Tag On White House Roof

Charlie Taft and His Chums Frolic About the Chimneys.

If there is any place in or about the White House unexplored by Charlie Taft it probably is the top of the flagpole, and this yet may be discovered by the strenuous young son of the president, who is lending to the new administration all the strenuousness that marked the last.

He recently chose the roof of the White House for a playground, to which "tag" figured. Accompanied by some fifteen of his classmates in the public school, he took possession of the broad lawn immediately behind the White House and organized a scrub game of baseball. When the youngsters tired of that they disappeared. In the state, war and navy building, just across Executive avenue those who had been observing the game were astonished to see the boys appear on the roof of the White House, Charlie Taft's tousled head coming through the scuttle first.

For a half hour they slid down the steep slopes of the roof and dodged and hid behind chimneys. The danger of falling to the ground was lessened by the presence of a marble balustrade that runs around the eaves of the house. Both the president and Mrs. Taft were absent from the White House during the afternoon.

--Warren Evening Mirror, Warren, Pennsylvania, May 10, 1909, page 6.