Posted 1 year ago
Patriotica
(30 items)
On their 25th silver wedding anniversary, President William Howard Taft insisted on a most special occasion like no other. He and Helen Taft (nee Herron) had been married on June 19, 1886, but she was only recovering after not feeling quite well over the past several months. So, to celebrate both occasions, President Taft wanted a party to end all parties. Some 8,000 invitations were sent out to every family member, old friend, loyal acquaintance and helpful political pal they could remember.
It was billed as the 'Night of Electric Lights' in William Seale's book 'The President's House' (1986, White House Historical Association, pp 760-763) where it was described as "...a scene beautiful beyond description. All around the outer edge of the acres of level, short-clipped grass...were Chinese lanterns of fantastic designs, blocks upon blocks of them, barely 6 inches apart, swinging on the light breeze and casting their queer shapes and shadows on the lawns." Even the fountain on the South Grounds and the flag on the roof were strung with lights, "Night was turned into day," he continues. An additional crowd estimated at some 13,000 people watched from beyond the iron fences on the Ellipse.
The party lasted until about 2 a.m. and when Mrs. Taft finally retired to bed, President Taft sat on the South Portico just continuing to admire the sheer brilliance of the spectacle. In fact, Taft ordered the lights remain where they were and invited the public to see them up close the next night from 8 pm to 11 pm along with the music from the Marine and the Engineers bands, the same ones that played the night before. Taft was "...loath to see it pass." observed Major Archibald Butt.
Altogether the Taft's would be married for 44 years until his death in 1930, still talking about the grand spectacle of the Night of Electric Lights.
The invitation itself, though, designed by Major Archibald Butt, the senior military aide to President Taft and later to President Teddy Roosevelt, was itself something uniquely to behold, for two reasons. To emphasize the silver anniversary theme, it featured a silver presidential eagle instead of the usual gold or blind (no color) raised embossed one with the dates 1886 - 1911 also in silver, the only time a White House invitation would feature silver in its final design.
This presidential eagle design was first used by President Rutherford B. Hayes on an official White House invitation for a dinner honoring Russia's Crown Prince Alexis Alexandrovich in April 1877 shortly after assuming office in March, the first time a representation of the presidential eagle was used (there is only speculation as to where the design came from).
The lone eagle design would remain on invitations in some form through all future presidential administrations until it was formally updated and codified to its current design (the eagle facing toward its own right as dictated by heraldic custom) by President Harry Truman in October 1945 initially surrounded by 48 stars until it was updated with the addition of one star in 1959 for the new state of Alaska and one for Hawaii in 1960, totaling 50 stars.
Secondly, this particular invitation was sent to the Rev. Dr. James H. Taylor, pastor of the Central Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. who was both a confidant and spiritual advisor to both President William Howard Taft and most importantly to President Woodrow Wilson, especially during the period of the First World War, where Wilson and the family would participate in every Sunday service they could bringing flowers from the White House gardens each time. The Rev. Taylor would remember his time with President Wilson in his monograph titled 'Woodrow Wilson in Church', self published in 1952 (read my item about it in my collection here). Rev. Taylor died at age 85 in 1957.
As a final footnote, Major Archibald Butt and his long time friend Francis Davis Millett, originally a drummer boy in the Civil War, would not survive the Titanic disaster on April 15, 1912 while returning early from a vacation together. "He was like a member of my family," Taft remembered of Major Butt. "...I feel as if he had been a younger brother." The Butt-Millet Memorial Fountain was erected by friends in 1913 designed by sculptor William Chester French (who would later create the Lincoln Memorial in 1920) and placed on the Ellipse just south of the White House that is still there today.