File:Recollections of full years (1914) (14763290791).jpg

Identifier: recollectionsoff00taft (find matches)
Title: Recollections of full years
Year: 1914 (1910s)
Authors: Taft, Helen Herron, 1861-1943
Subjects: White House (Washington, D.C.) Philippines -- Description and travel Washington (D.C.) -- Social life and customs
Publisher: New York, Dodd, Mead & Company
Contributing Library: New York Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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most immediately that my reply hadbeen construed by its recipients into a sort of expression ofpersonal interest in and sympathy for the people of theircountry in general. I was proclaimed the warm friend ofthe young State and an enemy to all her enemies. The inci-dent became the subject of an exchange of diplomatic notesin Washington, and it took a bit of the suavity of the StateDepartment to extricate me from the tangle in which myalleged active participation in the trouble in the Balkanshad placed me. It taught me a lesson. Throughout my four years in the White House my mailcontained surprises every day, but I soon learned not to besurprised at petitions for assistance in various forms. It isextraordinary how many of these a Presidents wife receives.The greater number came to me from small charitable organ-isations throughout the country. It seemed to me that no-body ever thought of organising a bazaar or a church fair without asking me for some sort of contribution, and before 380
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s / RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS holidays, especially Easter and Christmas, I was simplybesieged. They did not want money ever; they wan-something that could be sold as a souvenir of myself. Inever, to my knowledge, refused a request of this kind. Mrs.Roosevelt had used a photograph of the White House, and Idecided, finally, to do the same. I chose a view of theSouth Portico eight by ten inches in size which I thoughtvery nice, and asked to have it reserved for me. With mysignature across one corner it became a most satisfactorysouvenir. I hesitate to hazard a guess as to the number Isigned and sent away, but, ordered by the hundn Is,didnt cost very much, so contributing them to good canbecame a pleasure unmarred by a sense of unjustifiable (travagance. Handkerchiefs, too, were in great demandand I always kept a supply of them on hand. I see I have wandered away from the receptions and din-ners and my attempt to tell in some sort of consecutivefashion what a social season at the White

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