"
The "people" still ruled. Yet it was only the public receptions that
presented such scenes of disorder. The dinners which the President
occasionally gave were well appointed. A Philadelphia gentleman who
was once invited to the White House with two or three friends
testifies that "the dinner was very neat and served in excellent
taste, while the wines were of the choicest qualities. The President
himself dined on the simplest fare: bread, milk, and vegetables."
Jackson was never a rich man, and throughout his stay in the White
House he found it no easy matter to make ends meet. He entertained his
personal friends and official guests royally. He lavished hospitality
upon the general public, sometimes spending as much as a thousand or
fifteen hundred dollars on a single levee. He drew a sharp line
between personal and public expenditures, and met out of his own
pocket outlays that under administrations both before and after were
charged to the public account. He loaned many thousands of dollars, in
small amounts, to needy friends, to old comrades in arms, and
especially to widows and orphans of his soldiery and of his political
supporters; and a large proportion of these debts he not only never
collected but actually forgot.
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