In the official statement marking the death of Alice Roosevelt Longworth, President Jimmy Carter observed, “She had style, she had grace, and she had a sense of humor that kept generations of political newcomers to Washington wondering which was worse – to be skewered by her wit or to be ignored by her.”
Just listen.
- When her father was governor of New York, he and her stepmother planned to send her to a conservative school for girls in New York City. Curtly, Alice responded, “If you send me, I will humiliate you. I will do something that will shame you. I tell you I will.”
- When her father became president after the 1901 assassination of William McKinley in Buffalo, she greeted the event with “sheer rapture.”
- She later said of her father, “He wants to be the bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral, and the baby at every christening.”
- When a prominent Washington senator was discovered having an affair with a young woman less than half his age, Alice quipped, “You can’t make a souffle rise twice.”
- Most famously, “If you haven’t got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me.” She had that one embroidered on a pillow kept in her living room.
- On Calvin Coolidge: “He sprang from the grass roots of the country clubs of America.”
- Another quick character sketch: “He looks as though he’s been weaned on a pickle.”
- And one more: “Never trust a man who combs his hair straight from his left armpit.”
- As for Washington, D.C: “A town of successful men and the women they married before they were successful.”
- Through it all: “I’ve always believed that if you’ve got a good sense of humor, you can get through anything.”
Do note, her father was quoted: “I can either run the country or I can attend to Alice, but I cannot possibly do both.”
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