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Show Things I Never Knew About the White House: Truly a product of the meltkig pot is the White House . . . Charles Pierre L'Enfant, a Frenchman, chose the site . . . James Hoban, a Dublin Irishman, designed and built it . . . Whites and Negroes representing repre-senting 11 different countries had a hand in its construction. It cost the gov't Just $50, the price of a gold medal, to have the White House designed . . . Congress sponsored spon-sored a national contest for the design. de-sign. Hoban won it . . . The prize was either the $50 medal or $500 to cash. Hoban patriotically chose the medal ... In his 42 years of subsequent subse-quent work in Washington, Hoban never designed another building. No one today can tell where the cornerstone of the White House is I placed. Successive layers of white I paint, from which the mansion gets ' its name, have effectively concealed it from sight and knowledge . . . Part of the money for building it came from lotteries. George Washington, who helped supervise the construction of the White House until the week of his death, always referred to it as the Federal Palace or Mansion . . . With typical modesty, which should be a lesson to some of the politicians of our day, he never called the city of Washington by that name ... To him, whether in public or private, Washington was always the Federal City. The sit-down strike is neither new ner novel ... It was tried way back in 1800 by the crews working on the White House. They were ordered to move out of the shacks on the White House grounds in which many lived with their families, so these unsightly unsight-ly structures could be razed . . . They refused because they had no-, where to move and staged the first sitdown strike in protest. Diplomats now consider Washington Wash-ington the prize post ... It wasn't so In the old days. Wash- , ington and particularly the site ' of the White House were considered con-sidered so unhealthy the British gov't decreed its representatives should be awarded additional pay for serving there ... It did not become the White House officially of-ficially until Theodore Roosevelt moved In. He ordered that simple sim-ple name engraved on his official letterheads after It had been almost al-most completely rebuilt. The White House staff has never been known U betray an important secret . . . Weedrew Wilson, whese life Is being dramatized dram-atized en the screen by Darry F. Zanuck under the title, "Wilson," "Wil-son," Inadvertently made known his decision to declare war on Germany to at least two members mem-bers of the White House staff, hilt tint n. 1 , . . . - "wiu icskcu oui in an-vance an-vance of the official declaration . . . Some members f the staff also knew of his plans to wed Edith Boiling Gait well in advance ad-vance of the event but kept the secret well. Gruff old Andrew Carnegie during his lifetime saw to it that the White House had plenty of Scotch, no matter mat-ter who was President . . . He'd order it in kegs from Scotland and have it sent directly to Washington and the Chief Executive with his compliments . . . President Wilson, however, refused to accept the scotch, and Carnegie discontinued the practice. Andrew Jackson, for sentimental reasons, turned the White House around by putting the formal en-trance en-trance on the north side, facing Pennsylvania Avenue. He wanted to save his goed friend, E P Blair orne steps Blair had built his house on the opposite side of the afr636151' Jackson reciprocated by putting the entrance that much closer for" rfis boon friend. The busi t phone (n th m the Pr'nt's . . . Thech.efusher gets ca Is because of the innumerable duties and functions which fall 2 hm . . . Petty pilferings are .n I,6 U'hilC Hous than n any .ther official building in the werld . . . Individuals hteh SekteS,SP0Tandf0rkSf0r uvenirs . . Lesser fry will ; the same p " . pose, even to snipping , ta ' from draperies r cutting out Pieces nf . "s oul irom chairs. if?"sifts nt to the empt o the chief Sulivife -eiSec1- ceshaveSrCr-"act ceshaveSrCr-"act cally a livi e House ' -tly rSS th" -Papers as Z |