"Dear Clara"

Why is the White House nearly? Because it is all Butt.

For four years (1908-12) that was considered a hilarious joke in official Washington society. Its reference was to Major Archibald Willingham Butt, military aide to Presidents Roosevelt and Taft. More than a decorative figure, Major Butt was also political counselor, social manager, playmate and secret chronicler about the White House. Shrewd enough to know the advantage of his confidential position and with a sharp eye on posterity, he wrote (sometimes from quotations jotted down on his immaculate cuffs) almost daily letters to "Dear Clara," his sister-in-law, Mrs. Lewis F. Butt of Augusta, Ga. In these, he gave a continuous account of private life in the White House. Six years ago was published the first series of the Butt letters covering the last year of the Roosevelt Administration. The death of Chief Justice Taft opened the way for the publication last week of the second series dealing with his occupancy of the White House.*

Archie Butt was born in Augusta in 1865 of good but impoverished family. By working as librarian at the University of the South, Sewanee, Tenn., his mother managed to give him an education at that institution. After the Spanish War he secured a captain's commission in the Army Quartermaster Corps, distinguished himself only by transporting 557 horses and mules from Portland, Ore. to Manila without the loss of an animal. He was recalled from Cuba by President Roosevelt in 1908 to begin his White House service. A bachelor with gayety, tact, discretion, he gave himself up entirely to his President for work or play.

Of major historical importance is the fresh light Major Butt's letters throw on the breach between Roosevelt and Taft which culminated in 1912 with the formation of the Bull Moose party and the election of Woodrow Wilson. President Taft loved Col. Roosevelt but Mrs. Taft suspected his designs from the outset. The first trouble apparently occurred when President Taft, in a farewell letter to Col. Roosevelt on his departure for Africa, divided credit for his elevation to the Presidency between the Colonel and his brother Charles Taft. Roosevelt resented this division, never answered the letter. Roosevelt continued to feel that Taft had betrayed his policies. One day President Taft with tears in his eyes said to Major Butt: "Archie, I don't see what I could have done to make things different. Somehow people have convinced the Colonel I've gone back on him. It distresses me more deeply than anyone can know to think of him sitting there at Oyster Bay alone and feeling himself deserted."

The Butt letters brim with fascinating Washington chitchat, never mean, never bitter, which brings Taft more to life than any formal biography. Examples: 1) the cow Mrs. Taft insisted on buying for the White House household; 2) the $5,000 the Tafts had saved on entering the White House and the $80,000 they had after two years; 3) "Little Charlie [the President's son] is a great bookworm and spends most of his time curled up on a sofa reading. . . . On inauguration day he took to the Senate Treasure Island -- to read, he said, in case his father's address bored him"; 4) "Helen Taft [Mrs. Frederick J. Manning, dean of Bryn Mawr] is a nice girl and very intelligent without being a prude"; 5) "When the music began the President began to waltz around the room by himself. . . . Uncle Joe [Cannon], though he knew no waltz steps, simply capered around in a sort of ragtime shuffle"; 6) the first cigaret smoked by a U. S. woman (Mrs. Nicholas Longworth) at the White House (Jan. 12, 1910); 7) the whiskey-and-sodas President Taft would press upon amiable guests.

But Major Butt, loyal to each, never saw the end of the Taft-Roosevelt feud. In March 1912, he sailed for a European holiday. In April he returned on the Titanic, was lost with the ship. President Taft ordered all flags half-staffed for him throughout the land. Augusta built a $40,000 Butt memorial bridge across its yellow canal.

* Taft and Roosevelt--The Intimate Letters of Archie Butt--Doubleday, Doran & Co. ($7.50).

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