White House Christmas tree the White House of President William McKinley received letters urging the president to forgo participation in the "Christmas tree habit". The letter writers, which the "Chicago Daily Tribune" noted had taken up the "forestry fad", referred to "arboreal infanticide", according to the "Tribune". Those opposed to a tree in the White House that year also termed Christmas trees "un-American" because it was a historically German tradition. At least one tree was displayed in the White House that year, in the kitchen department, for the maids. The Nixon administration's choice of tree topper, the atomic symbol of peace rather than a
Franklin Pierce Rice (later to become the Worcester Historical Museum), Rice was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1906. Rice was also a member of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, the Worcester Natural History Society (serving as director from 1894 to 1909), and the Bunker Hill Monument Association. Rice died on 3 January 1919 in Worcester, Massachusetts. Franklin Pierce Rice was a direct patrilineal descendant of Edmund Rice, an English immigrant to Massachusetts Bay Colony, as follows: Franklin Pierce Rice Franklin Pierce Rice (1852–1919) was a self-taught printer and publisher who transcribed and printed and preserved vital records from Massachusetts