William Henry Moody
Whiting View Company. The White House, Washington, D.C., U.S.A. , ca. 1900. Cincinnati, Ohio: Whiting View Company. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/96503266/. (Accessed August 15, 2017.)
The White House, about 1900
White House Luncheon
Early in 1902, Representative William H. Moody had lunch at the White House. He reported on the occasion to his Haverhill law partner Joseph Pearl.
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Committee on Appropriations,
House of Representatives,
Washington, D.C. Jan. 13, 1902
Dear Pearl,
I received your telegram in due season and am very glad of your victory the details of which I read in the Gazette. It was well won and well deserved. I do not especially regret S.W.G.’s election. I suppose he needs the money and hope he will do well. I assume that you will attend to the motion for a new trial in the Varney case. I am glad Nora is no worse hurt than you say. Arnold said she had broken her leg.
I have done nothing but attend dinners since I returned but intend to reform. I lunched at the White House today and am to dine there on the 24th. Perhaps an account of the luncheon would be of interest to you at least I will take the chance of it.
Red Room in the White House, about 1901
Red Room, President's Mansion, Washington, D.C. Washington D.C, 1901. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2017648971/. (Accessed August 15, 2017.)
I was invited by a personal note of the secretary Mr. Cortelou [sic]. At 1.30 we gathered in the red room, Mrs. Gardner, a Mr. Perry, of New York whom the President was trying to persuade to take some office in the Treasury—apparently without success, one of the Norman boys who was in the Presidents [sic] regiment, Gen. King of Maryland, Mr. Smalley the correspondent of the London Times, and myself. We chatted perhaps ten minutes when the President, Mrs. Roosevelt and Miss Roosevelt came in. After a simple greeting and introduction by the President to his wife and daughter we went rather informally to the dining room, the President giving his arm to Mrs. Gardner the rest following in the bunch. So far as furniture was concerned the room might well have been one in the Aster House, the Revere House, or some other obsolete hotel of the third class. Soon after, Kermit, a boy of 10 or 12 years, with his clothes looking as if he had been rolled in the dirt came in from school and took his place by his mothers [sic] side, where he sat without a word throughout the meal. The President was in his working frock coat, somewhat shiny as to the arms, and Mrs. and Miss Roosevelt were simply and even very plainly dressed. Mrs. Roosevelt is much more attractive than her pictures suggest and seems a gentle kindly woman. The daughter is a slender young girl with a big bunch of brown hair, pretty rather than otherwise, with bright eyes, her fathers [sic] teeth, and a shake of her head which much suggests him. I did not have a chance to say a word to her as we were opposite to each other, and with the exception of some talk with Mrs. Roosevelt I was talking incessantly with the President.
Roosevelt family in 1903. Kermit wears the double-breasted jacket.
Pach Brothers, photographer. Pres. Theodore Roosevelt and family / Pach Bros. , 1903. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2009631485/. (Accessed August 15, 2017.)
The fare was very simple. A cup of bouillon—some warmed over beef—a duck and a chocolate eclair, her share of which Mrs. Roosevelt quietly transferred to her boys [sic] plate. We were offered whiskey and water or sherry. The men including the President all took a glass of sherry, but I observed that no one tasted a drop of it. There was absolutely nothing to indicate that we were at the table of the ruler of 85 millions [sic] of people except that the President was served first, then Mrs. Roosevelt, and then the others in the usual way. When we rose from the table the ladies went away without ceremony and the President said “Mr. Moody will you see that the gentlemen have cigars and take them into the red room where I will join you in a few minutes.” All of which I did as if I had been a constant inmate [sic] of Presidents’ families since boyhood. The President soon joined us and after twenty minutes conversation he bade us good bye and went to his work. At the table the President did most of the talking, a large amount of it with me. He was full of the Schley appeal to him and was evidently yearning to get into the scrimmage, in which I did not encourage him, suggesting that he would have troubles enough of his own. He said that he was going to write two opinions one declining jurisdiction as he could well do, and one accepting it and discussing the case, and submit the two to Spooner Lodge and me!!! “Theodore” said Mrs. Roosevelt “I have promised that you would see Mrs. Blank who is ill and has a son in the Phillipines [sic] whom she wishes home”. “Why Edith” said he “I haven’t any right to have any feelings”. Then he launched out on the subject of pardons in the course of which he expressed some views on the subject of bank embezzlers which would make the cold shivers run down their backs, and cause them to be solid for anyone to beat Roosevelt. The President jumped from one subject to another with his usual energy and vivacity, allowing himself not a seconds [sic] rest. He repeated Dooley on the Miles episode, was delighted that one of his boys had given his sister Alice the appropriate Christmas gift of a pair of stilts, never dreamed that anyone would give a thought to the Booker Washington dinner, confided to Smalley that I could best of all give him the true sentiment of the House on what subject I do not know, and gleefully admitted that it was charged that all the rough riders were either in office or in jail. Very likely all these details are trivial, but the sum total of them made a picture to me of a plain wholesome private life which I believe our people would be glad to know their President and his family were living. After the rather cloying magnificance [sic] of which so much is seen in Washington it was like breathing the fresh air after leaving a hot house.
Booker T. Washington around 1903. His attendance at a White House dinner on October 16, 1901, was the first time an African American was entertained for dinner at the White House and caused an uproar.
Cheyne, C. E, photographer. [Booker T. Washington sitting and holding books]. , ca. 1903. [. Hampton, Virginia, 1903] Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2004672766/. (Accessed August 15, 2017.)
Since writing the above I have been to the theatre at Gen. Miles invitation and there took occasion to comfort Mrs. Miles. They are badly hurt. I am to see the Genl. Wednesday I take it to talk over this subject.
I would talk freely to Wardwell if he gives you a chance. Something may come of it. I must keep my word with Lodge and reserve decision until April.
This leads me to say something which I am very reluctant to put upon paper, but upon which I wish your opinion. Long will in time resign, and I have some reason of a substantial nature (but not from the President, nor in anyway comitting [sic] him) to think that it is his personal wish again to offer a place to Massachusetts, and that his choice at the present moment would not fall thousand miles from Essex County. This is something which has never been taken into account in our calculations, and such questions are not easily decided upon. The reasons for and against keep sweeping through my mind like the street dust in a wind, and with about as much result. There is only one life, it is short, is it worth while [sic] risking everything for temporary peace and power? Yet after all peace and power is all there is for me except food and shelter and clothes.
John D. Long around 1898. Secretary of the Navy Long did resign in March of 1902, and Roosevelt did name Moody to be the next secretary of the Navy, beginning in May.
[John D. Long, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing front]. , ca. 1898. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/97515283/. (Accessed August 15, 2017.)
Would Haverhill care for it? For that I really care for very much, and she would not have a chance again soon. Although this seems silly as it is by no means certain she does not on the whole prefer S –by no means an inspiring thought. How would it do to submit the matter say to Carleton, Abbott, Hobson and Dow, all of whose loyalty and discretion and friendship to me is unquestionable? Absolutely nothing can be breathed of this. Nothing may come of it, although you may be assured I should not write thus unless I thought there was something more than the possibility of an offer.
Sincerely yours
W.H. Moody