Alice Lee Roosevelt Longworth (February 12, 1884 – February 20, 1980) was the oldest child of
Theodore RooseveltTheodore Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States. He is well remembered for his energetic persona, his range of interests and achievements, his model of masculinity, and his "cowboy" image. He was a leader of the Republican Party and founder of the short-lived Bull Moose Party...
, the 26th
President of the United StatesThe President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States and is the highest political official in the United States by influence and recognition...
. She was the only child of Roosevelt and his first wife,
Alice Hathaway LeeAlice Hathaway Lee-Roosevelt was the first wife of Theodore Roosevelt...
.
Alice led an unconventional and controversial life. Despite her love for her legendary father, she proved to be almost nothing like him. Her marriage to
RepresentativeThe United States House of Representatives, commonly referred to as the "House," is the lower house of the bicameral United States Congress, the upper house being the United States Senate. The composition and powers of the House and the Senate are established in Article One of the Constitution...
Nicholas LongworthNicholas Longworth IV was a prominent American politician in the Republican Party during the first few decades of the 20th century...
(
RepublicanThe Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the Grand Old Party or the GOP, despite being the younger of the two major parties. In the U.S...
-
OhioOhio is a Midwestern state of the United States. The thirty-fourth largest state by area in the U.S., it is the seventh-most populous with nearly 11.5 million residents...
), a party leader, was shaky, and the couple's only child was a result of her affair with Senator William Borah of
IdahoIdaho is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States of America. The state's largest city and capital is Boise. Residents are called "Idahoans." Idaho was admitted to the Union on 3 July 1890 as the 43rd state....
. In the late 1960s, she considered becoming "an honorary homosexual". She temporarily became a
DemocratThe Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. It is the oldest political party in continuous operation in the United States and it is one of the oldest parties in the world. In the U.S...
during the
KennedyJohn Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
and
JohnsonLyndon Baines Johnson , served as the 36th President of the United States from 1963 to 1969 after his service as the Vice President of the United States from 1961 to 1963...
administrations, and proudly boasted in a
60 Minutes60 Minutes is an American investigative television newsmagazine, which has run on CBS since 1968. The program was created by long time producer Don Hewitt who set it apart by using a unique style of reporter-centered investigation. It has been among the top-rated TV programs for much of its life,...
interview with
Eric SevareidArnold Eric Sevareid was a CBS news journalist from 1939 to 1977. He was one of a group of elite war correspondents—dubbed "Murrow's Boys"—because they were hired by pioneering CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow....
broadcastBroadcasting is the distribution of audio and/or video signals which transmit programs to an audience. The audience may be the general public or a relatively large sub-audience, such as children or young adults....
February 17, 1974, that she was a "hedonist".
Childhood
Alice Lee Roosevelt was born at the
RooseveltRoosevelt was the name of a powerful Dutch-American family that produced two Presidents:*Franklin D. Roosevelt - 32nd President of the United States*Theodore Roosevelt - 26th President of the United States- Other Names:...
family home on 6 West 57th St. in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
. Her mother, Alice, was a
BostonBoston is the capital and largest city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is considered the economic and cultural center of the region and is sometimes regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England"...
banking heiress. Her father, Theodore, was then a New York
State AssemblymanThe New York State Assembly is the lower house of the New York Legislature, the state legislature of the U.S. state of New York. The Assembly is composed of 150 members representing an equal number of districts, with each district having an average population of 128,652...
. Two days after her birth, in the same house, her mother died of undiagnosed
Bright's diseaseBright's disease is a historical classification of kidney diseases that would be described in modern medicine as acute or chronic nephritis. The term is no longer used, as diseases are now classified according to their more fully understood causes....
; also, on the same day, her paternal grandmother, Martha Bulloch Roosevelt, died of
typhoid feverTyphoid fever, also known as enteric fever, Salmonella typhi or commonly just typhoid, is an illness. Common worldwide, it is transmitted by the ingestion of food or water contaminated with feces from an infected person. The bacteria then perforate through the intestinal wall and are phagocytosed...
.
Theodore was so distraught by his wife's death that he could not bear to think about her. He almost never spoke of her again, would not allow her to be mentioned in his presence, and even omitted her name from his autobiography. Therefore, his daughter Alice was called "Baby Lee" instead of her name. Alice continued this practice late in life, preferring to be called "Mrs. L" rather than "Alice".
Theodore moved to
North DakotaNorth Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America; on the Canadian border halfway between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. North Dakota is the 19th largest state by area in the U.S.; it is the 3
rd least populous, with just over 641,481 residents as...
for two years. He left his infant daughter in the care of his sister
BamieAnna Roosevelt Cowles was the older sister of United States President Theodore Roosevelt and the aunt of Eleanor Roosevelt. Her childhood nickname was Bamie, a derivative of bambina, but as an adult, her family began calling her "Bye" because of her tremendous on-the-go energy -...
, also known as "Bye". Some Roosevelt biographers have claimed that he showed no affection for his child, but there are letters to Bamie that reveal his concern. In one 1884 letter, he said of Alice, "I hope Mousiekins will be very cunning, I shall dearly love her."
The influence of Bamie and the Lee grandparents
Theodore's sister Bamie was the only aunt with whom Alice had a long-term relationship. Bamie was the one strong stabilizing influence on her. She took Alice under her watchful care until Theodore married again.
After Theodore's marriage to
Edith Kermit CarowEdith Kermit Carow Roosevelt was the second wife of Theodore Roosevelt and served as First Lady of the United States during his presidency from 1901 to 1909.-Early Life:...
, Alice was raised by her stepmother. During much of Alice's childhood, Bamie was a remote figure who eventually married and moved to London for a time. But later,
as Alice became more independent, and came into conflict with her father and stepmother, Auntie "Bye" provided needed structure and stability.
Late in life, Alice said of her beloved Auntie Bye: "There is always someone in every family who keeps it together. In ours, it was Auntie Bye."
Increasingly, Alice's parents would send her off to visit Bamie when they couldn't handle her. Likewise it would be Alice's Lee grandparents (on her mother's side) in Boston, with whom Alice would spend summers and holiday periods, including Thanksgiving, who would give her the undivided attention she could seldom find in her father's home to the point of spoiling her as only grandparents can. They would provide an unconditional love and constancy of affection that Alice would miss in her father's home with her stepmother Edith.
Relationship with stepmother Edith Carow
After returning east, and running for and losing the election for the mayor of
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
, Theodore Roosevelt went to London where he married a childhood friend,
Edith Kermit CarowEdith Kermit Carow Roosevelt was the second wife of Theodore Roosevelt and served as First Lady of the United States during his presidency from 1901 to 1909.-Early Life:...
, by whom he would have five more children. There were strains in the relationship between him and his daughter, and he had very little interaction with her during her earliest years, leaving the work to other people, such as his sister Bamie, Alice's maternal grandparents and even his second wife, Edith. Alice was continually shuffled about from one house to another, even as a teenager, and she later said she often felt like he loved her "one-sixth" as much as the other children.
There were also tensions in the relationship between young Alice and her stepmother, who had known her husband's previous wife and made it clear that she regarded her predecessor as a beautiful but insipid, childlike fool. As Alice Longworth later recalled, her stepmother once angrily told her that if Alice's mother, Alice Lee Roosevelt, had lived, she would have bored her father to death. Despite these strains, it would be Edith, the demanding stepmother, who would save Alice from a life possibly in a wheelchair or on crutches when Alice came down with a mild form of polio and one leg and its muscles grew shorter than the other. By Edith's uncompromising regimen of nightly forced wearing of torturous leg braces and shoes, even over Alice's sobs, Edith ensured that Alice would grow up with almost no trace of the disability. Alice was able to run up stairs and touch her nose with her toe well into her 80s. In later years, however, Alice expressed admiration for her stepmother's sense of humor and stated that they had shared similar literary tastes.
Growing young womanhood
Alice, always spoiled with gifts, matured into young womanhood and, in the course, became known as a great beauty like her mother. However, continuing tension with her stepmother and prolonged separation and little attention from her father created a young woman who was as independent and outgoing as she was self-confident and calculating. When her father was governor of New York, he and his wife proposed that Alice attend a quite conservative school for girls in New York City. Pulling out all the stops, Alice wrote, "If you send me I will humiliate you. I will do something that will shame you. I tell you I will."
Father's presidency
When her father took office following the assassination of President
William McKinleyWilliam McKinley Jr. was the 25th President of the United States, and the last veteran of the American Civil War to be elected to the office....
(an event that "filled (me) with an extreme rapture"), Alice became an instant celebrity and fashion icon. While proud of her father's accomplishment, she also was painfully aware that his new duties would give her significantly less of his time even as she longed for more of his attention. She was known as a rule-breaker in an era when women were under great pressure to conform. The American public noticed many of her exploits. She smoked cigarettes in public, rode in cars with men, stayed out late partying, kept a pet snake named Emily Spinach (Emily as in her spinster aunt and Spinach for its green color) in the White House, and was seen placing bets with a bookie.
Alice, along with her father's Secretary of War,
William Howard TaftWilliam Howard Taft was the 27th President of the United States and later the 10th Chief Justice of the United States....
, led the diplomatic mission to
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, the largest in U.S. history up until that time, composed of 35 U.S. Congressmen (including her future husband
Nicholas LongworthNicholas Longworth IV was a prominent American politician in the Republican Party during the first few decades of the 20th century...
) and other diplomats. She made headlines wherever she went, being photographed with the
Emperor MeijiThe or Meiji the Great was the 122
nd emperor of Japan according to the traditional order of succession, reigning from 3 February 1867 until his death....
of the
Empire of JapanThe Empire of Japan was a Japanese political entity that existed during the period from the...
and the
Empress Dowager CixiEmpress Dowager Cixi
1 , popularly known in China as the West Dowager Empress , was from the Manchu Yehe Nara Clan...
of
Qing DynastyThe Qing Dynasty , also known as the Manchu Dynasty, was the last ruling dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912...
ChinaChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
, as well as attending
sumois a competitive contact sport where a wrestler attempts to force another wrestler out of a circular ring or to touch the ground with anything other than the soles of the feet. The sport originated in Japan, the only country where it is practiced professionally...
wrestling matches. In the cruise to Japan, she made a splash by jumping into the ship's pool fully clothed, and coaxed a Congressman to join her in the water. (Years later Bobby Kennedy would chide Alice about the incident, saying it was outrageous for the time, to which the by then octogenarian Alice replied it would only have been outrageous had she removed her clothes. In her autobiography,
Crowded Hours, Alice made note of the event, pointing out that there was little difference between the linen skirt and blouse she had been wearing and a ladies'
swimsuitA swimsuit, bathing suit, togs or swimming costume is an item of clothing designed to be worn while participating in water sports and activities such as swimming, water polo, diving, surfing, water skiing, or for any activity in the sun, such as sun bathing...
of the period.) The press dubbed Alice's part in this government-sponsored trip to Asia "Alice in Plunder Land". She brought back enough silk from China for a lifetime of beautiful dresses and would wear a beautiful strand of costly pearls given to her by the Cuban government for the rest of her life. This diplomatic junket, and Alice's ability to keep the press at bay by becoming the center of attention, contributed to her father's successful conclusion of the
Treaty of PortsmouthThe Treaty of Portsmouth formally ended the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War.It was signed on 5 September 1905 after negotiations at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard near Portsmouth, New Hampshire in the United States.-Negotiations:...
in 1905 that ended the
Russo-Japanese WarThe Russo-Japanese War or the Manchurian Campaign in some English sources, was a conflict that grew out of the rival imperial ambitions of the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire over Manchuria and Korea...
, which eventually made her father the first-ever
Nobel Peace PrizeThe Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:...
winner in American history.
Once, a
White HouseThe White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the President of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., it was built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the late Georgian style and has been the residence of every...
visitor commented on Alice's frequent interruptions to the
Oval Office| |-| |-| |-| |-| |-| |-| |-| |-| |}The Oval Office is the official office of the President of the United States. Created in 1909 as part of an overall expansion of the West Wing of the White House during the administration of William Howard Taft, the office was inspired by the elliptical Blue Room...
, often because of her political advice. The exhausted President commented to his friend, author
Owen WisterOwen Wister was an American writer and "Father" of western fiction.-Early life:Owen Wister was born on July 14, 1860, in Germantown, a neighborhood within the City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father, Owen Jones Wister, was a wealthy physician, one of a long line of Wisters raised at the...
, after the third interruption to their conversation and after threatening to throw Alice 'out the window', "I can either run the country or I can attend to Alice, but I cannot possibly do both."
Alice was the center of attention in the social context of her father's presidency, especially at her wedding, but she had to be very competitive to get noticed when he was around. She said of his love of attention, that he "wants to be the bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral, and the baby at every christening."
Alice was a medal awarder at the notorious
1904 OlympicsThe 1904 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the III Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was celebrated in St. Louis, Missouri, in the United States from July 1, 1904 to November 23, 1904, at what is now known as Francis Field on the campus of Washington University...
in St. Louis.
Married life
Alice married
Nicholas LongworthNicholas Longworth IV was a prominent American politician in the Republican Party during the first few decades of the 20th century...
, a Republican U.S. House of Representatives member from
Cincinnati, OhioCincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. The municipality is located north of the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border. The population within city limits was estimated to be 333,336 in 2008, making it the state's third largest city...
, who ultimately would rise to become
Speaker of the HouseSpeaker of the House is a political term referring to a number of people:*In the United Kingdom and Canada, the Speaker of the House of Commons is the individual elected to preside over the elected House of Commons...
. Their 1906 wedding was the social event of the season. Alice and Nick bought the residence in the Washington, DC at 2009 Massachusetts Avenue and which is now the headquarters of the
Washington Legal FoundationThe Washington Legal Foundation is a non-profit legal organization based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1977, the Foundation's stated goal is "to defend and promote the principles of freedom and justice". The organization is unabashedly pro-business and is a staunch advocate of the free market...
.
A scion of a socially prominent Ohio family, Nick was 14 years Alice's senior, and had a reputation as a Washington, D.C. playboy. The two made an awkward couple. Alice publicly supported her father's 1912 Bull Moose presidential candidacy, while Nick stayed loyal to his mentor, President Taft. During that election cycle, she appeared on stage with her father's vice presidential candidate,
Hiram JohnsonHiram Warren Johnson was a leading American progressive and later isolationist politician from California; he served as Governor from 1911 to 1917, and as a United States Senator from 1917 to 1945.-Early life:...
, in Nick's own district. Nick later lost by about 105 votes, and she joked that she was worth at least 100 votes (meaning she was the reason he lost). However, he was elected again in 1914 and stayed in the House for the rest of his life.
Alice Longworth's campaign against her husband caused a permanent chill in her marriage to Nick Longworth. During their marriage, Longworth carried on numerous affairs. As reported in Carol Felsenthal's biography of Alice, and in Betty Boyd Caroli's
The Roosevelt Women, as well by TIME journalist Rebecca Winters Keegan, it was generally accepted knowledge in DC that Alice also had a long, ongoing affair with Senator William Borah, and the opening of Alice's diaries to modern historical researchers indicates that Borah, was, by Alice's own admission, the father of Alice's daughter,
Paulina LongworthPaulina Longworth Sturm was the only child of Alice Roosevelt, and the granddaughter of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt....
(1925-1957).
Alice Longworth was not without a sense of humor. On May 11, 1908, she amused herself in the gallery at the House of Representatives in Washington by placing a tack on the chair of an unknown but "middle-aged" and "dignified" gentleman. Upon encountering the tack, "like the burst of a bubble on the fountain, like the bolt from the blue, like the ball from the cannon," the unfortunate fellow leapt up in pain and surprise while Mrs. Longworth looked away.
Post-Roosevelt presidency
When it came time for the Roosevelt family to move out of the
White HouseThe White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the President of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., it was built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the late Georgian style and has been the residence of every...
, Alice buried a Voodoo doll of the new First Lady,
Nellie TaftHelen Louise Herron "Nellie" Taft was the wife of William Howard Taft and First Lady of the United States from 1909 to 1913....
in the front yard. At many White House social activities such as dinners, Alice frequently mocked the
First LadyFirst Lady or First Gentlemanis the unofficial title used in some countries for the spouse of an elected head of state. In the United States, it is also used for the spouse of the governor.-Origin:...
, rendering Mrs. Taft rather uncomfortable in Alice's presence though she was some twenty years her junior. Mrs. Taft offended Alice by offering her an invitation to the
White HouseThe White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the President of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., it was built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the late Georgian style and has been the residence of every...
. Upon receiving the invitation, Alice asked, "Me--who walked the halls of the White House for so many years?" Later, the Taft White House ban her from her former residence, the first but not the last administration to do so. During
Woodrow WilsonThomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States. A leading intellectual of the Progressive Era, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
's administration (from which she was banned in 1916 for a bawdy joke at Wilson's expense), Alice worked endlessly against the entry of the United States into the
League of NationsThe League of Nations was an inter-governmental organization founded as a result of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919–1920. At its greatest extent from 28 September 1934 to 23 February 1935, it had 58 members...
. Her Washington society dinners and reception lobbying are credited with helping to derail America's membership in the League of Nations.
Alice didn't like
Warren G. HardingWarren Gamaliel Harding was the 29th President of the United States, serving from 1921 until his death from a heart attack or stroke in 1923. A Republican from Ohio, Harding was an influential newspaper publisher. He served in the Ohio Senate and later as Lieutenant Governor of Ohio and as a U.S...
any more than she had Taft or Wilson. Mrs. Longworth felt that Harding was crass, barely educated, and ill-suited for the job. She preferred his vice-president,
Calvin CoolidgeJohn Calvin Coolidge, Jr. was the 30th President of the United States . A Republican lawyer from Vermont, Coolidge worked his way up the ladder of Massachusetts state politics, eventually becoming governor of that state. His actions during the Boston Police Strike of 1919 thrust him into the...
. Her feelings toward First Lady
Florence HardingFlorence "Flossie" Mabel Kling Harding , wife of Warren G. Harding, was First Lady of the United States from 1921 to 1923....
grew more strained during the Hardings' years in Washington. Alice felt that she had lost her best friend,
Evalyn Walsh McLeanEvalyn Walsh McLean was an American mining heiress and socialite who was famous for being the last private owner of the Hope Diamond as well as another famous diamond, the Star of the East...
, to Florence, and the relationship between Alice—-the Speaker's wife—-and the President's wife grew bitter.
Following the death of her husband in 1931, Alice Longworth and her daughter continued to live near
Dupont CircleDupont Circle is a traffic circle, neighborhood, and historic district in Northwest Washington, D.C. The traffic circle is located at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue NW, Connecticut Avenue NW, New Hampshire Avenue NW, P Street NW, and 19th Street NW...
on Massachusetts Avenue, Washington's
Embassy RowEmbassy Row is the informal name for a street or area of a city in which embassies or other diplomatic installations are concentrated. Perhaps the best-known of these is in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States...
. When asked if she would run for her late husband's seat, she declined. She did not like public speaking, seldom spoke at public receptions, and abhorred physical contact with the public and the "press of the flesh" that came so easily to her father; in short, campaigning did not suit her. Her final visits to Cincinnati were in order to fulfill obligations, not for pleasure. One such trip was made for the burial of her husband, another for the social debut of her daughter. When asked if she would be buried in Cincinnati, Mrs. Longworth said that to do so "would be a fate worse than death itself."
During the
Great DepressionThe Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, when she like so many other Americans found her fortunes reversed, Longworth appeared in
tobaccoTobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as an organic pesticide, and in the form of nicotine tartrate it is used in some medicines. In consumption it most commonly appears in the forms of smoking, chewing, snuffing, or...
advertisements to raise money. She also published an autobiography,
Crowded Hours. The book sold well and received rave reviews. TIME Magazine praised its "insouciant vitality." Her library was filled with autographed works from Tennyson, Yeats, and Ezra Pound.
The other Washington Monument
The widow Longworth maintained her stature in the community, socially and politically, garnering her the nickname "the other Washington Monument". Mrs. Longworth served as a delegate to
Republican National ConventionThe Republican National Convention is the presidential nominating convention of the Republican Party of the United States. Convened by the Republican National Committee, the stated purpose of the convocation is to nominate an official candidate in an upcoming U.S...
on more than one occasion, declining to address the Convention.
Alice's wit was legendary in Washington, DC; and that wit could have a deadly political effect on friend and foe alike. When columnist and cousin
Joseph AlsopJoseph Wright Alsop V was an American journalist and syndicated newspaper columnist from the 1930s through the 1970s.-Reporter and columnist:...
claimed that there was grass-roots support for Republican presidential candidate,
Wendell WillkieWendell Lewis Willkie was a corporate lawyer in the United States and was the Republican Party nominee for the 1940 presidential election, although he had never previously had an elected political office....
, the Republican hope to defeat F.D.R. in 1940, Alice said yes, "the grass roots of 10,000 country clubs." Alice demolished
Thomas DeweyThomas Edmund Dewey was governor of New York . In 1944 and 1948, he was the Republican candidate for President, but lost both times. He led the liberal faction of the Republican Party, in which he fought conservative Ohio Senator Robert A. Taft...
, the 1944 opponent of her cousin Franklin, by comparing the pencil-line mustached Republican to “the little man on the wedding cake.” The image stuck and helped Governor Dewey lose two consecutive presidential elections.
Paulina LongworthPaulina Longworth Sturm was the only child of Alice Roosevelt, and the granddaughter of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt....
married
Alexander McCormick SturmAlexander McCormick "Sandy" Sturm was an American artist and writer who was a co-founder of Sturm, Ruger, a firearms manufacturer...
, with whom she had a daughter,
JoannaJoanna Mercedes Alessandra Sturm , philanthropist, historian is a great-granddaughter of 26th U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and the granddaughter of Alice Roosevelt Longworth...
(b. July 1946). Sturm died in 1951. Following the death of Paulina in 1957 (by an accidental overdose of sleeping pills, for many years suspected of being a suicide, although Alice never agreed with that assessment), Alice Longworth fought for and won the custody of her granddaughter
Joanna SturmJoanna Mercedes Alessandra Sturm , philanthropist, historian is a great-granddaughter of 26th U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and the granddaughter of Alice Roosevelt Longworth...
, whom she raised. Not very long before Paulina's death, she and Alice had discussed the care of Joanna in case of such an event. In an article in
American HeritageAmerican Heritage is a monthly magazine dedicated to covering the history of the United States for a mainstream readership. Up to 2007, the magazine was published by Forbes, and since then, by Edwin S. Grosvenor.-History:...
in 1969, Joanna was described as a "highly attractive and intellectual twenty-two-year-old" and was called "a notable contributor to Mrs. Longworth’s youthfulness....The bonds between them are twin cables of devotion and a healthy respect for each other’s tongue. 'Mrs. L.,' says a friend, 'has been a wonderful father and mother to Joanna: mostly father.'
Unlike her relationship with her daughter, Mrs. Longworth doted on her granddaughter and the two were very close. Upon Paulina's death, her cousin
Eleanor RooseveltAnna Eleanor Roosevelt was the First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945. She supported the New Deal policies of her husband, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and assumed a role as an advocate for civil rights...
sent condolences and the two mended their broken relationship despite their continued political differences.
Political connections
From an early age, Alice was interested in politics. When advancing age and illness incapacitated her aunt Bamie, Alice stepped into her place as an unofficial political adviser to her father. Alice strongly advised her father against challenging the renomination of William Howard Taft on the Republican 1912 ticket. While her political instincts were highly developed, she was not at all accommodating. In fact, she took a hard line view of the Democrats and was on the decidedly conservative wing of the Republican party in her youth. She was active in supporting her half-brother, Ted Roosevelt in his attempt to become governor of New York in 1924. When Franklin Delano Roosevelt ran for president in 1932, Alice took pains to publicly oppose his candidacy. Writing in the Ladies' Home Journal in October 1932, she said of FDR, "He is my father's fourth cousin once removed.... Politically, his branch of the family and ours have always been in different camps, and the same surname is about all we have in common.... I am a Republican.... I am going to vote for Hoover.... If I were not a Republican, I would still vote for Mr. Hoover this time."
Alice developed a genuine friendship with
Richard NixonRichard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States and is the only president to resign the office. He was also the 36th Vice President of the United States ....
when he was vice-president, and when he returned to California after Eisenhower's 2nd term, Alice continued to maintain an active relationship with him and did not consider his political career to be over. She encouraged Nixon to re-enter politics and continued to invite him to her famous dinners. Not forgetting this kindness, when Nixon became President, he invited Alice to his first formal White House dinner. She was also invited to the wedding of his daughter Tricia Nixon in 1971.
As she aged Alice would occasionally flirt with the Democrats and even supported
John F. KennedyJohn Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
and had an affectionate although sometimes strained friendship with Bobby Kennedy, perhaps because of his relatively thin skin. When she privately made fun of his scaling the newly named Mt. Kennedy in Canada, he was not amused. She even admitted to voting for President Lyndon Johnson over Senator
Barry GoldwaterBarry Morris Goldwater was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona and the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. He was also a Major General in the U.S. Air Force Reserve. He was known as "Mr...
in
1964The United States presidential election of 1964 was the sixth-most lopsided presidential election in the history of the United States behind the elections of 1936, 1984, 1972, 1864, and 1980 . President Lyndon B...
because she believed Goldwater was too mean.
Later life
By the 1950s, Longworth's health began to fail her. In 1955, she fell and suffered from a broken hip. In 1956, Longworth was found to be suffering from
breast cancerBreast cancer is a cancer that starts in the breast, usually in the inner lining of the milk ducts or lobules. There are different types of breast cancer, with different stages , aggressiveness, and genetic makeup. With best treatment, 10-year disease-free survival varies from 98% to 10%...
, and though successfully undergoing a
mastectomyIn medicine, mastectomy is the medical term for the surgical removal of one or both breasts, partially or completely. Mastectomy is usually done to treat breast cancer; in some cases, women and some men believed to be at high risk of breast cancer have the operation prophylactically, that is, to...
at the time, she was again later found to have cancer in the other breast in 1970, requiring a second mastectomy. Taking the medical procedures in stride, she referred to herself as the only "topless octogenarian" in Washington. After these surgeries, Longworth's health was not as strong as it once had been but she continued a rigorous schedule and maintained her social rounds. By 1960, at age 76, after a noticeable loss of weight and frail appearance with a continued cough and loss of breath, Longworth was advised by family and friends to see a
physicianA physician — also known as medical practitioner, doctor of medicine, medical doctor, or simply doctor — practices the ancient profession of medicine, which is concerned with maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease or injury...
. She was diagnosed with
emphysemaEmphysema is a lung disease, characterized by an abnormal, permanent enlargement of air spaces distal to the terminal bronchioles. The disease is coupled with the destruction of walls, but without obvious fibrosis...
as a result of many years of heavy smoking.
Alice was a lifelong member of the
RepublicanThe Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the Grand Old Party or the GOP, despite being the younger of the two major parties. In the U.S...
party, like her father. Yet her political sympathies began to change when she became close to the Kennedy family and Lyndon Johnson. She voted Democratic in 1964, and was known to be supporting Bobby Kennedy in the 1968 Democratic primary.
It is possible her change in political leanings was the result of the social upheavals occurring in American society at the same time. Beginning in the late 1950s and continuing into the 1970s, the struggle of African Americans for social and legal equality could not have escaped the notice of a woman always known for approaching everyone she first met with respect, without regard for their station in life. As an example of her attitudes on race, in 1965 her African American chauffeur and one of her best friends, Turner, was driving Longworth to an appointment. During the trip, he pulled out in front of a
taxiA taxicab, also taxi or cab, is a type of vehicle for hire, with a driver, for a single passenger, or small group of passengers, typically for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choice...
, and the driver got out and demanded to know of him, "What do you think you're doing, you black bastard?" Turner took the insult calmly, but Longworth did not and told the taxi driver, "He's taking me to my destination, you white son of a bitch!"
Yet after RFK was murdered in 1968, she again supported her friend
Richard NixonRichard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States and is the only president to resign the office. He was also the 36th Vice President of the United States ....
, just as she had done in his 1960 campaign against JFK. However, her long friendship with Nixon ended at the conclusion of the Watergate Scandal, specifically when Nixon quoted her father's diary at his resignation, by saying "Only if you've been to the lowest valley can you know how great it is to be on the highest mountain top," and other things Theodore Roosevelt had written when Alice's mother and grandmother died. This infuriated Longworth, who spat curse words at her television screen as she watched him compare his early departure from the White House (in the face of probable impeachment and possible criminal prosecution) to her idealistic young father's loss of his wife and mother on the same day due to illness. Nixon, however, called her "the most interesting [conversationalist of the age]" and said, "No one, no matter how famous, could ever outshine her."
She remained cordial with Nixon's successor,
Gerald FordGerald Rudolph Ford, Jr. was the 38th President of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977, and the 40th Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974...
, but a minor lack of social grace on the part of
Jimmy CarterJames Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. served as the 39th President of the United States from 1977 to 1981 and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
caused her to decline to ever meet him, the last sitting President in her lifetime.
Alice's last public appearance, televised nationwide on PBS, was the 1976 Bicentennial of the United States, attended by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. Joseph Alsop and other friends were taken aback when Alice came on the screen, escorted to the head of the receiving line by her granddaughter's close friend Robert Hellman. She had her own reception line later, greeting old friends of many years for the last time — including some old-timers from the White House kitchen staff, most of whom were African Americans.
After many years of ill health, Alice died in her Embassy Row home in 1980 of
emphysemaEmphysema is a lung disease, characterized by an abnormal, permanent enlargement of air spaces distal to the terminal bronchioles. The disease is coupled with the destruction of walls, but without obvious fibrosis...
and
pneumoniaPneumonia is an inflammatory illness of the lung. Frequently, it is described as lung parenchyma/alveolar inflammation and abnormal alveolar filling with fluid ....
, with contributory effects of a number of other chronic illnesses. She was 96. Alice Roosevelt Longworth is buried in
Rock Creek CemeteryRock Creek Cemetery — also Rock Creek Church Cemetery — is an cemetery with a natural rolling landscape located at Rock Creek Church Road, NW, and Webster Street, NW, in the Petworth neighborhood of Washington, D.C...
, Washington, D.C.
Of her quotable quotations, her most famous found its way to a pillow on her settee: “If you can’t say something good about someone, sit right here by me.” To Senator
Joseph McCarthyJoseph Raymond McCarthy was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957...
, who had casually asked her "How are you, Alice?" she stated that the garbage men, taxi drivers and street sweepers in her neighborhood could call her by her first name, but that he could call her "Mrs. Longworth." She informed President
Lyndon B. JohnsonLyndon Baines Johnson , served as the 36th President of the United States from 1963 to 1969 after his service as the Vice President of the United States from 1961 to 1963...
that she wore wide-brimmed hats so he couldn't kiss her. On another occasion, asked by a Ku Klux Klansman in full regalia to take his word for something, she refused, saying "I never trust a man under sheets." And when a well-known Washington senator was discovered to have been having an affair with a young woman less than half his age, Mrs. Longworth quipped, "You can't make a soufflé rise twice."
Though Alice was Theodore Roosevelt's first-born child, she was the last of his children to die, surviving all her five half-siblings from her father's second marriage.
Family
- Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States. He is well remembered for his energetic persona, his range of interests and achievements, his model of masculinity, and his "cowboy" image. He was a leader of the Republican Party and founder of the short-lived Bull Moose Party...
- Alice Lee Roosevelt
Alice Hathaway Lee-Roosevelt was the first wife of Theodore Roosevelt...
- Edith Carow Roosevelt
Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt was the second wife of Theodore Roosevelt and served as First Lady of the United States during his presidency from 1901 to 1909.-Early Life:...
- Nicholas Longworth
Nicholas Longworth IV was a prominent American politician in the Republican Party during the first few decades of the 20th century...
- William Borah
- Lover, and the acknowledged father of her only child
- Paulina Sturm
Paulina Longworth Sturm was the only child of Alice Roosevelt, and the granddaughter of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt....
- Eleanor Roosevelt
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was the First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945. She supported the New Deal policies of her husband, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and assumed a role as an advocate for civil rights...
- Joanna Sturm
Joanna Mercedes Alessandra Sturm , philanthropist, historian is a great-granddaughter of 26th U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and the granddaughter of Alice Roosevelt Longworth...
- Martha Bulloch Roosevelt
- Bamie Roosevelt
Anna Roosevelt Cowles was the older sister of United States President Theodore Roosevelt and the aunt of Eleanor Roosevelt. Her childhood nickname was Bamie, a derivative of bambina, but as an adult, her family began calling her "Bye" because of her tremendous on-the-go energy -...
- "Auntie Bye", Theodore's talented sister and stability figure in Alice's life
Other
- Washington Legal Foundation
The Washington Legal Foundation is a non-profit legal organization based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1977, the Foundation's stated goal is "to defend and promote the principles of freedom and justice". The organization is unabashedly pro-business and is a staunch advocate of the free market...
(organization that occupies the former Longworth site in Washington, DC)
- Alice blue
Alice blue is a light or steel blueish-cyanish color that was favored by Alice Roosevelt Longworth, daughter of Theodore Roosevelt and which sparked a fashion sensation in the United States....
Articles
- Marquis James
Marquis James was an American journalist and author, twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize. He served in the First World War, in France, 1917-1919. He worked on the staff at the American Legion Monthly from 1923 to 1932.-Works:* Alfred I...
(pseud. Quid), "Princess Alice" The New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry published by Condé Nast Publications...
1/2 (28 February 1925) : 9-10 [profile]
External links