 On this most important day in our nation's history, in Arguition Day, Cavalcade of America presents a special broadcast entitled, Bless this house, our star with Donald Kerry. The first occupant of the house, John Adams of Massachusetts, made a prayer upon his entrance at the port, and he wrote it out that night in a letter to his wife. He wrote, I pray heaven to restore the best of blessings on this house, and on all that shall hereafter inhabit it, may none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof. It has never been called a palace, or a residency, its dwelling place. It's in a house like other houses, full of life and death, joy and sorrow. A house like other houses. Number 1600, Pennsylvania Avenue, Northwest Washington, D.C. The architect of the house, Captain James Woban, was a marriageman. He drew to a degree upon his memories of a stately home built by the Dukes of Lent, near Don. The classic lines we have retained down through the years. But it was to a raw and new unfinished swamp, haunted by the consciousness giant of a glubbing that John Adams repaired toward the close of his term in 1800. His wife Abigail joined him in late November, and the end of November in Washington can be... Oh, so cold, John. It's so damp, so terribly damp. What would we have? I ordered burn in the fireplace to dry out the plaster before you came. The dampness comes from this confounded porous Virginia freestone in the walls. And John, do you know there's no place, no place at all to dry clothes? Well, surely we must wash clothes. You just have to make do somehow, Abbey. Oh, I manage. I've already decided to use the great audience chamber to hang our wash in. Good, good. It's not these small inconveniences that worry me. What is it, then? It's you, John. You never have I seen yourself disconsolate. So, so well be gone. And it's not the aid from the walls that makes you so. No, it's not. I suffer from a dampness of the soul. John, what a strange remark. Oh, I don't think I've ever known you to be sorry for yourself before. Enough of loud. I'm not sorry for myself. But I never ask for this thankless task. Abbey, listen to me. Not only have I not been able to get wood to these fireplaces on the commissioners, but from that stubborn hood of me would call Congress I can have nothing, nothing. And in what that every time? John. Yes, Abbey. We have one fire at least. Now stop facing up and down. It's quietly here while we can be worn. At least turn one side. All right, all right. Now listen to me. Do you remember when we were living in Brassel Street in Boston? When we were young before the war? I do indeed. But do you remember one special night when your friend Samuel Sewell came to call? He came in Tory power and glory to offer you a vibe to win you over to the side of the king's party against your patriot friends. And I refused. Not before you talked with me. We sat late at night at our bedroom window and we heard the watchman's call in the street below. I can almost hear it now. And I said, all is not well. A storm is brewing in Boston Town. A blow to put the stars out. The storm will try your strength, John, I said. But it will clear the air. After the storm, there'll be brighter stars ahead. I was right, John, then. And now that storm of revolution has tossed us up here at last to this strange, cold house. And there are new storms ahead. There are always storms. Always? I think that. They do that. Look, John, look through the window. What do you see? I see the night. Look again, John. It's a clear night. Clear night of stars. Adams' Mr. Jefferson, a widower, came to the house from Monticello where he would have preferred to stay. His hostess, when he needed one, which was seldom with this Spartan Democrat, was Dolly Madison, wife of his closest friend. Stayed occasions were few, but when they did occur, we are told the wines were magnificent. And on one notable occasion, the ingenious Mr. Jefferson outdid himself by inventing something very like baked Alaska. James Madison followed Thomas Jefferson into the house. Jefferson's friend, almost a son or a brother. And a glamorous dolly came into her own. You should spell her name by the way she did. P-O-L-L-C-Y. But with Jimmy and his lovely bride, there came to the house in June of 1812. Troopers and Marines came under Cotburn and Ross up from the river closer and closer to the house and to the president's wife. I am Dolly Madison. And I want to say to you, too, that I cut the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution into my father's and ran from the burning house. And it is not true that I hacked the steward forces of George Washington from his frame and carried it off with the British at my heels. But most of all, it is not true that Jimmy, my husband, was a coward and left me alone when the British came. He was with the troops at Bladiesburg where he should have been. I went to him when I caught him. And on the way, I looked back at Washington through the smoke and the lightning of the storm. And I saw the hike. The smoke blackened ruin, completely ruined. But the three stone walls were left and the house was rebuilt. Oh, yes, it was rebuilt. All the Virginian dynasty resumed with James Monroe and Virginia Cropright Monroe who got to the house their beautiful French furniture. John Quincy Adams, the learned Yankee, who treated White House guests who dispositions on poetry, music, painting, sculpture, all the old books say of rare excellence and untying interest from was brewing. A storm of boats this time. Boats and boaters out of the west, newly conscious of political power. Under Andrew Jackson, the old house would dance to a brand new tune. After his inauguration, old Hickory rode from the capital to the White House on horseback. And he was followed by a mob of his supporters, roughs and ready men and women from beyond the mountains. At the doors of the house, guards and ushers were overwhelmed. And into the stately heat room, the mob pushed its way to the long tables where cakes and ice cream and punch were laid out. Classically disgusting. Reminds one of the days of the French Revolution. Quincy, look at that woman. That pervades woman. Why, she's actually wiping her hands with a window drape. And the chairs are much too small for these bears to sit on. Good heavens, they've broken that beautiful fence so far. Well, that's quieted things down a bit. My, my, the sort of thing you'd never do in Boston. Never do at all. I don't suppose it would, gentlemen. But I find it a rather pleasing spectacle, really. And here might you be, may I ask? My name is Andrew Jax. To trim is it is. Yes, I'm the one the fuss is for. But this is the people's house. Let's come and join. He served dinner service for the White House and lived to regret it for his last re-election because he was said to savor French sauces on golden spoon. There was much scaredy, much laughter down the ears. And usually there were children. Here in this house, young Tad and Willie Lincoln played with the two Tad boys from Cincinnati. And one day in 62, the four of them made a soldier doll out of rags and old clothes, and they called it Jack. Then they sentenced Jack, the soldier doll, to be shot at sunrise for sleeping on Central Jewel. A gardener brought the news to the president's study. And back to the poor, very small boys came a message. The doll, Jack, is pardoned by order of the president. A Lincoln has said that if the White House was haunted, it is not just by the shade of Abraham Lincoln, but many lonely men have walked these walls up and down, up and down, trying to make the right decisions. And if the doll, young Willie Lincoln, who was 11, went riding on his pony in a chilly rain, and in a matter of hours felt sick of a fever. There was a ball planned for the White House, and Mrs. Lincoln couldn't bring herself to call it off. All night, while the Marine Corps bands bled its music in the East Room, the parents took turns going up to see Willie. The boy lay here for a few days, and the footsteps echoed outside his bedroom door. Yes, Mrs. Eckley. Little boy. Little boy. Little boy. Little boy. He's dead, Mrs. Eckley. Yes, very, very soon. It's the Secretary of War, Mr. Stanton, sir. He wants you to join him at the telegraph office at once. The dispatch from General McClellan. Tell Mr. Stanton to... Tell Mr. Stanton, I'll join him within the hour. First, I must see my son. Mrs. Eckley, would you... Would you help me, please? That is a horrible burden. A victory note. On its telegraph dispatch form, dated the 8th and 2nd, 1865, Mr. Lincoln's pen scrolls in haste and joy. It's at a general grant at Appomattox. Allow me to... ...attend you and all of you. The nation's great food banks. At your kind suggestion, I think I will visit you tomorrow. Plenty of fun. It was the beautiful Mrs. Polk who put in Gaslight. But at the first date reception, the gas supply failed. All that had been lost had not been for Theropo's forethought. She had kept candles in the heat room's giant candelabra. No one was left completely in the dark, and the maritime was had by all of them. Mrs. Benjamin Harrison installed electric lights when she began her campaign to exterminate the notorious White House rat. The current, direct current, was installed by a young mechanic named Ike Hoover, who stayed on at the house for 42 years as Chief Usher. But it was Grover Cleveland who first brightened up the White House's worst white house wedding. The ceremony took place in the blue room. And when the bride, Miss Frank Flower Folsom, arrived. My fears, I wish you could see her in the bridal gown. It's a heavy, old, very heavy ivory satin with a high plain corsage, elbow sleeves, and a very long train. The bodice is bordered with a narrow band of orange flowers and leaves. And the train is at least four yards long. It's rounded ever so slightly rounded. She looks beautiful. The canonical evening suit of black. And it was this president, Grover Cleveland, who, in the depths of the panic of 1893, discovered that he was suffering from a cancer in the roof of his mouth. Rather than further disturb a country in the throes of depression, he put to sea with a team of surgeons and suffered half of his upper jaw to be removed in secrecy on Shepard. The secret was kept for 25 years. The White House is a place of terrible responsibility. And the sound of the White House is this sound. Wilson walked in the Lincoln study on an evening in the spring of 1917. Good evening, Colonel House. Good evening, Mr. President. Sir, I speak to your mind, my friend, always. Speak to your mind. I have heard that you have made up for your mind, sir. I have, Colonel. I shall ask Congress tomorrow to recognize that a state of war exists with Germany. What is your advice? Sir, you know that I support your aims to make nations as well as people's subjects to the moral law. That is my dream, yes. I intend to act in that direction tomorrow. I see you have objections. I scarcely know how to put them. I have spoken honestly with you in the past. You have, my good friend. Let me be utterly honest now. Mr. President, are you fit to conduct a war? I don't know. Of course you don't. You have too much time, too civilized, too intellectual, not to see the utter absurdity of force. To conduct a deepened vigorous, successful war, it means a man of course a fight. I know, I know, yet none of thought must be prepared to become men of action. My friend, let me read you a part of the message I shall deliver to Congress tomorrow. This is what I have written. It is a fearful thing to leave this great peaceful people into war, but the rage is more precious than peace. And we shall fight for the things we have always carried near as our heart. To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortune. Everything that we are and everything that we have, the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is trebly suspend her blood and her might or the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other. The responsibility and penalty of power, like Teddy Roosevelt's young ones, exploring every nook and cranny of a mansion beginning to crumble under the weight of time. Of a mansion beginning to crumble under the weight of years. And the dogs, the white-out dogs, the earlier ones have no names, but most of it remember Mr. Harding's laddie boy and Mr. Coolidge's two colleagues, Rob Roy and Angela Grimm, and of course, the immortal, the ubiquitous Fala. Fala's master was too close to us for words without yesterday that the signal bells announced the president's approach to his office and was stood by the French windows leading out to the Colomade and watched him go by in his armless, cushionless, uncomfortable wheelchair pushed by his negro valid. When Fala came abreast of the wheelchair as it rolled along, the president would reach down and scratch the little dog's neck and we knew that whatever problems that they might bring, this man would find a wing to handle them. But the house was faltering in all its joints, slipping, side-wise and bottom-wise down into the old district swamp. Cluster crumbled, ceilings cracked, and Margaret Truman's piano threatened to descend into the basement kitchen. Presidents from Teddy Roosevelt Hall had noticed the trembling of the old timbers, rigid as they were by countless experiments and improvements. Finally, just yesterday, under Harry Truman, the house was built anew with everything of grace and charm preserved and kept, but with a new foundation of proud stability registered in steel. And today, under the eyes of all the world, the 34th chief executive has come to take his place in the home of presidents. In a time when the storm clouds gather again and with a warning more grim than the past has ever known, Dwight D. Eisenhower, survivor of many storms, and Victor, in the true faith for yours, takes up his enormous burden under a roof that has sheltered much greatness, much sorrow, much joy. America wishes him well. This genuine man with the habit of victory, for him, we re-echo the prayer of John Adams, the prayer carved over the fireplace in the state dining room of the White House. I pray, heaven, to bestow the best of blessings on this house and on all that shall hear after an advocate. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.