To a certain degree, Bagehot’s law was adopted as well by American presidents, whose status was upheld by a tradition of decorum and whose prestige was accentuated by a certain—well, mystery. George Washington spent much of his adult life rehearsing the role of national patriarch; even Andrew Jackson jealously guarded the dignity of his office. Once, when William Allen White was interviewing William McKinley, a photographer entered the room to take pictures. McKinley promptly set aside his cigar: “We must not let the young men of this country,” he told White, “see their president smoking!”
With time, of course, that sense of decorum, of self-conscious distance, eroded as standards evolved. Theodore Roosevelt’s young family—his elder daughter’s wardrobe, his school-age sons’ mischief—attracted the attention of the press. His cousin Franklin addressed the public directly by radio, affecting a deliberately casual manner. Yet even by 1962, when television cameras were brought into the White House for a prime-time tour of the premises by Jacqueline Kennedy, her interlocutor addressed the first lady with elaborate deference. And when the president himself briefly appeared toward the end of the program, it was as if he had descended from Olympus into the upstairs sitting room.
