AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PENNSYLVANIAN
me in his carriage to the White House. I presented the matter to the President and he, in reply, said, with a laugh:
“Mr. Quay has given directions that I am not to make any address upon any subject until after the election next fall, and here he is supporting you in an effort to get me to go to Philadelphia.”
Mr. Quay assented to the truth of the charge. Then the President, in more serious mood, gave me reasons why, in anticipation of the political campaign, he did not feel he could accept, but in effect promised me that the following year, if desired, he would make the address. I thanked him and told him that would be eminently satisfactory, and the succeeding February 22d he kept the engagement.
He invited us to return to lunch with him. At the White House for luncheon were Mrs. Roosevelt and another lady or two, two or three senators, and as many newspaper editors from New York. The President came in from a horseback ride in his riding suit. He began to talk when he entered the outer door. He talked all the time on the way to the table and he talked all the time throughout the luncheon. Hardly an observation was made by any one else at the table, and, in fact, it would only have been possible by the exercise of a sort of brutal force. The subject which he discussed was Italian literature, with which he did not appear to me to be very familiar. Every once in a while he turned to Mr. Quay, who sat on his right, and put some question to him as to an authority, but he seldom waited for an answer. The strongest impression made on me was that of mental excitement, of a man laboring under a serious nervous strain, and if I could have given him advice it would have been to sit down quietly somewhere and rest. I feared a break-down before the end of his term.
When Mr. Roosevelt delivered his address, I, as a trustee of the University, was present on the platform. While being introduced to the trustees and others in the waiting
