2004-5-2
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VOICE ONE:
Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA, in VOA Special English. I'm Faith
Lapidus.
VOICE TWO:
And I'm Doug Johnson. This week, go inside the house that
presidents have called home for more than two hundred years.
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VOICE ONE:
America's first president supervised the building of the White
House. Yet George Washington and his wife, Martha, never had the
chance to live there. It was completed after he left office in
seventeen-ninety-seven. Since then, America has had forty-two other
presidents. All of them have lived at sixteen-hundred Pennsylvania
Avenue Northwest, in Washington, D.C. This November, Americans will
decide who lives in the White House for the next four years.
President Bush and his wife, Laura, know their way around the place
already.
If John Kerry is elected, he and his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry,
would meet with White House employees after the election. An
official would walk the Kerrys through the house. They would move in
on Inauguration Day next January twentieth.
VOICE TWO:
The White House has more than one-hundred-thirty rooms. It also
has collections of more than forty-thousand objects. Presidential
families often find things in storage that they like when they move
in. Two of the Carter children, for example, found a chair among the
unused furniture in the White House. Jimmy Carter served from
nineteen-seventy-seven to nineteen-eighty-one. He was the
thirty-ninth president. The chair belonged to the sixteenth
president, Abraham Lincoln. His wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, had bought
the chair. The Carters made it part of their home.
Wives of presidents have all added to the White House in some
way. Jacqueline Kennedy, for example, created a colorful garden. It
is named in her honor.
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VOICE ONE:
George Washington had great hopes for the home he started.
Washington entered office in seventeen-eighty-nine. In
seventeen-ninety, he signed an act of Congress. It said the federal
government would occupy an area in the District of Columbia near the
Potomac River. President Washington and the French city planner
Pierre L'Enfant chose the land for the new presidential home.
VOICE TWO:
A competition took place to find a designer. An architect named
James Hoban won five-hundred dollars and a piece of land for his
design. Hoban was an immigrant from Ireland. He chose a design
similar to Leinster House in Dublin, where the Irish Parliament now
meets. Grayish white sandstone was chosen for the walls of the new
home of the president. Work started in seventeen-ninety-two. George
Washington lived in Philadelphia during this time but watched over
the work.
America's second president, John Adams, and his wife, Abigail,
were the first to live in the new home. They moved in on November
first, eighteen-hundred. The home was not yet finished. John and
Abigail Adams lived in six rooms and used others to entertain
guests. But they lived there for only four months.
VOICE ONE:
John Adams lost re-election to Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson tried
to finish work on the home. So did James Madison, the next
president. But, in eighteen-fourteen, British forces invaded
Washington. They burned the White House. Dolley Madison, the
president's wife, tried to save valuable objects from the fire. She
saved a painting of George Washington. She took it with her as she
fled for safety. This famous painting by Gilbert Stuart hangs in the
White House to this day. After the fire, James Hoban came back to
help rebuild the house he had designed. During this time, it was
painted white.
Over the years the White House has been enlarged and almost
totally rebuilt. In nineteen-sixty-one, Congress decided that
furniture of historic and artistic value would always be White House
property. In effect, Congress made the White House a museum.
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VOICE TWO:
As visitors enter the White House, they see pictures of past
presidents on the walls. Among them is Franklin Roosevelt, the
thirty-second president. Roosevelt led the nation through the end of
the great economic depression and World War Two. He was elected four
times, more than any other president. He died in office. Today, the
Constitution limits president to two terms.
In another hall on the first floor are paintings of first ladies.
In one painting, Nancy Reagan wears a beautiful red dress. She looks
like the Hollywood movie actress she once was. Her husband, Ronald
Reagan, also was an actor. Later he became the governor of
California and, later still, the fortieth president of the United
States. Another room off this hallway contains a collection of fine
dishes made of china. Each president has added to this collection.
VOICE ONE:
Wide marble steps lead to the next
floor. It is called the State Floor. Presidents use rooms here for
official duties and to entertain guests. The largest room on the
State Floor is the East Room. News conferences and music
performances take place here. But this room has had other uses over
the years. The daughter of John F. Kennedy, the thirty-fifth
president, rode her tricycle in the East Room. Abigail Adams hung
her family's clothes to dry from the wash.
Other rooms on the State Floor are named for their colors: the
Blue Room, the Green Room and the Red Room. The president meets with
diplomats and other guests in these rooms.
VOICE TWO:
Nearby is the State Dining Room.
This is where official state dinners take place. Important visitors
sit with the president or first lady, or at tables with the
secretary of state or other officials.
Another room is the Treaty Room on the second floor. This is used
for meetings. Important documents have been signed there. At
different times, this was the cabinet room or the president's
office.
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VOICE ONE:
The third floor of the White House contains bedrooms for guests.
One of these is called the Lincoln Bedroom. Abraham Lincoln led the
country through the Civil War in the eighteen-sixties. He freed the
slaves in the South.
No story about a famous house would be complete without a ghost
story. Lincoln was killed soon after the fighting ended. A supporter
of the defeated South shot him at Ford's Theater in Washington. But
some say the ghost of Lincoln walks around the White House at night.
VOICE TWO:
The White House has an East Wing and a West Wing. In the West
Wing is the Oval Office. This is the large rounded office where the
president works. Rooms in the East Wing offer private living space
for the president and his family. The home of the vice president is
on the grounds of the Naval Observatory in Washington.
President Carter's wife Rosalynn described the family area in the
White House as surprisingly small. Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of
Bill Clinton, the forty-second president, had a favorite room in
this area. It was the sunroom.
VOICE ONE:
One day, during World War Two, a local woman stopped at the White
House. She asked to meet Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of Franklin
Delano Roosevelt. An aide to Missus Roosevelt was going to tell the
visitor that the first lady was busy. But the young woman said her
husband was fighting overseas.
Eleanor Roosevelt heard this and invited her to come in. She
served tea and told her visitor that she, too, had loved ones
fighting overseas.
It seems hard to imagine such a visit today. In fact, the White
House was closed to visitors after the terrorist attacks on the
United States on September eleventh, two-thousand-one. Now, groups
can take tours of the White House. But they must organize them
through a member of Congress.
The White House also offers an online tour at its Web site. The
address is whitehouse.gov. Again, that address is whitehouse.gov.
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VOICE TWO:
Our program was written by Jerilyn Watson and produced by Caty
Weaver. I'm Doug Johnson.
VOICE ONE:
And I'm Faith Lapidus.. Join us again next week for THIS IS
AMERICA, in VOA Special English.