The wayback machine

Finished the Ike Hoover memoir--great fun despite its jumble of information. I was fairly shocked to find lists of who was generous and who not, and who was a ladies man and who not. Harding, as it turns out, "was a sporting ladies man." Who knew?

Now I'm deep into Inside History of the White House, a gem from the good people at the Christian Herald in 1908. As you might imagine from such a source, the book spends a fair amount of ink on how each president worshipped, but mostly spends its time explaining how absolutely marvelous every president was.

One interesting point—given that I just learned that Ike Hoover wired the White House for electricity—is that the wiring of the White House was done badly. Holes were drilled thru timbers and wires run thru without porcelain or iron piping. In the 1902 renovation, many of the holes were found to be scorched from short circuits from frayed wiring.