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newspaper wrapper.
She could never forget the wartime days when paper cost half a dollar a pound.
Nor were people content with writing: they came singly, in pairs, in groups, to proffer requests, to pay respects, to ask counsel.
The only people she met unwillingly were those who came to bewail their lot and demand her sympathy.
No one will ever know the number of her benefactions.
They were mostly, of necessity, small, yet we must think they went a long way. At the New England Woman's Club, whenever a good new cause came up, she would say, “I will start the subscription with a dollar!”
Many noble and enduring things began with the “President's dollar.”
If she had had a hundred dollars to give, it would have been joyfully given: if she had had but ten cents, it would not have been withheld.
She had none of the false pride which shrinks from giving a small sum.
Beggars and tramps were tenderly dealt with.
A discharged criminal in particular must never be refused help.
Work must be found for him if possible; if not, it is to be feared that he got a dollar, “to help him find work” !
“January 10. At 11.30 received message from New York World that it would pay for an article sent at once on ‘Gambling among Society People.’
Wrote this in a little more than an hour.”
“January 20.... Some little agitation about my appearance at the Artists' Festival to-night, as one of the patronesses.
I had already a white woollen dress quite suitable for the prescribed costume.
Some benevolent ”
Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston and New York. 1916.
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