Jacob A. Riis (1849–1914). Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen. 1904.
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| their hideously incongruous environment of stained glass and partition, and stand out in all their massive beauty. Really, the hall is as handsome a place as I have ever seen. Upstairs, where the public does not come, a wide corridor, I should think quite twenty feet, that is in itself a cozy living-room, with its prevailing colors dark green and gray, runs the whole length of the building from east to west, and upon it open the family rooms and the guest-rooms. The great hall makes a splendid ball-ground, as I know from experience, for I joined Ethel and Archie in a game there, which they would have won by about 99 to 0, I should say, if there had been any score, which there was n’t. At the east end of the hall is the President’s den, where the lamp burns late into the small hours many a night when the world sleeps without. There he keeps the swords and the sticks with which he takes vigorous exercise when he cannot ride. The woodman’s ax he leaves behind at Oyster Bay. |
| The day begins at exactly 8:30 at the White House. The President himself pours the coffee at breakfast. It is one of his privileges, and |