124 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • DECEMBER 2021
ALICE ROOSEVELT LONGWORTH
THE ORIGINAL “IT GIRL”
BY ANNIE WILKINSON
When Theodore Roosevelt became
president of the United States in 1901, it
brought his teenage daughter Alice Lee
Roosevelt instant celebrity. Ignoring
tradition, she cavorted until the wee
hours, had aff airs, placed bets with
bookies, and pestered her father in
the Oval Offi ce. She was also politically
infl uential and cultivated friendships
with Richard Nixon and Bobby Kennedy.
She behaved scandalously — to the
public’s delight.
JOY AND CONFLICT
ATSAGAMORE
As a youth, Theodore “T.R.” Roosevelt
had summered in and around Cove
Neck on Long Island’s fashionable
North Shore. Later, he was an assemblyman
who returned to Oyster Bay
with his bride, socialite Alice Hathaway
Lee, honeymooning at Tranquility, the
family rental.
When she became pregnant in 1883,
the well-to-do couple joyously planned
for a large family and bought 155 acres
of land nearby for a large home. He
named the property Sagamore Hill, for
the Native American chief Sagamore
Mohannis who had lived there in the
17th century.
Lee died two days aft er giving birth
to their daughter, Alice Lee Roosevelt,
in 1884. Grieving the loss of his wife
and of his mother, who died the same
day, he fled to his Dakota Country
cattle ranch. “Baby Lee,” as the infant
was called, spent her infancy without
parents at Sagamore Hill, cared for by
her aunt until 1887. When T.R. moved
back there with his second wife, who
had been a romantic rival of his fi rst
wife, sparks fl ew.
Young Alice was an obstreperous
tomboy, the opinionated outsider in
the nursery who clashed with her prim
stepmother and jostled for attention
with the children T.R. had with his
second wife.
T.R. never mentioned his dead wife. He
ripped pages about her from this diary,
burned most of their love letters, and
destroyed photos.
GREAT BEAUTY AND
BITING WIT
Sagamore Hill became the president’s
summer White House, although the
family had homes in Washington, D.C.,
and Manhattan. Politicians and dignitaries
frequented the home, impressing
his 17-year-old daughter.
What to do wit this rambunctious, outspoken
adolescent? The writer Owen
Wister commented on her frequent
interruptions at the Oval Offi ce to off er
political advice. T.R. replied, “I can do
one of two things, I can be president of
the United States, or I can attend to Alice.
I cannot possibly do both!”
Idolizing her father, Alice “used the adulation
of the public … as a sort of a stand-in
for what she couldn't get from her father,”
biographer Stacy A. Cordery told NPR.
Alice became “a female caricature of
her father’s most criticized traits — impetuosity,
stubbornness, insensitivity,”
according to Cordery.
Alice was a great beauty, a glamorous
hostess, and a political wild child. The
press had a fi eld day with this “it girl”
who was decades ahead of her time.
At her social debut, her gown was
blue — not the de regeur white of the
day. “Alice Blue” was all the rage, even
inspiring a 1919 stage musical song, and
she continued to set fashion trends.
She smoked cigarettes on the White
House roof — despite the 1908 law banning
women from smoking in public.
She placed horse-racing bets with bookies,
rode in cars with men, attended
late-night parties unescorted, and wore
her pet snake, Emily Spinach, wrapped
around one arm. She said her “major
preoccupation was to have a good time.”
She also exhibited political savvy, loving
“the spectacle, drama and intrigue of
politics,” writes author Bryan Cranston.
While living in Washington, D.C., she
was dubbed “the other Washington
Monument” because of her political
involvement. In 1905, her father sent her to
accompany members of the House of Representatives
on a mission to the Far East.
Despite her stunt — jumping fully clothed
into an ocean liner’s swimming pool with
a congressman during the voyage — the
president negotiated a settlement which
won him the Nobel Peace Prize.
In 1906 she married Ohio Rep. Nicholas
Longworth. The marriage was shaky,
with both having aff airs. In 1925, her
only child, Paulina, was fathered by
Sen. William Edgar Borah, according
to time.com.
After her father died in 1919, she
criticized President Franklin D.
Roosevelt in her syndicated column
for his efforts to combat the Great
Depression. She held court for more
than half a century at her Dupont
Circle Washington, D.C., home, which
became a magnet where views were
expressed and policies cemented by
leaders in the scientifi c, literary, and
diplomatic communities. She developed
friendships with the Kennedys,
the Nixons, and the Johnsons. She
famously had a pillow in her salon that
read, “If you can’t say something good
about someone, sit right here by me.”
“ALL ROOSEVELTS ARE
EXHIBITIONISTS”
Her many one-liners are oft en quoted:
She described the public as “the great
rancid masses,” and noted that “the
secret of eternal youth is arrested development.”
At age 90, she told Washington
Post journalist Sally Quinn, "I must say,
I'm always on stage. All Roosevelts are
exhibitionists.”
A quote recorded by Michael Teague
captured her opinion of herself. ''I
valued my independence from an
early age and was always something
of an individualist,'' she said. ''Well, a
show-off anyway.’'
Alice Lee Roosevelt Longworth died in
1980 at age 96.
REAR VIEW
ALICE LEE ROOSEVELT (COURTESY National Park Service)
She said her
“major preoccupation
was to have
a good time.”
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/time.com
