RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS
The truth is that he is a total abstainer because never in his life has he indulged in stimulants to any extent; they have no attraction for him whatever, and he found in those days that with so much dining out, it was wiser to decline all wines and liquors. Being naturally abstemious he has always rather objected to being given personal credit for such virtue.
It was about this time that I, too, got into trouble of a peculiar sort. In the mass of correspondence which began to roll in upon me as soon as my husband was elected, there were requests of every possible kind from all parts of the world. Among these came a letter from a society of women engaged in political and social reform work in one of the newer Balkan States, asking me to lend my aid in forming a similar society in the United States.
I declined with as much grace and courtesy as I could command and thought nothing more about it. Imagine my surprise to find almost immediately that my reply had been construed by its recipients into a sort of expression of personal interest in and sympathy for the people of their country in general. I was proclaimed the warm friend of the young State and an enemy to all her enemies. The incident became the subject of an exchange of diplomatic notes in Washington, and it took a bit of the suavity of the State Department to extricate me from the tangle in which my alleged active participation in the trouble in the Balkans had placed me. It taught me a lesson.
Throughout my four years in the White House my mail contained surprises every day, but I soon learned not to be surprised at petitions for assistance in various forms. It is extraordinary how many of these a President's wife receives. The greater number came to me from small charitable organisations throughout the country. It seemed to me that nobody ever thought of organising a bazaar or a church fair without asking me for some sort of contribution, and before
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