In addition to these White House events, the President and his wife go out to twelve official dinners. They begin with the Vice-President, go on among the ten members of the Cabinet, and close with the Speaker of the House. Aside from these, it is not customary for the President to accept the hospitality of any individuals. This is not from any desire on his part to be exclusive, but rather arises from an application of the principle of equality. The number of days in his term of office is limited. If he gave up all the time when he is not otherwise necessarily engaged, it is doubtful if he could find fifty evenings in a year when he could accept invitations. At once he would be confronted with the necessity of deciding which to accept and which to reject. If he served eight years, he could only touch the fringe of official Washington, even if he chose to disregard all the balance of the country. The only escape from an otherwise impossible situation is to observe the rule of refusing all social invitations. The President stands at the head of all official and social rank in the nation. As he is Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, all their officers are his subordinates. As he is the head of the government, he outranks all other public officials. As the first citizen, he is placed at the top of the social scale. Wherever he goes, whenever he appears, he must be assigned the place of honor. It follows from this that he can not consistently attend a dinner or any other function given by some one else in honor of any other person. He can have ceremonies of his own at the White House, or outside, in which he recognizes the merit of others and bestows upon them appropriate honors. But his participation in any other occasion of such a nature is confined to sending an appropriate message. It would make great confusion in all White House relations unless the rules of procedure were observed. If this were not done, the most ambitious and intruding would seize the place of honor, or it would be bestowed by favor. In both cases all official position would be ignored. In its working out, therefore, the adoption of rules which take no account of persons, but simply apply to places, is the only method which is in harmony with our spirit of equality. In its application it gives us more completely a government of laws and not of men.