They were coming back from the mass meeting at the [Armory] in Chicago -– Jane Addams and Theodore Roosevelt, then Vice President of the United States. Several thousand people had been present, the bulk of them immigrants who had received their second papers and were thereby entitled to their first vote during the year. The meeting was held under the auspices of the Union League Club. During Roosevelt’s speech there was the wildest enthusiasm. In the midst of the excitement, and shortly after Miss Addams herself had spoken, her hat could not be found.
“It had most likely been trampled into an indistinguishable mass by the dense crowd of men,” said Miss Addams, “accordingly I had to go without it. As we came back in an open motor Colonel Roosevelt insisted upon riding without a hat, too, in order to make me more comfortable in my hatless state.”
By the time the party reached Hull House a messenger from the Union League Club was there -- with a check for Miss Addams. The check was for fifty dollars as reimbursement to Miss Addams for her loss and to buy a new hat! Miss Addams showed the check to Colonel Roosevelt and he chuckled.
“The hat cost me only ten dollars when it was new,” Miss Addams said, “and it was already two years old!”
She returned the check with her explanation.
The newspaper then took up the incident …. what admirable economy! …. A hat costing so little to [last] so long!
The incident became one of the “side-show features” of Roosevelt’s Chicago visit and he was very much entertained by it, especially when finally the milliners rose in a body, and in their alarm saw in the circumstances a warning …. no wonder…. “a woman so careless in securing a hat,” said Miss Addams, “had never been able to secure a husband!”
Comments