Alice Roosevelt Longworth - Married Life

Married Life

In December 1905, after returning to Washington from their diplomatic travels Alice became engaged to Nicholas Longworth, a Republican U.S. House of Representatives member from Cincinnati, Ohio, who ultimately would rise to become Speaker of the House. The two had travelled in the same social circles for several years, but their relationship solidified during the Imperial Cruise. A scion of a socially prominent Ohio family, Nicholas Longworth was 14 years Alice's senior and had a reputation as a Washington, D.C., playboy. Their wedding took place the following February and was the social event of the season. It was attended by more than a thousand guests with many thousands gathered outside hoping for a glimpse of Princess Alice. The bride was dressed in a blue wedding dress and dramatically cut the wedding cake with a sword (borrowed from a military aide attending the reception). Immediately after the wedding, the couple left for a honeymoon that included a voyage to Cuba and a visit to the Longworths in Cincinnati. This was followed by travels to England and the Continent which included having dinners with many notables of the day: King Edward, Kaiser Wilhelm, Clemenceau, Whitelaw Reid, Lord Curzon, and William Jennings Bryan. They bought a house at 2009 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W., in Washington, D.C., now the headquarters of the Washington Legal Foundation.

Alice publicly supported her father's 1912 Bull Moose presidential candidacy, while Nicholas Longworth stayed loyal to his mentor, President Taft. During that election cycle, she appeared on stage with her father's vice presidential candidate, Hiram Johnson, in Nicholas Longworth's own district. Nicholas Longworth later lost by about 105 votes and she joked that she was worth at least 100 votes (meaning she was the reason he lost). However, he was elected again in 1914 and stayed in the House for the rest of his life.

Alice Longworth's campaign against her husband caused a permanent chill in her marriage to Nick Longworth. During their marriage, Longworth carried on numerous affairs. As reported in Carol Felsenthal's biography of Alice, and in Betty Boyd Caroli's The Roosevelt Women, as well by TIME journalist Rebecca Winters Keegan, it was generally accepted knowledge in DC that Longworth also had a long, ongoing affair with Senator William Borah, and the opening of Longworth's diaries to modern historical researchers indicates that Borah was, by Longworth's own admission, the father of her daughter, Paulina Longworth (1925–1957).

Alice Longworth was not without a sense of humor. On May 11, 1908, she amused herself in the gallery at the House of Representatives in Washington by placing a tack on the chair of an unknown but "middle-aged" and "dignified" gentleman. Upon encountering the tack, "like the burst of a bubble on the fountain, like the bolt from the blue, like the ball from the cannon," the unfortunate fellow leapt up in pain and surprise while Mrs. Longworth looked away.