another possible explanation 1 in the fact
like her father, she was a vivid persorality
ily attracts attention to itself bu
wiry nd 1 11 1 o
much lHmelighting
%
on touch without conde
American lie accepts such
3 “one of our own Kind” and then,
paradoxically, exalts it to a pedestal of hero-wor
ship or Invests it with robes of royalty.
When All toosevelt was a child she “could
spend bours of time pretending | was a fiery
horse, prefe ly eream-colored, like Cinderella's
horses, able at a boun: over vast regions of
1
the earth, and also able at will to turn into some
thing quite different, such ns a priccess with
very long halr, or an extremely martial prince”
There's something a bit prophetic about that, for
in her future career she was to cover some of
those regions, to become a “princess” by popu-
lar acclaim, to “talk with cowboys and kings
emperors and empresses and gypsies, to behold
a multitude of pageants and all sorts of people
and things." So it's quite appropriate that she
should choose for the title of her reminiscences
the two words “Crowded Hours™ and that book,
published recently by Charles Seribner’s Sons,
is a record of the crowded hours In the life of
lice Roosevelt Longworth, she who was—and
still is to many Americans—"Princess Alice”
To some extent a political history of the Unit.
ed States during the last quarter of a century,
fn that she has been a participant In, as well as
an observer of that history during that length of
time, “Crowded Hours” is even more Interesting
as a lively memoir of the great and near great
whom she has encountered in that center of all
political activity, Washington, D, ©. Before her
father had left the White House she had mar.
ried a man destined for future political impor
tance—Nicholas Longworth, congressman from
Ohlo, later speaker of the house of representa
tives and a man whose friendships among all po-
litical factions made him unique. Bo, as his wife,
the “reign of Princess Alice” continued long
after her father had left the White House,
“Princess Allee” was initiated into politics
when she was only six. Her father was appoint
ed federal elvil service commissioner and she
was taken to the White House to meet the first
President she was to know-"the small, bearded
Harrison; and later | have a memory of Mrs,
Cleveland there—young, lovely and friendly”
Some of her characterizations of later Presidents
and their First Ladies are not so kindly, but
they are the opinions of a strong personality
strong In dislikes as well as likes-—-and interest
ing because of that as well as because they are
based upon first-hand knowledge,
The first of the vivid memories of “Princess
Alice's” crowded hours are of the Spanish-Amer-
jean war, which was a sort of a glorified pienle
to Alice and the other young Roosevelts, A visit
to Camp Wyckoff, where her father's regiment
was stationed, was an exciting experience In
more ways than one, “At fourteen and a half,
if 1 was in love with one Rough Rider, I was in
love with twenty, even though I did have a pig
tail and short dresses.”
President w
heodore Roosevelt
The Rough Rider colonel returned to ride into
office as governor of New York, “That was the
first campaign in which we had the Indescribable
for office,
It was a purely personal and emotl
centered on my father, He was Righ
Wyck, the Democratic candidate, was Wrong.
.
k
and that was all there was to that
regarded as a ste
But some of the
The gv et ahi * fark rye
ie governorship New York Is econ
i to the Presidency.
to sidetrack
Theodore , Rod } { 11d nim, thelit un-
ent,
one suggested
Kinley wns seated
totally unaware.
lated by
of thos
exuberant gr
in the crowd
to sit down,
that |
down,
been gr
crowd-—go0 why =» pA
Her father's accession to the Presidency was
no surprise to Alice. “I was as superstitious as
any savage, and as ruthless, I had made
magics from the time my father was nominated
to the vice presidency: 1 made them as busily
and bellevingly as any primitive man, so when
I had a proper sense of
seinntion of MeKin.
the news came, thougl
horror at the erime (t}
ley) on the civilized
© asa
side, on the savage It
brought a sense of fulfillment.”
jut she took it so much as a matter of course
that she wasn't especially Impressed by going to
live In the White House whose interior “at that
time was both ugly and inconvenient.” Khe made
her debut in the White House, hut the mustard.
colored carpet then on the East room floor, took
some of the edge off her joy
By this time the little pigtailed Alice had
grown up into “Princess Alice.” Then came the
coronation of King Edward in England and talk
of her going to England for the event ut her
family asked her not to go because there was so
much “absurd discussion” as to social precedence
and what rank she wonld take,
A trip to the Orient with a congressional party,
headed by William Howard Ta’t, then secretary
of war, promised to be less spectacular as a
theme for gossip but it got an amazing amount
of newspaper space for those days, It was a
series of delights for “Princess Alice.” She was
presented to the emperor and empress of Japan
and to the old empress dowager of China, Every-
where presents were showered upon her—"Alice's
loot,” her family called it when she brought it
home,
The trip had one important result for Alice.
One of the members of the party was young
Niek Longworth of Ohlo, They were together a
great deal and the amiable secretary of war was
much puzzled as to their status, “A piaint of his
from time to time was, ‘Alice, | think | ought
to know If you are engaged to Nick, to which
my reply was ‘More or less, Mr, Secretary, more
or less’ and that ended that, . . . 1 had not
been back long before Nick and 1 decided that
we were engaged, . . . | felt shy and self.
conscious about telling the family.”
Then “Princess Alice” became a White House
bride and the whole country took a personal in-
terest In every detall of her costume, But she
remembers that her going away dress was “hide
ous and unbecoming.” The wedding presents
were about what any bride might get, only more
80; the kalser sent a bracelet wiih his miniature,
apparently having forgotten that he had sent a
bracelet with his miniature when Alice christened
his yacht; and the king of Italy sent a mosale
table so large that she has never found room to
SPRY
oh
display It in any house she has lived in since.
The campaign of 1012 wi Hifficult one for
this daughter of one leader and wife of another
who were going separate ways, although that
ever made the slightest difference in the per-
sonal relations of the two men nor thelr respect
for each other. Nick Longworth stayed on the
stand-pat Republican side of the fence, to save
ade It more
ign openly
his own political life, and this fact n
or less Impossible for Alice to camj
for her father
Throughout her father's career she was a loy-
al, passionate and complete partisan of his
Those who suceeede hin 3 he Presidency
were som
the break
he ough
to Rooseve
quite as we i
In repls
inaugura
Mrs !
» i
}
Taft
atl noon
was going {
mit me to ent he ! / ja very
large capital 1 nd gave myself
over to a prett;
ing.”
Woodrow Wilson : father’s political en-
cket to pers
fof 1
max-
emmy. so he was her enen ton, and so “when
President Wilson got back from Paris .
I went down to the station and parked on the
outskirts of the crowd. It was a sparse crowd
there was very little cheering . i
hurried uptown to see how many people turned
out to greet him as he entered the White House
grounds, There were not more than two or three
hundred. | got out of my motor and stond on the
curhstone, fingers crossed, making the sign of
the evil eye, and say
murrain on him, a murrain on him.”
As for succeeding Presidents and administra.
tions, “Princess Alice” has some rather acid com.
ment: “Harding was not a bad man. He was
just a slob” “Coolidge changed the atmosphere
of the White House from that of the back room
of a speakeasy to that of a New England parlor”
“1 should say that his (Hoover's) nomination
was primarily owing to the huge publicity or
ganization that he and his supporters had built
up and kept on the job for him.” “The present
President Roosevelt has the name of Roosevelt,
marked facial resemblance to Wilson and no
perceptible sversion, to say the least, to many
of the policies of Bryan”
The much-talked-of Gann-Longworth “social
war” she lays to a foolish mistake by newspa-
pers, It was not a matter of social precedence
between her and Mrs. Gann, she says, but a
question as to whether Mrs, Gann, as “hostess”
for Vice President Curtis, should precede wives
of foreign ambassadors at official and semi-offi-
cial dinner parties, “It seems to me the word
hostess has lost its meaning, or acquired a now
one, since it has become associated with night
clubs and hotels” she adds by way of comment,
The Immediate cause of the whole affair was
a dinner at the Eugene Meyers, a “dry” hotiso--
and Speaker Longworth seized upon the Gann
precedent quarrel as an excuse for not golng to
this “dry” dinner party.
“Of course, obviously, there never was any
row; anyone who knew me was aware that rank
and conventionality were things I always fled
from and shirked. 1 could not very well tell the
true story--that Nick had seized a straw to
avold a dry dinner, so all I could say was, ‘i
have really nothing to do with It."
@ by Westorn Newspaper Union,
Plan to Use Pythons
to Combat Rabbit Pest
With varying success entomologists
have been introducing Insect ene-
mies to destroy fruit and other pests
for a long time: now an experiment
in that line is to be made with larger
animals, Australinn farmers loge
heavily every year by the depreda-
tions of wild rabbits, and plans with-
out mit have heen tried to destroy
the rabbit pests without success,
Now the government is to experi-
ment with the python of India. Like
the boa, the python ig a large snake, |
und like it also a constrictor, It has |
no poison glands, and while its size
is terrifying, the python is easily
tamed, and by many of the natives |
venerated in a religious way, It ie |
capable of swallowing a young ante.
lope, and & rabbit would be a small
mouthful for it.
The serpents reach the usual
ngth of 30 feet, and while they or
inarily stalk their victims, they can
speed, and can
ake considerable
themselves forward in
also throw
stantly a considerable distance,
It would be possible for a python
ders whether in adopting the python
Australia Is not getting something
more objectionable than the rabbit, —
Columbus Dispatch,
Prisoner Took Advice,
and Was Making Tracks
A man was being arraigned for
murder. “Where's your atiorney?
asked the presiding judge,
“I ain't got no attorney, yer
honor,” answered the man.
“Mr. Green,” sald the judge. indi
cating a young lawyer standing near-
by; “take the prisoner Into that
room at the rear of the court, hear
his story, and give him the best ad.
vice you can.”
Accordingly
Green disappeared
hour's time returned into court
alene,
“Where Is the prisoner? asked the
“Well” replied Green, slowly, “1
the best advice 1 could, | sald:
‘Prisoner, if 1 were you, I'd get out
1
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last I saw of him he was passing
over the top of that hill half a mile
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