Alice and The Countess
Alice Roosevelt confided to her diary, “Father doesn't care for me 1/8th as much as he does for the other children.
She said, “it was perfectly true and Lord why should he. We are not in the least congenial and if I don't care for him why should he pay any attention to me, or the things that I live for, except to look on them with disapproval.”
Over the years TR did his best to bring some measure of discipline to Alice's uncontrollable behavior. He was upset she lacked any true feelings of family. He didn't like her smoking. He told her if you're going to smoke do it outside and not inside the house. She turned to smoking on the roof.
He did his best to separate Alice from the new Washington sensation, 16 year old high flying social aristocrat Countess Marguerite Cassini.
Marguerite was the daughter of the influential Russian Ambassador Arthur Pavlovich Nicolas Cassini.
Since she was his oldest daughter she earned the right, by default, to become the official hostess to the ambassador. That put her at the head of the table and on the front page of every newspaper worth reading with your morning coffee.
She originally came to the United States in 1898 and when TR became president she and Alice became good friends out for a party. It came at a time when Alice was betting on horses and racing down Pennsylvania Avenue behind the wheel of her red electric sports car. She told the press she was a Pagan.
In one 15 month stretch Alice and the Countess attended over 600 Washington parties and skipped out on some specifically thrown in their honor.
While Alice was known for her blonde hair and deep blue eyes, the countess Cassini was known for her extravagant tight fitting fashions in a wardrobe that was said to equal a fortune.
What TR couldn't do, the Countess did on her own. At one party she was seen flirting with Nicolas Longworth. Word had it the Countess's friends told her “he was trouble” and friends of Longeorth told him “she was trouble.” The real trouble was Alice. She had developed an interest in the Ohio Congressman and saw Cassini's flirtations a bit too ill intended. The next time the Countess came to call, Alice was busy.