A great many special arrangements are necessary for a New Year’s Reception at the White House. For every state occasion or any large function there are always many extra footmen, policemen, guards, waiters, cloak room attendants and ushers on hand, but on New Year’s Day the array of them would be most imposing if they were not almost lost in the midst of a thronging populace. All the people who come to these receptions do not pass the receiving line. Many of them find points of vantage in the vicinity merely to look on, and yet the President shakes hands with from six to eight thousand of them before the gates are closed. I have seen the line of waiting people stretching out through the spacious grounds, down the street, around a corner and out of sight at a time when I had already given up in utter exhaustion. And the way the carriages come and go in perfect order, without a hitch, each coachman with his card of a particular colour telling him just where to make his exit, was a thing I never could understand.

The corps of aides arrange all these details and each department, including the police and the secret service, has its printed and explicit orders for the day a long time ahead. Some of the police orders are interesting. For instance: “No person under the influence of liquor, disorderly in his behaviour or bearing any advertisement will be allowed in line. Conspicuously dirty persons will not be admitted.” Also: “Except in the most aggravated case a coachman will not be taken from his box and put under arrest. It will be sufficient to take his name and address and arrest him on the following morning.”