Crowded Hours: Reminiscences of Alice Roosevelt Longworth

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MRS. LONGWORTH’S reminiscences cover the years between Roosevelt’s appointment as Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897 and Harding’s election in 1920. Always ‘aware of politics and politicians,’she had no active interest in them until after her marriage, or, more precisely, until Roosevelt had left the White House.

Many readers, remembering tlie echoes of the Princess Alice period, will wish that it were chronicled more fully. The stories of Emily Spinach the green snake, of the placards devised for the inaugural ceremonies in 1905, of the dry dinner party at which the President’s daughter produced a bottle of whiskey from each long white glove for the solace of her dinner partners, are all welcome reminders that the young did have fun before 1920. So is the account of her Pacific trip when Taft inspected the Philippines, doubling the rôles of Secretary of War and chaperon. He persuaded his charge to give a luncheon for the Congressional ladies ’in order to seem to have a modicum of interest in them; he induced her not to attract ants to official dinner tables (August in Manila is a trying month!); but not until the expedition had returned could he get any better answer to his plaintive ’Alice, I think I ought to know « if you are engaged to Nick Longworth,’ than ‘More or less, Mr. Secretary, more or less.’ The expedition stopped at Peking on the way home, where the brief interview with the Empress Dowager is a vivid picture. Only Roosevelt himself stands out more distinctly.

Roosevelt played an important part in his children’s lives, both as parent and as President, and when in 1907 he announced his intention of supporting Taft, Mrs. Longworth was a passionate upholder of the ’Second Elective Term.’ She participated ’dutifully,’however, in the ’interesting game of putting Taft over, and thus acquired the taste for political battle which dominates the second part of her book.

The candor of Mrs. Longworth’s comments will atone to many readers for the absence of political revelations; her share in widening the rift between Roosevelt and his successful nominee is an entertaining example. Taft once in, there was little to do about it except watch Congress and hope for trouble, which was not long in coming. The Payne-Aldrich bill, the Insurgent victory in the House, Roosevelt’s tumultuous welcome home from Africa — and the Progressive campaign of 1912 was in sight.

Not all those who enjoy the smoke of battle can convey its intoxicating scent; Mrs. Longworth’s account of the 1912 convention is peculiarly successful in that respect, though she sheds no new light on such questions as whether Roosevelt had originally intended to bolt the party. Her difficulties as wife of a staunch Taft supporter came to a head when Harding, who had been instrumental in losing Mr. Roosevelt support, offered Mr. Longworth his support for the governorship.

‘I interrupted, saying that . . . one could not accept favors from crooks. . . . For the next twenty-four hours Nick pleaded with me to see Harding, to say that I was sorry.’ But he pleaded in vain. ‘That was the beginning of my active distaste for Mr. Harding.’ Nevertheless, he and Mrs. Harding had to be welcomed when he came to Washington as Senator in 1913, and the picture of the poker parties is one at which the reader will rejoice.

Roosevelt’s daughter could hardly fail to be absorbed in the War, and after her father’s death her strong antiWilson feeling crystallized in opposition to the League. The Senate rules were changed to permit her to sit in the Senate gallery during the discussions, where Senator Lodge, about to compromise on Article X, ‘referred to her as the Colonel of the Battalion of Death.’ Though anyone might point with pride to having inspired awe in Mr. Lodge’s bosom, Mrs. Longworth minimizes the political influence attributed to her. Her description of herself as ’not merely an egotist but a solipsist’ should arouse indignant contradiction from readers of contemporary feminine autobiography. Her general attitude she summarizes herself: ‘When I was amused and stimulated by an occasion I was never very conscious of those whom I did not know who made up the occasion.’ And when she was neither amused nor stimulated one gathers she did not linger.

MARIAN VAILLANT