We’ve been lucky this winter that the big snow falls have come on weekends, when there is less for it to disrupt. Given DC and its population’s general inability to deal with snow, it would be interesting to see what would happen were the snow to hit at a truly inopportune time. Like, say, the Presidential inauguration.
Fortunately, history helps us out here and the lessons of William Howard Taft’s inauguration on March 4, 1909 can still be found in the newspapers of the time.
In contrast to today, where winter storms are hyped long before the first snow flake appears in the sky, there was no sign of impending doom on the pages of the previous day’s papers. Though it had been cold in the run-up to the inaugural day, the Washington Times, on the evening before the inauguration, reported that the next day’s weather was to be “Clearing, Cooler Tonight. Tomorrow Fair.” Even on the morning of the big day, the Washington Herald had the weather, “Fair and somewhat cooler to-day.”
They could hardly have been more wrong. By the time the inauguration was to begin, the District was blanketed in snow, trains were either running very late or had been canceled, and all avenues of communication to and from the city had been cut off. Only the newfangled telegraph could keep in contact with the rest of the world.
In spite of this, the inauguration and the parade took place – though with some changes. For one, instead of taking his oath of office on the east front of the Capitol, Taft was convinced to move the swearing-in ceremony into the Senate chamber. He at first insisted that everything be carried out as planned, but when Senator Lodge pointed out that it would be cruel to subject the aged Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to the harsh conditions outside, Taft relented.
The Senate was packed for the ceremony, and another 2,000 people swarmed the corridors and other rooms of the Capitol, having failed to get into the Senate chamber. By the time the ceremony was completed, the storm had lessened somewhat, so Taft and Theodore Roosevelt, the outgoing president, were able to travel back to the White House in somewhat greater comfort than the trip to the Capitol.
The lessening storm also allowed the parade to be carried out pretty much as planned. The grandstands, which had been entirely empty earlier, began to fill up and the day ended up working out satisfactorily for all concerned – except, presumably, those who were either stuck on trains that had failed to make it into Union Station or those who had to spend the inauguration day stuck inside Union Station.
The institution who acquitted themselves the best in all of this was the Washington Times. That evening, the Times still managed to print 16 full pages of news, most relating to the inauguration and its problems, but also to finding space to write about the proper way to cook eggs, how graceful foulard dresses are, and how difficult a place DC is to play baseball for teams unaccustomed to its summer heat.
At the other end of the spectrum is the Alexandria Gazette, which had obviously set their newspaper well in advance and, given the changed circumstances, simply changed one line of type, to “took place in the Senate” and left it at that.
