Inaugural Do's and Don'ts

• Share

You're a Republican party planner, and this looks like a tough one. You've got hundreds of thousands of people descending on Washington, D.C., for the inauguration, the big donors are all wanting tickets to the right balls, the kids from the high school marching bands need to be chaperoned, the surly Democrats keep making snide comments, and the Republicans on your staff won't stop celebrating long enough to get any actual planning done. It's a recipe for disaster, and one that has in the past yielded quite a few debacles.

What to do? Start with TIME.com's handy guide to the do's and don'ts of planning an inauguration:

1. Consider having the thing indoors: Or better yet, in Miami. Holding the inauguration in the middle of winter in Washington, D.C., is not only stupid, it's dangerous. Exhibit A: William Henry Harrison, who gave an exceedingly long speech in exceedingly frigid weather, caught a bad cold and was dead a month later. At the very least, remember to bring a lot of space heaters.

2. Always have plenty of food: It's the most elemental rule of catering, and it's amazing how often it gets ignored. Like, for instance, Zachary Taylor (he was the guy who came after James K. Polk — you remember him, right? — and is easily distinguishable from Andrew Jackson by remembering this: Andrew Jackson was called "Old Hickory." Zachary Taylor was called "Old Rough and Ready.") In any event, a near-riot broke out at his inaugural ball as people tore into dinner "as if these people hadn't eaten for days," according to one astonished foreign observer.

3. Also keep plenty of dirty dish towels on hand: One quick-thinking cook at U. S. Grant's first inaugural ball stopped a hungry mob looking for more food from stampeding into the kitchen by throwing dirty dish towels on their nicely pressed suits and ball gowns.

4. In fact, maybe consider not inviting anybody at all: Yes, the White House is the People's House, but, as Andy Jackson could tell you, sometimes the people can be a real pain in the ass. Like, for instance, at Jackson's first inauguration, when thousands of drunken but well-meaning men surged through the White House, tracking mud everywhere, breaking the china, and in general displaying a rather shocking lack of manners, up to and including nearly crushing the new president in their eagerness to congratulate him. Jackson, who was still mourning the sudden death of his wife a few months before, was not amused; he escaped out a side window and rode to a nearby boarding house to spend the night. Back at the White House, staffers had to resort to that old Beltway trick of hauling tubs of punch out on the lawn to lure the mob outside.

5. Don't forget the booze: Grant's first inaugural ball was also dry, which turned out to be a mistake because the people only had food to distract them, which led to 3.

6. For God's sake, don't serve the booze: See, for instance, 4.

7. Don't forget the coat check: At Grant's first inaugural ball there was a huge crush of people trying to get their coats all at once (maybe because there a) wasn't any booze and b) wasn't enough food (how that guy ever organized an army is a mystery to me). Ladies fainted, and a grumpy Horace Greeley stormed out after waiting an hour and a half for his hat and coat.

8. Keep it simple: George Washington's second inaugural speech came in at a trim 135 words, and what's good enough for the Father of Our Country should be good enough for everyone else. Remember that Harrison's speech, at 8,445 words, was the longest ever, and we all know what happened to him.

9. In fact, maybe don't say anything at all: Taylor (him again!) caused surprise and dismay in his inaugural address by saying that "California and Arizona [were] too distant to become members of the Union and [that] it would be better for them to be an independent government."

10. Keep your eyes on the prize: Finally, for Hillary Clinton, some words to ponder. As Benjamin Harrison rode to his inauguration in 1889, outgoing first lady Frances Folsom Cleveland was addressing her staff: "I want to find everything just as it is now when we come back again. We are coming back four years from today." And four years later, after Grover Cleveland won the presidency for the second time, she did.