Promptness was his watchword, and in cases where
it was expected, I never knew twenty-four hours to elapse before
he dictated his reply to a letter.
The orderliness which he introduced into the White House should
also be recorded. When I first went there in 1882 with a party of
Philadelphia junketers who had an appointment to shake hands with
President Arthur, as a preliminary to securing a fat
appropriation to the River and Harbor Bill of that year, the
White House was treated by the public very much as a common
resort. The country owned it: therefore, why shouldn't any
American make himself at home in it? I remember that on one of
the staircases, Dr. Mary Walker (recently dead), dressed in what
she was pleased to regard as a masculine costume, was haranguing
a group of five or six strangers, and here and there in the
corridors we met other random visitors. Mr. Roosevelt established
a strict but simple regimen. No one got past the Civil War
veteran who acted as doorkeeper without proper credentials; and
it was impossible to reach the President himself without first
encountering his Secretary, Mr.
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