Chapter Xll 



I 



HAVE no very good excuse for writing about the Presidents 

 of the United States under whom I have served so long. During 

 his office the President hves in the hmeHght, and the people 

 throughout the country know much about him. But he is, for the 

 term of his office, our first citizen, and therefore anything about 

 him is of interest to all of us. Therefore, I shall set down what 

 has happened to me in the way of contacts with presidents. 

 With nearly all of them, these have been scanty, and it must be 

 remembered that in all these years I was simply an insignificant 

 office holder, and that there were in Washington very many 

 others whose reminiscences of Presidents would be much more 

 interesting than mine. 



When I first went to Washington in November, 1878, Ruther- 

 ford B. Hayes was President — not a very popular President, but 

 a very good one. He was a clean, straightforward, fine man, 

 and Mrs. Hayes was one of the most beautiful and charming 

 women I have ever met. 



It so happened that Rutherford B. Hayes, Jr. (Rud Hayes, we 

 called him) had been a fellow-student of mine at Cornell. In an 

 earlier chapter I have told how Mac Borden and I used to go to 

 the White House occasionally to play whist. Then we often saw 



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