Good morning, it’s Friday, October 31, 2014, only four days until the end of this occasionally creepy election season.
Happy Halloween to you all, although I’m unsure if “happy” is the right modifier for a semi-holiday that glorifies witches, goblins, and ghosts -- and doles out to costumed children sugary confections that will rot their teeth and make their parents even chubbier.
Perhaps that’s too negative. As a kid, I considered Halloween a magical night, just as kids do today, notwithstanding the Library of Congress’ temporal description. "Halloween is now celebrated worldwide and reflects the assimilation of various cultures," it says. "In the 21st century it has become a secular, and hugely commercial holiday."
Well, it may be secular to some, but ghost stories are -- please pardon the pun -- hard to kill. And they don’t all come from Girl Scout campfires or from musty old library books with tales set in the Catskills. Perhaps you didn’t know, but the White House itself is haunted by frightening spirits, and I’m not talking about the specter of midterm election defeats.
I’ll provide evidence in the form of several testimonials in a moment. First, I’d like to direct you to RealClearPolitics’ front page, which aggregates interesting material spanning the ideological spectrum. We also offer an array of original content from RCP’s reporters and contributors, including the following:
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Palin Predicts “Shocker” in Louisiana Senate Race. Scott Conroy reports on the 2008 vice presidential nominee’s assertion that underdog Rob Maness will upset incumbent Mary Landrieu and Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy on Tuesday.
Democrats Lead Republicans in N.C. Early Voting. David Byler has the numbers in the Tar Heel State, along with the absentee vote tally thus far in Iowa.
Study: Poll Results Can Sway Voters on Some Issues. Adam O’Neal has the details.
Nuclear Energy: The Once and Future Power Source. In the final part of this week’s series on energy innovation and the American economy, Brandon Ott tracks the rise and fall and rise of this generating system.
Halloween Is Sweet for U.S. Sugar Moguls. In RealClearMarkets, Veronique de Rugy and Andrea Castillo assail protectionist tariffs on imported sugar, federal loan guarantees, and government-planned production quotas that have driven up prices.
The Great Condom Hypocrisy. In RealClearScience, Ross Pomeroy writes that venereal disease statistics suggest parents of teens should attend sex education classes too.
Cardinal Newman at the Synod. In RealClearReligion, Fr. Robert Barron advises those troubled by controversies emanating from the recent meeting of bishops to read the 19th century churchman, who understood much about the evolution of doctrine.
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First lady Mary Todd Lincoln hosted séances both in the White House and the presidential cottage located at the Soldiers’ Home in Washington. In her grief over the loss of the Lincolns’ beloved 11-year-old son, Willie, she turned to spiritualism, which was a common way Civil War families coped with the loss of so many loved ones.
Mrs. Lincoln once related a vision that came to her: the specter of Andrew Jackson stomping around the White House and swearing, meaning that Old Hickory’s ghost was very much in character.
According to archivists at the White House Historical Association, Jeremiah Smith, a longtime member of the White House domestic staff starting with the Grant administration, began regaling visitors with ghost stories. Mr. Smith seems to have been a gifted storyteller, and some of those on the receiving end of his eerie tales were White House correspondents who “could always count on Smith on a slow news day.”
He apparently claimed to have seen Lincoln’s ghost and, later, the ghosts of Ulysses Grant, William McKinley, and several first ladies.
Fittingly, other Grant administration staffers reported seeing the ghost of Willie Lincoln. Perhaps channeling Mrs. Lincoln, Grace Coolidge claimed that Abraham Lincoln’s spirit appeared to her. Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands once fainted when she reportedly saw Lincoln’s ghost. Winston Churchill didn’t faint -- which is a good thing because he was naked except for the cigar he was smoking -- when he came out of a White House bathtub and encountered Lincoln. Churchill would never again consent to sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom.
The first time the White House was actually decked out in Halloween regalia was in the 1950s, at the behest of Mamie Eisenhower. The Kennedy children were later decked out in trick-or-treat costumes, and every first family since has paid attention to Halloween to one degree or another.
Ronald Reagan, with his theatrical background, went further: He told a White House ghost story himself.
It happened at a 1986 State Dinner in honor of Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. Joan Gage, who later related this story in Ladies Home Journal, was seated at the president’s table along with Chicago Bears' running back Walter Payton; the prime minister's wife, Mila Mulroney; Burl Osborne, the editor of the Dallas Morning News; Pat Buckley, wife of William Buckley; and others.
“According to the president, Rex, the King Charles Cavalier spaniel who had recently replaced Lucky as First Dog, had twice barked frantically in the Lincoln Bedroom and then backed out and refused to set foot over the threshold,” she wrote. “Another evening, while the Reagans were watching TV in their room, Rex stood up on his hind legs, pointed his nose at the ceiling and began barking at something invisible overhead. To their amazement, the dog walked around the room, barking at the ceiling.”
Rats in the walls, I would think, the White House being an old urban dwelling. But no.
“I started thinking about it,” Reagan continued, “and I began to wonder if the dog was responding to an electric signal too high-pitched for human ears, perhaps beamed toward the White House by a foreign embassy. I asked my staff to look into it.”
The president then laughed, Gage recalled, before adding, “I might as well tell you the rest.”
According to Reagan, his daughter Maureen and her husband always stayed in the Lincoln Bedroom when they visited the White House. As Joan Gage wrote:
"Some time ago the husband woke up and saw a transparent figure standing at the bedroom window looking out. Then it turned and disappeared. His wife teased him mercilessly about it for a month. Then, when they were here recently, she woke up one morning and saw the same figure standing at the window looking out. She could see the trees right through it. Again it turned and disappeared.”
Was it Abe?
Carl M. Cannon
Washington Bureau Chief
RealClearPolitics
Twitter: @CarlCannon
