| Show tele 60 hone T races white house H astor y president hayes ha y e had ri a d first phone in executive mansion by BAUKHAGE news analyst and commentator washington recently the president turned down a very flossy television set because he already had one it was installed in the white house last january in time for mr tru man to see the installation of the new republican congress however I 1 imagine this innovation caused nowhere near the flurry among the white house staff that ensued on that day in 1878 when the first telephone instrument was put in that was in the administration of off rutherford B hayes of ohio the president and that was the year in which the democrats who already had control of the house acquired control in the senate as well however the opposition when it became the majority made blunder after blunder mr hayes continued his administration with a quiet if perhaps somewhat monotonous dig anity until he was succeeded by an other republican president gar field I 1 doubt if the even tenor of mr hayes existence was frequently disturbed by the ringing of the i telephone bell or much of any thing else for that matter very few resi dences or places of business pos hessed phones then further more the tele phone was by no means accepted as a means of communication baukhage for presidents or their entourages in those days in any case the white house managed to limp along on one phone until the end of pres dent cleveland a administration by the time pres dent mckinley entered the white house all gov offices had phones and they were accepted as every day necessities but they were not an important element in the handling of white house business when teddy roosevelt came in despite his strenuous activities and what was considered then a some what revolutionary revolutionary outlook he made very little use of the tele phone himself then along came franklin roose velt and the new deal a part of off which was a five position branch exchange with more than off cial extensions and 20 outside trunk connections to handle the calls white house calling became a by word then also came the first woman telephone operator and probably the most efficient of either sex that the white house ever had or will have in many a day louise hach hackie is probably fa known to more famous users of the telephone than any other operator in history her gen ius lus in being able to locate people anywhere in the world has been the subject of many a story louis lotus howe who introduced her to the president while she was working at friends of roosevelt headquarters c called ailed her the world a greatest telephone detective because he said she doesn doean t need a number to get her man once she located cornelius van jr with no other clue than that thit he was motoring east from california I 1 don t know how many long distance calls a day she put in at the peak ot of the war but I 1 do know that the number of long distance calls out of washington jumped from approximately a day in 1939 to well over 48 in 1945 today they have dropped back to a little over 44 it Is fair to as sume that the white house calls have followed the same curve under the nimble fingered direction of hackie even by 1935 it took five operators in shifts to handle the white house calls at that time miss hachmeister was the first and only woman to operate a white house switchboard president truman tuman uses the tele phone a good deal he has so many friends on capitol hill anat r OP I 1 LOUISE hachmeister doesn doean I 1 need a number his voice ts is almost as familiar over those branch lines as it was when he was a senator himself I 1 don t know how much run he gets out of the television set his bowling alley is pretty dusty and the dirt doesn doean t often fly on his horseshoe pitching court or what ever the technical name of that arena is As to the video it can t be half the novelty to him that the old fashioned telephone instrument was to president hayes |
