Presidential Smoking

So, on second thought, I thought it'd be fun to set down head usher Hoover's observations on the smoking habits of the presidents he knew -- especially given how presidents today have to hide that they smoke at all, ever.

Here's the quote:

SMOKING HABITS

   Harding was the only President I ever saw who smoked cigarettes. He also smoked pipe and cigars, and chewed tobacco moderately. Cleveland chewed tobacco, but never smoked.* Harrison smoked a little. McKinley had a passion for cigars and was perhaps the most intense smoker of all the Presidents during my time. One never saw him without a cigar in his mouth except at meals or when asleep. Neither Roosevelt** nor Wilson ever smoked or chewed. Taft smoked when he came to the White House, but stopped soon after and never took up the habit again. Coolidge smoked moderately, occasionally a pipe, but more often the best quality of Havana cigars, which were always given to him. He used a one-cent cigar-holder on a fifty-cent or seventy-five-cent cigar. Hoover smoked incessantly. The bigger and the stronger, the better he liked them, but they must always be a good brand. With the burdens of office he increased his smoking.

   The only First Lady whom I have known to smoke was Mrs. Coolidge, and she never did so in public.

--Ike Hoover, 42 YEARS, p. 290

Times change: I find it hard to imagine a president today chewing tobacco. Another fact our author mentions in passing that's hard to get my head around is that the first bathtub was installed in the White House during Arthur's administration -- i.e. in the 1880s, before even Ike Hoover's time, though not by much. Before that I guess folks just did without or let a washcloth suffice.

Sometimes change really is progress.

--John R.



*I can't but wonder if this had any cause/effect relation with his cancer in the roof of his mouth, for which he was secretly operated on while in office.

**again, remember that this is TR, not FDR, who was famous for his cigarette holder.