A Truly Awkward Etiquette Dilemma

The photo was found on the body of John Wilkes Booth after he was killed by pursuing Federal troops in April of 1865. The public domain image is of Lucy Hale, the daughter of U.S. Senator John P. Hale and the secret fiancee of John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of U.S. Pres. Abraham Lincoln in 1865. By 1882, she was the wife of William Chandler, Secretary of the Navy.

    

Etiquette at the Capital

The appointment of Mr. Chandler to the naval portfolio has developed an interesting phase of Washington social life, which set gossips agog with speculation. It will be remembered that when J. Wilkes Booth was shot, the picture of a beautiful young lady, a reigning society belle, was found on his person. The origin of this portrait was recognized in the person of Miss Hale, the daughter of a leading politician and statesman, and a lady of whom Booth had become deeply and seriously enamored. 

What encouragement he had received was not precisely known, but there was enough between them to form the basis of a good many romances, which afterward appeared in the public press. Miss Hale afterward became Mrs. Chandler, and is now the wife of the Secretary of the Navy. The same whirligig of time which has brought this about has also made the then young son of the martyred Lincoln, Secretary of War. 

It now appears that, according to etiquette, it is the duty of the Secretary of War to escort the wife of his confrère in rank to dinner. On state occasions he must take the wife of the Secretary of the Navy. Secretary Lincoln, in short, must escort the one-time sweetheart of the assassin of his distinguished father, therefore society is shocked. – San Jose Mercury-News, April 1882

🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

“Social Precedence” Becomes Fad

Even though the new country had thrown off the yoke of the British monarchy fewer than 130 years earlier, by the Edwardian era and Edward VII’s reign, many Americans were not only enthralled by the British aristocratic class system and monarchy, but marrying into it in large numbers.

A 2nd Look at the Growth of Monarchical Customs at the Nation's Capital

Other parts of the country may be amused by the wrangling and heart-burnings incident to the coronation of King Edward, but Washington follows them with serious and sympathetic interest. Only a few Americans have any idea of the rigid system of etiquette which has grown up at the national capital. 

The other day a high officer of the government said: “My daughter went to lunch with the daughter of Secretary yesterday. She did not come home until long after she was expected, and her mother asked her what was the matter. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘Secretary’s daughter was there, and none of us could go until she left, and we thought she never would go.’ And I find that precedent is carried out in the strictest possible way all through Washington society in all of its sets, down to the very children.”

If there are any persons in official life in Washington who do not attach importance to precedence, do not resent being seated out of rank at table or in other ways given less than their exact official amount of deference, these persons keep extremely quiet. In Washington one ceases to be surprised at hearing of persons of national reputations complaining fiercely because they have been to some trivial slight in this matter of precedence. It irritates a cabinet officer to be put a shade out of his rank just as much as it irritates a congressman from nowhere or a government clerk.

Precedence is killing Washington as a place of residence. It is destroying its chief charm. If one thinks of going there to live it is because he expects to have the opportunity to meet in the easy circumstances of social intercourse people who are interesting or amusing or curious. That social intercourse is becoming practically impossible. No one giving any sort of entertainment, however informal, dares to arrange his or her guests according to congeniality. The same people must always be put next to each other. The same man must take the same woman into dinner. The same youth must dance with the same girl. And as official life expands the blight of precedence spreads.

It is difficult for an outsider to listen without laughing or showing irritation, as the Washingtonians discuss precedence and relate incidents of national and international catastrophes almost brought about by violations of it. But as some of the persons who most strenuously insist upon it are otherwise high above the human average, it would be well, before utterly condemning the Washingtonians, to reflect whether the craze for precedence is not a universal human weakness, latent– happily latent – in most of us because it has no chance to show itself.

However, if Washington is to be saved as a residence city, some scheme must be devised where under precedence and its complications and its depressing influences shall be confined to formal international functions for the diplomatists, who are primarily responsible for the present state of affairs.- New York Times, 1902

 🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia