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SOT Pres. Harry Truman remarks in the Rose Garden at the White House: " ... this rose garden here is quite a place for gatherings of this sort ... I pinned a medal on General Montgomery here in this rose garden once, and gave the Congressional Medal of Honor to General Wainwright--and have given General Marshall and General Eisenhower all medals out here in this garden. I had an interesting experience with General Montgomery. He asked me why they called it the White House, and I told him that in 1814 the British burned it down and smoked it all up and we had to paint it to cover up the smoke marks. He asked me why we didn't send the British a bill for it, and I said I didn't think that would be of any use because we would have to lend them the money anyway. That ended the conversation ... We do a lot of work here in this city that people don't understand. They take it for granted that the President lives in a plush house and that he just spends his day enjoying himself, meeting people such as you, and that he doesn't have anything to do ... I work 17 hours a day, every day in the year. And when I happen to be away from the White House for a day, like yesterday when I went to Philadelphia for that hospital meeting, it sometimes takes me a week to catch up with things that pile up on the desk ... But it's no playboy's business .... "