Text of THE HISTORY OF THE HARRIET LANE HOME Presented by Dr. Edw-ards A. Park, May 14, 1964 Dr. Edwards A. Park has been associated with Johns Hopkins the home. Other departments were lured into the pediatric for more than half his lifetime. A graduate of Yale and Co­ circle, not as consultants but as collaborators. . . . Special lumbia's College of Physicians and Surgeons, he accepted clinics were inaugurated so that the patients would receive newly-appointed director John Howland's invitation in 1912 expert care but more important so that the information ob­ tained would be worked out and presented. . . . to come to the Harriet Lane Home. Except for six years These were advancements within his own department. But (1921-1927) he spent as the first chairman of the department his influence and guidance beyond that area are also substantial. of pediatrics at Yale, Johns Hopkins has been his home. Few men have won the respect and esteem of their colleagues In 1927, Dr. Park succeeded Dr. Howland as director of that Dr. Park has. Moreover, he is regarded by friends and Harriet Lane. He held that post until his retirement from associates as a delightful individual, one person they shall administrative duties in 1946. After Dr. Park came Dr. Francis never forget. Dr. James L. Gamble, in presenting the Kober F. Schwentker, who in 1952 recalled of the Park days: medal to Dr. Park in 1950 on behalf of the Association of ... many important changes came about. The noon confer­ American Physicians, remarked that there is "behind a quiet ences were thrown open to and were popular with practicing demeanor, the gaiety of thought, sustained by whimsical fancy pediatricians. The residency system was strengthened, under and a humorous use of allusions, which makes a letter from which all children in the wards were the patients of the resident who was responsible only to the professor. An extensive social Ned a treasure which one tucks away for future chuckles." service program was inaugurated to make sure that the tem­ Dr. Park's laboratory battle against rickets is widely known. porary advantages of Harriet Lane were made permanent in J n describing this and other achievements, and in stressing Dr. Park's characteristic inquisitiveness, Dr. Gamble also Hopkins University and Hospital welcome you with much pointed out: enthusiasm to this symposium on "The Child"; I hope each of His versatility as an investigator is illustrated by achievement you thoroughly enjoys his visit for the next three days; and it's in an ancient field of experimentation, the design of lures for our job to try to make this as enjoyable and profitable a time fishes. The challenge came from the sophisticated salmon of as possible. the Margaree. There appeared on his desk beside the box of rickets slides another box containing a strange assortment of All of )'OU are awaiting the many distinguished speakers who fur and feathers and, I am told, colorful items of enticement have- come to Baltimore to participate. Before opening the taken surreptitiously from Mrs. Park's hats. And again he program, I should like to express my thanks to Dr. Barton reached eminence. There are various forms of fame. There is Childs, who so effectively arranged the program with Dr. David the Kober medal and in L. L. Bean·s Catalogue there is a Sabiston. And now, without further ado, I would like to call salmon fly listed as the Dr. Park. on Dr. Helen Taussig to introduce our most illustrious par­ Robert Collins spent two years at Johns Hopkins, beginning ticipant. Dr. Taussig. (Applause) in 1927, the year Dr. Park became director of the Harriet Lane Home. Recalling the first time he met Dr. Park, he wrote from Dublin, Ireland:* DR. TAUSSIG: Thank you, and welcome you all back to Harriet . . . I looked at a bronzed face and into two of the kindest Lane, to The Johns Hopkins Hospital, the old Harriet Laners and most comprehending eyes I had ever seen, and realized and all those from the surgical staff and the former members with sudden prevision that I was in the presence of a nobleman of the Hopkins family. - of his country, a man of Lincoln-like greatness who wore no It is my unique privilege and great pleasure to introduce mask and whose only protection from the world was a shield to you today Dr. Park, who, I believe, is known to all of you of absolute honesty through which the darts of malice could as a colleague, as a teacher, or as a friend, and to most of you hardly pierce. . . . as all three. I have given him a copy of what I am saying, And, in closing:* I learned more from my association with him than from any because I know he is hard of hearing, and it seems to me an other teacher I have ever known, and I am forever grateful for important message. At least, I hope you will agree with me. his generosity to me. It seemed to me equally folly that I should try to recite to On my last day he drove me to the station. I said good-bye you all his achievements. I could probably dig out something­ with such pain as I have seldom known, and seeing him tall and each one of us could find something that the other one didn't solitary amidst the crowd of ordinary people I realized that I know-which showed his greatness, but it wouldn't change had parted, from what my old mother would have called, your opinion of him one iota. You know full well that he has a very great gentleman. been the guiding light; that he has an extraordinary capacity That "very great gentleman" is the only surviving member to see the true essence of things; that he can analyze the work of the original Harriet Lane staff. At 87, as professor emeritus that we are doing, men themselves, the right and wrong in of pediatrics and pediatrician-in-chief emeritus, he is writing medicine, in life, and in society. And, indeed, there is just the history of the Harriet Lane Home. Indeed, who else could one thing that he has failed to do, and it is part of his great­ have so fitting a background for that task? As Dr. Park himself ness, and one reason that we love him, that he has failed-but suggests, he is to the Harriet Lane Home as Adam was to it frustrates all of us-and that is that he has no real appre­ the Garden. ciation of how much we love and admire him. On the morning of May 14th of this year, Dr. Park opened And, therefore, I thought that it was much better that I the "The Child," the symposium held in connection with the should try to say, in your behalf, how much he means to all dedication of the new Children's Medical and Surgical Center of us. Indeed, I do not believe, and I do not think it is exag­ at Johns Hopkins and the Hospital's 75th Anniversary, with geration to say, that there is any living doctor who has affected a memorable hour-long presentation entitled THE HISTORY so many men so greatly in the right direction. He has guided OF THE HARRIET LANE HOME. This record was cut and influenced us in our lives. He has helped us repeatedly. from an on-the-spot tape recording of that presentation. We all turn to him for all sorts of things. We turn to him D. B. F. for advice in our work, for analysis and correction of our Baltimore, Maryland papers, for help and guidance in our lives, for comfort in our September, 1964 difficulties and strength in our difficulties, and for comfort in our sorrows. And he always turns and helps us. He is always Parts which have been deleted from this recording because glad and willing to help us. And all we can really hope is that of time are included in the printed text in italics. we can learn from him to help others as he has helped us. We can never do it as wonderfully or as fully as you have done it, Ned. And I am sure that I speak for everyone in this audi­ ence when I say that, though we admire you for your accom­ The Text plishments, your contribution to medicine has been far greater than that. You have been a beacon of light to all of us to guide SIDE ONE us in our ways. We know that you are one of the truly great in medicine. We all love you with all our hearts and souls, and DR. COOKE: Members of the Hopkins family and guests: we just rejoice that you will tell us the history of Harriet Yesterday, my message was a long declaration of my sincere Lane. Thank you. (Applause) belief that great accomplishments can be expected for pedi­ atrics and pediatric surgery, working with other disciplines through the next generation. I have no intention of burden­ DR. PARK: Dr. Taussig, Dr. Cooke, my friends: ing you with that statement again. Today, my message is short I naturally am very much affected by what Dr. Taussig has and sweet-I am very delighted you are with us; The Johns said. I can't believe any of it. (Laughter) Nevertheless, it's very pleasant to hear. * From "Festschrift in Honor of Dr. Edwards A. Park on the Am I speaking so that you can all hear? Occasion of His Seventy-Fifth Birthday, December 28, 1952," pub­ The only one capable of writing the history of the Garden lished by The Journal of Pediatrics. of Eden would have been Adam. Adam, unfortunately, re- mained inarticulate. This is tragic, for the account of the Gar­ I now come to Dr. Howland. Dr. Howland came at the age den and exactly what happened there would have been on of thirty-six. He was altogether the foremost pediatrician in the whole a most interesting and most important book in the the United States. There was no one to compare with him. history of the world. The reason that I have been assigned the He stood out alone. task of writing the history of the Harriet Lane Home is that In 1911, he had been called to the professorship at Wash­ I am its Adam. If Dr. Howland had lived, he would now be ington University, St. Louis, but he didn't like it at all, and ninety-one years old. Unfortunately, I am the only survivor of he came back and, almost immediately afterwards, was invited the original staff who witnessed the opening of the Harriet Lane to come here. and has participated in its development over the years. Accord­ He was a famous athlete at Yale. He was on the crew and ing to Genesis, Adam lived to be nine hundred and thirty on the baseball team and was a tennis champion. As a matter years old. I'd like to assure Dr. Cooke that, if I were given of fact, he was the fifth-ranking tennis player in the United eight hundred and forty-four years more, I really and truly States, according to the estimates at the time, and he was on believe that I might succeed in finishing the history of the the United States doubles team. Harriet Lane. He had been trained in New York by Dr. Holt. By the time The History of the Harriet Lane is divisible into several he was called to the Washington University, he had published parts. It has its genesis, springing out of a romance and end­ some twenty papers, almost all of them laboratory studies, ing in tragedy. The period of bricks and mortar was when Dr. which was very unusual in pediatrics. He had gone immedi­ von Pirquet of Vienna, Austria, was called to a professorship ately, in that period when he was supporting himself with at Johns Hopkins. It was, however, under the leadership of active practice, to the laboratory for investigation. Dr. John Howland, who succeeded Dr. von Pirquet in 1912, He was an extraordinarily able clinician. He had no su­ that the Harriet Lane began to live and have its being. periors. He was a wonderful teacher. His clinics were Socratic. What can I say in half an hour on so large a subject? I can He would ask questions, and the students were just terribly only touch here and there. afraid of him. Actually, he was very kindly disposed toward This is Dr. von Pirquet. He was an extraordinarily handsome them, and they needn't have been afraid. He was an excellent man-six-foot-two, six-foot-three tall-one of the most hand­ investigator, an excellent administrator. In fact, he was a per­ some men that I have ever known. He was called here in 1909. fectly extraordinary example, I think, of intelligence in every I think he was thirty-five years old. I've always thought that quarter in .which he applied his mind. And he was a most his work on immunity, which resulted in the whole concep­ delightful companion. He had something in common with tion of allergy, was the most important work which any Winston Churchill and Theodore Roosevelt. He never quite pediatrician had ever contributed toward the progress of med­ grew up, and there was always that delight of the boyishness icine. He was an extraordinary man. He was an Austrian, about him. but he was above nationality. He-like Einstein, like Thomas There's a picture of the first Harriet Lane staff at its very Mann-he could go anywhere in the world, and he received beginning in 1912: Dr. Howland in the middle-that's an the same status that he was, the same level that he was, in his excellent picture of him; Blackfan on the right; I'm on the own country. He occupied the chair of pediatrics from 1909 left. Above is Dr. McClure, a very brilliant man, who died to 1910. There was no building at the time. He functioned relatively young. Next to him was Eleanor Wolf. Eleanor Wolf in a two-room dispensary. I think Dr. Barker gave him two was the sister of Anna Wolf, who was head of the Training or three beds in the medical wards. He was immensely popular School for a long time. She was very feminine, as I recollect it, with the students. They loved him. The faculty were devoted and when she found that an ear had to be opened, she never to him.· opened it herself but got either Dr. McClure or Dr. Walters At the end of the year, he asked for a leave of absence and to open it. On the left is Dr. Walters. Blackfan had charge of went to Breslau, where he had been called to the chair of the wards, and I had charge of the dispensary. pediatrics, with the understanding that if he didn't like it he would come back at the end of the year. And while he was there, he was called to the foremost pediatric clinic in the world at the time-that of Escherich, in Vienna. Escherich had just died. And it's a most extraordinary thing that hap­ pened. He expressed his willingness, immediately after he had accepted the chair of pediatrics at Vienna, to come back again to Johns Hopkins, provided he could come back on a full­ time basis. It was before full-time existed, of course. He said he had no interest in medical practice, if they could furnish him a salary of ten thousand dollars a year. And the most that Hopkins could scrape up was eight thousand dollars a year, and so Dr. von Pirquet didn't come. (Laughter) His subsequent career was a most distinguished one. In the First World War, he was the head of the Children's Relief Commission in Austria, under Hoover. He lectured for the Harvard Society. He gave Silliman lectures at Yale. He was president of the L'Union internationale au secours des enfants. He was a nominee for the Presidency of Austria and, I think, very narrowly escaped being elected the President of Austria. He finally committed suicide at the age of fifty-three. In talk­ ing with Dr. Meyer, Dr. Meyer said he wasn't in the least sur­ prised, because he knew that he was subject to depressions. He was terribly depressed over the world situation, and par­ DR. WALTERS ELEANOR WOLF DR. McCLURE ticularly the state of Austria. DR. PARK DR. HOWLAND DR. BLACKFAN There is the next year, and I show it particularly because above Dr. Howland is Dr. Powers. Dr. Powers was one of the most important of Dr. Rowland's pupils; and I point him out in this picture, because I shall show pictures of some of the other ones, but I will not show another one of Dr. Powers. That is a plaque of Dr. Howland in the amphitheatre of the Harriet Lane, and I show it because of its inscription: "Lux Extincta Lucet." I think that's a wonderful inscription. Dr. Howland died in 1926, at the age of fifty-three years. It means, of course, to those of you who don't understand the Latin, "The light which is extinguished still shines." Dr. Thayer was responsible for it. He found it in the Paris Le Temps and suggested it to Mrs. Howland, and I have never been able to find out what its origin was. Dr. Tempkin was Now there is a cartoon of Blackfan making rounds. (Laugh­ unable to unearth its origin. Dr. Thayer himself couldn't ter) Blackfan carries the stethoscope. In front of him is James remember. Someone told me that they thought it was on a Wilson, who, I think, was Blackfan's resident about as long tomb of Saint Francis of Assisi, but I asked a Catholic prelate, as Blackfan was resident to Jack Howland. a friend of Mary Goodwin, who replied to my question that But-I think it was very amusing-the staff at Harvard he had asked people who had visited the tomb of Saint Francis were very much in awe of him. He was a born teacher. He and that it was not the inscription on the tomb. If any of you loved to teach, and sometimes in my contacts with him it was discover its origin, I wish very much indeed that you'd let rather tiring, because he had the teaching impulse so en­ me know. I never liked the plaque very much. It was by Dr. graved in him that I couldn't escape. (Laughter) Manship, the most distinguished sculptor of the time, and I There is McKim Marriott. never liked it because of the two figures on either side. They When Dr. Howland carried on investigations, he almost are infant Hercules. They look as though they could easily invariably joined with someone else who had some very have dealt with the snakes that were sent to devour that hero. special knowledge. As an investigator, Dr. Howland was an That is Dr. Blackfan, who was one of Dr. Howland's greatest, opportunist. He didn't follow any single subject. He, like most important pupils. He was resident for seven years. He most clinicians, took up a problem in which he could make had never had any education, so to speak. He went from high a kill. school into the Albany Medical School. His father was half­ And Marriott was by training a bio-chemist; and he came doctor, half-farmer in Cambridge, New York. He rose by virtue to Baltimore, because he wanted to go into clinical medicine, of his abilities. He was a man whom we not only admired but and this was the gateway into clinical medicine. And Dr. all of us loved him. He was an expert clinician. I think he Howland made a contract with him that he [Marriott] would was probably as able a clinician at the end of his seven years organize and take charge of the biological chemistry laboratory, as Dr. Howland was himself. He understood Dr. Howland and Dr. Howland would teach him pediatrics. Dr. Howland p~rfectly, and when he would present a case to Dr. Howland, found it very difficult to discharge his part of the bargain, and knowing perfectly well what the diagnosis was, he would Marriott was so useful to Dr. Howland in the laboratory that present it in such a way that Dr. Howland would have the he had great difficulty in asserting his rights, so to speak. pleasure of making the diagnosis himself. (Laughter) How Marriott was -an extraordinary man, a perfectly lovely char­ often I have heard Dr. Howland say, "Why, Blackfan, that acter-a very large and fiorid face, and speaking in a high child has meningococcus meningitis." And Dr. Blackfan never falsetto voice. He was most imaginative. His grandfather had said, "I know it Dr. Howland." (Laughter) been an inventor, and he was extraordinarily interested in Dr. Howland never thought he was university material. It gadgets and able to contrive gadgets on a moment's notice. was most extraordinary. But the rest of the world did, and Dr. Howland and he established that in the acute diarrheas he was called to Cincinnati in, I think, 1921-I can't quite of children suffering from dehydration there was an acidosis remember-1920-and was there three years and made a great and showed that it was not due to organic acid. That was im­ success of it. And then he was called to the chair of pediatrics portant in its time. They showed that in the tetany of infant3 at Harvard. Dr. Howland advised Harvard for all he was the calcium in the blood was reduced exactly as in parathyroid worth not to accept him, but Harvard never made a better tetany, as had been shown by McCollum. choice. Marriott was with Dr. Howland for only three years. He came in 1914. He left in 1917 to become professor of pediatrics at Washington University, and he did his finest work at Wash­ ington University when he showed that intestinal intoxica­ tion was, in reality, nothing but the group of symptoms pro­ duced by dehydration in the infant. He had an enormous influence, particularly in the Middle West and extreme West, and, more than anyone else in the country, he broke down the fetishism that had to do with infant feeding. His only previous experience, when he came to Baltimore, was as a doctor in Yellowstone Park. And I asked him one time what the most common ailments he was called upon to treat in Yellowstone Park were, and the reply was bear bites and geyser burns. (Laughter) He loved to be a prestidigitateur. He had twins, and, when he traveled by rail, he and Mrs. Marriott carried the twins in baskets; and they would put the baskets on the baggage rack-which was somewhat terrifying to the THE HARRIET LANE Hol\lE other passengers. That is Dr. Gamble. He was Dr. Rowland's favorite. He succession, served in the Pennsylvania legislature, in the lower was Dr. Rowland's white-haired boy, and I think he was the house in Congress-interrupted a year when he was appointed most distinguished of Dr. Rowland's pupils. Gamble, in his Ambassador to Russia-from nine years in the United States turn, worshiped Dr. Howland and Lawrence Henderson. I Senate, becoming Secretary of State in the administration of think Lawrence Henderson was Jim's intellectual mentor. I Dr. Polk, then Ambassador to England, and finally President think Dr. Howland appealed to him enormously, not only in­ of the United States. tellectually, of course, but in other respects. He was the great artist of pediatrics, and his work was known everywhere, and SIDE TWO it had a great deal of infiuence outside of pediatrics in internal medicine-on Dr. Peters, for instance. I don't think that Harriet would ever have been known That is Dr. Benjamin Kramer. Dr. Benjamin Kramer fol­ at all except for her uncle. Her period of grandeur was when lowed Dr. Marriott. Dr. Kramer was a far abler chemist than she was mistress of the White House. She had an ordinary Marriott was. Marriott might have been compared to Kramer finishing school education at the Convent School in Wash­ as an amateur. Kramer also came with a preparation to enter ington; but her education from the very beginning was po­ clinical medicine. The importance of Dr. Kramer's work has litical, because she moved in the environment of Mr. Bu­ never been generally appreciated, and it has annoyed me very chanan. The relation between Harriet and her uncle might much that it hasn't been. He developed, very shortly after have come out of a novel. At first, the attitude of the uncle he had been here, micro methods which opened up new fields was a solicitude of an elderly gentleman at not being at all in the metabolic studies of children. And one of the immediate certain of his ability to bring up a young girl. Later on, it results from it was the discovery that rickets was characterized changed to one of pride and complete confidence. Harriet, in the rat-they performed their original studies on the in her turn, worshiped her uncle, never questioning his wis­ rachitic rats of McCollum, Shipley, and myself and then dom, responding to his every need, expressed or imagined, showed that the same was true in the human being. Coinci­ with an unsurpassed devotion. I think if there ever was a case dentally, two Danes, Iversen and Lenstrup, made the same of Pygmalion and the statue, it was here. And President discovery, which had an immense importance insofar as the Buchanan certainly fell in love with his statue-when she understanding of rickets was concerned. Previously, every­ became animated. (Laughter) body's attention had been concentrated on the disturbances Now, you get the best idea of Harriet Lane and the relation­ in calcium metabolism. No one had thought that the phos­ ship between the two from their correspondence. This is phorus metabolism might be disturbed at the same time and Buchanan to Harriet when she was thirteen years old: that the anatomical changes, the morphological changes, in "It affords me sincere pleasure to receive your letter. It is the bone might be dependent on the phosphorus concentra­ one of the first desires of my heart that you should become tion in the tissue fluids. an amiable and a good girl. Education and accomplishments It was quite tragic, in my opinion, that Dr. Kramer, who are very important; but they sink in insignificance when com­ l is present here, I suppose, in the audience today, ever left pared to the proper government of the heart and temper. How r academic medicine. He did. Dr. Howland did everything that the law allowed to keep him, but the law didn't allow enough to satisfy Dr. Kramer. And I must tell this anecdote, which I hope Dr. Kramer won't rise up and deny. (Laughter) He happy I should be to acknowledge and cherish you as an object of deep affection, could I say, she is kind in heart, amiable in temper, and behaves in such a manner as to secure the attention and esteem of all around her." was visited by a committee from the Jewish Hospital in And in a postscript he said, "Your letter is without date Brooklyn, and he laid down the conditions on which he'd and does not purport to come from any particular place." come, and he was suddenly interrupted by a member of the (Laughter) group who said, "Doctor! Doctor! This isn't utopia. This is In a postscript in another letter-Harriet had become older Brocklyn." (Laughter) -he wrote: There's Dr. Thomas Rivers. Dr. Thomas Rivers was a grad­ "If I believed it necessary, I would advise you to be constant uate of ] ohns Hopkins. He took the service of Dr. Longcope in your devotions to your God. He is a friend who will never and he deserted Dr. Longcope for Dr. Howland, not because desert you. Men are short-sighted and know not the conse­ he was interested primarily in pediatrics, but because he per­ quences of their own actions. The most brilliant prospects ceived that Dr. Howland represented the new and coming are often overcast, and those who commence life under the generation. He was Dr. Rowland's resident, and Dr. Howland fairest auspices are often unfortunate. Ask wisdom and discre­ regarded him as the ablest-abler than Blackfan, I think. He tion from above. Blank and Blank and Blank married un­ regarded him as even an abler clinician than Blackfan. fortunately. I should like nothing better than to see you well I now turn to Harriet Lane. I want to try to tell you how settled in life, but never think of marrying any man unless the Harriet Lane got its name, and what she was like, and so his moral habits are good and· his business or his fortune will forth. enable him to support you comfortably. So now my postscript Harriet Lane was the niece of Mr. James Buchanan, who is like a woman's; the best is the last." later became President of the United States, in the period of It's rather interesting that the last was advice to marry a turmoil preceding the Civil War. She was the youngest of well-to-do man, and the first was designed to make her accept­ four children. Her mother died when she was seven years old, able to the Deity. (Laughter) and her father when she was nine. She was then taken to live There is only one letter available_, to me at least, from with her uncle, Mr. Buchanan-he was an old bachelor-at his Harriet to her uncle, and that was written, I think, when she house in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. was twenty-three years old. It is an excellent letter from the It's impossible to understand Harriet Lane's career without statue to Pygmalion: ( knowing something about her uncle, for the lives of the two were intertwined. President Buchanan was born in 1791. He "Should you have changed your mind or have any advice to give, let me know at once, for rest assured I am always happier t was forty-nine years Harriet's senior. He entered politics in 1814, at the age of twenty-three and, in an almost unbroken and better satisfied with myself when my actions are sanctioned by your wishes." Again: "Everything is worn standing out. Skirts cannot be too full and stiff; sleeves are still open and basques, either open in front or closed; flounces are very much worn. I had some dresses made in Paris, which I wish you could see." And again: "It was a very full and brilliant one." She was speaking of the drawing room, of the season at the Court. "I wore a pink silk petticoat, overskirt of pink tulle, puffed and trimmed, with wreaths of apple blossoms, lace lappits, and feathers. Her Majesty was very gracious to me yesterday, as was the Prince." She also had her love affairs: "I have made another conquest, who came in true American style, every day. He is rich and keeps a yacht, which costs him two thousand pounds a year. Beaux are pleasant but dreadfully troublesome." (Laughter) Again: vVhat did Harriet look like? She is described when a small "I have now a man of high pos1t1011, clever, talented, and girl as being "a hoyden with too much energy to be easily very rich; and the only fault to find is his age, which is cer­ managed." At the age of seventeen, she was said to have been tainly great (Laughter), as he will be sixty next year. ( Laugh­ a very beautiful blonde, with golden hair arranged simply, ter) He has a daughter who is a widow, and I might pass for deep violet eyes, and a peculiarly beautiful mouth. In several her daughter, but I really like him very much and know how descriptions of her, her peculiarly beautiful mouth is men­ devoted he would be. I should have everything to my heart's tioned. Now, unfortunately, I haven't any picture of her, can't content and go home as often as I liked. But I will write get any picture of her, in the bloom of her youth. That was more about it." in her fifties. That was when she was seventy-let me see, she Another excerpt: died when she was seventy-three-that was when she was sixty­ "I have seen Blank, and he ordered his gardener to send me seven. That probably, I am told, was painted from a miniature. from the country all the roses he had in bloom for the drawing But it pleases me very much indeed. I think no one could look room. Preceding the box came a sweet little note, which, of at that painting of Harriet Lane without realizing that she course, I answered in a tender way. Mr. Blank, the man of was a very unusual woman. the yacht, is getting quite desperate, as he is ordered to join When Mr. Buchanan was called to be Ambassador in the his residence in a month. He is constantly sending me flowers." Court of St. James, in London, he had great hesitation in tak­ It is very interesting that this girl from Lancaster, Pennsyl­ ing Harriet with him, apparently fearing that the life to which vania, was able to go to the Court of Saint James and move s~e would be subjected would have a bad influence. She was without apparently any feeling of inadequacy at all. She must terribly anxious to go. She had written to her uncle that going have been a remarkable person. with him in England would be, it's quoted, "the future real­ Again: ization of a beautiful dream." And her uncle replied, "Like all other dreams, you will be disappointed in reality." He went "I have now a man of high position, clever, talented, and without her, but soon after his arrival he realized that emo­ very rich." Oh, excuse me. I don't doubt she had another one. tionaJly he could not get along without her and sent for her. (Laughter) Again I resort to passages from correspondence: Harriet returned in the fall of 1855, several months before "Almost immediately on her arrival, Harriet became a per­ her uncle. Her uncle wrote her in America: fectly extraordinary social success. She took charge of all the "I forgot to tell you that I have seen the good Duchess, who social events of the embassy, arranging dinners and all the said many extravagant things about you. Lord Clarendon told details, had numerous British beaux, and became a great me yesterday that the Queen expressed her regrets not to have favorite of Queen Victoria herself." seen you before your departure. She said she had heard )'OU She met almost everybody in public life at that particular were to marry Sir Blank and expressed how much she would time: The Emperor Napoleon, Prince Eugenie and his wife, have been gratified had you been detained in England. We Eugenie, and so forth. had some talk about the disparity of )'Our ages. I said it was Again I resort to samples from letters written to her sister supposed Sir Blank was very rich. 'Yes, Yes,' she said, 'enorm­ Mary-Mary was her favorite sister: ously.' The Marquis of Lansdowne at parting from me said, "We have dined with the Queen since I wrote. The Queen 'If Miss Lane should have the kindness to remember me, do was most gracious and talked a great deal to me. Uncle sat me the honor to lay me at her feet.' " on her right hand, and Prince Albert was talkative, and alto­ As Lady of the White House-and this experience she had gether we passed a charming evening. The Princess-Royal in England was a magnificent preparation as mistress of the came in after dinner, and is simple, unaffected, and very child­ White House-as Lady of the White House, Harriet was fully like-her perfect simplicity and sweet manners are charming. as great a social success as at the Court of Saint James. U nfortu­ Everything, of course, was magnificent at the table-gold in nately, we have no more correspondence. We depended on profusion, twelve candelabra with four candles each; but you notices in the press. know I never can describe things of such sort-with mirrors Jefferson Davis once said, "The White House under the and candles all around the room, a band of delicious music administration of Buchanan approached more to my idea of playing all the time, it was a little like fairyland in its mag­ the Republican Court in the President's House than any nificence. We had another band after dinner, while we took before since the days of Washington." At the White House, our tea." apparently, she set the fashions exactly as royalty had done Now, I've brought these in particularly for the benefit of in England. Dr. Guild. In the memoirs of Mrs. Virginia Clay: Sculptures of Harriet Lane Johnston; Henry Johnston, her husband; and their two sons, Henry Eliot Jr. (left), and James Buchanan John­ ston (right), both of whom died of rheumatic heart disease, which influenced the founding of the Harriet Lane Home. "Low necks and lace berthas, made fashionable because It's too bad they talk so much about Harriet Lane and talk of their adoption by Miss Lane, were worn almost universally, so little about Mr. Johnston, but not a great deal is known either with open sleeves revealing inner ones of filmy lace, or about him. He came from a well-known Baltimore family. He sleeves of the shortest possible form, allowing the rounded was a man of means. I think he wasn't enormously rich. He length of her pretty arm to be seen to perfection." was a graduate of Princeton, and apparently Harriet had met The event to which the papers made much was a visit of the him once when he was still at Princeton. He must have been Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, to this country in 1859. a wonderfully generous man, because the bequest which re­ The newspapers at that time implied that the Prince was sulted in the founding of the Harriet Lane Home did not come attracted to Harriet. Perhaps this is true, but he was eighteen from Harriet Lane; it came from him. He died at the age of years old, and she was twenty-nine. The Prince remarked that fifty-one, and, in his will, he left his money to found the the most beautiful girl he had seen in the United States was Harriet Lane Home for Invalid Children. And he le£ t it at Emily von Schaumberg. the discretion of his wife. She could have diverted it or used The newspaper account is quite amusing. During his visit, it otherwise, but he specified it was not to be named the he was taken to Mount Vernon on an excursion to see the Harriet Lane Johnston Home but the Harriet Lane Home. tomb of Washington. They went by boat, traveling on the He was obviously a very generous man and extraordinarily revenue cutter Harriet Lane, named for the President's niece proud of his wife. He was one year his wife's junior. by the Secretary of the Treasury. The President and Harriet Oh dear me. I'm sorry. That was the reception of the Prince were of the party. There was some disappointment, because of Wales at the White House. There is President Buchanan. President Buchanan would not allow dancing in the White There is the Prince of Wales, and Harriet Lane is number House, not so much a personal objection as from the fear four, I think. Is that it? At any rate, Harriet Lane is number it might be resented in the country. However, dancing was four. allowed on the deck of the Harriet Lane. The Prince planted This is Mr. Johnston. He's a wonderfully fine-looking man. a tree, at the insistence of the ladies, in honor of the occasion. Harriet was thirty-six when she married, and he was thirty-five. The account in the Ladies Home Journal says: "But while There he is, a bust of him. That must have been toward the he (the Prince) was with Miss Lane and the White House end of his life. There's a bust of Harriet Lane. beauties, it was noted for the first time since he had been in Now then, comes the tragedy. They had two boys. One was this country he seemed to show the manners of a gallant young James Buchanan Johnston, and the other was Henry Eliot gentleman, desirous of pleasing. One of the merriest mornings Johnston; and they both died of rheumatic heart disease, she had with him was at a gymnasium in Washington attached rheumatic fever, one at the age of fifteen, and the other at to a female cemetery-seminary. (Laughter) On the brass thirteen. The younger boy they took to Nice, on the Riviera, rings extended from the ceiling, he swung himself one by in the hope, I think, that he might be saved either by the one across the room, and the whole party laughed heartily. climate or French medical skill, but he died. And the reason Then he fell to playing ten pins. Miss Lane and the Prince that the Harriet Lane is named the Harriet Lane Home for together succeeded in conquering Mrs. Thompson and the Invalid Children was because of this tragedy. The parents Duke of New Castle; it was next the turn of the victors to felt the need of some kind of an institution which could take play against each other, and Harriet, who was one of the in chronically ill children. most robust girls of the day, speedily out-bowled the Prince When- Harriet Lane di~d-she died in 1903, at the age of and put his muscle to shame." seventy-three-her will became available. Now, most of her At the White House, Harriet Lane had several suitors, but money she contributed to other causes than that of the Harriet I think she was impervious as long as her uncle required her. Lane Home. For instance, three hundred thousand dollars When her uncle retired from the Presidency to "Wheatland" went to the Cathedral School, in Washington, and a very large a defeated man in 1861, Harriet went with him, and in 1844 sum of money went for the erection of an appropriate monu­ [sic]-that's six years afterwards--she became engaged to ment to her uncle. Again, I remark that what the Harriet Lane Mr. Henry Johnston, a banker in Baltimore. received came via her from her husband, and I can't make out how much the corpus was. But, in any event, it was not It's interesting, because, when the war was declared, the enough to make an independent institution. Harriet Lane was one of the fleet dispatched to protect Fort Mr. Buckler, who was a trustee of The Johns Hopkins Uni­ Sumter; and the gun from the Harriet Lane was the first to versity and also one of the trustees who were placed in charge be fired at sea on the Union side, in the Civil War. Later on, of the Harriet Lane Home, made a calculation and stated to the Harriet Lane figured in the attack on the Fort Hatteras, the Harriet Lane trustees: and the Fort Hatteras, in company with other vessels, was "If your hospital should be conducted on an entirely inde­ taken. pendent footing, its capacity could not be more than twenty­ The next was in the campaign for the capture of New five or thirty beds, since, when the cost of the lands and build­ Orleans, and the Harriet Lane, with a fleet of boats and ings have been deducted, your income would not exceed twelve mortars under the command of Commodore Porter, was de­ or fifteen thousand dollars a year. By making, however, some tailed to capture Fort Jackson. And that is the bombardment such alliance as the one suggested,"-that was the one with of Fort Jackson, and there is the Harriet Lane. The garrison The Johns Hopkins Hospital-"this income might be econo­ at Fort Jackson surrendered, and Admiral Porter received the mized, and the capacity of the Children's Hospital could then Confederate officers on the Harriet Lane. This is the Harriet be increased." Lane, and these are the Confederate officers that have come Well, the Harriet Lane trustees needed some kind of assist­ up to surrender. ance, and The Johns Hopkins Medical School was more than Now then, this is a very sad picture, because at the end of eager to have a pediatric department. And, finally, there was the Civil War the Harriet Lane was captured. It was lying off an agreement reached by which the Hospital furnished the the blockading of Galveston, Texas, and Magruder organized ground and the Harriet Lane trustees erected the building. an attack on the fort and also on the vessels, and the Harriet And they [the Harriet Lane trustees] undertook to maintain Lane was boarded and captured. There is the Harriet Lane, the upkeep of the building, and the Johns Hopkins to main­ and there is the Confederate gunboat which is about to board tain the staff and the support of the children in the institution. the Harriet Lane. It was covered with bales of cotton, and I It's only natural that a misunderstanding arose in such a think there were some sixty Texas sharpshooters on board. loose arrangement; and the trustees of The Johns Hopkins It looks very pacific there. Hospital became furious against the trustees of the Harriet This is the Westfield, which was blown up by the Harriet Lane, because the Harriet Lane was putting the Hospital in Lane crew. the red; and the trustees of the Harriet Lane became furious This is the picture of the boarding of the Harriet Lane and at the Hospital, because they maintained that this immense its capture, so that the Harriet Lane has been memorialized expense was due to the expansion on the part of the Hospital on both land and on sea. But I think that the memorial to and was not their own doing. All that has fortunately disap­ Harriet Lane on land is the much more important of the two. peared, but I can recollect when Mr. Cator, who was a Johns Now I am very sorry I have gone long over my time, and Hopkins Hospital trustee, proposed to the Board that the I apologize to Dr. Cooke. (Applause) contract with the Harriet Lane Home be severed; and the Harriet Lane, as Dr. Smith had estimated, was costing the Hospital about eighty thousand dollars a year. It then became incumbent upon Dr. Winford Smith to determine how much DR. CooKE: I think all of you would agree with me that the actually the Hospital did cost, and he discovered that the net symposium could end right now, and we could all go home cost was eight thousand dollars. very satisfied. I think this was a remarkable contribution. Now I turn to something which I-oh, that is the boy­ The lit'tle model, which is in front of you, is of some in­ that's the youngest of the boys who died of rheumatic fever. terest; and I'm afraid the history there will be as obscure as Now then, this is perhaps irrelevant, but it's interesting. certain parts of Harriet Lane's husband, in a way. It was given Harriet Lane's name was given to a revenue cutter, built in to me by a prisoner at the Baltimore Jail. He had put this the Buchanan administration. And the Secretary of the Treas­ together, and the parole people, who felt that I might in some ury insisted that it be a sailing ship, but he was overruled; way want to check up on this man later, have never given me and there is a model of it, which has been given to Dr. Cooke. his name; so he remains anonymous.