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THE BOOK OF 
 WASHINGTON 
 
 By 
 ROBERT SHACKLETON 
 
 Aut/ior of "The Book of Boston," "The 
 Book op New York," "The Book of 
 Philadelphia," "The Book of Chicago," 
 Etc. 
 
 Illustrated with Photographs 
 and with Drawings by HenrY PlTZ 
 
 THE PENN PUBLISHING 
 
 COMPANY PHILADELPHIA 
 
 1922 
 
COPYRIGHT 
 19 2 2 BY 
 THE PENN 
 PUBLISHING 
 COMPANY 
 
 The Book of Washington 
 
 3fl(o/^^ 
 
 .6^ 
 
 MADE IN THE U. S. A, 
 
^'^ 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I The City op George the Great .... 1 
 
 II A House Happily Named 17 
 
 III A Curious Visit 38 
 
 IV Our Appian Way 53 
 
 V The Capitol 63 
 
 VI "Grave and Reverend Seigniors" ... 77 
 
 VII Representatives and Misrepresbntatives 92 
 
 VIII Some Characteristics 102 
 
 IX Around Lafayette Square 119 
 
 X Houses and Memories 137 
 
 XI The .Gathering of Art 158 
 
 XII The Mall 167 
 
 XIII Memorials That Do Adorn 181 
 
 XIV The Dominance of Titles 193 
 
 XV The Pervasive Classic 212 
 
 XVI Books and Libraries 226 
 
 XVII The Charm of the City 245 
 
 XVIII Streets and Ways 258 
 
 XIX The Potomac 271 
 
 XX Georgetown and the Suburbs .... 285 
 
 XXI From Alexandria to Fredericksburg . . 296 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 OHAPTEB PAGS 
 
 XXII Mount Vernon 313 
 
 XXIII Annapolis 332 
 
 XXIV The Goal of Hostile Armies .... 343 
 XXV An Inauguration 357 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 The Lincoln Memorial Frontispiece 
 
 The Capitol Title Page Decoration 
 
 The Falls of the Potomac .... 
 
 Facing First Page of Text 
 Lafaj^ette Square from the White 
 House Door 
 
 The Staircase of the Octagon . 
 
 The Old Seven Buildings To-day 
 
 Monument to General Sherman 
 »/ White House; South Front . 
 i^The Green Room in the White House 
 
 •The Lincoln Memorial; One of the 
 
 Tripods 
 
 ^Duke of Leinster House 
 
 V State Dining Room ; White House . 
 
 House Built for Eliza Custis . 
 
 In Front of Union Station .... 
 
 The Capitol 
 
 Judiciary Square 
 
 The So-called "Old Capitol" . . . 
 
 The Supreme Court Room .... 
 
 The Home of Henry Cabot Lodge 
 
 Washington from across the Potomac 
 
 Senate Chamber 
 
 House of Representatives' Office Build- 
 ing 
 
 Grand Staircase; Congressional Li- 
 brary 
 
 The Arts Club 
 
 Tree Arcaded New Hampshire Avenue 
 
 The Homes of Taft and Dewey , 
 
 The War Risk Bureau 
 
 The Church of the Presidents . 
 
 The Octagon and its Old Garden . 
 
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 17 
 
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 28 
 
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 37 
 
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 118 
 
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 119 
 
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 134 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 The Home of Senator Hanna . 
 
 The House in Which Lincoln Died . 
 
 Red Cross National Headquarters . 
 
 Theater Where Lincoln was Shot . 
 
 The Adams Memorial in Rock Creek 
 Cemetery 
 
 An Old-time Stairway 
 
 The Smithsonian Institute 
 
 Washington Monument 
 
 Building for Freer Art Collections . 
 
 Pohick Church 
 
 The Dupont Fountain . . 
 
 Sheridan's St?tue 
 
 Looking Toward General Scott Mon- 
 ument 
 
 Memorial Continental Hall .... 
 
 Arlington 
 
 Scottish Rite Temple 
 
 Patent Office 
 
 The Home of Thomas Nelson Page . 
 
 The Congressional Library 
 
 The Public Library 
 
 The Famous Waterside Cherry Blos- 
 soms 
 
 The Street of the Embassies . 
 
 The Pan American Building . 
 
 A Terraced Street End .... 
 
 Modern Washington 
 
 Wheat Row 
 
 Statue of John Paul Jones .... 
 
 The Amphitheater at Arlington . 
 
 The War College ' 
 
 The Connecticut Avenue Bridge . 
 
 In Rock Creek Park 
 
 As in an English Abbey .... 
 
 On the Road to Fredericksburg 
 
 Where Washington Met Braddoek and 
 the Governors 
 
 Arcade of Mount Vernon .... 
 
 The Landward Front of Mount Vernon 
 
 The Portico View 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
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 136 
 
 (Initial) 
 
 137 
 
 (Facing) 
 
 152 
 
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 157 
 
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 158 
 
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 166 
 
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 167 
 
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 313 
 
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 ) 331 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 An Old Annapolis House . 
 State Capitol at Annapolis . 
 Bancroft Hall; Naval Academy 
 Pension Building .... 
 The Street of Barbara Frietchie 
 The Home of Woodrow Wilson 
 
 An Inaug:uration 
 
 The " Hall of the Americas ' ' . 
 
 (Initial) 
 
 PAOK 
 
 332 
 
 (Facing) 
 
 340 
 
 (Tail Piece) 
 
 342 
 
 (Initial) 
 
 343 
 
 (Tail Piece) 
 
 356 
 
 (Initial) 
 
 357 
 
 (Facing) 
 
 360 
 
 (Tail Piece) 
 
 367 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 8i,8f & 
 
 THE CITY OF GEOEGE THE GREAT 
 
 HE city of George the 
 Great! And why 
 should he not be 
 known as George the 
 Great! Familiarly to all 
 Americans come such 
 names as Napoleon the 
 Great, Frederick the 
 Great, Catherine the 
 Great, Louis the Great, 
 Peter the Great. 
 
 The leader in a republic 
 
 _ is under a marked dis- 
 
 -- advantage, for his time is limited, his 
 
 rule is for a few years only, where- 
 
 monarch may have many years of rule and op- 
 
 1 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 portunity. Louis the Fourteenth had over seventy 
 years of kingship in which to win in history the un- 
 disputed title of ''great," but the great Washington 
 was head of the army for only eight years and gladly 
 gave up the post; he was President for another 
 eight years and, again, gladly retired. His con- 
 temporary, Frederick the Great, became king when 
 Washington was but a boy of eight and continued to 
 rule until three years after the completion of our 
 Revolutionary War. 
 
 Another contemporary of Washington was Peter 
 the Great, and he ruled arbitrarily for a quarter of 
 a century and was formally given by what was 
 known as the Russian Senate the title of ''the 
 Great" and remarkably, the Washington-Hke title 
 of "Father of his Country." 
 
 Both Peter the Great and George Washington 
 founded a city, a capital city, and in each case the 
 city was named after its founder— the City of 
 Washington and the City of St. Petersburg. Peter 
 laid the foundation stone of his St. Petersburg and 
 Washington the foundation stone that marked the 
 beginning of the city of Washington, in the course 
 of the same century! Each was an event of the 
 seventeen hundreds. It is one of those facts on 
 which the imagination loves to linger. 
 
 While winning his right to be classed among the 
 great ones of the world, Washington won also loving 
 admiration : he won distinction, honor, even venera- 
 tion, in measure quite unapproached by any other 
 of the great or the near-great or the little. 
 
THE CITY OF GEORGE THE GREAT 
 
 The very nation that he had fought, and from 
 which he had wrested the Thirteen Colonies, led in 
 doing him honor. Every Englishman of character 
 and standing grieved when the news arrived of his 
 death. And for example, a fleet of sixty anchored 
 ships of war, at once set its flags at half-mast. 
 When, a quarter of a century later, England was 
 again at war ^^4th us, and a British fleet, under 
 orders to attack and bum the cities of Washington 
 and Baltimore, sailed past Mount Vernon, every 
 ship put its flag at half-mast and the flagship 
 solemnly tolled its bell. 
 
 Washington, at the time of his death, was holding 
 himself in readiness, at the desire of President 
 Adams and the Senate, to assume active command 
 of our forces as soon as the then fully expected war 
 with France should begin : but when the news of his 
 death reached the French, their leader, Napoleon, 
 then First Consul, ordered that for ten days all the 
 standards of the troops should be draped with crepe, 
 and in issuing this order the mighty Frenchman told 
 his armies of the greatness of Washington and of 
 his leadership for freedom. 
 
 When ''Tom" Moore was in America, in 1804, his 
 vanity was touched by not receiving more adulation 
 than he did, and his foreign prejudices made him 
 incapable of recognizing possibilities in the new 
 city. He even searched for wasp-like phrases to 
 use in belittling the mighty leader, and then gave 
 up the effort as he burst into unwilling enthusi- 
 asm: 
 
 3 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 "Nor yet the patriot of one land alone 
 For thine 's a name all nations claim their own. 
 And every shore, where breathed the good and brave, 
 Echoed the plaudits thy own country gave. ' ' 
 
 Before settling down to build the City of Wash- 
 ington, for its home, our Government had been pere- 
 grinative, perambulatory, peripatetic. It had exer- 
 cised its functions not only at New York and Phil- 
 adelphia, but at York, Baltimore, Annapolis, and 
 Lancaster. 
 
 A settled home was required for the national 
 housekeeping; and after a great deal of discussion, 
 representative of a great deal of rivalry, a balanc- 
 ing of conflicting prejudices and interests, it was 
 decided, carrying into effect Constitutional pro- 
 vision, that the seat of Government should be a piece 
 of territory, not more than ten miles square, situated 
 somewhere on the Potomac River, taken part from 
 Maryland and part from Virginia, between certain 
 defined points — namely, between the mouth of the 
 Eastern Branch of the Potomac and that of the 
 Conocheague (now what an unknown name!) — and 
 George Washington was given the power to decide 
 upon the precise locality. Literally, three men, of 
 whom he was the chief, M^ere to be the deciders, but 
 in practice it resolved itself into a matter for 
 Washington alone, for the other two promptly 
 slipped out of sight. And he declared in favor of 
 a territory which included the present site of the 
 city, with also the already existent towns of George- 
 
 4 
 
THE CITY OF GEOEGE THE GREAT 
 
 town (now within the city limits) and Alexandria. 
 Half a century afterwards, the portion which in- 
 cluded Alexandria was given back to Virginia, 
 leaving a territory of something over sixty square 
 miles of land and ten of water instead of the original 
 one hundred. Or, if one would be particular to the 
 point of absolute correctness, he may take it that the 
 total area, of land and water, is now sixty-nine and 
 one-quarter square miles. 
 
 Washington fixed upon the location of the capital 
 city. The choice was made out of a 'wide local 
 knowledge, mth such promptitude that the decision 
 was announced within three days after the passage 
 of the enabhng act. The new city, the Federal 
 City he termed it, was at once laid out and its con- 
 struction begun. 
 
 And in one particular the city was most curiously 
 planned, for it was in a sense planned as two cities : 
 one, with ancient houses, some of them still stand- 
 ing, leading to the southeast and to the ferrying 
 point across the Potomac, that connected with Alex- 
 andria: the other towTi beginning with the White 
 House, and connecting at once, past old-looking 
 houses, with ancient Georgetown. 
 
 So it came about that the oldest homes in Wash- 
 ington are in two widely separated groups. The 
 two separate communities, one dominated by the 
 Capitol, the other by the White House, were to be 
 connected by boulevards and gardens, which 
 were to be lined by pubhc buildings. 
 
 5 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 And it is keenly to be regretted that, until the 
 present day, the nobly picturesque planning was but 
 slightly carried into eifect. 
 
 But it should not be forgotten that Washington 
 had to decide according to the standards of com- 
 merce, of shipping possibilities, of problems of 
 municipal growth, of communication with the inter- 
 ior of the States, and the north and south com- 
 munication; and, always, that he was held to the 
 best that he could do between the Potomac Branch, 
 more frequently known as the Anacostia, and the 
 long-forgotten Conocheague. And it may be that in 
 the last four letters of this stream's name there were 
 many who recognized something ominous for the 
 new city. 
 
 With Georgetown and Alexandria both of them 
 flourishing towns within the limits of the District, 
 it assuredly seemed as if no better locality could be 
 chosen for the new capital city. 
 
 Busy as Wasliington was vdth the multifarious 
 duties of his position as President ; the Constitution 
 having but newly gone into effect, with its entirely 
 new form of government ; and with a myriad of prob- 
 lems confronting him as to home affairs and our dis- 
 turbed relations with Europe; he still found time to 
 devote close attention to the new city ; knowing that 
 the formation of the capital, its actual beginning, its 
 holding a place on the map and in the public eye, 
 would have a great effect in stabilizing public opin- 
 ion. He did not attempt to plan the new city unas- 
 
 6 
 
THE CITY OF GEORGE THE GREAT 
 
 sisted. Always ready to assume complete responsi- 
 bility, and always ready to make decisions, he at 
 the same time had none of the vanity wliich would 
 prevent his seeking advice. He knew intimately 
 New York, Philadelphia and Boston, but not the 
 cities of Europe. He talked the matter over with 
 Thomas Jefferson, and Jefferson, remarkable man 
 that he was, discussed fully and freely the plans and 
 the buildings of numerous cities abroad. For Jef- 
 ferson had not only closely observed what he saw on 
 the other side of the ocean but had made volum- 
 inous notes. 
 
 An assistant was necessary and Washington chose 
 a Frenchman, Major Pierre Charles L 'Enfant. 
 Trained as an engineer, in France, he had come over 
 with Lafayette. He had soon attracted the atten- 
 tion of Washington, had ably designed the construc- 
 tion of fortifications, and had been made chief of en- 
 gineers. After the war he had remained in this 
 country, designing and altering various buildings, 
 principally for the Government. 
 
 L 'Enfant threw himself into the new work w4th 
 intense absorption. He saw in it, opportunity. And 
 he promptly produced a plan for the city. 
 
 On the main street of Georgetown there still 
 stands a little stone building which was used as an 
 office, for the work of planning, by Washington, Jef- 
 ferson, L 'Enfant and others. There the matured 
 plan of Jefferson, that of a checker-board city, was 
 discussed and there it was rejected in favor of the 
 
 7 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 plan of L 'Enfant. His plan is still the plan of the 
 city. 
 
 The criss-crossing of numerous avenues at unex- 
 pected tangents, with numberless odd junctions and 
 breaks and unexpectednesses, just as the streets and 
 avenues are still seen, were all in the plan of L 'En- 
 fant : and even the combination of numbered streets 
 in one direction and lettered streets in the other, 
 with the State-named avenues running at the queer- 
 est of angles, was his. But of course there were 
 then only thirteen of them. A witty compatriot said 
 of L 'Enfant, that he was well named ; that he was in- 
 deed an ''Enfant," for he was ''practising his A, 
 B, C and his 1,2, 3." 
 
 L 'Enfant visualized a fine city. His map, show- 
 ing what he planned, has been preserved and is in 
 the Congressional Library. The mile-long stretch 
 between the two city centers, was to be a mile of 
 beauty. A curious feature was to be a series of large 
 mansions for foreign ministers, and another curious 
 part of the general plan was to have a great national 
 religious temple, to represent all sects, stand where 
 the Patent Office was afterwards built. The pro- 
 posed grouping of public buildings along the mile of 
 planned beauty, was to be added to by artistic memo- 
 rials, and bordered by beautiful mansions with gar- 
 dens and sloping lawns. This at first empty space 
 explains the woods so often ignorantly jeered at by 
 early writers and travelers : for there was no haste 
 in clearing away the woods even if they could at once 
 
 8 
 
THE CITY OF GEORGE THE GREAT 
 
 have been made ta disappear. A monument to Pres- 
 ident Washington was phumed, to be set at right 
 angles to a line drawn southward from the center of 
 the White House, and to stand precisely on the axis. 
 By all this vision splendid Washington and L 'En- 
 fant were on their way attended. They dreamt of 
 the most beautiful city in the world. An odd fea- 
 ture suggested by the Frenchman, was rows of 
 shops, facing upon arcaded sidewalks : an effect at- 
 tained in some of the old European cities. 
 
 America was a young nation and far from rich. 
 With amazing bravery, considering her indebted- 
 ness and her lack of resources, her newmess in han- 
 dling large sums, the Capitol was begun and also the 
 White House ; and the street plan was carried into 
 effect ; but it was impossible to go on instantly mth 
 other public buildings : and before the matter could 
 again be taken in hand, the region between White 
 House and Capitol had largely been occupied by un- 
 beautiful and undesirable structures. Private spec- 
 ulation had been allowed too free a hand. 
 
 It was unfortunate, too, that Washington and 
 L 'Enfant could not work long together. L'Enfant 
 saw his plan beginning to fail of complete con- 
 summation. A perverse man, he took a high hand 
 with such men as opposed him. When a house was 
 placed by a private builder where it would interfere 
 with the general plan, L'Enfant ordered it torn 
 down. Finding his stand opposed he withdrew with- 
 in himself, and refused to let his plans be showTi or 
 
 9 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 known. Unfortunately, his irritation extended to 
 Washington himself. And Washington, immensely 
 busy as he was, had no time to spend on artistic tra- 
 vail. To him. Major L 'Enfant was an officer who 
 was insubordinate. And the Frenchman's connec- 
 tion with the city planning ceased after a year of 
 enthusiastic work. 
 
 The blow crushed L 'Enfant. He could not ad- 
 vantageously return to France, for France was in 
 the fierce stress of her own Kevolutionary changes. 
 He stayed on in America, from time to time making 
 claims on Congress, and lived more than a quarter 
 of a century beyond the death of Wasliington. And 
 he lived in proud and lonely wretchedness. Corco- 
 ran, he of the Art Gallery — so closely connected arc- 
 the first days of the city of Washington and the 
 practically present time — ^has told of how he used to 
 see L 'Enfant, wearing "a long green coat buttoned 
 up to his throat, a bell-crowned hat: moody and 
 lonely. ' ' 
 
 He always bore in his hands a roll of papers, 
 ready to appear, if summoned before a Congres- 
 sional committee: and he carried a silver-headed 
 hickory cane. That keen-sighted English architect, 
 Latrobe, wrote of him in 1806, with one phrase in 
 particular, of tremendous vividity : ' * Daily through 
 the city stalks the picture of famine, L'P^nfant and 
 his dog." How the dog adds to the grimness of the 
 picture ! And how one thinks of man and dog creep- 
 ing off into the darkness! And how curiously is 
 
 10 
 
THE CITY OF GEORGE THE GREAT 
 
 this story of the bitter closing years of L 'Enfant 
 like the story of the bitter closing years of that other 
 Frenchman also condemned by Washington, Pierre 
 Landais, who stalked in poverty about the streets 
 of New York, carrying the roll of papers which 
 represented his claim against the American Gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 The body of L 'Enfant long lay in obscurity, 
 where, in obscurity, it was buried, but it was taken 
 up a few years ago, and placed in an honorable 
 position in honored Arlington. 
 
 Had it been possible for Washington and L 'En- 
 fant to keep constantly withir personal touch, the 
 situation would probably have developed differently. 
 But Washington, wdth the tremendous demands of 
 the new Presidency, was most of the time in New 
 York and Philadelphia in the early nineties : it will 
 be remembered that the Govermnent did not take 
 possession of the Federal City until the administra- 
 tion of Adams. 
 
 We find L 'Enfant wanting to Washington: ''From 
 this height, every tower and building would rear 
 with a majestic aspect over all the country round, 
 and might advantageously be seen from twenty miles 
 off, and facing on the grandest prospect to the Po- 
 towmack. ' ' 
 
 L 'Enfant could not understand needful economy. 
 He it was who drew such expensive plans for the 
 Philadelphia home of Robert Morris that the mighty 
 financier was ruined. And similar unchecked lavish- 
 
 11 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 ness would have ruined the finances of the United 
 States. 
 
 In spite of his genius L'Emfant was impracticable. 
 Washington was a genius who aimed at practical 
 results. It was no time for nursing grievances but 
 to do the best one could. Washington put in another 
 engineer and the work went on. For the building of 
 the Federal City could not be stopped. The name 
 of the city was changed to Washington as soon as it 
 began to be used as the Capital. 
 
 Eigid as Washington was in exacting results from 
 others, he was equally rigid with himself. He never 
 relaxed from standards of duty. Yet, mth this, he 
 possessed wealth of sympathy and atfection. From 
 the time of his marriage until his death he wore upon 
 his breast, suspended, out of sight, by a gold chain, 
 a miniature of his wife. And John Quincy Adams 
 left on record that at a dinner when his mother, 
 Mrs. John Adams, was present, Washington took 
 out all the sugar-plums from a cake and gave them 
 to Mrs. Adams to take home to her son, little John. 
 Yet Washington was capable, on rare occasions, of 
 fierce and blazing anger. 
 
 George Washington was indifferent .to his an- 
 cestry. He liked to say that he was an American, 
 of English descent ; to him, that represented the best 
 of combinations. Doubtless he knew, for he knew his 
 Clarendon, that the most famous of the English 
 Washingtons had particularly distinguished himself 
 on the side of the King against Parliament in the 
 
 12 
 
THE CITY OF GEORGE THE GREAT 
 
 preceding century, and he deemed it not necessary, 
 in the face of American conditions, to bring up com- 
 parisons. 
 
 First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of 
 his countrymen : then none more fitting to map and 
 plan and decide upon the outlines of the capital city. 
 
 One thinks of him, riding about this city in 
 the making; leaving that little stone house over in 
 Georgetown and going slowly, on horseback, toward 
 the site of the White House and the Capitol : per- 
 haps, sometimes, in the sporting costume whose 
 description has come down to us : blue coat, scarlet 
 waistcoat, buckskin breeches, top boots, velvet cap, 
 whip with one thong. Or he may have ridden about 
 sedately, in plain drab clothes, a broad-brimmed 
 white hat, and with a long-handled umbrella attached 
 to his saddle-bow to keep off the heat of the sun. 
 
 In the center of one of the many circles of the city, 
 on Pennsjdvania Avenue at the junction of New 
 Hampshire, is an equestrian statue of Washington: 
 and in relation to it there came to Bret Harte a grim 
 conception. For Bret Harte, describing in swing- 
 ing lines the Grand Review that marked the close of 
 the Civil War, wrote : 
 
 ' ' Two hundred thousand men in blue, 
 I think they said was the number, 
 Till I seemed to hear their trampling feet, 
 The bugle blast and the drum's quick beat, 
 The clatter of hoofs in the stony street, 
 The cheers of people who came to greet." 
 13 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 Whereupon he goes on to a dream vision of the 
 night hours following the review. He imagines him- 
 self standing at the front of the Capitol. 
 
 * ' Then I held my breath with fear and dread ; 
 For into the square, with a brazen tread, 
 There rode a figure whose stately head, 
 'erlooked the review that morning. 
 That never bowed from its firm-set seat 
 When the living column passed its feet, 
 Yet now rode steadily up the street 
 To the phantom bugle 's warning : 
 
 * * Till it reached the Capitol square, and wheeled, 
 And there in the moonlight stood revealed 
 A well-known form that in State and field 
 Had led our patriot sires." Whereupon 
 
 "And I saw a phantom army come, 
 With never a sound of fife or dram. 
 But keeping time to a throbbing hum. 
 Of wailing and lamentation." 
 
 And Washington reviews, for hour after hour, the 
 dead soldiers of the Civil War: a strange weird 
 fancy. 
 
 Washington made a point of not buying in the new 
 city for speculation, but he bought two ''squares," 
 very difficult now to pick out, a little to the west of 
 the Capitol, between North Capitol Street and New 
 Jersey Avenue. Square 634 cost nine hundred and 
 sixty-three dollars, and with the buildings, three 
 stories high of brick, fifteen thousand dollars. He 
 
 14 
 
THE CITY OF GEORGE THE GREAT 
 
 also bought lots five, twelve, thirteen, and fourteen, 
 on the "Eastern Branch," and his own estimate of 
 their value was twelve cents the square foot. He 
 also bought throe so-called water-lots on the ''East- 
 ern Branch," in square 667, containing 34,438 square 
 feet. 
 
 It would have been bad form to speculate in lots 
 of a city wliich he liimself laid out, so he bought only 
 enough, for a rich man like himself, for a small, but 
 encouraging investment. To have done otherwise 
 would have been bad form, and Washington was 
 never guilty of that. 
 
 That he was a surveyor of skill from the time that 
 he was merely a youth, was the factor which more 
 than any other made him capable of superintending 
 the laying out of a city. He had, recently, at Mount 
 Vernon, laid out approaches and grounds that are 
 still recognized as models of the art of landscaping. 
 
 His beginning as a surveyor was for Lord Fair- 
 fax : not the Fairfax who was his pleasant neighbor 
 down the Potomac, but the head of the house, an 
 older man, the Lord Fairfax who banished himself, 
 long before the Revolution, to the Shenandoah re- 
 gion, where he owned and laid out many thousands 
 of acres. 
 
 When the Revolutionary War came old Lord Fair- 
 fax was immensely disturbed, so tradition locally 
 tells, and he could not get over the fact that George 
 Washington was the American leader. One day 
 there came to him sounds of great excitement, and 
 
 15 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 it was with reluctance that his body-servant told 
 him, in answer to imperative demands, that Corn- 
 wallis was taken. 
 
 ''And it is my George Washington!" he mur- 
 mured ; he turned his face to the wall ; " It 's time for 
 me to die." 
 
 16 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 A HOUSE HAPPILY NAMED 
 
 N front of the north face 
 of the White House, is 
 an equestrian statue of 
 General Jackson: a short 
 distance beyond the south 
 front is one of General 
 Sherman; and this is re- 
 mindful of a time when the 
 two famous leaders almost 
 met. It was in 1836. The 
 future General Sherman, 
 then a lad of sixteen on 
 his way to West Point, 
 ^ to become a cadet, looked 
 v^ for an hour or so through 
 the railing (at that time 
 a wooden railing) watch- 
 ing General Jackson, then President, as he paced 
 back and forth on the gravel walk at the north front 
 of the W^hite House. 
 
 That the future general must have been in- 
 tensely fascinated by the sight and proximity of 
 the soldier-President is certain: the eager-minded 
 youth, about to begin his own soldier career, 
 
 17 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 was tremendously interested in watching the 
 victor of New Orleans: but whatever his thoughts, 
 all that he sets down, when he comes to write 
 his memoirs, is that he noticed that Jackson wore 
 a cap, and that his overcoat was so full that it 
 made him seem smaller than the lad had supposed 
 him to be. 
 
 The building in front of which Jackson was pacing 
 was even then often called ''The White House," 
 although it did not officially receive that designation 
 until the time of President Roosevelt. It had been 
 known as the President's House, the Palace, the 
 Great House, the Castle or the Executive Mansion, 
 but the simplicity of the two words ''White House" 
 finally made its permanent appeal. 
 
 The name of "White House," delightful and de- 
 scriptive name that it is, has often been supposed 
 to have its origin from the home of the wealthy and 
 brilliant widow, Martha Custis. For she was owner 
 of a "White House" when she and Washington first 
 met ; he being on his way to the capital of the Colony, 
 mounted on the horse that the dying Braddock had 
 given him, and attended (it is Washington's adopted 
 son who tells this, so it must often have been talked 
 over in the family circle) by Braddock 's body-ser- 
 vant, Bishop, an old soldier whom the general, dying, 
 advised not to return to England but to stay on with 
 George Washington. "Never," said Custis, "did 
 a man make more complete acknowledgment of error 
 than did poor brave Braddock in his last hours, 
 when recanting his criticism of the Americans." 
 
 18 
 
A HOUSE HAPPILY NAMED 
 
 It was not, however, because Martha Custis was 
 owner of her "White House" that the White House 
 of the Presidency took that name. For the term 
 came, naturally and simply, after the Presidential 
 home was painted white to cover the marks of smoke 
 and fire, after its partial destruction by the British 
 in the war of 1812. From the first, the name pleas- 
 antly attached itself. It is so unpretentious a name, 
 so simple and pleasant a name, a name with, some- 
 how, suggestion of charm even beyond what obvi- 
 ously impresses itself. It is an ideally American 
 name : and it was one of the notable acts of President 
 Roosevelt — the importance of official acts being 
 measured, in final effect, by different standards than 
 those of obviousness at the time — it was one of his 
 important acts to give the name of "White House" 
 officially, it having been for decades thus used un- 
 officially. 
 
 Roosevelt, astute politician though he was, or, 
 rather, because he was, was in some respects frank- 
 ness itself. He enjoyed being President and living 
 in the White House, and felt not the slightest 
 hesitation in saying so. Neither did he hesitate to 
 say that he had always been a lucky man. He was 
 especially lucky when, after most positively refusing 
 to accept the Vice-Presidency, even to the point, 
 at midnight before his nomination, of thundering out 
 his refusal from the depths of his bath-tub, and ac- 
 centing his words with tremendous poundings upon 
 the tub*s edge, he reluctantly accepted. He dreaded 
 the inactivity of presiding over the Senate — as if 
 
 19 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 he could ever have been inactive! — and luck so 
 adjusted matters that he was presiding officer of 
 the Senate for only one week. 
 
 A glance at the equestrian generals reminds one 
 again of the close proximity of Jackson and Sherman 
 so many years- ago, and it is remindful also that 
 Sherman, had he in his later days so chosen, could 
 himself have been the official occupant of the White 
 House. For the people wanted him as President. 
 But he, loyal to his older brother, would not stand 
 in John's path to the Presidency. John Sherman 
 was unable to win the goal and William Tecumseh's 
 abnegation was therefore of no practical good to 
 either. John, by the way, could never overcome his 
 intense disappointment. I remember having a talk 
 with him in his* room at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, in 
 his old age, when he almost violently complained 
 even then of what he termed treachery and bribery 
 used by his rivals to keep him from the White House. 
 
 Jackson was one of the Presidents who left an 
 impress. And he was of that class of men who al- 
 ways do what they think at the moment the proper 
 thing to do. As, one bitter day when he was seen 
 carrying a little girl in one arm and her little dog 
 in the other. "The cliild was crying. They were 
 cold. I'm taking them to a fire." And thus they 
 entered the front door of the White House. 
 
 Presidents are remembered for little things for 
 different reasons : some because there were no great 
 things to mark their holding of a great office : others 
 
 20 
 
A HOUSE HAPPILY NAMED 
 
 because they were giants whose slightest touch made 
 indentations in history or legend. 
 
 Andrew Jackson loved children. When asked for 
 something special to put in the corner-stone of the 
 Treasury Building whose site he had one day marked 
 with peremptoiy impatience with liis cane and which 
 was forever to block any possibility of a view in that 
 direction from the White House, he clipped a lock 
 of hair from the head of the baby of the White 
 House, the tiny daughter of the "wife of his adopted 
 son. 
 
 When this same little girl was christened, Jackson 
 deemed the occasion important enough to justify 
 asking both Houses of Congress to be present; and 
 few dared not to go ! And the highly self-important 
 and sartorial Martin Van Buren was godfather. 
 Dignifiedly as the name seems to befit a man of fine 
 personal dignity, it is amusing to remember that un- 
 til well on in life he signed only ''M. V. Buren." 
 
 There have been Presidents who are remembered, 
 if at all, through their connection with some one or 
 some event apart from themselves. As, broadly 
 speaking, what was there about either Fillmore or 
 Pierce more important than their going arm in arm, 
 when Fillmore was President and Pierce was Presi- 
 dent-elect, to a lecture by Thackeray, in Washington, 
 on which occasion, as they met the distinguished 
 Englishman, our ovm Washington Irving, who was 
 present, murmured to Thackeray, **Two Kings of 
 Brentford smelling at one rose!" And as I write 
 
 21 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 who can say that the best remembered thing about 
 President Harding, after all his acts of apparent 
 world importance, may in the distant future be that 
 he one day chose to play golf on a public ground of 
 the city — paying the regular fee of twenty-five cents 
 rather than go as guest to some fashionable club ! 
 
 Hayes, man of excellent intentions and fair abili- 
 ties, boomeranged into the White House by the Elec- 
 toral Commission, when the Democrats fully ex- 
 pected to seat Tilden, would be quite forgotten, as a 
 personality, were it not that his wife succeeded in 
 establishing, for the Hayes term, prohibition in the 
 White House, to the amazement of the world. What 
 floods of merciless wit were poured upon them! 
 How Evarts chuckled over his description of a state 
 dinner, when * ' water flowed like wine ! ' ' And now — 
 the entire nation has swung around, to formal ac- 
 ceptance of prohibition. 
 
 The ill-natured quietly claimed even under the 
 Hayes regime that wine was now and then incon- 
 spicuously served at special dinners at the White 
 House; as, at a dinner to Grand Duke Alexis: and 
 some good Americans grumbled about privileges 
 given to Russians. And it was claimed that at least 
 at some state dinners a certain kind of punch was 
 served that was flavored with Jamaica rum and 
 familiarly known as *'the life saving station." But 
 Mr. and Mrs. Hayes were probably sincere in their 
 views, and stood for them in spite of ridicule. How 
 incredible it would have seemed had some one 
 
 22 
 
A HOUSE HAPPILY NAMED 
 
 prophesied then, that in less than half a century 
 stern laws were to order absolute prohibition! 
 
 Among the occupants of the White House, few 
 have been so interesting as Theodore Roosevelt. 
 His mind was always alert, and he especially en- 
 joyed historical correlations ; and he writes, after a 
 dinner at wliich the Prince of Battenberg and Secre- 
 tary of the Navy Bonaparte sat together among his 
 guests, that Bonaparte was the grand-nephew of 
 the Great Napoleon and grandson of Jerome, King 
 of Westphalia, and that Battenberg, British admiral, 
 was grandson of a Hessian general who had been a 
 subject of the same King Jerome — who, as Roosevelt 
 does not forget to add, deserted Napoleon discred- 
 itably, in the midst of the Battle of Leipsic. 
 
 Roosevelt traveled a great deal after leaving the 
 White House and found a warm welcome at one 
 court after another. Of course they welcomed him, 
 he declares cheerfully: their official rules so ham- 
 pered them that they could be but slightly in real 
 touch with men of the world, and so he served as " a 
 relief to the tedium, the dull narrow routine of their 
 lives." Apparently, what is needed in a king, he 
 decided, thus getting back to liis pet aversion the 
 vice-presidency, is that the king shall be a kind of 
 sublimated vice-president. 
 
 ''Please put out the light," murmured Roosevelt, 
 drowsily; and they were his last words in this world. 
 The last words of his immediate predecessor, 
 McKinley, dying in Buffalo and remembering the 
 
 23 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 comfort and beauty of the White House, were some- 
 thing regarding the swaying of the trees outside the 
 White House windows. 
 
 The White House has always been, outside and in, J 
 la place of charm, except after its burning, and dur- 
 ving the period of the unsocial rule of Wilson. 
 
 The White House has always been looked upon 
 as representing the social as well as political leader- 
 ship of the nation. No other political leader, no 
 matter how powerful, has ever been able to equal 
 the power of the man actually in the Presidential 
 chair : Hanna coming nearest to doing this, through 
 his position as unscrupulous head of the group man- 
 aging McKinley's involved fortunes. 
 
 And always, in spite of the power and claims of 
 social leaders, has the position of the President, and 
 *'the first lady of the land," given social leadership: 
 because, first, of the Presidential hold upon the great 
 titled ones from abroad and because of the power of 
 the President to appoint to important posts. 
 
 Socially and pohtically there is naturally a 
 national head, and that headship naturally goes to 
 the White House if the White House will assume it. 
 
 More prominently and importantly than even the 
 Roosevelts took leadership, did the Madisons do so : 
 and that was because the capabilities of wife and 
 husband fitted and supplemented each other. 
 
 Madison was a man of ability and achievement; 
 not a soldier, but an excellent politician, or states- 
 man ; an extremely good dresser, a small man, with 
 rather a mild face ; a sort of conciliatory man, often 
 
 24 
 
A HOUSE HAPPILY NAMED 
 
 and good-naturedly referred to as *' Little Jimmy." 
 His wife was taller than he, a good-looking woman, 
 still to this day loved and known as *' Dolly" Madi- 
 son; of remarkable qualities, accustomed to her own 
 way. As wife of Secretary of State Madison, she 
 had been mistress of the White House for the 
 widower Jefferson, and then she was President's 
 wife for eight years more. 
 
 Under the Madisons, the White House was a 
 happy place of social gayeties, and the turbaned 
 "Dolly" was a cheerful social despot, often called 
 *'the queen," whose rule no one thought of dis- 
 puting. 
 
 Even the broad-brimmed western hat of Roosevelt 
 (a kind of hat I used to notice in the West, that was 
 made in Philadelphia, where still earlier a broad- 
 brimmed hat of another kind was common) was 
 never so well known as the turban of Dolly Madison. 
 It was always of some striking or perhaps even 
 vivid color. Some were crimson, some were span- 
 gled with silver. She is said to have spent a thou- 
 sand dollars a year on her turbans and always had 
 them made to match her gowns. As Washington 
 used to send to London for his clothes, painstakingly 
 writing his measures and demands, so ** Dolly" sent 
 to Paris for her grand costumes. She was not 
 above such homely habits as using snuff, and one 
 evening, talking with Henry Clay, she drew a ban- 
 dana from her pockets saying smilingly, *'Tliis is for 
 rough work": then she drew out a filmy square of 
 lace and said, **But this is my polisher." No won- 
 
 25 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 der she was recognized as the leader of polished 
 society ! 
 
 When one thinks of the White House, it seems 
 inevitable that thoughts should first come of the folk 
 who have inhabited it, with thoughts of the building 
 itself to come only afterwards. 
 
 And of all its famous occupants, two more than 
 any others in the long list (there have been twenty- 
 nine Presidents while there have been but six sov- 
 ereigns of Great Britain) stand out markedly as the 
 possessors of that vivid social personality which 
 combines power and rulership with camaraderie and 
 an immense enjoyment in it all: and those two have 
 been ''Dolly" Madison and ''Teddy" Roosevelt. 
 Debonair, arbitrary, sparkling, human, all-alive, they 
 were natural rulers. 
 
 Dolly Madison lived in Washington or in touch 
 with Washington for almost fifty years. Many are 
 still alive who were alive when she died. And she 
 was a social ruler until her death. The Madisons, 
 as with most others of the early leaders of family, 
 lived in a beautiful and stately home, Montpelier, 
 just as Washington lived at beautiful Mount 
 Vernon, and Jefferson at beautiful Monticello : these 
 and other beautiful homes 'giving dignity to the 
 living of the leaders of those days. As to Mrs. 
 Madison, she visited the city of Washington but 
 briefly for the many years between her husband's 
 retirement and his death, but those brief visits kept 
 alive in the city the close knowledge of her person- 
 ality, and when, in the last years of her life, she once 
 
 26 
 
A HOUSE HAPPILY NAMED 
 
 more made her home in Washington, she was again 
 yielded leadership. As a widow in Washington she 
 held actual court: on New Year's and the Fourth 
 the important people, after calling at the White 
 House, went direct to her home. 
 
 Grant, though entering the White House a popular 
 idol, and remaining there eight years, was one of 
 those who on the whole made little impression. His 
 inaugural ball, however, held in the Treasury Build- 
 ing, certainly made an impression, of sorts, for fully 
 six thousand people had their wraps and coats 
 checked, and all system was lost, and never was there 
 such muddling and mixing of belongings. It was a 
 cold and stormy night: there was shortage of car- 
 riages : many men and many women walked to their 
 homes, without hats or wraps or in the belongings 
 of other people, while many huddled in corners and 
 helplessly wept or swore. There were colds, deaths, 
 loss of clothes and jewels and furs — after all, a not 
 likely to be forgotten administration, one sees ! 
 
 The great stealings of members of his administra- 
 tion have been almost forgotten, so vastly have 
 expenditures grown huge and unchecked in recent 
 years. 
 
 In Grant's time it was still matter of common 
 knowledge that when President Buchanan learned 
 that the expenses of the trip of the Prince of Wales 
 to Mount Vernon were about to be charged to the 
 Government he instantly ordered that they be made 
 a charge to himself. How times have changed ! And 
 it was not forgotten that when President John 
 
 27 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 Quincy Adams bought a mirror for the White House, 
 out of a Government appropriation, pajdng for it 
 thirty-six dollars, there was such an outcry about 
 extravagance that he paid for it himself. 
 
 Some years after Grant, the entire country was 
 agitated by the so-called assurance of President 
 Cleveland in using for a modest outing a modest 
 Government light-house tender : but the country was 
 not a particle shocked when, not many years after 
 this, Roosevelt began to use warships with some 
 freedom, even to the extent of ordering one to take 
 one of his children across the Sound from Oyster 
 Bay, to see a boat race. And in only a few years, 
 so swiftly do changes sometimes come, another 
 President personally ordered himself and atten- 
 dants carried to Europe at immense Government 
 expense, using one of the world's greatest liners as 
 his private yacht. What a change within three 
 decades ! 
 
 Grover Cleveland is to be counted among the most 
 serious of White House occupants; yet he had his 
 humorous side; and he loved to tell stories of hap- 
 penings such as the jumping overboard, at the im- 
 minent danger of his life, on one of the Presidential 
 fishing trips — Cleveland being a devoted fisherman 
 — of an old darky, who saved a colored youth at the 
 last gasp for breath. Cleveland could not under- 
 stand it. The darky had never impressed him as 
 cast in heroic mold. **Is the boy a relative? No? 
 Then why did you take such a risk?" *'Well, sah, 
 de fack is, sah, dat boy had de bait!" A stern, un- 
 
 28 
 
A HOUSE HAPPILY NAMED 
 
 sliakable man was Cleveland, who would admit, with 
 close friends, that his frequent apparent ignoring 
 of political considerations was quite likely to be 
 actually planned as good politics. 
 
 Fisherman that he was, I remember being told, 
 while in the Berkshires at a place where he loved to 
 stay, that at times he would patiently sit beside his 
 little boy, leaning with him over the porch rail, the 
 boy with dry fishline dangling and the Presidential 
 father instructing him soberly in the art of fishing 
 and the mysteries of bait. 
 
 That three Presidents have been murdered within 
 the short space of our national life; that the three 
 tragedies came well within the period of forty years ; 
 should be realizingly remembered, as showing the 
 evils possible to even a Republican nation. And to 
 this should be added the fact that still other Presi- 
 dents were the objects of attempted assassination ! 
 
 Besides those who were assassinated, while Presi- 
 dent, William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor 
 died wliile holding the office. 
 
 Harrison's wife was too feeble to accompany him 
 to his inauguration. In a month he was taken back 
 home dead: but his widow, unable as she was to 
 make the journey to Washington, survived him to al- 
 most the age of ninety. It is told, do^^^l in Virginia, 
 that Tyler, succeeding Harrison, was so sartorially 
 unprepared that, when the news of the death of Har- 
 rison reached him, he had to make hasty borro\\dng 
 of the needful clothes. 
 
 Tyler had become Governor of Virginia through 
 
 29 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 the death of the one holding that office: he had be- 
 come Senator by appointment after a death : and he 
 became President through the death of Harrison. 
 
 Again and again one sees that in writing of the 
 White House, one turns aside into writing of those 
 who occupied it. It is curious to know for example 
 that Zachary Taylor, when elected President, had 
 never in his life cast a ballot in any election. He 
 had seen so much army service, in Indian Wars, 
 fighting in Mexico, in marching and campaigning 
 and garrison duty, during the greater part of which 
 his wife had accompanied him, that, when nominated 
 for the Presidency, he remarked that for more than 
 a quarter of a century the battle-field had been his 
 home : but I noticed, in the memoirs of Mrs. Logan, 
 the widow of General John, the very different state- 
 ment that for a quarter of a century General Tay- 
 lor's home had been his battlefield! 
 
 From the words, ''Old Eough and Ready," it 
 would be supposed that New England was right in 
 estimating him as ''an ignorant frontier colonel." 
 Yet his announced platform was one in which even 
 the greatest American of any section could have 
 felt pride. For it was : "I have no private purposes 
 to accomplish, no party projects to build up, no 
 enemies to punish, nothing to serve but my 
 country. ' ' 
 
 So far from being one of Hawthorne's "bullet- 
 headed generals," he is described as a gentle-faced, 
 white-haired man; with mild eyes and a soft and 
 pleasant voice. Whenever a group, passing him, 
 
 30 
 
A HOUSE HAPPILY NAMED 
 
 bowed respectfully to him as President, he would 
 say, gently, ''Your humble servant, ladies," or 
 ** Heaven bless you, gentlemen." In all he was one 
 of the most interesting of the occupants of the White 
 House. 
 
 Over and over one notices, what little points are 
 those which mark most of the Presidential careers. 
 Tyler was the first President who wa» not born a 
 British subject. Even Van Buren could be techni- 
 cally claimed by England as he was born in 1782. 
 But Tyler was born in 1790. And still more odd is 
 the fact that this technically first American President 
 was a member of the Confederate Congress when 
 he died. 
 
 Tyler was not a man who shrank from publicity. 
 When he married his second wife, Julia Gardiner, 
 of Gardiner's Island, at the end of Long Island 
 Sound, he was President and fifty-four years of age, 
 and she was scarcely more than a girl. They were 
 married in New York and after the ceremony the 
 couple drove do^vn Broadway in an open coach 
 drawm by four white horses. 
 
 Between the death of the first Mrs. Tyler and his 
 marriage to the second, his son's wife was for some- 
 time mistress of the White House. She was the vi- 
 vacious and charming daughter of an actor named 
 Cooper. Not knowing that fact, one night a Sena- 
 tor said to her, at a ball in an old theater trans- 
 formed into a ball room, that on the very spot where 
 they now stood, he once saw the best acting he had 
 ever seen in his life: that of Cooper in Macbeth. 
 
 31 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 And Mrs. Tyler tells of how there came surging over 
 her, thoughts of the changes that had come within 
 the six years through which she and her father, who 
 was the actor. Cooper, had struggled since the ap- 
 pearance spoken of. 
 
 One of the ablest and most American of the White 
 House occupants was the first one of all, the choleric 
 John Adams. It is interesting to remember that he 
 was born at what is now Quincy, in a sweet but de- 
 cidedly humble little house, and that to a similarly 
 humble little place close beside it, he took Abigail 
 as his bride, and there their son John Quincy Adams 
 was born. The sixth President was son of the second 
 and the twenty-third was grandson of the ninth! 
 Special interest lies in the fact that John and the 
 able Abigail Adams came from that humble living 
 to the White House, and that Mrs. Adams was from 
 the first full of complaints. There was shortage of 
 servants, to be written lengthily about, shortage of 
 fuel, shortage of means of getting about in bad 
 weather. No one could suppose from her letters 
 that she had ever lived in that simple home in 
 Quincy ! 
 
 John Quincy Adams inherited a full measure of 
 irascibility, yet in spite of that became President. 
 Before going to the White House he represented our 
 country abroad, becoming familiar mth London, 
 Paris, Berlin and St. Petersburg — an unusual ac- 
 quaintance w^th cities for an American of that 
 period. He was our first Minister to Russia, and 
 finding it necessary to go to Paris, he left his mfe 
 
 32 
 
A HOUSE HAPPILY NAMED 
 
 in St. Petersburg. And then he had to send for her 
 to join him. With her child she bravely started off: 
 bravely, for all Europe was in turmoil, as the time 
 was immediately after the Russian disasters of the 
 great Napoleon. She was in Paris when the Em- 
 peror returned from Elba, and witnessed the storm 
 of deJight with which he was greeted. Many and 
 unusual were the memories that she could carry with 
 her to the White House. 
 
 A carious point in connection with White House 
 dwellers is that of the unexpected prominence of 
 Friday. 
 
 Monroe, Hayes and Pierce were born on Friday. 
 Pierce was inaugurated on Friday and died on Fri- 
 day. Both John Quincy Adams and Garfield, as 
 well as Pierce were inaugurated on Friday. Tyler 
 and Polk died on Friday and Lincoln was shot on 
 Friday. Friday indeed, has from the first been im- 
 portant in the history of America. Washington was 
 born on Friday, the battle of Bunker Hill was fought 
 on Friday, but, to go back to the beginning, Colum- 
 bus sailed, on his first voyage, on Friday, first 
 sighted land on Friday, and on still another Friday 
 discovered the continent of America. 
 
 A coincidence of another kind, one of the most 
 remarkable in all history, was that John Adams and 
 Thomas Jefferson died, old men, not only on the 
 same day but on July the Fourth, and on not only 
 that, but July the Fourth of the fiftieth anniversary 
 of the signing of the Declaration. Monroe also died 
 on a Fourth of July : not a Signer, but a participator 
 
 33 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 in the Revolutionary fighting and the author of the 
 Poc'triue which for more than a century stood as the 
 symbol of high Americanism. 
 
 That Grant was the first President to wear a 
 moustache, that Lincoln was the tirst to wear a full 
 beard, are among the Presidential facts. And as to 
 Lincoln, it is interesting to remember that he and his 
 rival President, JetTerson Davis, were both born in 
 Kentucky, and within a year of each other, and that 
 one worked out his future through going into the 
 Southwest and the other his through going into the 
 Northwest. 
 
 And Lincoln ought not to be blamed, as he often 
 is, for that hat ! For the daguerreotypes of the 
 period show that it was quite the vogue. 
 
 AVhat may be termed the most picturesque custom 
 in America takes place annually in the grounds of 
 the AVhite House. And the fact that it is an ancient 
 custom, dipping back vaguely into the misty cen- 
 turies, that in all probability it long antedates the 
 time of Christ, adds to the vast interest of it. It is 
 a celebration of Faster, coming down, vaguely, out 
 of the mistiness of vanished centuries. 
 
 It is the annual egg rolling: which becnme a cus- 
 tom here in the White House grounds perhaps some 
 three-quarters of a century ago. Eggs and Easter 
 time have long been associated and never was so 
 charming an association as this. For all that might 
 be grim in something coming down from the Druids 
 has somehow vanislunl, and only the ])icturesque 
 remains. It reminds me of an ancient Druid custom 
 
 34 
 
A HOUSE HAPPILY NAMED 
 
 that I came across in the Grand Duchy of Luxem- 
 bourg, where, in a lonely place in the unsettled 
 northern portion, on one night in the year, the chil- 
 dren build a fire and then come rushing down the 
 Druid-haunted hill, each waving a flaming brand. 
 
 But in Washington the function of egg-rolling is 
 in daytime and not at night: it consists in the roll- 
 ing of painted Easter eggs, on Easter Monday, on 
 the grassy slopes of the White House grounds. 
 
 The children gather by thousands, boys and girls, 
 and all young. No adults are admitted, except such 
 as are in definite charge of a child. What may be 
 termed the childless fathers of Washington (not the 
 fatherless children) form a long unbroken line, along 
 the stone base of the enclosing iron fence, standing 
 tiptoe and eager to watch the gay scene mthin. I 
 took my chance with the general public, and was 
 curtly refused admission by a particularly stern 
 policeman whom I had noticed turning back one 
 adult after another. I briefly said a half dozen 
 words to the effect that I was a stranger in the 
 city, who had not brought a child. Apparently he 
 did not hear me. He looked sternly over my 
 shoulder at the Washington Monument, and in a 
 growling undertone responded to "go back a little 
 and adopt a child. '^ So within five minutes I was 
 within the grounds — and it was astonishing how 
 soon that adopted boy was lost ! 
 
 The sweeping grounds were thronged. Every 
 moment more were arriving. They came in singles 
 and twos and threes and they came in a succession of 
 
 35 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 little throngs aa street car after street car unloaded ; 
 they came, very many, in motor cars. And in the 
 closed cars the little children, gathered half a dozen 
 or so in a car, looked like crowded nests of brightly 
 plumaged birds, for it was a gathering that included 
 every class. The rich and the well-to-do were there ; 
 the poor were there, proud of their colored eggs. 
 
 There was no formal procedure. Each child car- 
 ried its eggs, all fancifully decorated, and most of 
 them sat quietly on the grass on knolls where their 
 eggs rolled easily. 
 
 There was, oddly, a general appearance as if there 
 were only children, for the elders were practically 
 lost, practically unnoticeable, among the gayly col- 
 ored throng of little ones. Quite amazingly colorful 
 were the children and their accessories : their para- 
 sols, their many-colored toy balloons, held by 
 strings, the bright baskets, the eggs themselves, the 
 hair ribbons, the jackets and hats and skirts, in reds 
 and blues and lavenders, in mustards and pinks — 
 there were children like lilies, all in white, children 
 in pale linen, children like yellow daffodils, seated on 
 the pale green grass. 
 
 Some were moving about in gentle happiness. A 
 great fountain was gloriously playing and all the 
 lilacs were in delicate flower. Intermittently came 
 the music of the Marine Band; and always was the 
 softly chirring sound of children's voices. 
 
 It makes the most picturesque scene in America, 
 with its noble background of the White House: it 
 
 36 
 
A HOUSE HAPPILY NAMED 
 
 was like some unusually beautiful fete day for chil- 
 dren in France, with the beauty of grass and shrubs 
 and trees and costumes accented by the noble jet 
 d'eau. 
 
 The entire scene, colors and children and foun- 
 tain and the White House itself, all seem like a Wat- 
 teau picture. And yet, the White House was not 
 designed by a Frenelmaan though there were many 
 Frenchmen in America, veterans of our Revolution, 
 refugees from their home. It was an Irishman who 
 . gave the design for the White House ; James Hoban, 
 \ of Charleston, South Carolina. His design won in a 
 I public competition, and he was given the first prize, 
 ' of five hundred dollars. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 A CUEIOUS VISIT 
 
 
 OT only was an Irish- 
 man, Hoban, the ar- 
 chitect of the White 
 House, but it is generally 
 said to have been made 
 from the inspiration of 
 an Irish model. It is said 
 to have been inspired by the 
 ,^ mansion of the Duke of 
 Leinster, near Dublin; but 
 although this supposi- 
 tion is frequently re- 
 ferred to, it is with diffi- 
 culty that one finds a picture of the Irish house; 
 but I am fortunately able to reproduce an engrav- 
 ing of ''the Seat of His Grace the Duke of Leinster," 
 named ''Carton," in the County of Kildare, from an 
 engraving of the year 1824, and it shows consider- 
 able similarity in general style to the White House, 
 as the White House was in early days, before the 
 projecting portico was added. For the front and 
 rear porticoes, which are such important features 
 of the White House as it now is, were not part of 
 the structure until about 1825. 
 
 38 
 
A CURIOUS VISIT 
 
 Hoban's White House was one hundred and sixty 
 feet long, of stone, two stories in height, with a front 
 of great dignity. The driveway now sweeps up 
 across the broad .lawn and under the portico, vnth 
 its four Corinthian columns and classic pediment. 
 On the first floor, on either side, are four windows 
 with tops alternately pointed and rounding. Along 
 the roof runs a balustrade. All is simple, all is dig- 
 nified and fine with heedful care of proportions. 
 Above the fan-lighted front door hangs a large 
 lantern for electric light, and from this door one 
 looks beyond a charming water basin, into Lafay- 
 ette Square, with its statues and memories, and on 
 to the long vista of Sixteenth Street. 
 
 The building is one of evolution, of additions, of 
 accretions. Hoban was a man of fortunate tempera- 
 ment. He made governmental connections and held 
 them. He rebuilt the White House after its burn- 
 ing. In all he worked for the Government for some 
 forty years. 
 
 The pillared centers of the front and rear seem to 
 have been the idea of the Englishman Latrobe, who 
 had so much to do with the Capitol, for they show in 
 a drawing made by him a score of years before the 
 idea was carried out. 
 
 The rear of the building is even more charming 
 than the front. It is very beautiful indeed. The 
 front and rear are greatly alike, as to windows and 
 the balustrade along the roof, and in general air, 
 but at the rear tliere are effective pilasters between 
 the windows, reaching cornice-high, and the portico 
 
 39 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 is higher than at front, also reaching cornice-high, 
 without the angle-topped pediment of the front: 
 and the projective portico with six taller pillars 
 than at the front, is semi-circular instead of square. 
 It is a house of spirited dignity, seen from either 
 view: and from the house itself, looking toward the 
 south, the eye sweeps the broad enclosed acreage 
 of the White House grounds and on to the stretches 
 of the Potomac and the heights beyond. 
 
 Beautiful as the White House is, for it is beautiful 
 in its interior as its exterior, no less a man than 
 Mark Twain said that, *'It is ugly enough outside, 
 but that is nothing to what it is inside": though, 
 when one thinks of it, this is so stated in ''The 
 Gilded Age," so it may represent Charles Dudley 
 Warner, Mark Twain ^s collaborator in that book, 
 and not Clemens himself, except in the sense that 
 each man must necessarily be responsible for the 
 statements of either. 
 
 Nor was this criticism meant as humor: it was 
 very literally a deliberate opinion : but it is only fair 
 to realize that at the time that book was written, the 
 White House, although ready to be made beautiful, 
 had so many features of ugliness outside and in, 
 barnacles acquired in the course of decades of bad 
 taste, that perhaps Mark Twain was somewhat justi- 
 fied at that time after all. 
 
 It was in the administration of "the prodigious 
 Roosevelt," that the building was given its full 
 beauty: President Roosevelt so deplored the many 
 unbeautiful, disfiguring things that had come to the 
 
 40 
 
A CURIOUS VISIT 
 
 building as its adjuncts, that he asked for and was 
 given an appropriation sufficient for restoration, 
 and he went ahead with all the forcefulness of his 
 forceful nature, and with heedfulness of the intelli- 
 gent advice of those whom he called into consulta- 
 tion. And the result is what we now see. 
 
 There was clutter of the unsightly against the 
 building on each of the four sides. At one point 
 there was an unsightly greenhouse for Presidential 
 grapes. At another point there was a lean-to green- 
 house for a Presidential lover of cucumbers ! There 
 was a structure for a cow to give milk for Presi- 
 dential grandchildren. There was very much that 
 needed clearing away. 
 
 Roosevelt, in announcing the plans regarding the 
 removal of the ill-looking and unfit, that had been 
 allowed to gather there, and the making of the White 
 House into what it ought to be, said: '*The stately 
 simplicity of the architecture is an expression of 
 the character of the period in which it was built, 
 and is in accord with the purposes it was designed 
 to serve. ' * And he finally expressed the feeling that 
 such a building ought to be preserved as an historic 
 monument, '*to keep alive our sense of continuity 
 with the nation's past." 
 
 The terraces which we now see, follow a design by 
 Latrobe made in 1803, but are now adapted for on- 
 tranceway and for offices. The modern architects 
 of restoration of the original Resigns were McKim, 
 Mead and White. The public has always given 
 greater credit for what is positively beautiful in the 
 
 41 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 designs of that firm to Stanford White more than 
 to the others, but it is only fair to say that McKim 
 especially had consultations with Roosevelt before 
 the work was begun. 
 
 One feature of great interest was added during 
 the Roosevelt administration: the collection of the 
 historical china of the White House. This is a get- 
 ting together, in addition to the little already 
 possessed, of what could be gathered of Presidential 
 china of the various administrations. Not from the 
 standpoint of beauty, but of historical succession, the 
 success was all that ardent china lovers could ask: 
 and the fact that the gathering was done by Theo- 
 dore Roosevelt displays another side, an unexpected 
 side, of his myriad-sided nature. No wonder — not 
 apropos of old china but of everything concerning 
 Roosevelt 's remarkable personality — a distinguished 
 Englishman, John Morley, went home and declared : 
 ''I have seen, in America, two great forces of Na- 
 ture: Niagara Falls and Theodore Roosevelt." 
 
 The china of the White House is unavoidably ir- 
 regular in quantity as to the different administra- 
 tions. For some there had been the purchase of 
 entire new dinner services, in hundreds of pieces, 
 giving opportunity for excellent choice for this col- 
 lection: for other administrations there had been 
 but the purchase, from time to time, of such new 
 pieces as were absolutely needed, leaving little for 
 the collection. And as to early days, much of the 
 belongings of the White House, of all descriptions, 
 was destroyed or lost at the time of the burning of 
 
 42 
 
A CURIOUS VISIT 
 
 the building by the British, in the War of 1812. 
 Dollv Madison, vigorous and capable woman that 
 she was, saw to the saving of as much as possible, 
 even in the time of fright and excitement when the 
 British soldiers were momently expected, but it was 
 impossible for her to save any great amount. 
 
 One of my visits to the White House was under 
 most curious conditions. President Wilson was ill 
 and the White House was closed. My last previous 
 visit had been several years before, and I feared 
 that I should miss another visit through a long clos- 
 ing for house-cleaning, after the arrival of the 
 Hardings. 
 
 For over a year the White House was shut to 
 visitors : a house giving the impression of being full 
 of gloomy secrets, for the public knew nothing of 
 the mental and physical condition of their ruler: 
 except for such impressions as could be gathered 
 when he went out for a motor ride. Such ostensible 
 information as was given out was often contradicted 
 and generally held in doubt. Yet the Governmental 
 system which had been established was such that the 
 rule of the man hidden from sight in the fine white 
 mansion was still unbroken. 
 
 A curious report likely to grow into a tradition of 
 our times in future years, has to do with iron bars 
 on the White House windows. It is not surprising 
 that such a story should be current, for the ruler of 
 our Republic was secluded from public sight under 
 circumstances of great mystery, and there were the 
 bars in the windows ! Many gazed through the fence 
 
 43 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 and saw them, many crossed States and returned to 
 tell of them. But as a matter of fact, the bars on 
 the windows which caused such awe, can be seen in 
 photographs of the White House, taken in the happy 
 administration of Roosevelt: and perhaps the bars 
 were put up for the safety of the children of even 
 earlier administrations. 
 
 A request for permission to go through the White 
 House was promptly and courteously answered; so 
 that, on a chill afternoon, a few days before the 
 Wilson occupancy was to end, with his removal to 
 his new home on S Street, I found uniformed and 
 plain-clothes un-uniformed guards, and locks — even 
 a literal padlock on a gate which had in other days 
 always been open' — yielding to the power of a per- 
 mit, and I was passed from those outside to care- 
 takers inside, who were to accompany me. 
 
 From the first, the building was solemn and lonely. 
 We entered the East Room; the great apartment 
 which hundreds of thousands have in the course of 
 our history entered and looked upon as most typical 
 of the White House. It was not only lonely — it was 
 pitch dark! The curtains of the room, which had 
 seen so many meetings of distinguished folk, 
 where the great people of the world had come, were 
 tight drawn — because the darkening had been made 
 for the exhibition of moving pictures, and the appa- 
 ratus, the gift of a famous film actor, stood, sheeted, 
 ready for removal, in the middle of the room, as was 
 evident as my guide first fumbled for some electric 
 lights and then drew aside a curtain that let in the 
 
 44 
 
A CUEIOUS VISIT 
 
 light of a bright wintry afternoon. And it was 
 curious to think of the President, one of the greatest 
 men in the world 's history, a man who had outwitted 
 and controlled people by balancing one set of views 
 and persons against another, a man who had come 
 within an infinitesimal distance of being himself 
 actual ruler of the world, sitting lonely here, in the 
 seclusion of the East Room, of all rooms, to watch 
 the dramas of the screen unravel to interest his 
 brain ! How recently had that wonderful brain, that 
 intense determination, been engaged in bringing 
 about world results infinitely greater than any film 
 could picture! From the first, in this mansion, I 
 felt that I was in touch with tremendous history. 
 
 On the east wall had hung a beautiful tapestry, 
 the gift of the French government to Mrs. Wilson, 
 and removed only the day before to the S Street 
 home — where, made as the tapestry was, for a pal- 
 ace, it was quite too large for its new situation and 
 had to be tucked in at top and bottom with astonish- 
 ingly ineffective result. 
 
 In the mingled glow of electric light and daylight, 
 the East Room was revealed : a splendid room with 
 its elaborate ceiling gloriously wrought, with its 
 striking decoration above the main entrance door, 
 with its great crystal chandeliers, with its splendid 
 classic cornicing, with its exquisite hardwood floor, 
 rich in beauty and in vdde expanse like the floor of 
 some superb French palace. The room is eighty- 
 two feet long, forty feet in width and twenty-two 
 feet high. 
 
 45 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINi&TON 
 
 There is a smaller Green Raom, a room of dignity 
 and charm, a room of beauty. There is the won- 
 derful Blue Room, superbly proportioned, with its 
 beauty markedly increased by its elliptical shape. 
 The golden eagles above the windows, the marble 
 mantel, are but some of the special features of this 
 room. 
 
 A prominent southern novelist tells of being taken, 
 young secessionist though she was, to a Lincoln 
 reception and of his standing at the door of this 
 Green Room speaking gently to her and taking her 
 hand in his, and of how even toward the close of 
 her life, as she writes of it, ''I can distinctly remem- 
 ber that the power of Abraham Lincoln's personality 
 impressed itself upon me for a lifetime. Everything 
 faded out of sight beside the apparition of the new 
 President towering there." 
 
 Curiously, Roosevelt writes much like this young 
 Southern girl: "I think of Lincoln shambling, 
 homely, with his strong, sad, deeply-furrowed face, 
 all the time. I see him in the different rooms and 
 in the halls. For some reason or other he is to me 
 infinitely the most real of the dead Presidents. ' ' 
 
 One of the most curious facts in regard to Lincoln 
 is that when he was an unnoticed Congressman be- 
 fore the Civil War, he so little felt his own high 
 destiny that he made an effort to become a Wash- 
 ington office-holder, securing the endorsement of 
 a number of influential Senators and Representa- 
 tives to his application. It is rather appalling to 
 think that if he had become a Washington desk-man 
 
 46 
 
A CUKIOUS VISIT 
 
 he would never, in all probability, have had a career 
 worthy of even the most casual notice. 
 
 The Red Room is another apartment, palatial in 
 its effectiveness although, like the last mentioned 
 two, it is intended for more intimate use than the 
 spacious East Room. 
 
 And how brave were the early Americans who 
 dared to plan so large and beautiful a palace in what 
 was a wilderne&s! It was to quite an extent for 
 effect upon foreign nations as well as upon America. 
 Washington himself believed in the necessity for a 
 fitting habitation for the coming line of Presidents. 
 The best American homes of the time were beautiful, 
 therefore the White House ought to be fittingly 
 beautiful. 
 
 To walk through these great and splendid rooms, 
 as we did on almost the last day of the Wilson 
 administration, gave an effect as if, in their richness 
 of beauty, they were abandoned, deserted, forsaken, 
 and that we were ghosts softly treading from room 
 to room. I knew that in another portion of the 
 house were the private apartments of the President. 
 I knew that in that wing to the westward, so admira- 
 bly constructed to be utilitarian without injury to 
 artistic outlines, were the busy executive offices ; but 
 none of that busy fife and none of the family life 
 was indicated as we went slowly through the splen- 
 did deserted apartments. 
 
 We went into the State dining room, a sumptuous 
 apartment of rich and restrained effectiveness, finely 
 paneled, with a great fireplace of stone of elaborate 
 
 47 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 workmanship, fi'nely worked out in beauty of detail. 
 And here, in the room made for friends and hospi- 
 tality, for the glow of wit and life, the loneliness 
 was more marked than even in the great East Room. 
 *'I felt like one who treads alone some banquet hall 
 deserted": never before had I recognized the full 
 strength of those simple old lines. I have been in 
 deserted old-time palaces in Europe and have felt 
 the loneliness of effect, but here, in this building 
 which would normally be full of present-day life, 
 it was almost uncanny. 
 
 There has been more individual talking in this 
 dining room than in any other room in America. 
 For every President has found that all his guests 
 were ready to listen silently when he talked, and the 
 temptation to talk was irresistible. Even the grim 
 President Jackson talked. '* Indeed, he did nothing 
 but talk," wrote Harriet Martineau after dining 
 with him. 
 
 No President loved to talk in the White House as 
 did Roosevelt, who frequently said that he "had a 
 bully time" there. And no President so loved to 
 ask all sor«ts of distinguished or about-to-be-distin- 
 guished men to lunch with him as did Roosevelt. 
 And thousands treasured the big square envelopes 
 which held the precious paste-boards of invitation 
 to sit at luncheon with this delightful monologuist. 
 
 In contrast to all this comes the haunting story 
 of George Washington and Mrs. Washington driving 
 up from Mount Vernon and walking slowly through 
 the almost completed Wliite House, without com- 
 
 48 
 
A CURIOUS VISIT 
 
 panions of any sort. For they felt intense personal 
 interest in the building although John and Abi- 
 gail Adams were to be the first occupants. But I 
 do not remember any allusion by Washington to his 
 thus going through the building, near the end of his 
 life, not even in his diary. And so the story comes 
 down as a sort of myth, true though it must have 
 been. 
 
 Of especial interest, in the White House, are the 
 portraits, for there are many here, of Presidents 
 and the wives of Presidents and many others. No 
 other record is so good, for enabling a final histori- 
 cal judgment to be made, as are the portraits of 
 national leaders. 
 
 After all, to become President requires much of 
 greatness, and there have been many degrees of 
 greatness in the White House. Healy^s numerous 
 portraits possess the veritable quality which he 
 usually managed to show, but most of the others are 
 not even as good as Healy's, though one may gain a 
 fairly good general idea from them. What one 
 would most of all like to see is an excellent George 
 Washington, an excellent Lincoln, and, whether or 
 not one likes him and his methods, one would like 
 to see a realistic Wilson. And will not the future 
 be concerned with Roosevelt? 
 
 There is a portrait of Washington in the White 
 House, and it is of curious interest, for it is the one 
 which Dolly Madison ordered taken from its frame 
 and carried to distant safety at the time of the raid 
 in the War of 1812. It is often referred to as a 
 
 49 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 genuine Gilbert Stuart, and Dolly Madison herself 
 took it to be a Stuart. But in reality it is one of the 
 copies made by that Winstanley who had an uncanny 
 faculty of following Stuart's style, without any 
 scruple whatever as to passing his products off as 
 genuine Stuarts. Stuart, naturally, abhorred him, 
 and drove him from liis studio in Germantown, when 
 he went there to ask Stuart to make two or three 
 brush marks on each of his Washingtons, so that 
 without contradiction he could declare them to be 
 the work of Stuart; the two to divide the money 
 thus made. Stuart himself painted a constant line 
 of replicas of his own best Washington, which is 
 now in Boston, and these he readily sold, calling 
 them his hundred dollar bills, for they were always 
 in demand. The portrait of Mrs. Washington at 
 the White House is of no real value, as it was 
 painted but a few years ago. 
 
 It was in front of the Winstanley Washington 
 that John Adams, on one of his choleric and hasty 
 days, stood and shook his fist, squeaking in the high 
 notes into which his voice sometimes ran: *^If that 
 wooden-headed man hadn't kept his mouth shut, 
 he'd have been found out!" 
 
 Next to the Washington portrait in interest, is 
 that of Benjamin Franklin. It was carried away 
 without permission by Major Andre from Franklin 's 
 home in Philadelphia. Andre gave it to the vigor- 
 ous General Grey, his superior on whose staff he was. 
 General Grey carried it to England. It was shown 
 to Ambassador Choate, in 1900, at Howick Hall, in 
 
 50 
 
A CURIOUS VISIT 
 
 Northumberland, by a descendant of General Grey, 
 Earl Grey. As a consequence, within a few years, 
 in the administration of Roosevelt, Earl Grey sent 
 the painting back to America, with the request that 
 it be kept in the White House, and Roosevelt placed 
 it there. 
 
 The entrance to the spot where stood the fine 
 house of Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia, built 
 by him after prosperity and fame had come, is by 
 means of little Orianna Street ; leading off Market ; 
 and on Orianna Street was the little printing house 
 where James Wilson, the Irish immigrant grand- 
 father of Woodrow Wilson, worked as a journeyman 
 printer. 
 
 When we turned to leave the White House after 
 our curious visit of 'loneliness, we went out past the 
 door of the East Room, and glancing in at the mov- 
 ing picture machine, there again came vivid thoughts 
 of the immolated President sitting in that great 
 room, perhaps entirely alone, feeding his strange 
 mentality with dreams from the pictures. 
 
 On leaving, it was quietly suggested that if we 
 cared to see President Wilson closely, face to face, 
 we need but go down to a remote rear gate, used by 
 the President on returning from his motor rides. 
 We waited there until there was an odd sound of a 
 horn from the rear of the White House. It was 
 curiously like the signal that used to be made when 
 the Kaiser was entering Unter den Linden. There 
 was a scarcely perceptible sign from the head police- 
 man, and instantly all traffic was stopped on three 
 
 51 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 streets and with absolute unobtrusiveness of action. 
 A few seconds, and a great open motor car came 
 swiftly on. It turned into the gateway, which was 
 so narrow that the car had to check its speed almost 
 to nothingness. A car followed, literally loaded 
 with secret service men. Standing at this gate I 
 looked directly into the President's face at the dis- 
 tance of not more than four feet. His face was 
 pallor-stricken, a face of grayish white, an unf orget- 
 able, an uncanny face. Forcefulness, will power, 
 unshakable determination were there, and the eyes 
 had a burning intentness. The car passed on, and 
 the thought came of the contrasts in this 
 man: ruler of the world, devoted attendant on vau- 
 deville shows, close student of the world's history, 
 lover of moving pictures, staid college president, 
 tosser of base balls, rager at those who opposed him, 
 and happy utterer of such dry humor as, *'Tlie A, 
 B, C, of politics, is in the Primary." 
 
 52 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 OUR APPIAN WAY 
 
 HEN Commo- 
 dore Decatur left 
 his home near the 
 White House before 
 dawTi one morning, to 
 go to breakfast with Com- 
 modore Bainbridge, who was 
 in a few hours to be his 
 second in the fatal duel 
 with Commodore Barron 
 — how easily one may 
 drop into the European 
 habit of rolling titles one upon another! — he fol- 
 lowed in the faint light of the coming morning the 
 whole length of our Appian Way. One pictures 
 him busy with thoughts of breakfast and dueling, 
 swinging down the road with all the dash of his 
 ** right or wrong, my country!" This lonely hurry 
 of Decatur, in the vague half light of coming day, 
 has always seemed to me one of the most striking 
 of the teeming associations of our national thorough- 
 fare; Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House 
 to the Capitol being called our Appian Way because 
 almost every American, well known in any walk of 
 
 53 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 life, political, literary, legal, artistic, ministerial, 
 mechanical, managerial, and uncountable millions 
 of the not well known, have followed this road be- 
 tween the White House and the Capitol. 
 
 Pennsylvania Avenue in both directions extends 
 beyond the mile and a half of the so called Appian 
 Way. On the far side of the Capitol it goes as far 
 as the Anacostia. In the other direction, beyond 
 the White House it taps Georgetown. But it is the 
 portion between the Capitol and White House that 
 is fittingly given the old Roman name. 
 
 In the earliest days, before the road was anything 
 but a trail, George Washington himself used to fol- 
 low it. Jefferson planted it mth lines of poplar 
 trees. Since then millions have followed its length, 
 including not only Americans from every State in 
 the Union but great numbers of foreigners from 
 every part of the world. 
 
 Inaugural processions, the mighty parade of the 
 armies at the close of the Civil War, statesmen, 
 generals. Presidents, men on evil errands or good: 
 men and women walking, riding, driving, on foot, on 
 horseback, in carriages, in street cars, in motorcars-: 
 and it is no jest to add, in airplanes. 
 
 Rome still has its Appian Way and it may be 
 followed through the purple haze that makes mys- 
 terious the ancient ruins. London has its Appian 
 Way, now kiwwn as Watling Street, along which the 
 greatest men of the world have gone throughout the 
 centuries : Julius Caesar himself, Alfred the Great, 
 William the Conqueror, statesmen, poets, generals, 
 
 54 
 
OUR APPIAN WAY 
 
 kings, even poor little David Copperfield, running 
 away from the bottling works, and Dickens himself. 
 And Dickens was one of the many millions who have 
 gone over this American highway. 
 
 Necessarily it is far from being as old as those 
 roads at London or Rome; but after all age is but 
 comparative. London is not so old as Rome : Wash- 
 ington is not so old as London: but each city has 
 won its place in the history of the world, and even 
 this American Appian Way has in its century and 
 a quarter of existence gathered about it a hazy at- 
 mosphere as of a distant past. 
 
 It was Thomas Jefferson, man of so many flashes 
 of inspiration, who, in the early days of the city, 
 termed this road the Appian Way, for he saw even 
 then its unique importance of situation and use. 
 
 Leaving the White House and the enormous un- 
 gainly State, War, and Navy Building adjoining, 
 and you find on your right the huge and positively 
 beautiful Treasury Building. How superbly de- 
 signed! Classic in every detail, with great pillars, 
 with a colonnade of stately Ionic columns, with great 
 pediments, and broad sweeps of stone steps, with 
 hundreds of rooms, it is in all a splendid and im- 
 posing building. 
 
 It is unfortunate in its location, in that it stands 
 forever — if one may dare to use the word ''for- 
 ever !"^ — a mighty structure immediately between 
 the White House and Capitol at the very beginning 
 of the Appian Way, cutting off the view which these 
 two buildings were intended to have of each other. 
 
 55 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 A little variation would have obviated the fault : but 
 it was in the time of Czar-minded Andrew Jackson, 
 and he was as impatient and arbitrary as the Rus- 
 sian Czar who, irritated regarding the line of a rail- 
 way that was to be built, marked a straight line, and 
 said curtly * ' Follow that. ' ' And Jackson, impatient 
 of delay as to locating and beginning, struck his 
 cane upon the ground with a peremptory **Put it 
 here"! And here it was put. And, although not 
 altogether the best relative location, it is a location 
 which at least gives the building splendid promi- 
 nence. And, if anything, superb though the main 
 front is, there is in some respects somewhat more of 
 charm, and quite as much of splendid dignity, in the 
 front facing southward. 
 
 It is from the southern front that Pennsylvania 
 Avenue goes on its Appian Way. Here it is that 
 the mistake of location as to this building is ap- 
 parent, for at the very beginning of the thorough- 
 fare far down here, cut off by the Treasury, there is 
 much of the unattractive, the insignificant, amazing 
 to be found, so close to the White House. 
 
 Immediately north of this vicinity is a group of 
 hotels, two of them bearing names known for genera- 
 tions in Washington hotel life. One is the Willard. 
 The Willards — there were several of them — came to 
 Washington through a curious circumstance. There 
 was a hotel, not entirely a success, built by one of 
 the Tayloe family, distinguished Southerners, near 
 the White House. Odd, how many distinguished 
 families go in for hotels ! But then, the dukes, espe- 
 
 56 
 
OUR APPIAN WAY 
 
 cially Westminster and Bedford, have long been 
 doing it in London : perhaps are doing it even yet. 
 
 Mrs. Tayloe was a Northern woman: she remem- 
 bered the steward in charge of the dining room of 
 one of the Hudson River steamers. He was written 
 for: he came: he used to stand, white aproned, at 
 the head of the table, and carve. He sent for his 
 brothers: and Willard thus became a well-known 
 name among hotel keepers of Washington. 
 
 And when a Willard 's Hotel arose, there was a 
 gathering of a hundred or so distinguished men, and 
 the exclusive New Englander, Edward Everett, 
 made a speech, in appreciation of the good work 
 done by the principal brother, the one of the steam- 
 boat : Everett declaring that it was not an occasion 
 for Mr. Willard to return thanks for the honor of 
 their gathering, but for them to return thanks to 
 him. And he recalled that, among those dead and 
 gone who had benefited by Willard 's hotel activities 
 and purveying, had been such men as Chief Justice 
 Marshall, John Quincy Adams, Calhoun, Clay and 
 Webster. Gastronomic devotion was not taken care- 
 lessly by the statesmen of those days ! 
 
 In early years, Pennsylvania Aveime was but little 
 of a pathway of any kind. It was mainly a deep 
 morass covered with alder bushes. Shortly before 
 the Capitol was reached, the road, or marshy trail, 
 was crossed by a little stream — large, in rainy 
 weather, and even at the present time existent but 
 piped away in safety. It was known as the Tiber and 
 it is generally believed, though personally I doubt it, 
 
 57 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 that it bore that classic name before the Oapitol was 
 ever thought of. It is on the L 'Enfant map by this 
 name, but that does not prove when or by whom it 
 was named. The little stream at times gave com- 
 plete impassibility to the trail, and it has been told 
 that not infrequently Congressmen, arriving on 
 horseback, have tied their horses to branches and 
 scrambled precariously over fallen trees. Bulfinch, 
 the architect, somewhere writes of the ^'vale" be- 
 tween Capitol and White House. Others have re- 
 corded that skiffs were at times actually rowed on 
 Pennsylvania Avenue. 
 
 Even as late as when Dickens came to America, 
 the avenue was often very muddy indeed, an avenue 
 difficult to travel. Dickens did not see the future: 
 he told of spacious avenues that began in nothing 
 and led nowhere ; he saw streets whose only want, so 
 he declared sarcastically, was houses, roads and in- 
 habitants. He was practically as short-sighted as 
 Tom Moore, who jibed at "this embryo capitol 
 where Fancy sees squares in morasses, obelisks in 
 trees." 
 
 Where the tall Raleigh Hotel now stands, there 
 stood in the Civil War days, an earlier hotel dis- 
 tinguished above its fellows by the fact, that there 
 Andrew Johnson was hastily sworn in as President 
 on the April night after Lincoln's death. 
 
 Just at the edge of Pennsylvania Avenue between 
 Seventh and Ninth Streets is Center Market. It is 
 altogether disproportionate to its actual importance, 
 for it is a building that was put up to replace a 
 
 58 
 
OUR APPIAN WAY 
 
 structure that really did possess quite a degree of 
 picturesqueness, and as I write there is a plan to do 
 away "vvith it altogether. 
 
 In the public mind, the present market structure 
 stands for the picturesque association of the past: 
 when leaders in society and in politics came here in 
 person, to choose their fruits and vegetables, their 
 fish, their fowl, their cuts of meat, their great tur- 
 tles. 
 
 How much more of the picturesque life held in 
 those days ! The stately Webster was often here in 
 all the glory of his blue coat with gilt buttons, his 
 white cravat, his silk stockings, his varnished shoes 
 and yellow gloves as on the morning of the day on 
 which he received the twenty-five thousand dollars 
 raised in State Street, and the twenty-five thousand 
 raised in Wall Street, to make it seem financially 
 possible for him, so it was quietly understood, to 
 make what he deemed the sacrifice of taking the 
 office of Secretary of State : and never was he more 
 solicitous to select the perfect shad : never more the 
 man of dignity, with no thoughts, so far as his su- 
 perb appearance went, of anything below mighty 
 affairs of state. General Scott, six feet four inches 
 in height and remembered as an epicure, personally 
 went marketing for his family. His favorite dish 
 was terrapin — pronouncing it *'tarrapin" — and he 
 ordered liis oysters by the barrel. 
 
 From Pennsylvania Avenue, opposite the middle 
 of Center Market, may be seen close at hand to the 
 north a beautiful high-set pillared building of stone, 
 
 59 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 a veritable Doric temple : but this beautiful building 
 merely faces down Eighth Street, which is almost 
 wholly lined, in this section, with garages and sta- 
 bles. It is curious that this unusually beautiful 
 building, now used as the Patent Office, stands where 
 L 'Enfant planned to locate the Chapel of all Eeli- 
 gions. 
 
 Pennsylvania Avenue, wliich ought to be the most 
 dignified of all the avenues of the city, has an aston- 
 ishing proportion of the shabby and the unimpor- 
 tant. This is especially true of the district between 
 the pleasant greenery round Center Market and the 
 Capitol, and this does not refer to many excellent 
 buildings that have deteriorated, but to buildings 
 that from the first were inadequate. The dignity 
 of the avenue is upheld by the high-cockaded, high- 
 mounted Pulaski, in bronze, and the little park about 
 the Pole — and helped also by the little stubby, long- 
 waisted Benjamin Franklin in white marble, phil- 
 osophizing over the sidewalk, one of fewer than half 
 a dozen civilian in-the-streets statues that come to 
 mind as I write, three others being Longfellow, 
 Witherspoon and a Masonic Pike. 
 
 The building of the great new Union Station has 
 worked an immense influence upon the city, making 
 permanent, and increasing, the movement that had 
 already begun, to take away much of the business, 
 much of the traffic and travel from Pennsylvania 
 Avenue. It used to be that everybody was on much 
 of the Avenue much of the time. Now it is quite 
 possible for visitors scarcely to see Pennsylvania 
 
 60 
 
OUR APPIAN WAY 
 
 Avenue at all ! And this, whether they go about on 
 foot, in street cars or in motor cars. But it Avill 
 probably long continue to be the thoroughfare of the 
 nation. 
 
 A little more than half way toward the Capitol is 
 a really old-time hotel: dormered: with galleries 
 two stories high, of Southern type, a reminder that 
 this is essentially a Southern city; a hotel with an 
 air of the past, although without a full share of its 
 picturesqueness. It is associated with many fa- 
 mous names, for it was long the principal hotel of 
 politicians and statesmen. 
 
 Few of the associations of Pennsylvania Avenue 
 are more full of interest than the inaugural parades 
 that have gone through this thoroughfare. There 
 was Taf t 's ; notable for the terrifically bad weather, 
 although the weather man had promised a beautiful 
 day. There was Polk's, when it was so muddy and 
 slippery that marching was almost impossible, and 
 soldiers in the line slipped and fell in the mud. 
 There was the second Wilson parade, when among 
 those prominent was the Governor of Mississippi 
 with his military staff : in carriages. But what they 
 lacked in mounts they made up in titles, in the es- 
 timate of the wicked-minded onlooker who declared 
 that he counted thirty-eight majors ! 
 
 Senator McDougall of California, a bitter oppo- 
 nent of Seward, leaving the Capitol one evening af- 
 ter a storm, stumbled into a ditch of dirty running 
 water as he started down Pennsylvania Avenue, and 
 with difficulty, and with the aid of a policeman, got 
 
 61 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 out. ''Who are you?" asked the policeman. Mc- 
 Dougall looked ruefully down at his ruined clothes. 
 ''I was — I was Senator McDougall — but now — now 
 —I think I'm Seward!" 
 
 Daniel Webster himself, one day, found the car- 
 riage in which he was driving suddenly mired in the 
 mud of the avenue, whereupon, after vain effort for 
 release, the driver lifted the mighty orator in his 
 arms and bore him to the curb. 
 
 Not only the living, but the dead, have traversed 
 our famous way. Here Garfield was shot, in a rail- 
 way station since torn down : and through the length 
 of the avenue his body, brought back from the sea- 
 shore, where he died, was solemnly carried, the center 
 of a nation ^s grief, over the route which he had on 
 his inaugural parade so recently traversed. 
 
 Along this avenue, too, moved the solemn parade 
 of those who followed the dead body of the mighty 
 Lincoln, in silence unbroken except by footfalls, by 
 the slow music of funeral marches, by the dirges, the 
 muffled drums the sobs of the people. 
 
 62 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE CAPITOL 
 
 IKE the ancient Romans we 
 modern Americans have our 
 Capitol as well as our Appian 
 way; and whereas the 
 first formal founding 
 feast of Rome itself, 
 was the lupine luncheon 
 of Romulus and Remus 
 Avith their four-footed 
 hostess, the first for- 
 mal founding feast of 
 our Capitol, which ac- 
 companied the laying of 
 its corner-stone, was also a feast out of doors. It 
 was a barbecue. A great ox was roasted in what the 
 newspapers of the day delightfully referred to as 
 a ''cavazion,'^ into wliich George Washington 
 descended and from which he emerged, presiding 
 over all of the ceremonies, at which, according to a 
 narrative of the time, there was ''every abundance 
 of other recreation" — which was not meant to be a 
 doubtful statement! 
 
 Washington presided over the exercises as a Ma- 
 son : and it has been stated and it is probably true 
 
 63 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 that every President of the United States but two 
 has been of the Masonic fraternity. 
 
 The corner-stone was laid on a September day of 
 1793 at what was then the southeast corner of the 
 building, as it is expressed on a long inscription on 
 a silver plate with the statement, signed by James 
 Hoban and Stephen Hallate — his name however be- 
 ing usually spelled Hallett — as architects, and by 
 *' Joseph Clark, E. W. G. M. P. T."! whatever all 
 this initialing may have meant. 
 
 Near the corner-stone, which is not far from the 
 center of the east front of the building as it stands, is 
 what at first seems an insignificant door into the 
 basement story, under the center portico, but one 
 may notice that the door is one of the special fea- 
 tures of the Capitol, for it has beautiful pillars inside 
 the doorway, with the famous corn-stalk design of 
 Latrobe, a highly American feature and design ; and 
 close beside it there is a beautifully designed spiral 
 stair of marble with most graceful balustrades of 
 wrought-iron. 
 
 It may be said that there were really several archi- 
 tects of the Capitol. At least there was a combina- 
 tion of plans and ideas. Hallett, of Philadelphia, at 
 first came nearest to pleasing President Washington, 
 and the committee that with him was to decide upon 
 a design. There was a competition, and the prize 
 of five hundred dollars was awarded to Hallett. 
 Then came in some plans from a Doctor Thornton 
 in the West Indies ; a Quaker Englishman who had 
 
 64 
 
THE CAPITOL 
 
 served as a cavalry officer in the Revolutionary War, 
 and his plans pleased more than did those of Hallett. 
 There were attempts to harmonize the two men and 
 their plans, but as harmonizing was impossible La- 
 trobe was made supervising architect. A man full 
 of original ideas, ^dth a wide knowledge of European 
 arcliitecture, he had even taken a commission for a 
 while as captain in the Prussian army ; and after his 
 connection with the Capitol, he went west to Pitts- 
 burg, near which city a town still bears his name, and 
 still later to New Orleans, where he died. 
 
 The city has not been a one-man city nor has the 
 Capitol been a one-man building ; and when Latrobe 
 after a while was dropped, the still greater Bul- 
 finch, the New Englander with experience on the 
 Boston State House, was placed in charge. 
 
 Bulfinch had toured Europe as a young man in 
 1785. Even before that he had felt a tendency to- 
 ward building, and in Paris had been aided to see 
 things by the architectural-minded Thomas Jeffer- 
 son, whom he met there. Writing of Paris, the 
 buildings are what he first of all mentions. He then 
 went through much of France and Italy, and in tell- 
 ing of the things of interest that he saw, he said: 
 '* particularly the wonders of architecture." 
 
 It would seem as if his seeing so many fine build- 
 ings in Europe rather discouraged him when he 
 came to the necessarily simple American towns. 
 After he put up the Boston State House he believed 
 that everything in the way of public buildings was 
 
 65 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 built, and he actually influenced his own son from 
 following architecture, believing that no more great 
 buildings would be needed. 
 
 It is curious that no great part of the early 
 Capitol was the work of professional architects. 
 And it is curious that the White House was inspired 
 by a building in Ireland and planned by a non-pro- 
 fessional, and that the Capitol had as first designer a 
 doctor from the West Indies. After all, architects 
 are not valuable because of being architects but for 
 the buildings they make: which obvious truth has 
 been much too often overlooked. 
 
 The finest in America in early years were built by 
 architecture-loving amateurs: as Monticello, by 
 Jefferson. The three beautiful old brick State 
 Houses of Massachusetts, Maryland, and Pennsjd- 
 vania, were built at the early period when they were 
 Province Houses. The two finest old buildings of 
 Philadelphia, and they are still standing to prove 
 their beauty, were designed, one by a local lawyer, 
 the other by a local doctor! 
 
 The Capitol is on a plateau, eighty-eight feet above 
 the Potomac River, and practically the same 
 height above the low-lying land that stretches away 
 from its western front. The length of the building 
 is seven hundred and fifty-one feet, and the greatest 
 dimension of its varying width is three hundred and 
 fifty feet. 
 
 It is vast, huge, profoundly impressive. It thrills 
 with pride every American. 
 
 Above the plateau on which the Capitol stand? 
 
 6(i 
 
THE CAPITOL 
 
 rises the dome, to a height of almost three hundred 
 feet, and it is topped by a bronze statue of Freedom, 
 by Crawford, which is itself within a few inches of 
 twenty feet in height. Liberty wears a liberty cap 
 but not of the European type but distinctively Amer- 
 ican, it being of eagles' feathers. A most curious 
 feature of this liberty cap, designed and used in this 
 way, is that it was suggested to Crawford by Jeffer- 
 son Davis ! 
 
 These feathers are of the fine upstanding kind that 
 Admiral Sampson had in mind when he was guest of 
 honor at a dinner given by the bluff old English sea- 
 dog Admiral Fisher. Sampson, so Fisher narrates, 
 sat silent until the dinner was almost over even 
 when toasts were proposed to himself and his 
 country. Then he suddenly rose and said only, "It 
 was a damned fine old hen that hatched the American 
 Eagle!" 
 
 The building has a wealth of columns, terraces, 
 balustrades, arcades ; and in both fronts are majes- 
 tic flights of majestic steps, giving important and 
 temple-like approaches. 
 
 To the eastward the level land stretches off su- 
 perbly, with first a great paved esplanade for vehicle 
 approach and then the great open park, wide as the 
 great Capitol, stretcliing out liberally away to the 
 Congressional Library. At the western front the 
 land drops quickly away to the level, eighty feet be- 
 low. Bulfinch, when he first saw the Capitol, whose 
 construction he was comjmissioned to continue, at 
 once saw that there was danger in the nearness of 
 
 67 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 so heavy a building to the edge, and he gave great 
 care to strengthening and planning retaining walls 
 and the stairways which are still such an aspect of 
 this approach. 
 
 An astonishing feature of the Capitol is the insig- 
 nificance of the main entrance-way on either front. 
 Latrobe 's own idea as to this was to have a beautiful 
 Grecian portico at the central entrance. 
 
 On the pediment of the grand central portico is an 
 effort at designing a group of sculpture, by John 
 Quincy Adams, who was then a versatile Secretary of 
 State. It represents what Adams himself called the 
 *' Genius of America," with the Goddess of Liberty 
 morally and neatly supported by Justice and Hope. 
 
 The dome of the Capitol, so magnificent in appear- 
 ance in its exterior, loses nothing of magnificence in 
 its interior view. It is almost one hundred feet in 
 diameter and its lower portion, the Rotunda, is sur- 
 rounded by a series of large historical paintings, of 
 which those by John Trumbull are by far the best. 
 This same John, who won high fame as a painter, 
 had taken active part in the Revolutionary War, 
 had become a colonel, and had been made military 
 secretary by Washington. He was the son of Gov- 
 ernor Jonathan Trumbull of Connecticut, the origi- 
 nal "Brother Jonathan." 
 
 As did such a proportion of early American 
 painters, he went to Europe to complete his artistic 
 training, and while there, there arose within Mm the 
 ambition to make for his nation a series of paintings 
 representing the most important features of Ameri- 
 
 68 
 
THE CAPITOL 
 
 can history. He went back and forth among the 
 European cities, seeking out and portraying such 
 historical American characters as were then on the 
 other side of the Atlantic: including John Adams, 
 who was representing America in London, and Jeff- 
 erson who was similarly in Paris. This part of his 
 work covered some years following the close of the 
 War of 1812. Abigail Adams, seeing one of his 
 American paintings in London wrote: '*H,e is the 
 first painter who hag undertaken to immortalize 
 those great actions that gave birth to our Nation. 
 By this means he will not only secure his own fame, 
 but transmit to posterity characters and actions 
 which will command the admiration of future ages. ' * 
 Coming back to America, he sought out other living 
 Americans, and for those who were dead he copied 
 the best available portraits. Washington himself, 
 he not only remembered but had made of him, in the 
 course of the Kevolutionary War, what is always 
 considered one of the most interesting of Washing- 
 ton portraits. 
 
 It was after more than thirty years of preparation 
 that the American Government commissioned him to 
 paint four great paintings. 
 
 Most important is the Signing of the Declaration 
 of Independence, the arrangement of the figures be- 
 ing made as Jefferson, Franklin and others described 
 it to him. In looking at different prints or engrav- 
 ings of his Signing one notices, and wonders about, 
 the fact that they are not all quite alike as to the 
 members included or their Dostures. They are al- 
 
 69 
 
THE BOOK OP WASHINGTON 
 
 most alike, but the differences have come from 
 Trumbull's having made several slightly varying 
 replicas of this painting: one being in New Haven 
 and another of them being in Hartford. 
 
 Besides the painting of the Declaration there are 
 three other large paintings by Trumbull, bought by 
 the Government, and placed here around the lower 
 part of the Rotunda. The second picture is of the 
 Surrender of Burgoyne and was painted from 
 sketches made on the spot by Trumbull in 1777. 
 
 It shows among the trees of the locality a score or 
 so of officers all without hats, an unusual feature. 
 The third painting represents the Surrender of 
 Cornwallis ; and the marching of the British soldiers 
 between the lines of French and Americans is not 
 fanciful but represents the scene just as Trumbull 
 saw it, he having been present. The fourth and last 
 Trumbull painting is of the Resignation of Wash- 
 ington fts commander-in-chief. 
 
 If any one wishes to see the coat worn by Wash- 
 ington on the occasion, it may be seen at the 
 National Museum, and the commission which he 
 surrendered is preserved in the Department of 
 State, and the room is still in Annapolis ! 
 
 Never was a better criticism made of the great 
 marble reliefs which have been placed around the 
 Rotunda than was made by a Menominee Indian 
 chief. He looked at the sculpture of the landing of 
 the Pilgrims, over the eastern doorway, and said: 
 ** Indians give white man corn." He gazed for a 
 time at one of the Indians making the treaty mth 
 
 70 
 
THE CAPITOL 
 
 Penn and said: ''Indians give white man land." 
 He then turned to Pocahontas saving the life of 
 Captain Smith", and here his sober comment was: 
 ''Indian saves white man's life." Then he looked 
 at the relief over the last door, of Daniel Boone with 
 his foot on the body of a dead Indian, plunging his 
 knife into the heart of another : and at this his eyes 
 gleamed and he said sternly: "See! White man 
 kills Indian." 
 
 It used to be, for no reason quite apparent, that 
 Washington was called the city of magnificent dis- 
 tances. Had the Capitol been called the building 
 of magnificent distances, it would have been another 
 matter, for there are what seem to be interminable 
 corridorsu 
 
 One's first impression is naturally that the Cap- 
 itol is used almost altogether by the Senate and the 
 House of Representatives, but their meeting halls 
 take much less than half of the total space of the 
 building, the main part of it being given up to com- 
 mittee rooms, document rooms, ofiices of clerks, 
 cloak rooms, lunch rooms, reception rooms, corri- 
 dors and libraries. In addition, between the 
 Eotunda and the Hall of Representatives, is Statu- 
 ary Hall. Between the Rotunda and the Senate 
 Chamber is the United States Supreme Court. In 
 the passages are signal lights, so arranged as to tell 
 whether or not either body is in session. 
 
 Statuary Hall was originally the meeting room of 
 the Representatives and it was in this room that all 
 the early Representatives spoke, including Clay and 
 
 71 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 Webster, Calhoun, Randolph and Cass. It was in 
 tliis room that former President John Quincy 
 Adams, then a Representative from Massachusetts, 
 was struck down by paralysis only to die two days 
 later in an adjoining apartment. Henry Watter- 
 son, then a lad, and at the present day only recently 
 dead, after a life of unususal prominence and activ- 
 ity, was near Adams when he fell, and went with 
 him as he was carried into the ante-room and knelt 
 beside him, fanning him. Watterson, it may be 
 added, was very fortunate as a young man as to 
 being present on important occasions. He was just 
 naturally born that way. He stood close to Lincoln 
 at Lincoln's first inauguration, narrowly observed 
 him, as only a young man like Watterson could, and 
 \vrote down that the new President looked dignified, 
 firm and self-possessed, and '*as if he had been de- 
 livering inaugural addresses all his life." 
 
 All through the corridors and in vistas or niches 
 are statues or paintings of Americans and Ameri- 
 can events calculated to stir patriotic feelings. It 
 gives a national and historic background to transact 
 public business near paintings such as the ''Battle 
 of Lake Erie" and the "Attack on Chapultepec." 
 
 Statuary Hall, a semi-circular room nearly one 
 hundred feet in its greatest width and whose ceiling 
 is a high half dome, was originally and for many 
 years the Hall of the House of Representatives, 
 and it is a very much more beautiful and more im- 
 pressive room than the present Hall of the House of 
 Representatives. 
 
 72 
 
THE CAPITOL 
 
 It was in the time of the Civil War that the sug- 
 gestion was made and approved that this earlier 
 Hall of the House should be used as a hall of me- 
 morial statuary of great Americans, each State to 
 choose its own two examples and to present the 
 statues in either marble or bronze. 
 
 In a way this room is like that part of Westmins- 
 ter Abbey where there are so many monuments and 
 memorials, for both the English collection and the 
 American contain a marked proportion of men whose 
 particular fame has already been forgotten. At 
 the same time both collections are impressive in their 
 showing that both nations are striving to do honor 
 to those who have honored them and to point out 
 to posterity the great national achievements of the 
 past. 
 
 An amusing and in some respects even absurd 
 feature of Statuary Hall is that some physically 
 insignificant men have large statues* and tower above 
 such physically great men as Washington and Web- 
 ster. 
 
 The statue of Webster was not sent by Massa- 
 chusetts, whose adopted son he was, but by New 
 Hampshire, where he was born. Massachusetts did 
 not forgive Webster's notable speech, which was 
 taken to be in favor of slavery. Wliittier, the 
 Quaker, killed him with a few strokes of the pen in 
 the tremendous * ' Ichabod, ' ' one of the most terrible 
 of attacks. 
 
 Yet in spite of this loss of prestige, Joseph H. 
 Choate has declared that to Webster, more than to 
 
 73 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 any other man, was owing the fiery promptitude 
 with which the North sprang to arms in defense of 
 the Union — Webster having been pre-eminently the 
 defender of the Constitution. 
 
 Ethan Allen, who was not a particularly large 
 man, was a man not only of heroic deeds, but he was 
 provided with a statue of heroic size by the State 
 of Vermont. Ethan Allen would not have objected 
 to over publicity, for one day, when he attended 
 church in a Vermont town, the minister spoke in the 
 highest terms of the men of Bennington, but did not 
 name Ethan Allen as a hero of the battle; where- 
 upon Allen arose in his pew and said, ''Please let 
 the Almighty know I was there ! ' ' 
 
 Washington and Robert E. Lee naturally are Vir- 
 ginia's favorite sons, Washington's statue being by 
 the famous Houdon, who had been employed by 
 Virginia to make a Washington statue and who lived 
 for a time at Mount Vernon studying his subject. 
 Richmond has the original and the city of Washing- 
 ton a replica. Lee's was placed here in the 1900 's. 
 
 In 1921 the Suffragists had a three-headed statue 
 made out of a monster block of marble, out of wliich 
 rise three heads intended to represent Elizabeth 
 Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and Susan B. Anth- 
 ony. The Suffragists hoped that this statue would 
 be placed either in Statuary Hall or the Rotunda, 
 and, to be ready for its unveiling, it was hauled up 
 into the €apitol by powerful mnches. Passing 
 there, within a few days after its unveiling, I saw 
 the workmen conveying the statue down again, as it 
 
 74 
 
THE CAPITOL 
 
 was declared to be too heavy for any part of the 
 floor, and it is now tucked away in the crj-pt. 
 
 When Statuary Hall was the Hall of Representa- 
 tives, it was recognized as having poor acoustic 
 properties. However, so many admirable things 
 were said there that this was largely overlooked. 
 Here the then Speaker of the House, Henry Clay, 
 eloquently welcomed Lafayette as the guest of the 
 nation, and here Lafayette, in eloquently flowing 
 periods, replied — so eloquently and so flowingly in 
 fact, that shrewd listeners quickly realized that al- 
 though the words were spoken by Lafayette they 
 were in reality the composition of Henry -Clay. 
 
 Nathaniel Hawthorne, who restlessly went to 
 Washington, in the course of the Civil War, took 
 comfort in finding artists busily at work in esthetic 
 embellishment of the dome of the Capitol while other 
 people were so worried about the fate of the nation. 
 At those very times, down in the basement floor, 
 barrels of cement had been placed as barricades; 
 some of the basement corridors were used for stor- 
 ing army provisions; there were rooms making a 
 great wartime hospital, and in other parts of the 
 basement bakeries were in operation, making as 
 many as sixteen thousand loaves of bread a day for 
 the army. 
 
 One is well repaid by wandering through the old 
 part of the basement area, with its scores of heavy 
 columns, its passages, its remarkable domed vault. 
 Here underneath the center of the Rotunda, it was 
 early planned to place forever the body of George 
 
 75 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 Washington. The plan got so far that his widow 
 gave her formal assent to it. For some unknown 
 reason the plan was dropped, but not until a '' keeper 
 of the crypt" — what a feudal flavor the title has! — 
 had been appointed. And for fifty years a salary 
 was paid for the supposititious performance of the 
 duties of keeper of the crypt. 
 
 76 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 **GBAVE AND REVEREND SEIGNIORS' 
 
 T 
 
 EAELY the most 
 important points of 
 distinction in the 
 career of Chief 
 Justice Marshall 
 seem to have been, 
 r^<=*. first, that he took 
 '^J^_^^ an active part, 
 under Washin^on, 
 in the attack on 
 ^- the home of the 
 then Colonial 
 Chief Justice 
 Chew in German- 
 town; second, 
 that he has by all 
 means the greatest claim among Americans to pro- 
 ficiency in the old-time game of quoits. Chester 
 Harding, the painter who went from the wilderness 
 of western New York to Paris to establish himself 
 as an artist — but Paris in Kentucky! — and after- 
 wards to Washington and to Great Britain to paint 
 all the great ones of the day, describes the enthusi- 
 asm of Chief Justice Marshall at a game of quoits, 
 kneeling on the ground, measuring with a straw, 
 
 77 
 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 calling out in excitement: in fact not acting at all 
 with the tremendous dignity with which less than 
 an hour before he had presided over the Supreme 
 Court of the United States. After mentioning the 
 above two points of distinction it may be well to put 
 in a reminder that he was the ablest in the entire 
 line of American Chief Justices. 
 
 Like the House of Representatives, the Senate 
 gave up old quarters for new when the Capitol 
 spread its wings to its present dimensions. The 
 room, the special triumph of Latrobe, which used to 
 be occupied by the Senate is now the court room of 
 the Supreme Court. It is a distinguished room of 
 unusual design and the Bench is a straight row of 
 nine big black easy chairs occupied by the Supreme 
 Justices and at once attracting the eye. The gold 
 eagle chair in the middle is naturally the chair of 
 the Chief Justice. 
 
 Behind the Bench is a long arcade fronted by 
 pillars of Potomac marble supporting a narrow 
 gallery, and above the gallery curves a great cas- 
 setted arch. The rest of the ceiling is cassetted 
 on the curve of a flattish half-dome. 
 
 There are concentric rows of dark upholstered 
 settees for spectators, facing the seats of the Jus- 
 tices. There is not room for many of these seats, 
 but many are not needed for almost all the visitors 
 stay but a few minutes and hurry away, most of 
 them considering the session merely as a spectacle 
 and not an exciting one. 
 
 On the other hand it should be said that the lack 
 
 78 
 
''GRAVE AND REVEREND SEIGNIORS" 
 
 of dignity is not wholly on the part of visitors, for 
 the Justices themselves, in their prominent location 
 are very comfortably settled in their chairs and too 
 frequently seem very near sleep. 
 
 The Justices, following the English custom, are 
 all solemnly robed in black, and on the davs when 
 they are to sit they enter in single file to the ancient 
 cry of the court-officer. 
 
 The Supreme Court makes so positive a rule as to 
 the impossibility of reversing any of its decisions, 
 leaving us a good modern impression of the Medes 
 and Persians, that it is fascinating to remember that 
 Ben Butler, who was never afraid of anybody, once 
 managed to secure a revocation. As he began his 
 claim one of the Justices reminded him thatlie was 
 violating court ethics. Whereupon Butler replied: 
 ''If Your Honors will read my brief, I am certain 
 you will be inclined to thank me. ' ' Whereupon they 
 read and reversed. 
 
 There is here an excellent portrait by Gilbert 
 Stuart of the first Chief Justice of the line, John 
 Jay, representing him not in the plain black silk 
 robes which became customary, but in a black satin 
 robe with scarlet facings; and there is a portrait 
 of Marshall by Rembrandt Peale. 
 
 In this room, when it was the Senate Chamber, 
 Thomas Jefferson was inaugurated, the fiery John 
 Adams having refused to accompany him. Here 
 too war was declared with Great Britain in the vear 
 1812. ^ 
 
 Numerous of the most interesting of Supreme 
 
 79 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 Court cases were argued and decided before the 
 court moved into this rooro,, one of the most interest- 
 ing cases being that of Dartmouth College, because 
 of the extravagant-seeming description of the effect 
 of Webster's oration not only on the audience but 
 on the court. Justice Story, didactic writer and 
 talker that he was, wrote: *'We listened for the first 
 hour with perfect astonishment, the second hour 
 with perfect delight, and for the third with perfect 
 conviction." A letter from one of the audience to 
 Eufus Choate says that Webster's lips quivered and 
 that his eyes filled with tears. And Chief Justice 
 Marshall, who presided, is described as bending for- 
 ward, eager to catch every word, his eyes also suf- 
 fused with tears. 
 
 Naturally, Webster won much more distinction as 
 a senator than as a lawyer for his abilities were 
 marvelously oratorical. Among his few greatest 
 speeches was his reply to Hayne, the Southerner 
 having made an extraordinarily able attack on the 
 North and especially on New England. 
 
 In the night that intervened between Hayne 's at- 
 tack and Webster's reply many a Northerner lay 
 sleepless, depressed and anxious and fearing that 
 Hayne would prove the superior. But a friend who 
 called at Webster's house, for his daughter, who was 
 visiting Webster's daughter that evening, was sur- 
 prised to find the great New Englander not only 
 cheerful but playful ; not in his library worrying and 
 working at his speech but out in the sitting 
 
 80 
 
''GRAVE AND REVEREND SEIGNIORS" 
 
 room with one of the girls on each knee. 
 
 His friend was well ahead of time at the Senate 
 Chamber next morning, anxious to see Webster 
 enter, and he was relieved to see him come in im- 
 maculately dressed and very calm. Many members 
 of the House of Representatives joined the throng 
 of listeners. Every particle of space was occupied. 
 Lobbies and staircases were packed. There was 
 general anxiety as to Webster's ability to make 
 suitable reply. 
 
 "It is time that the people should know what the 
 Constitution is," said an anxious Senator to him 
 as he entered. 
 
 ''They shall learn this day what I understand it 
 to be," replied Webster, and with that he went to 
 his place, and in his speech he so absolutely de- 
 molished Hayne that even the most ardent 
 Southerner admitted it. A -painting of the scene 
 holds the place of honor in old Faneuil Hall. 
 
 When he visited England Webster was greatly 
 interested in the House of Lords, and especially 
 noticed the highly important Lyndhurst, who, as 
 Webster tells, spoke with scarcely a movement ex- 
 cept now and then to move his right hand to his 
 left breast. Necessarily a judge of oratory, Web- 
 ster also observed that Lyndhurst was conversa- 
 tional, argumentative, logical without any attempt 
 at brilliancy. 
 
 The extraordinary Lord Broughham, who was be- 
 side Webster, remarked, that the Peers considered 
 
 81 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 Lyndhurst the ablest debater in the House of Lords. 
 
 ''Naturally, I am glad to hear that," responded 
 Webster, "Lord Lyndhurst being the son of the 
 American painter Copley and Boston born!" 
 
 The French Minister to the United States one day 
 asked Webster, when Secretary of State, whether 
 America would recognize the new French govern- 
 ment under Louis Napoleon. The answer is worth 
 noting, especially by those who believe that the es- 
 tablishment of a government means its permanent 
 endurance. "Why not?" said Webster. "The 
 United States recognized the Bourbons, the Republic, 
 the Directory, the Council of Five Hundred, the 
 First Consul, the Emperor, Louis the Eighteenth, 
 Charles the Tenth and Louis Philippe, so why not 
 Louis Napoleon!" 
 
 Among all our Senators of the United States 
 Webster stands pre-eminent. 
 
 The Senate Chamber is now in the northern wing 
 of the Capitol, and has no windows looking to the 
 outside, and is lighted by skylights from above. It 
 is not a distinguished looking room. It is something 
 over one hundred feet in length, and not far from 
 being as wide as it is long. 
 
 The galleries extend all around the four sides of 
 the chamber and, although designed to accommodate 
 visitors, from every part of the country and at times 
 in very large numbers, the galleries, which offer the 
 only space for visitors, are so poorly planned that 
 they seat only one thousand persons ; and the space 
 for these one thousand is largely and closely re- 
 
 82 
 
** GRAVE AND REVEREND SEIGNIORS" 
 
 stricted to families of the members, to diplomatic 
 representatives and to the press, leaving very little 
 opportunity for the public to attend the sessions. 
 
 The Vice-President of the United States is, under 
 the Constitution, the presiding officer of the Senate, 
 but in reality he for a great deal of the time calls 
 some Senator to the chair. 
 
 The seats of the members are arranged in semi- 
 circular order, and each member has his own indi- 
 vidual seat and desk. So far as possible the Re- 
 publicans are seated at the left of the presiding 
 officer, and the Democrats are on the right, but nec- 
 essarily this arrangement must at times be modified, 
 when one partj^ or the other has a considerable 
 majority of the membership. Each member keeps 
 his seat during only a single Congress and all draw 
 lots at the beginning of the next for a choice. As 
 an aid to the public, plans of the seats are printed 
 and handed to such visitors as care for this marked 
 convenience. 
 
 The most unimportant men in American public 
 life are considered to be our Vice-Presidents of the 
 United States, but at least they are given in turn the 
 honor of a bust in the Senate Chamber and already 
 there are a large number of busts, each set in its 
 individual niche. One, that of Vice-President Wil- 
 son, is not in the Senate Chamber, but in the Vice- 
 President's room where he suddenly died. 
 
 The bust of Vice-President King is here, remind- 
 ful of the fact that ill health took him to Cuba, during 
 his campaign, and that a special act of Congress 
 
 83 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 authorized him to take the oath of office there. Re- 
 turning, he died on the very day after his arrival 
 in his own country. 
 
 Unavoidably there comes the old time line about 
 "most potent, grave and reverend seignors," but 
 somehow the Senate of nowadays does not impress so 
 potently as America would like it to ; but the great- 
 est men come after all in cycles of importance. 
 Never was a more important Senatorial period than 
 when there were at one time such remarkable mem- 
 bers as Webster, Clay and Calhoun, and we may 
 fairly hope that the time will again come when such 
 men will appear. 
 
 It comes so natural to think of the Senators as 
 potent that it is interesting to mention, that in one 
 respect, they were not only potent in the past, but 
 have continued to be so even in recent years: and 
 that has been in marrying their daughters to army 
 men who after marriage rose to the greatest promi- 
 nence. Fremont won high place and fame in the 
 army, after he married the daughter of the powerful 
 Senator Benton. It is pleasant to remember that 
 Fremont as a young officer courted Jessie Benton 
 in the open park in front of where now stands the 
 Pension Building. William Tecumseh Sherman won 
 his first important advancement through having 
 married the daughter of the powerful Ewing. John 
 J. Pershing secured his early and astonishing ad- 
 vance through being the son-in-law of Senator 
 Warren. Pershing's early advance was given him 
 by Roosevelt, who found some rule in the way of 
 
 84 
 
''GRAVE AND REVEREND SEIGNIORS" 
 
 giving the fairly moderate advance that was intended 
 and thereupon, rather than be balked or have the 
 Senator's wishes balked, made what is believed to 
 have been by far the greatest advance in rank for 
 Pershing, ever made in our army. All America 
 realizes how fortunate for the country it was that 
 Pershing was given such early promotion, for with- 
 out that he would not have reached the place of 
 command of the American army of millions in the 
 great war. ^ 
 
 Oftentimes the Senate, in session, does not look as 
 imposing as it might do. There are often only a 
 few members* present, but the explanation of this 
 lies largely in the fact that a great part of sena- 
 torial work is done by committees, with a general 
 steering committee in control, behind the scenes. 
 But there are times when almost every member is 
 present : when some bill of special importance draws 
 out discussion of intensity, with speech foUoAving 
 speech in sequent earnestness. AVhen there is heard 
 a jingling bell which calls in such members as may 
 still be in some committee room, it may be under- 
 stood that an important vote is on the point of being 
 taken. 
 
 A general falling off in impressiveness is perhaps, 
 absurd though it at first seems, owing to the vanish- 
 ing of formal long-tailed coats and to the coming in 
 of short sack coats. After all a great deal of 
 dignity accompanied the old time dressing. 
 
 Nowadays there is much of standing carelessly 
 and listlessly about. The pages of the Senate, who 
 
 85 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 are very young for their work, are called by a hand- 
 clap and go on a run, not a walk, to the summoning 
 Senator and this adds materially to the stir and con- 
 fusion of the room. Vice-President Marshall made 
 use of this rush and hurry as a comparison when, in 
 his farewell speech to the Senate in 1921, he told 
 them that too many of the Senators themselves had 
 been ''running with Congressional cracked ice" at 
 the call of President Wilson. 
 
 It is a great shock to the visitor to the Senate 
 Chamber, be he foreign or native, to observe that 
 tobacco is still chewed with the inevitable disagree- 
 able result. This is not confined to Southern mem- 
 bers nor limited to either party. Out of their own 
 mouths they are condemned. 
 
 This has been so stressed as a national vice by 
 English travelers, and it is so seldom seen among 
 respectable men outside of the Capitol, that it is 
 generally taken to be a vice of American origin; 
 which makes it interesting to remember that the 
 charming Rosalind, pictured in the Forest of Arden, 
 must have had this in mind as a habit of the time 
 and place for she says: ''Very good orators, when 
 they are out, they will spit." Which is remindful 
 of Mark Twain's pleasantry, of the Prince who went 
 out with the falcon on his finger, ''hawking and spit- 
 ting." 
 
 Our "seigniors" by no means fill Shakespeare's 
 description of "grave," for most of them are not 
 serious of aspect. And there have frequently been 
 extremely humorous retorts delivered on the Senate 
 
 86 
 
** GRAVE AND REVEREND SEIGNIORS" 
 
 floor. The usually sober Senator Burton, whose 
 constituents referred to him as *' being as reserved 
 as a box-seat at the Opera/' one day surprised his 
 colleagues by remarking ''We must have peace, 
 even if we have to fight for it." 
 
 Among old-timers, actions were quite a-s impor- 
 tant as words, and Clay and Randolph once actually 
 fought a duel: although Randolph really did not 
 fight but took Clay's fire, and himself fired in the air; 
 whereupon the two promptly fell into each other's 
 arms. Senator Benton wrote of this that it was a 
 "high-toned duel." 
 
 The tirades of Senator Randolph were often in- 
 tensely fierce, yet a touch of unintentional humor 
 was frequently added by his directing some assistant 
 doorkeeper to get him some more porter, in regard 
 to which it has been declared that in the course of 
 an afternoon speech he would not infrequently drink 
 three or four quarts! His antagonist in the duel 
 just referred to had a curious habit of sitting in his 
 Senatorial seat and sucking striped peppermint 
 candy. 
 
 The picturesque Sam Houston used frequently to 
 sit in a waistcoat of hairy panther skin and often he 
 was giving all of his time in the Senate chamber to 
 whittling little pine hearts and other trinkets for 
 his women friends. There was more to Sam Hous- 
 ton than panther-skin clothes. As a young man, 
 Governor of Tennessee, he solved a situation in his 
 own way. On his wedding night his bride wept and 
 told him she loved another but would try to make 
 
 87 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 him a good wife. '*Miss,'^ said the Governor, **no 
 white woman is my slave. Good-night." He re- 
 signed the governorship and went to live with the 
 Cherokees — but emerged later in life to high public 
 office, another wife, the name of a city in Texas and 
 of a street in New York, and became a picturesque 
 feature of Washington for years. 
 
 Henry Clay at another time fought a duel with 
 Humphrey Marshall of Kentucky ; they fought over 
 the line in Indiana, and at least a thousand men ac- 
 companied them and were spectators. Clay was 
 wounded in the thigh and played cards in bed until 
 he was well. 
 
 Martin Van Buren was not looked upon as a hu- 
 morist but the public managed to find a great deal 
 of humor in the fact that when his household goods 
 were sold, on his leaving the Senate, it was found 
 that the carpet of his library was worn bare where 
 he had been in the habit of rehearsing his speeches 
 and posturing before a mirror. 
 
 Senator Evarts often made witty remarks. His 
 "Water flowed like mne," is the most famous, but 
 there are many others. At a great dinner at which 
 Webster and Brandreth, a pillmaker, were present, 
 Evarts spoke of the happiness of the company in 
 having with them "the two pillars of the Constitu- 
 tion.'^ At a Thanksgiving dinner Evarts arose and 
 began a speech by saying: "You have paid atten- 
 tion to a turkey stuffed with sage: I hope you "svill 
 now pay brief attention to a sage stuffed with tur- 
 
 88 
 
''GRAVE AND REVEREND SEIGNIORS" 
 
 key!" A woman friend once asked him how he 
 could stand the variety of food and especially the 
 different wines in his many dinings out, to which he 
 repUed, '*Ah, madame, it is not the different wines; 
 it is the indifferent." 
 
 Senator Ingalls of Kansas will long be remem- 
 bered for his reply to President Cleveland's ponder- 
 ously uttered remark: ''A public office is a public 
 trust," when he cleverly snapped off, ''A public of- 
 fice is a private snap." After a defeat at the polls 
 (these were in the spirited days of sockless Jerry 
 Simpson!) Ingalls referred to himself as a ''states- 
 man out of a job, ' ' but laconically admitted that even 
 so he had many responsibilities and added that 
 about the only people who could escape their respon- 
 sibilities were those who travel with "a bandana 
 trunk with a pin lock." 
 
 Kansas was often the object of jeers in the Senate 
 but no Senator had the temerity to try this twice 
 while Ingalls was Senator. One day a Pennsyl- 
 vania Senator spoke disparagingly of Kansas, es- 
 pecially as compared with a State like Pennsylvania, 
 whereupon Ingalls retorted : 
 
 "Mr. President: Pennsylvania has produced only 
 two great men — Benjamin Franklin of Massachu- 
 setts and Albert Gallatin of Switzerland." At an- 
 other time it was a Delaware Senator who risked a 
 criticism of Kansas, whereupon Ingalls instantly 
 arose and said : "Mr. President: The gentleman who 
 has just spoken represents a State which has two 
 
 89 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 counties when the tide is up — and only three when 
 it is down." 
 
 The best-known retort of the Senate was made by 
 Ben Wade of Ohio. When a Southern member sen- 
 timentally declared that a certain law would impose 
 a great hardship on Southerners who wished to set- 
 tle in Kansas for it would make it impossible for 
 them to take with them their dear old mammies who 
 had cared for them- from childhood, Wade inter- 
 posed sternly : ''We do not object to the gentlemen 
 taking their old mammies into Kansas. What we 
 object to is their selling them when they get there!" 
 
 In spite of openness to much criticism the Senate 
 on the whole is a great and powerful body; the old 
 phrase ''the over-shadowing Senate" remains. 
 
 A reminiscence comes of the days before the pres- 
 ent Senate Chamber was used. Webster was par- 
 ticularly anxious that his long-time friendly rival 
 and opponent Calhoun should hear him deliver what 
 came to be known as his "Seventh of March" 
 speech. He knew that Calhoun was very ill at what 
 is known as the Old Capitol, at that time a boarding 
 house which had been used as a meeting place by 
 Congress after the burning of the actual Capitol by 
 the British. 
 
 In all his superbness of physical bearing, Webster 
 entered Calhoun's room and found him lying frail 
 and almost helpless. Calhoun could only express 
 his regret that he would never again attend a Sena- 
 torial meeting. 
 
 Immensely saddened, Webster went thoughtfully 
 
 90 
 
** GRAVE AND REVEREND SEIGNIORS" 
 
 to the Senate, and a little later arose, and before 
 beginning his actual speech pathetically expressed 
 his profound regret that his dear friend Calhoun, 
 the especial champion of the slave-holding view- 
 point, was too ill to be there. 
 
 As Webster was sa3'ing this a tall white-haired 
 black-stocked, black-suited, black-cloaked man feebly 
 entered the meeting room and sank into a seat. As 
 Webster continued his feeling remarks regarding 
 Calhoun, the Southerner feebly spoke, but the Mas- 
 sachusetts man did not at first hear him. Webster 
 continued, and then, in a pause, there came again the 
 feeble sound; and the Senate sank into intense si- 
 lence except for the thin voice of Calhoun who said : 
 "The gentleman from South Carolina is present." 
 
 He was dead before the month was over, but he 
 heard his rival's "Seventh of March" speech. 
 
 
 
 91 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 EEPKESENTATIVES AND MISBEPKESENTiATIVES 
 
 T any point on entering the Cap- 
 itol one gets the impression, that 
 the building in one place or an- 
 other contains pictures of 
 every event in American 
 history and portraits or 
 sculptures of every Amer- 
 ican of prominence and a 
 great many who are not 
 thought of as having ever 
 
 been prominent. When in 
 
 .E^ the House of Representa- 
 tives end of the building, one finds a Gilbert Stuart 
 wasted on so forgotten a man as Gunning Bedford, 
 one feels that the limit is there positively reached. 
 At the same time it must never be overlooked that 
 on the whole the portraits and paintings are invalu- 
 able as a pictorial and realistic record of the coun- 
 try; and if one must needs have a certain propor- 
 tion of such forgotten men as Gunning Bedford, it 
 is by all means excellent to have them by a Gilbert 
 Stuart. 
 
 One of the most interesting although not among 
 the very best paintings in the Capitol is that of the 
 
 92 
 
REPRESENTATIVES 
 
 Signing of the Proclamation of Emancipation, be- 
 cause it gives war-time portraits not only of Presi- 
 dent Lincoln but of Stanton, Chase, Seward, and the 
 other members of his Cabinet. A portrait of Char- 
 les Carroll of Carrollton, who will always be known 
 with this full designation because he thus signed the 
 Declaration, remarking as he did so, that as there 
 were so many Carrolls, King George could now tell 
 precisely which one he was, is one of the portraits 
 of the Capitol, and it is especially worth while, be- 
 cause it so happened that this man of picturesque 
 appellation was the last survivor of the Signers. 
 
 One of the most popular of Capitol paintings is 
 the large one which won the title of *' Westward 
 Ho!" representing as it does all the figures of an 
 early far-West emigrant party, with every detail 
 shown. 
 
 The meeting room of the House of Representa- 
 tives, and the various other rooms given over to the 
 use of that body, are in the opposite end of the Cap- 
 itol from the rooms of the Senate, and the Hall of 
 Representatives, as it is usually termed, is about 
 twenty five feet longer than the Chamber of the Sen- 
 ate, although one would naturally expect it to be 
 much larger on account of the much greater number 
 of members. And although the members are so 
 many, the accommodation for visitors is barely more 
 than is allowed by the Senate, for only twelve hun- 
 dred in all can be crowded in even at the most im- 
 portant sessions. One may fairly wonder if this 
 was not intended by the planners, to make it impos- 
 
 93 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 sible for any large number of the possibly disaf- 
 fected to gather about either of the Houses in ses- 
 sion. The same reason may have had much to do 
 with the keeping of the chambers of both Houses in 
 a state of windowless isolation, through having the 
 lighting come from overhead skylights. 
 
 It used to be, as late as 1830, that it was the cus- 
 tom of the members of Congress to follow the old 
 and extremely odd English Parliamentary custom 
 of wearing their hats during the sessions. 
 
 There are no longer desks in the House, and the 
 members are not given each his own individual seat, 
 in this diifering markedly from the Senate, but the 
 Representatives shift about at their own will, indi- 
 vidual seating not now being feasible with so large 
 a membership. 
 
 The two important figures of authority are the 
 Speaker of the House, who is a very important figure 
 indeed: and the sergeant-at-arms who on occasion 
 carries the Mace of the House. The Mace is of au- 
 thority by representing the entire power of the 
 House. When not in use it remains on its marble 
 pedestal and there signifies that the House is in 
 session. It is a bundle of ebony rods fastened with 
 transverse bands of silver, having thus a marked 
 Roman air. When the sergeant-at-arms is making 
 his stately progress to carry out some order of the 
 Speaker, as for example the quieting of a riot or a 
 fight among the members, he holds the Mace aloft in 
 his hands, advancing thus, in a sort of stately pro- 
 gress. 
 
 94 
 
REPRESENTATIVES 
 
 Even at the present time there are now and then 
 fights or near-fights and a great deal of abusive 
 language; as to the last point, however, the members 
 might point to the vividly abusive authority of the 
 great Roosevelt, who although never a member of 
 the House, loved on occasion to give himself full 
 verbal freedom: as, for example, when attacking 
 Parker, his rival for the Presidency, he declared: 
 "The statements made by Mr. Parker are unquali- 
 fiedly and atrociously false!" 
 
 As the Mace represents an old-time custom, for it 
 has been used in precisely its present way since the 
 very first Congress, so also is an old-time custom 
 represented by the quaintness of turning back the 
 hands of the clock to lengthen by this obvious and 
 recognized fiction the close of a final session of Con- 
 gress. Unfortunately, however, this is not alto- 
 gether a .matter of quaint and expected custom, 
 but is made an opportunity at times by the unscru- 
 pulous to rush through without question in the 
 last few minutes some more or less nefarious 
 bills. 
 
 The Hall of Representatives is not impressive in 
 design, although I remember recently reading that 
 it is one of the most marvelous meeting chambers of 
 any legislative body in the world! Such matters 
 must necessarily always remain questions of indi- 
 vidual taste. 
 
 A very great amount of space is given by the 
 House to purposes of individual comfort, as for res- 
 taurants and many kinds of meeting and resting 
 
 95 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 rooms ; and the vast and beautiful new office build- 
 ings offer still greater space. 
 
 The Congressmen of both Houses, Senators and 
 Representatives, alike lose their names when they 
 enter the meeting chambers. They are always re- 
 ferred to as " the gentleman from Ohio, " ' ' the gen- 
 tleman from California,'^ and so on. The excep- 
 tions come when there are two men of the same sur- 
 name from the same State, in which case they must 
 needs be differentiated, or when the very rare occa- 
 sions come when a member is called to the bar to be 
 publicly censured by the presiding officer. 
 
 An amusing twist was given to this general cus- 
 tom by a Vice-President of some years ago who, 
 whenever he recognized one of the two Senators 
 from Arkansas, knowing that one of the two pro- 
 nounced the name of the State with the final ''s" 
 sounded, and the other with the last syllable pro- 
 nounced as if it ended with *'w," always recognized 
 one of the members as ' ' The gentleman from Arkan- 
 saw" and the other as *'The gentleman from Arkan- 
 sas." 
 
 In a sense the members of Congress constitute an 
 intellectual melting pot quite as importantly as do 
 the people of the great cities; for men gather to- 
 gether not only from distant parts of the country, 
 but from parts where there are widely different 
 problems as to the needs and proper treatment of 
 different classes of people. Here in Washington, by 
 mingling with the Southern members, the members 
 from the North may come to an understanding of the 
 
 96 
 
REPRESENTATIVES 
 
 negro problems, and the Southerners for their part 
 may come to an understanding of the problems 
 connected with the enormous number of un-American 
 foreigners in the North. 
 
 Even more than -with the Senate, and this natur- 
 ally is owing to the much larger number of members, 
 there is almost always some one ready for a quip or 
 jest. One day, annoyed by what he deemed foolish 
 talk of two fellow Congressmen, Thomas B. Reed 
 remarked: '^They never open their mouths without 
 subtracting from the sum of human knowledge." 
 
 One day Congressman Springer, in an effort to be 
 particularly impressive and convincing declared: 
 *'As for me, I would rather be right than be Presi- 
 dent. ' ' At which Reed instantly drawled in his cool 
 fashion: ''Well, the gentleman will never be either." 
 That Springer's phrase w^as originally used, one 
 day, by Henry Clay used to be remembered by old- 
 timers, and it was perhaps fortunate even for the 
 great Clay, that Reed was not then a member. 
 
 It is naturally diflRcult if not impossible to refer to 
 the general type of Representatives, for after all 
 you may get an impression from one Congress which 
 will be altered by the next, and yet, it does seem a 
 fact that the usual Member of Congress is a trifle 
 under average height, is a little more broad should- 
 ered than the average man, this perhaps being typi- 
 cal of being able to push his way, and is inclined to 
 have a somewhat rounder head and a shorter neck 
 than men of other classes. It seems to be that there 
 are more successful dark-haired politicians than 
 
 97 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 those of other hirsute coloring. John Quincy 
 Adams, one of the most striking examples of lengthy 
 continuity of office, could scarcely be referred to as 
 an example of either class, his head being bare 
 through his hair being so scant and sacrosanct. It 
 was a very sensitive point with the irascible Adams, 
 and when a constituent one day called at his Wash- 
 ington home and said that his wife, when a little 
 girl, used to call at the Adams home and often curled 
 John Quincy 's hair, Adams forgot any caution as to 
 offending a constituent and snarled: ''I suppose she 
 combs yours now." 
 
 Franklin Pierce, when he was a Congressman a 
 dozen years before he was made President, one 
 evening gave a striking illustration of the kind of 
 helpfulness that makes friends. For being out with 
 a convivial companion, this companion fell into one 
 of the old-time open sewers. Pierce tried in vain to 
 pull him out. Then he said : * 'I can't get you out, so 
 I'll come in myself!" On which, fully dressed as 
 he was, he leaped in. 
 
 The House of Eepresentatives has been quite a 
 goal for odd or even freakish members. One South- 
 erner was so large and heavy that a special chair 
 had to be made for him. One of the unusual old- 
 time members of Congress, or to be precise, a dele- 
 gate from the Territory of Michigan, was a Roman 
 Catholic Priest, named Gabriel Richard, who re- 
 ceived orders in Paris and went as a missionary 
 into the Northwest Territory. And this is remind- 
 ful of another ecclesiastic, John Withcrspoon, pres- 
 
 98 
 
REPRESENTATIVES 
 
 ident of Princeton, whose statue stands at the corner 
 of Connecticut Avenue and Eighteenth Street, who 
 was the only clergj-man who signed the Declaration 
 of Independence. One of the city's most interesting 
 characters, Eleazer AVilliams, was not a Congress- 
 man, but a lobbyist sent by Indians to sway Con- 
 gressional action in regard to them. He has gener- 
 ally been supposed to be a half-breed Seneca — but 
 he aroused immense interest by formally claiming 
 to be the lost dauphin of France, brought up in the 
 American backwoods. 
 
 It was Congressman Jim Campbell who, when 
 confronted by President Cleveland with Constitu- 
 tional reasons why a bill in which Campbell was in- 
 terested could not be signed, replied coaxingly : "Oh, 
 just sign it! What's the Constitution between 
 friends!" Which immensely amused the usually 
 placid Cleveland, but, naturallly, did not secure his 
 signature. 
 
 As with the Senate, so with the House, it is often 
 the case that only a small proportion of members 
 are present, and as also with the Senate, so with the 
 House, it is often the case that there is a general 
 effect of inattention, as if the members are heedless 
 as to the passing or not passing of bills of immensely 
 important character. But also as with the Senate, 
 the explanation is to quite an extent to be found in 
 the fact that much of the most important work is 
 done in committees. 
 
 The Representatives in general are of not nearly 
 so much importance in Washington, either politically 
 
 99 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 or socially, as are the Senators or heads of Depart- 
 ments. It is hard to awe the average Washington- 
 ian with a Representative unless the Representative 
 is of special importance through the possession of 
 marked qualities or great wealth. 
 
 Many Congressmen's wives are always to be 
 found at the meetings of what are known as ' * Cur- 
 rent Events" lecturers, for they develop an immense 
 eagerness to keep in touch with the affairs of the 
 nation and the world. Many follow the Congres- 
 sional debates closely from the galleries, day after 
 day. 
 
 A great retort in the House was evoked when a 
 New York Congressman of some years ago was on 
 the point of being expelled by his fellow members 
 for dishonesty regarding an important bill. He 
 made a lengthy defense, ending with an appeal 
 against a harsh decision, and began to quote pathe- 
 tically, *' 'Tis hard to part, when friends are dear," 
 at which a voice demanded coldly: "Will the gen- 
 tlqman please name the price?" This is still looked 
 upon as one of the star retorts of the House, and 
 another was made in regard to Representative Hol- 
 man, who for many years bore the title of the 
 "Watch-dog of the Treasury," on account of his 
 custo-m of objecting to every money bill that came 
 up. One day, however, a bill was introduced for the 
 expenditure of a large sum in Holman's own dis- 
 trict. A fellow member introduced it and a dead 
 silence fell as the House listened for the expected 
 Holman objection. But it did not come. The sil- 
 
 100 
 
REPRESENTATIVES 
 
 ence continued, and then from the far side of the 
 
 house there came the taunting- 
 
 " 'Tis sweet to hear the watch dog's honest bark 
 Bay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near 
 home.'* 
 
 \^-^hr^, 
 
 101 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 SOME CHABACTERISTICS 
 
 REGIMENT of bronze cav- 
 alry could be formed, so 
 the impression comes, 
 from the host of bronze 
 horsemen scattered 
 about Washington 
 streets. 
 Washington is a wonder- 
 fully be-statued city; it has 
 more statues in its streets in 
 proportion to its size, than 
 has any other city, and 
 the statues are almost 
 all equestrian and almost 
 all to commemorate 
 heroes of war. 
 
 Look in any direction, up any street or avenue, 
 and the eye is struck by a row of statued men. For 
 example, follow along Vermont Avenue, and you 
 find only a block apart, Logan, and Thomas and Mc- 
 Pherson and Jackson. Very prominent, beyond the 
 south front of the White House, is the tall and ra- 
 ther recent equestrian Sherman. On Mt. Pleasant, 
 in particular prominence, is a large and quite new 
 McClellan. In fact the horsemen are everywhere. 
 
 102 
 
 «»-*««C^^.# 
 
SOME CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 The placing of statued generals about the city be- 
 gan many years ago, and among the first were the 
 Washington which fascinated Bret Harte and the 
 careering Andrew Jackson. Grant of course is one 
 of the many, and the Grant Memorial displays horse- 
 men galore in highly excited groups. There are 
 now far more bronze horses than live ones to be 
 seen on the streets of the Capitol. 
 
 Washington has markedly the air of a military 
 city. During the Great War it did not look so mili- 
 tary-like as did, say, either New York or Philadel- 
 phia, although it might naturally have been expected 
 to look very military-like indeed at that time. 
 There were generally no great number of officers or 
 soldiers to be seen on the streets, and even the White 
 House and its grounds, carefully though they were 
 in reality guarded, gave little outward evidence of 
 watchfulness except for here and there an isolated 
 soldier or policeman. But since the war, Wash- 
 ington has become the special goal of army men and 
 it now has more of a military aspect than have the 
 other cities. 
 
 It seems curious but is perhaps quite natural, that 
 thus far, although the veterans of the late war are 
 highly honored, the period has not yet arrived in 
 which they are to be mistily haloed, a period which a 
 great many years ago was reached in regard to the 
 men of the Ci\nl War. And this is remindful of 
 Mrs. Burton Harrison's amusement, when a young 
 girl, who had been reading with aiddity novels of the 
 Civil War, asked her in all seriousness if it were 
 
 103 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 really true that every man of that period was hand- 
 some, clever and a palladin of bravery, and every 
 woman a radiant belle and beauty. 
 
 Washington is pre-eminently a city of social activ- 
 ities. It is not, as would naturally be expected, a 
 city of many theatres. A city thronged not only 
 with residents with time at their disposal, but with 
 visitors from all quarters, would naturally be expec- 
 ted to demand an active drama, as an important fea- 
 ture, whereas on the contrary it is seldom in the 
 winter that a good play comes. One is tempted to 
 wonder if the explanation can be the intensity with 
 which the people who would under ordinary circum- 
 stances be supporters of the theater and demanders 
 of good plays are wrapped up in matters of social 
 life. Residents and visitors, spealdng broadly, fol- 
 low eagerly in the round of dinners, receptions, 
 luncheons and teas. 
 
 It is the more remarkable that it is not a great 
 amusement city, for it is a city of the shortest pos- 
 sible working hours. The great department build- 
 ings with their thousands and thousands of em- 
 ployees, turn them all into the streets at extremely 
 early hours, and a most curious corollary is that 
 museums and galleries also close by the middle of 
 the afternoon! With practically all of the places 
 of instruction or sightseeing closing early in the 
 day, there are still few theaters other than for mov- 
 ing pictures. 
 
 It may be said, however, that dancing is a marked 
 diversion of a great part of the population, and this 
 
 104 
 
SOME CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 of course partially explains the absence of great 
 theatrical demand. The present occupants of the 
 White House, the Hardings, both have a pleasant 
 liking for dancing, not at all a usual White House 
 feature, at least in recent years. 
 
 Washington has gradually become a Mecca for 
 bridal couples. In this respect it is believed to out- 
 rival even Niagara Falls. Someone with a bent for 
 figures has estimated that the average is one hun- 
 dred thousand a year: a rather incredible seeming 
 number, but the actual figure must be high. 
 
 It was not in relation to a marriage but a funeral 
 that Mrs. Jefferson Davis once came in touch with 
 what w^as, to her, an entirely new feature. The 
 funeral carriage called for her, and as it started off 
 she noticed on either side, four negroes, walking in 
 solemn glory, in black clothes and white cotton 
 gloves. Instantly she demanded of the negro coach- 
 man an explanation, and she was told: "This, ma- 
 dame, is the way we always does at funerals and 
 sich like." Telling the story herself she used to say 
 that she was almost sorry to order the eight negroes 
 to vanish, so proud had they been and then so crest- 
 fallen. 
 
 Among American cities Washington seems to be 
 the black man's paradise. They are mostly happy 
 and contented. They seem to be good citizens al- 
 though some live in little narrow alleys, of which 
 there are not many in the city; others live in excel- 
 lent houses on excellent streets, they having of re- 
 cent years acquired a good many districts of homes 
 
 105 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 which used to be prized by the whites. Many ne- 
 groes owned bits of land in the most exclusive North 
 West section and by selling became prosperous. Al- 
 though there are quite a number of shops for ne- 
 groes, negroes are unobtrusively welcomed in all 
 the large stores as well. 
 
 There are negroes who are small shop-keepers, 
 prosperous working men, office-holders, and small 
 landlords. A great many past middle age, have the 
 garb and facial expression that in other cities would 
 mark them as negro preachers instead of, as here, 
 negroes of settled prosperity. Even where negro 
 homes are in rows of little houses in every shade of 
 green and red and bronze and yellow, there is not 
 an impression of poverty. 
 
 It is not politics that has dictated a good policy to- 
 ward them, because nobody in the District of Colum- 
 bia votes, either white or black. The birthrate of 
 the blacks is a little greater than that of the whites, 
 and the death rate is quite considerably greater, 
 so that unless constantly reinforced from the South 
 as they are, the negroes here would die out. 
 
 It is one of the most curious features of American 
 history that less than five years before the Civil 
 War it was solemnly declared in this city that the 
 black race could be considered only as property. 
 Chief Justice Taney, backed by a strong majority 
 of the Supreme Court and by the general approval 
 of the people and the majority of the churches, es- 
 sentially declared that the negro had no right which 
 the white man was bound to respect. 
 
 106 
 
SOME CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 Even the opponents of slavery were so aghast that 
 they could scarcely think it possible that the con- 
 dition would ever change. It added to the striking 
 features of the ease that Taney, violently outspoken 
 slavery man as he was, within a few years swore 
 into office as President the man who was to over- 
 throw slavery, Abraham LinclonI Thus did fate 
 reverse the decision. 
 
 What amounts to a new city has within the past 
 few years been developing on the heights, which in 
 a general way are known as Mt. Pleasant, on the 
 long hill beyond the twisty old lane, now a street, 
 long the boundary of the city and known as Florida 
 Avenue. These heights command far-extending 
 views over the city and the Potomac; and many a 
 hotel and apartment house has phalanxes of win- 
 dows arranged to command these city-sweeping 
 vistas. 
 
 There are costly homes here, and here too apart- 
 ment houses of great size and expensiveness have 
 firmly entrenched themselves. There are many 
 apartment houses also in the general northwest sec- 
 tion, before the heights are mounted, and they have 
 the pleasant aspect which goes well with tliis city of 
 charm. 
 
 The sidewalks and pavements are used freely by 
 children of good class, for roller skating, and little 
 wagon coasting: and the slopes of Mt. Pleasant are 
 naturally not overlooked. One will sometimes be met 
 on a slope by five or six little wagons, one immedi- 
 
 107 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 ately following the other, loaded with happy chil- 
 dren. 
 
 By the movement of the motor cars which travel 
 the Mt. Pleasant hills one may almost tell the time 
 of day, for they come down in pleasantly noisy 
 flocks between nine and ten in the morning, go back, 
 many of them, a little more noisily for the dinner 
 hour, and later, about one o'clock at night, attack 
 the hill very noisily indeed, making free runs at the 
 grade, starting from as far back as Dupont Circle. 
 
 An interesting feature of many of the streets of 
 the city is that they are completely arcaded by the 
 trees which are planted at their sides, and cared for 
 by the city authorities. Beautiful examples of this 
 may be seen in New Hampshire Avenue. Shade is 
 so valued that the trees are often too low-trimmed 
 for umbrella use on rainy days. 
 
 Washington is essentially a winter city, and the 
 spaces about the house-fronts, and some unusually 
 beautiful gardens, are planted with all manner of 
 evergreens, laurels, magnolias, barberries, box 
 bushes and borders, thus achieving an effect that 
 especially delights the eye of the Northern garden 
 lover who finds at home his box bushes and borders 
 a source of despair. The houses too are draped 
 with thick-growing English ivy. Many of them have 
 balconies over the front doors, as if the architect 
 had in mind that public favorites might live in the 
 houses and be called upon for speeches to crowds 
 in the streets. 
 
 At two spots in the city, one south of the White 
 
 108 
 
SOME CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 House in the Executive grounds, and the other at 
 Dupont Circle, are two great circular plantings of 
 elni trees which have now become mature old trees 
 and which show markedly from lofty points or in 
 airplane pictures. 
 
 Washington is so attractive a city that although 
 one may notice points of difference from other cities 
 it is seldom that one thinks of it as anything but a 
 place of charm and even beauty. 
 
 A characteristic that one early notices is the ab- 
 sence of what is expected as a matter of course in 
 every other American city — the wholesale district! 
 — something which simply does not here exist. You 
 next notice that there is also an absence of any manu- 
 facturing district. Then comes the realization that 
 you see very few heavy trucks filled with mer- 
 chandise, such as are so familiarly to be seen else- 
 where. 
 
 There is a surprising lesisureliness in the general 
 business and shopping of the city, whether in the 
 few large department stores or in the shops. A 
 mutual leisureliness of customer and clerk is either 
 annoying or amusing if you are waiting to do some 
 purchasing yourself. 
 
 Business in general is a pleasant feature of tliis 
 pleasant city, and there is an almost naive readiness 
 to give credit to new customers: indeed, it is not 
 infrequently offered without being asked for: and 
 this is a city peculiarly of transients ! 
 
 I noticed the other day a man who distinctly repre- 
 sented a survival of the long ago past. He was a 
 
 109 
 
r-^ 
 
 THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 scissors grinder, and he looked precisely as that kind 
 of craftsman still looks in all parts of the country. 
 Here was the short shabby man of our youthful days, 
 with a gray-black lathe-frame on his back, and so 
 bending under the load as to let his pendulum arm 
 agitate the tongue of the bell, and always with the 
 same sharp sound. 
 
 The horse-shoer has almost vanished ; the modern 
 shoemaker no longer sits on his queer low leather 
 bench. How long will the scissors-grinder last? 
 
 A fascinating-seeming kind of advertisement, not 
 in the least exceptional, but very common indeed, 
 and often showing in rows in the advertising col- 
 umns, is that of '* furniture of all kinds'^ — as the 
 general phrase is, for houses or apartments of all 
 sizes : 
 
 "Wanted— to purchase immediately, outfit for a 
 seven-room apartment. Phone so and 
 so.'^ 
 
 ** Wanted — furniture of all kinds for a fourteen- 
 room house." 
 
 "Wanted — furniture of all kinds for an eleven- 
 room house." 
 
 And such advertisements go on, always specify- 
 ing with amusing particularity the precise number 
 of rooms to be so equipped. The explanation comes, 
 from this being so largely a city of people who come 
 for a few years at a time. 
 
 President Van Buren describes Washington as 
 "the most gossiping place in the world." The city 
 has been gossiping ever since. If a man or a woman 
 
 110 
 
SOME CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 goes out to a social function he is expected to take 
 some gossip with him, and to bring back, if he is 
 clever, more than he takes. In the present days of 
 prohibition, gossip is taking the line of telling the 
 quantity and quality of wine served at great dinners ; 
 or some one may tell quietly of a retiring President 
 ordering army trucks to move his private supply. 
 Gossip revels over ^vdde fields. 
 
 Washington is distinctively an American city. 
 This cannot be too strongly expressed. Good-look- 
 ing Americans and delightful Americans represent 
 almost the complete population ; and if some caviler 
 should say something about the blacks, they too are 
 Americans of many generations. On account of this 
 being the center of diplomatic life there is at the 
 same time both in street scenes and at all gatherings, 
 a highly disting-uished sprinkling of foreigners, at- 
 tached to the embassies. 
 
 American as the city is, and excellent as its 
 schools seem to be, one's first impression is strongly 
 of a shortage of school buildings. The public schools 
 are so quietly placed, that you are tempted to think 
 that it is easier to find orphan asylums or private 
 schools. And then your fears are put to flight by 
 coming upon the Central High School — a huge build- 
 ing, an absolutely enormous building, situated on a 
 terrace overhanging Florida Avenue. 
 
 Boarding-houses have always been a feature of 
 "Washington life and it is a poor one that cannot 
 boast a major, a dear general's widow, a member of 
 General Wood's staff, a vice-consul from Birming- 
 
 111 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 ham, an educated Chinese, in addition to the elderly 
 ladies and department clerks who frequent such 
 homes. 
 
 There are quiet and highly respected ''places" 
 so called, such as Hillyer and Jefferson and Deca- 
 tur; pleasant localities — little eddies off great 
 thoroughfares where it has always been a sort of 
 small social asset to live. Here the relicts and the 
 maiden daughters of governors. Presidents, gen- 
 erals, admirals, senators, live in a well-bred, quiet 
 round of teas, small dinners and great maintenance 
 of old pride and tradition — each in the heavy shade 
 of family trees. And from year to year there are 
 more apartment houses, where thousands are pi- 
 geoned-holed in "three rooms and a bath," with 
 proper hall service and elaborate motor entrance. 
 
 All through the best residence sections of Wash- 
 ington there exists a very characteristic feature of 
 the capital's streets. This is the horseshoe-shaped 
 drive which crosses the sidewalks twice, so that 
 motors may approach and leave the actual doorstep 
 of the house. These drives give a motor-terror to 
 sidewalk-abiding nursemaids, children, home-going 
 citizens and hurrying postmen, and are very de- 
 structive to pet dogs. On these horseshoe curves, 
 a caller 's motor can wait between sidewalk and door- 
 step, and on reception days the motors are parked 
 up and down the street; and on the doorman's signal 
 or upon the appearance of the owner at the door, the 
 motors dart from the curb, whirl into the horseshoe 
 
 112 
 
SOME CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 curve and are off over the sidewalk again, and out 
 and into the street. 
 
 One reason why there are not so many old-time 
 houses as might naturally be expected in Washing- 
 ton is because the immense changes of level carried 
 out under the direction of Colonel Shepherd did away 
 with most of the old houses or else left them so 
 skied or submerged in clay banks, that the owners 
 promptly tore them down. 
 
 A feature of Washington residences is the great 
 size of many of them. These are the homes of ex- 
 tremely wealthy men retired from politics or bus- 
 iness, or their widows. More and more the city at- 
 tracts w^ealthy folk who have not satisfactorily 
 established themselves in other places or who have 
 come here to widen their social horizon or improve 
 upon their winter climate. And quite a proportion 
 of those who come do so because of the acknowledged 
 fascination of the mingled society here. Constantly 
 in their motor cars, in the trolleys, or entering or 
 leaving some of the public buildings, distinguished 
 folk are in evidence, whose faces ought instantly to 
 be recognized by all. 
 
 Long ago in the "Gilded Age,'^ it was told that 
 the stranger in Washington was able to see renowned 
 generals and admirals, who had seemed but colossal 
 myths off in some distant State, or there were 
 world-famous statesmen passing as a plain matter 
 of fact, and the young man of the story * ' had looked 
 upon the President himself and lived." 
 
 H3 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 Washington is a markedly polite city. Such forms 
 as a man's keeping his hat off while speaking with 
 a lady on the street are customary, and it is pleas- 
 ant to hear the frequent soft-voiced *'sir." And 
 politeness extends in a general way through all 
 classes. Just a few days ago two dear old ladies 
 were getting gently and slowly off a Connecticut 
 Avenue car at R Street, and tarried for a moment on 
 the platform to say graciously to the conductor, ''It 
 has been a cold day for you to-day ' ' — a simple thing 
 but one which warmed the heart of the conductor 
 and the passengers who heard it. 
 
 Thomas Jefferson, walking out one day with a 
 young relative, courteously returned the bow of a 
 slave, and when the young man with him said some- 
 thing in regard to it, Jefferson replied: "Should you 
 expect me to be less polite than that black manT' 
 
 There is no distinctively "Great White Way." 
 F Street has splotches of theater, restaurant, and dry 
 goods store lights, and Ninth Street has perhaps the 
 closest together of lighted windows at night, but even 
 there, there is nothing very bright, nor is there any 
 great brightness around even the big hotels. Hotel, 
 restaurant and theater lights unite to make a pleasant 
 degree of brightness near Lafayette Square and the 
 Willard Hotel, but by one in the morning there is 
 at least semi-darkness, for private lights have been 
 turned out and the city itself does not overlight its 
 streets — though all its avenues have great ball- 
 shaped lights throughout their lengths. 
 
 114 
 
SOME CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 A usual night feature is the leaving well-lighted, 
 particularly on F Street, of the front windows of 
 closed shops, such as candy shops, silversmiths, 
 women's hat shops, and so on, so as to offer good 
 ''window-shopping" though the stores are closed, 
 and an odd feature is that as the people drift home 
 from moving-picture theaters or restaurants, a 
 brisk young man, not in uniform, enters doorway 
 after doorway, shakes the door and snaps an obscure 
 button, leaving the shop and window in darkness, 
 and making rapid progress dowTi the street. 
 
 Neither at night nor in the day time, are quite so 
 many policemen to be seen as in other cities — except 
 traffic men : they are guarded by roof-set spot lights 
 at night, and have mud-guarding shields about them, 
 like huge, waist-high cans. 
 
 There is many a charming bit to be noticed by 
 chance as one goes about the Washington streets, as 
 the Church of the Covenant, which looks out at the 
 Witherspoon statue at Connecticut Avenue and 
 Eighteenth Streets, with an admirable stone tower of 
 Norman design, to be seen with especial effectiveness 
 in a vista from between buildings on M Street; at 
 your right being the great St. Matthew's church with 
 its unfinished fagade and at your left the spot where 
 stood what was for a time the most talked of house 
 in Washington, the one given by the public to Ad- 
 miral Dewey, only to be at once handed over by him 
 to his wife. 
 
 One of the common sights of the city, as it has 
 
 115 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 been from the very beginning, is that of parties of 
 Indians, men and women, in their native costume, 
 waUdng up and down the streets, or going into pub- 
 lic buildings, or stores : and it is always a very pic- 
 turesque sight, though these wards of the nation al- 
 ways seem a little pathetic on the hard pavements. 
 The men seem drawn by the Capitol or White House 
 and the women by the trinket shops of Pennsylvania 
 Avenue. The other day a group of mocassin-shod, 
 blanket-wrapped squaws were carefully choosing 
 and examining and purchasing fine leather vanity 
 bags in the largest shop on F Street. 
 
 And I noticed one day two gypsies passing by, 
 one with orange turban, and weird green jacket, the 
 other with turban of vivid green, and jacket of 
 orange, and both with loop ear-rings and with skirts 
 braided with dull red. 
 
 I A pathetic survival of old Washington, and in 
 fact of a time that has almost vanished from the 
 entire country, is a horse market at the junction of 
 Eleventh Street and Pennsylvania Avenue on the 
 
 t Mall. In a few years it will be as much a thing of 
 the past as the slave markets, which not many years 
 ago disappeared. The poor old horses are rough, 
 unkempt, decrepit, poorly-fed, and usually attached 
 to old and broken-down wagons. The drivers stand 
 dejectedly beside them, engaged in the dulling occu- 
 pation of tapping the pavement with the butt-ends 
 of old whips. 
 Although Washington is a city of limited manu- 
 
 116 
 
SOME CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 facturing it retains various reminders of the handi- 
 crafts of the past. Even the horse-shoers are still 
 sufficient in number to have a union, and there are 
 unions of jewelry workers, school custodians and 
 janitors, navy yard riggers, buffers and polishers, 
 and the astonishingly entitled "Yeast, Cereal, Bev- 
 erage and Soft Drink Workers." 
 
 These is an association of the "Oldest Inhabitants 
 of the District of Columbia" and they hold their 
 meetings in a quaint little old fire-house facing to- 
 ward Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House 
 and Georgetown. 
 
 One is not at first impressed that there are so 
 many churches as would naturally be expected, but 
 one by one they are come upon, and among others 
 there are seventy-two little churches of the colored 
 Baptists. There is a delightfully named Sunshine 
 Temple, under the pastorate of one named Zed H. 
 Capp. There are churches of Christadelphians. 
 There is a Theomonistic Church. There are a 
 couple of Pentecostal Churches of the Nazarene. 
 
 Among the various associations, one thinks first 
 of the famous Gridiron Club with its meetings at 
 which the greatest men in the land are expected 
 to be present and to receive jests with equanim- 
 ity. 
 
 There is an Alibi Club headed by a Proctor, as- 
 sisted by a Bulldog. There are the Knights of the 
 Golden Eagle. There is the fraternal order of the 
 Degree of Pocahontas. There are Knights of Malta. 
 
 117 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 There are Maccabees. There is the Social Order of 
 the Moose. There is the Improved Order of Heptas- 
 ophus. And there are a Rising Sun Lodge, a Bloom 
 of Youth Lodge, and a Lodge of the Golden Eeef. 
 
 118 
 
CHAF'TER IX 
 
 AROUND LAFAYETTE SQUARE 
 
 HEN Charles 
 Sumner took 
 Thackeray on a 
 drive about Wash- 
 ington, the Sum- 
 n e r sensibilities 
 were intensely 
 wrought up in the 
 effort to keep the 
 distinguished nov- 
 elist from seeing 
 the statue of An- 
 drew Jackson, in 
 the center of La- 
 fayette Square. As the carriage passed Sumner 
 talked with extreme animation, the while obscuring 
 Thackeray's vision by poking his head forward! 
 
 On the whole it is considered likely that this Jack- 
 son statue has given more genuine pleasure to 
 people in general than any other statue in the city. 
 Jackson is upon a ramping, caracoling steed. The 
 statue is really a marvel of balancing, as the horse 
 stands with its front feet high in the air and General 
 Jackson's old-time chapeau is held martially aloft. 
 
 119 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 One wonders how it all retains balance, as there is 
 no assisting support of any sort. It has a curious 
 toy-like quality, from its prancing play-like pose 
 and from looking small among the large old trees. 
 
 The statue was made from cannon captured in 
 Jackson^s campaigns. If you walk directly toward 
 it and a little to the right, you will see an astonishing 
 sight. The old hero, who was never scared in his 
 life, has from this one point of view the aspect of 
 hair on end, eyebrows up, alarmed eyes, and with 
 the horse seeming to share his terror. 
 
 Lafayette Square, once an apple orchard given by 
 the stubborn old David Burns who loved to oppose 
 even Washington, is now a charming parklike space 
 of old trees and billowy greenery opposite the north 
 front of the White House, and extending from Penn- 
 sylvania Avenue to H Street. Its name was given 
 it by Washington himself, and it is separated from 
 the White House by the width of Pennsylvania Ave- 
 nue and the White House grounds. Its landscape 
 gardening is so largely evergreen that it is a place 
 of beauty in winter as well as in summer. When 
 one looks upon it one realizes that here is no ephem- 
 eral gardening — it could be left to itself for a genera- 
 tion and still be, like the ancient Italian gardens, a 
 spot of beauty. This foreign touch is added to by 
 the statued foreign friends of the nation here in the 
 square. 
 
 In the corner nearest the State, War, and Navy 
 Department stands a very military looking Rocham- 
 beau, or, to give him his full set of names, Comte de 
 
 120 
 
THE CHURCH OF THE PRESIDENTS 
 
AROUND LAFAYETTE SQUARE 
 
 Jean Baptiste Donation de Vimeur. In the comer 
 nearest the Treasury Building stands Lafayette, a 
 bronze figure in the uniform of a Continental gen- 
 eral. Each of the four corners of the square has a 
 monumonted foreigner: here are the four principal 
 foreign friends who fought for our nation. In one 
 of the H Street corners is the statue of the remark- 
 able German general, Friedrich Wilhelm August 
 Heinrich Ferdinand, Baron von Steuben, who had 
 been aide-de-camp to Frederick the Great and be- 
 came the drill-master of the Revolutionary armies: 
 and a most efficient drill-master he proved himself. 
 He stands in bronze in full uniform, cloaked and 
 queued, a capable military figure. 
 
 In the fourth corner opposite the new War Risk 
 building stands Kosciuszko, whose first name is 
 much like his second, being Tadeusz. What excel- 
 lent spellers the Poles must needs be ! This statue, 
 set amid the lovely greenery of the square, calls to 
 mind the peaceful garden at Varese in northern Italy 
 in which the heart of the unquiet Kosciuszko lies 
 buried. 
 
 L^pon this statue, standing entirely by itself, is one 
 of the funniest inscriptions that is anywhere to be 
 seen! — the line, "And Freedom shrieked when 
 Kosciuszko fell." There was a time when the aver- 
 age American was fully familiar with this shrieking 
 line, but what an alarming statement it must seem 
 to the American citizen of to-day; and to the for- 
 eigner, no matter how intelligent, it must be more 
 unintelligible still. Even the traveler from Kosci- 
 
 121 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 uszko's own land would be utterly bewildered and, 
 carrying the shrieking phrase back to Europe, would 
 there spread the news from Pole to Pole. 
 
 A feature of these four statues of foreigners is 
 that in this city, so crowded with bronze equestrian 
 American officers, horses were not provided for 
 these highly placed foreign generals: and on the 
 whole, one thinks that an officer looks better on foot. 
 
 At the northern edge of Lafayette Square, looking 
 as directly across at the White House as the merid- 
 ianal Sixteenth Street permits, is a group of a few 
 houses that have been the homes of particularly 
 well known Washingtonians. 
 
 At the very corner of Sixteenth Street, and looking 
 across at St. John's Church, is a broad fortress-like 
 building with a loop-holed and arched entrance and 
 a two-towered fagade. Here lived John Hay. He 
 began public life as one of the private secretaries of 
 Lincoln, and wrote, with another private secretary, 
 a life of the great President which is a veritable 
 mine of information. But the public have always 
 persisted in looking on John Hay's principal claim 
 to fame as based on two early short poems. 
 
 "I don't go much on religion, 
 I never ain't had no show; 
 But I've got a middling tight grip, sir, 
 On the handful o' things I know." 
 
 This is from ''Little Breeches," and is the kind of 
 thing that the American public will devour with 
 infinite gusto; and as to "Jim Bludso" — ^well, 
 
 122 
 
ABOUND LAFAYETTE SQUARE 
 
 "He seen his duty, a dead-sure thing, 
 And went for it thar and then; 
 And Christ ain't a-going to be too hard, 
 On a man that died for men." 
 
 He wrote a sad little poem, ''The Stirrup Cup," 
 beginning with its thought of death: 
 
 "My short and happy day is done. 
 The long and dreary night comes on; 
 And at my door the Pale Horse stands, 
 To carry me to unknown lands." 
 
 John Hay won high rank as an ambassador, and 
 as Secretar^^ of State, but as high as this fame and 
 as high as his "Life of Lincoln" is his fame through 
 his early verses. 
 
 A gentle soul, he seems to have been ; no one envy- 
 ing him his public advancement nor the wealth which 
 came to him through marriage. 
 
 Tucked in next door to John Hay and looking 
 squarely out across Lafayette Square lived Henry 
 Adams, son of the American Minister to Great 
 Britain during the Civil War, grandson of John 
 Quincy Adams, and great-grandson of John Adams. 
 Henry x\dams "was filled with a full measure of New 
 England spirit. He wrote some volumes of history 
 of the period of Jefferson and Madison, always as 
 if before him was the necessity of defending his 
 family forefathers and always with inability to un- 
 derstand the men of the South — or himself. 
 
 He wrote his ''Education," widely read, greatly 
 talked about, tragically showing that he waited for 
 
 123 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 years and years for public recognition which never 
 came. He bitterly criticised those who did not appre- 
 ciate him. In the course of his life, he knew at the 
 White House a dozen Presidents. He was a great 
 traveler and knew the great people of the earth. 
 Grant, one of those who did not appoint him to any- 
 thing, was archaic according to Adams, and ''should 
 have lived in a cave and worn skins." General Lee 
 was a man of ''intellectual commonplace." 
 
 A strange, a brooding man, Adams refused his 
 wife's request to cut a door through a partition for 
 the convenience of spirit visitors. In his biography 
 he would not mention his one work, his history. 
 Many think that what he wrote of Mont San Michel 
 and Chartres points out the Norman heritage that 
 has come down even to Americans of to-day. Henry 
 Adams is worth knowing and thinking about because 
 he so markedly shows how a man may fail even 
 though carefully prepared to succeed. 
 
 The old rambling, long-fronted house with huge 
 iron-studded coach doors, and shell-topped niches 
 and great wistarias, is the great house of Daniel 
 Webster when he shone as Secretary of State. Here 
 he lived in a whirl of dinner-giving, treaty-making 
 and glory, supported by donations, twenty-five thou- 
 sand dollars at a time from Boston, from New York 
 and other sources. This great man had strange and 
 lax ideas in accepting money, as the rich men of 
 Boston and New York knew. He accepted this 
 house as a gift ; but even with the generous donations 
 made him, for the purpose of maintaining the es- 
 
 124 
 
AROUND LAFAYETTE SQUARE 
 
 tablishment, he found it impossible to keep up the 
 full round of entertainment and living and removed 
 to simpler quarters. (In the spring of 1922 this 
 house is being torn down.) 
 
 The contemporaries of Webster consider a story 
 of his native place as illustrative of his standards. 
 One Fourth of July he and his brother Ezekiel were 
 given a little money for holiday spending. When 
 the boys came back their mother asked Daniel what 
 he had done with his money. He said: "Oh, I 
 bought some cake, candy, lemonade and a pack of 
 firecrackers." 
 
 Then the mother turned to Ezekiel, ''And what did 
 you buy with your money?" 
 
 "Oh, Daniel borrowed mine." 
 
 Meanwhile this old mansion remains as a delight- 
 ful impression, with its great drawingrooms and its 
 great walled garden and trees, and its setting in 
 Lafayette Square, of an important American past, 
 such as the making of the Webster-Ashburton treaty 
 and the dinners and feasting that accompanied it. 
 
 Since the passing of Webster, the most interesting 
 occupant of the house has been the late W. W. Cor- 
 coran, he of the Art Gallery and a wide line of bene- 
 factions. 
 
 It was long after Webster's day, that a mag- 
 nificent ball was given in this house by De Montho- 
 lon the French Minister, by the special order of 
 Louis Napoleon. Washington has always remem- 
 bered as a special feature, that Kate Chase Sprague 
 was there as a bride, and that she wore a gown of 
 
 125 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 white and green with a tiara of emeralds and dia- 
 monds. She was remarkably beautiful, but more 
 than one commented on the ill luck of a bride wear- 
 ing green, and this was remembered later, when the 
 domestic tragedy of her life came. 
 
 A trifle farther along on H Street and just before 
 reaching Seventeenth the historian Bancroft lived 
 and wrote for twenty years. He loved Washing- 
 ton as a place in which to meet people and to have 
 access to books of reference. The house is high-set 
 and square with very large windows and a beautiful 
 doorway, a house recently given over to business, 
 and at present occupied by a shop for women's hats, 
 an inviting looking book-shop — a most fitting place 
 for one — and the shop of a military tailor who was 
 recently elected the head of the tailors of the United 
 States. 
 
 An elderly friend of mine who was a personal 
 friend of the historian told me years ago, what he 
 said was a highly naive reason why Bancroft left 
 his footnotes off the 1876 edition of the history. 
 Bancroft, it would seem, complained that readers 
 used his notes only for the purpose of criticism, 
 which they expressed in letters to him or to various 
 editors, claiming that his references did not sup- 
 port his general statements, whereupon he decided 
 to leave out notes altogether. 
 
 The most interesting church in Washington is St. 
 John's, at the corner of Sixteenth Street and Lafay- 
 ette Square. It faces the John Hay house, its side 
 windows look into the Square. It was designed in 
 
 126 
 
ABOUND LAFAYETTE SQUARE 
 
 1816 by Latrobe. The White House was the only 
 building that bordered on Lafayette Square before 
 the conclusion of the War of 1812. The church is 
 of brick, covered with stucco, and is in the form of a 
 Latin Cross. One of its pews is set apart for the 
 President of the United States, and is frequently 
 used as intended. 
 
 The general effect is of a little cream-colored 
 Greek temple, surmounted by a New England belfry 
 in three graduated sections topped by the tiniest of 
 gold domes, and an arrow vane of gold. A large 
 fan-light is over the plain front door. The porch 
 pediment is supported by six charming ungrooved 
 pillars. It is in some respects an adorable little old 
 church, but fresh gilding and new glass of an un- 
 attractive color have lessened the lovely old-time ef- 
 fect of it. 
 
 The queer little ends of every pew are of cast 
 iron painted to look like walnut, and the pews are 
 smoothly covered with rose-colored damask, making 
 a delightful color effect. Some of the pews have 
 personal furnishings, such as little desks on four 
 slender legs — with lock and key. 
 
 Bulfinch the architect admired little St. John's 
 Church although it was a rival who built it, and he 
 loved to tell of one of the rectors, old Mr. Hawley, 
 who denounced all other sects very vehemently. 
 The rector was a gentleman of the old school, and 
 according to Mrs. Gouverneur, who wrote one of 
 the best books of reminiscences of the city's social 
 life, he always wore knee-breeches and shoe-buckles. 
 
 127 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 In the "War of 1812 Hawley had commanded a com- 
 pany of divinity students at New York, enlisted 
 there for the protection of the city. It was cer- 
 tainly a matter of regret that the peppery old divine 
 was not on hand in Washington with his company. 
 When he was ordered away to the front, he refused 
 to go, and when later he took charge of St. John's 
 Church it gave Admiral Decatur an excuse to evade 
 church service because, so he said, he would not lis- 
 ten to a man who refused to obey orders. 
 
 Dr. Smith Pyne was a later rector and was often 
 a guest at the home of General Scott. Full of fun, 
 he was the life of the general's dinner parties and 
 some of his quips have come down to us, as that of 
 addressing the general, who was famous for his 
 turtle soup, as Marshall Tureen. When Ole Bull 
 was in Washington he was the guest at dinner with 
 Dr. Pyne, and the old rector quietly remarked to the 
 company, that *'if honorary degrees were conferred, 
 our friend Ole Bull would be Fiddle D. D." An- 
 other of his jests was evoked when a dentist was re- 
 modelling his house and Dr. Pyne was asked what 
 order of architecture it was, to which he replied, 
 ** Tusk-can of course." 
 
 General Scott, who so often entertained Pyne, was 
 a great epicure, as was Webster. It was of the din- 
 ners of that day that Webster used to say that a 
 good dinner is *'the climax of civilization." 
 
 Scott's love for dinners once led him into bad 
 politics, for he began a note to Secretary of War 
 Marcy, meaning to be easy and pleasant, with the 
 
 128 
 
AROUND LAFAYETTE SQUAKE 
 
 •words "After a hasty plate of soup." He supposed 
 his note was personal, but Marcy was his political 
 foe and maliciously made the note public, thus suc- 
 ceeding in making Scott seem ridiculous. 
 
 St. John's Church witnessed an impressive fun- 
 eral ceremony in 1902 over the body of Lord Paunce- 
 fote, when Roosevelt was President; and Roosevelt 
 threw stiff formality aside when he called upon the 
 widow, and he threw formality aside when he or- 
 dered out fifteen hundred troops to line the way 
 from the Connecticut Avenue house, the British 
 Embassy, to the church, where he ordered other de- 
 tails to make it a formal state funeral and then sent 
 the body home in an American warship. And it is 
 one of the little facts of history that are worth re- 
 membering, that although our Constitution named 
 among the duties of our President that of receiving 
 "ambassadors and other public ministers," no 
 President had the opportunity for over a century 
 to act on so much of the clause as referred to am- 
 bassadors; for not until 1893 did we have an am- 
 bassador here. Great Britain finally setting the 
 quickly-followed example and raising the rank of 
 Pauncefote from that of minister to that of ambass- 
 ador. 
 
 On tho Madison Place side of Lafayette Square 
 stands a house still known as "The Little Capitol" 
 — on account of its having been for some years the 
 home of Senator lianna. It is a buff house of dis- 
 tinguished appearance with a magnificent wistaria 
 draped over the front balcony and a walled garden 
 
 129 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 entered at the side. It won. its colloquial name 
 through Hanna's influence over President McKin- 
 ley. It is a romantic looking old house, and there- 
 fore one is not surprised to find that a Duchess of 
 Marlborough was born there. 
 
 The surroundings of Lafayette Square, altogether 
 charming as they have been for a century, seem en- 
 tirely to be doomed. To almost every one this little 
 square has represented Washington: it has seemed 
 the heart and in some respects the heartbreak of the 
 city. But it is to be ''improved" out of all recogni- 
 tion. Already the Treasury Department has put up, 
 to supplement the central Treasury Building, a 
 grand new building directly across the street, with 
 underground connections — a grand building but not 
 in keeping with the traditions of old Lafayette 
 Square. This may have been necessary, but there 
 was no necessity whatever for giving prodigious 
 space to the War Risk building at the northeast cor- 
 ner of the Square. 
 
 It is a corner building of great height and, with 
 its immense number of windows, it fits the old Eng- 
 lish rhyme, "Like Hardwick Hall, more glass than 
 wall." It gives the impression of surely being the 
 largest office building in the world, with desks for 
 over fourteen thousand. It is a vast complexity of 
 modern office cubby holes. It was probably quite 
 necessary for war needs, but there Avas absolutely 
 no reason for putting it in such a beauty-breaking 
 location as was chosen. 
 
 Another great break in the old-time air of the 
 
 130 
 
AROUND LAFAYETTE SQUARE 
 
 neighborhood of Lafayette Square will be the build- 
 ing of the National Chamber of Commerce, which 
 seems to have been decided upon for Connecticut 
 Avenue and H Street. In addition architects and 
 landscape gardeners have been encouraged to make 
 all sorts of elaborate plans for the entire four sides 
 round about the Square. 
 
 Diagonally facing the War Risk Building, is the 
 home of the Cosmos Club, in some respects the scien- 
 tific center of Washington; and for many years be- 
 fore it came to its present occupancy it was the 
 home of Dolly Madison after the death of her hus- 
 band. It is a three-storied house, with its entrance 
 on H Street. It fronts directly on the greenery of 
 Lafayette Square with excellent windows and with 
 a black iron balcony, and now it is covered with 
 rough buff stucco. 
 
 Dolly Madison was so absolutely a social ruler 
 even after her husband's death, that any man who 
 should have the temerity to call at the White House 
 on New Year's Day, and not proceed immediately 
 afterwards to the home of Mrs. Madison, would at 
 once be put socially in the black book. It helped 
 Mrs. Madison in a very practical way, her husband 
 having left her financially involved, that Congress 
 saw fit to pay her thirty thousand dollars, a large 
 sum in those days, for the papers and diaries of 
 James Madison. 
 
 Where the Belasco Theater now stands there for- 
 merly stood a building used alternately as a board- 
 ing house and club house and it was directly in front 
 
 131 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 of that building and under the trees that General 
 Sickles shot down and killed young Key. The 
 Sickles home was on the opposite side of Lafayette 
 Square, with its front door approached by a semi- 
 circular stair, and it has always been believed that 
 Sickles, watching from a window of the club house, 
 saw his wife signalling Key. Nothing was ever 
 done to Sickles in the way of punishment as his act 
 was considered justified, and the killing of Key has 
 always been looked upon as one of the memorable 
 tragedies of the city. And this remorseless General 
 Sickles was the same man who was known in the 
 closing years of his life in New York as the devotee 
 of tulip beds under his windows on Fifth Avenue ! 
 
 The whole of Lafayette Square is lovely in the 
 early spring, especially with the tender glory of the 
 yellow f orsythias. 
 
 The great square somber house from which Com- 
 modore Decatur walked out early one morning to 
 fight his duel with Commodore Barron stands on the 
 northwest corner of the square. It is astonishingly 
 gloomy and bare. It is of red brick and brown 
 stone. A fascinating high brick garden wall, mat- 
 ted with English ivy, extends along the square. *■ On 
 / either side of the front door stands a pair of high- 
 set wrought-iron lanterns with slender supports. 
 Four great chimneys are on the eaves' line of the 
 roof, and the house extends far back along the edge 
 of the H Street sidewalk in a line of kitchens and 
 wood-houses with, at the end, a great arch for the 
 coach-door. 
 
 132 
 
AROUND LAFAYETTE SQUARE 
 
 Mrs. Decatur had no idea of what had taken her 
 husband away, and there was a pleasant gathering 
 at the house that evening and Mrs. Cutts, the sister 
 of Dolly Madison and whose daughter was to be the 
 wife of Stephen A. Douglas, left an account of their 
 sitting, laughing and talking around the table, when 
 the news came, whereupon Mrs. Decatur fell un- 
 conscious to the floor, and Dolly Madison and Mrs. 
 Cutts cared, when he arrived, for the wounded Ad- 
 miral, who died shortly before midnight. 
 
 It is an amazing fact that although the house 
 was built by Decatur in 1819, and he died there in 
 1820, this short occupancy has made it known for 
 over a century as the Decatur House, although 
 great enough men afterwards lived there to have 
 Decatur's name forgotten. Henry Clay was for a 
 time an occupant. Martin Van Buren was an occu- 
 pant ; and an odd looking window on the garden side 
 of the building was cut by Van Buren so that from 
 it he could receive and return signals with his politi- 
 cal chief. President Jackson, who wanted to be able 
 to communicate with him at any time from the White 
 House. 
 
 It is curious that, of the few houses on the square, 
 one on the east and one on the west should be asso- 
 ciated with sinister influence on the White House. 
 
 After living on the west side of the square. Clay 
 bought a building site on the Madison Place side. 
 Clay won the money for the purpose by a successful 
 card-playing bout, and Mrs. Clay, when spoken to 
 about it, said calmly that she never objected to her 
 
 133 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 husband's playing because he always won! After 
 a while he is said to have traded the land for a jack- 
 ass brought from abroad hj Commodore Rogers, a 
 jackass of distinguished pedigree; and out in Ken- 
 tucky the tradition is still preserved that that jack- 
 ass was the progenitor of the mules of Kentucky 
 who have achieved honorable distinction as *'army 
 mules." 
 
 Most interesting of all the private homes of Wash- 
 ington is what has always been kno^\^l, on account 
 of its shape, as 'Hhe Octagon," which is really a 
 polyhedron ; and neither is it quite octagonal on the 
 inside. It is only two blocks west of the White 
 House and its neighborhood has recently become 
 most interesting through the proximity of the re- 
 markable line of semi-public buildings facing the 
 White House Park. The Octagon stands at the 
 obtuse-angled corner of New York Avenue and 
 Eighteenth Street, and was built about a century 
 and a quarter ago by a member of one of the most 
 distinguished of early Washington families, Colonel 
 John Tayloe, and was designed by Thornton, the 
 architect of the Capitol. 
 
 Its front is on a curve, and its sides and back are 
 in queer angles and in all it is most curiously ef- 
 fective. It is three stories high with a high base- 
 ment. It is of brick with white marble entablatures 
 and was built within sight of the White House. Its 
 front door, convexly curved with little pillared por- 
 tico, is approached by a short flight of stone steps, 
 and is charmingly fan-lighted. 
 
 134 
 
THE OCTAGON AND ITS OLD GARDEN 
 
1\ 
 
AROUND LAFAYETTE SQUARE 
 
 The door-handles are of chiseled brass ; and look- 
 ing closely you see that the acanthus of the cornice 
 is repeated in the little graven leaves on the handles. 
 
 Entering the house, you find yourself in a round 
 hall, over twenty feet in diameter, beautifully corn- 
 iced in triple design. It is tesselated with alternate 
 black and white marble. The building has charming 
 mantel-pieces, and there are two ancient iron 
 heaters topped with admirable black iron urns, one 
 on each side of the hall and each in a little alcove. 
 You go on through an arch, with a fluted pillar on 
 each side. The arch is topped with a design which, 
 contradictorily, is at the same time simple and 
 elaborate. A curving stair leads up, encircling the 
 hall in its rise. At the right, one flight up, is a 
 large room, with a magnificent marble fireplace, with 
 dancing figures on either side ; the old drawing-room 
 of the mansion. In every direction you see some- 
 thing exquisitely designed. 
 
 >sor is the charm confined to the building, for be- 
 hind it the grounds widen out into a delightful brick- 
 walled garden, with box bushes bordering an old 
 brick path, and ivy thick over the ground and a few 
 old ivy-clad trees. 
 
 The building is now the headquarters of the Am- 
 erican Institute of Architects, the American Federa- 
 tion of Arts, and the Archaeological Institute of 
 America, all of whom frankly find inspiration in 
 this wonderful old house. 
 
 After the burning of the White House by the 
 British, President and Mrs. Madison established 
 
 135 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 their official residence in the Octagon, and in a room 
 on the second floor the Treaty of Ghent was signed. 
 In the reminiscences of the daughter of President 
 Monroe, at whose house in New York City he died, 
 it is stated that the Octagon was coimnonly deemed, 
 in Washington, to be haunted ; the haunting taking 
 the form of the violent not-to-be-explained ringing 
 of the service bells in the house. The daughter of 
 Monroe could only set down the curious story with- 
 out explanation. But recently I was told by an old 
 Washington resident that the reason for it was long 
 . ago discovered, for the old-fashioned bellwires from 
 all the rooms were found to run like fingers in one 
 place behind the wall and here the rats had a runnel 
 over them, hence the violent ringing at certain times. 
 And the story arose and was for generations be- 
 lieved that the ghostly cause was cruel treatment of 
 the slaves of the household in the long ago. 
 
 136 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 HOUSES AND MEMORIES 
 
 HE days when 
 
 Sheridan lay ill in 
 
 Washington and 
 
 in fact dying, in 
 
 the house at the 
 
 north-east corner of 
 
 Rhode Island Avenue 
 
 and Seventeenth 
 
 Street, he would look 
 
 from his window at the 
 
 statue of General 
 
 Scott and would say 
 
 that he hoped, if a statue 
 
 should ever be put up to his 
 
 memory, that at least he 
 
 would be given a better 
 
 mount than had fallen to 
 
 l/^/a> *^^ ^^^ O^ P^OI" Scott. 
 
 •^/csa The Scott Monument is 
 at Massachusetts Ave- 
 nue and Sixteenth 
 Street, and one of Sheridan has since been placed a 
 little farther out on Massachusetts Avenue, at Sheri- 
 dan Circle and R Street. It is the work of Borglum 
 
 137 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 and demonstrates that an equestrian statue can be 
 lowset. Sheridan's mount is in an excitable sprawl- 
 ing posture and is curiously suited to its position in 
 the Circle. It is certainly not the conventional 
 bronze mount that he deplored for Scott. The wi- 
 dow of General Sheridan lives at 2211 Massachusetts 
 Avenue, and, also looking out at the Sheridan statue, 
 is the magnificent home of the Larz Andersons, at 
 2118 Massachusetts Avenue where I Street cuts 
 across. It is a quiet Bostonian expression of gran- 
 deur. One is tempted to consider it the finest pri- 
 vate house in Washington. It really consists of 
 what seem like two great houses of smooth cut stone, 
 connected across the facade by two great gates, and 
 with a masking wall enclosing a great court of 
 entrance. 
 
 Near this is the great house of a western miner 
 which Washington small-talk declares is furnished 
 with such things as a gold bath tub, and the same 
 small-talk declares that when the house was built, 
 although it was before the era of enormous prices, 
 it cost three milUon dollars ; a house with the pleas- 
 ant feature of fine gardens; a Sienna-like palace, 
 marble-pillared, of stone and buff brick. 
 
 Just a little beyond all this, is the back entrance 
 to the home of our recent President, Woodrow Wil- 
 son. There is a mysterious looking small door in a 
 high brick wall, above which is a terrace twenty feet 
 or°so wide, which is planted with small trees and 
 shrubs. Beliind it rises the second inaccessible ter- 
 race, with a stone balustrade, upon which the ground 
 
 138 
 
HOUSES AND MEMORIES 
 
 floor of the ex-President's house opens, through 
 broad glass doors, and from which there is a far- 
 stretching, A\dde-spreading view. Immediately a- 
 rouncl the corner on S Street is the main front of the 
 Wilson house. It is a large three-story house of 
 brick with white stone entablatures. It has a door- 
 portico in the center, with three great round-arched 
 windows on the second floor, and has much of dig- 
 nity. On the same side of S Street, at 2300, which 
 is here a street of large new houses, is the home of 
 the well known Herbert Hoover, hardly more than a 
 stone's throw away; a three-story house of light-col- 
 ored brick, a balanced house, with large central por- 
 tico and in Georgian style. 
 
 Diagonally across the street, on higher land, 
 known as Kalorama Heights, is an open piece of 
 land, for which the owner was offered a great sum, 
 but which she gave to the city for a children's play- 
 ground, with the condition that on that land the 
 little grave of her pet dog should forever be cared 
 for. 
 
 Adjoining this playground is the land purchased 
 just before the recent war for a new German Em- 
 bassy. There is now on that ground the one old 
 home of the vicinity, and it is of very great interest 
 for it was the home of the remarkable man, Joel 
 Barlow. He w^as a Connecticut poet who had 
 amassed groat wealth as a land agent in France, 
 selling to Frenchmen a tract at Gallipolis on the 
 Ohio River. He came back to Washington, bought 
 a great estate on this hill, which he called Kalorama, 
 
 139 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 because of its view, and built a house, of which the 
 present old house is the remainder, and established 
 a social and artistic headquarters one hundred and 
 twenty-five years ago. The house and the grounds 
 were talked about by everybody and invitations were 
 eagerly sought. 
 
 The old doorway of the house still shows its beauty, 
 and in front of the house is a semi-circular esplanade 
 bordered by evergreen box-bushes, commanding, be- 
 fore buildings and thickets were on the hillside, a 
 superb view of all the city and the river. Now, the 
 gardens are grass-grown, but in the early spring the 
 daffodils still blossom and for years the white- 
 coifed Sisters of Mercy have been privileged to come 
 and pick the gay and sunny flowers for their hos- 
 pital wards — from the poet's garden of a century 
 ago. 
 
 Barlow was sent by Madison once more across the 
 ocean as a special envoy to the French Government, 
 and found Napoleon absent on his campaign to Mos- 
 cow. A definite order arrived to go after the Em- 
 peror personally, whereupon Barlow started for 
 Russia, only to be caught in the awful retreat of the 
 French army. He died at an insignificant point in 
 Poland and was buried there. 
 
 "Wherever one goes in Washington, there are 
 buildings connected with important people, of the 
 past or present time. The rather severe house of 
 Henry Cabot Lodge is at 1765 Massachusetts Ave- 
 nue, a very wide house but low, of smooth red brick 
 with a red slate roof. The front is gay with the 
 
 140 
 
HOUSES AND MEMORIES 
 
 gaudiest of tulips in the spring, and a wistaria blos- 
 soms over the door. The house-entrance is at one 
 end of the building, with a motor archway at the 
 other end, sometimes closed with heavy doors, into 
 which the motor car may plunge and go under the 
 house and emerge in a courtyard beyond. 
 
 In a pleasant green-growing neighborhood at 1603 
 K Street is a house of homely red brick, a house 
 rather short and fat, with six windows on a floor, 
 where Taft chose to live; and next door at 1601, 
 Dewey found his home anchorage, the house being 
 of dark red with double bay windows, and with a 
 white door a trifle below the level of the sidewalk — 
 a rather squeezed-in effect — with the bays as if sug- 
 gestive of the Bay which he made so historically 
 famous. John Sherman, Secretary and Senator 
 chose as his home a solid massive building of white 
 stone, four stories high mtli open loggia on the 
 third, overlooking Franklin Park. The house is 
 1321 K Street and is fronted around a circular drive 
 by a little topiary garden of thick-massed privet and 
 box ; and next door at 1323 lived and died Secretary 
 Stanton, in an old square-fronted house, masked by 
 two great gloomy magnolias. A house on K Street 
 within sight of Farragut Park, alive with interest, 
 is that at 1730, with a high-set green stone basement, 
 a sort of flat Mansard roof, topping the three-story 
 height, a bay window all the way up ; a house of dark 
 brick, with a shiny oak vestibule, a kind popular in 
 the eighteen-nineties. It was in this house that Mrs. 
 Hodgson Burnett wrote one of the most American 
 
 141 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 of books and one of the most popular, ' ' Little Lord 
 Fauntleroy. ' ' 
 
 At the southeast corner of G and Eighteenth 
 Streets lived consecutively Edward Everett, and 
 Jefferson Davis; astonishing contrast. Go there 
 now and you see only a tennis court alongside an 
 office building, but you find compensation in the fact 
 that at the southwest corner is one of the most de- 
 lectable of old houses, with a white door and an 
 eagle knocker, with a woman's face carved in the 
 keystone of the arch over the door, and a wealth of 
 English ivy on the walls. 
 
 Of the increasing number of huge mansions built 
 by people from various parts of the country, who 
 have intended to make their home for their final 
 years m Washington, many are shuttered and closed 
 except for the lights of caretakers, year in and year 
 out. The explanation may be that the families are 
 attracted by the still broader social life of Europe 
 or that Washington has been something of a disap- 
 pointment socially or politically. Whatever the 
 reason, there have already come to be a great number 
 of such closed mansions and among them is a posi- 
 tively superb building, facing in an acute angle into 
 Dupont Circle; a house of pink brick, white stone, 
 and extinguisher towers, reminiscent of the architec- 
 ture of St. Germain. The house is full of palatial 
 furniture, and has a private chapel and a superb 
 private theater. 
 
 Another of the hugely magnificent homes of out- 
 siders IS the house put up by L. Z. Leiter, the father 
 
 142 
 
HOUSES AND MEMORIES 
 
 of Lady Curzon, a huge mansion, cream colored, 
 vn.th. beautiful stone gate posts, and a high pillared 
 white portico It is numbered 1500 New Hampshire 
 Avenue and like the house just described is on land 
 that points wedgelike toward Dupont Circle. 
 Washington has always loved to tell, in what may 
 be referred to as '* in lighter vein,^' of a Mrs. Mala- 
 prop who said such things as, *'he bought the gar- 
 bage of a monk for the fancy-dress ball,'' and " this 
 authoress, who writes under a robe de nuit," or 
 "Jack o' bean-stalk furniture." 
 
 For many years the general vicinity of Dupont 
 Circle attracted the builders of large homes, and the 
 first was one of the homes of James G. Blaine at 
 Twentieth and P Streets and Massachusetts Ave- 
 nue, it was well kno\vn and prominent but far from 
 beautiful. In the same part of the city is a huge 
 palace in white stone, consisting of two immense 
 stories and a roof-story, at 1618 New Hampshire 
 Avenue. It was put up by Ferry Belmont. On its 
 second floor are a long series of great round-arched 
 windows on all three sides of the house. 
 
 Pacing the house of Perry Belmont is the home 
 of Thomas Nelson Page, and noticing that it was 
 labeled I crossed the street to read, as Dooley tells 
 of his doing at his early once-while home in Chicago, 
 and the tablet merely read "For rent." The home 
 of the gentle Virginian is at the corner of New 
 Hampshire Avenue and R Street and is a large dis- 
 tinguished looking house, four stories in height with 
 a dormered roof; a house of mellow-colored brick^ 
 
 X43 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 much like that of his ancestor Nelson at Yorktown. 
 The house has little fluted classic pillars, a white 
 balustrade around the roof, and modillions on the 
 cornice, as they had in Colonial days in Virginia. 
 
 An example of the shifting of homes of disting- 
 uished folk is that of Secretary Hughes, who re- 
 cently moved into 1529 Eighteenth Street, a yellow 
 house with four stories and a dormered attic, with 
 an English basement entrance at the sidewalk level. 
 
 A large private house immaculately painted buff 
 and green is owned and used by the British Embassy 
 on Connecticut Avenue at N Street. It was never 
 what could be called a distinguished looking house 
 but it has an air of its own with its lion and unicorn, 
 and behind it are four or five small buildings, look- 
 ing like Quaker meeting houses and put there 
 through the necessities of the Great War. It was 
 long the case, and probably still is, that the city kept 
 several policemen stationed within touch and call of 
 this building : something not done with the buildings 
 of the other Embassies. 
 
 Probably the finest benefaction of the city is the 
 Louise Home on Massachusetts Avenue between Fif- 
 teenth and Sixteenth Streets. It was established by 
 W. W. Corcoran the philanthropist in memory of 
 his wife and daughter, both of whom had died and 
 each of whom had borne the name of Louise. It was 
 endowed for the comfort of the class whom George 
 Washington himself, long before the founding of 
 this home, used honorably and quaintly to call ''de- 
 cayed gentlewomen.'^ The house is of brick and 
 
 144 
 
HOUSES AND MEMORIES 
 
 bro\vn stone, it is high-perched on terraced land, and 
 is more beautiful as a benefaction than as a build- 
 ing. An outline of its work which lies before me 
 states, that everything is provided for those who live 
 there, with the exception of clothing. 
 
 Two towering pink magnolias rise beside the build- 
 ihg; the shade of the flowers does not agree with the 
 brick, but looking from the ^^dndows they are dreams 
 of beauty. To the founder, the inmates, of whom 
 the building accommodates about fifty, were his lady 
 guests, as he liked to express it, and his spirit is 
 still maintained. They have books, newspapers, and 
 music and all the fine furniture of the Corcoran 
 home. Mrs. Letitia Tyler Semple, second daughter 
 of President Tyler, has been the most distinguished 
 guest, thus far. After the death of President Ty- 
 ler's first wife she presided as the first lady in the 
 land at the White House. She was bitterly shocked 
 by her father's second marriage, left the White 
 House in dudgeon, and in the decline of her life, a 
 widow, found shelter in the Louise Home. 
 
 On Pennsylvania Avenue, facing the State, War 
 and Navy Departments, and just around the corner 
 from Lafayette Square, is the last mansion, still 
 used as a mansion, in that vicinity. It was built in 
 1820. It has a high white door, tall wrought-iron 
 lamps at the foot of the steps, and a great brass 
 knocker. It is a very wide house of buff stucco. It 
 has a generous and hospitable air. It is still lived 
 in by a family who hold to the old traditions. Gen- 
 eral Sherman in this house married the daughter of 
 
 145 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 Ewing, with President Fillmore and the members of 
 the Cabinet as wedding guests. And it was in this 
 house that Robert E. Lee was otfered, by General 
 Scott, command of all the Union Armies in the Civil 
 War — only to decide for the Confederate armies in- 
 stead. 
 
 The great square-fronted house at 1155 Sixteenth 
 Street, facing the home of the National Geographic 
 Society with its red tiled roof, is distinctive as the 
 home of Elihu Root. It is palatial in size, but very 
 quiet, of gray-buff brick, relieved by a black iron- 
 grilled door, and little iron flower grills at each win- 
 dow. There are seven windows facing on Sixteenth 
 Street, and the house is separated from the side- 
 walk by exactly trimmed hedging, and a conven- 
 tional circular drive. Root lived in this house as 
 long ago as when he was Secretary of State, and 
 Washington still chuckles over a diplomatic victory 
 achieved here. For one of the Western members of 
 the Cabinet announced one da;^ to his colleagues, 
 that for a state reception that evening, at which they 
 were all to be present, his tailor had made him some 
 lavender trousers. They would have been right 
 enough for afternoon wear but the cabinet officer 
 had chosen them for the evening. The other cabinet 
 members were appalled but they did not know how 
 to act to avoid ridicule of their body. Then the 
 matter was laid before Root, the diplomatic arranger 
 of difficulties. Root went to the socially ambitious 
 member, told him how pleased he was to learn of the 
 lavender trousers, but he also said how positively 
 
 146 
 
HOUSES AND MEMORIES 
 
 grieved he was to inform his fellow member that 
 though lavender would be so much of an improve- 
 ment, it was an established custom of the Cabinet 
 to wear black. And with this, the new member was 
 satisfied, pleased, and properly dressed. 
 
 Tlie rise of Root is one of the most striking ex- 
 amples of advancement in all American history. 
 Beginning with a secretarial connection with Boss 
 Tweed, he had the opportunity, of which he took 
 full advantage, of early learning much of practical 
 polities. After that start, being a man of very great 
 natural ability, he climbed up and up, round after 
 round, until a succession of the highest offices had 
 been given him, and these he filled to the honorable 
 satisfaction of the country. 
 
 Until the Cathedral on the Heights was started 
 there were churches of considerable importance in 
 Washington, yet they were not so important as 
 would be expected in the National Capital. St. 
 John's has been the most distinguished. That of 
 St. Matthew, begun in 1893, still far from complete, 
 and with an interior chapel which is a copy of that 
 of St. Anthony of Padua, is among the most im- 
 portant of the Roman Catholic. Standing very 
 prominently between Thirteenth and Fourteenth 
 Streets is the New York Avenue Presbyterian, a 
 favorite not only of Lincoln but of Andrew John- 
 son, James Buchanan, Andrew Jackson, and John 
 Quincy Adams. 
 
 On Four-and-a-half Street, now John Marshall 
 Place, at the corner of C Street, stands a dull choc- 
 
 147 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 olate-brown church with a slender spire. It is the 
 MetropoUtan Memorial, the Methodist Church which 
 was most popular with Grant and McKinley. The 
 Church of the Covenant was favored by Harrison 
 and Blaine. Grover Cleveland, although not much 
 of a religious man, had a fancy for the First Pres- 
 byterian, a somber old church down on the way to 
 the Capitol, in what used to be called the old court 
 part of the town. Roosevelt was devoted to Grace 
 Dutch Reformed. Many look upon the most fash- 
 ionable church in the city as still being St. John's 
 Episcopal, and it is often called the President's 
 church. 
 
 The old churches of the city are kept in mind by 
 their parishioners and historic old houses by 
 romance-loving historians, but few of even old-time 
 Washingtonians know that there are still existent 
 sufficient Lincoln localities for the reconstruction 
 of the tragedy of the assassination. 
 
 The White House, of course, which the President 
 left on his way to the theater would be the beginning 
 of the reconstruction. Even Ford's Theater on 
 Tenth Street, between E and F Streets, where Booth 
 pushed in behind the Presidential box and fired his 
 shot, still stands, a broad square-fronted structure 
 with sharp gable rising in the middle, although it 
 very long ago ceased to be used as a theater. It is 
 closed to the public; it is used by the Government 
 as a storage warehouse; and the arches that once 
 opened into the theater lobby are closed. In be- 
 hind the old theater, and entered from the middle 
 
 148 
 
HOUSES AND MEMORIES 
 
 of the block on F Street, is an alley with a few little 
 houses, and from this open space, reached by a final 
 right-angled turn, was the stage entrance that 
 Booth used, having first tied his horse in the alley. 
 It arouses grimly vivid memories, to think of the 
 broken-ankled Booth, coming into this very alley- 
 way and untying and mounting his horse after hav- 
 ing committed a crime which shocked the world. 
 Booth had hired his horse at a little stable, toward 
 the western end of C Street in the four hundred 
 block, now part of a slate-colored garage into which 
 the building has been, enlarged. 
 
 The house in which Lincoln died is still standing. 
 Instead of carrying Lincoln on a stretcher or in a 
 military ambulance to the White House, which was 
 only a few blocks away, and where he could have had 
 every attention, and unlimited care and privacy, he 
 was carried and lifted mth difficulty and physical 
 sutfering up the twisted iron-railed little steps into 
 the little house, a rooming house, at number 516 
 Tenth Street. With further difficulty, he was car- 
 ried into a very narrow room and laid upon a nar- 
 row cot, which had been occupied by a young soldier 
 named Clark, who seems to have been ashamed of 
 even so much connection with the mighty Lincoln, 
 for he wrote to a sister, saying that when a reporter 
 wanted his name, he didn't give it, because he did 
 not care to have his name given such publicity. 
 
 The way in which the dying Lincoln was treated 
 was amazing". Everybody seems to have crowded 
 close about him, including most of the members of 
 
 149 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 his Cabinet, who hurried to the place as soon as 
 notilied. Lincoln had no chance for breathing 
 fresli air; and it was not surprising that the end 
 shortly came. 
 
 The building in which he died is now used as a 
 museum of Lincoln relics, gathered with infinite care, 
 from near and far, by a Lincoln admirer, and many 
 of the memorials are of great interest. There is 
 here a great case of photographs of Lincoln, mostly 
 by Brady, and as clear and perfect as if printed 
 yesterday. And it is worth while noting that he 
 appears in these photographs vastly superior in 
 looks to the descriptions often given. Look care- 
 fully over scores of these pictures, and you see that 
 his manhood and his clothes are superior, not in- 
 ferior, to the general style of the time. It was 
 deemed a smart thing of that period to jest at Lin- 
 coln's appearance. New York could accept Gree- 
 ley's whiskers and weird clothes, but shuddered at 
 Lincoln's features and tailoring. 
 
 Already some of the events of Lincoln's last night 
 of life have become vaguely mythlike. There is no 
 agreement, even among formal historians, as to 
 what was his last writing or his last official act. 
 Some believe, but this seems to have been invented 
 for dramatic effect, that his last writing was signing 
 a pardon for a young soldier. Another story has it 
 that his last note was a statement that no pass was 
 any longer required to get into either Petersburg or 
 Richmond. It is more likely that his last written 
 words were hastily scribbled upon a card, allomng 
 
 150 
 
HOUSES AND MEMORIES 
 
 "Mr. Ashmun and his friends to come in at 9 A.M. 
 to-morrow." Earlier in the day, he seems to have 
 written General Van Allen, who had been urging him 
 to greater care as to risking his life: *'I intend to 
 adopt the advice of my friends and use every due 
 precaution" 
 
 The house of Mrs. Surratt, 604 H Street, where 
 she and the other conspirators met and devised the 
 assassination, is still standing, a two-story and base- 
 ment liouse, with dormers; a buff-painted brick 
 house with steps going up to a long-paneled door. 
 The street is here a quiet and shaded street of rather 
 old-fashioned boarding houses, and it is very in- 
 teresting to find this particular house still in 
 existence. How fascinating it would be if one could 
 still go, in Rome, to the very house where the con- 
 spirators against Caesar met! 
 
 Across the park from the Capitol, on the same 
 side as the Library, is an old-looking row now 
 altered into houses, \\dth mansard roofs. This row 
 of buildings, which has always been treated es- 
 sentially as one large building, has recently been 
 acquired by the National Woman's Party, who an- 
 nounce that they will make it "a political watch- 
 tower for women; a vantage point from which to 
 keep Congress under perpetual observation. '^' 
 
 Over a century ago these buildings were com- 
 positely kno^vn as the "old Capitol," because Con- 
 gress met there for some time after the burning of 
 the real Capitol by the British. After that it was 
 used as a politicans' boarding house, and it was here 
 
 151 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 that Calhoun died, after Webster's final visit to 
 him. The Civil War saw it used as a prison. Wirz 
 of Andersonville was hanged at the rear of the Old 
 Capitol. 
 
 In an open space, off at one side of the Capitol 
 toward the railway station, one may not in- 
 frequently see chickens wandering about, and there 
 comes a not entirely clear reminder of the geese 
 who, by timely cackling at the Capitol, saved Rome. 
 What may be looked on as a sinister warning to 
 Congressmen and all others, is a Judas tree display- 
 ing its curious shade of pink directly between the 
 two Capitols. 
 
 On the night of the assassination Booth made his 
 way on horseback, to the Anacostia, and there 
 crossed the bridge only a few minutes before orders 
 were received from the War Office absolutely for- 
 bidding any one to leave the city. 
 
 Between the Capitol and the Anacostia on Mass- 
 achusetts Avenue, in Lincoln Square, is what was 
 for many years the best known statue in Washing- 
 ton, for it was pictured and talked about by people 
 everywhere, though for years it has now been prac- 
 tically unvisited and forgotten. It represents 
 Lincoln striking the shackles from a slave, and it 
 was paid for by money contributed by slaves whom 
 his Proclamation freed. 
 
 Continuing beyond this one finds, in a gloomy lo- 
 cation on the bank of the Anacostia, a most curious 
 place, known as the Congressional Cemetery. Close 
 beside the cemetery are such structures as the Alms 
 
 152 
 
HOUSES AND MEMORIES 
 
 House, the Work House and other similarly unhappy 
 buildings. It would be hard to imagine a more 
 gloomy enclosure than this cemetery. The origi- 
 nal idea was to put up a stone for every Congress- 
 man dying during his term of office, whether he was 
 to be buried here or not, and also whether or not 
 his family wished the body to remain here after being 
 buried. Tobias Lear, long the trusted private sec- 
 retary of George Washington, was buried here after 
 his unhappy death by suicide. Elbridge Gerry was 
 buried here after his sudden death in his carriage 
 on the street ; and one might wonder if so gloomy a 
 sepulture was a punishment for his "Gerryman- 
 der " ! A number are here, who are neither Senators 
 nor Representatives, such as a certain Count Gurow- 
 ski who was husband of the Infanta of Spain and 
 long a fig-ure in Civil War days, intimately known to 
 the Diplomatic Corps, and generally deemed a spy. 
 He lies under a crested stone. 
 
 Before we get too far from localities more or less 
 connected with Abraham Lincoln, it is well to call 
 attention to I Street near New Jersey Avenue, and 
 to a row there of three large double houses, of brick 
 and stone, built by Lincoln's strong personal friend 
 and mighty political opponent, Stephen A. Douglas ; 
 Douglas having made choice of the center house for 
 his own home. Curiously, of these two great men 
 from Illinois, the one of Northern affiliations was 
 born in Kentucky, and the one of Southern affilia- 
 tions in the rocky northern state of Vermont. 
 
 In the general district south of the Capitol, 
 
 153 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 between the Capitol and where now stands the War 
 College, much was built in the early days, for this 
 region was expected by many to be the most pros- 
 perous j)art of the city. The buildings put up in 
 those early days were of excellent class, although 
 as two wars had come, with one almost immediately 
 following the other, private individuals were not 
 prepared to put up residences of the class of Anna- 
 polis or the James River. 
 
 Tlie great Robert Morris turned his attention to 
 this region. He was already the most daring specu- 
 lator in backwoods land, owning a hundred thousand 
 acres in one place, a million acres in another, a half 
 million in another and so on. And even if prices 
 ranged from ten cents to a dollar an acre for much 
 of it, tJie totals involved were enormous. Naturally 
 when the new Capital City was planned, Morris 
 could not resist buying an immense amount of the 
 area. While the site of the city was still almost al- 
 together woodland, he owned thousands of lots. It 
 was said that he owned more lots in the District of 
 Columbia than did all the other owners combined. 
 
 In 1796 he began building twenty two-story brick 
 houses fronting on South Capitol and N Streets, 
 which were never quite finished but went to ruin; 
 As early as 1824 a description said that many of 
 the doors and windows had been torn out for fuel 
 and that the roofs had fallen in. They had never 
 been lived in. And this at a time when the new and 
 growing city was demanding homes ! There, in that 
 region directly south of the Capitol, and almost at 
 
 154 
 
HOUSES AND MEMORIES 
 
 the edge of the Anacostia, you ma}^ still see moulder- 
 ing, scattered brick, almost hidden by cow-grazed 
 turf, with here and there a chimney or a fragment 
 of wall, or au ancient cellar way, 'Svhere heaves the 
 turf in many a mouldering heap. ' ' Many of the un- 
 fortunate investments of Eobert Morris may still be 
 seen. And a striking feature of this entire desolate 
 region is that it is tapped by South Capitol Street, 
 nowadays scarcely used, although it is a splendid 
 boulevard. The enormous losses of Morris* in Phila- 
 delphia, supplemented by his losses here, made him 
 a bankrupt, and he was consigned for years to a 
 debtor's prison. Years before he had saved the 
 United States by his generous financing but there 
 was no one to save him. It was a pathetic ending 
 for the great Robert Morris, and in his will he briefly 
 wrote: ''Here I have to express my regret at having 
 lost a very large fortune acquired by very great 
 industry. ' ' 
 
 It IS depressing to go about in this region on the 
 Anacostia, between the Navy Yard and the War 
 College, for there are numerous new little houses 
 recently built here and not looking at all attractive, 
 and there are a number of streets which are still 
 just tracks through the earth, and the largest single 
 standing ruin is a large barn or warehouse, built 
 from fallen down structures, and whose long side is 
 composed entirely of torn-out old paneled doors. 
 
 A highly romantic character among the early 
 "Washington speculators was Thomas Law, a young 
 Englishman who had risen high in India under 
 
 155 
 
THE imOK OF AVASIITNGTON 
 
 Warron HaHtinga, first as that great man's secretary 
 and tlicii as jud^n', collcfctor, and ho oh, as Tlastiiig's 
 advanced liiiii. When the trial of Ilasiing's ini- 
 pciidcd and I^aw was ordered back to hjii<^la,nd as 
 a witness, he shrewdly took liimseli' and his fortune 
 to America, lie qniie impressed (leoi\u;e Washing- 
 ton himself, by his appcai-aiuu^ and apparent ability, 
 lie married Eli>;a- Parke Ciistis, granddaughter of 
 Martha Wasiiiiigtoii, and built a strikingly imposing 
 honse at Sixth and N Stre(»ts; a house still standing 
 and facing across to what is now Potomac Park, 
 and to the Heights of Arlington, it is still in aj)- 
 ))earaiic(" pi'aclically as it was built, excepi that the 
 original steps to the high-set front door have been 
 replaced by ste))s of iion. The house is balconied, 
 has a narrow single dormer and is banded with two 
 lines of white mai'ble, extending around the house. 
 There are two extremely large chinmeys and the 
 (irst floor windows ha\'<' cnrx'ing toi)s and those of 
 the other two stories straight. It gives a sense of 
 the extremely [)ictu.i'esque to iind this house, built 
 by Warr(Mi Hastings' secretary, still standing in 
 this shabby part of Washington. ^Fhe house has 
 an isolated lonely look; it looks like a. houses of 
 ti"age><ly; and it is not sui'prising to find that Law 
 lost most of his money, and that he and his wife 
 sei)arat('(l after a i'ow ycwirs of married life. 
 
 On (/ Street are numerous old houses, mostly in 
 one single block, with fajdights and dentiled cornices, 
 d()i'iners, and ))illared dooi'ways; still attractive. 
 
 On old i<\)urtli Street, in this same i)art, of town, 
 
 15G 
 
HOUSES AND MEMORIES 
 
 between N and Streets, down near the Anacostia 
 and Potomac Rivers, is what is understood to be tlie 
 oldest building in the city, or rather an entire row 
 of buildings put up at one time by a certain James 
 Greenleaf. They are of red brick, with windows 
 green shuttered and white stone capped. The second 
 story faces out upon the cobbly gray pavement from 
 twelve front windows, and on the lower floor are 
 eight windows and four doors. There is one attrac- 
 tive oval window and, from the roof-line of the cen- 
 ter of the row, rises a pointed gable to give the build- 
 ings distinction. The street, although broad, is 
 entirely arched by beautifully interlacing elm 
 branches. And the houses have always been known 
 by the charming name of Wheat Row. 
 
 ***N^ 
 
 157 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE GATHERING OF ART 
 
 -^ A -J-ASHINGTON is eager 
 % /\ I for beauty. With per- 
 % / % / haps two or three excep- 
 m/ %/ tions however, or in fact 
 ▼ ▼ with only one really marked 
 
 exception, the city does not class 
 as artistic acquisitions the bronze 
 [figures that throng the streets. 
 ,\^ They are interesting, but they are 
 not art; the most marked excep- 
 tion being the monument to Mc- 
 Clellan, placed at the head of the 
 Connecticut Avenue slope, on 
 1~ " the heights. It is most admi- 
 rably done. It is highly spir- 
 ited. The general is seated on his horse, on top of 
 the usual granite base, and with an unusual 
 effectiveness of attitude to supplement the com- 
 manding situation. You understand why it is so 
 good when you learn that it is a MacMonnies: and 
 I do not remember another MacMonnies in the city. 
 Nor, although there are superb examples of the 
 art of St. Gaudens in Boston, New York and Chicago, 
 do I remember any statue by him here with the ex- 
 
 158 
 
THE GATHERING OF ART 
 
 ception of that at the grave of Mrs. Henry Adams, 
 out in the suburbs, for which St. Gaudens was pri- 
 vately commissioned. 
 
 Congress has had in the past a general habit of 
 skipping first class painters or sculptors, and has 
 loved to give its commissions to mediocre men of 
 political influence. This feature, however, has re- 
 cently been changed in highly important degree, and 
 Congress has entered an era of almost lavish artistic 
 spending, mostly in architectural effects and in 
 choosing the very best architects in the country, 
 with most gratifying results. 
 
 One is rather disturbed to find that a general of 
 the caliber of McClellan is given a prominent posi- 
 tion and the best of sculptors, for he is not nowadays 
 believed to have done anything to justify his eph- 
 emeral popularity. It is amusing to remember that 
 Nathaniel Hawthorne, after personally meeting Mc- 
 Clellan and being highly impressed, wrote angrily 
 that he believed the general to have been held back 
 for two weeks by wooden cannon. But Hawthorne 
 was far from being a judge of military men, and, by 
 comparison with his statements, one comes to wonder 
 if McClellan may not have been a rather capable 
 general after all. And his men loved him. 
 
 No other American city has so many paintings 
 and sculptures in and about public buildings or in 
 other places open to public inspection. But, in the 
 narrower sense, of works of art formally exhibited 
 in galleries, Washington is not as yet to be com- 
 pared with other great cities. But this need is now 
 
 159 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 recognized and there is such planning along this line 
 as will in time produce an adequate National 
 Gallery. 
 
 A custom -mistakenly tolerated has been that of 
 permitting private individuals or families to put 
 up on public property, at their own expense, monu- 
 ments and memorials of their own relatives. An 
 Art Commission passes on all private or public de- 
 signs, for public places, but it has not aways decided 
 competently. 
 
 It gives a very wrong impressiion to the rising 
 generation to see, for example, President Buchanan 
 honored by a large and impressive memorial such as 
 has recently been planned and such as the Govern- 
 ment has decided to permit. His weakness and mis- 
 judgment did so much injury to the nation, that he 
 ought not to be commemorated as a great patriot. 
 But wiien it was found that his niece Harriet Lane, 
 who had become Harriet Lane Johnson, had left 
 money for a costly memorial to her uncle, the plan 
 was accepted. In this case the design for a huge 
 memorial was approved, largely because Harriet 
 Lane had been so prominent as mistress of the White 
 House for hei^ bachelor uncle and because she had 
 made a great impi'ession upon the English. 
 
 Although St. Gaudens was not called upon, as he 
 should have been, to do a great deal of sculpture in 
 Washington, there was such a surplusage of com- 
 missions in other places that he could afford to look 
 tolerantly upon the developments of art in the Na- 
 tional Capital. He declared himself as rather lik- 
 
 160 
 
THE GATHERING OF ART 
 
 ing the General Scott monument, by H. R. Bro\\Ti. 
 **The figure is unusually excellent, and so is the 
 horse," he wrote. **It is really a swell tiling." 
 Now and then he loved an informal expression. And 
 then comes the little sting of a conclusion: "But it 
 is too bad that the General is too big for the 
 animal ! ' ' 
 
 As to the equestrian of General Thomas by Ward, 
 St. Gaudens seems to have been in two minds, or in 
 fact, of several. *'It is spirited," he said, and then, 
 rather maliciously, *'Prom some points of view ad- 
 mirable." And he finishes with what seems a veiled 
 hit: ''The horse is unusually good." 
 
 An association which stands with growing effec- 
 tiveness for the gathering of art in Washington is 
 the Arts Club. As the late James Bryce wrote from 
 his English home, charmingly named Ilindleap, 
 Forest Row, Sussex, to a leading member of the 
 Club: ''I am delighted to hear of the efforts wliich 
 your club is making to interest your fellow citizens 
 in the further development of that love of Art and 
 Beauty which Washington is so well fitted to in- 
 spire. ' ' These words so well express a growing and 
 highly important general feeling in Washington, that 
 it is a pleasure to set them down. 
 
 And Bryce continues, in a view of wise encourage- 
 ment: ''Many things continue to make Washington 
 a focus of art life and art thought. Its Art Collec- 
 tions are certain to grow apace, and the comparative 
 absence of manufactures and commerce leaves men's 
 minds free to occupy themseves with pursuits which 
 
 161 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 refine taste, and open up new sources of pleasure." 
 
 The Arts Club is charmingly housed in an old- 
 fashioned house on I Street, number 2017, on the 
 way from the White House to Greorgetown. It is a 
 residence of unusual width, and the beautiful lunette- 
 topped Colonial doorway instantly attracts the at- 
 tention of the passer by. 
 
 Before the Revolution the land upon whixjh the 
 house now stands was known by the homely name of 
 ''The Widow's Mite," and as time passed, was suc- 
 cessively owned by military officers, members of Con- 
 gress, and other prominent men. 
 
 The house, three stories in height, has delightful 
 windows and dormers and was the home of James 
 Monroe when he was President Madison's Secretary 
 of State. When the British invaded the city, one of 
 the excited President and Cabinet conferences was 
 being held here, only to be broken up by news of the 
 swift approach of the enemy, whereupon, so the 
 story goes, Madison galloped on horseback through 
 the halls of the house itself to escape; although 
 another story has it, that it was a British soldier 
 who went galloping through the generous sized hall. 
 
 The building is delightfully comfortable through- 
 out, and is steadily doing an increasing work, 
 not only for art but for highly intelligent social 
 life. 
 
 What has long been looked upon as practically the 
 only definitive repository for art, has been that of 
 the Corcoran Gallery. This was endowed by the 
 philanthropist Corcoran, a trifle over half a century 
 
 162 
 
THE GATHERING OF ART 
 
 ago, '*to be used solely for the purposes of encour- 
 aging Amej'ican genius in the production and preser- 
 vation of works pertaining to the Fine Arts, and 
 kindred objects." In the eighteen nineties it was 
 found that a new building was needed and the 
 present gallery was built. Through its being a 
 foundation of such high aims, and through its so 
 long being the only foundation of its kind in the 
 city, .it long ago acquired a high reputation in the 
 public mind. 
 
 The Art Gallery is on Seventeenth Street at New 
 Yort Avenue and looks out toward the White House 
 grounds. It is an extremely good-looking building, 
 in spite of the not very successful bulge of a mng 
 that contains a hemicycle auditorium. 
 
 The entrance to the art gallerj^, which is by far 
 the principal part of the building, is up a few easy 
 steps with a colossal bronze lion on either side. 
 The building has a glass roof slanting sharply up- 
 ward. The structure is of white Georgia marble on 
 a lower section of pink granite. There are some 
 windows on the first floor, but the second story rises 
 in a solid white wall. 
 
 On entering the building you find yourself con- 
 fronted by a white marble grand staircase, fifteen 
 feet in width, leading to the second story, where you 
 see that the great skjdight is supported by thirty- 
 eight fluted monoliths. The building is divided 
 into a number of galleries and is admirable for its 
 purposes. 
 
 On the whole the collection is far from the high- 
 
 163 
 
THE BOOK OF ^WASHINGTON 
 
 est" order, although there are a few exceptions to 
 this. The Greek Slave, by Powers, used to be gen- 
 erally talked about, as among the remarkable sculp- 
 tures of the world; but taste changes. Here and 
 there in the world some superb example appears of 
 such unquestioned skill that it stands for centuries 
 as a model; which the Greek Slave has already 
 ceased to do. Long' before the founding of the gal- 
 lery Corcoran gave a great ball to both houses of 
 Congress, at which he displayed this statue with the 
 highest honor. It is remembered that General Sam 
 Houston, arrayed in blue coat, brass buttons and 
 ruffled shirt, gave the Greek Slave interested ex- 
 amination ! 
 
 The statue entitled ''The Last Days of Napoleon" 
 has not high standing as a work of art, and yet it 
 has a sort of haunting effect through its represent- 
 ing the feelings of a man who has been utterly 
 humbled after ruling the world. 
 
 A Co.rot in the gallery was the first painting by 
 this artist for which a fairly large sum was paid. 
 It is the Ramasseur de Bois, an unusually large 
 painting for Corot, and it shows a dark forest and 
 a blue sky flecked with gray. It was bought for 
 fifteen thousand dollars, whereas until then the high- 
 est Corot price had been nine thousand. But 
 directly facing the distinguished Corot there hangs 
 a landscape so without merit as to give the whole 
 room a jarring note. 
 
 There are some military pictures by Detaille, 
 vivid in their blue and red and hazy with mist. 
 
 164 
 
THE GATHERING OF ART 
 
 Your shoulders involuntarily straighten as his regi- 
 ment passes by. 
 
 There are several portraits of prominent Ameri- 
 can statesmen by Thomas Sully. There is a cast 
 of the remarkable Joel Barlow, so closely associated 
 with the city of Washington. It is by Houdon, and 
 shows Barlow with a queue, a bald head, a tuft over 
 his forehead, an assertive tip to his head, and a sort 
 of general alert aplomb. He looks like the kind of 
 man who would naturally be sent to talk to Napo- 
 leon! 
 
 As the principal gallery of a great city the Cor- 
 coran Gallery is markedly tliin, and the thinness is 
 not improved by the abundance of Barye bronzes 
 and pictures of sentimentality. 
 
 The Freer Collection is of extremely high prom- 
 ise. It is in a positively exquisite building. 
 
 The collections of graphic arts are beautifully 
 taken care of in the National Capital. The Library 
 of Congress, in its Department of Prints, offers 
 wonderful opportunity to study the finest examples ; 
 and with generosity gives the opportunity to all. 
 With the great resources of a Government collection, 
 it has been ardently carried to liberal dimensions as 
 to quantity and fine choice as to quality. There are 
 entire floors of pavilions and galleries on one side of 
 the Library given over to exhibitions, and every- 
 thing not in plain sight is opened quickly for inspec- 
 tion and use. 
 
 To supplement this, the Smithsonian Institution 
 has in its old castellated building on the Mall, elabor- 
 
 165 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 ate exhibitions of the various processes of picture 
 making. 
 
 Those who feel the appeal of one thing in one 
 special place, and one in another, instead of finding 
 everything gathered and classified as if vdth a busi- 
 ness card index in one museum, will be satisfied in 
 this cit}'; as, in Paris, the student goes, refreshed, 
 from the Louvre to the Luxembourg, from the Lux- 
 embourg to the Carnavalet. 
 
 These things have individuality, when you go to 
 the Smithsonian for one, to the Freer for another, 
 to the Print Department up on the hill for another. 
 
 166 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE MALL 
 
 HE Mall is being actively 
 developed into the place of 
 beauty of which its plan- 
 ners dreamed a century 
 and a quarter ago. De- 
 molition of the unfit which 
 had intruded itself there, 
 and the erection of the new 
 and beautiful, have been 
 proceeding side by side. 
 
 The Mall is a great park- 
 way extending in a broad 
 , . , . , swathe, and in a long 
 
 stretch from the Capitol to the Potomac, although 
 originally the idea was to end it opposite the south- 
 ern face of the White House. Its development has 
 largely been hampered by the curious impossibility 
 ot driving any vehicle throughout its length; and 
 Its looks have been sorely injured by the setting 
 down at random of numerous unsatisfactory looking 
 buddings and by breaking its great length into 
 ineffectiveness by greenhouses, chimneys, public 
 offices and high iron fences. In all there has been 
 a variety of the extremely good and the extremely 
 
 167 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 bad built in it — the bad being somewhat excused on 
 the ground of temporary needs. 
 
 The heart of the Mall is the Washington Monu- 
 ment, an obelisk of the tremendous and alliterative 
 height of five hundred and fifty-five feet and five 
 inches. But it is not the immensity of it that counts. 
 It is the impressiveness of it, the nobility of it, its 
 standing alone and rising from the grassy ground 
 with absolute austerity and bareness. Not even 
 trees lessen the grandeur of it. It is of such an im- 
 posing height that either when approaching the city, 
 or from any point within it, the great white shaft 
 dominates the landscape. 
 
 The play of light upon it on a sunshiny day makes 
 it a shaft of glory. A passing cloud makes an un- 
 earthly gleam pass over it. It catches the morning 
 sun like a white mountain peak. The evening light 
 lingers on it when dusk falls in the city. 
 
 In the heart of the great white marble obelisk are 
 a stair and an elevator. At a point above five hun- 
 dred feet in height each of the four walls is pierced 
 with two great loopholes which offer views stretch- 
 ing over the city, over the rivers and the pine-clad 
 hills, and on clear days to the distant mountains of 
 the Blue Ridge. 
 
 A marble monument was decided upon by the 
 Continental Congress sixteen years before Wash- 
 ington's death. Washington himself is believed to 
 have approved of this site. But nothing was done 
 until a half century after the enthusiasm of the Con- 
 tinental Congress, and although the matter was 
 
 168 
 
THE MALL 
 
 actively taken up the cornerstone was not laid until 
 the middle of the nineteenth century. For only a 
 few years the construction went on; then the work 
 was suspended for over twenty years, when again 
 Congress acted, and appropriated sufficient money 
 for its completion ; and not until 1885 was the monu- 
 ment finished. The man who delivered the principal 
 address at the laying of the cornerstone, was Robert 
 C. Winthrop, who, by an odd chance, was Speaker 
 of the House during the one term that Abraham 
 Lincoln was a member, and Winthrop, now an old 
 man, wrote the address for the monument's comple- 
 tion. Stones of sentiment are built into the interior 
 of the monument, gifts from many States and from 
 distant and thrilling places : from ancient Carthage, 
 from the Peaks of Otter, from the Parthenon, a 
 stone from the spot where William Tell escaped from 
 Gessler. This was sent by Switzerland and at least 
 indicates Swiss belief in the verity of the story. 
 
 It makes lovers of the simplicity and austerity of 
 this monument aghast to learn that it is planned, by 
 those in authority, to build a temple-like structure 
 at the base of this great shaft. It is so superbly 
 successful as it is, rising sheer from the green turf, 
 without even the slightest extraneous details, that 
 the fact that the original plan showed such a temple 
 should not be an argument for spoiling a perfect 
 thing. 
 
 The day of the laying of the cornerstone of the 
 monument marks one of the Presidential tragedies. 
 President Taylor, ''Old Rough and Ready," pre- 
 
 169 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 sided. It was July 4, and the President became in- 
 tensely overheated. He sat in the sun, while a very 
 long and tedious address was delivered, and con- 
 tinued to sit exposed to the mid-summer heat, while 
 another long address was delivered by George Wash- 
 ington Parke Custis of Arlington, who was always 
 boresome except when giving his personal memories 
 of George Washington. As Taylor sat there in the 
 hot sun, he unfortunately drank freely of ice-water. 
 Returning to the White House, he ate freely of 
 cherries, and with them drank a large quantity of 
 ice-cold milk. Soldier's constitution though he 
 possessed, he could not withstand the accumulated 
 strain. He was at once taken ill, and in a very few 
 days was dead. 
 
 The Mall will in one highly important respect 
 even surpass the early ideas, for a feature only re- 
 cently thought of has been placed there; the won- 
 derful Lincoln Memorial, at the Potomac River end 
 of the space. With the Capitol at one end, the 
 Washington Monument in the middle, the Lincoln 
 Memorial at the farther end, and the WTiite House 
 at one side, America will have the right to point with 
 pride to a pre-eminent achievement. 
 
 It is also planned to put up an additional memo- 
 rial to George Washington, a structure with a long 
 pillared front and a tremendous costliness, about 
 where Center Market stands, but in the presence of 
 the superb Washington shaft any such structure 
 would seem supererogatory and, though the corner- 
 stone is laid, its erection is seriously questioned. 
 
 170 
 
jgpifh 
 
 WASHINGTON MONUMENT 
 
THE MALL 
 
 Beginning at the Capitol end of the Mall, after 
 crossing the roadways at the foot of the broad stair- 
 ways hciglit, the Grant Memorial is first reached. 
 The principal figure naturally is Grant himself, 
 seated quietly on horseback with his military hat 
 pulled downi nearly to the high collar of liis military 
 overcoat: he sits in concentrated thought in a storm 
 of war and weather; but the rest of the memorial 
 promises to be an excited medley of charging horses, 
 fighting men, and general confusion. Without 
 doubt, the entire memorial will prove to be highly 
 satisfactory to veteran soldiers in general, when it 
 is completed and when the grounds round about it 
 are properly in order, for the committee who picked 
 the design from those which were submitted in com- 
 petition consisted of such highly distinguished men 
 as Augustus Saint Gaudcns, Daniel Chester French, 
 Daniel II. Burnham and Charles F. McKim. 
 
 In the long mile and a half length of the Mall are 
 a large number of war-time office buildings. They 
 housed an immense number of clerks, mostly young 
 women, who crowded swarmingly into every restau- 
 rant in the neighborhood to purchase, so the aston- 
 ished dealers w^ill still tell you, enormous totals of 
 pastry, milk and fruit. But these buildings for 
 temporary working needs are being taken down, as 
 there is no longer need for them. There are also 
 some enormous chimneys tliere, which may be con- 
 fidently counted on to disappear. 
 
 It has been the Congressional habit, when neces- 
 sity called for a new public structure, to locate a 
 
 171 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 site on the Mall, until the tract, half meadow, half 
 park, has been muddled into disarray with many 
 inharmonious buildings, some very good in them- 
 selves. The building of the Agricultural Depart- 
 ment on the south side of the Mall is one of the great 
 new buildings, plain and quiet and classic, and is a 
 great improvement on the old building, which was 
 put up in the fussy period that someway remains in 
 mind as Centennial taste. At the same time, there 
 have been fascinating displays of flowers in the 
 simple workman-like greenhouses of the old Depart- 
 ment buildings. And vast numbers of interested 
 visitors have attended ; as, responding to such a sum- 
 mons as that of the modestly announced Amaryllis 
 show, when thousands poured through the little un- 
 ostentatious glass house, all in ecstacies over the un- 
 countable rows of great pink lilies. 
 
 About opposite Center Market, which you will 
 notice was built to face on the Mall with more prom- 
 inence than toward Pennsylvania Avenue, is the 
 older of the two buildings of the National Museum, 
 a large structure of bright red brick, trimmed with 
 brick of blue and yellow, and with brick streaks of 
 black! It is not fair to call it of the Victorian 
 period, when it is really of the period of our own 
 Hayes and Garfield. 
 
 The new building of "the National Museum, also on 
 the Mall, is of smooth white stone with low rounding 
 dome, and, without any offense in design, it is some- 
 what of a nonentity of a building. 
 
 But thef National Museum has gathered wonderful 
 
 172 
 
THE MALL 
 
 treasure within the walls of its two buildings. First 
 of all and most prominent are the varied memorials 
 of the recent Great War. Of particular fascination 
 is the long-barreled gim which, fired at a submarine, 
 was the first hostile weapon fired by this nation in 
 the war with Germany. 
 
 There are unif onns and equipment of vast variety, 
 and there are airplanes, cannon of all sorts, and 
 examples of camouflage : in fact a great military col- 
 lection, scattered through large rooms, basements 
 and hallways, and in the grounds round about the 
 buildings. 
 
 The National Museum, as its name implies, is 
 meant as a place where objects of interest and value 
 to the whole nation are to be gathered and preserved 
 and shown. There are the historical, the social, the 
 industrial, the scientific exhibits; and here on the 
 Mall these associated buildings are to stand in a long 
 series. 
 
 There is vast wealth of collections gathered here, 
 such as only a government, with its wealth and 
 power, could acquire. It has also attracted gifts 
 such as only a government could command. 
 
 There is a vast exhibit of the sources of medicines, 
 with queer and interesting examples of roots, herbs 
 and other strange materials from which they are ex- 
 tracted. There are elaborately made models of 
 coal mines. There are examples of the pottery of 
 the world, including also, bronzes, lacquers and 
 glass, arranged geographically. The enterprise of 
 women interested in the encouragement of textile 
 
 173 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 art, has resulted in the gathering not only of laces 
 of every period, variety, and European country, but 
 brocades, velvets, embroideries, and other tissues. 
 There are exhibits illustrating spinning, weaving, 
 yarn and cloth manufacture from cotton, wool and 
 silk, and there is the first American cotton-spinning 
 machine. There are rugs, there is practically an 
 example of every household furnishing and orna- 
 mentation and of the varieties of personal adorn- 
 ment. 
 
 Throughout, the touch of the historical, of the 
 memory and memorials of the past, adds materially : 
 and somehow, one feels a sudden and intense interest 
 in examining a plain little oval table, a table quite 
 without distinction of design, with spiral turned legs : 
 a table frankly insignificant. In regard to this 
 table, the tale is told that a man li^dng on the field 
 where the armies came together at the Battle of 
 Bull Run, gathered his simple furniture into a 
 wagon, and moved far off to where, so he supposed, 
 he would not be troubled by war. 
 
 He settled at Appommatox, and on this little table, 
 thus carried from Bull Run, Grant and Lee signed 
 the agreement of surrender. 
 
 There is a vast amount, in hall after hall, of furni- 
 ture, house-furnishing and costumes ; the most exten- 
 sive and most valuable in all the country: and the 
 unique value of the great collection lies in the fact 
 that it is not indefinite in o^\^lersllip in the great his- 
 torical periods, but is almost all linked to individ- 
 uals or families of prominence. 
 
 171: 
 
THE MALL 
 
 There are two superlative and rival collections, 
 shown side by side, those of the Colonial Dames and 
 the Daughters of the Revolution, covering the field 
 of exquisite Colonial collections of silver and china, 
 and the delicate small things of those early days. 
 They are from all parts of the Colonial area and are 
 definitely associated with such names of wide-spread 
 social fame as the Allstons of South Carolina, the 
 Cabells of Virginia, the Langdons of New Hamp- 
 shire and the like. 
 
 Turning from these cabinets of joyous belongings 
 you are suddenly awed by coming, in a nearby case, 
 to the death mask of Lincoln and the cast of his 
 strong and shapely hands. 
 
 Most marked, most noteworthy, are the collections 
 connected with the Washington family and mth 
 George Washington in particular. There is a little 
 camp chest that takes you straight back to the Con- 
 tinental Army and its long campaigns. It is leather 
 bound. It is studded with brass nails. It is lined 
 with rough green flannel. It was carried by George 
 Washington during the war, and shows evidence of 
 use that was long continued. Its little compart- 
 ments hold skillets and grill and platters and plates, 
 pepper bottles and salt box, all of the most practical 
 and portable form — but at the same time beautiful — 
 such as the round-cornered pewter platter, the deep 
 saucepan with heavy round wooden handle, placed 
 on the side as with a French coffee pot, or the little 
 grill for cooking the slice of toast or two bits of 
 bacon over the coals. 
 
 175 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 There are ten superb Sheraton chairs which be- 
 longed to George Washington, there are mirrors 
 that were his, there are bandy-legged tables, there 
 is a splendid shield-backed Heppelwhite, there is a 
 comfortable, charming fireside chair, a little smaller 
 than this type was usually made. 
 
 An enormous value of this entire collection lies in 
 its displaying the style of living and furnishing of 
 that period, in its finest and final form. Here the 
 sources are without question, and the period, the age, 
 are known, and that the connection is so largely with 
 the greatest of Americans gives the collection unique 
 character. It is the last word in collecting ! 
 
 One of the most engaging pieces of old furniture 
 to be seen anywhere in the world is a child 's-size 
 dressing-table, inlaid, delicate, taper-legged, a gift 
 from Lafayette to Martha, the grandchild and name- 
 sake of Mrs. Washington, who later lived at Tudor 
 Place in Georgetown, when married. 
 
 All the George Washington glass, the gold-mar- 
 gined china, the pistol-handled knives, the Lowestoft 
 with blue and gold, the Sheffield plate in which he 
 took such pride, the urn-shaped lamps, the beautiful 
 candlesticks, the pair of crystal candelabra, all 
 arouse pictures of the rich stateliness of the life of 
 those days. 
 
 The official title given the general historical collec- 
 tion of costumes is ''The Period Costume Collec- 
 tion." It excels, in the superlative way in which it 
 has been carried out, any collection of similar char- 
 acter whether in this country or abroad, 
 
 176 
 
THE MALL 
 
 The most surpassing individual feature is the col- 
 lection of costumes actually worn by the women who 
 were mistresses of the White House, through all 
 the administrations. The gowns are most carefully 
 placed upon the plaster figures in a long series of 
 glass cases. The figures make no attempt to be pre- 
 cisely portraits but they approach it. Even the out- 
 lines of the hair are in each case of the proper style 
 of the period : and some waist-lines are of an incred- 
 ible slenderness. 
 
 Clustered around the cases of this unique collec- 
 tion are other cases on the walls and upon tables, 
 all showing American gowns of periods of the past. 
 Here also are the costumes of some of the early 
 Presidents, such as a military costume of Washing- 
 ton, a sleeping bag of the inventively inclined Jeffer- 
 son, a rich costume of John Adams, of silk as yellow 
 as old gold and embroidered in blue corn-flowers, 
 past republican belief! But the main interest in 
 costumes lies with those of the women of the Presi- 
 dency. 
 
 First of all you see the quietly capped figure of 
 the wife of the President whose administration 
 closed before the White House opened. Her gown is 
 of ashes-of-roses silk, with little trellis design, 
 painted with a spray of flowers in the center of 
 each ; a rich and quiet gown, as to which one wonders 
 if this is of the color which, when Washington 
 ordered it for her from London, he called a *' tabby" 
 
 gOWTl. 
 
 Mrs. Adams is here, a quiet little figure in a queer 
 
 177 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 little gown of purplish blue, with a full skirt, 
 embroidered soberly in the same color. This quiet 
 garb was not typical of Abigail Adams, though evi- 
 dently it is the best available for the collection, for 
 one remembers details of her fine clothes, and her 
 own description which she wrote home from London 
 of the glories of her presentation gown. 
 
 Dolly Madison is in full-trained gown of pale 
 lemon-colored satin, over a skirt of white satin, em- 
 broidered in garlands of delicate flowers. She 
 holds a double kerchief of tambour in her hand, and 
 a copy of Milton ; remindful this, of a characteristic 
 of the clever Dolly, with whom it was a social affec- 
 tation to close or open some literary classic as she 
 turned to greet a guest; as when, so it is narrated, 
 she held a book in her hand when she met young 
 Preston, the son of an old friend. 
 
 Great numbers of people go through this gallery, 
 and it is noticeable that, after all these years and 
 after the great variety of women who have held 
 sway in the White House, not a figure in all these 
 cases attracts the degree of interest that is accorded 
 to Dolly Madison; which shows what personality 
 will do. One wonders if half of those who murmur 
 her name in passing, know the given name of her 
 husband ! 
 
 Mrs. Monroe is in white, brocaded with large 
 single flowers, almost dahlia-like in color, with a 
 border padded and wadded with cotton, and a 
 Watteau pleat from the shoulders. Mrs. John 
 Quincy Adams is astonishingly slim in white satin, 
 
 178 
 
THE MALL 
 
 covered with tulle and bordered by silver lace frills. 
 Van Buren's daugliter-in-law is in full blue velvet 
 with long full train, with point lace on her shoulders 
 and an eighteen inch waist! — a figure resplendent 
 with y^outli. She was a South Carolina beauty and 
 her strangely head-dressed portrait still hangs in 
 the White House. 
 
 Mrs. Fillmore is literally in lavender and old lace. 
 Mrs. Pierce is gentle and lovely in black net mourn- 
 ing for her son, who was killed in a railroad ac- 
 cident. There is only one wife given to President 
 Tyler, his second and youthful one, and she wears a 
 gown with a three-tiered flounce of airy silk muslin, 
 edged with gold threads and soft queer-colored 
 flowers. Harriet Lane is in the wedding glory of 
 long widespread train of watered silk and fine lace. 
 
 Mrs. Lincoln is irreproachable in purple velvet, 
 corded in white. Mrs. Grant wears white brocade 
 with silver threads. Mrs. Hayes is in white satin, 
 pearl befringed — and with a bustle! Mrs. Gar- 
 field wears pale lavender satin and lace — quiet, but 
 with the longest train of all. Mrs. McElroy wears 
 a gray brocade with steel beads. Mrs. Cleveland is 
 in stiffened silk skirt, \\"ith a queer rose-pink velvet 
 gorget. Mrs. McKinley is in a rich high-necked 
 gown of white, heavy with pearls. Mrs. Roosevelt, 
 in pale blue brocade with very fine lines, very simple, 
 with transparent shoulders and sleeves, is reading 
 a pamphlet. Mrs. Taft is so slight and so quietly 
 dressed as to be almost unnoticeable. In the last 
 case are two w^omen. Each is a Mrs. Wilson. The 
 
 179 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 first is in white brocaded satin. The present Mrs. 
 Wilson appears effectively in black velvet and jet, 
 with low neck, and only black net over the shoulders. 
 Between the two stands a vacant chair ! 
 
 ^*t>r* 
 
 180 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 MEMORIALS THAT DO ADORN" 
 
 ELL out in the 
 hilly edge of the 
 city to the northward, 
 and near the Soldiers' 
 Home, is a rather 
 large graveyard, called 
 that of Rock Creek, 
 l^ containing a number 
 of old graves with 
 many more recent ones. 
 An interesting feature is 
 little St. Paul's Church, 
 something over two hundred years old, which still 
 retains much of its old-time aspect in spite of having 
 suffered from prosperity, restoration and fire. It is 
 the oldest church within the limits of the District 
 of Columbia. It is a quaint little brick structure 
 with the black brick headers of long ago, with a short 
 nave, rather squarish, and with much English ivy 
 on its old walls. Such fascinating old brick 
 churches, all of about the same period, are to be 
 found in many of the old parishes through all of 
 eastern Maryland. A benefactor of long ago gave 
 this church a glebe of one hundred acres, of hill and 
 
 181 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 valley, and the glebe is now crowded with graves. 
 The donor, one Bradford, a strange New England 
 name for this part of the world, lies under a stone 
 near the entrance, and immediately around the old 
 church are a few flat quaint table-gravestones. 
 There is a distinct effect of loneliness, owing largely 
 to ancient monumental oaks about and near the 
 church, and emphasized by the absence of vehicles, 
 whose entrance is forbidden. 
 
 On a hillside, some distance below the church, on 
 a slope where the graves are thick, stands a group of 
 gloomy trees, narrow cedars and tall umbrageous 
 pines and massed rhododendrons and bushy low- 
 growdng laurel; and secluded within this solemn 
 grouping, with ''tall black pines like nodding plumes 
 over the bier to wave," is a solitary grave guarded 
 by a wonderful figure in bronze. 
 
 It is a Saint Gaudens masterpiece, this monument, 
 in absolute seclusion. The brooding bronze figure 
 guards the tomb of the wife of Henry Adams, great- 
 grandson of the second President, John Adams. 
 
 Facing a massive stone bench, in the cloistered 
 shade of the evergreens, hidden from the blue sky, 
 is a large bronze figure seated on a gloomy rock ; a 
 real rock, not one of bronze. The bronze draperies 
 are solemnly simple: "clinging like cerements." 
 
 A cloak-like garment covers head and figure, with 
 only one arm and the face emergent. 
 
 And such a face! A face representing the 
 finality of death. It is a strong face, a fine face, a 
 beautiful face, a face that stays in the memory. 
 
 182 
 
MEMORIALS THAT ADORN 
 
 Pettiness is not there; ostentation is not there; 
 there is no grief expressed in chiseled words — no 
 name. 
 
 It is impressive. It is a little open-air temple of 
 silence. It is a woman who will brood throughout 
 all eternity. Seated on the black stone, her back 
 is against a monolith. Her chin is upon her hand. 
 Her eyes are cast dowm. She is musing and her 
 revery will last forever. 
 
 As one leaves it and turns across the hills, under 
 giant oaks, one likes to remember that Saint 
 Gaudens and Henry Adams were two of a group of 
 close friends. The son of Saint Gaudens has re- 
 corded that his father worked on this statue with 
 infinite delight, and that he wrote to Adams that this 
 was to be the ''result of Michelangelo, Buddha and 
 Saint Gaudens." Ten years or more after it was in 
 place, in 1903, the sculptor stood in front of the 
 monument and said that he wished he could remodel 
 the fold at the knees. Then, after a pause: "I 
 believe that would be all I would do. ' ^ Adams found 
 in it, "The Peace of God," but Saint Gaudens him- 
 self called it, "The Mystery of the Hereafter." 
 
 This memorial bronze, so quietly and unostenta- 
 tiously placed, the memory of the great love of a 
 quiet and unostentatious life, undoubtedly ranks with 
 the great monuments of the world. 
 
 One of the delightful sentences of Shakespeare is 
 as modern sounding as if it were written but yester- 
 day: "The memorials and the works of art that 
 do adorn the city." Shakespeare makes these 
 
 183 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 words refer to an Italian city, but how they apply to 
 the American city on the Potomac! — rich as it has 
 become in memorials and is becoming in works of 
 art. 
 
 Memorials may take such a fine variety of forms. 
 And this thought especially comes because Henry 
 Adams, who had the Rock Oreek Memorial made, 
 could look out of his own window on Lafayette 
 Square and see some superb memorials massed 
 thick in front of his vision. It has long been be- 
 lieved that the great old trees that beautify the 
 square, the glorious elms, the most beautifully boled 
 beeches, the great gloomy pines, the great glossy- 
 leaved magnolias, were planted as memorials to the 
 then existent States. The number did not represent 
 a work of forestration as it would to-day, but made 
 much more than the original Thirteen. 
 
 One of the most familiar of the great number of 
 outstanding memorials in Washington is the Du- 
 pont Fountain, in the center of an elm-bordered 
 circle at the crossing of the three highly important 
 avenues, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New 
 Hampshire . Wliat a New England setting! In 
 the usual Washington way Avith its circles, 19th and 
 P streets also take the opportunity to run in and out 
 again. 
 
 Back in the time of the Civil War, Congress voted 
 a monument at this confluence of thoroughfares for 
 Admiral Dupont. The neighborhood at that time 
 was sparsely settled and quite ordinary, and the 
 monument was paltry in quality, showing Dupont 
 
 184 
 
.^.^„.:i:.':^ 
 
 THE DUFONT FOUNTAIN 
 
MEMORIALS THAT ADORN 
 
 as a square-built, rugged man ; which was sufficiently 
 fitting, as he seems to have done square-built, rugged 
 work in his Civil War career. But as the city 
 developed, and this section and the thoroughfares 
 became important, and great houses were built on 
 them, the very wealthy Dupont family became 
 rather conscious of the humdrum monument to their 
 forbear and, accustomed to building roads across 
 States or doing anything else that came- into their 
 minds as desirable, they decided to do away with 
 the humdrum and put up a beautiful memorial foun- 
 tain on the now magnificent circle which Congress 
 had so conveniently provided. Daniel Chester 
 French was engaged as sculptor and Henry Bacon 
 as architect — the names are worth remembering as 
 their united work is so fine here and in other and 
 greater work— and the Art Commission promptly 
 passed in favor of the desirability of the proposed 
 memorial. There is a simple, stately beauty about 
 it. The bottom of the fountain is a broad pool 
 from which rise emergent three lovely female figures, 
 tucked as if in shelter within the paneled white- 
 stone stem, and charmingly representative of the 
 Sea, the Wind and the Stars— highly suitable for an 
 admiral! From the perfectly curving white basin 
 above their heads the water overflows and falls so 
 as to frame these hauntingly graceful figures. 
 
 This Dupont fountain, sheltered within the old 
 greenery of the Circle, is a most successful example 
 of a- small memorial, attracting immense attention. 
 Everybody knows it as a landmark not to be con- 
 
 185 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 fused with any other ; and in this it is not in the least 
 like most of the equestrian circle-centers of Wash- 
 ington, which are confused one with another in the 
 public mind. 
 
 Not only have there been many new memorials 
 planned and built, but there is a constant ebullition 
 of ideas, developing a line of further memorials of 
 one or another kind. A great memorial bridge is 
 planned between the Lincoln memorial and Arling- 
 ton. One enterprising citizen after another thinks 
 of a supposed need and pushes it, such as a huge cam- 
 panile with the grea.test chime of bells in the world. 
 Of course, being American, it has to be the ** greatest 
 peal in the world!'' It is hoped that each State will 
 supply a bell ; and the carillon is to be rung on every 
 joyous national occasion. A Memorial Hall, with a 
 great bronze star for every soldier killed in war, is 
 another of the plans. Another project is that of a 
 hillside devoted to gardens and outdoor theatricals, 
 with buildings for women's advancement. And al- 
 ready there are avenues of young memorial trees, 
 and old beechwoods are preserved to honor a Presi- 
 dent who like'd them. 
 
 The Freer Oallery, one of the wonderful things 
 that has newly come to Washington, will never be 
 forgotten in recapitulating the adorning structures 
 of the city. The building was designed, built and en- 
 dowed by Charles L. Freer of Detroit, and the col- 
 lections to date were personally made by him. There 
 has previously been no collection of Oriental porce- 
 
 186 
 
MEMORIALS THAT ADORN 
 
 lains in Washington museums, and the Freer collec- 
 tion will begin to fill the want. 
 
 There is some doubt as to what the precise scope 
 of the collection will develope into, but it has the 
 precious Oriental cliina, which Washington needs 
 very much, and many paintings by the best Ameri- 
 can artists. 
 
 As a beginning, a unique exhibit will be the most 
 striking of the works of James McNeill Whistler. 
 For the home of Frederick R. Leyland in Prince's 
 Gate, London, Whistler made a most colorful decora- 
 tion: an elaborate and even whimsical peacock 
 design. 
 
 But, with Whistler, friendships always came to an 
 end. No man ever better understood the gentle art 
 of making enemies! And somehow, before many 
 years, the peacock decoration was not in the Leyland 
 home, nor was it even in England, for it appeared 
 as the principal decoration of Freer 's home in De- 
 troit. And now it is to be the most important initial 
 exhibit of the exquisite Freer Gallery. 
 
 The bridges of the city are of high decorative im- 
 portance. Especially notable is the long structure, 
 a high-level bridge leading Connecticut Avenue over 
 the ravine of Rock Creek and bringing into a fine 
 thoroughfare connection a whole district previously 
 isolated by a deep wooded valley. On each approach 
 of this great wide bridge is a splendid monumental 
 lion, just uprising in a guarding posture. There is 
 a parklike setting to the bridge and its approaches 
 
 187 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 and its spaciousness is marked off by bronze eagles 
 on pillars. 
 
 With its entrance just off Massachusetts Avenue 
 near Sheridan Circle is the striking p'Street bridge 
 with its approaches marked by great statuesque 
 bison: these two bridges making structures that 
 would anywhere be distinctly memorable. The great 
 Bison bridge gives a fine motor approach, again over 
 the ravine of Rock Creek, and in this case to George- 
 town. The old and still main-traveled road to 
 Georgetown at Pennsylvania Avenue is not notable 
 for beauty. 
 
 The famous "Long Bridge" across the Potomac, 
 so noted in local and national history, vanished long 
 ago. As I write, you go to the Virginia side of the 
 Potomac through Georgetown over an old bridge, 
 but the great new bridge called the Key Memorial 
 is nearly finished and will be a great thoroughfare 
 to Fort Meyer and Arlington. It is named in honor 
 of the author of the Star Spangled Banner. In time 
 there will be another and magTiificent bridge beside 
 the Lincoln Memorial, connecting the Mall with the 
 Virginia shore. 
 
 A fine kind of memorial, the spirit of which would 
 well be imitated, is shown in a small memorial foun- 
 tain set unobtrusively just outside the southern 
 edge of the White House grounds. It is a simple 
 fountain, but at the same time not insignificant. It 
 is bowered in pleasant greenery and was put up in 
 memory of two men. Captain Archibald Butt, a 
 White House aide and F. D. Millet, artist and author, 
 
 188 
 
MEMORIALS THAT ADORN 
 
 who bravely and unostentatiously gave their lives, 
 in order that others might not perish, in the great 
 disaster of the Lusitania. Its location is fine from 
 the standpoint of sentiment, for it is within sight 
 of the White House where one was aide, but its 
 placing is destructive to the symmetry of the 
 grounds, and it is not therefore looked on with 
 favor in its present place. 
 
 There could not be a finer reason for a memorial 
 or one that would inspire to nobler purpose. Of all 
 Washingtonians, none past or present would have 
 so appreciated the manly bravery of Butts and 
 Millet as would have the great kind-hearted Lincoln, 
 and now their monuments, great and small, are in 
 sight of each other. 
 
 Grandest of all the memorials in Washington is 
 the Lincoln Memorial, at the western end of the 
 Mall near the edge of the Potomac. It is the 
 greatest monument that has ever been erected 
 to the memory of one man. It is a superbly 
 pillared temple of great size, of great symme- 
 try, of great impressiveness, of great effective- 
 ness. 
 
 It is centered on a straight line extending from 
 the entrance of the Capitol, down the Mall, and 
 directly through Washington Monument. 
 
 The Lincoln Memorial is serene, tremendous, 
 massive, yet is at the same time t)f exquisite beauty. 
 It is rectangular in shape. It is nearly two hundred 
 feet long. Its central hall is within a colonnade of 
 enormous fluted columns, double upon the eastern 
 
 189 
 
THE BOO^ OF WASHINGTON 
 
 front, the main facade, which faces toward the 
 Capitol. 
 
 The pillars number thirty-six, to keep in mind the 
 number of States forming the Union when Lincoln 
 died. The pillars are enormous in size, being seven 
 feet four inches in diameter at the base and forty- 
 four feet high. They are deemed to be the largest 
 of their kind in the world, and the capstones are of 
 unsurpassed size — yet the wonder continues that 
 everything gives an impression of delicacy in con- 
 nection with enduring strength; such as is the case 
 with the splendid roof, perfect in proportions, dis- 
 tinguished in design. 
 
 Isolated and serene, the Memorial stands on an 
 artificial mound that raises it above the level of the 
 surrounding land. Henry Bacon was the architect 
 and he devoted himself with intensity to the task 
 that, more than anything else, must represent the 
 labor and pleasure of his life. 
 
 Within the central hall, which is seventy feet long 
 by sixty high, is a statue of Lincoln by Daniel 
 Chester French. The figure is seated and is faintly 
 remindful of the standing Lincoln in Chicago: and 
 if not quite the equal of that incomparable statue it 
 is at least adequate. It is a figure of dignity, and, 
 with the rested elbows and the wide Roman seat, fits 
 perfectly the general shape of the room. Lincoln 
 lox)ks thoughtfully out, between the pillars of the 
 main entrance, and off past the monument to his 
 great predecessor Washington, to the Capitol. 
 
 Something attempted with far-sighted skill is the 
 
 190 
 
MEMORIALS THAT ADORN 
 
 building of a highly pictorial narrow lagoon ap- 
 proaching the Memorial. The reflections and 
 shadows are remindful of those in the long water 
 basin at the front of the Taj Mahal, where the white 
 arch and dome show double. The enchanting re- 
 flections and shadows have been so studied that they 
 are here to be marvelous — the water-shadows of the 
 Memorial as one approaches it, and of the Wash- 
 ington Monument as one looks back. These effects 
 were worked out experimentally with a temporary 
 basin, and now permanent stone is to be built in and 
 the effect will be of ethereal loveliness with an en- 
 vironment of dark and formal trees. 
 
 In a room at one side of the interior is a great 
 tablet of bronze on which is forever inscribed 
 Lincoln's Second Inaugural, and in a similar room 
 on the other side is his Gettysburg Address. The 
 tablets are of immense impressiveness, and it is 
 worth while seeing before us, on one side: ''With 
 malice toward none, with charity for all, with firm- 
 ness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let 
 us strive on to finish the work we are in," and on 
 the other side a tablet where one is thrilled to read : 
 ''That government of the people, by the people, for 
 the people, shall not perish from the earth.'* 
 
 On each side of the bronze tablets are modeled, as 
 parts of the tablets, long palm branches of bronze, 
 curiously simple and impressive, and above the 
 tablets are high-banded mural decorations by Jules 
 Guerin, in dullish blue and red and brown and green ; 
 positive yet tempered. These take the coldness 
 
 191 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 from the room and give an impression of a living 
 memorial rather than the feeling of a tomb. 
 
 The Memorial gives a distinguished and curious 
 feeling of isolation : one feels, in going toward the 
 pillared glory, as if walking across the plain to 
 pillared Paestum. Yet this Memorial, although it 
 has a landscape to itself, is readily reachable, for it 
 is on the Potomac's bank, adjacent to the main part 
 of the city and across from the heights of Arlington. 
 
 Never before in history has a man begun as 
 humbly as in Lincoln's log cabin and attained such 
 memorial fame. Immovable, immortal, eminent: 
 such was Lincoln and such is this monument. 
 
 192 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE DOMINANCE OF TITLES 
 
 ASHING- 
 TON, now 
 
 pre-eminent- 
 ly the American 
 city of titles, was 
 almost from the 
 beginning a city of 
 American titles — a 
 very different 
 thing. This was 
 noted, in particu- 
 lar, by that ex- 
 tremely observant 
 and widely trav- 
 .. eled architect, Lat- 
 robe, who wrote cheerfully, a hundred years ago, 
 that he noticed that x\merica was like Poland, for 
 everj'body in Poland had a title ! Only, as he com- 
 mented, instead of there being counts here as in Po- 
 land, there was a crowding of captains, majors, 
 colonels, generals. And this he found to be espe- 
 cially the case in Washington. 
 
 It seems incredible, but one of the books of 
 
 193 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 memories of long-ago Washington — by Mrs. 
 Gouverneur, Monroe 's daughter and a White House 
 bride — tells of a visit to Washington in the early 
 40 's by the first James Gordon Bennett and his 
 newly-made wife, just as there was to be a great 
 charity ball, a social event of high order. Among 
 the patronesses were Dolly Madison, Mrs. Tayloe 
 and Mrs. Gouverneur herself. And when Bennett 
 asked for tickets, the request was granted only with 
 the definite promise on his part that he would not 
 describe the ball in his newspaper. Two days later, 
 however, an extended account, with names in full, 
 appeared in the New York Herald, greatly to the 
 indignation of the managers of the ball. For here 
 is the difference that has come about. At that time, 
 so Mrs. Gouverneur wrote, it was expected that a 
 woman 's na'me should appear in the public prints but 
 twice: first, upon the occasion of her marriage, 
 and second and last upon the occasion of her death. 
 
 How startled the women of those days would now 
 be with long columns of news of society in every 
 issue of every newspaper and with several pages on 
 Sunday ! Not only with an intense ambition on the 
 part of society women that their names appear, but 
 also that their portraits be given, and especially in 
 the elaborate picture supplements. 
 
 But the women of those days, even when in their 
 aged and declining years, were not without 
 publicity, although it was secured in a quiet way. 
 For instance, it was well known at the time and has 
 been remembered ever since that when Mrs. 
 
 194 
 
THE DOMINANCE OF TITLES 
 
 Madison, who so objected to Bennett's method, was 
 formally called upon by the tall and impressive 
 General Winfield Scott in the last years of her long 
 life, he always wore his full uniform and made a 
 solemn function out of what might have been a 
 simple neighborly affair. 
 
 The Scotts were both Virginians and had a home 
 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, besides, but settled them- 
 selves in Washington about 1850 in a house on H 
 Street between 13th and 14th. It was one of the 
 ''Chain Houses" so-called, built by Count de Menon 
 and had a fence bordering it made of festooned 
 chains. In another chain house, next door, lived 
 another wonderful old lady of old Washington — the 
 venerable Mrs. Alexander Hamilton, and here also 
 it was the pleasant knowledge of the Capitol, that 
 the full uniform was worn by the superb six foot- 
 three general when he called. It is thus that many 
 like best to remember these venerable and dis- 
 tinguished old ladies, the famous widows of H Street, 
 thus honored to the extreme. And, as to Mrs. Scott, 
 the wife of the General, it was she who called the 
 city a rambling, scrambling village, and was in 
 turn facetiously known by Washingtonians as 
 "Madame la General." 
 
 Washington has always been a city strongly in- 
 fluenced by Virginia ideas of chivalry. It per- 
 meates all society. For Virginians were, for a long 
 time, the most important citizens. It is always easy 
 to hear stories, in Washington, of Virginia military 
 gallantry, as of General Hood, who, expecting to 
 
 195 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 marry a Virginia belle, sent an order to Paris, with 
 one item reading, *'Mem. : Three cork legs and a 
 diamond ring!" 
 
 Of the general who defeated Hood, in the Civil 
 War, General Thomas — not in love but at the Battle 
 of Nashville — various pleasant stories are told, for 
 he was a likable man who liked Washington. 
 Pleasantest of all is that of his attitude when 
 friends offered to present him with a house in the 
 city. When he declined, the argument was urged 
 upon him that a number of leading men such as 
 Daniel Webster, had accepted homes from their 
 admirers and friends and that even General Sher- 
 man himelf, among military heroes, had done so. 
 The house given to Sherman was at 203 I Street and 
 has since been torn down, as has the house given at 
 a later date to Admiral Dewey on Rhode Island 
 Avenue near Connecticut. 
 
 But Thomas only replied with courteous firmness 
 to all arguments that it made it awkward for him 
 when put in that way, but that he could not take 
 more than the nation had given him, which he con- 
 sidered quite sufficient renumeration. 
 
 In recent years Washington has not only added 
 greatly to what may be called the more familiar 
 American titles but has also added largely to the 
 lists of such titles as Secretaries, Assistant- 
 Secretaries and Commissioners, and there has been 
 an enormous influx of title-bearing people from 
 abroad. 
 
 With the vastly increased presence of titles has 
 
 196 
 
THE DOMINANCE OF TITLES 
 
 naturally come a vastly increased worship of titles : 
 they go together. 
 
 An important and growing class in Washington is 
 composed of extremly wealthy folk who are able 
 and willing to spend great sums in the attempt to 
 establish high social position here. The object of 
 this class is not only to gain the right to mingle with 
 the great and titled, but is often to obtain an 
 Ambassadorship, or an important place in one of 
 the Departments, or to serve on some important 
 commission or to entertain a king. 
 
 No other city presents any such possibilities. 
 These people feel that a few seasons in Washington 
 and a large house of their o\mi give them a stepping- 
 stone to the very highest honors. This plan gives 
 them vastly more than money alone could do. Such 
 people establish their families here and, cosmo- 
 poUtanly planned, mount high in worldly place ; and 
 Avith this there may be important double develop- 
 ment, for this class are quite likely to retain as a 
 bulwark their home, and their position in whatever 
 was their home town, and at the same time they 
 may succeed in their ambition to secure great place 
 abroad. 
 
 Marrying their daughters to men of title or, 
 better, to men of great foreign distinction, often 
 follows from a basis of Washington residence. Here 
 friendships and connections are made with people 
 from all over the world, and. if such a plan is de- 
 liberately campaigned for, with a house in London, 
 a villa on the Riviera, or a palace in Venice, with a 
 
 197 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 private yacht and the lavish entertaining that has 
 been studied in Washington, the world is theirs. 
 The world is mine oyster, which I with gold will 
 open! 
 
 From these Washington mansions and seasons in 
 Washington society, there have gone American 
 wives for ambassadors from every country, for vice- 
 regal place and honors; there have gone out wives 
 for generals and admirals of highest rank in the 
 most powerful countries of the world. 
 
 With the growing dominance of titles in this city 
 of titles an interesting change is developing: the 
 practical disappearances of ''Mr. and Mrs." as in- 
 clusively descriptive of husband and wife. 
 
 After all, the form has not been with us for very 
 many decades. Coming gradually in, it became a 
 general custom: pausing a while, before general 
 adoption, to be used to some degree as a title of 
 gentility in Colonial and Revolutionary days, as is 
 still to be seen on some of the gravestones of that 
 period. But social custom long ago changed in re- 
 gard to this, and neither "Mr." nor *'Esq." confers 
 to-day the distinction it was originally intended to 
 do. 
 
 The capital of our country, which in the long run 
 dominates social customs, has decreed, from ap- 
 parent necessity, the dropping of the inclusive 
 grouping of "Mr. and Mrs.", and this none the 
 less inexorably that the decree has not been a 
 matter of form but has come through changing 
 custom. If an important man appears in the day's 
 
 198 
 
THE DOMINANCE OF TITLES 
 
 news he is very rarely "Mr." Every one in the 
 city who pretends to standing or is conceded stand- 
 ing, makes connection with a title. There are not 
 only the old-fashioned Senators, Representatives, 
 Justices, Secretaries of the Cabinet; all these and 
 such as these are still existent in greatly increased 
 numbers, with a multiple proportion of officially 
 entitled Assistants. And the city, and the society 
 columns of the newspapers, and very largely the 
 news columns, teem with the titles of myriad 
 foreigners and with titles to some extent secured, 
 even by Americans, from abroad: all this in ad- 
 dition to the titled nomenclature of the Republic. 
 
 If Doctor Syntax had added to his various famous 
 Searches, a Search for the Odd, he would find it here 
 in our American syntax in the growing clumsiness 
 of expression as to man and wife. 
 
 ''Mr." has practically vanished by taboo from 
 among important men. In Washington a man may 
 be President or Assistant Secretary: he may be 
 General or Lieutenant. But he is something of 
 title and is referred to with the title. The news- 
 paper columns daily bristle with titles. 
 
 Even the children can tell a captain from a major 
 by the number of stripes of black braid that en- 
 twine themselves on his overcoat sleeve. The 
 Washington eye is trained to read the insignia upon 
 collar and sleeve. The title goes with the clothes. 
 No mistakes are made. 
 
 In the face of the onslaught of titles the modest 
 united "Mr. and Mrs." is rarely to be seen. But 
 
 199 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 the severed "Mrs." remains and a great awkward- 
 ness of expression appears in consequence. 
 
 There can be no objection to such phrases as "the 
 President and Mrs. Harding," "the Secretary of 
 State and Mrs. Hughes, or Mrs. Blaine or Mrs. 
 Hay," or "the Ambassador from Great Britan and 
 Lady Geddes," for it is a matter of general intel- 
 ligence that these names are associated with the 
 offices held. The names of Harding and Hughes 
 and Geddes are known. But it is an absurdity that 
 any important part of the public can know the name 
 of, say, the Third Assistant Secretary of State, or 
 that of the Minister from such Graustark or Zenda 
 countries as Bulgaria or Czecko-Slovakia. But in 
 the usages of ordinary publicity such as that of the 
 newspapers there is, to-day, nothing to associate 
 coupled names as husbands and wives. 
 
 From one single page, this is excerpt: "The 
 Third Secretary of the Italian Embassy and Mme. 
 Celesia. The Peruvian Ambassador and Mme. 
 Pezet. The Military Attache of the French 
 Embassy and Mme. Collardet. The Norwegian 
 Minister and Mme. Bryn. The Charge d'affaires 
 of Great Britain and Mrs. Craigie. The Roumanian 
 Minister and Princess Bibesco. The Third Assist- 
 ant Secretary of State and Mrs. Smith. The Assist- 
 ant to the Attorney General and Mrs. Austin. The 
 Assistant Secretary of the Navy and Mrs. Wood- 
 bury" — that dine together or receive together or 
 go to Atlantic City or Palm Beach together. 
 Isn't there something wrong with our clever 
 
 200 
 
THE DOMINANCE OF TITLES 
 
 nation? Are all these people plain husbands and 
 wives? "The Minister of Serbs, Croats and 
 Slovenes and Mme. Gronitch," — this sounds 
 positively polyandrous ! * ' The Former Ambassador 
 to France (sufficiently indefinite!) and Mrs. Wallace 
 will sail for Paris together." 
 
 And there will shortly appear new complications, 
 for women are about to secure a large number of 
 titled offices ; and newspapers will begin to tell that, 
 ''The Congresswoman from — oh, New York, Penn- 
 sylvania, California, any State — and Mr. Jones left 
 yesterday for New York." 
 
 That in practice there is seldom actual misunder- 
 standing is not enough. It is a clumsy form, and 
 as titles and the use of titles increase, the reason for 
 a more efficient form increases. One wonders where 
 the end will be ; what heights will be reached, what 
 depths will be plumbed, before some clear-minded 
 system shall be adopted. One can see how the 
 French at one time acted upon the necessity of 
 Citoyen and Citoyenne, one form for all. 
 
 A most striking example of worship of titles in 
 Washington was shown at a reception given by 
 David Jayne Hill; so prominent in Grover Cleve- 
 land's time. There were numerous notables among 
 the guests. Hill himself led the procession into the 
 dining-room with a Countess Thyrzo. (This is an 
 exeprience that Saint Gaudens loved to tell). It 
 was a time of intense feeling for democracy and 
 therefore, by natural contradiction, the worship of 
 titles was intense. 
 
 201 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 Never did two people walk together more proudly. 
 In fact it was not to be denominated a walk but a 
 progress. Two by two, like the formal entry into 
 the ark, the entire gathering were to go. Hill looked 
 straight in front of him, evidencing a pride such 
 as had come to few Americanos. The Countess, 
 richly gowned, went proudly on, filled with a sense 
 of distinction of leading the way at a dinner at 
 which Cardinal Gibbons was the principal guest. 
 The order of proceeding had been arranged with the 
 most meticulous care; which couple should go 
 second, which couple third, and most heedfully on 
 to the end, which was to be brought up by the red- 
 robed cardinal leading the wife of the host. 
 
 Neither Hill nor the countess noticed that any- 
 thing was going wrong. There was no one at either 
 side to smile in warning. All had been lined up 
 for the progress into the dining-room. But when 
 Hill and the Countess reached the head of the table 
 and turned, prepared for the entire company to be 
 settling into their seats with them, they were ap- 
 palled to see that not a soul had moved in following 1 
 Not one had dared to walk out in front of the 
 ecclesiastical gorgeousness. All were busily bow- 
 ing and bowing and waiting ^nd waiting for the 
 Cardinal and Mrs. Hill to precede them! 
 
 There has long been a considerable feeling to the 
 effect that there is in Washington a settled society 
 superior to that headed by the Administration. 
 These supposed social leaders have been known as 
 *' settled" or ''permanent" society and others have 
 
 202 
 
THE DOMINANCE OF TITLES 
 
 known them as ** antiques'^ — Mark Twain's name — 
 and still others have called them ''cave-dwellers." 
 
 There is certainly a society of this kind, a sort of 
 social alluvial soil, a rich deposit of time, from 
 Colonial days, from high oflBce, from heroes of wars 
 and long-established wealth. 
 
 That descendants of old families appear prom- 
 inently from time to time is undoubtedly the case, 
 part of this class being life-long dwellers in Wash- 
 ington and part guests or relatives from other cities. 
 I quote from a newspaper account of a Colonial ball 
 at the Willard — not a gathering of the greatest 
 names but of many names of the great, and showing 
 the sources of settled society in the city. There was 
 a Gorges, direct descendant of the English pioneer 
 in Maine ; there was a descendant of the famous Sir 
 James Johnson, so powerful in central New York; 
 there was the great-great-grandaughter of William 
 Vernon of Rhode Island, president of the Contin- 
 ental Navy Board; there was William Fendall, a 
 Washingtonian directly descended from the crown- 
 governor Fendall of Maryland; there was Mrs. John 
 C. Fremont, wearing the gown worn by her four- 
 degree grandmother at a Patroon's ball in Albany, 
 a hundred and sixty years ago. One man repres- 
 ented his great-great grandfather Thomas Lee, a 
 member of the Continental Congress from Mary- 
 land, and his wife was descended from the officer 
 next in command to Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga. 
 There were descendants of Robert Livingston, of 
 Richard Keene, in colonial times Lord of the Manor 
 
 203 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 on the Patuxent ; there was a descendant of the col- 
 onial Cabells, and a Lee of Virginia. But even 
 here, as a piece de resistance there was General Per- 
 shing, with Missouri and Nebraska as his back- 
 ground. 
 
 But always, in spite of the interesting character 
 of many who gather here, the society led by the 
 White House, the Cabinet and the Senate and the 
 Embassies always dominates in the social life of 
 the city — for they hold the golden cornucopia from 
 which flows appointments and salaries, money and 
 place. 
 
 Even long ago, the old-timers did not socially dom- 
 inate, for the novel '' Through one Administra- 
 tion," written out of an observant knowledge of the 
 city and apparently describing the time of Hayes, 
 constantly pictures the power of public officials 
 when exerted in social control, at the same time that 
 there was a social life of residents not connected 
 with officialdom. When there comes in the novel a 
 great contest, the woman of the ''settled" society, 
 who thinks she is leader, finds herself swept off her 
 feet and lost before the unexpected entry into the 
 social fray of a United States Senator and the wife 
 of the Secretary 'of the Interior ! — although people 
 in these positions would not find themselves par- 
 ticularly important in other great cities. 
 
 Such high and varied social triumphs may come 
 to the man equipped with a large Washington house 
 and a large fortune that the statement in regard to 
 the entertainment of kings is not in the least an 
 
 204 
 
THE DOMINANCE OF TITLES 
 
 exaggeration. The master of a mining fortune, a 
 Copper King, went to Europe, and through busi- 
 ness affairs came in close relations with Leopold, 
 the Congo-entangled King of the Belgians. That 
 Belgian king had few friends, whether among roy- 
 alty or civilians; his reputation had kept friends 
 away and so the Copper King found little difficulty 
 in making and pressing an acquaintance with him. 
 
 The Belgian King spoke of coming to America 
 and said that if he should, he would visit this Wash- 
 ingtonian. 
 
 So home the copper man came and, so the story 
 has it, and it is too delightful a story to pry into too 
 closely, he lavished every possible expenditure in 
 outfitting, decorating and furnishing his Massachu- 
 setts Avenue home, most marked of all being the 
 putting in place of a gold bathtub, ready for the 
 kingly form! 
 
 But Leopold died without coming, and the Copper 
 King did as the Belgian king, and died. And in the 
 course of time the Great War opened and the new 
 Belgian King, Albert, came to America with Queen 
 Elizabeth. 
 
 The Vice-President of the United States wanted 
 to entertain the Belgian royalties at dinner. 
 
 The finest residence in Washington, which was of 
 a quality distinctly beyond that of the copper man, 
 was offered and accepted; but the offer was with- 
 drawTi because enough servants were not available, 
 in war time, properly to equip the house. Then, so 
 the story goes, the literal golden opportunity came 
 
 205 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 — Royalty came to the house so long ago set in order 
 for old Leopold ! The Vice-President borrowed the 
 Copper King's house from the widow. So Belgian 
 royalty saw at last the lavishness of that prepara- 
 tion that had been made f-or Leopold! Royalty at 
 length ate from the gold service even if it was rather 
 in the nature of funeral-baked meats! The kings 
 were dead, Copper and Belgian alike. Long live 
 the King ! as they used to say. 
 
 It is curious that while America has been so in- 
 creasing in titles, England has been decreasing in 
 this respect. The English peerage is threatening 
 to become a disapeerage. And as to Continental 
 Europe there have been such disappearances and 
 changes that there are no royalties for English 
 princesses to marry. Of the so recently intermin- 
 able list of ruling emperors, czars, princes and po- 
 tenates who ruled in central Europe, Johann of 
 Liechtenstein alone remains as ruler and he still 
 holds his tiny principality, a romantic place, only 
 because he collects no tax and has no army! 
 
 One strong reason why titles in Washington rap- 
 idly fill the atmosphere is that the city is not large 
 and that many of the people of title frequently 
 shift their homes. Take for example the house 
 of Senator Hanna, with its great drawing-rooms, its 
 great fireplace of clear blocks of onyx, its French 
 windows looking out over Lafayette Square — this 
 house, built by a son of the Tayloe of five hundred 
 slaves, was occupied by such titled folks as Admiral 
 Paulding, Vice-President Hobart, and the Duchess 
 
 206 
 
THE DOMINANCE OF TITLES 
 
 of Marlborough in her early years. A still more 
 striking example was that of the house next door, 
 which used to look down into the same walled 
 garden, but is now replaced by the Belasco Theatre, 
 for this bouse was built by Commodore Rodgers, 
 and among the names associated with it were Ex- 
 president John Adams, Senator Calhoun, Senator 
 Henry Clay, General Sickles, who killed Key at the 
 door, Secretary Seward, w^ho was well-nigh mur- 
 dered upstairs, on the night of the killing of Lincoln, 
 and Secretary of State Blaine — who, after choosing 
 a number of homes in Washington, found this a 
 place in which to end his days. 
 
 The gentle winter climate of Washington is un- 
 doubtedly a factor in increasing the settling in of 
 many families from colder sections of the country. 
 
 A certain number of the class who come to build 
 and to entertain, seem not to succeed in their ul- 
 terior ends. And perhaps there is always a pro- 
 portion who do not have those ends, although the 
 Washington public opinion always ascribes such 
 motives to them. 
 
 The curious plan of Mie thoroughfares gives the 
 city an enormous number of wedge-shaped proper- 
 ties and wedge-shaped houses. The Octagon was 
 the earliest of this form of building, and perhaps 
 the most marked is an apartment house on Con- 
 necticut Avenue, south of Dupont Circle, whose flat- 
 iron rooms are so narrow as just to hold a chair at 
 the end. Perry Belmont came quietly over from 
 New York and built a palace on a street-bound wedge 
 
 207 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 of land on New Hampshire Avenue and Eighteenth 
 and R Streets. When the great war began, Bel- 
 mont offered the use of this house to the Japanese, 
 feeling justified in this because his ancestor, Mat- 
 thew Perry, had made the first voyage that opened 
 the ports of Japan to Americans. The city smiled 
 at this, and called his house, ' * The opening wedge. ' ' 
 
 As Mark Twain found Naples infested with 
 counts, he would now find Washington infested 
 with lords and ladies and titled gentry of all degrees. 
 The Japanese, ever quick to imitate, excel in titles : 
 princes, barons, counts — they have adopted all 
 the feudal titles of European civilization and have 
 added some of their own. And that nation has 
 been of great influence in driving out our good old 
 forms. 
 
 Changes have been coming gradually and un- 
 noticed. Mrs. Burnett, knowing Washington in- 
 timately, seeing everything with her observant eyes, 
 wrote of the city as it was half a century ago, that 
 society was then led by bewildered Europeans and 
 astonished Americans^ — Americans astonished to 
 find themselves suddenly facing the responsibility 
 of the high-titled positions, and Europeans be- 
 wildered by having to adjust themselves to unex- 
 pected novelties in democratic manners and 
 customs. 
 
 The great game in Washington is society. The 
 great game is to land all the titles they possibly 
 can at their dinner tables, with the especial ambition 
 of seeing the names in the next day's newspaper. 
 
 208 
 
THE DOMINANCE OF TITLES 
 
 Even better, on one day the papers will say '*So 
 and so will entertain"; then the tufted lion list will 
 follow and next day *'So and so entertained" the 
 tufted lion list, last night at dinner! Thus twice 
 the titled guests are made to walk before the public 
 eye. 
 
 A frequent visitor of distinction who loved Wash- 
 ington and Washingtonians even though at times he 
 also loved to laugh a little at them, told, among 
 other tales, of napkins of pink silk at an important 
 dinner: *' quite impossible for a beard!" — he him- 
 self ha\dng a French one. And he liked to tell of 
 another dinner at which in the center of the table 
 was a bowl of gold fish — with no one listening to 
 the after-dinner speakers, because of watching a 
 strangling and dying fish. 
 
 An important feature, not for a moment to be 
 forgotten, is that like the distinguished visitor just 
 referred to, visitors find Washingtonians a delight- 
 ful class. This is mainly because they are Americans 
 in an American city ; almost the only foreigners such 
 as are here, being those who are here on ofificial er- 
 rands, and the Chinese colony that makes for a short 
 distance a little Chinatown of one side of Pennsyl- 
 vania Avenue, and a colony of about the same size, 
 consisting oddly of Greeks who devote themselves to 
 shoe-polishing, and patient celery-vending from bas- 
 kets on the sidewalks. 
 
 That there are no manufacturing interests to oc- 
 cupy conversational attention and that the amount 
 of mercantile interests is comparatively small are 
 
 209 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 powerful abetting reasons for the intense devotion 
 to matters social. The typical interests such as 
 those of other cities are not here. People have no 
 vote. It is an amazing fact ! The residents of the 
 capital of this great Republic have no voice in 
 publi'c affairs. Property holders do not have re- 
 sponsibility for the taxes sufficient for their own 
 city. Even the petty matters, like the large ones, 
 w^ich would be decided by duly elected town councils 
 in other American cities, are settled by a ''Town 
 Council" of hundreds of men elected in every 
 corner of the country from the Atlantic to the 
 Pacific — except the District of Columbia! 
 
 And for what Congress does not care to decide, 
 everything is managed by a board of three ap- 
 pointed commissioners, one of then an army officer.- 
 
 So naturally the citizens turn with even far more 
 than natural zest to the adulatory gossip of society, 
 and the mulling of honors and titles and rights of 
 precedence. 
 
 There is much of truth in the cynical saying that 
 society folk lunch in one house, dine in another, 
 dance in several houses in an evening and are never 
 at home except on their own reception days. 
 
 iSo many come to Washington for Congressional 
 or appointive terms, that they enter with tre- 
 mendous zest into social affairs. The streets are 
 filled with their motors in the afternoon with oc- 
 cupants coifed and attired for -one "at home" after 
 another. You come very soon to know the names 
 of the principal social addicts. Society life in 
 
 210 
 
THE DOMINANCE OF TITLES 
 
 Washington gives them no eight hour days! 
 
 In a particular of picturesque possibilities this 
 city of devotion to titles loses an opportunity. For 
 the meridional street, the wide street leading north- 
 ward from opposite the center of the White House 
 into the hills far north of the city — a street with 
 many a famous home and with semi-public palaces 
 of great foundations, and with churches and temples 
 — has a beautiful name bestowed upon it, which has 
 failed to attach itself. 
 
 Recently, to give this splendid thoroughfare a dis- 
 tinction which it deserved but which its numeral 
 name. Sixteenth, did not give, it was officially des- 
 ignated ''The Avenue of the Presidents," with no 
 feeling of doubt that the public would accept the 
 name eagerly. How the French would have 
 jumped at such a distinction! — they with their 
 Champs Elysees and their Avenue de la Grande 
 Armee and their Rue Royale! 
 
 But this official renaming struck few responsive 
 chords in Washington. In time "The Avenue of 
 the Presidents" may be accepted, but never proudly. 
 "Sixteenth" clings, like a burr. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE PERVASIVE CLASSIC 
 
 HAT this city is 
 without even a single 
 triumphal arch is as- 
 X^ tonishing! From 
 ',' the beginning of its 
 existence it has put 
 up structures to do 
 honor to every class 
 of important event 
 or person, it is rich 
 with 'Hhe glory that 
 was Greece and the 
 grandeur that was 
 Rome." And it 
 seems impossible that 
 it could omit express- 
 ing triumph in an 
 arch. This capital 
 has memorial bridge, obelisk, temples, squares, 
 circles, museums, libraries, amphitheaters, houses, 
 churches, woods, but no sense of national pride has 
 found expression in the familiar classic form of an 
 arch. 
 
 Washington is a capital city; and classic arches 
 
 212 
 
THE PERVASIVE CLASSIC 
 
 express the pride of national capitals. This is a 
 classic city ; in every direction one sees the gleam of 
 white marble colonnades. In proportion to its 
 population Washington is the most classically built 
 of the cities of the world. Yet, though for thousands 
 of years there has been the erection of triumphal 
 arches, this city, that has made such beautiful use 
 of Greek and Roman ideas in its century and a 
 quarter of existence is still without that superla- 
 tively noble form. 
 
 Recently, however, the city has constructed what 
 will splendidly pass as a filling of the omission — and 
 that it is in connection with a utilitarian structure 
 instead of commemorative of some battle or hero 
 marks the changing of the character of the times. 
 
 Daniel Burnham designed the monumental Union 
 Station that fills the arching need. Across its 
 broad front spreads a row of nineteen arched 
 entrances or windows. And the tall three central 
 arches, the literal gateway of the capital through 
 which many thousands enter and leave, make one 
 huge triumphal arch. 
 
 This huge, triune, triumphal arch stands out 
 gloriously, and so admirably has an open space in 
 front of it been cleared, that it can be seen from long 
 distances, especially from the Capitol, thus giving 
 it an access of importance. 
 
 The building is of huge size. Its concourse is 
 seven hundred and sixty feet in length. It is said 
 to be the largest space in the world under one roof. 
 And it is claimed that in the concourse, fifty 
 
 213 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 thousand people could stand : one of those startling 
 statements which for a moment seem incredible, 
 but when it is remembered that those who love such 
 statistics have estimated that the entire population 
 of the w^orld could stand in the area covered by the 
 waters of Lake George, one is reconciled to the 
 statement after all. 
 
 The great passenger space is of such grandeur 
 and size that it calls for something dignified as a 
 name, such as ''passenger concourse/' When some 
 one, in a Presidential party who were leaving the 
 station by the private Presidential entrance, glanced 
 about for a final look and spoke of it as a great 
 trainshed. President Wilson, who overheard him, 
 and who in spite of his grim greatness dearly loves 
 a simple jest, responded: "If the architect heard 
 you say 'trainshed' there would be blood shed!" 
 
 This is a Union Station in two senses. It was 
 built by a Union of funds, Congress, the District of 
 Columbia and the railroads uniting, for a union of 
 the railroads, so there is no confusion of railway 
 stations in the city. 
 
 One of the awesome memories that visitors bring 
 from Rome, is that of standing under the great 
 brick barred-vaulted roofs of the ruined Roman 
 baths, and a strange sense of revival of such 
 memories comes when those Americans, reaching 
 Washington, look up and see above, over the waiting 
 Doom, the great Roman barrel-roof. 
 
 Out in front are three superb, tall bronze-based 
 Venetian masts, such as those which stand in the 
 
 214 
 
THE PERVASIVE CLASSIC 
 
 Piazza San Marco ; and when you see them with their 
 banners bravely spread, you realize there is no 
 way of displaying a flag so well as on a fine Venetian 
 mast. 
 
 In what was intended to be a great open plaza in 
 front of the triumphal-arched station, at the con- 
 fluence of seven thoroughfares of approach, has 
 been placed in a view-breaking spot, a monster 
 fountain meant to honor Columbus and set down as 
 inopportunely as if it were a German *'denkmal." 
 
 Immediately adjoining the Union Station is the 
 new post-office, and with its long fronting serried 
 row of great stone pillars it too is thoroughly classic. 
 And both these buildings are distinctly super- 
 classic in the number of inscriptions which are cut 
 upon them in the apparent hope of being read: 
 although there are so many, that if one really be- 
 gins to read, he will likely enough miss a train in 
 one building or miss a mail in the other ! 
 
 The architectural character of the city is 
 established by the public buildings and by the classic 
 design of the majority of the beautiful and costly 
 palaces put up by individuals or corporations for 
 the use of public-spirited organizations, which have 
 been established in Washington in important and 
 growing number. 
 
 Well out in the Avenue of the Presidents at the 
 comer of S Street, is a classic temple. It is where 
 the Scottish Rite Masons their stately Masonic 
 dome decreed. You are struck with the feeling that 
 you are looking at a temple built for the ages ; a^ d 
 
 215 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 you are not surprised to learn that it was modeled 
 after what the ancients called one of the Seven 
 Wonders of the World, the ''Mausoleum of Hali- 
 carnassus," in Asia Minor. As you look, you see 
 that its pillars and roof have a strange familiarity 
 and you remember the old wood-cut in the geography 
 of childish days of that great wonder of long ago. 
 
 But the building does not have fitting surround- 
 ings, fitting environment, fitting accessories in the 
 way of setting. It is the kind of building which you 
 instinctively think of as, say, at the end of some long 
 avenue of cypresses or standing beside gloomy 
 water. It is austere. It should have a setting of 
 great spaciousness. 
 
 Here the setting is an ordinary city corner lot 
 with this temple rising from the sidewalk edge and 
 with modern apartment houses and residences close 
 about. In spite of this, the majestic strangeness 
 of the architecture gives it astonishing aloofness 
 of effect. 
 
 It sweeps upward from the sidewalk in broad 
 granite steps reaching the basement story with all 
 the effect of its being on top of a knoll. At either 
 side of the entranceway, is a granite -sphynx of 
 monster size, hewn out of the greatest stones ever 
 quarried in America, one weighing one hundred 
 and nine thousand pounds and the other one 
 hundred and ten. To ascend the steps between 
 these huge, solemn, couchant, guarding sphynxes is 
 to feel put back ages ago into the enigmatic, the 
 mysterious, the inscrutable and into the heart of 
 
 216 
 
THE PERVASIVE CLASSIC 
 
 ancient age. You feel a sense as if you might enter 
 here, w^th Dunsauy's "Queen's Enemies." 
 
 Above this plain basement rises a block-like 
 center surrounded by an open square arcade of 
 thirty-three great Ionic columns, each thirty-three 
 feet in height. Naturally there is much of the 
 sjTnbolic in the building; as, that the main floor con- 
 tains thirty-three rooms. 
 
 The floor above contains what is called the cathe- 
 dral and is seventy-five feet by seventy-five, sur- 
 mounted by a pyramidal dome, rising four-sided to 
 a blunt top. 
 
 The Masons feel pride in the fact that the corner- 
 stone of this temple was laid with the trowel and 
 square used by George Washington in laying the 
 corner-stone of the Capitol. 
 
 Always when one thinks of the classic of Wash- 
 ington the mind goes promptly to the Patent Office. 
 For it is one of the perfect buildings of the city. It 
 is now somewhat dull in hue: it shows the smack 
 of age and the relish of the saltness of time, as its 
 hue has dulled with the passage of the decades since 
 it was built. 
 
 It is crowded within the space bounded by 
 Seventh and Ninth and F and G Streets. These 
 streets are even narrowed to hold the great building. 
 On each side of these streets is a beautiful portico of 
 Doric columns, that on F Street, with its portico with 
 double row of columns, having been copied in 
 pattern and size after a portico of the Parthenon. 
 
 The huge columns of this main facade are in a 
 
 217 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 t.louble row aiul the approaohinij: steps sprawl out 
 upon the sidewalk. From this portico southward 
 one looks through a vista bordered by ordinary 
 business buildings on each side, to the insignificant 
 rtM.1 brick of the Center Market. This space oc- 
 cupied by the Patent Office was always planned for 
 something important, though one does not precisely 
 see why. It is always a pleasure to be reminded 
 that this is where L 'Enfant phumed to put a sort of 
 American Notre Dame. 
 
 Over and over one is amazed that in the early 
 days of the capital and the nation, such buildings as 
 the Patent Office should have been built. It is highly 
 worth while to walk entirely around this building, 
 and you notice among other features the great stones 
 set across the colunnis; you may look at the modest 
 simple triglyphs, the modillions and eaves of white 
 stone; the plain Quaker-like pediments. What a 
 tremendous undertaking to haul such loads as this 
 stone represents, over the mud roads of the ISoO's. 
 Washington will never need what many cities 
 possess, a museum crowded with cold white casts of 
 classic forms, for the city itself is classically 
 crowded for all to see as they walk on the streets. 
 After all, much of the ancient heart of Rome is 
 thick to crowdedness with antique forms; temples, 
 and the Arches of Titus and Severus and frag- 
 ments of beauty are within close touch of each other 
 and the familiar line "Why is the Forum crowded?" 
 may be taken in two senses. The ancients did not 
 give spticious approaches to all their great buildings 
 
 218 
 
THE PERVASIVE CLASSIC 
 
 but lived close with many of them as the modern 
 city does. 
 
 One may well say, as to classic Washington, not 
 only that it is a city of white palaces for public uses 
 wherever you look, but that it has been a mistake 
 when any other form was used. The greatest 
 blunder of all was the huge building of the State, 
 War and Navy Departments at the left of the White 
 House, which is almost classic, but in reality incon- 
 gruously nothing but a weak following of Mansart. 
 
 It is planned that the Department of State A\dll 
 soon have a great and beautifully proportioned 
 building on the Jackson Place side of Lafayette 
 Square. Until the change, it is in the southern 
 section of the great pile that has thus far housed it. 
 And in the beginning of the Great War no one 
 thought of architecture when the State Department 
 was flooded with appealing telegrams regarding the 
 many tens of thousands of tourists abroad. It is 
 said that seventy-seven thousand cablegrams of in- 
 quiry or urgency were sent through this Depart- 
 ment. 
 
 The first Secretary of State was Robert Living- 
 stone and Congress gave him two assistants and 
 in those quill-pen days they drove their own quills ! 
 And the affairs of the whole nation were handled by 
 these three men. For a time thirteen books and 
 nine boxes contained the national correspondence 
 and archives. 
 
 The original of the Constitution of the United 
 States is kept in the State Department, as are also 
 
 219 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 the Declaration of Independence and many otlier 
 oflficial documents. Although the building is sup- 
 posedly fire-proof, no one has ever taken that idea 
 literally, but it was left for a Secretary of State far 
 from the top in public estimation, Robert Lansing, 
 to have constructed steel containers to hold in 
 absolute safety the twor most priceless documents 
 referred to. Also kept in this department is the 
 quaint wing-armed chair in which Thomas Jeffer- 
 son, in his little room looking out over Market 
 Street in Philadelphia, wrote the Declaration. 
 
 The perfectly proportioned Treasury Building, 
 which has held its location at the right of the White 
 House ever since President Jackson firmly struck 
 his cane upon the ground to fix its site, still promises 
 to remain there forever. Bulfinch, on a long ago 
 visit to Washington, found that there was consider- 
 able agitation for tearing the then partly finished 
 structure down and building it elsewhere, but the 
 forcefulness of Andrew* Jackson still dominated, 
 and the building remained on its site. 
 
 The building of the Treasury Department gives 
 a fit impression of serenity, spaciousness, safety, 
 •size. It has been a way in Washington, not only 
 to follow classic styles but to model after this or 
 that definite classic building; and one finds on this 
 Treasury copies of the superb pillars of the Temple 
 of Minerva. 
 
 Except in war time, the public are permitted what 
 amounts to liberal access to the building, although 
 only within a very few mid-day hours, and they are 
 
 220 
 
THE PERVASIVE CLASSIC 
 
 permitted to see much of interest and vastly im- 
 portant sights. 
 
 There has recently been constructed directly 
 across the street from the Treasury at the corner 
 of Pennsylvania Avenue and Lafayette Square, a 
 Treasury Annex; a large and important classic 
 building, planned by the architect Cass Gilbert in 
 complete accord with the original Treasury Build- 
 ing and yet with a different treatment of facades, 
 giving a huge colonnade effect up the side of Lafay- 
 ette Square. It is not as isolated from the main 
 Treasury as it looks, for the two buildings are con- 
 nected, under the street, by large subterranean 
 passages which will be the principal channels of 
 communication. It was safe to trust Gilbert with 
 the task of making a design for a building to accord 
 fittingly with the old Treasury and to stand fittingly 
 on an old Square, immediately cornerwise from the 
 White House, because he has a feeling for the old, 
 having chosen his home, as he has, in the charming 
 old gambrel-roofed, ''Cannon-Ball" house in the 
 beautiful village of Ridgefield, Connecticut. 
 
 Washington shows masterpieces of "annexing." 
 The annex wings of the White House, which seem as 
 if they had always been part of the structure, form- 
 ing terraces on the main floor level, were designed 
 by Stanford White and give great entrance halls 
 and cloak rooms on the East Room side, and great 
 offices and conference rooms on the west. 
 
 The two great annexes of the Senate and House, 
 constructed for offices for the members, are great 
 
 221 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 white classic buildings, one at the right and one at 
 the left from the great East front of the Capitol, 
 fittingly filling what was trivially occupied land. 
 Both these buildings are corner set, with spreading 
 steps nosing toward the Capitol. The House build- 
 ing has four hundred and ten rooms, the Senate 
 ninety-nine. And they have under-ground connec- 
 tion with the Capitol through tunnels in which are 
 operated little electric trainways. These two 
 large buildings are not only useful and not only 
 beautiful, but in their similar, balanced architecture, 
 add materially to the beauty of the Capitol. 
 
 So successful are the white buildings of Wash- 
 ington, facing each other in every direction in which 
 one looks, with everywhere Greek meeting Greek, 
 so to speak, that one feels sure that there must be 
 some subtle influence from it all. And at least, it 
 may be said that there is scarcely an example of 
 putting up a building that is not classic, that is not a 
 mistake: such as the Post Office Department on 
 Pennsylvania Avenue, which was thought at the 
 time of its erection — it was then the city postoffice — 
 to represent a distinct advance in taste, with its 
 Norman tower and turrets, on the conventional 
 classic. 
 
 Among the important new buildings on Penn- 
 sylvania Avenue is the Municipal Building which, in 
 the heart of the city as it is, has been of great in- 
 fluence in altering for the better the general neigh- 
 borhood in its vicinity. It is the filling in, one by 
 one, of these great white, stately structures that has 
 
 222 
 
THE PERVASIVE CLASSIC 
 
 changed Washington from a shabby city to a capital 
 worthy of its name. 
 
 That great height is not an advantage in build- 
 ings, but that length and breadth are, is one of the 
 things learned in Washington architecture. There 
 is a dignity about the long colonnaded facades which 
 do not rise in many storied aggressiveness. Wash- 
 ington has had few great public buildings that are 
 out of keeping put upon her streets, but a recent one 
 is the lofty-rising War Risk Building, which looks 
 like a giant filing cabinet unadjusted to its sur- 
 roundings. 
 
 The city has its old temple-like public buildings 
 and its new, masterpieces in both periods. There is 
 a square, often pas-sed on the way to the Congres- 
 sional Library and the Capitol, Judiciary Square, 
 which holds the 'quiet group of law courts of the 
 District of Columbia, well-set, well-built, pillared 
 and porticoed in great distinction even in this city 
 of great temple-inspired buildings. 
 
 One need not feel critical of the Bureau of En- 
 graving near the railroad bridge over the Potomac 
 because it is essentially a workshop with a need for 
 powerful light ; and too, the building is isolated and 
 mars no beauty spot even if it fails to make one. 
 Its uncanny green and lavender lights weirdly draw 
 attention to it. 
 
 The big red Pension Building, belted with its 
 yellow frieze of thousands of marching soldiers on 
 foot and on horseback, represents a fine idea in- 
 spired by Italian friezes. There are times when, 
 
 223 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 looking at it, you are ready to realize that it is a 
 great idea; that the frieze with its soldier-figures 
 and horses and cannon, forever pushing on, is a 
 thorough success; but the ugly deep-red brick and 
 the unfortunate high-gabled roof over-ride all in the 
 appearance of the building. The building itself as 
 a whole, is unattractive and even barn-like. One is 
 is not surprised to learn that General Sheridan 
 spoke impatiently, when he first saw it, and said that 
 his only criticism would be that the building was 
 fireproof! But Sheridan always did have a rather 
 sharp tongue; one remembers that when he was on 
 military duty along the Rio Grande he declared im- 
 patiently that we ought to go to war with Mexico 
 again to compel her to take the region back. " 
 
 The system at the Pension Bureau is said to be 
 so perfect that huge though the building is and 
 immense its records, the pension papers of any 
 soldier may be located within five minutes. Which 
 marks a very different condition from the time when 
 President Lincoln went one night to his Secretary 
 of War and said: ''Stanton, how can I get a pen- 
 sion matter straightened up? I've promised an old 
 mother to fix it for her son and I've spent all day 
 waiting and watching." ''Did you tell them you 
 were the President?" said Stanton. "No," said 
 Lincoln; "that didn't seem just the thing to do; I 
 ought to have got it as a citizen." When Stanton 
 sent word that the President had wasted a day at 
 the Pension ofl5ce there was a frightened five-minute 
 search with immediate results ; the first five-minute 
 
 224 
 
THE PERVASIVE CLASSIC 
 
 pension service in the history of the bureau, but not 
 the last! 
 
 The ancient classic has become good republican 
 form. '*It was Greek to me," is one of the sur- 
 prising phrases of Shakespeare ; and it surprisingly 
 fits this beautiful city of Washington — for here 
 truly the splendor falls on classic walls. 
 
 225 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 BOOKS AND LIBRARIES 
 
 USH-BEAEDED Walt 
 
 Whitman, making his 
 daily round of the Wash- 
 ington military hospitals 
 up on the hills that we 
 now call Moimt Pleas- 
 ant, wnth his pockets tilled 
 with short, sharpened lead 
 pencils and paper wath 
 which he supplied 
 the burning desire 
 on the part of the 
 wounded to write home — 
 what a fascinating picture 
 
 is conjured up ! 
 
 He would sit down beside one after another, talk 
 with them, use all of his w^ill power to radiate 
 strength, and on leaving for another cot he would 
 quietly hand the precious material for writing out 
 of his deep coat-pockets. Somehow, this offers the 
 kindliest and loftiest side of his character, and 
 simple as it is, it is one of the noblest of Washing- 
 ton's memories of literary folk. 
 
 And Whitman wrote ''Captain! My Captain I" 
 
 226 
 
BOOKS AND LIBRARIES 
 
 The words ring like the toUing of great bells. They 
 thrill— they tear the heart down to the terrible close 
 of ''Lying cold and dead." 
 
 Walt Whitman was the poet for the great national 
 tragedy of Lincoln's death: no other American 
 poet has ever reached this height. 
 
 The great events in the city of Washington seem 
 readily to cast somber shadows. The poem in 
 which pleasant Quaker Whittier rose to a first 
 quality and expressed the feeling of the entire 
 North, is his measured denunciation of Webster. 
 I'lchabod" was a sort of handwriting on the wall in 
 its impressiveness. 
 
 Yet by no means all of the literary influences of 
 Washington have been tragic, for one of the most 
 delightful, most cheerful, most humorous figures of 
 fiction came out of Washington environment. In 
 Washing-ton life, Mark Twain saw Colonel Sellers ! 
 The creation of Colonel Sellers was so intimate a 
 triumph of insight that you may still see the im- 
 mortal character, shabby, hopeful, broad-brimmed, 
 string-tied, black-clad, wandering about the lobbies 
 of the minor hotels and the corridors of Congress. 
 
 An association of Hawthorne with Washington 
 came literally through London, where he met the 
 future President Buchanan, then Minister to Great 
 Britain, and was inexpressibly shocked and morti- 
 fied to see, in the presence of British dignitaries 
 standing about, our representative at the Court of 
 St. James, calmly take out a flaming bandanna and 
 tie a knot in the corner as a jog to official memory. 
 
 227 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 Buchanan, as President, still lives in Washington 
 memory as a fine, old gentleman with a frilled shirt, 
 thanks to liis portrait painter, and to a niece whose 
 costumes and manner carried her high in English 
 society. But the quiet writer of New England 
 suffered; and he wrote formally in his journal that 
 Mr. Buchanan told him that he was shortly to re- 
 turn to the United States; and Hawthorne added 
 that it could not be from political aspirations but 
 "from an old man's natural desire for rest." But 
 the very next year Buchanan was elected President ! 
 
 Concord, Hawthorne's home, sent to Washington 
 at the time of the Civil War, a young girl who was 
 destined to become one of the most beloved writers 
 of the country, Louisa May Alcott. She came from 
 her quiet home and she worked as a nurse and the 
 country was stirred by her sketches of hospital life. 
 Undoubtedly the tragedies among which she lived 
 in the hospitals opened her great heart and 
 developed her insight. Julia Ward Howe found 
 inspiration for ''Mine Eyes have seen the glory of 
 the Coming of the Lord" through a Washington 
 visit and going out to see the camps in Virginia ; and 
 she expressed a thrill of intense emotion. 
 
 William Dean Howells, New Euglander by adop- 
 tion, made his entry into literature by way of Presi- 
 dent Lincoln. As the son of a Middle West news- 
 paper editor, he was chosen to write the campaign 
 life of the candidate— the first of the many lives of 
 Lincoln— and as appreciation received the consul- 
 ship in Venice, where he reveled in sunshine and 
 
 228 
 
BOOKS AND LIBRARIES 
 
 romance for the four years of the Civil War. 
 Fifty years later, at the opening of the Great War, 
 when too old himself to fight, he was an active leader 
 among belligerents. 
 
 Joel Barlow, that remarkable man in his re- 
 markable estate of Kalorama, seems to have been 
 the first poet of any importance who made Wash- 
 ington his field, doing so on the grand scale. 
 There are two ways of living the literary life in 
 Washington: a few have found it possible to 
 choose the grand style with practical permanency 
 — Barlow, Henry Adams, John Hay, Mrs. Larz 
 Anderson, Thomas Nelson Page. The others have 
 lived from modest to poor, from the small home to 
 the ''bo'din' house" so characteristic a feature of 
 Washington life. Of this class, few have aimed at 
 a more than temporary home here. But practically 
 every literary man and woman comes to the capital 
 for at least a time. 
 
 Within a few years of Barlow's ''Columbiad," 
 which was an epic poem of large size, elaborately 
 published, inspired by the national history and its 
 early heroes. Barlow's contemporary poet, Timothy 
 Dwight, the great President of Yale, inspired by the 
 burning of Washington, wrote feelingly of that 
 event. Yet in spite of all this the English poet 
 Keats wrote to his brother George in America, in 
 1818, expressing the profound hope that one of his 
 American-born nephews should be the first American 
 poet! and he puts his hope into rhyme, with its: 
 "Little child o' th' western wild." 
 
 229 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 That "Undo Tom's Cabin" ^vas first published 
 in so Son thorn sympathizing a oity, is one 
 of the romarkabk^ bits of AVashingtonian book hn-e. 
 It appear6d hero serially and did not instantly at- 
 tract sneh attention as its after history \varranted. 
 
 Yet not far from that time Owen Meredith, who 
 was here in eonneetion with the British Embassy, 
 then on 11 Street, wrote "Lucilo" which, now for- 
 gotten, was for years read by everybody. 
 
 Newspaper correspondents have always been a 
 feature of Washington life, and old-timers liked to 
 say that the one that attracted most widespread at- 
 tention through his letters to New York was the dan- 
 dihed N. P. Willis. 
 
 Ren Perley Poore was not only for years noted as 
 a correspondent, he being gifted with a remarkable 
 sense of news value and readiness of expression, but 
 he was also never at rest from turning out some 
 compilation or reminiscences. 
 
 One who was rctfilly much more important thaai 
 AVillis was the woman who wrote under the 
 pseudonym of "Gail Hamilton." whose fame and in- 
 thieuce were nation-wide. "Carp." sent out for 
 years a succession of highly interesting letters. 
 And it ought to be remembered, credit ought to be 
 given for it, that correspondents such as these and 
 others of their general period, profoundly felt their 
 sense of responsibility to the nation and stood 
 absolutely for truth and good Americanism. They 
 kept Americans up to the mark, they handled no 
 
 230 
 
BOOKS AND LIBRARIES 
 
 propaganda, tlioy had keen eyes, cleverness and 
 humor, and their readers profited by it all. 
 
 That was a time when newspaper rivals were in 
 the habit of saying cutting things regarding one 
 another. AMien one of them flamboyantly wrote 
 that he had *'a keen rapier to prick all fools and 
 knaves, '» one older in the harness retorted that his 
 friends had better take it away for he might hurt 
 himself. 
 
 Among correspondents of recent years have been 
 Frances E. Leupp, Irvin S. Cobb, Samuel C. Blythe; 
 and then one remembers that among the most recent 
 of Washington correspondents was that man of 
 many activities, William Jennings Bryan. 
 
 A large part of the American literary horizon was 
 filled some years ago by the voluminous novels of 
 Mrs. E. D. N. Southworth, and the low frame house, 
 set against the sidewalk and fairly overhanging the 
 canal and the Potomac, in which she wrote and died, 
 is still standing in Georgetown, on Prospect Street! 
 When she went there to live, it was a neighborhood 
 of convent gardens. It is now shabby but it still 
 looks over the valley at the green Virginia hills. 
 
 Two distinguished women who as novelists re- 
 mained always in close touch witli Washington were 
 Francis Hodgson Burnett and Mrs. Burton Harri- 
 son; both of them have had homes here and both 
 wrote of the city. 
 
 Two recent successful authors, associated with 
 Washington, have used the city as a scene. Sin- 
 
 231 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 clair Lewis wrote "Main Street" and used closing 
 scenes in it drawn from the life of the crowds of 
 young women who icame here for government office 
 work, during the Oreat War. He pictured the 
 cramped quarters of their lives and the curious mix- 
 tures from vastly different kinds of life, from 
 different strata, and from different States, and the 
 loneliness and weariness of it all. Temple Bailey 
 has written in Washington for years such popular, 
 cheerful books as "A Tin Soldier" and "The 
 Trumpeter Swan," picturing the happy, sunny 
 sides of Washington life in her happy, sunny way. 
 
 Among the most charming of the literary associa- 
 tions of Washington is Irving 's regard for it. 
 This was apparently caused by Irving 's having been 
 born at the very close of the Revolutionary War, 
 that he was named for George Washington, that as 
 a small boy he was patted on the shoulder by Wash- 
 ington, and given a few friendly words. Always 
 thereafter he felt pleasantly drawn to the city which 
 Washington founded, and his presence aided 
 materially in making a fine atmosphere. When the 
 Government sent him as Minister to Spain, it was 
 fully recognized that there could not be a better 
 representative ; and Irving was able to turn the ap- 
 pointment into literary experience. In Washington, 
 Irving -seemed always to be on hand to meet the 
 best and ablest among \dsitors. He met Dickens 
 here and he met Thackeray. 
 
 Pleasant it is to remember at least one bon mot 
 connected with him, while in this city. It was told 
 
 232 
 
BOOKS AND LIBRARIES 
 
 by President Monroe's daughter. Thackeray and 
 Washington Irving were introduced by her, and the 
 conversation turned to a new book in which, as 
 Irving told, the heroine walked for miles in her 
 stockings in the rain. At which Thackeray re- 
 marked that it was ''shoeicidal." 
 
 Dickens did not like Washington. The place was 
 not attractive to him. It was an unkempt village. 
 It was rough. Along the Potomac were tidal 
 meadows. Its few good buildings were lost, to him, 
 among the rough and tumble. All this was what 
 he was looking for and therefore what he found and 
 described. He, in turn, in spite of his genius, is 
 spoken of in the memoirs of the time as an over- 
 dressed cockney. 
 
 Thackeray was of different order. For him, 
 Washington put its best foot foremost. He in turn 
 recognized what was best in the America of that 
 period: its large proportionate number of able, 
 educated and even cultured people. He would not 
 write critically of the country. He wrote little of 
 it even in personal letters. The one thing that 
 really interested him and in regard to which he 
 wrote extravagantly — mostly to women friends — 
 from every city he visited, was the money he was 
 making. The box-office returns gave him the key for 
 appreciation. His contribution the day after leaving 
 Washington in 1856 was a letter to a woman friend 
 in England, declaring that owing to his profits here 
 he expected to lay up, by the time he was fifty — 
 twenty thousand pounds ! 
 
 233 
 
THE BOOK OP WASHINGTON 
 
 Among other English celebrities, James Bryce is 
 associated only with the British Embassy, for al- 
 though he wrote importantly regarding our Com- 
 monwealth it was not while he was Ambassador. 
 John Morley, much though he has written on a wide 
 variety of subjects, made no impression with any 
 comments he may have given, with the exception of 
 his one interesting declaration, grouping Niagara 
 Falls and Theodore Roosevelt as two great natural 
 forces ! 
 
 The White House itself has been in recent years 
 busied with the publishers. American Presidents 
 have had royalties of their own! — publishers' 
 royalties. The many serious books written by 
 Roosevelt and by Wilson make an imposing shelf. 
 Yet Roosevelt's personal taste seems to have gone, 
 largely, toward humor among authors. He loved to 
 call writers to his table at the White House and 
 joyfully wrote a letter to the author whenever he 
 liked a book. He cordially invited Mr. Dooley to 
 visit him and wrote: "Dooley, especially when he 
 writes about Teddy Rosenfelt, has no more inter- 
 ested and amused reader than said Rosenfelt him- 
 self." 
 
 Roosevelt wrote gravely of John Hay at the time 
 of his death: *'His 'Life of Lincoln' is a monument, 
 and of its kind, 'His Castilian Days' is perfect." 
 Did John Hay ever tell him that the publishers would 
 not touch the Castilian book till he, the author, paid 
 for publication? What a contrast between this and 
 
 234 
 
BOOKS AND LIBRARIES 
 
 the almost unexampled sum paid in advanxje for his 
 "Life of Lincoln." 
 
 Always and easily one drifts back to thoughts of 
 long-ago literary times. One thinks of Oliver Wen- 
 dell Holmes coming down to Washington and Antie- 
 tam to look for his wounded son ; profoundly anxious, 
 but noting from the car window for an article for the 
 Atlantic, an interesting point regarding near and far 
 objects moving fast or slow. That same son of his 
 is here now, on the Supreme Bench. One wonders 
 what he would write if he could be here now — the 
 keen little doctor — and see his son sitting gowned 
 among the judges. The man who could say all he 
 did about old Governor Hancock '*all cock-a- 
 hoop" would see things with a keen eye here 
 now! 
 
 Hawthorne wrote from Washington with some 
 good words about Lincoln, but with, on the whole, 
 such savage criticism that his publishers would not 
 make public this part of his writing until years after 
 both Lincoln and Hawthorne were dead. According 
 to Hawthorne, Lincoln had been permitted by fate 
 to ''fling his lank personality into the chair of 
 State." He wrote of his "awkwardness, his un- 
 couthness." "His coat and pantaloons were un- 
 brushed," and his hair had "apparently been ac- 
 quainted with neither brush nor comb that morn- 
 ing"; and he felt sure that Lincoln had worn no 
 night cap! With the presence of Buchanan's ban- 
 danna and the absence of Lincoln's night-cap, the 
 
 235 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 fastidious Hawthorne was easily shocked. How- 
 ever, even Hawthorne condescendingly admitted that 
 Lincoln had a sort of tact and wisdom and that ' ' his 
 physiognomy, as coarse a one as you would meet in 
 the length and breadth of the States, is redeemed, 
 illumined, softened, and heightened, by a kindly 
 though serious look out of his eyes and an expres- 
 sion of homely sagacity." 
 
 Another case of delayed publication had to do in 
 a heart-breaking way with Thomas Nelson Page, and 
 it probably affected the literary output of his entire 
 life. The best of his literary work has been the two 
 superb short stories, **Meh Lady" and '^Marse 
 Chan. " * * Meh Lady ' ' was accepted by the Century 
 some forty years or more ago and held in the edi- 
 torial pigeon-hole for a dozen years : it never seeming 
 for all that time, to the editor, to be worth while, in 
 comparison to many an ordinary story. It was 
 finally put in to fill a gap, and instantly became 
 recognized as one of the greatest American triumphs 
 of fiction. But the depressing delay must have in- 
 fluenced Page's ambition and his life. 
 
 An interesting literary figure of long ago was 
 Father Pise, for a time chaplain of the United States 
 Senate, a friend of Henry Clay, a very goodlooking 
 young priest, a poet of Italian parentage. He be- 
 longed over at old St. Joseph's, still existent in 
 Oreenwich Village, New York, and was so popular 
 that he preached to standing room. A rich young 
 woman of Washington made Father Pise an oifer of 
 marriage, whereupon he quietly advised her *Ho give 
 
 236 
 
I 
 
 BOOKS AND LIBRARIES 
 
 hei* heart to God, her money to the poor, and her 
 hand to the man who asked for it." 
 
 For many years, and of late increasingly so, the 
 city of Washington has attracted great numbers of 
 scientific and historic investigators, through her li- 
 brary facilities and scientific societies and founda- 
 tions. The Cosmos Club is the special gathering 
 ground for this life, a club occupjdng the two ad- 
 joining houses of the Madisons and Mark Hanna in 
 Lafayette Square. This abundant scientific life has 
 had much to do with keeping up the standard and the 
 number of bookstores of the city. The bookstores 
 are real bookstores, not novelty shops disguised by a 
 name, and customers find the stocks full and those 
 in charge conversant with what they are selling. 
 This is remindful that in early days the city had a 
 bookshop, Taylor's, where readers congregated to 
 discuss books much as they did in the Old Corner 
 Book Store in Boston. The shop was on Pennsyl- 
 vania Avenue and the proprietor always kept his 
 show-window curtains drawn so the light would not 
 fade the bindings. He also had a bust of Sir Walter 
 Scott over his door; and likely enough he did not 
 know that Scott, kind-hearted man that he was and 
 friend of Washington Irving, so allowed the animos- 
 ity of war to curdle his blood that on learning of 
 the burning of Washington by the British he wrote : 
 "It was our business to have given them a fearful 
 memento that the babe unborn should have remem- 
 bered'': rather blood-thirsty for the romance-loving 
 Scotchman I 
 
 237 
 
THE BOOK OP WASHINGTON 
 
 A large white stone building at the junction of 
 Massachusetts and New York Avenues, where there 
 are also other thoroughfares entangling about the 
 park-like area in which it is built, is the Public Li- 
 brary of the District of Columbia. It is one of the 
 busiest of libraries and its average of books is highly- 
 chosen; it is a library of dignified, well-managed 
 usefulness. It is of recent establishment and its use 
 is the more marked because of the presence in the 
 city of the greatest of all American libraries, the 
 Library of Congress. 
 
 The Library of Congress is within a great palatial 
 building of the style of the Italian Renaissance. It 
 stands on level land at no great distance from the 
 Capitol, and facing it with no other building be- 
 tween. It is nearly five hundred feet in frontage. 
 It is three gre-at stories in height and of architecture 
 that at once draws the attention. Next to the Capi- 
 tol itself and the White House, it is by far the build- 
 ing which visitors most desire to see. Perhaps it 
 was in expectation of this popular interest that the 
 building was not given the usual solemnity of a 
 library but the gorgeousness of a palace. 
 
 By law there must be two copies sent here of 
 every book published in America, and in this building 
 is the copyright office for the country. To this large 
 total are added rare publications and manuscripts 
 from all parts of the world. Every attention is 
 given to readers of research and they come from near 
 and far to profit by the wonderful opportunities of 
 such a library of reference. And always there is 
 
 238 
 
BOOKS AND LIBRARIES 
 
 some important librarian at hand, ready to give ad- 
 vice and privileges. 
 
 The building is topped by a dome of black copper 
 with gold-leaf panels. There are, in all, some two 
 thousand A\indows with those near the books hermet- 
 ically sealed to keep out dust. But the memorable 
 features of the building are the grand staircase and 
 the rotunda. The grand staircase, abou.t which is 
 lavished the gorgeousness of glowing mural paint- 
 ings, a riot of symbolism and color, the great areas 
 of soft mosaic, the glow of rich Italian marbles, pillar 
 after pillar, arcade beyond arcade, the gleam of 
 bronze — all mark an effort to outdo anything else 
 that ever was done. The architect sought to outdo 
 the Venetian glori&s of the Doge's staircase, the 
 Roman splendor of Raphael's Stanzia, and to out- 
 shine the fading glories of Fontainebleau. Seldom 
 have architects had such an opportunity. And who 
 shall say they have not achieved an American re- 
 sult! 
 
 It is the great quiet rotunda that is the heart of 
 the building, with its solemnity, its bookishness, its 
 obvious usefulness as the center for readers and 
 reading, walled in by hidden and tributary masses 
 of books, rising tier on tier, its galleries and alcoves 
 all grouped about the central, busy, working desk 
 of many librarians. 
 
 The library is primarily for the use of Congress- 
 men, and whatever they ask for must be promptly 
 gathered. All sorts of requests come, for there are 
 are all sorts of Congressmen. One day there came 
 
 239 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 a demand for **all that the libraiy can send on the 
 subject of Free Trade," and this seems to have 
 marked the record for quantity on any one order. 
 Not infrequently come requests for anecdotes with 
 which to ilhistrate some speech and they are likely 
 to specify a dozen or a score ! 
 
 Unceasingly busy in gathering scientific material 
 and scientific books from all parts of the world is an 
 institution known by name to every American, the 
 Smithsonian. And the amazing fact is that the 
 founder was an Englishman. And still another 
 amazing fact is that although he never saw this 
 country, his tomb is here. 
 
 He was a son of the mighty Duke of Northumber- 
 land. But as Bernard Shaw expresses it in one of 
 his plays, any one may be the son of a duke but 
 the important point is, was his mother the duch- 
 ess? 
 
 The son of the duchess, in this case, was that 
 white-horsed Earl Percy, who led reinforcements 
 to the British at Lexington, and who throughout 
 the terrible retreat bravely exposed himself and his 
 great inheritance of title to the shots of the sharp- 
 shooting farmers. He had chosen the white horse 
 which so drew the fire of the xVmericans — its color is 
 remembered in eastern Massachusetts to this day — 
 because of an ancient association of the North- 
 umberland family with a white horse. 
 
 The young brother, whose mother was not the 
 duchess, felt his position bitterly. He had no right 
 to the name of Percv or Northumberland, so in his 
 
 ;M0 
 
BOOKS AND LIBRARIES 
 
 intensity of bitterness he took the name of Smith- 
 son, Smith's son, as if he were a nobody. 
 
 In his will, he described himself as *'Son to Hugh, 
 Duke of Northumberland, and Elizabeth heiress of 
 the Plungerfords of Studley, and niece of Charles 
 the Proud Duke of Somerset" — unusual details to 
 make public but showing how he grasped at family 
 pride. Through his mother he traced his lineage 
 back to Henry VII. and collaterally to Lady Jane 
 Grey. ''The best blood of England flows in my 
 veins, but this avails me not" he wrote. His 
 mother's husband's name was Macie and for many 
 years the son, at Oxford and in traveling about 
 Europe, used the name of James Lewis Macie. He 
 was thirtj^-five years old, this man of mystery, be- 
 fore he found that Smithson was a Northumber- 
 land name, and assumed it. 
 
 His bent was strongly toward science, his 
 specialties being mineralogy and geology. He be- 
 came a Fellow of the Royal Society and went from 
 country to country, from city to city, Rome, Geneva, 
 Paris, Florence, Genoa. He died self-exiled in 
 Genoa, a rich man, in 1829. He had had money left 
 him from various sources, one of which made him 
 think it right to offer a chance of it to a nephew, or 
 any child of the nephew, ''legitimate or illegiti- 
 mate" as he bitterly expressed it. 
 
 But he had reasons for being sure that the 
 nephew would not live and so he wrote the following 
 strange boast as he planned the future of his 
 fortune ; 
 
 24X 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 **My name shall live in the memory of man when 
 the titles of the Northumberlands and the Percys 
 are extinct and forgotten. ' ' 
 
 It seems almost incredible, but it is literally true, 
 that before giving all his money to America he had 
 decided to give it to the Royal Society. But being 
 a man easily embittered he was angered when the 
 Royal Society refused to publish one of his scientific 
 papers; hence the sending of his fortune for this 
 building on the Washington Mall. 
 
 For he wrote his will, in 1826, declaring. "I be- 
 queath the whole of my fortune to the United States 
 of America, to found at Washington, under the 
 name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establish- 
 ment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge 
 among men.'* 
 
 He died at Genoa in 1829, and almost a million 
 dollars became available for the institution iri 
 America, much of the money coming as literal gold 
 sovereigns. 
 
 Remembering the gloomy old castle of Alnwick, 
 the seat of the Northumberlands, one at the same 
 time remembers the pseudo-medieval towers and 
 windows of the Smithsonian Institution, built in 
 1855. The giver of this romantic and remarkable 
 bequest to the United States was buried in Genoa. 
 But in 1902, the Italian government needed the 
 burying-ground and ordered the bodies removed. 
 On which President Roosevelt — of course it was 
 Roosevelt! — ^had the body brought to America, 
 sending a modern man of science, Alexander 
 
 242 
 
BOOKS AND LIBRARIES 
 
 Graham Bell, to escort the body and thus do honor 
 to the man who with his strange bequest did so much 
 for American science. 
 
 So the bitterly unhappy Smithson came to the 
 United States after all, and his body was placed in 
 a tomb of classical shape in a room just by the 
 entrance of the Smithsonian Building. 
 
 The Smithsonian shifts its gatherings consider- 
 ably, sending many articles to the National Museum, 
 which is under its control, and sending many of its 
 books to the Library of Congress. Just at present, 
 the Smithsonian building, from which important ex- 
 peditions are sent throughout the w^orld and which 
 is the center of scientific investigation in America, 
 has a scholarly but rather empty air, and in fact 
 there is only one exhibit of popular interest, the 
 curious statue of George Washington that was made 
 by Greenough long ago for the Capitol, and which 
 has gradually been tucked more and more out of 
 sight after being looked upon as an epoch-making 
 work. The Smithsonian has other quiet corners 
 that might take in a few more of the city's statues 
 to advantage! 
 
 Greenough put Washington in a classic chair and 
 left his honored form almost unclad above the waist 
 — although Washington was always one of tlie most 
 particular of men as to his clothes. 'Congress had 
 tommissionod Greenough to make a "full-length 
 pedestrian'*: and this was the result. 
 
 At first it was proudly placed out in front of the 
 Capitol as the greatest triumph of American art; 
 
 243 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 but GreenoHgh's craftsmanship unconsciously seems 
 to fit the unfair jibe of Tom Moore on Washington 
 himself, lines written years before, when the Irish 
 poet was visiting the city and failed to make an 
 impression. '^ Nature designed him for a hero's 
 mold, but e'er she cast him let the stuff run cold," 
 wrote Moore; and somehow this absurd heroic- 
 sized statue makes one think of it, for the half-clad 
 man sits sandal-shod, stiff and ponderous, with one 
 arm pointed aloft in Jove-like heaviness. No 
 wonder the peasants of Italy prostrated themselves 
 in worship as the statue was slowly dragged along 
 the vineyard-bordered roads to the sea-coast by 
 many yoke of Tuscan oxen. 
 
 244 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE CHAEM OF THE CITY 
 
 A 
 
 CITY of livable loveli- 
 ness, Washington is 
 more and more be- 
 coming. It 
 
 xg,. -u IS a 
 matter of wealth 
 and taste showing itself in 
 houses, in streets, in parks, 
 in trees and shrubs and set- 
 ting. 
 z^A^^-'j^^-ff^^ There is in this 
 
 ^^pi4'^^;^^'!l&''^n^^'^ city a richness of 
 
 greenery even in 
 ^^^^fe^-,, —winter. It is not 
 quite a Southern city 
 for the Southerners or 
 ' ^^ a Northern city for the 
 
 Northerners ; it is between the two with the charac- 
 teristics of both, but is more of the South than the 
 North. 
 
 There is much of English ivy on houses and 
 garden walls: these high brick walls being a strik- 
 ing and charming feature, built around many a 
 ''garden enclosed." This very year that I write 
 
 245 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 two of the oldest walled gardens are being de- 
 molished, that of the Decatur house and that of the 
 Webster-Corcoran house. Often the garden walls 
 are topped with ornamental urns or balls. Often 
 there are high iron fences. There is many a hedge 
 of box. There is many a clipped box-bush, huge 
 and of glorious growth. There is much of privet 
 hedge, clipped formally. 
 
 The city is richly planted with trees, the smoke- 
 less condition making the trees thrive. They are 
 largely maples. There are miles of ginkgos in 
 busy thoroughfares, exotic but green and lusty. 
 There are streets downtown planted with sycamores 
 and others lined with plane trees. There are great 
 numbers of glossy-leaved magnolias growing in 
 astonishingly small nooks — a tree commonly 
 associated with stretches of wild swamp; it is the 
 magnolia glauca, not a deciduous magnolia but green 
 throughout the winter, and in summer heavy with 
 sweetness. The thoroughfares are thick-lined with 
 large trees which seem to grow miraculously be- 
 tween asphalt and concrete, in small rectangles of 
 open ground between pavement and sidewalks, 
 where oftentimes their roots form toe-stubbing con- 
 tortions. Many a street, notably New Hampsliire 
 Avenue, is a long Gothic nave stretching through 
 shadowy over-arching tree boughs to a vanishing 
 point of distant shaded beauty. 
 
 The city authorities and not the property owners 
 see to the curb-side planting and give care to the 
 trees, giving avenues of long, over-arching uniform- 
 
 246 
 
THE CHARM OF THE CITY 
 
 ity. Romantic wistarias garland up the front of old- 
 time houses or hang over the tall brick walls, and 
 often the walls are on slightly-terraced land a little 
 higher than the sidewalks. In gardens, by porches 
 and drooping over stone walls, early comes the 
 sweet yellow jasmine* and soon there is a revel of 
 crocuses, tulips, the iris and roses. Here and there 
 is a garden on top of the wing of a private house, 
 with trellis and awnings and formal trees in pots, 
 and in one place I noticed a garden enclosed within 
 a circle, some three hundred feet in diameter, of 
 cedar trees. 
 
 Spring strikes Warshington into a fairyland of 
 pale green and pink, and there are years when the 
 magnolia shows its blossoms as early as the first 
 week in March — not the dark-leaved solemn kind 
 that grows so freely over the city, but the deciduous 
 kind which blossoms early. Then the forsythia sud- 
 denly comes out in a haze of pale yellow over the 
 whole town. The tulip beds in the terraces at the 
 Capitol suddenly flame into yellow and red. 
 
 Immediate-ly northward of the city is Rock Creek 
 Park, ^^dth its miles of sinuous drives, of long levels 
 or of curving slopes ; and always beautiful ; in sum- 
 mer thick with massed greenery; in w^inter a glory 
 of vines and trees. The general effect is of a deep 
 and narrow valley. The trees are mostly tall, and 
 the effect is in great degree owing to the preponder- 
 ance of oak; besides the oaks there are whole hill- 
 sides of great beeches, and there are tulip trees. It 
 is a great natural woodland, through w^hich lead long 
 
 247 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 drives. Everywhere you are in sight of a rushing 
 rock-bedded creek. Eocks border the road, or 
 stretch into the stream or jut from the water in 
 sheer irregularity or in shelving levels. Always 
 beside the long-winding road the mazy creek un- 
 ravels. It is an inspired parkway. It is a case of 
 beauty unadorned being then adorned the most. 
 The well-surfaced roads wind through the ravine as 
 if they were part of nature's original achievement. 
 Now and then you go splashing through a ford. 
 There are miles of bridlepaths laid out apart from 
 the drives, threading in and out among the trees 
 along the steep banks, through beds iuid banks of 
 laurel. 
 
 An easy approach to the park is through the Zoo, 
 which is controlled by the Smithsonian; and as you 
 drive along you pass examples of zoo treasure, four- 
 footed or two, feathered or furred. Prettiest of all 
 are the deer, looking at you wonder-eyed among the 
 trees. 
 
 The great hill-top section, coming to be generally 
 known as Mount Pleasant, is steadily becoming the 
 most attractive residential part of the city. There 
 is superb building in that district, there is a revel 
 of beautiful homes and apartment houses and hotels, 
 huge caravansaries. Instead of building with dark 
 red brick, which the AVashington of a quarter of a 
 century ago used freely, this new part is a region 
 of white, and the white promises to remain white 
 for the city has little smoke to blacken. And over 
 yonder across the deep valley you see the earliest 
 
 248 
 
THE CHARM OF THE CITY 
 
 towers of the new cathedral rising white and beauti- 
 ful; its location suggesting the English Durham, 
 above the stream and the tree-top greenery. 
 
 One apartment house is noticeable for its Lucca 
 della Robbia effects inset upon its walls in green 
 and buff, in relief above the charming windows. 
 There are fine new Georgian mansions in great num- 
 ber, of stone or stone and brick, built speculatively 
 as is the frequent Washington way, ready for pur- 
 chase and immediate use by incoming public officials 
 desirous of being settled and able to entertain with- 
 out worry or waiting. 
 
 Reaching Mount Pleasant by way of the Avenue 
 of the Presidents, Sixteenth Street, past the beauti- 
 ful buildings of the lower stretches, such as the 
 building of the National Geographical Society which, 
 with its seven hundred and fifty-thousand member- 
 ship, is the largest educational and scientific society 
 in the world, you come up here on the summit of the 
 hill to a line of interesting new mansions built to 
 be the homes of various embassies. The first is that 
 of the French, a large building of stone, very new 
 and fresh, of a Frenchy, light gray; a house with 
 a high little unadorned mansard above and with 
 great French windows below, making a queer-shaped 
 corner, a house like a flatiron with its blunt end to 
 the street. 
 
 The house of the Polish Legation is large and im- 
 pressive without being precisely attractive. The 
 Spanish Embassy has a great double house, in a for- 
 mal setting of clipped bushes with stone and terra 
 
 249 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 cotta front; of the style of the charming French 
 Eenaissance, with little wrought-iron balconies. 
 Here, too, is the home of the Cubans, of delightful- 
 looking light stone, in the style of the Italian Renais- 
 sance, and here too is the Swiss. All of these mar- 
 kedly outshine the large, stodgy building of the Eng- 
 lish Embassy on Connecticut Avenue. 
 
 Separated from the French Embassy by a great 
 open lot, for this is a district newly building up, is a 
 house built for the home of Mrs. Marshall Field. 
 It is a joyous Venetian palace of stucco and terra 
 cotta and marble, and with loggia-like stone bal- 
 conies. It is of large size with tile roof and pointed 
 windows in groups. 
 
 The street is the American meridian line, origi- 
 nally intended to be the line from which longitude 
 was to be measured east and west. In the early days 
 of our history we thought it would not be patriotic 
 to use Greenwich for longitude. Many an old map 
 shows this marking of longitude from this line. 
 From this point on the hill it is especially noticeable 
 that the Avenue of the Presidents leads to where it 
 faces the very center of the White House, across the 
 interruption of Lafayette Park, and that the Wash- 
 ington Monument is not precisely on this line as it 
 was intended to be. 
 
 Across the street from the French Embassy is 
 Meridian Park, entered by an arched stairway lead- 
 ing up to an abutment wall. From the summit one 
 gets a splendid panoramic view of the city and its 
 surroundings. And an impression is confirmed, 
 
 250 
 
THE CHARM OF THE CITY 
 
 which you have before this gained, that there is a 
 surprisingly small number of church spires in sight 
 for a large city; and you also notice the fortunate 
 absence of factory chimneys ; and the great quantity 
 of billo\vy waving green of the many trees of the city. 
 
 Thackeray, who knew the world as few men knew 
 it, liked Washington and wrote to a friend : * ' The 
 place has a Wiesbaden air — there are politics and 
 gayeties straggling all over it"; an observation 
 which remains true to this day. Others have liked 
 to make pleasant remarks regarding ^ ' the feeling of 
 elbow room," 'Hhe gentle easy-going social 
 customs," ''the easy soft-going manner of the 
 natives." And this is one of the times that one is 
 reminded that an important charm of the city comes 
 from the fact that Americans predominate just as 
 the French do in Paris or the Italians in Rome. 
 
 So much gayety is in evidence in Washington! 
 Awnings are out from door to curb at one house, 
 limousines are gathered about another, caterers' 
 vans are unloading huge round table tops and gilt 
 chairs at another, flowers and ices are going in far- 
 ther on in the street ; ladies coifed and white gloved 
 go by in luxury, all bound somewhere ; uniforms and 
 gold lace are to be seen — and all this for luncheon, 
 then at reception hours; and at dinner hours and 
 dancing hours the whole social city seems to be in 
 a stir and preliminarily in evidence on the streets. 
 
 It is a city of delightful flower stores, which add 
 much to the city's charm. It is a city of much for- 
 mal entertaining, and as a result maintains many 
 
 251 
 
THE BOOK OF. WASHINGTON 
 
 flower shops. One shop specializes in unique set- 
 ting for a few flowers, one has a little automobile 
 only three feet long, driven by a dwarf in buttons and 
 a high hat, who speeds with violets and small bou- 
 quets, adored by all the children in the neighborhood. 
 One shop has exotic birds free in its windows among 
 the flowers. 
 
 Sometimes there is still to be seen what Oliver 
 Wendell Holmes loved to call ^'a pole and a pair." 
 Sometimes it is an open landau, sometimes it is a 
 glistening coupe, sometimes the most correct closed 
 carriage, with a quick-stepping pair, and always it 
 is a certificate of old aristocracy. Quite as old-timey 
 but adding only a touch of quaintness to the city 
 streets are the mule-teams, little mules jangling with 
 brass-studded harness and driven by negro laborers. 
 
 A great gala feature which is made possible 
 through the predominating whiteness of the public 
 buildings is the night illumination of the city, when 
 the huge dome of the Capitol stands like a fairy 
 palace in the surrounding blackness, illumined by in- 
 visible searhlights, when the White House shimmers 
 with an unearthly whiteness, when even the State, 
 War and Navy Building, enormous and misshapen 
 as it is, takes on spiritual glory under the powerful 
 white lights, and when the Washington shaft be- 
 comes a tall white miracle. Then everything in- 
 significant, and every thought of insignificance van- 
 ishes, and only the dazzling white glory remains. 
 
 The feature of most unique charm in this city is a 
 line of important semi-public buildings standing to- 
 
 252 
 
THE CHARM OF THE CITY 
 
 gether on the west side of Seventeenth Street, fac- 
 ing the Executive Grounds, between the White House 
 and the river. Together they make an unrivalled 
 group of immense public importance. Each of the 
 buildings represents the interests of the American 
 people as distinguished from the Government. Each 
 of the buildings has its ramifying interest and mem- 
 bership in all parts of the country and one of them 
 reaches into all Latin-America as well and influences 
 every one of its nations. They stand on the principal 
 approach to the Lincoln Memorial, the Mall and the 
 Parkway. 
 
 Immediately before coming to the first of what 
 may be called these altruistic palaces, another large 
 and costly building is passed, and it is a pleasure to 
 find that its purposes are alike in altruism for it is 
 the Corcoran Art Gallery. 
 
 First of these three buildings, all of them new and 
 each of them in its own way beautiful, is that of the 
 national headquarters of the American Red Cross. 
 It is a dignified, wide building of white marble, set 
 in lawns and with broad central outside steps lead- 
 ing up to a high pillared portico. It is a splendor 
 of white simplicity and its fine central stairway leads 
 to the second floor where is a great assembly room, 
 decorated in white with crimson hangings, the 
 familiar colors of the Red Cross. This building was 
 one of the busiest in the world during the Great 
 War, busy with good deeds. 
 
 A most remarkable feature of its history, is that 
 it was finished and dedicated, "In Memory of the 
 
 253 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 Heroic Women of the Civil War," the united women 
 of the North and of the Confederacy, almost at the 
 moment that the great European struggle began, as 
 if Fate had a direct hand in its conception and com- 
 pletion. 
 
 The next building, the center of the three, is Mem- 
 orial Continental Hall, the national headquarters of 
 the D. A. E., the Daughters of the American Revolu- 
 tion ; or as Geddes the British Ambassador, the first 
 Britisher formally received in the building, termed 
 them in beginning a recent address in their large 
 theater-like meeting hall, 'Hhe *'D. A. R.-lings,"by 
 which unexpected burst of humor he won instantan- 
 eous and reciprocal affection from the patriotic la- 
 dies. 
 
 This beautifully equipped building, semi-public in 
 character and on a grand scale, with its direct heri- 
 tage from the founders of the nation, was fittingly 
 offered and accepted for a meeting place of the re- 
 cent Congress of Nations that met to discuss the 
 wars and peace of the world. It is a fine thing to 
 realize that it is a women's building that was thus 
 used. 
 
 Last of the row is a building which instantly at- 
 tracts the attention, the interest. It is markedly 
 Spanish in effect. Its front is square-lined except 
 for the three-arched entrance and has a low-set ef- 
 fect, as if of a city gate. Once seen, the building is 
 never to be confused with any other— an excellent 
 thing in buildings. It is the building of the Pan- 
 American Union. 
 
 254 
 
THE CHARM OF THE CITY 
 
 It stands only a little higher than the street level, 
 and between it and the sidewalk is a paved plaza over 
 which is the wide approach, and on either side are 
 sunken gardens and marble balustrades of great 
 beauty. 
 
 The building represents the union for commercial, 
 political and peaceful purposes of the twenty-one re- 
 publics of South and North America. It is the result 
 of a remarkable movement toward carrying out the 
 long-ago enunciated Monroe Doctrine. Thus far 
 it has justified its foundation. The money for its 
 building was given by Andrew Carnegie, assisted 
 by contributions from all the republics. It gives 
 a headquarters, at the same time formal and infor- 
 mal, to the twenty-one nations of the two Americas, 
 in the capital of the greatest. 
 
 From the first it is evident that the building is 
 rich in the decorative and unusual. On either side 
 of the broad approach is a huge urn-shaped lantern. 
 Against the front of the building are great sculptures 
 above which are groupings in relief. And above the 
 suggested square towers a pair of banners float pic- 
 torially. 
 
 Enter through the bronze doors and you are in a 
 vestibule corridor of great height which is most ef- 
 fectively designed to cross the whole front of the 
 building, giving an effect of receiving the world with 
 dignity. 
 
 You see from this great corridor that the building 
 is a hollow square enclosing an exotic garden, a pa- 
 tio, with fountain and richness of tropical palms 
 
 255 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 and foliage, with birds, parrots and macaws, with 
 orchids and queer, rare flowers, growing in the 
 moist heat of the tropics — for the patio is thriftily 
 covered in winter with glass, which rolls back, open 
 to the blue sky, in the warm summer of Washington. 
 
 The broad green marble steps ascending beside 
 the patio, the pillars of black and wliite marble, the 
 yellow marble in the garden, the exotic foliage, the 
 brilliant plumage of strange birds, the gleam of 
 goldfish, unite to give the very feeling of the tropics. 
 
 The meeting hall, the Hall of the Americas, is 
 restrained, palatial and superb. The need of as- 
 sembly rooms of dignity was keenly felt in Wash- 
 ington until the construction of these three build- 
 ings magnificently filled the want. 
 
 The great height of the Hall of the Americas 
 gives it superb opportunity, superbly taken advan- 
 tage of, by fluted pillars along the sides, and by the 
 richly ornamented ceiling, and the palatial effect is 
 increased by the great stretch of polished floor. 
 It is a room which carries within itself the purpose 
 of the building, for it emanates a feeling of joy and 
 peace and gala celebrations. 
 
 By far the greater number of those who enter this 
 building realize how little they know of their Latin- 
 American neighbors. Few for example could name 
 the entire twenty-one republics : Argentina, Bolivia, 
 Brazil, Chili, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dom- 
 inican Republic, Ecuador, Guatamala, Hayti, Hon- 
 duras, Mexica, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, 
 Peru, Salvador, the United States, Uruguay and 
 
 256 
 
THE CHARM OF THE CITY 
 
 Venezuela. It is an amazing list and points out the 
 actual far-sightedness of the ordinary-seeming 
 Monroe, who first saw the inter-relations of our re- 
 public and the rest of the Americas. 
 
 At any rate the average North American expects 
 to find a list of nothing but the names of Spaniards 
 or Portuguese associated with the history of these 
 republics : but here comes a surprise. The building 
 is freely decorated with the names and busts and 
 pictorial representations of heroes and heroic deeds 
 associated \v'ith Pan-American history; and m.th 
 the expected names of Portuguese and Spaniards 
 one notices such names as Champlain and Dessa- 
 lines and L 'Ouverture, those of the highly important 
 leader O'Higgins, and of George Washington! 
 
 257 
 
CHAPTER XVin 
 
 STREETS AND WAYS 
 
 IDEWALKS enlivened 
 with officers walking home 
 for exercise on Connecti- 
 cut Avenue in the latter 
 (part of any pleasant 
 afternoon are always 
 a reminder that this has 
 become a military city, 
 though strangely, there 
 are fifty officers to be 
 seen to one private 
 soldier. There are no 
 barracks centrally lo- 
 cated, and marching 
 troops are not to be seen. 
 
 It is a customary sight to see famous folk, as in 
 mid-forenoon to see an alert, heavy-set man, alone 
 but pleasantly on the verge of smiling, gray-gloved, 
 with tight-buttoned coat and carrying a cane, walk- 
 ing actively cityward; this being Taft, the Chief 
 Justice of the United States ; calling to mind the re- 
 markable fact, that for the first time in the history 
 of the nation, there are one President, Harding, and 
 
 258 
 
STREETS AND WAYS 
 
 two former Presidents, Taft and Wilson, in formal 
 residence in Washington at one time. 
 
 Besides the army officers so in evidence on the 
 sidewalks, giving a military air, there is daily the 
 frequent droning of army airships, piloted for prac- 
 tice above the city. Another familiar military 
 street sight is that of Quartermaster's army motors, 
 picturesquely canvas-covered over a broad frame, 
 delivering purchases of great variety of fruit and 
 vegetables and provisions as well as clothing and 
 other household supplies, bought at Government 
 stores by those in Government service. So familiar 
 is this sight that it almost seems as if half the city 
 must be supplied with all marketing at the low 
 rates of the Government stores. 
 
 There are many motor cars in the broad streets, 
 with an unusual proportion of fine, closed types, and 
 an unusual proportion, also, of women driving. 
 
 In the best residence sections the pretty girls to 
 be seen make a charmingly colorful feature in their 
 suits and hats of gray and rose and tawny, of laven- 
 der and petunia. They are like flowers ! They are 
 pupils in numerous finishing schools, and come here 
 from excellent families in all parts of the country in 
 addition to the day pupils from the city itself. They 
 are slender and trim and young and happy. Some 
 wear a blue approaching the horizon blue of French 
 officers. Others wear that queer new color, jade 
 green. Their youth and their loveliness make a 
 marked Washington feature. They lighten and 
 brighten the way. 
 
 259 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 A heavy snowstorm is a revel — perhaps because 
 the white population is* all of one race and more 
 thoroughly amalgamated than in many other Ameri- 
 can cities. 
 
 Girls of good class come out in riding breeches 
 and neat knickers with tight sweaters or mannish 
 coats, come out in bright colors with woolen scarfs, 
 to revel and walk on the street-car paths, all that 
 are open, for sidewalks are abandoned to deep snow. 
 I have seen on a spring Sunday morning a score 
 of college girls leaving their clubhouse, all clad in 
 knickers and shirt waists for a morning walk. And 
 this is the city whose streets were trod by earnest 
 Doctor Mary Walker, wearing her plain and much- 
 stared-at pantaloons. 
 
 One of the prettiest street scenes is that of a 
 large number of gay colored toy balloons, carried by 
 prettily dressed children or floating from baby car- 
 riages, in the little squares and parks in the spring 
 time. All Washington seems to love colored bal- 
 loons in the spring, I have seen an old gentleman 
 stop and buy them, green and blue and pink, on 
 long threads, for a whole group of children. 
 
 A familiar morning sight, and a thoroughly char- 
 acteristic one, is that of a fine car driving up to 
 a good-class house, followed by a shabby car, which 
 takes away the driver of the fine car. At some time 
 after dark the mysteriously shabby car again ap- 
 pears, stops for a moment, drops a passenger, and 
 away goes the fine car followed by the shabby car. 
 The mysterious transfers, of one kind and another, 
 
 260 
 
STREETS AND WAYS 
 
 fascinate and intrigue you — the explanation being 
 that the morning delivery and evening return of 
 cars are included in garage service and are done in 
 this double-car way for economy of time. 
 
 Calling hours and days for entertainment are 
 divided, in the season, by various social and politi- 
 cal groups. You get an impression of an unusual 
 number of engravers, which carries its own intima- 
 tion of orders for cards and invitations. 
 
 This is a great dining city. The President, Cabi' 
 net and Ambassadors seem to dine out seven 
 nights a week. No other city in America has in 
 proportion to its population nearly as many formal 
 dinners, teas and receptions. Pick up any news- 
 paper and you find columns of them. The intermix- 
 ture of the best American taste with the taste of a 
 great number of Europeans has made for a high 
 order of epicureanism. It is really a Court city. 
 One resultant feature is the number of fine shops 
 which supply exquisite cakes rivalled only by the 
 best-known French bakers. One caterer's shop in 
 particular maintains traditions as to little French 
 **madeleines," and ''langues du chat," and little 
 curtesying chocolate ladies, with exquisite bows of 
 ribbon for table decoration ; a delight to the eye and 
 the taste. There are shops gay with choice candies 
 and extravagant and lovely favors. One single fine 
 grocery carries a stock of pate de foie gras in the 
 earthenware pots of Strassburg, that looks as if 
 the geese of the whole place must have been killed 
 to fill them; there are thousands of sandwiches 
 
 261 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 made here every week '4n the season," with much 
 spreading of *'foie gras." 
 
 A young college woman, familiar with many 
 cities, said to me that she had never known of any 
 other city with so many pretty places to eat ! And 
 these not the famous hotels or great clubs where 
 luncheons and diimers go on constantly on a grand 
 scale, but the smaller, simpler places of picturesque 
 attractiveness and good food. One of these is so 
 popular as frequently to have a queue extending far 
 out upon the sidewalk. One Sunday evening eighty 
 waited in line. 
 
 ** Raw-bar" luncheon is a way of expressing oys- 
 ters and clams opened to order on the spot. There 
 is a sign '* Fruit Cakes! Take one home. She 
 wants one!" And you notice that the place calls 
 itself a *' gastronomic symphony." 
 
 Much ingenuity has been shown in street signs 
 and particularly those of tea-rooms and restau- 
 rants. These are partly for the great number of 
 strangers and sightseers but mostly for the clerks 
 and oflScials in the Government departments. 
 
 There are such intriguing names as the ** Allies 
 Inn," ''The Grated Door," the ''Danish Rose," the 
 "Lotus Lantern," the "Blue Mill." There are the 
 "Fife and Drum Inn," the "Pagoda," "Old St. 
 Mark's" for one in an old church, the "Caddy Box" 
 for one in a little square house, the "Little Brown 
 Teapot" and the "White House Lunch" — where, 
 so the story goes, a poor countryman waited for 
 hours to see the President come in to lunch ! 
 
 262 
 
STREETS AND WAYS 
 
 In the fish season, in the humbler sections, a one- 
 horse wagon and a plaintive cry of "F-r-e-s-h" and 
 then a higher note of "F-i-s-h" suggests the cry 
 of "haricots verts" in Paris. There are few 
 street cries, however, but in the poorer sections in 
 winter **Coal" is plaintively called and sold in 
 buckets. 
 
 Covered fruit wagons are a residence street fea- 
 ture, with tiers and galleries of brilliantly piled 
 fruit. The wagons display amazing Greek names, 
 of rolling syllables, and proud charioteers. 
 
 A curious feature of sidewalk vending is the 
 selling of white, pale-bleached celery on the shop- 
 ping streets. The venders are Greeks and stand 
 with great wicker baskets at their feet, full of the 
 pale yellow and white of celery, and holding, in 
 statuesque quiet, three bunches in proffering out- 
 stretched hands. Purchases are made of these 
 little celery bunches with as much freedom as if 
 they were flowers, by returning shoppers and office 
 workers. 
 
 The down-town corners on F Street, on Four- 
 teenth, the corners facing the Treasury, and on G 
 Street, are bright and gay and spring-like with great 
 baskets and panniers of violets and daffodils and 
 pale-pink sweet-peas, great luxurious baskets of 
 them. No florist shows more lovely colors than 
 these open-air vendors offer in spring afternoons: 
 flowers at little prices, abundant and lovely, so that 
 young and old, rich and poor, go home with spring 
 in their hands. 
 
 263 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 Pennsylvania Avenue has a peculiar class of 
 shoppers. Soldiers, sailors, and strangers abound, 
 of course not exclusively, but markedly. 
 
 There are other shopping streets, G, Fourteenth, 
 and H Street which has the specialty shops of hats 
 and rugs and flowers and gowns, of the city, and a 
 similar line of antique shops, decorators, caterers 
 and tailors, and silver and art shops, in continuing 
 block by block into the residence neighborhoods 
 along Connecticut Avenue 
 
 Although this is not looked on as an old city, I 
 noticed the other day a store advertising its forty- 
 first annual sale and on the same day another an- 
 nouncing its ninety-first! The great shopping 
 thoroughfare is F Street. It is laid out on a slight 
 rise of land above the tidewater level of Pennsyl- 
 vania Avenue, and the shopping district extends 
 from the Patent Office to the Treasury. It is a 
 great street-car thoroughfare and its fine width per- 
 mits the wooden platforms at the car stops, the 
 "isles of safety^' that are so successful in Washing- 
 ton in solving the safety of foot passengers and 
 motorist. It is a bright sparkling street with ani- 
 mated shops, and without the very high buildings 
 that overshadow the pavements of so many busi- 
 ness streets in other large cities. 
 
 It will be known and remembered in years to 
 come that the proprietor of a quiet, reserved-look- 
 ing silversmith and jewelry shop on Pennsylvania 
 Avenue; an isolated sort of shop for its class; be- 
 came not only the mistress of the White House 
 
 264 
 
STREETS AND WAYS 
 
 but the only one who, while the wife of the Presi- 
 dent, had an international career throughout the 
 European countries. 
 
 There is a sign associated with the Presidency 
 in a shoe-store window, declaring that alongside of 
 it is a chart from which Abraham Lincoln's shoes 
 were made by this firm; and you are interested 
 in this "floor plan" of the President, and to see 
 that his feet were long and narrow and his boots 
 rather square-toed. But not often is so personal 
 a note talien in advertising or signs, and it is the 
 exception to have a painter announce himself as the 
 one who keeps the "White House white." 
 
 One firm announces as its delightful fixed pur- 
 pose : " To outdo, in what we do, all we did before ! ' ' 
 — which certainly has a convincing sound. 
 
 The street cars show some interesting publicity 
 work as, when a tigress has a family of four at the 
 Zoo, there are posters in yellow and black of the 
 family of five, calling attention to the free show, 
 placed plainly in the cars and telling which car to 
 take. The Easter Monday egg-rolling is similarly 
 called attention to. And this with the idea that 
 such delightful free shows need only to be called 
 to public attention, the point seeming to be that the 
 trolley users are not worn and weary factory hands 
 but intelligent Washingtonians with time for amuse- 
 ment: and "though they are on pleasure bent they 
 have a frugal mind." 
 
 Street car tickets are metal, are thin and small 
 and are always spoken of as "tokens " a queer, 
 
 265 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 pious-sounding word to most strangers. Each 
 token has an openwork **W" in the center, and a 
 customary way, with men and women alike, is to 
 thread the elusive tokens on a safety pin, with 
 which they begin to fidget as they ascend the back 
 steps of a car. 
 
 Mortuary poetry is a strange feature of the news- 
 paper advertising columns. One year after a death, 
 two years, even a dozen years or more, you will 
 see strings of memorial verse, eulogistic and regret- 
 ful — and paid for! You will see the headings, ''His 
 aunt and grandmother," ''His pal and brother 
 Frank," "In sad remembrance of our loving Mary." 
 There are separate verses, a year after the death, 
 from mother and father, the sister, two brothers, 
 each with separate stanza, an aunt and her friends 
 each with theirs! Another widow "drops into 
 verse" to say that her continued grief is for her 
 husband, William John, but that he was known as 
 * ' Jim Bilkins ' ' : and she adds : 
 
 "The rose that is the fairest and sweetest 
 Is the one that is killed by the frost." 
 
 The newspapers also have an odd way of using 
 cryptic abbreviations in their real estate advertise- 
 ments, such as "ami," " h w h, " " v 1 h, " " 1 h k " ; 
 thus making advertising a house or an apartment 
 for rent, a matter of intimacy among those who 
 know the patter of the agent. 
 
 266 
 
STREETS AND WAYS 
 
 Add to this the letters that are names for streets 
 and the repetition of N.W., N.E., S.W., and the fre- 
 quent use of ^^Eye" for 'T' and ^'You" for ''U," 
 and there is a sufiSciency of argot. And there are 
 many heavy, covered tinicks on the streets showing 
 nothing but the great letters, **U S Q M C!" 
 
 AVasliington is really a wonderful city for pedi- 
 ments on public buildings and im-pediments on the 
 public sidewalks. Walk unguardedly on Pennsyl- 
 vania Avenue in passing the Wliite House and you 
 will run into beautiful elm trees growing out of the 
 sidewalk! They are fine trees and no one wishes 
 them ill but they are certainly queerly placed. On 
 Connecticut Avenue, unless you are watchful, you 
 walk into iron pipes, ten feet high, set for the 
 support of awnings. At other points there is iron 
 fencing reaching from the shop fronts, a distance 
 of sixteen feet straight out — some of these indicate 
 a need of adjustment of side-walk level and are 
 the result of building-line laws and quarrels, but 
 are a little hard on pedestrians. You find low walls, 
 looped chains and posts, and thousands of croquet- 
 like hoops, that protect the grass corners and trip 
 the incautious. Washington might follow Glasgow 
 in its frequent street-warnings, ''Gang Warily." 
 
 Dogs are common — but are not of common breed ! 
 A small fluffy white kind is frequently seen. It 
 might be termed "the old ladies' favorite." All 
 cities that have homes and children have dogs, but 
 Washington has them in happy abundance ! There 
 
 267 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 are great numbers of little dogs, or as a Wash- 
 ingtonian puts it, not so many watch dogs as wrist- 
 watch dogs! 
 
 The dogs are extremely well-cared for; all look 
 like household autocrats or favorites and go in the 
 front door. The cats, on the contrary, are roam- 
 ing, uncanny, furtive, dim-shadowed in the dusk, 
 seekers after alleys and basement windows. You 
 do not see live chickens except some prominently 
 scratching between the Capitol and the Union Sta- 
 tion, but they must be surreptitiously kept in other 
 parts of town for they crow in the quiet of the early 
 morning — a startling sound in city streets. 
 
 When you hear of tliis as ''the city of magnificent 
 distances," it seems grandiloquent, until you learn 
 that the phrase was made by the Minister from little 
 Portugal, a "Portygee" as they would call him on 
 Cape Cod, who came from a capital which one day 
 had a crack open in its main street, down which half 
 the population disappeared ! 
 
 For a city only a century and a quarter old, a 
 surprising number of ghost stories have already 
 begun to accumulate. This may be partially owing 
 to the number of large, closed mansions in the city, 
 gloomy and shuttered, and to the presence of so 
 many colored people, to whom *'ghoses" and 
 "hants" are veritable. 
 
 The ghost story of the bells of the Octagon has 
 already been told, and there is a still better story 
 connected with a locality close by, where the Pan- 
 
 268 
 
STREETS AND WAYS 
 
 American building stands. Burns, the old Scotch- 
 man, who before the Capital was established here, 
 owned a great tract in the vicinity of the future 
 "V^Hiite House, became enormously rich and built a 
 great mansion between the White House and the 
 Potomac; and on the night of each anniversary of 
 his death, according to the story, his six white 
 horses used to gallop at midnight around the house. 
 A variant had it that the galloping horses were head- 
 less! But the house and the ghostly horses long 
 ago disappeared, and the queer story alone remains. 
 
 The early books of Washington reminiscences tell 
 of a wishing tree in Lafayette Square, an old beech 
 under which lovers made wishes that always came 
 true. Lovers still sit and wish — and perhaps the 
 fact that the identity of the particular beech has 
 been lost will explain why nowadays the wishes do 
 not always come true. 
 
 Old Kalorama, behind its horseshoe of box bushes, 
 offers an ancient tale. After the death of the poet 
 Barlow, his widow returned here to Kalorama, and 
 in time a friendship arose between her and a Doctor 
 Ezekiel Bull. They became engaged, but the family 
 of Mrs. Barlow Avere averse to losing her property 
 — she had no children — and bitterly opposed any 
 marriage. The lovers, however, were persistent 
 and several times set a wedding day, only to have 
 postponement through interference. On the last 
 of such days the Doctor came to the door, the old 
 lunette-topped door, still there, in a carriage with 
 
 269 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 a minister, at the appointed hour, but was made to 
 believe that Mrs. Barlow would not see him and 
 would not be married. 
 
 Meanwhile, sitting in her room in her bridal 
 attire, she was made to believe that Doctor Bull had 
 come to the door and announced that he would 
 not marry her. She lost her mind, and waited and 
 waited in vain at the front window for her lover, 
 and in a short time died. He returned to his home 
 in Charlestown, in what is now West Virginia — it 
 is from this old town that the story comes to me — 
 and frequently, at night, a figure all in white silently 
 ''fluttered" and wept at his window. Then he died, 
 and for years it was believed that he and his coach 
 came driving up and that he knocked long and pa- 
 tiently at the door — ghost looking for ghost at old 
 Kalorama. 
 
 270 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE POTOMAC 
 
 WILD mass of rushing water, 
 
 tumbling, pouring in huge 
 
 quantity, tearing between 
 
 and over mighty granite 
 
 rocks, worn round by 
 
 ages of falling stream 
 
 — and you are at the 
 
 Great Falls of the Potomac, 
 
 astonished, amazed at their 
 
 greatness, at their 
 
 wildness, their state of 
 
 nature and beauty. 
 
 You are less than six- 
 
 — =■_;?;» teen miles from the 
 
 Capitol but you might 
 
 be hundreds of miles away, judging from the 
 
 undisturbed wildness of it all. 
 
 You have come by a beautiful road which leaves 
 Georgetown crowded in between the picturesque 
 canal and the hillside. The old canal streams 
 drowsily on. It is all amazingly picturesque. The 
 towpath goes beside little old cabins, crowded among 
 trees, and there is a fringe of old-time life beside 
 the road, pressed down by the steep, rising hillside. 
 In a short distance you pass little shops and cabins 
 
 271 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 and a smithy, and then the ancient picturesque canal 
 swings to the left and the road takes you through 
 a great loneliness, with masses of honey-suckle, with 
 scattered pines, filled closely and charmingly in. 
 But the houses — they are few — are small and poor 
 with bare-swept grassless dooryards. The road is 
 called the Conduit Road from the fact that it runs 
 either on the acqueduct or alongside of it, and passes 
 the Washington reservoirs with their little old stone 
 temple-like buildings, with the roofs like pocket- 
 edition pantheons ! 
 
 Now and then buzzards from Virginia go floating 
 overhead, sinister, black and ragged. 
 
 The broad Potomac, here a live and rippling 
 stream, stretches for miles in view of this road, and 
 the Virginia hills are banked on the farther side, 
 thick with trees. There is the rushing water of a 
 dam, and below the road the old canal keeps a 
 green and sleepy way beside the river. There is a 
 trolley park out here and many signs of campers, 
 but long stretches are as solitary as they were when 
 Daniel Webster followed the stream for fish and 
 found rest and pleasure in whipping the stream. 
 
 Cabin John Bridge, a long narrow high-level 
 bridge of gray stone, with red stone parapets, carry- 
 ing the acqueduct and the Conduit Road over it, 
 flings its mighty span of one great arch above the 
 creek that ripples far below, in a ravine that is 
 close grown with tall trees, tulips and sycamores, so 
 that on Cabin John Bridge you stand among the 
 tree-tops. 
 
 272 
 
THE POTOMAC 
 
 Cabin John Bridge had cut upon it the name of 
 Jefferson Davis as Secretary of War, but the name 
 was chipped off soon after it was put on, the bridge 
 having been built at the beginning of the Civil War. 
 It has the largest single stone arch in America, two 
 hundred and twenty feet in length. It was made 
 for the purpose of carrying the Washington Acque- 
 duct over the deep ravine of Cabin John Creek. 
 The Harlem High Bridge, also an early acqueduct 
 bridge, was built to carry the Croton water into 
 New York and in contrast consists of thirteen 
 granite arches. When Theodore Eoosevelt was 
 President, he had the name of Jefferson Davis re- 
 placed upon Cabin John Bridge. ' 
 
 Beyond the bridge the rocks rise higher, with 
 laurel thickets and mlder places, and there are 
 cabins with outside cliimneys and with lean "hound 
 dogs" around the doors. 
 
 The Anglers' Association of Washington has a 
 lodge near the river, and here the road goes inland, 
 leaving the Potomac, through heavy woodland still 
 more wild and after several miles descends by a 
 long and sinuous hill to the Palls. 
 
 Here stand a few buildings, notably an old-time 
 house of brick, large and well-proportioned, with 
 picturesque windows, broad-gabled, long-fronted, 
 an old waterside tavern kept up as a club-house. 
 It was here at the Falls that Henry Clay fought 
 one of his duels, this time with the erratic John 
 Randolph. John had called Henry a black-leg, 
 which colorful phrase was strong enough to merit 
 
 273 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 attention between fiery Southern gentlemen in 1826. 
 Clay fired at Randolph and Randolph fired at ran- 
 dom! remarking, *'I cannot fire at you, Mr. Clay" — 
 certainly an amende after his dark epithet; and 
 they fell on each other's necks and wept. 
 
 George Washington, here surveying and engi- 
 neering the old canal around the Falls, Daniel Web- 
 ster in solitary trout fishing. Clay and Randolph 
 weeping on each other's necks, — no other human 
 associations are needed in the vicinity of these great 
 lonely Falls of the Potomac. 
 
 You quickly lose sight of all signs of building or 
 civilization. A path leads to a long and swaying, 
 swinging footbridge, and as you cross the channel, 
 this being a minor channel of the river, scattered 
 thick with huge blocks of granite around which the 
 water rushes, you see far off at the right the main 
 stream of the forest-bordered river, bending into 
 misty indistinctness. You reach an island of great 
 masses of granite with sufficient sand deposit in the 
 rock hollows to grow thickets and bowers of wild 
 grapes, with undergrowth in which the prickly cac- 
 tus creeps. 
 
 A long walk over the granite unevenesses and 
 you come to the farther channel and the Great Falls, 
 and before you are masses of water crowding, tum- 
 bling, falling, in overwhelming volume. The trees 
 and hills and water unite in tremendous grandeur 
 with mist clouds rising from the Falls — and this less 
 than sixteen miles from the Capitol! A present- 
 day dream-plan is to turn tliis region into a park 
 
 274 
 
THE POTOMAC 
 
 reservation ; and a sinister plan is to utilize all the 
 power for manufacturing. As we turn away, a 
 wonderful purple coloring hangs over the eastward 
 hills. 
 
 Immediately below Georgetown, the Potomac as- 
 sumes quiet and stately beauty; its turbulent char- 
 acter is gone; it is now a tidewater stream. Sur- 
 mounting a great commanding hillside opposite the 
 city of Washington, on the Virginia side, is Arling- 
 ton, centering about the old pillar-fronted mansion, 
 built a century and a quarter ago by Washington's 
 adopted son, G. W. P. Custis. It offers a notable 
 view, standing as it does two hundred feet above 
 the river. The heavily pillared house is fronted 
 like a Doric temple, and is a comfortable mansion 
 house masked thus imposingly. This front was 
 copied from the Temple of Theseus at Athens. It 
 was the proper thing for Virginia gentlemen to 
 study the classic, and build accordingly, at this 
 period. 
 
 All Arlington is national property and it has 
 become a noble memorial, a distinguished and hon- 
 ored place of burial, for soldiers of all our wars. 
 The word '^ Arlington" has come to have a national 
 meaning, as the ''Abbey" has in England, as a place 
 of solemn sepulture, than which no one could have 
 liigher. Placed here and there about the great 
 park-like grounds are bronze tablets, each with a 
 stanza of "The Bivouac of the Dead." Colonel 
 O'Hara wrote the soldierly poem for a war monu- 
 ment in Frankfort to the memory of Kentuckians 
 
 275 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 killed in the Mexican War, but the verses are stir- 
 ring for this vastly wider field: 
 
 "On Fame's eternal camping-ground 
 
 Their silent tents are spread, 
 And Glory guards, with solemn round, 
 
 The bivouac of the dead." 
 
 Not only private soldiers are buried in Arlington 
 but an increasing number of important officers. 
 Any and all, djing in service, of officers or men, have 
 the right to be buried here. And already there are 
 uncountable thousands of the low-set stones that 
 have been adopted. The little white stones, uni- 
 form in distance one from- the other, are marshalled 
 like regiments for review upon the green grass and 
 under the solemn old trees. 
 
 The place marks the turning of the tide of an 
 important fortune; for Arlington was the home of 
 Robert E. Lee, who was son-in-law of the early 
 owner, George Washington Parke Custis, He left 
 Arlington at its loveliest, never to return, on a 
 spring day in 1861, when all the magnolias and the 
 jasmine were in blossom. 
 
 It is rolling park land, rich in trees, but con- 
 stantly the view stretches off in miles of beauty 
 with the Potomac curving and gleaming in lengthen- 
 ing glory and the great monuments and white 
 palaces of Washington, the Lincoln Memorial, the 
 tall shaft of the Washington Monument, the peace- 
 ful White House, the great-domed Capitol on its 
 hill, all sliimmering in sunlit marble. 
 
 276 
 
■ 3| 
 
THE POTOMAC 
 
 In front of the mansion of Arlington is perhaps 
 the best placed grave in America, that of the un- 
 fortunate L 'Enfant, marked by a stone like a table, 
 with his city plan upon it. His body long lay in 
 obscurity in a Maryland farm but was brought here 
 by architects, his m'odern confreres, who placed the 
 grave in splendid sight of the noble city of his 
 dreams. 
 
 All the slopes of Arlington down to the Potomac 
 are sentineled by tall Virginia cedars, cypress-like 
 in their beauty. 
 
 The old house is of ochre-yellow stucco. The 
 white pillars are unusually heavy. The interior of 
 the house is gaunt and bare, showing what might 
 have happened to Mount Vernon had it been made 
 a Government show place, instead of being in charge 
 of patriotic women. 
 
 A long distance from the mansion and on the 
 same commanding height overlooking the river and 
 the city, there has been built one of the noblest 
 structures in the world. It is a memorial amphi- 
 theater, open to the sky, circular in shape, and with 
 white marble benches in lines within an enclosing 
 columned arcade, with fifty-six circling columns. 
 
 The architects were Carrere and Hastings. The 
 spotless whiteness of the interior, the magnitude of 
 it, the blue sky directly overhead, the fine simplicity 
 of the encircling columns, the tall gloomv green 
 cedars seen through the arches, the dignity, the 
 grandeur, the impressiveness, the lonely beauty— 
 this and the Lincoln Memorial, in full view across 
 
 277 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 the Potomac, are unequaled among modern struc- 
 tures. Shall the time ever come when there shall 
 be acknowledging reference to the Seven Wonders 
 of Washington? Or may it now be called the Amer- 
 ican Eenaissance ! 
 
 Below the city where the Potomac and Anacostia 
 join, is the War College, the highest school in the 
 course of military education of the United States 
 Army. Only officers of prominent rank a»re ad- 
 mitted and the arts of war are taught in a sort of 
 post-graduate West Point; or, as it might be ex- 
 pressed, it is a sort of Johns Hopkins of death. 
 
 Below the War College, on the Potomac, the great 
 tragedy took place on the gunboat ''Princeton," 
 when the explosion of a big new gun killed members 
 of the Cabinet and other visitors, including the 
 father of Julia Gardiner, who shortly afterwards 
 became the wife of President Tyler, who barely 
 escaped being killed himself. Stockton, in command 
 of this gunboat named the ''Princeton" after the 
 town which loved him and which he loved, was 
 among the wounded. 
 
 The college town of Princeton has few but grim 
 associations with the city of Washington. Not 
 only was there this explosion, but the one man of 
 great ability and public place, an early Vice-Presi- 
 dent of the United States, in regard to whom no 
 stories are told, no memories brought up, in Wash- 
 ington, was Aaron Burr, son of the first President 
 of Princeton; and a recent President of the United 
 
 278 
 
THE POTOMAC 
 
 States, who taught Americans to accept a rule of 
 secret arbitrariness, and who was stricken in the 
 height of his power, had been a President of Prince- 
 ton. 
 
 The War College is on low-lying land, almost on 
 the river level, and there are widespreading views 
 of water and hills and trees. Close by, across an 
 inlet, is Potomac Park, with its remarkable cherry- 
 bordered drive. Over yonder is Arlington. Near 
 at hand, across the water, is the principal aviation 
 field of the army and the air is vibrant with the 
 sound of planes. 
 
 The grounds of the War College and Washing- 
 ton Barracks are entered through a sentineled gate, 
 and the College building is beyond a green parallelo- 
 gram. It is a great brick building at the end of the 
 open esplanade and is fronted by a wide terrace. 
 It is a sort of huge classic, hall-like building, domin- 
 ated at the ends by two very large and quarrelsome- 
 looking stone eagles. 
 
 Stanford White was the architect, and it is said 
 that after he designed the college, he was asked if 
 he would not design some homes for the officers, 
 whereupon, limited as to expenditure though he 
 was, he built the most attractive homes offered to 
 officers at any Government post. They back toward 
 the water and Potomac Park. They are square, of 
 brick, with roofs of heavy slate, with lovely white 
 pillared porticoes, wrought-iron rails, brass knobs, 
 high roofs, huge chimneys and dormers. They are 
 
 279 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 galleried and trellised and use the river views and 
 there are also lovely river glimpses between the 
 houses, seen in passing. 
 
 Along the river front of the Potomac has been 
 created a park of enchanted beauty; essentially a 
 motor park. Until recent years, it was a region of 
 glooming flats. It now includes one thousand acres 
 of reclaimed marsh land which has been developed 
 with wonderful effectiveness. 
 
 Until this park was built the river was practically 
 unapproachable to modern Washingtonians, and its 
 beauties were unseen. The river was important to 
 the early city. Eobert Morris, the great financier, 
 tried vainly to arouse interest in a three-mile 
 "street" along the waterfront. The White House 
 had a river-face with grounds to the water's edge. 
 Such old houses as remain show that they were built 
 with regard to river views. The Octagon turned a 
 shoulder to the White House to face an upstream 
 view. The old Law house was built on a high base- 
 ment that its windows might command the water. 
 
 Potomac Park is a long, flat promontory which has 
 the effect of being an island in the river. It is cir- 
 cummured within a wonderful drive, picturesque 
 with large black-boled willows and bordered and 
 bowered by what is known as the flowering cherry 
 of Japan. 
 
 Mrs. Taft, a month after going to the White 
 House to live, had eighty Japanese cherry trees 
 bought and planted here, because she had seen and 
 
 280 
 
THE POTOMAC 
 
 admired them when in the East ; and hearing of this 
 compliment to his country, a Japanese resident of 
 New York offered two thousand of the trees as a 
 gift. They were what may be called inhospitably 
 received, however, for they were condemned as in- 
 fected and all were destroyed. With a patience 
 proverbial to the East, the city of Tokio then gave 
 three thousand, and the waterside is now an ex- 
 quisite, poetic dream of beauty in the springtime 
 in delicate ethereal color, peculiarly suited to the 
 colors of Washington in the spring, to the blue sky, 
 the river, the delicate green of the willows and 
 grass and the white marble of the city's monu- 
 ments and memorials. 
 
 The grass in the spring-time, pale, lovely, deli- 
 cate, is green beyond belief in the long field that 
 forms the center of the park, and all one side is a 
 great garden of perennials, of iris and masses of 
 later flowers. But it is the bowers of pink cherry 
 blossoms on the dwarf gray-boled trees, planted in 
 irregular groups, not in stiff precision, that is the 
 famous and the lovely setting of Potomac Park. 
 These cherries are not fruit-bearing trees, and are 
 the flower we know as ''hawthorn" on the porcelain 
 jars of the Orient. They are really a sort of plum 
 and are botanically ''prunus pseudo cerasus"; but 
 the "cherry" they are, in all usage. 
 
 There are several interesting and broad-spirited 
 uses to which this park land has been put. A long 
 stretch down the center is given over for the use of 
 
 281 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 a great number of citizens who wish to grow their 
 own vegetable gardens. The land is neatly 
 ploughed and apportioned in little patches. It is 
 far from being for the poor, for most of the garden- 
 ers arrive in their own motors and fall to, with 
 diligent rake and hoe. There is a public polo field, 
 with bounds tightly set for the balls. There is a 
 great public golf links used under the simplest rules, 
 and with exceptionally good grass. And there is a 
 public camping ground where motor tourists may 
 stay with their cars all night ; this being in particu- 
 lar a development from the great number of cara- 
 van motors going to or coming from Florida. 
 
 The Potomac is still a quiet stream ; it is probable 
 that *'all quiet along the Potomac!" will be re- 
 tained in general memory for many a generation 
 to come : 
 
 "All quiet along the Potomac to-night, 
 
 Where the soldiers lie peacefully dreaming ; 
 
 Their tents in the rays of the clear autumn moon, 
 Or the light of the watch-fire, are gleaming." 
 
 From the bridge which leads from the park to 
 the Virginia shore, and from the farther side of 
 the bridge after nightfall, is a sprinkling of hun- 
 dreds of lights with beautiful effect; it is a fairy- 
 land, with every light striking its deep reflection 
 down into the water, and with the firefly lights of 
 motor cars flitting and passing. 
 
 The park is a region for fishermen, especially 
 
 282 
 
THE POTOMAC 
 
 on Sunday mornings. They fish from the walled 
 embankment along the Tidal Basin, mostly solitary 
 and silent, instead of in groups, and in fact giving 
 an effect decidedly French; "soaking an indeterm- 
 inate bait in the large, indifferent stream." 
 
 John Quincy Adams, when President, loved to 
 walk and ride and row and swim; and one morning 
 early, he set out to cross the Potomac from the 
 White House grounds. His son John and his stew- 
 ard Antoine were with him, and they all took off 
 their clothes in the boat intending to dive into the 
 river. Suddenly came a gust of wind — tidewater 
 streams are subject to sudden capfuls of wind — 
 and the three men had to swim for the farther shore 
 with practically every garment lost in the river. 
 The steward, with barely enough clothes for de- 
 cency, went back alone to the White House, while 
 the President of the United States waited in gnat- 
 bitten misery in the bushes, where he sat hidden 
 for two hours ; which makes a Potomac-side picture 
 that adds to the gayety of nations. 
 
 But to President Adams, firm precisionist that 
 he was, the occurrence was excessively mortifying. 
 It held no humor for him! And that evening he 
 wrote of it in his diary, as a ''humiliating lesson." 
 
 One wonders if this may have given inspiration 
 to the saturnine Carlyle for what is perhaps his 
 most widely remembered writing, for he wrote 
 within a year or two after this Presidential nudity, 
 the early portion of "Sartor Resartus," in which 
 
 283 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 he set down his weird imagination of a ruler sud- 
 denly becoming, when his garments vanished, 
 naught but a fantastically carved forked radish! 
 
 284 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 GEOEGETOWN AND THE SUBURBS 
 
 HE name of Georgetown 
 arouses pleasurably vague 
 f^ impressions. The place, a 
 J well established little town 
 ) with an extremely good 
 opinion of itself, was tak- 
 en in as part of the Dis- 
 trict of Columbia when 
 the District was estab- 
 lished. And its name 
 had not come from 
 any association with either George Washington 
 or George the Third but from George the Second — 
 which somehow adds to the picturesque feeling of it. 
 Long ago, in 1789, Georgetown College was es- 
 tablished and it is still interestingly existent and 
 active, the oldest and largest Jesuit college in the 
 country. 
 
 There was a direct road into Georgetown from 
 Washington and the White House from early days ; 
 it was Pennsylvania Avenue, and high-dormered 
 houses were built, shoulder to shoulder, along the 
 thoroughfare in expectation of the coming city popu- 
 lation. Most noticeable of those now standing are 
 
 285 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 seven in a tight row in the block of the twenty-one 
 hundreds; very close building for early days and 
 a woodsy location such as this neighborhood then 
 was. 
 
 From the first you notice that there are piquant 
 places in old Georgetown. Down there on that lower 
 level, alongside of the ancient canal, are some small 
 ruins which you find are those of a foundry, once 
 operated by a man named Foxhall. These little 
 foundry ruins at which you are looking and which 
 intangibly appeal as something of quite unusual 
 quality, are said to have had a vital connection 
 with one of the most interesting naval battles of the 
 world's history. 
 
 While Oliver Hazard Perry was triumphantly 
 doing the impossible in building a fleet on the then 
 wilderness-enclosed shores of Lake Erie, under the 
 eyes of the British squadron which sailed unsus- 
 pectingly up and down the lake, the cannon and 
 cannon balls were made at this Foxhall foundry in 
 Georgetown and from here were packed over the 
 hundreds of miles of forest trails. 
 
 The Capital and the entire nation thrilled with 
 pride in an intense degree which cities or nations 
 have seldom known, when a native of the District 
 of Columbia, Lieutenant Dulaney Forrest, in Sep- 
 tember of 1813, appeared before Congress, and laid 
 at their feet the captured battle flags of an entire 
 British squadron, sunk or captured by Oliver Hazard 
 Perry with Georgetown cannon and balls. Never 
 before had an entire English fleet or squadron been 
 
 286 
 
GEORGETOWN AND THE SUBURBS 
 
 captured. Ask for these flags where they ought to 
 be nobly preserved and you will be told, as I was, 
 that they have been allowed to fall to decay through 
 neglect. 
 
 When, not long aftenvard, the British seized 
 Washington and began their burning the news was 
 carried to Foxhall that they had promised them- 
 selves the special joy of destroying his establish- 
 ment on account of his activity in cannon-making; 
 but the great rain storm in which the British began 
 their hurried retreat, saved the property of Foxhall 
 who, in thankfulness, built over in Washington the 
 original church of the curious name of ''Foundry" 
 — a church society prominent to this day. 
 
 The spot is still proudly pointed out where 
 Francis Scott Key lived, the author of ''The Star- 
 Spangled Banner," near where the great new 
 bridge, named as a memorial in his honor, spans 
 the Potomac. Key is comparable only to R\)get de 
 Lisle in that he expressed like de Lisle a sudden 
 ardent national fervor, permanently accepted by his 
 country as a song from the nation's heart. 
 
 A relative of Key, Doctor William Beanes, lived 
 in Upper Marlborough and was so angered by the 
 misconduct of the British when they marched 
 through on their way to burn Washington that he 
 headed a few citizens in locking up the rear-guard 
 of the invaders: w^hich pointed out his bravery 
 rather more than it did his judgment. When the 
 British came hurrying back they unlocked their 
 imprisoned comrades and carried the enterprising 
 
 287 
 
THE BOOK OF AVASHINGTON 
 
 old doctor with them as a prisoner, to the tieet near 
 BtUtimore. 
 
 Key, man of prominence as he was. hurried to 
 the British Admiral to ask for the parole of his 
 kinsman. Reaching the tleet just as the bon\bard- 
 ment of Fort McHenry was to take place. Key was 
 held until the fight should U^ over. In this emo- 
 tional condition he watched the bombardment and 
 watched darkness settle over the fort; and at the 
 very earliest touch of dawn next morning he eagerly 
 scanned the water, catching sight with indescribable 
 happiness of the tlag still doatiug over the fort. 
 He was so thrilled by it, so overpowered by poetic 
 joy, that he seized some paper and in a fine frenzy 
 of poetic emotion wrote what has become the na- 
 tional anthem of America. 
 
 It is a most remarkable fact that little George- 
 town was the home of the authors of two immortal 
 American songs: *'The Star-Spangled Banner," 
 and "Home, Sweet Home!" This alone ought to 
 make Georgetown a place of pilgrimage, and the 
 most natural road of pilgrimage is over the new 
 bridge with the great bison on it, and on to the old 
 Oak Hill Cemetery on the height. H is a romantic 
 old graveyard, now close-tilled, markedly a place 
 of deep ravines and tall trees and steep banks. 
 It is a great sanctuary for birds, and I remember 
 watching the pretty sight, one warm spring day, of 
 two tlickers, high-holes, building their nest in an 
 old oak, immediately over John Howard Payne's 
 
 •JSS 
 
GEORGETOWN AND THE SUBURBS 
 
 grave, and almost seeming to talk as in their ex- 
 citement they made a succession of cries. 
 
 Payne died in Northern Africa while located there 
 as an American consul. It is pathetic to associate 
 such feeling lines as " 'Mid pleasures and palaces 
 though we may roam," with the death of the author 
 in such a remote spot — for Payne was buried near 
 the ruined palaces of ancient Carthage. 
 
 But a Georgetown-born man, William H. Cor- 
 coran, who seems to have been unsurpassed in 
 thinking of fine things to do to pleasure his fellow- 
 men, had the body of his townsman, John Howard 
 Payne, brought back to his home-town and to this 
 quiet graveyard, where in time Corcoran himself 
 was to sleep. A simple monument marks the grave, 
 bearing a bust of Payne, showing him as a gentle 
 and pleasant-faced man, with slender moustache 
 and a tuft on his lower lip. Edwin M. Stanton, the 
 restless-spirited Secretary of War, is buried near 
 by, beneath an obelisk that is neither too high for 
 modesty nor too low for fame. And the over-am- 
 bitious Salmon P. Chase, a disappointed man, is 
 also buried here. 
 
 On M Street, the business thoroughfare, at 3049, 
 is a quaint old yellow-washed tavern, very small, 
 with an outside stair up to a gallery. It must have 
 overlooked the river in early days, on the bank- 
 side above the ferry. This was a meeting place for 
 the planning of the City of Washington by Wash- 
 ington and Jefferson and L 'Enfant. 
 
 289 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHHSPGTON 
 
 There is a section both poor and picturesque, for 
 country barter and trade, and you see shops with 
 mule whips, fully a score on one stem, and you see 
 truck farmers who with their creaky, worn-out little 
 wagons bring produce into the city. There are also 
 banks and larger stores in Georgetown and it is by 
 no means altogether jocularity which set up at a 
 trolley transfer point: "Transfer for Georgetown's 
 most important suburb, Washington. But first do 
 your shopping in Georgetown." Georgetown is 
 really and officially part of Washington but the two 
 places are often referred to as if they were still 
 separate. 
 
 Alexander Graham Bell has lived and .experi- 
 mented much in Georgetown. That he began life as 
 a teacher of the deaf and dumb helps to show how 
 the telephone idea came to him. He has made his 
 home on Thirty-Fifth Street, a quiet house in a 
 quiet hill neighborhood, across the street from the 
 famous Convent of the Visitation. His home, on 
 a terrace, is an unpretentious three-story house of 
 chocolate-colored stucco, with a black iron, fussy, 
 old-time porch. Across narrow Volta Place which 
 runs beside the house, is a little yellow brick library- 
 like building, new perched and of classic design, 
 made for the dissemination of knowledge in regard 
 to the deaf and for actively aiding them. 
 
 There is a considerable amount of old-fashioned 
 conservative living in Georgetown. A positively 
 beautiful eighteenth-century house is Tudor Place, 
 standing in the midst of a lawn of enormous extent 
 
 290 
 
GEORGETOWN AND THE SUBURBS 
 
 on Q Street. The mansion rises in tawny beauty, a 
 great, long-fronted house, squarish and hip-roofed, 
 with a center and long balancing wings. It was 
 one of the great houses of its time and is now one 
 of the notable survivals of the architecture of the 
 early days of our country. At the front door is a 
 striking semi-circular portico, with four tall pillars 
 and two pilasters, with a wonderful roof, a half- 
 dome. Tall French windows, curve-topped, are at 
 either side of the pillars of the portico. The first 
 mistress of this house was the little Martha, who 
 was given by Lafayette as a namesake of her grand- 
 mother, Mrs. Washington, the little inlaid dressing 
 table of king and tulip wood, which still d'elights us 
 at the National Museum. 
 
 This was one of the remarkable homes of that 
 building family, the Custises. General Robert E. 
 Lee became by marriage a connection, and it is re- 
 membered that he visited here, not far from his lost 
 Arlington, after the close of the Civil War. 
 
 The three sisters and a brother of the Custis 
 family built four notable houses, still standing 
 within an afternoon's ride of each other in the 
 neighborhood of Washington, Martha Parke Custis, 
 Mrs. Peters, here at Tudor Place; Eleanor, "Nel- 
 lie," Mrs. Lewis at Woodlawn between Alexandria 
 and Pohick ; Eliza, Mrs. Law, by the riverside near 
 the War College; and George Washington Parke 
 Custis, at Arlington on the Virginia heights look- 
 ing over at Washington. Surely a great building 
 family! — and a remarkable thing that these four 
 
 291 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 houses have survived wars and fires and demoli- 
 tions. 
 
 Facing Tudor Place, far off on the other side of 
 Q Street, is another fine old town-house. It is of 
 dull red brick ; it is large and dormered and winged ; 
 and the two survivals of long ago are so beautiful 
 that each is a foil to the other. 
 
 Northward from Georgetown, and still to be 
 reached by trolley through that town, but by motor 
 driving directly out either Connecticut Avenue 
 or Massachusetts, the great new Gothic cathedral 
 of SS. Peter and Paul is rising. It has already 
 made a notable start in building but will still re- 
 quire many millions of dollars and years of time 
 to complete. 
 
 The portions already standing in white and 
 crocketed beauty above the wooded height of Mount 
 St. Alban, are admirably and impressively to be 
 seen from the arched and lion-guarded Connecticut 
 Avenue Bridge, over Rock Creek Valley; and when 
 the nave of the cathedral is completed and the struc- 
 ture shall stand in its full glory of great square cen- 
 tral tower, with two Westminster-like towers at the 
 front, and a general exterior beauty of gray color 
 almost white, with pinnacles, flying buttresses and 
 traceried windows, all in pure pointed Gothic, it 
 will be one of the notable Gothic cathedrals of the 
 world. It ranks in length with the cathedrals of 
 Canterbury and York and suggests mighty Durham 
 in its beauty of tree-clad hill location. 
 
 292 
 
GEORGETOWN AND THE SUBURBS 
 
 The apse, the only part thus far rising prcnnin- 
 ently, has a very successful churchly air. Beneath 
 the altar is a crypt with heavy pillars and groined 
 arches; and already the tomb is here of the first 
 bishop of "Washington — Bishop Satterlee. On the 
 tomb lies at full length, carved in fine alabaster, the 
 churchly figure of the bishop, looking like a carved 
 recumbent figure of feudal times, and with little 
 angels at his feet. The distinctly modern mous- 
 tache is the only detraction from the Crusader-time 
 effect. 
 
 The Cathedral has already had some unusual 
 gifts. For the construction of the pulpit, the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury sent stones from Canterbury 
 Cathedral. From the ruins of remote and ancient 
 Glastonbury, stones were sent for the making of the 
 bishop's cathedra, his formal seat; the Glastonbury 
 stones having been chosen because that ruined abbey 
 bore the name, as does this cathedral at Washing- 
 ton, of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. The high 
 altar is made from the ledge of rock in which 
 Christ's sepulcher was hewn. 
 
 Upon this cedar-dotted height, are the beginnings 
 of a cathedral close of ecclesiastical buildings, with, 
 richly endowed schools for boys and girls. On a 
 height of equal prominence some distance south- 
 ward, stand the buildings of the Naval Observatory, 
 which mark the site of the camp of the army of 
 Braddock and Washington with their fated expe- 
 ditionary force. 
 
 293 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 Confronted with the idea of writing of the sub- 
 urbs of Washington one is likely to feel like the 
 man who was offered Punch's advice to those about 
 to get married — "Don't!" For Washington is a 
 city without suburbs, with the exception of a single 
 fine one. Of course there is delightful Alexandria 
 but it has never seemed suburban, but the recent 
 war has given it an impetus in that direction. Fort 
 Myer has a military life of its own. There are 
 several little towns near Washington but not pre- 
 cisely of a kind to call suburbs. In fact there are 
 hundreds of square miles near at hand of poor 
 desolate country or of uncultivated pine woods, 
 unused, that ought to be suburbs to meet the high 
 rent problems of the city, and it is astonishing that 
 this feaure has not been developed. 
 
 The one real suburb is near but just over the 
 Maryland line, a charming place, charmingly 
 named. It is Chevy Chase and it is an accessible 
 suburb of the finer class of living, with many es- 
 tates, with delightful homes, with country clubs and 
 golf links, with the natural landscape advantages 
 of trees, and rolling country, through which wind 
 cedar-bordered roads. And its great advantages 
 for growth are that it has been unspoiled by any- 
 thing but residential use and that it connects im- 
 mediately with the finest living section of the city 
 of Washington. 
 
 'Chevy Chase has so many army officers living 
 there and offers so many combats on the golf links, 
 
 294 
 
GEORGETOWN AND THE SUBURBS 
 
 even if of no other kind, that the old war-like ballad 
 name fits the place : 
 
 * ' The f raj^ began at Otterbourne betwixt the night and day, 
 There the Douglas lost his life and the Percy was led 
 away," 
 
 295 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 FROM ALEXANDRIA TO FREHERICKaBURO 
 
 ROM his early youth 
 George Washington was a 
 man's man. He made 
 friends with all classes, 
 rich and poor, British, 
 French, German, Indian 
 and American; and among 
 the amusing examples of this was 
 his becoming a volunteer fireman, 
 a member of the Alexandria com- 
 pany organized in 1774. He 
 bought for them in Philadelphia 
 an up-to-date hand engine and 
 had it drawn by oxen to Alexan- 
 dria; that being an old town even 
 then. 
 
 Alexandria was always important to George 
 Washington as the town nearest Mount Vernon. 
 And Alexandria gave one of the most remarkable 
 examples of his life in his successful way of meet- 
 ing men, for here he conferred with General Brad- 
 docJ^ and five Colonial governors, and impressed 
 them all, before the Braddock expedition started for 
 the Ohio River country. 
 
 296 
 
ALEXANDRIA TO FREDERICKSBURG 
 
 The original fire engine has gone, but the house 
 and the very room in which Braddock held his meet- 
 ing are still there. 
 
 Alexandria is a trifle less than eight miles down 
 the Potomac from Washington. You drive into it 
 through King Street, an old brick-housed thorough- 
 fare; the houses showing an unexpected medley of 
 color in «ream, red and yellow, and in all with a de- 
 cided sense of attractiveness. King is only one of 
 the many old-fashioned street names, there being 
 also Duchess, Princess, Royal, Queen, Prince, Duke 
 and other rolling titles of monarchy in this old 
 aristocratic little town — itself named Bellhaven in 
 early days, a name put upon a charming volume of 
 shoj-t stories regarding it by one who was a child 
 here. There is also a St. Asaph Street, remindful 
 of the English bishop who was Franklin's friend 
 and at whose home Franklin wrote most of his 
 Autobiography. Cameron Street was named for 
 the Baron of Cameron, better known as Lord Fair- 
 fax. 
 
 Among the colored people of Alexandria "Mar- 
 cus" still survives as a name, a run-to-seed form 
 of Marquis, from the Marquis de Lafayette who 
 was often here. When he was welcomed on his 
 1824 visit the entire town turned out and at every 
 opportune moment a live eagle on an arch, flapped 
 its wings and screamed a welcome — a boy hidden in 
 the decorations jabbing it at the opportune moment 
 with a pin. It is not every little town that could 
 so spiritedly arrange matters! 
 
 297 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 Down near the Potomac's side stands the Carlyle 
 house, where Braddock summoned his conference. 
 At that time, it stood at the very water's ed'ge and 
 was prominently in view as a distinguished town- 
 house. It no longer shows from the street but is 
 hidden from sight by an old hotel of Civil War days. 
 
 The Carlyle house was built on a terrace formed 
 by the foundations of an early fort, and within these 
 foundations are still the original vaults and pass- 
 ages. It is a huge, hip-roofed, square-fronted, three 
 dormered old house, of stuccoed stone with cut 
 quoins at the four corners. 
 
 It is fascinating to realize that up the outside 
 steps and through this front doorway and into the 
 meeting-room walked Braddock and Governors 
 Shirley of Massachusetts, Delancey of New York, 
 Sharpe of Maryland, Morris of Pennsylvania, Din- 
 widdle of Virginia and George Washington. 
 
 The blue room, beautifully paneled and corniced, 
 in which they met has an open fireplace surmounted 
 by a paneled and pilastered chimney-breast; on 
 each side of which is a superbly topped doorway, 
 with the fine curve of an old open pediment. 
 
 There are few rooms in America more filled with 
 intense feeling for the past. Not only was the 
 Braddock campaign discussed in this room but it 
 represented the first meeting of representatives of 
 the colonies to arrange a harmony of action. Wash- 
 ington, at this first meeting, in 1755, in spite of some 
 criticisms of the British general's plans, was given 
 
 298 
 
ALEXANDRIA TO FREDERICKSBURG 
 
 a commission as major and a place on Braddock's 
 staff, he not only being an unusually impressive 
 young man but he had commanded in the Ohio River 
 country the year before when he was scarcely more 
 than of age; and even before that had been in the 
 same country as a commissioner from Governor 
 Dinwiddle to the French. 
 
 Washington's familiar title of colonel was given 
 him by Virginia. And as to "major," Hawthorne 
 had a curious story, for standing one day, with a 
 friend, on a London street corner, an English regi- 
 ment w^ent marching by, bound for the Crimean 
 War, and Hawthorne's friend remarked that it was 
 the very regiment with which George Washington 
 had marched as a major a score of years before our 
 country came into existence. 
 
 There is a quaint and ancient church, Christ 
 Church in Alexandria, a squarish church, square- 
 sided, with square flat ceiling with a broad gallery 
 on each side, with carved cornice, a church which 
 shows a pew which was Washington's. There is 
 an hexagonal, high-perched pulpit, on a slender ped- 
 estal, with a beautiful, suspended sounding-board 
 above, standing squarely in the middle of the chan- 
 cel — here pronounced carefully, ''chauncel" — and 
 flanked by two great panels of the creed and Lord's 
 Prayer. 
 
 A lovely old churchyard with shade trees and 
 ancient stones adds charm and setting to the old 
 mellow brick church. There is a sweet old belfry 
 
 299 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 rising from a square tower in front of the church 
 to an octagon of brick and gradations of white pil- 
 lars above. 
 
 Robert E. Lee had a pew in Christ Church and 
 here he attended service on the April Sunday of 
 1861, between the Saturday on which the resigna- 
 tion of Lee was received by the National Govern- 
 ment and the Monday on which he left for Rich- 
 mond to take command of the Virginia forces of the 
 Confederacy. 
 
 The Masons of Alexandria have done a great deal 
 to preserve the important relics of the town and to 
 uphold its traditions. Their meeting hall is a re- 
 placement after a fire, in which much of value was 
 lost, but an astonishing amount preserved! Here 
 is still shown the portrait of that amazing land- 
 owner, Lord Fairfax, ruddy-faced, stout, white- 
 wigged, wearing a claret-colored coat. Here is the 
 portrait of that man of unique record. Doctor Craik, 
 "my old and intimate friend. Doctor Craik" as 
 "Washington's will has it. He wears a blue coat, a 
 dull red waistcoat, and a white stock, and has dark 
 unpowdered hair. He was with Washington in the 
 fight at Great Meadows, in 1754, and it is declared 
 that he was likewise with Washington in every con- 
 flict after that date including the fighting at York- 
 town. His Scotch blood showed, he stayed to the 
 finish: for he was at the deathbed of Washington, 
 and later at that of his widow. 
 
 Among the distinctly Masonic relics is the chair 
 in which Washington sat when he presided at meet- 
 
 300 
 
ALEXANDRIA TO FREDERICKSBURG 
 
 ings. After his death it has been used only by 
 important presiding visitors, among whom Lafay- 
 ette was one of the first. A few years ago it was 
 used by President Taft and, as they naively tell 
 you, '*it is now kept in a glass case." 
 
 The Great War added much of the new to Alex- 
 andria but fortunately without destroying the old. 
 There are wide old streets paved with the most 
 impossible cobblestones and they alternate with 
 smooth-paved thoroughfares. There are old town- 
 houses with queer gables. There are fine houses on 
 the corners and at length as you turn down South 
 Washington Street, you find old mansions, large 
 and dignified and full of charm. Here is one of 
 yellow fronted by huge fluted white pillars. Here 
 is one oddly with a half gable to the street, with 
 two-story galleries and with dormers, adjoining an 
 ancient garden shaded by tall trees. There are 
 brass knockers and delightful doorways. Most of 
 the houses are directly on the sidewalk, as they were 
 made for old-fashioned town living, but there is 
 much of delightful brick-walled gardening. A great 
 deal of wealth was centered in Alexandria in the 
 old days, and you think it must have growTi up as 
 a highly precise sort of town when you see such a 
 sign as ''Five hundred and ten feet to R. R. cross- 
 ing." 
 
 Market Square, in the heart of the town, is now 
 largely covered by court and market buildings, but 
 it is where Braddock's troops were paraded and 
 drilled — think of Washington quickstepping to the 
 
 301 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 tune of the "British Grenadiers!" By going into 
 the old market-house and looking about, you find 
 an old, brick-paved square, and you visualize the old 
 market place and drill ground, surrounded by the 
 taverns and mansions of the old town. And in par- 
 ticular you may find an ancient inn, bordered by 
 still existent galleries, such as might figure in Pick- 
 wick or even the Three Musketeers. Lovers of the 
 old get great satisfaction out of Alexandria, and its 
 old houses and its streets like the one named Ori- 
 noco, reminiscent of the old shipping days. 
 
 From old Alexandria we may drive in a few 
 hours to much older Fredericksburg, which is half- 
 way between Washington and Richmond, over an 
 excellent road and through the heart of typical 
 Virginia. It is not a farming country, yet now and 
 then there are farms, and there are not infrequently 
 orchards. There are few towns. It is generally 
 wild country, a country of old pine woods and young 
 pines overgrowing old fields. 
 
 Myriad white birds twinkle in the sun on the water 
 of the inlets. Buzzards go sailing in circles high 
 over the cedars against the blue sky. Cedars and 
 laurel grow freely on the hillsides. A sort of rough 
 brown sedge-grass covers much of the scant 
 meadows. It is a wild country with few crossroads. 
 You come to a fork in the road but continue straight 
 onward, for the road leading to the left would take 
 you to Mount Vernon. 
 
 A distance farther through the green pines and 
 you see a great house on a hillside at your right. 
 
 302 
 
ALEXANDRIA TO FREDERICKSBURG 
 
 It is a large house of brick and white stone, of ad- 
 mirable design, and the architect was that Thornton 
 who designed the Octagon, the Tudor House in 
 Georgetown, and a great part of the Capitol. The 
 house is Woodlawn, the home built for Lawrence 
 Lewis and his wife, who was Nellie 'Custis, the 
 adopted daughter of George Washington, the grand- 
 daughter of Martha Washington, and Lawrence 
 Lewis being Washington's sister Betty's son. 
 
 The house stands well up from the roadside on 
 the top of a ridge and is reached by a cedar- 
 bordered drive beginning at a great brick gateway 
 with brick posts topped by stone balls. 
 
 The land was a wedding gift from Washington to 
 Nellie Custis and her husband, he deeming it a 
 ''most beautiful site for a Gentleman's seat." The 
 house w^as built after Washington's death. It is a 
 great wing-balanced mansion of brick, with small 
 portico over the door, with white entablatures 
 which show well at a distance, and with a small pedi- 
 ment over the center. Beyond the wings the front 
 line of Woodlawn is extended by garden walls of 
 brick, with a square garden house at each end ; and 
 great box gardens continue the line onward. It is 
 one of the finest of the old type of great Virginia 
 mansions. 
 
 Continuing by the main road through the piney 
 woods, Pohick is reached in two or three miles, a 
 trifling collection of scattered homes at a cross- 
 road. The central building is old Pohick Church, a 
 venerable square structure, hip-roofed and oddly 
 
 303 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 without either belfry or portico. When the parish- 
 ioners were discussing the building of this church, 
 Washington and his close friend, Colonel Mason of 
 neighboring Gunston Hall led opposing factions as 
 to the location. When the parishoners met to decide, 
 Washington, surveyor that he was, was equipped 
 with the actual distance from the front door of 
 every house to the two localities; and he won! 
 
 In one of the many fiction stories of Virginia, a 
 brother and sister, before the war, are pictured in 
 an isolated home, and a visitor from the North asks 
 if they have ever been at Washington. ''No," re- 
 sponded the brother, with proper dignity, ''but my 
 sister has been at Pohickl" The full paucity of 
 this worldly experience strikes you as you come 
 through the lonely pine woods to the solitary old 
 church and the two or three chicken-scratched old 
 dooryards and forlorn cabins and farm houses. 
 Yet in early days this little brick church was the 
 center of a distinguished parish, and its list of 
 vestrymen, before the Revolution, shows that 
 eleven were members of the House of Burgesses, 
 and Washington was a vestryman of the parish as 
 was his father before him. 
 
 The ivy-hung cedar-surrounded church was a 
 ruin after the Civil War, but has been lovingly 
 restored ; and its original fine stone quoined corners, 
 its old worn doorsteps, and fine paired doorways, 
 are still in place. If you are there on a pleasant 
 Sunday morning, you will see a few motors and 
 country carriages scattered among the trees, and if 
 
 304 
 
ALEXANDRIA TO FREDERICKSBURG 
 
 service has begun, you will hear the echoing sound 
 of responses come softly through the windows. 
 Enter, and you find the congregation standing, in 
 their square pews, and facing the rector and pulpit 
 on the side toward the road. As if continuing an 
 old idea, the country carriages and the motor cars 
 are not in line on the road but are scattered among 
 the trees, past the old graves, below the church. 
 
 It is a small and intimate group who worship here, 
 and the faces of most of them show breeding. 
 There could not well be a more peaceful setting, 
 w^ith the Sabbath quiet, and the sunshine and the 
 gentle breeze. 
 
 Farther along in the road you see that it is a 
 country of peepers in the swamps, and near the nicer 
 of the little homes, you will see bird-houses on poles, 
 sometimes six or seven in a group, a little thicket of 
 bird-houses, and if it is early spring, these old, old 
 homes are bowered in clouds of white plum 
 blossoms. 
 
 A careless desolation lies over the entire country- 
 side. Nor is this to be ascribed entirely to the Civil 
 War, for Charles Dickens, driving to Fredericks- 
 burg twenty years before that time, wrote that the 
 country approaching that city had once been very 
 productive but that the soil had been exhausted by 
 employing slave labor without strengthening the 
 land, whereby it had become little better than a 
 sandy desert overgrown with trees; and George 
 AVashington, before the Revolutionary War, wrote 
 of the evils of tobacco crops and said: ''Our lands 
 
 305 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 were originally very good, but use and abuse have 
 made them quite otherwise. ' ' 
 
 There are still fords on the road and the water 
 splashes high as you drive through. 
 
 One notices the remains of three great old brick 
 and stone Colonial mansions, among the small 
 houses of the little village of Dumfries. One by the 
 roadside is used as a lodge and thus kept from ruin. 
 Another is barely more than a chimney — but such a 
 chimney ! a tall chimney, Jacobean in style, with an 
 insignificant wooden cabin built against it and using 
 the flues of ancient grandeur. Another great old 
 house upon the green hillside, faces out over the 
 landscape with empty window sockets, with the 
 stone steps crumbled away from the door and 
 horses stabled in the cellar; a house that has been 
 beautifully paneled but which has had its paneling 
 torn out within a year for kindling wood; and 
 around the old place rose bushes and daffodils still 
 grow. 
 
 There are amber lights in the misty distances. 
 There is the pervasive smell of the piney woods. 
 The singing of birds, the thorny hedges, the lush 
 beauty of spring time, all are here. 
 
 The road turns down a hill as if hanging against 
 a cliff of yellow sandstone to a broad stream at the 
 picturesque old crowded riverside village of Occo- 
 quan, with its old ruined stone mill much like a 
 medieval ruin, with the waterpower still tearing 
 through, although the wheels have not turned for 
 half a century. 
 
 306 
 
ALEXANDRIA TO FREDERICKSBURG 
 
 It is hard to realize that amid the lonely pine 
 woods that border the road for mile after mile 
 were great camps for the soldiers during the great 
 European war; the road leads, high-causewayed 
 and dry, across a great swamp, formerly a complete 
 bar to traffic in wet weather, and at length you come 
 to a point where you may look down and off at the 
 broad Rappahannock, hurrying on through its rocks. 
 You go down a long steep road into old Falmouth, 
 passing a little courthouse always spoken of locally 
 as the ** third seat of Justice in America." It could 
 never have held a jury, twelve men couldn't get in! 
 This old miniature seat of justice ranks in impos- 
 sible tininess with the miniature old custom-house of 
 Stonington in Connecticut — which, carefully built, 
 does not look as if a chair and a table could be 
 placed inside. Yet in this now shabby and forsaken 
 old Falmouth, literally down hill, George Washing- 
 ton went to school. 
 
 You turn sharply into the road which parallels 
 the riverside and in a few minutes you are opposite 
 Fredericksburg. But before crossing the long, 
 narrow bridge, you look first at the nearby farm 
 where Washington's parents lived, and where 
 his mother lived for some years as a widow. 
 It is a high-set, riverside farm beautifully situated. 
 The original house has gone but another is on the 
 same site. This is the farm where the cherry tree 
 grew : and the story told by Parson Weems does not 
 seem impossible or absurd except in his method of 
 telling. Weems knew everybody in the countryside 
 
 307 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 and was liked by everybody and nothing is more 
 probable than that the small boy chopped the tree 
 and told about it. The neighborhood still abounds 
 in human stories of George Washington and of his 
 mother and sister. The grandeur of Mount Vernon 
 was far away and they here remember the simple 
 days. 
 
 A dear old lady, over in Fredericksburg, looked 
 back with me at this farm across the river, and told 
 me, as if it were confidential and as if it happened 
 but yesterday, that over there, little George was 
 taught by his father to plant the name George 
 Washington in cabbage seed, so as to give him the 
 delight of seeing his own name spring into life, and 
 that his father taught him also carefully to pull up 
 the weeds, they being like vices or sins that needed 
 uprooting. And all this as if it were about some 
 little boy of yesterday ! 
 
 The bridge leading into Fredericksburg is slender 
 and high-set. The old town, officially organized two 
 hundred and fifty years ago, has many quaint old 
 houses, all fresh and prosperous. And there are 
 charming gardens. There are hard-paved streets, 
 for it is a busy prosperous place — an odd thing to 
 find after a drive of hours through wilderness. And 
 this thoroughly descriptive word marks one of the 
 famous battlefields within a few miles' radius from 
 this place. 
 
 This sunny, prosperous, church-steepled town, 
 nestled in the Rappahannock valley, has the terrible 
 record of more dead in the* Civil War within a radius 
 
 308 
 
ALEXANDRIA TO FREDERICKSBURG 
 
 of twelve miles, than anywhere else in America. 
 The most terrible battle of the region was here in 
 Fredericksburg ; General Lee and his men occupying 
 Marye 's Heights, the slight rise of land hemming in 
 the town. It was a pitiful fight, for to begin with, 
 Burnside lost heavily in trying to force a crossing 
 from the north side of the river, a task at which he 
 stubbornly kept, though his men fell off the pon- 
 toons and the skeleton of the bridge with sickening 
 steadiness, until Lee, who really wanted his op- 
 ponents on his own side of the river, stopped his 
 firing to let them walk into the trap. Through 
 these streets, the Northerners marched only to be 
 slaughtered by thousands as they attempted the 
 hopeless task of driving Lee from his Heights. 
 You see the locality just as it was on the battle day, 
 with the cedar-bordered sunken road at the foot of 
 the rise — a green, pleasant country lane. But 
 Fredericksburg has lived do-wTi its tragedy. 
 
 Both armies, in their shelling, avoided any serious 
 damage to the histori'c home of Washington's 
 mother — she having, as a widow, lived in the town; 
 and the old home of Washington's sister, Mrs. 
 Lewis, was also spared. 
 
 A steep-roofed, dormered little house of wood at 
 a quiet little corner of two quiet streets, in a good 
 neighborhood then and now, as shown by the old 
 houses still there, is where the mother lived; what is 
 now the center of the house has been changed since 
 her death but the corner wing with its brick 
 chimney-end and the garden are as she left it. It 
 
 309 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 was in this little dooryard garden with flowering 
 shrubs and box bushes, busy with her potherbs, that 
 Lafayette found her when he called, and a delight- 
 ful description of the old lady's spirited conversa- 
 tion and Lafayette's admiration of her, the mother 
 of his great chief, has come down to us. 
 
 Kenmore, the beautiful home of Washington's 
 sister Betty, Mrs. Fielding Lewis, is a large brick 
 mansion, delightfully placed as the important house 
 on the green, and explaining why Thackeray drove 
 down here to look for the home of the Warringtons. 
 
 On the green, beside Kenmore, is the monument 
 to the distinguished General Mercer who fell at 
 Princeton, one of the American oflficers who had 
 served in the army of Prince Charlie and had in 
 consequence come to America. 
 
 In an old graveyard near the green is the monu- 
 ment to Washington's mother, of which it has often 
 been said, that it is the only monument erected by 
 women to the memory of a distinguished woman. 
 
 One of the most familiar stories of Washington is 
 still told in connection with the Kappahannock here, 
 although it is often mistakenly placed beside the 
 Potomac: the story that Washington once threw a 
 silver dollar across the river, which was a possible 
 thing for a man of unusual strength to do at this 
 river ; but in need of the witty elucidation of Choate 
 that ** money went farther in those days" when ap- 
 plied to the broad Potomac : to which remark Choate 
 added, after a little reflection, that Washington did 
 
 310 
 
ALEXANDRIA TO FREDERICKSBURG 
 
 more than that, "having thrown a Sovereign across 
 the Atlantic." 
 
 Even now, a century and a quarter after the 
 death of Washington, you will still find Fredericks- 
 burg people as full of the oral tradition of him as if 
 he were alive but yesterday. 
 
 And a man of perhaps fifty told me, with as much 
 sidewise caution as if telling of the doings of some 
 distinguished citizen of to-day who might come upon 
 us around the corner, that George Washington, 
 coming to visit his rigid mother at Fredericksburg, 
 did not always spend all his time in visiting, but that 
 on occasion he would meet with friends at the little 
 tavern, the Indian Queen, still standing there, and 
 would not only talk, as wise men of old loved to 
 do, and drink, which every gentleman did as a matter 
 of course, but would at times join in a friendly game 
 — and that he was not by any means always the 
 winner; and of how, one night, he left for home by 
 the ferry, having lost all his ready money, and met 
 a stranger who wanted to buy his fine black horse, 
 whereupon he sold it and with the money returned 
 to the tavern, found his friends still there, sat in 
 again with them and, amid uproarious gayety, won 
 back all that he had lost, and more ! 
 
 His sister Betty was tall for a woman and well set 
 up, and her face so much resembled George's that 
 when, for fun, she would throw a cloak around her 
 shoulders, put on a Continental hat, and draw her- 
 self up like a soldier, it was a famous matter in 
 
 311 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 Fredericksburg how much she could look like her 
 brother ! 
 
 In early days Fredericksburg had odd and im- 
 portant connection with the sea. The people are 
 proud of an old house, so made over as to seem new, 
 lovingly known as the ^'sentry box" because from 
 it the Rappahannock was watched during four wars 
 for sea-raiders. And another old house is at least 
 locally believed to have been "the only legal home 
 in America" of John Paul Jones; a sidewalk-set old 
 wooden house of two plain simple stories. 
 
 But twilight is coming on and we start back on 
 the long run to Washington. We look off in the 
 sunset light into sapphire and rosy distances. The 
 views seem more sweeping than on our approach. 
 The pines are of an extraordinary vivid green. As 
 darkness settles we realize that this is the very 
 heart of old Virginia. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 MOUNT VERNON" 
 
 OUNT VERNON 
 
 gave remarkable op- 
 portunity to George 
 AVashington to show 
 his superman qual- 
 ities. As a general 
 he was a genius. 
 As a President he 
 was of vast ability. 
 But at Mount Ver- 
 non he displayed 
 what would be term- 
 ed, in modern 
 phraseology, in su- 
 per-degree, the 
 qualities of a buyer. 
 He filled Mount 
 Vernon with the most delicately beautiful furniture 
 of his time. Silver, china, glass were purchased by 
 him in great quantities and in great good taste. 
 Upholsteries, hangings were freely bought. And 
 all this was done without being in touch with shops 
 where things of value could be purchased. He was 
 never in England. But he dealt in London ! 
 
 313 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 Nor should it be thought that he merely trans- 
 ferred his problems to others. The important point 
 was that he knew what he wanted. 
 
 He was a superman as a manager and adminis- 
 trator. The same basic qualities which made him 
 do the impossible at Valley Forge, which made him 
 hold the army together in defeat as in victory, and 
 even through the impossible two years between the 
 surrender of Cornwallis and the Treaty of Peace, 
 gave him the power to manage Mount Vernon and 
 its multifarious concerns. He could be absent from 
 home for years at a time and, returning, find that 
 his explicit orders had been carried out as if he had 
 been there to see to them. With what might almost 
 be called modesty, he quietly saw to the controlling 
 of everything that needed his control. 
 
 In the long lists of ordered purchases from 
 abroad, he even specified precisely what cloth he 
 wanted for his splendid and colorful clothes, 
 and he even wrote out directions as to cloth 
 for the gowns of his wife. But it may fairly 
 be presumed that in this last respect she had sup- 
 plied her ideas, for he would have been the last 
 man in the world to be discourteous or disre- 
 gardful toward his wife. 
 
 His mail orders sometimes covered two hundred 
 items at a time. And the difiiculty of buying was 
 much increased by his being compelled to use a 
 system essentially of barter. He looked on 
 tobacco as an injurious crop, but grew on his estate 
 
 314 
 
MOUNT VERNON 
 
 a sufficient quantity to sell for enough to make all his 
 purchases. 
 
 To those handling his orders in London his letters 
 were full of precise directions, such as — this being; 
 an excellent example: ^'1 fine bed coverlid to 
 match the curtains. 4 chair bottoms of the same; 
 that is, as much covering suited to the above furni- 
 ture as will go over the seats of 4 chairs (which I 
 have by me) in order to make the whole furniture 
 of this room uniformly handsome and genteel." 
 
 He makes use now and then of the words ''hand- 
 some," "genteel" and ''fashionable," and mentions 
 leeway in judgment when there is doubt regarding 
 a possibly changing fashion. And steadily he 
 brings things to pass. 
 
 Now and then, even the great Washington met 
 with temporary setbacks. When he pleased him- 
 self by ordering busts of Alexander the Great, Julius 
 Caesar, Charles of Sweden, Frederick the Great, 
 Prince Eugene, and the Duke of Marlborough, with 
 the idea that he would have great pleasure in con- 
 templating these military leaders, picture his dis- 
 may at finding that the dealer had supplied, instead, 
 such tilings as busts of.<fEneas and Anchises, and 
 two groups each of Bacchus and Flora! But it 
 was seldom that, either by inadvertence or inability, 
 any one sent Washington anything other than he 
 ordered. His word was law. 
 
 Washington loved the soil. He was an innate 
 farmer. In himself he fitted the ancient myth of 
 
 315 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 the man who regained his strength whenever he 
 touched the ground, and I remember coming some- 
 where upon some writing of his in which he was 
 positively lyric in praise of the triumphs of the 
 farmer, compared with those of the soldier. 
 
 Admiral Vernon, Admiral of the Blue, was the 
 man for whom Mount Vernon was named. The 
 Admiral had won fame and immense public interest 
 by attacking Carthagena, and he had also won the 
 devotion of his men. Among others he won the 
 loving admiration of one of his officers named 
 Lawrence Washington, who named in his honor his 
 estate of Mount Vernon, which he had inherited 
 from his father. 
 
 Lawrence Washington, retiring from the service, 
 was taken ill and went to the West Indies in an 
 effort to recover his health. His young half-brother, 
 George Washington, accompanied him to care for 
 him — the only time when George Washington left 
 the confines of what was to be the United States of 
 America. 
 
 Lawrence returned home in time to die here, and 
 he willed Mount Vernon to his half-brother George. 
 From this time until the close of his life, George 
 Washington loved Mount Vernon with a love that 
 was unfeigned and unbounded. 
 
 To take advantage of the glorious river view the 
 house, which stands on a bluff one hundred and 
 twenty-five feet above the water, has its greatest 
 dimension in its lengthwise front, giving thus the 
 
 316 
 
•.mik^ 
 
MOUNT VERNON 
 
 opportunity for views from many windows. It is 
 ninety-six feet long by thirtj' deep and each of the 
 long facades is a finished front for the building, one 
 facing toward the river and the other inland. 
 
 A little octagonal weather-vaned cupola, or 
 lantern, with each of its eight sides holding fifteen 
 panes of glass, surmounts the roof and gives an un- 
 rivaled outlook in every direction. Below the 
 cupola are several dormers, almost hidden behind 
 an openwork rail extending along the whole piazza 
 roof, above the line of eight tall, two-story square 
 pillars, which form the most striking feature of the 
 mansion's front. 
 
 The house, originally built in 1743, is much longer 
 than w^hen Washington acquired it, it having been 
 quite typical of his methods that, when about to 
 leave on an indefinite absence, he ordered changes 
 that added forty-four feet to the front. When he 
 returned, he found the changes and additions made 
 as completely and satisfactorily as they c^uld have 
 been if he had given them personal supervision. 
 
 Along the riverfront of the entire house is a 
 piazza, fifteen feet deep and twenty-five feet high 
 The floor of the piazza is paved with flat stone flags, 
 carried here from the Isle of Wight. Back and 
 forth on these stones was the rainy day walk of the 
 Father of his Country. Here he received many 
 visitors and seated them in the thirty Windsor chairs 
 that originally stood here. 
 
 There is considerable of the original furnishing 
 in the house, but it is all a matter of restitution, for 
 
 317 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 after the death of Washington and his widow the 
 entire house was emptied by bequest, gift and 
 auction. When the Mount Vernon Ladies' Associa- 
 tion was organized in 1856 and the National Govern- 
 ment and the entire nation began to take an interest 
 in the matter, many of the original furnishings and 
 ornaments were restored, and the rest of the space 
 was gradually filled with similar things of the 
 period. The ladies to whom has fallen the heritage 
 of caring for Mount Vernon manage it with most 
 devoted and efficient care. 
 
 Mount Vernon is sixteen miles south of Wash- 
 ington on the opposite side of the Potomac. It may 
 be reached by steamer or by trolley or, as most 
 people nowadays go, by motor-car. The road is 
 well surfaced and leads through Alexandria. This 
 road is strikingly in appearance as it must have been 
 generations ago, though there are more woods and 
 fewer fields, with here and there a cabin beside the 
 road, with clothes drying on the fence ; and the last 
 time I went over it I met an old negro woman who 
 seemed to have walked directly out of the distant 
 past, stooping as she was beneath a large basket 
 filled with pussy-willows and sassafras bark and 
 poke-root shoots. 
 
 And, so long as you make the single turn at the 
 fork not far from your destination, there is only 
 one way to go, as is generally the case in sparsely- 
 roaded Virginia. The Potomac sweeps for miles 
 near the road, alternately coming into sight and dis- 
 appearing. The country-side is gently rolling and 
 
 318 
 
MOUNT VEENON 
 
 is wooded with insignificant trees. You pass by 
 the roadside a spot associated with one of the many 
 visits of John Marshall. He and a friend and a 
 servant rode down on a day so hot that they rode in 
 old clothes and decided to change in the woods near 
 the house, to be fresh on arrival. They stopped 
 here by the roadside and took off their dusty clothes 
 and the servant opened the bag to get out their 
 better ones — when out poured the general medley of 
 a peddlar's pack! The bag had been changed at 
 the Alexandria tavern! The friends shrieked with 
 laughter and rolled, unclad, on the ground! — and 
 the Father of his Country came riding out to learn 
 the cause of the extraordinary mirth. 
 
 Approaching- Mount Vernon, it is surprising to 
 notice, clustered about it, some two hundred enorm- 
 ous trees. They are largely of unusual varieties 
 and most of them were set out by Washington him- 
 self with all the care of a tree-lover, and can be 
 identified from his diary. Washington was a tree- 
 collector, as well as a tree-lover, and often wrote 
 for specimens to friends or to scientists in various 
 parts of America and Europe, in addition to gather- 
 ing trees personally in localities that he visited. 
 
 Elms were an especial choice and there are a 
 number of these now close to ninety feet in height. 
 There are giant tulips that he set out and huge 
 hemlocks somber in dark green. There are beech 
 trees of his planting. There are ash. There is a 
 sugar maple which has reached to ninety-one feet; 
 and those who study his trees declare that the 
 
 319 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 tallest of all is well over one hundred feet high. 
 There are lindens and honey-locusts; and he has 
 somewhere written that on a March day in the late 
 seventeen-eighties he planted more than seventeen 
 thousand honey-locust seeds. He often brought 
 home in his saddlebags tree seeds from distant 
 places to which he had gone ; and some rare buckeyes 
 were gathered in the Cheat River region — even now 
 wild and beautiful with rhododendron thickets. 
 
 Thomas Jefferson gathered things animate and 
 inanimate, and, himself a devoted tree-planter, gave 
 to Washington the three pecan trees which grow 
 in the front lawn of the mansion. Box was an 
 especial favorite of the master of Mount Vernon 
 and he was very successful in growing it. It was 
 rooted under his own supervision by beating it firm 
 in sand, and large areas in the vicinity of the house 
 are geometrically outlined with billowy box masses, 
 four feet high. 
 
 Mount Vernon is entered by the driving road 
 through and beside these groups and single giant 
 trees. 
 
 One approaches the immediate grounds beside a 
 long line of servants' quarters, dormer windowed, 
 red-roofed, surrounded by flowers, and overgrown 
 with thick masses of ivy. 
 
 Although the driveway leads to the house, it is 
 not now to be used, and you leave your car outside 
 and walk in. Thus the modern, the noisy, the risk 
 of fire, are left well outside and rich and poor go 
 in alike on foot — on an equal footing. 
 
 320 
 
MOUNT VERNON 
 
 Nothing could be more different than the two 
 fronts of Mount Vernon: the superb pillared front 
 toward the water, and the beautiful unpillared front 
 facing inland, with its central door, its fine pediment 
 on the cornice line with its round window, charm- 
 ingly spider-webbed in design. Washington took 
 great pride in the doorsteps of this front. They 
 are square, they are of stone, they decrease evenly 
 in size, as they go up. 
 
 If it were not for the altogether charming and 
 altogether unique little cupola on the roof it would 
 not seem that this could be the same house whose 
 river-front is so familiar to every one. 
 
 Sweeping away at either corner from this inland 
 front are delightful curving arcades connecting with 
 the kitchen and offices. There are quaint outlying 
 kitchen and wash-houses, a perfect village of tiny 
 household dependences, with roofs dormered and 
 delectably steep and with chimneys quaintly large 
 throated. 
 
 The curving sweep of the old driveway swings 
 around the old lawn-like bowling green in its central 
 position, and passes the exquisite gardens at right 
 and left, in all their beauty of paths and boxborders, 
 old walls and charming garden houses. 
 
 The superb river front of Mount Vernon has never 
 been broken by driveway or footpath. The house 
 is perfectly set and looks out in restful dignity at 
 the superb sweeps of river, at the glimmering glory 
 of the unspoiled distances. 
 
 When you visit Mount Vernon go, if you can, on 
 
 321 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 a pleasant day at an early hour so as to miss 
 throngs. The custodians are many, but they are 
 necessary and unobtrusive. It is the peeking and 
 peering and pushing of people on your heels that 
 destroy effects. Have Mount Vernon as nearly as 
 possible to yourself — and your imagination will pic- 
 ture and people the mansion with the life of the 
 past, and you will think of Washington pacing soli- 
 tary on the long piazza on rainy days, or walking 
 there alone on sleepless nights. 
 
 In every detail the building, the outbuildings, and 
 the lawns, parks and gardens, represent the splendid 
 taste, the boundless enthusiasm, the tireless indus- 
 try, the loving care, of the great man who planned 
 everything there. 
 
 Washington was among the great landowners and 
 increased the size of Mount Vernon to eight thou- 
 sand acres. Now the estate measures two hundred 
 and thirty-seven and a half. 
 
 In the greenhouse is a much-traveled, tall-tufted 
 sago palm, twelve feet in height, with a most strik- 
 ing history. It was sold at the auction in 1802 and 
 remained in a greenhouse up the Hudson River until 
 the very recent year of 1920, when it was restored 
 to Mount Vernon. Close by, hanging on the wall 
 are two of the quaintest imaginable sprinkling 'cans-. 
 They look like lead but are really of copper. They 
 hold many gallons of water and have queer, circle- 
 sweeping handles. They were here in use in the 
 famous days of the house and gardens. Among 
 the other little buildings is the ice-house over which 
 
 322 
 
MOUNT VERNON 
 
 the emotional old lady was found weeping, accord- 
 ing to the story of half a century ago, under the 
 impression that she was weeping over the tomb! 
 
 In one of these little houses, in 1787, lived an 
 especially good gardener named Baxter, whose 
 single defect was that he drank too much; one of 
 the surprisingly many white servants that Wash- 
 ington maintained. Baxter drank so freely as to 
 destroy his usefulness, and Washington avoided the 
 necessity of discharging him by making what might 
 be called a psychological contract with him. He 
 had a bond formally dra^\^l up, binding Washington, 
 on his part, to give certain money and clothes to 
 Baxter in the course of the next year, and binding 
 Baxter to do certain daily work, and permitting him 
 to be drunk just four days and four nights at 
 Christmas, two days similarly at Easter and two at 
 Whitsuntide — and it worked! 
 
 In another little house lived Bishop, the English 
 body-servant, who had been left by the dying Brad- 
 dock to the care of Washington, and who was for 
 forty years a faithful caretaker of the place. 
 
 Mount Vernon is a building of pine whose long 
 boards are cut to resemble blocks of cut stone. 
 With some amusement one remembers that Wash- 
 ington, on passing through Connecticut, wrote of his 
 amazement that there the houses were built of frame 
 instead of stone! 
 
 Washington lived as proprietor at Mount Vernon 
 for a few years before his marriage in 1759. It 
 would seem that his independent-minded mother 
 
 323 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 was here at least once in that period, but it would 
 also seem, with somewhat of vagueness, that she 
 never visited there after his marriage. Toward the 
 close of her life she intimated her readiness, strong- 
 willed though she was, to end her days with her son, 
 but Washington, knowing that she had her comfort- 
 able home in Fredericksburg near the foot of her 
 daughter's garden, did not accept her suggestion. 
 
 The house centers about the hallway. Innum- 
 erable times here stood George and Martha Wash- 
 ington receiving formal guests, and one gets a gen- 
 eral impression that they welcomed all of America 
 and half of Europe! The hallway extends through 
 the house with a great door at either end. The 
 paneling is as Washington built it in 1775. On 
 either side of the heavily corniced wall are two 
 broken-arched doorways, and there are beautiful 
 articles of furniture. 
 
 Here in the hall is the huge key of the Bastille, 
 sent as a personal gift from the man who ordered 
 the great prison torn down, the rapidly developed 
 Lafayette who only eight years before had finished 
 his youthful American warfare. Here also in the 
 hall are three of the four swords left by Washington 
 to his nephews, with his unforgetable injunction: 
 *'Not to unsheath them for the purpose of shedding 
 blood, except it be in self-defense or in defense 
 of their Country and its rights, and in the latter 
 case to keep them unsheathed and prefer falling 
 with them in their hands to the relinquishment 
 thereof." 
 
 324 
 
MOUNT VERNON 
 
 The easy-rising stairway of black walnut mounts 
 at one side of the hall with delightful balusters — 
 three on each step — and a fine ramp, and with a 
 turn half way up, where stands a tall clock that was 
 owned by Lawrence Washington. One pictures 
 Washington roused from sleep and descending the 
 stair with a candle, the night that Houdon, the 
 sculptor, sent from Paris by Jefferson and Franklin, 
 to model Washington, arrived with three compan- 
 ions by water from Alexandria, getting Washington 
 out of bed. The original statue is in the State 
 House, of Virginia; and a clay study of the head 
 only was left at Mount Vernon, where it may still 
 be seen. 
 
 In the music room is a harpsichord which Wash- 
 ington imported from England as a thousand dollar 
 gift to his wife's grandaughter, Nellie Custis. It 
 is still a beautiful instrument, tawny colored, slen- 
 der legged, something the shape of a little grand 
 piano of modern days and \\ith a double-tiered key- 
 board. 
 
 Of all the musical instruments that the imagina- 
 tion could associate with George Washington the 
 flute" would be the most romantic. The picture of 
 the Father of his Country puffing and blowing away 
 his very soul, while his foot tapped time to the 
 music, is a picture you love to turn over in your 
 mind! And the flute which was his very own is in 
 the music room. 
 
 In the west parlor, a paneled room with stucco- 
 ornamented ceiling and containing some beautiful 
 
 325 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 Chippendale chairs, is a large Aubusson carpet 
 which was sent as a gift to Washington by Louis 
 the Sixteenth. Washington could not, under the 
 law, accept a gift from a foreign potentate ; and the 
 carpet, centered by an eagle surrounded by stars, 
 was sold to some one in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. 
 In 1897, after years of use, it was presented to the 
 building for which it was intended more than a 
 century before. 
 
 The intimate little family dining-room, is reminis- 
 cent of thousands of guests, for it was freely used 
 with intimates; and it is said that one day in the 
 late 1780 's Washington suddenly laid down his knife 
 and fork, leaned back in his chair, and said to his 
 wife that he believed this to be the first time in their 
 married life that they had dined alone! Guests 
 were always welcome at Mount Vernon. Washing- 
 ton was willing in those early days of the nation 
 to have his home treated essentially as a building 
 of the Government. His managers even had his 
 careful instructions as to what to offer in food and 
 drink and general hospitality to unexpected guests 
 who arrived when he and his wife were absent. 
 
 In this room there is a Heppelwhite sideboard of 
 Washington's, presented by Mrs. Eobert E. Lee 
 in 1860, of positively lovely curves, and there are 
 mahogany chests filled with great square old bottles. 
 One case came from the Fairfax auction at Belvoir, 
 the adjoining place, just before the Kevolution, when 
 that Fairfax family returned to England. Wash- 
 ington always remained young enough to enjoy an 
 
 326 
 
MOUNT VERNON 
 
 auction, a^d from his diarj^ may be picked out many 
 an item of auction purchases. 
 
 Both for this room and the great dining-room all 
 food was carried in from the outside kitchen along 
 one of the covered colonnades — one can picture the 
 running back and forth with covered dishes ! 
 
 The only time in all his years of life at Mount 
 Vernon that any one there succeeded in passing upon 
 him even a jesting impertinence — the stories of the 
 personal awe inspired by Washington being almost 
 incredible — occurred one dinner-time when the fa- 
 mous Light-horse Harry Lee, whose mother was a 
 friend of his youth, was a guest. "Washington re- 
 marked that he would like to buy a pair of carriage 
 horses, whereupon young Lee facetiously responded 
 that he had a pair for sale but that Washington 
 could not buy them. **Why not?" asked Washing- 
 ton incautiously. **Well," replied Lee, **you never 
 pay more than half price for anything and I won't 
 sell except for full price." Mrs. Washington 
 laughed and her parrot burst into a torrent of mirth. 
 At which Washington, whose face had begun to 
 chill, laughed too and said: "Well, Lee, you're a 
 funny fellow; see, even the bird is laughing at you." 
 
 Perhaps the only other formal effort on record 
 of even an attempt to shake Washington's amour 
 propre was made by Gouverneur Morris, when, on 
 a dare, he entered the dining-room in Philadelphia, 
 and with a familiar greeting, slapped him on the 
 shoulder. There was no parrot to relieve this much 
 worse situation, and the guests watched in horror 
 
 327 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 as Washington turned his eyes on the culprit and 
 froze him with a silent look. It was rather curious 
 that Gouvemeur Morris, over in Paris, posed for 
 Houdon for Washington 's legs, which the artist had 
 not been able to make for the statue while in 
 America; and as the legs are disturbingly queer 
 for their great subject, one wonders if Morris did 
 not have a fine revenge! 
 
 Throughout the house are scattered many mili- 
 tary pictures of men or scenes, for which Washing- 
 ton had a great regard. They used to line the whole 
 staircase. 
 
 The great banquet-room was planned by Wash- 
 ington personally, and was added by him just as the 
 Revolution was beginning. This was one of the 
 changes that developed the house into a mansion. 
 The great triple Palladian window centers the end 
 of the house and was always a point of pride. The 
 elaborate marble mantel, in the center of the wall, 
 opposite the great window, was sent as a gift at a 
 later date from an English admirer of Washington 
 named Vaughn. It is a great Siena marble mantel 
 in three colors, with entablatures in relief showing 
 scenes in agriculture. One of the most interesting 
 of Mount Vernon stories is that the ship bringing 
 it was captured by French pirates, who, when they 
 found it was intended for George Washington, sent 
 it most carefully on its way. 
 
 The library at the other end of the house was 
 made for quiet retreat, for isolation, and for study, 
 and at the ^ame time with a splendid view ; a room 
 
 328 
 
MOUNT VERNON 
 
 which looks as it did when the great owner was here, 
 for one wall is lined with glass-protected bookcases 
 and the cases are filled with books. Most of the 
 original volumes are in the library of the Boston 
 Athenaeum but great pains have been taken to fill 
 these shelves with books of the same titles and the 
 same period. Even the old tambour desk and re- 
 volving armchair, left in his will to his old friend 
 Doctor Craik, is here where it used to be, and the 
 only long windows in the house permit the eyes of 
 the one seated at the desk to sw^eep down to the 
 river and the wharf. Washington was frequently 
 at his desk in this room before daylight and built 
 his own fire on the hearth. 
 
 Mount Vernon had many bedrooms to hold its 
 many guests. Whole neighborhood parties used to 
 stay the night. John Marshall tells of a night he 
 stayed here. He had no idea that anything was to 
 be asked of him ; to him it w^as only that as one who 
 had been a young officer in Washington's army, he 
 had been given an invitation. 
 
 But when evening came, the two men sat together 
 in front of one of the fireplaces and Washington out- 
 lined a task which he wished to be performed. Mar- 
 shall, who tells the story himself, omits to mention 
 precisely what the task was, but tells that it was 
 something which he was extremely anxious to avoid. 
 Washington, however, would not listen to him and 
 treated the matter as if settled. 
 
 Marshall has narrated how he lay awake for hours 
 until nearly daylight, when he silently got up and 
 
 329 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 began to dress, preparing to make his escape, but 
 he could not find his top boots! English-fashion 
 they had been slipped quietly away by a servant to 
 be cleaned. There was only one thing to be done. 
 Marshall felt his way down the stairs, opened an 
 outside door and made his way to the servants' 
 quarters to find his boots. Suddenly there was a 
 slight sound behind him. He turned, still in his 
 stockings, and above him towered a tall form, fully 
 dressed — and Marshall took the work! 
 
 The bedroom in which Washington died, the south 
 bedroom on the second floor, has a staircase by which 
 he could reach his library below, and also out-of- 
 doors, without going into the main hall. Most of 
 the furniture now in this room was here in his 
 day, including the four-poster bed upon which he 
 died — a bed of a strange shortness for a man as 
 tall as we know Washington to have been. 
 
 After his death his widow did a fine and thought- 
 ful thing. She destroyed his personal letters to 
 her. His diaries, his letters to friends, his state 
 papers all were kept. But the letters to herself 
 were to be seen by no eyes but her own. To this 
 she made one exception. She kept the letter, for all 
 to read, in which Washington told her of having 
 to go at once to take command af the American 
 forces; a letter which he ended with affection for 
 his ''dear Patsey.^' By this letter the world knows 
 the affection around which this household grew. 
 
 His body lies within a brick vault at some dis- 
 tance down the slope from the mansion. There 
 
 330 
 
MOUNT VERNON 
 
 George and Martha Washington lie side by -side, 
 each within a marble sarcophagus. There is a won- 
 derful growth of dark ivy. about the tomb, and 
 against the brick w^all clings early-blooming jasmine. 
 
 Never was any place so full of the personality of 
 the man who made it his o^\^l. He loved every cor- 
 ner of the house, every article of furniture, every 
 tree and shrub and ha-ha wall. They w^ere his ! 
 
 A thought freely evoked with Mount Vernon is 
 that of mounted officers riding the pine woods road 
 thither as daylight began to wane ; for military men 
 from either side of the Atlantic were always treated 
 as brothers in arms. And one evening, as I drove 
 back toward the city, just as darkness was coming 
 on, I was almost startled, for there, riding in the 
 direction I Avas quitting, were three carefully 
 groomed officers on horseback. It was ghostly. 
 
 fffih. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 ANNAPOLIS 
 
 A Tthi 
 
 A* 
 
 T the National Museum, the 
 old building, there is a 
 child's christening robe, 
 of white silk brocade, 
 a robe so delicate and 
 attractive that it would draw 
 attention even if it were not 
 associated with any 
 known individual. 
 Its interest is there- 
 fore immensely 
 added to when it is 
 learned that it was 
 the christening robe of George Washington. 
 
 Near it is a uniform, so fine as also to attract at- 
 tention; a Continental General's uniform, with blue 
 coat, buff waistcoat and breeches, and a buff 
 turned-over high military collar. The high-cut 
 military coat has buff-facings, with ten big brass 
 buttons on each side and there are a dozen smaller 
 ones down the waistcoat. This is the uniform in 
 which General Washington appeared before the 
 Continental Congress in Annapolis to resign his 
 
 332 
 
ANNAPOLIS 
 
 military commission at the close of the Revolution. 
 And you are overwhelmed to realize that there 
 could be such a span in human life as between this 
 christening robe and the wearing of this Continental 
 uniform. And this reflection adds zest to a pilgrim- 
 age to Annapolis. 
 
 Washington is left by motor, by way of Pennsyl- 
 vania Avenue, leaving the Congressional Cemetery 
 on the left and crossing the bridge over the Ana- 
 costia. It is a hilly way and you shortly come to 
 where there rises beside the road, on a commanding 
 height, a fort, Fort Dupont, still well defined and 
 cared for, and with the fort covered with tall trees 
 and greenery. This was one of the Civil War ring 
 of forts built for the defense of Washington, and in 
 its location, somehow suggests Mont St. Valerien, 
 protecting Paris. Fruit trees are in blossom about 
 the fort, peach and apple. 
 
 Continuing there is a little cottage bowered in 
 lilacs and honeysuckle thickets which are a feature 
 of Maryland highways ; and you begin to realize that 
 this is a verj^ attractive road. There are lieldbeds 
 of daffodils for the street flower venders of the city, 
 and a neighborhood of small market-garden hold- 
 ings. 
 
 Motor-loads of little calves are going to their fate. 
 There are old Maryland houses, set in the midst of 
 farms, with black-boled locust trees, with galleries 
 and outside kitchens and old flower beds and with 
 old shaggy cedars along the highways. Farther 
 along there are other farmhouses, with outside 
 
 333 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 chimneys built against their ends, with tangles of 
 vines on them. The houses are far apart as you 
 get well away from Washington and into the region 
 of salt water inlets and now and then there are seen 
 the quaintest old log cabins, perha»ps old slave 
 quarters. 
 
 As we approach the neighborhood of Marlborough 
 we come to a succession of big, old houses mostly 
 brick, Maryland manors, as such places are called, 
 set well back from the road, acre surrounded, amid 
 fine old trees. One old house at the edge of the 
 town stands on a hillside surrounded by a circle of 
 giant oaks. If you are so fortunate as to live in this 
 county you would call yourself a "Prince Georgian" 
 — fascinating name ! 
 
 Upper Marlborough is the principal to^^^l on the 
 road between Washington and Annapolis, a queer, 
 quaint eighteenth-century county-towai, at a meet- 
 ing of roads, with fascinating old houses, with 
 paling-enclosed gardens and with enough of modern 
 banks and garages to keep in touch with the times. 
 A tremendous ancient elm, the gate-tree, guards a 
 school house where stood the home of the town hero. 
 Dr. Beanes, whose bravery had the unthought-of 
 result of the writing of the Star Spangled Banner. 
 Had there been many more such men the British 
 army would never have reached the Capital. 
 
 A causeway road leaves Upper Marlborough 
 twisting with many bridges through swamp land. 
 And you see such queer looking growths in these 
 queer open swamps that if you were told they were 
 
 334* 
 
ANNAPOLIS 
 
 lotus and papyrus you would hiesitate before dis- 
 believing it. 
 
 On crossing a river you enter a gravel country 
 whose roads are well and naturally made. And as 
 the highway goes through old Harwood, it loops and 
 bends around the ends of deep ravines ; and you see 
 this must be a terminal moraine of an old ice 
 age to account for such curious deepness. 
 
 Eight miles out from Annapolis is a lone brick 
 church, a little old church on a knoll, with giant oaks, 
 with old graves around it hidden in the white myrtle 
 w^hich blossoms wild and free over the field. There 
 are old armorial bearings and titled names and an 
 air of the long ago past; it represents church and 
 state ; it stands for the time when they w^ere united, 
 and just such little brick Episcopalian churches still 
 exist all through Maryland. 
 
 Approaching Annapolis the road runs through 
 estuary country and over the long South River 
 bridge, a region of enchanting views ; there are sail- 
 boats with patched sails swelling m the breeze; 
 there are seine-poles in the water; and there is an 
 old low-set house — it seems as if everything is back 
 a hundred years — and in its dooryard is a long 
 ancient bird-house on four high posts, with a roof 
 along whose lower edge are twenty little doors for 
 the birds to go in. 
 
 Entering Annapolis, the attention goes instantly 
 to its center, the State House, one of the three re- 
 markable eighteenth-century State Houses of 
 America — the other two being the old red brick 
 
 335 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 State House of Boston and Independence Hall of 
 Philadelphia. Again and again, one is amazed by 
 the splendid building effects of that age. 
 
 The Annapolis State House from its position on 
 a knoll draws the narrow streeted town to itself as 
 a center. It is a beautiful building of brick with a 
 great quantity of white to relieve it. There are little 
 white pillars at the entrance, with gable and oval 
 window above, and over all the huge white dome 
 rising in great towering octagon gradations until it 
 becomes the great liberty cap of the whole town. 
 
 Annapolis has atmosphere. It has an air. It 
 has always had atmosphere and an air. Since the 
 days of its founding, far back in the sixteen- 
 hundreds — for it is one of the oldest of American 
 towns 'and at the same time keeps up an active 
 modern life — it has always been a little capital, in 
 fact as well as in formality. Annapolis is, as it has 
 from the first been, alert, gay, cheerful, mellow, 
 composed, serene, a town of happiness, a town of 
 social life. 
 
 Wherever you look, wherever you go, there is 
 something of interest. Turn down one street and it 
 is the Duke of Gloucester Street; try another and 
 it is Prince George and the next King George ; in the 
 church you find King William's gift of silver. 
 Turn into Main Street, and at once you see a red 
 garden wall enclosing a green garden, a yellow 
 house, gambrel-roofed, a captain's walk upon the 
 top, remindful that this has always been -a port ; a 
 house over which the State House dome rounds 
 
 336 
 
ANNAPOLIS 
 
 against the blue sky; a very old house this, now the 
 Elks home — and you want to be an elk to live in such 
 an animal house ! 
 
 The atmosphere of Tilghman, Lafayette, Charles 
 Carroll of Carrollton and their friends, is intangibly 
 felt. Charles Carroll was born in this town and was 
 looked upon by many as the richest man in America 
 when he signed the Declaration of Independence. 
 John Adams, always curious about his fellow-man's 
 affairs, wrote immediately before the Revolution 
 that Carroll 's income was then ten thousand pounds 
 sterling. The old Carroll house is now a home for 
 young priests. In the old days the family always 
 maintained a resident priest and an upstairs private 
 chapel. 
 
 The house is large and dignified, and very plain, 
 and stands in the midst of broad and terraced 
 grounds overlooking the tidewater, whose quaint 
 gazebos are now only billowy masses of box. 
 Carroll was the last survivor of the honored band of 
 '' Signers." George Washington was on terms of 
 social intimacy with him and diarizes, in 1771, that 
 he dined with Charles Carroll *'and went to the 
 ball." 
 
 The town and its immediate neighborhood are 
 dotted with fine old mansions. Sloping to Spa 
 Creek are the broad grounds of Acton, which has in 
 a high degree retained its original setting. It is a 
 double-front-gabled house with pillared portico. 
 
 On the narrow towni streets are an astonishing 
 number of beautiful brick eighteenth-century 
 
 337 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 houses, with large central portion, flanked by a wing 
 on either side, balanced and alike. Some of these 
 are now hotels, some are endowed homes, some are 
 still private houses. One of the houses is a stately 
 Colonial mansion now occupied by an order of nuns. 
 This is the Scott mansion, and has been looked upon 
 as the original of Winston Churchill's Carvel Hall. 
 The novelist himself, however, has always declared 
 that he had no single house in mind. 
 
 The old town of Annapolis abounds in box gardens 
 and old trees and there are enough retired admirals 
 and commodores to preserve the old traditions and 
 keep the box and the daffodils dreams of beauty 
 about the old houses, and there is many a water 
 view of unusual charm across some one or another 
 of the sparkling inlets. The town is a revel of fine 
 doorways, staircases, fireplaces and paneling. 
 
 The old waterside with its oyster boats and 
 memories of shipping and old shipping fortunes is 
 rich in tradition and tales of important happenings. 
 They had a highly impressive tea-party here in 
 1774. The Peggy Steivart, Annapolis owned, sailed 
 in with two thousand three hundred and twenty 
 pounds of tea, and the townfolks, led bj^ Charles 
 Carroll insisted that the boat and its cargo be 
 burned ! Thoroughly frightened by the fury of his 
 fellow Annapolitans the owner ran the boat ashore 
 and himself set fire to the costly material, the ship 
 and all the tea. His sick wife watched from the 
 home window. Liberty lovers could often show 
 themselves very cruel. 
 
 338 
 
ANNAPOLIS 
 
 The Naval Academy is on the waterfront of Ann- 
 apolis. It was not established until forty years 
 after the Military Academy at West Point. From 
 the first it made itself seem part of the town, and 
 the blue clad young men add much to the aspect not 
 only of the great academy grounds but of the old 
 narrow streets of Annapolis. The Naval Academy 
 is not away from the town but so intimately placed 
 at the foot of old mansion-bordered Maiyland 
 Avenue as to seem closely a part of Annapolis. 
 
 The sparkling salt water stretches off for miles. 
 The white gulls circle and cry. and dive. The 
 Academies at Annapolis and West Point are alil^e 
 in having retained the beautiful inspiring surround- 
 ings in which they were first placed. There is noth- 
 ing sordid mth either, such as has crept into the 
 surroundings of even Harvard and Yale. 
 
 You are fortunate if you are there when pictur- 
 esque boat practice is in progress on the waterfront. 
 
 The Naval Academy grounds are a krge white 
 city with the white stone buildings- that within re- 
 cent years have been built. The great Bancroft 
 Hall is the principal stinicture and it is of enormous 
 size and solidity. Its entrance is approached by 
 broad granite steps and faces immediately upon a 
 great, long dazzling terrace, made for effectiveness 
 and for the assembling of the midshipmen. 
 
 At the entrance are magnificent ancient patina- 
 green cannon, cannon that are personally named 
 and given inscriptions and coats of arms, cannon of 
 French and Spanish make, brought here from the 
 
 339 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 Spanish Main, cast in a time, the first half of the 
 seventeen-hundreds when cannon making was one 
 of the fine arts. On entering the building you see 
 corridors a tenth of a mile long, leading right and 
 left to the dormitories, and traversing a great 
 marble corridor you mount a great granite stair- 
 case and enter a superb assembly room called 
 Memorial Hall. It is a magnificent awe-inspiring 
 hall, barrel-roofed in white stone with pillars at 
 either end and a fine polished oak floor. Its great 
 windows reaching to the floor give great views of 
 the new parade ground and out over the water, the 
 Severn, with its green headlands and landlocked 
 beauty. The walls are richly impressive with por- 
 traits of American naval heroes of many wars. 
 
 The Chapel is green domed, modern and dom- 
 inating, frankly showing the influence of the chapel 
 of the Hotel des Invalides. The crypt beneath the 
 chapel is circular and very impressive and well ful- 
 fills the purpose for which it was made, the holding 
 of the body of our country's greatest naval hero, 
 John Paul Jones, brought here from Paris after 
 having been lost for a century and then sought for 
 and discovered by Ambassador Porter. 
 
 The round pillars of the crypt, the black and 
 white marble, the heavy plain impressive sarco- 
 phagus, the path around the crypt behind the pillars 
 of Pyrenees marble, beside heavy robes covered 
 with gold hanging from pillar to pillar — make a 
 fitting memorial. 
 
 Leaving the grounds through the gated entrance 
 
 340 
 
STATE CAPITOL AT ANNAPOLIS 
 
ANNAPOLIS 
 
 you are back instantly within the narrow streets of 
 Annapolis. Eeturning to the State House, this 
 time to enter, you go into the old Senate Chamber, 
 forever to be famous as the room in which General 
 Washington resigned his commission as General. 
 He had been received with great honors, on his 
 arrival in Annapolis where the Continental Con- 
 gress was then sitting, and men and women of the 
 highest distinction crowded the room and its gallery 
 to witness the solemn ceremony. 
 
 It is a beautiful room about square, gloriously 
 corniced, with five broad windows slat-shaded and 
 with deep paneled window-seats. A room with a 
 great throated fireplace, probabl}' a very practical 
 atfair on the December day in 1783 in which Wash- 
 ington resigned his commission. 
 
 The speaker's seat is in a niche, up three steps, a 
 niche set within an elaborately designed frame with 
 curving top and pointed pediment. Opposite the 
 speaker's seat is a little gallery supported by 
 beautiful pillars above which is a long fillet of laurel 
 leaves, a design which is also used on the mantel 
 and over the speaker's niche. 
 
 When that migratory monarch Louis Philippe met 
 Healy, the American artist, he expressed his im- 
 mense admiration for George Washington and com- 
 missioned him to copy and send to the Tuileries, 
 Gilbert Stuart's best portrait of the first President. 
 When Daniel Webster was in Europe he met King 
 Louis Philippe a number of times and the king told 
 him that he had been present on the occasion of the 
 
 341 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 ceremony at Annapolis, when Washington resigned 
 his commission to Congress. Louis Philippe both 
 spoke and understood English and told of every de- 
 tail of Washington 's appearance, so profoundly was 
 he still impressed after all those j^ears. He de- 
 clared to Webster that Washington was the most ex- 
 traordinary man that ever had lived; a great deal 
 for a Frenchman to say; and that the speech of 
 resignation at Annapolis had: **for sublimity and 
 grandeur never been surpassed." 
 
 342 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 THE GOAL OF HOSTILE ARMIES 
 
 RESENTING it as an inter- 
 esting discovery, which it 
 certainly was, a 
 friend, a Washing- 
 tonian of fifty years' 
 standing, told me 
 that in traveling 
 through Ireland he 
 chanced upon Ross 
 — the home town of 
 General Ross — and 
 read upon a monu- 
 ment in his honor 
 that he was the ''Hero of the Battle of Bladens- 
 burg. ' ' And it still thrilled him to think of finding 
 little Bladensburg so memorialized in a distant land. 
 The English really thought much of the battle 
 at Bladensburg because it meant the capture of 
 America's capital; and Parliament ordered a monu- 
 ment for General Ross in Westminster and added to 
 his arms the phrase "Ross of Bladensburg" just 
 like Kitchener of Khartoum. 
 
 General Ross was an officer of highly respectable 
 abilities and was sent to America in command of a 
 
 343 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 force, at the time when what may be called the 
 Leipzig-Elba period permitted the mthdrawal of 
 troops from the Continent, just as, a little later, 
 there was a still more important withdraw^al for 
 an attack on New Orleans. 
 
 The American Government, for some unimagin- 
 able reason, refused to believe that the English 
 would attack the city of Washington. Even after 
 it was learned that Eoss was on his way from 
 Europe and was so near that he had put in with his 
 fleet at the Bermudas, our Government felt sure 
 that it was only Baltimore that was to be* attacked. 
 
 Inside of the capes of Chesapeake Bay Ross and 
 his ships were joined by Admiral Cockburn, with 
 three line-of -battle sliips and several frigates and 
 other boats. Cockburn had for some time been 
 cruising up and down the Chesapeake and was 
 charged with much of devastation and cruelty. Th? 
 fleet carrying the army of Ross, added to that of 
 Cockburn 's made about forty ships of war ranging 
 from large to small. 
 
 Ross determined that the attack on Washingt-on, 
 which he was under orders to make, should be made 
 by the unexpected route of the Patuxent. They 
 landed on August nineteenth, the year being 1814, 
 at Benedict, at the mouth of the Patuxent, which 
 parallels the Potomac. 
 
 Ross took several days of cautious marching with 
 Bladensburg as his important objective, but feeling 
 that at any time he might And himself in conflict 
 with the Americans, of whom from time to time, he 
 
 344 
 
THE GOAL OF HOSTILE ARMIES 
 
 caught glimpses, in companies or cavalry squadrons 
 on the hilltops. For a great part of the distance 
 along the Patuxent, his troops were convoyed by 
 British gunboats, who slowly pursued a number of 
 American gunboats that had incautiously gone into 
 this estuary and which, before long, it was necessary 
 to blow up and burn, on which the crews marched 
 off and joined the land forces. 
 
 Bladensburg is, and was, a small old village, only 
 a few miles from Washington and on the direct 
 road between that city and Baltimore. The road 
 led far enough inland to avoid any deep affluents 
 of either the Potomac or the Patuxent. The 
 British merely found a few little bridges and fords. 
 
 Bladensburg, so important in those days in its 
 relation to Washington, looked very much the same 
 then that it does now, except that in the course of 
 something over a century, a great shabbiness has 
 gathered ; and it is no longer a port. It is a village 
 of many old-time houses. One, on the north side of 
 Sand Street, of brick in Flemish bond was used for 
 British wounded and bears the date of 1749. 
 
 Older, is the Stevens house, on a hill to the east- 
 ward, also of brick and it was Ross's headquarters. 
 There in the village center are little cabins with 
 outside chimneys, with ends to the street, and one 
 with a great buttonwood tree and an old bench 
 under it, has its great-based field-stone chimney 
 worn shiny by the backs of the old negroes, who 
 lean against it on winter days to warm by the fire 
 burning inside. Two little old inns, famous for 
 
 345 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 Congressmen's dinners in years gone by, are broken- 
 down mementoes of long ago. 
 
 General Boss led his steady Peninsular veterans 
 with trained caution, much wondering why he was 
 not intercepted. He had four thousand men, but 
 he knew that the Americans could be extraordin- 
 arily good fighters and that their fighting force 
 could greatly outnumber his. He did not know that 
 an amazing farce was being acted in front of him. 
 
 The American commander was one Winder, a 
 lawyer, given a brigadier-general's commission but 
 apparently with no knowledge of war. He galloped 
 aimlessly around, much disturbed by the still more 
 aimless and wilder galloping of President Madison, 
 Secretary of State Monroe, and several other mem- 
 bers of the Cabinet. All sorts of contradictory 
 orders were given, one of which displaced Winder, 
 but another order put him again in command. 
 
 Ross knew that at Bladensburg, if not sooner, 
 he would have to try conclusions. His force ap- 
 peared, winding along the cedar-bordered road, 
 through a wild and wooded country, with higher 
 hills rising beyond. He entered the little old village 
 and found the Americans drawn up at several dif- 
 ferent spots along the highway into Washington 
 and especially on the height rising opposite the 
 glade which was afterw^ards to be the great dueling 
 ground of Washingtonians. 
 
 The battle was hotly contested. Some of the 
 Americans were entirely untrained and they were 
 left to bear the brunt of the attack. The most cap- 
 
 346 
 
THE GOAL OF HOSTILE ARMIES 
 
 able defense was made by Commodore Barney, from 
 the Navy Yard, on the height opposite the dueling 
 giound, and he made such a defense as to lose heavily 
 but at the same time to exact heavy loss from the 
 British. Barney was badly wounded and was per- 
 sonally seen to by tlie two British commanders, who 
 put him i-n charge of an English surgeon. One 
 gathers the impression that neither Winder nor the 
 high Government officials were in any danger of 
 being hurt ; the theory of men in high command staj^- 
 ing back and being safe was not popular at that 
 time. 
 
 The battle was on August twenty-fourth. It was 
 lengthily contested. Outnumbered though he was, 
 Ross and his steady veterans drove the Americans 
 completely from the field. The President and the 
 Cabinet members, when they saw it was a defeat 
 vanished into the limbo of approaching night, and 
 as a ballad-maker of the day wrote : 
 
 "Then might all people well discern 
 
 The gallant Little Man ; 
 His sword did thump behind his back 
 
 So merrily he ran." 
 
 Madison did not even take the trouble of going 
 to the White House to get his wife. The American 
 Army was understood to have lost less than one 
 hundred men. Disorganized though they were and 
 practically officerle&s, they retreated to nearby Ten- 
 allytown and from there seriously menaced the 
 English. 
 
 347 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 The English marched into defenseless Washing- 
 ton by the way of Marjdand Avenue. They lost for 
 the day, including a considerable number killed and 
 wounded by the accidental blowing up of a well filled 
 with powder, near the Capitol, sometliing approach- 
 ing five hundred men — one in eight — a proportion 
 which appalled Ross. 
 
 The British promptly began the burning ordered 
 by the home authorities. Cockburn joyously led 
 troops into tlie Hall of Representatives to the play- 
 ing of the ''British Grenadiers," and there he or- 
 dered a fire started. Another fire was started in 
 the Senate Chamber. They marched to the Wliite 
 Hous^e and found that Mrs. Madison had barely left, 
 whereupon they ate a supper which they found pre- 
 pared and set fire to that building also. 
 
 Dolly Madison had had a busy day, a day of mes- 
 sengers arriving -and departing and of most capable 
 packing of state papers and valuables, including 
 the imitation Gilbert Stuart portrait of Washing- 
 ton, which she entrusted to careful hands. In spite 
 of her distress and occupation she wrote at the time 
 a letter of description of interminable length, giving 
 every detail of alarm and happening with page after 
 page, page after page, describing every incident, 
 every message, every flutter of her heart, up to the 
 moment she herself had to flee. 
 
 It seems impossible — as if she may have rewritten 
 it afterwards — but Southern women have a great 
 letterwriting habit and ability, and a letter was 
 written by Constance Cary Harrison, that seems 
 
 348 
 
THE GOAL OF HOSTILE ARMIES 
 
 fully as long as this of Dolly Madison, telling detail 
 after detail of the heart-breaking evacuation of 
 Richmond, while the Northern soldiers were actually 
 entering. 
 
 Oeneral Ross frankly expressed his dislike of 
 burning as a campaign method. He said that he 
 had been ordered to burn the public buildings of 
 Washington because of the wanton burning, the year 
 before, by the American General McClure, of the 
 public buildings of t'he seat of government of Lower 
 Canada — now known as Toronto but then as Newark 
 — and of one hundred and fifty homes, causing ter- 
 rible suffering to the inhabitants, for it was in 
 December of a Canadian winter. It was a war with 
 much of disgrace on both sides, and even the name of 
 Winfield Scott is connected with the burning of the 
 public building and transports at York in Canada. 
 From one of the Newark buildings a bunch of fresh 
 scalps from the Chicago massacre, governmentally 
 paid for by the British, had been brought to Wash- 
 ington by the American troops the year before. 
 
 Although private property was untouched in 
 Washing-ton except for the burning of the house 
 from which a shot was fired just missing Ross but 
 killing his horse, as he rode into the city, Washington 
 was at its lowest ebb, with destroyed buildings and 
 smoking ruins, and the Navy Yard blown up by the 
 Americans themselves and the Government dis- 
 gracefully scattered. 
 
 As evening came on a heavy storm broke over the 
 city, extinguishing much of the burning and on the 
 
 349 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 second night of the British occupation there was 
 another storm of even greater severity than that of 
 the night before. 
 
 Ross decided to retreat without delay. He knew 
 that his army would be lost if the Americans should 
 find a capable leader. So, throughout the night, he 
 withdrew his men to and beyond Bladensburg, leav- 
 ing sentinels marching beside watchfires to deceive 
 the Americans. 
 
 With the departure of the British that summer 
 night out Maryland Avenue the city of Washington 
 mended its ruins and saw half a century of peace, 
 prosperity and quiet living till the coming of the 
 Civil War, during the four years of which the possi- 
 bility of capture was constantly thought of. Lin- 
 coln knew how serious would be the etfect on the 
 public mind not only of this country but of Eng- 
 land, of the Confederates holding Washington for 
 even a single hour, so he frequently urged his gen- 
 erals to extraordinary caution. 
 
 Many thought that after the first Battle of Bull 
 Run there was great danger. Absolute though the 
 defeat and rout of the Federals were, with wreckage 
 of the army and spectators — for many men and 
 women had gone out to see it as a show — there was 
 no chance for the Confederates, with what was after 
 all only a small force, to make their way in a sudden 
 dash, along the road packed and blockaded with the 
 broken rout of the Northern army and with dead 
 and wounded men and horses, and broken caissons, 
 
 350 
 
THE GOAL OF HOSTILE ARMIES 
 
 cannon and vehicles and terrific jamming across 
 ''the old Long Bridge" itself. 
 
 It would have meant crossing the Potomac to get 
 to Washington into which city were every moment 
 pouring reinforcements from the North, under the 
 stirring summons of "The defence of the Capital" 
 sent out before Bull Run was fought. Long Bridge, 
 now vanished, was highly important during the 
 Civil War. It was a mile long and crossed the 
 Potomac from the southwest end of Maryland 
 Avenue; it is curious that this avenue should have 
 been of such importance to hostile armies at both 
 of its ends. 
 
 The justified exultation of the Southern soldiers 
 was all that was thought of after Bull Run or Man- 
 assas, as the South called it, but I remember a des- 
 cription of a frightened, huddled group of Southern 
 women, listening to the cannon and rifle firing, wait- 
 ing in agony for news of Manassas and after dark- 
 ness had come, gathering around the first man from 
 the field. Even victory from the first, had its 
 terrors. 
 
 Had General Lee won the Battle of Gettysburg 
 he would have seized Washington. The one serious 
 danger of capture aimed directly at Washington 
 was when an army under General Early advanced 
 rapidly upon the city. Early was not in the front 
 rank of generals but he came close to winning a 
 prize of which the greatest general would have been 
 proud. Choosing a time in July of 1864, when ho 
 
 351 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 knew that the garrison of the city was depleted to 
 assist in some other important movements, he sud- 
 denly broke through from the direction of the Shen- 
 andoah, planning to use roads which would take him 
 to his destination without any trouble of bridging 
 or fording around Washington. 
 
 General Lew Wallace was hurried out with all 
 available soldiers, to meet and hold General Early's 
 advance. Quite outnumbered, it was understood 
 that he would be pushed aside, but he was told that 
 what was expected of him was to delay Early until 
 a large force should have gathered in Washington. 
 
 Early was coming down the National Road by way 
 of Frederick— not the Virginia Frederickburg but 
 the Maryland Frederick, the town of Barbara 
 Frietchie. There it was that Wallace met liim and 
 where the resultant battle of the Monocacy was 
 fought. 
 
 It is pleasantly worth while to drive to Frederick 
 for it is over a charming road out of Washington. 
 You soon come to where there are long views over 
 fertile hills and dales with the Blue Ridge lining 
 the horizon for miles with their fascinating and 
 irregular outline. There are large old barns, many 
 of squared logs, chinked with stone and clay. Much 
 fruit is gloriously in blossom. It is the sunniest 
 of shadeless roads but you feel cool from the out- 
 look upon the blue mountains. 
 
 You come to old Richville, with a court-house 
 square and old houses, with an old inn, pointed 
 toward the road. Newmarket is reached, a quaint 
 
 352 
 
THE GOAL OF HOSTILE ARMIES 
 
 old town wliicli is just a single street with fields 
 immediately behind ; a quaint brick village with each 
 house set directly on the brick sidewalk, and with 
 the odd old village chopped off as suddenly as it 
 began. You have begun to notice that you are in 
 a Pennsylvania Dutch country. Here are many im- 
 mense red wooden barns with twelve white windows 
 painted on their sides, and ten white windows on 
 both ends ! These farmers drifted over generations 
 ago from Pennsylvania into Maryland and still 
 speak German. The people are slow and judicial 
 and when I asked one of them whether or not there 
 would be an afternoon storm, he pondered lengthily 
 and then said: ''Well, perhaps a heavy rain, perhaps 
 a light rain, perhaps a shower, perhaps no rain at 
 all." 
 
 A series of remarkable curves leading down in 
 this old National Road is a triumph of road en- 
 gineering of one hundred and ten years ago. This 
 is the Old Jug Bridge, stretching across the Mon- 
 ocacy at a height of sixty feet above the water and 
 made on a slope continuing from the steep curves. 
 This road was a favorite enterprise of John Quincy 
 Adams, and continues, with no difficult gradients 
 across Maryland, West Virginia and Ohio. 
 
 Frederick is now quickly reached: practically a 
 long one-street town, with little brick houses, 
 shoulder to shoulder, and each one with a few steps 
 up from the sidewalk. It represents the heart of 
 the Maryland Pennsylvania Dutch district of fine 
 farming and quiet living. The houses are small; 
 
 35?, 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 red brick houses with green shutters, gray brick 
 houses with green shutters, yellow-gabled houses 
 with green shutters ; all neat and almost all old, and 
 with glimpses of garden dooryards behind. 
 
 The Barbara Frietchie house has gone but there is 
 no difficulty in fancying it still there. And Whit- 
 tier's lines admirably describe the place and the 
 neighborhood: 
 
 "Up from the meadows rich with corn> 
 
 Clear in the cool September morn, 
 The clustered spires of Frederick stand, 
 Green-walled by the hills of Maryland." 
 
 Round about them orchards sweep. Apple and 
 peach trees fruited deep. It is all there, in fact 
 and in poetry. Especially interesting are Whittier's 
 words ^'the clustered spires of Frederick," for in 
 this extraordinarily long town, the three churches 
 are clustered close together and the Maryland hills 
 are like walls about that fertile plain. He was pic- 
 turing the advance of Stonewall Jackson toward 
 Pennsylvania the preceding year. 
 
 For two days the armies of Generals Early and 
 Wallace maneuvered and sldrmished, and on July 
 ninth came the actual battle on a great meadow 
 between Frederick and the river — a grassy meadow 
 so dotted now with monuments as to point out the 
 heavy losses on both sides. The actual fighting of 
 that day was for eight hours. And then Wallace 
 had to withdraw — but with his work well done. So 
 savagely had he checked Early that the Confederate 
 
 354 
 
THE GOAL OF HOSTILE ARMIES 
 
 leader could not move till noon of the next day ; nor, 
 hurry as he might, he could not reach the outskirts 
 of Washington until the eleventh of July. By that 
 time so many thousands of reinforcing soldiers had 
 arrived, and so many thousands of department clerks 
 were armed and put into the trenches, getting thus 
 sixty thousand men, that there was small chance of 
 his success. 
 
 In a short story, known as ''Una and King 
 David," there is a description of this raiding army 
 met by the little Southern girl and the old negro; 
 the soldiers with bare and bleeding feet, with faces 
 flushed, with eyes bloodshot, with clothing white with 
 dust, mth empty haversacks — yet moving with keen 
 exhilaration as the futility of it had not permeated 
 the ranks. 
 
 Fort Stevens, where Jubal Early actually made 
 his hopeless attack on Washington, was one of the 
 circle of forts constructed for the defence of the 
 city. It is still in existence, and is readily reached 
 by driving some miles out Seventh Street and its ex- 
 tension, Georgia Avenue. Just off the road, in 
 Brightwood, are the still -existent deep trenches of 
 Fort Stevens. At Fort Stevens, in his anxiety for 
 the capital of his country, President Lincoln hurried 
 out to the scene of fighting and stood there actually 
 under fire, watching the attempted advance of the 
 Confederates and watching the arrival of Federal 
 troops and of armed clerks from the Treasury. 
 There are now many little negro cabins built about 
 Fort Stevens ; and a bronze tablet marked with the 
 
 355 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 date July twelfth, 1864, declares that here President 
 Lincoln stood under fire. 
 
 On the other side of "Georgia Avenue is a small 
 National Cemetery, believed to be the smallest of 
 all the National Cemeteries, established for the 
 burial place of the forty-four Ohio and New York 
 men who were killed in this defence of the Capital. 
 
 General Grant, who was not free with praise, 
 especially for ofifi.cers who were not West Pointers, 
 declared unreservedly that Wallace's brave and 
 capable stand at the Monocacy saved Washington 
 from capture, and one can never forget the tall 
 figure of President Lincoln standing actually under 
 fire at Fort Stevens in his anxiety for the capital of 
 his country. 
 
 356 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 AN INAUGUBATION 
 
 'T was a c^ld morn- 
 ing, but the sun 
 was shining and the 
 sky was blue. The 
 crowd began to 
 ri gather early. 
 
 The inauguration ad- 
 dress was not expected 
 before half past one, 
 but when I got there, at 
 ften o'clock, thousands 
 were already in place. 
 I had decided 
 '^^ upon a stone seat, 
 a long granite bench 
 with granite back, circling about a large grassy space 
 as a retaining wall a long distance from the front of 
 the Capitol, a long distance from the spot on the 
 Capitol front where the incoming President was to 
 stand. I took a steamer rug with me, so as to be 
 able to sit down on the stone bench whenever I 
 wanted to : and when I arrived there was space left 
 for only one person and I gladly took it. 
 
 357 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 Every moment, more and more arrived, filling the 
 open space in front of the Capitol, in front of the 
 long granite bench and far behind it. By eleven 
 o'clock the space was crowded, by eleven thirty it 
 was jammed, by twelve it was only with the greatest 
 difficulty that any one could twist and squirm 
 through the jam, and, so it was estimated by those 
 looking down on the crowd, at least a hundred thou- 
 sand w^ere there. 
 
 On previous occasions only a few people had ever 
 expected to hear an inaugural address. It would be 
 sufficient if now and then a word could be caught, 
 and if the ceremony itself could be witnessed, but 
 this time was to be different. For the speech of 
 Harding was to be heard for what was really an 
 immense distance. 
 
 Many a night, leaving the Library of Congress at 
 closing time and emerging upon the great space then 
 almost always lonely and practically deserted, I had 
 heard mysterious and almost ghostly sounds sweep- 
 ing over the empty space. Here and there I would 
 come upon some one listening and noting: for it 
 was the testing of a new apparatus, a sound con- 
 veyor, a transmitter. It was to be used to carry the 
 words of the speaker to a distance hitherto un- 
 dreamt of. It was placed upon a small porch, of 
 classic design, directly above where the incoming 
 President was to stand, at the foot of the platform 
 on the -central steps of the Capitol. The porch was 
 strangely like the one designed by Latrobe a century 
 before for that very spot. 
 
 358 
 
AN INAUGURATION 
 
 As the great throng waited for the ceremonies to 
 begin it was curious to notice that the flag that 
 floated above where the new President was to stand 
 was at half mast. The explanation was that a 
 leading Congressman had just died: but none the 
 less it seemed odd to leave the flag in that way: 
 and shortly before the time when the ceremonies 
 were to begin some ofificial noticed it and it was 
 raised to full height. 
 
 While the immense throng waited, the transmitter 
 was not inactive. A talking machine had been 
 placed under the porch, and tune after tune was 
 turned on and speech after speech. Lincoln's 
 Gettysburg Address was solemnly given, to a highly 
 astonished audience, and then, with impartiality, 
 came "Dixie!" And there followed an almost un- 
 ceasing line of talk and music, with now and then a 
 rest to allow the scarlet-coated Marine Band to 
 play. But the bandsmen were not seated beneath 
 the canopy and so had none of the benefit of the 
 transmitter, and although, from where I sat, I could 
 see the leader vigorously leading and could see that 
 the instruments were at the players ' mouths, it was 
 only now and then that even a single note was heard, 
 at the distance at which I sat and over the heads of 
 a restless chirring mass. Then again the trans- 
 mitter and the talking machine, with perhaps gay 
 dance music or a solemn Ave Maria. There was no 
 censor for the apparatus and, fortunately, none was 
 needed, although there easily might have been need : 
 and even as it was the effect was not at all in keep- 
 
 359 
 
THE BOOK OP WASHINGTON 
 
 ing with the solemnity of the occasion that had 
 called the people together. 
 
 A thin page came and hung a row of funeral-like 
 wreaths along the front of the speakers' stand 
 causing mild excitement among spectators. A fat 
 darky came with a broom and swept the spot where 
 President Harding was to be and there was another 
 slight wave of mild excitement. Here and there, in 
 the crowd, colored toy balloons were sent up, and 
 there were again slight waves of mild excitement. 
 
 A greater wave of interest swept the crowd, and 
 a line of motor-cars came slowly on, crowded with 
 wounded soldiers. The cars stopped in front of the 
 central portico, and the soldiers were assisted to 
 seats that had been reserved. There were other 
 mild waves of interest as cars drove up with various 
 important occupants, whose identity only a few 
 could even guess. But when a big motor-car came 
 up, in which were seated, outgoing President Wilson 
 and incoming President Harding, accompanied by 
 Senator Knox and Representative ''Joe" Cannon, 
 a stronger but silent interest was manifested. Even 
 from my distant place, the pair of principals could 
 for a moment be well seen, for I had a field glass. 
 Escorted by a squadron of cavalry, with fluttering 
 guidon of red and white, and followed by other cars, 
 the Presidential car stopped at the Senate end of 
 the great building, and Wilson was shielded from 
 sight by assistants, and the crowd knew that the first 
 important act, the swearing in of the Vice-President, 
 in the Senate chamber, was about to take place. 
 
 360 
 
AN INAUGURATION 
 
 It was evident, in the swift look, that President 
 Wilson was feeble and broken. The man who had 
 so recently been practically all powerful, in the 
 world, was almost unable to walk, and quite unable 
 to leave the car without some swift assistance from 
 official ushers and helpers immediately beside him. 
 
 Harding, fresh, vigorous, almost youthful, was a 
 vivid contrast in appearance and bearing, but there 
 was apparent, in his manner, only a gentleness and 
 consideration for the man whose place he was about 
 to take. 
 
 There followed another wait, and all watched to 
 see when the movement from the Senate chamber to 
 the central front should begin, for the windows of 
 the connecting passage-way permitted a view of the 
 connecting corridor. 
 
 But even more closely, for a time, I watched a 
 door in the Senate wing, a service door, a little 
 heeded and insignificant door. It opened, and a 
 car moved quietly up, for all had been arranged to 
 the fraction of a moment. President Wilson was 
 not going to wait until the open public ceremonies. 
 He was too feeble to walk down those outside steps 
 to the spot where he would have had to stand. So 
 he was to leave as soon as he should sign a number 
 of just-passed bills that were waiting for him. But 
 only a very few knew, that he was to leave by that 
 insignificant service door, chosen because it was un- 
 noticeable and because it was on the very same 
 level, as his waiting car. An open space was kept 
 there, free from other cars so that he could get 
 
 361 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 away without being held in a blockade even for a 
 few minutes. 
 
 At half past twelve the door gently opened, and 
 in the opening he appeared. He seemed, in the 
 flash of sight, more feeble, more tottering than be- 
 fore, but courteous and brave. It was clear that 
 he had been making and was still making a tre- 
 mendous effort. 
 
 Then followed an incident, immensely dramatic 
 and pitiful. The President of the United States 
 — for he was still the President and would be for 
 another hour — the President of the United States, 
 recently the dominator of the world, with the almost 
 certainty of being formal ruler under the league had 
 not his terrible illness struck him, was not able even 
 to attempt to enter his car. A trained usher of the 
 White House, a broad-shouldered powerful man, 
 swiftly and with precision of movement backed up 
 into the car, took hold firmly of the President's 
 shoulders, and practically pulled him up into the 
 seat. It was all over in a moment. Few saw it. 
 It was a sight to make one gasp. To what a feeble 
 pass had almost infinite greatness come ! 
 
 It was only a moment. Mrs. Wilson got in be- 
 side him. The car instantly moved away. She 
 could not accompany him in the formal journey 
 from the White House, but now was ready to be his 
 companion, ready to resume her place as the wife of 
 Woodrow Wilson. 
 
 The car moved off. It went about three lengths 
 before it was noticed, and then, before the few who 
 
 362 
 
AN INAUGURATION 
 
 realized could raise the beginnings of a feeble cheer, 
 it had vanished, and the outgoing President had 
 started on his way to his new home. 
 
 He did not, like almost all of our Presidents, have 
 a home, a dwelling place, a home locality, to return 
 to. Washington had his Mount Vernon. Jefferson 
 had his Monticello. Dolly Madison from Montpelier 
 used to send pickles and home-dried cherries to her 
 successor in the White House, Mrs. Monroe, the 
 British officer's daughter; and so on up to modem 
 times, through the Hermitage, Kinderhook, Canton 
 and Oyster Bay. All, or practically all, had a home. 
 But Wilson was essentially a homeless man ; he had 
 to make a new home, which made the change in his 
 fortunes even more dramatic. He had recently 
 purchased a house on S Street, and to that house he 
 went to take up his home. 
 
 Under one's eyes was the passing of a ruler, a 
 man born to command and with every faculty 
 trained to that end. And, realizing this, the 
 imagination must needs accompany him. Thoughts 
 came of the mighty Wolsey, and of the words of 
 Shakespeare: **An old man, broken with the cares 
 of state." Not that Wolsey was old in years, 
 not that Wilson was old in years ; they were \\dthin 
 a year or two of the same age, close to sixty, when 
 power slipped away from them. 
 
 Wilson would go to his unfamiliar home; he 
 would sit restlessly for a while; and then would 
 come the realization that all was over. Many a 
 President before him had given place to a successor, 
 
 363 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 
 but this was the first of our rulers who could have 
 looked at world possibilities following rulership 
 here. 
 
 A few first stragglers began to move through the 
 connecting passageway, and soon the numbers in- 
 creased, and it was but a little while before men be- 
 gan to dribble down into their places on the central 
 stand. 
 
 Soon Warren Harding emerged and walked down 
 to the front of the platform. Soon Mrs. Harding, 
 quietly and with self-possession, took her place at a 
 little distance from her husband. This and that 
 distinguished indi^ddual were picked out: a few 
 Senators of note, the retiring and the incoming 
 Vice-Presidents, the Chief Justice. There were 
 other justices, there were ambassadors and there 
 were State governors, there were army and navy 
 men of high rank, there were a few personal friends, 
 there were a few ladies besides Mrs. Harding. For 
 a few moments there was a cloud of tobacco smoke : 
 some could not, even at such a place and such a mo- 
 ment, do without smoking. It was a curious thing 
 to see. A solemn silence fell upon the hundred 
 thousand spectators. The black-gowned Chief Jus- 
 tice and the man who in a moment would be Pres- 
 ident faced each other, and the silence grew more 
 tense. Then came the words, as fonnally demanded 
 by the Constitution; 
 
 "I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the 
 ofSce of President of the United States, and will to the 
 
 3U 
 
AN INAUGURATION 
 
 best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Con- 
 stitution of the United States." 
 
 Harding kissed a Bible as he took the oath, a 
 Bible than which none could be more fitting, for it 
 was the very one used by George Washington on 
 his first inauguration, far back at the beginning of 
 the Constitution. What thoughts come of that far- 
 away day in New York City, when Washington sol- 
 emnly touched his lips to this very book. And when 
 President Harding, now facing forward, and speak- 
 ing with a calm impressiveness, delivered an ad- 
 dress all American, delivered it soberly, calmly, 
 with manner all dispassionate, and with every word, 
 every syllable heard plainly to an immense dis- 
 tance, it was a wonderfully impressive scene. And 
 all was so simple ! Just a handful of soldiers in 
 the throng, indicative of the millions so recently un- 
 der arms in actual war. A simple grouping, also, 
 of soldiers and sailors around a stand of colors. 
 Above the heads of the speakers and the distin- 
 guished group about them, an American flag, hori- 
 zontally spread. Pigeons circled disturbed in their 
 Capitoline home. 
 
 One could not but think of Washington, and his 
 "I conjure you, my fellow citizens,*' when this latest 
 of our long line of Presidents declared with solemn 
 precision of utterance : 
 
 "The recorded progress of our Republic, materially and 
 spiritually, in itself proves the wisdom of the inherited 
 policy of non-involvement in Old World aflEairs. — We 
 
 365 
 
THE BOOK OF WASHINGTON 
 seek no part in directing the destinies of the Old World." 
 
 Yet in how short a time were we to be making in- 
 volving treaties with Europe and Asia! 
 
 From the start to the conclusion it was a speech 
 of Americanism, and the immense throng felt it as 
 such, and were powerfully moved. It was delivered 
 with dignity and earnestness throughout, down to 
 the solemn ending. 
 
 Always the incoming President feels the sense of 
 responsibility and the earnest desire, no matter how 
 fleeting, to do something for his country; and al- 
 ways the multitude assembled are thrilled by the pro- 
 mise of the future. 
 
 It was all over. This quiet throng, this quiet 
 ceremonial, this quietly delivered speech of Ameri- 
 canism without ostentation, without visible mani- 
 festation of power, without display. But with all 
 the impressiveness that comes from the presence of 
 a hundred thousand, listening quietly, with gravity, 
 to their new head. 
 
 Quietly the crowd dispersed. Nowhere was there 
 undue haste, nowhere even the slightest disorder, 
 although there were no soldiers to enforce order, 
 and but the thinnest scattering of police. In all, it 
 was an example of Americanism: the medleyed mu- 
 sic, the darky and his broom, the absence of all show 
 of power. 
 
 And in the minds of the dispersing hundred thou- 
 sand there silently echoed words and phrases from 
 
 366 
 
AN INAUGURATION 
 
 the address of the leader whose voice had but just 
 ceased: 
 
 "We have seen a world passing and spend its fury, but 
 we contemplate our Republic unshaken and hold our 
 civilization secure." 
 
 THE END 
 
 367 
 
INDEX 
 
 — A.— 
 
 Adams, Abigail, 12, 32, G9, 177, 
 178 
 
 Adams, Henry, 123. 124, 159, 182 
 
 Adams, John, 32; dying, 33; an- 
 gry about Washiiijiton, 50, 79 
 
 Adams, John Quincy, 12; mirror 
 28, 32, 33, G8, 72. 98; almost 
 drowned. 2S3. 3r,:? 
 
 Agricultural Department, 172 
 
 Albert, King, 205 
 
 Alcott. Louisa M., 22S 
 
 Alexandria, 5, 296,-302, 318 
 
 Allen, Ethan, statue of. 74 
 
 Amphitheatre, Memorial, 277 
 
 Anacostia, 6, 152. 155. 333 
 
 Anderson, Larz, 138, 229 
 
 Anglers' Association, 273 
 
 Annapolis, 332-342 
 
 Annexes: White House. 221; 
 Treasury, 221; Senate and 
 House, *221 
 
 Appian Way, 53-62 
 
 Appomattox, 174 
 
 Architects: Bacon, 185; Bulfindi, 
 58, 65; Burnham, 171, 213; 
 Carrere and Hastings. 277; 
 Gilbert, 221; Hallate, 64, 
 37, 39, 64; The Institute of, 
 135; Jefferson, 65, 66; Latrolie, 
 39, 64; McKim.. 171. Thornton, 
 64, 65, 303; White, 221, 279 
 
 Arlington, 275, 277 
 
 Art Commission. 160 
 
 Arts Club, 161-162 
 
 Assassinations, Presidential, 29, 
 33 
 
 Avenue of Presidents, 211, 215, 
 250 
 
 — B.— 
 
 Bacon, Henry, 185, 190 
 
 Bailey, Temple, 232 
 
 Balcing bread in wartime, 75 
 
 Bancroft, 126 
 
 Bancroft Hall, 339-340 
 
 Barbecue at Capitol, 63 
 
 Barlow, Joel, 139, 140, 165, 229, 
 
 269 
 Barney, Commodore, 347 
 Barron, Commodore, 53, 132 
 Battenburg, 23 
 Battles: Bladensburg, 343-347; 
 
 Fredericksburg. 307-312; Lake 
 
 Erie, 286; the Monocacy, 352, 
 
 354 
 Beanes. Dr. William, 287, 334 
 Bell, Alexander Graham, 290 
 Belmont. Perry, 143 
 Benton, Senator, 84, 87 
 Bishop, Braddock'a servant, 18, 
 
 323 
 Bladensburg. 343-347 
 Blaine. James G.. 143 
 Bonaparte, Secretary, 23 
 Booth, 149, 152 
 Borglum, 137 
 Braddock, 18, 293. 296, 297, 298, 
 
 299, 323 
 Bridges: Cabin John, 272. 273; 
 
 Connecticut Avenue, 187. 292; 
 
 I Street. 188; Key Memorial, 
 
 188, 287; "Long," 188, 351; 
 
 Old Jug. 353 
 British Embassy, 129, 144 
 Bryce. James, 161 
 Bu'clinnan, James, 27, 160, 227, 
 
 228 
 Buifinch. 5ft. 65. 127 
 Bureau of Engraving. 223 
 Burnham. Daniel. 213 
 Burnett. Frances Hodgson, 141, 
 
 204, 208. 231 
 Burning of Washington, 348, 350 
 Burr. Aaron, 278 
 Butler, Benjamin, 79 
 
 369 
 
INDEX 
 
 — c— 
 
 Cabin John Bridge, 272, 273 
 Calhoun, 90 
 Capitol, 63-76 
 Capitol, Old, 90 
 Carlyle, 283 
 Carlyle house, 298 
 Carrere and Hastings, 277 
 Carroll, Charles, 93, 337 
 Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul, 
 
 147, 249, 292-293 
 Center Market, 59, 60, 218 
 Chase, Salmon P., 289 
 Cherries, Japanese, 280, 281 
 Chevy Chase, 294, 295 
 Chicago scalps, 349 
 Christ church, 299 
 Churches: Christ, 299; Covenant, 
 115; Dutch Reformed, 14S; 
 Foundry, 287; old Maryland, 
 335 ; Metropolitan Memorial, 
 148 ■' New York Avenue Presby- 
 terian 147; Pohick, 303-305; 
 St. Matthew's, U5, 117, 147; 
 St. John's, 122, 126, 127, 128, 
 12') 147; St. Paul's, 181 
 Clay, Henry, 25, 87, 88, 133, 273 
 Cleveland, Grover, 28, 29, 99 
 Cleveland, Mrs., 179 
 Closing hours, 104 
 Coekburn, Admiral, 344 
 Colonial Dames, 175 
 '^Columbiad," 229 ,^„ ,,, 
 
 Congressional Cemetery, I5.i-1D^ 
 Connecticut Avenue, 258, 264, 
 
 267 292 
 Constitution, The. 219 
 Continental Memorial Hall, 254 
 Corcoran, W. W., 10, 125, 144, 
 
 162, 164, 289 
 Corcoran Gallery, 162-165, 253 
 Cornerstone of Capitol, 64 
 Cosmos Club, 131, 237 
 Craik, Doctor, 300, 329 
 Crypt of Capitol, 75, 76 
 Curzon, Lady, 143 
 Custis, Elinor, 303, 325 
 Custia, George Washington 
 Parke, 275 
 
 Custis family, builders, 291, 292, 
 
 303 
 Custis, Martha, 18, 19 
 
 — D.— 
 
 Daughters of the American Revo- 
 lution, 175, 254 
 
 Davis, Jefferson, 67, 142. 273 
 
 Davis, Mrs. Jefferson, 105 
 
 Decatur, Stephen, 53, 123, 132, 
 133, 246 
 
 Dewey, Admiral, 115, 141 
 
 Dickens, 233, 305 
 
 Diplomats, 111 
 
 District of Columbia, 4 
 
 Dogs, 267 
 
 "Dooley, Mr.," 234 
 
 Douglas, Stephen A., 153 
 
 Duels: at Bladensburg, 347; Clay 
 and Marshall, 88; Clay and 
 Randolph, 87, 273; Decatur 
 and Barron, 53, 132 
 
 Dumfries, 306 ,„, ,o^ 
 
 Dupont Circle, 142, 143, 184, 185 
 
 Dupont, Fort, 333 
 
 Dwight, Timothy, 229 
 
 — E.— 
 
 Early, General, 351, 352 
 
 East Room, 44 
 
 Easter egg-rolling, 34-36 
 
 Ecclesiastics: in Congress, 98; 
 Hawley. 127; Pise, 236; Pyne, 
 128; Witherspoon, 98, 115 
 
 Elms. 109 
 
 Embassies: British, 129, 144; 
 Cuban. 250; French, 249; Po- 
 lish, 249 
 
 Entertaining, 261 
 
 Evarts, 22, 88 
 
 Everett, Edward, 142 
 
 Executive Mansion,, 18 
 
 — F.— 
 
 F Street, 114, 217, 263, 264 
 
 Fairfax, 326 
 
 Fairfax, Lord, 15, 16, 300 
 
 370 
 
INDEX 
 
 Falmouth, 307 
 
 Federal City, 11, 12 
 
 Filliiiore. Millard. 21 
 
 Fillmore, Mrs., 17!) 
 
 Fisher, Admiral, 67 
 
 Florida Avenue, 107, 111 
 
 Flower vending, 263 
 
 Forts: Dupont, 333; Myer, 294; 
 
 Stevens, 355, 356 
 Foundry Church, 287 
 Foxhall, 286, 287 
 Franklin, Benjamin, 50, 60, 69, 
 
 89, 297 
 Freer Gallery, 165, 186 
 Frederick. 352, 354 
 Fredericksburg, 302, 305, 307- 
 
 312 
 Fremont, 84 
 French, Daniel Chester, 171, 185, 
 
 190 
 Frietchie, Barbara, 354 
 Friday. 33 
 Furniture, Old, 175, 176, 313-331 
 
 — G.— 
 
 Gail Hamilton, 230 
 
 Gardens, 108, 120. 129, 132, 135 
 245, 246, 247; of Mount Ver- 
 non, 321; old box, 338; An- 
 napolis, 338 
 
 Garfield. James A., 02 
 
 George the Great. 1 
 
 Georgetown, 5, 188, 286-292 
 
 Georgetown College, 285 
 
 Ghosts, 130, 268-270 
 
 Gilbert, Cass, 221 
 
 Government, seats of, 4 
 
 Grant, Ulysses S., 27, 103, 124, 
 174, 356 
 
 Grant Memorial, 171 
 
 Grant Mrs., 179 
 
 Groat Falls, 271, 274 
 
 Greenough, 243, 244 
 
 — H.— 
 
 Hamilton, Gail, 230 
 
 Hanna. Mark, 24, 129, 206 
 
 Harding, Chester, 77 
 
 Harding, Warren G.. 22, 258; 
 
 Inauguration of, 357-367 
 Harrison, Mrs. Burton, 103, 231, 
 
 348 
 Harrison, William Henry, 29 
 Harte. Bret. 13 
 Hawlov. 127 
 Hawthorne, 32, 75, 159, 227, 228, 
 
 235, 2!»!» 
 Hay, John, 122, 123, 229, 234 
 Hayes, l^itlierford B., 22 
 Hayes, Mrs. ,179 
 Hayne, 80, 81 
 Healy, 49 
 
 Hoban. James, 37, 39, 64 
 Holman, 100 
 
 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 235, 252 
 Home, .Sweet Home, 288 
 Hoover. Herbert, 139 
 Hor^e-slioe Drives, 112 
 Houdon. 325. 328 
 House of Keprosentatives, 71, 92, 
 
 94 
 Houses, old, 130, 132, 133, 134, 
 
 135. 156, 157, 206, 231, 246, 
 
 269, 280. 289, 292, 298, 301, 
 
 302, 303,, 306, 333, 334, 335, 
 
 345 
 Houston. Sam, 87, 164 
 Howe, Julia Ward, 228 
 Howolls, W illiam Dean, 228, 229 
 Hughes, Charles J., 144 
 
 Inaugural ball, CJrant's, 27 
 
 Inaugurations: .John Adams', 
 79; Harding's, 357-367; Jef- 
 fer.son's. 70; Polk's, 61; Taft's, 
 61 ; Wilson's. (11 
 
 Indians, 1 16 
 
 Ingalls, Senator, 89 
 
 Irving, Washington, 21, 232-233 
 
 H Street, 121, 126. 195 — J.— 
 
 Hallate, Stephen. 64 
 
 Hamilton, Mrs. Alexander, 195 Jackson, Andrew, 17, 18, 20, 21, 
 
 371 
 
INDEX 
 
 48, 56, 103, 119. 133, 220 
 Japanese cherries, 280-281 
 Jav, John, 79 
 Jefferson, Thomas. 7, 33, 54, 55, 
 
 65. 66. 69, 79, 114, 220, 319 
 Johnson, Andrew, 58 
 Jones, John Paul. 312. 340 
 Judiciary Square, 223 
 Jug Bridge, Old, 353 
 
 — K.— 
 
 Kalorama 139-140, 269 
 
 Kansas, 89, 90 
 
 Keats, 229 
 
 Kenmore, 309, 310 
 
 Kev, 132 
 
 Key Bridge, 287 
 
 Key. Francis Scott. 287, 288 
 
 King, Vice-President, 83 
 
 Kosciuszko, 121 
 
 — L.— 
 
 Lafayette, 121, 291, 297, 301, 310, 
 
 324 
 Lafayette Square, 119-136, 269 
 Landais, Pierre, 11 
 I^ne. Harriet. 160, 179, 228 
 Latrobe, 10. 39. 64, 78, 126, 358 
 Law, Thomas. 15". 156 
 Lee, Light-horse Harrv, 327 
 Lee, Robert E, 74. 124, 146, 174, 
 
 276, 291, 300, 309, 326 
 Leinster, seat of Duke of, 38 
 Leiter, L. Z., 142 
 L'Enfant, Major, 7, 8, 9, 10, 277, 
 
 289 
 Leopold, King, 205 
 Lewis, Mrs. Fielding, 309, blO, 
 
 311 
 Lewis. Sinclair, 232 
 Library of Congress, 165, 238-240 
 Library. Public, 238 
 Lights^ 252 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham, 33,_ 46^ 62, 
 '107, 148-153. 169, 190, 224, 235, 
 
 236 265, 355 
 Lincoln Memorial, 170 
 Lincoln, Mrs., 179 
 
 Lodge, Henry Cabot, 140 
 Logan, Mrs., 30 
 Long Bridge, 188, 351 
 Louis Philippe, 341 
 Louis XVI., 326 
 Louise Home, 144, 145 
 Lyndhurst, Lord, 81, 82 
 
 — M.— 
 
 Mace, the 94 
 
 Macnionnies. 158 
 
 Madison. Dollv, 24, 25, 131. 133, 
 
 178, 194. 348. 349 
 Madison, James, 24, 25, 131, 136, 
 
 347 
 Madison Place. 129, 133, 206 
 Mall, the, 165. 167, 172 
 Market, horse, 116 
 Marshall, Chief-Justice, 77, 79 
 
 319, 329 
 Marshall, Vice-President, 86 
 Martineau, Harriet 48 
 Marye's Heights, 309 
 Maryland Avenue, 350, 351 
 Masons of Alexandria, 300, 301 
 McClellan, 102, 159 
 McKinley, Mrs., 179 
 McKinley, William, 24 
 Memorial Amphitheatre. 277 
 Memorial Continental Hall, 254 
 Memorials: Mrs. Henry Adams, 
 
 182, 183; to Captain Butt, 
 
 188: bridge, 186; Dupont, 184; 
 
 Kev Bridge, 188; Lincoln, 170, 
 
 189-192, 277 
 Memorial Red Cross, 253 
 Memorial trees. 184. 186 
 Meredith, Owen, 230 
 Monocacy, battle of, 352, 354, 
 
 356 
 Monroe, James, 33 
 Monroe, Mrs., 178 
 Monuments: Mrs. Henry Adams, 
 
 159; Buchanan. 160; Mercer, 
 
 310; Washington, 168-170; 
 
 Washington's mother. 310 
 Moore. Thomas, 3, 4, 58, 244 
 Alorris, Robert, 154, 155, 280 
 
 372 
 
INDEX 
 
 Mount Pleasant, 107, 108, 248, 
 
 24!) 
 Mount Vernon, 27, 313-331 
 Municipal Building, 222 
 
 Napoleon, .3 
 
 National Chamber of Commerce, 
 
 131 
 National Geographic Society, 140, 
 
 249 
 National Museum, 172-180, 332 
 National Koad. 352, 3r)3 
 Naval Academy, 330-340 
 Naval Observatory, 2!)3 
 Navv Yard, 349 
 Negroes, 105, 106, 152 
 New Hampshire Avenue, 108, 
 
 208, 24G 
 
 "Places." 112 
 
 Pohick Church, 303-305 
 
 Police, 115 
 
 Polk, CI 
 
 Poorc. Ben Perley, 230 
 
 Porter, Ambassailor, 340 
 
 Portraits: 49, Jay. 79; Marshall, 
 
 79; Craik, 300*; Lord Fairfax, 
 
 300; Healy. 341 
 Post-oliice, 215 
 Post-office department, 222 
 Potomac, 271, 284. 317, 318, 321 
 Potomac Park, 279, 280 
 Prince of \\ales, 27 
 Princeton, gunboat, 278 
 Pulaski, 60 
 
 — Q — 
 
 Quantico. 305 
 
 Quartermaster's Stores, 259, 267 
 
 Quoits, 77 
 
 Oak Hill Cemetery, 288 
 
 Occoquon, 30G 
 
 Octagon, the, 134-136. 207 
 
 Old Capitol, 90. 151. 152 
 
 Old Houses, 130. 133, 134, 135, 
 150, 157, 206, 231, 240, 280, 
 289. 292, 298, 301, 302, 303, 
 306, 333, 334, 335, 345 
 
 — P.— 
 
 Page, Thomas Nelson, 143, 229, 
 236 
 
 Pan-American Union, 254-257 
 
 Patent Office. 217 
 
 Patuxcnt. 344 
 
 Pauncefote. Lord. 129 
 
 Payne, John Howard, 288, 289 
 
 Pecularities of Presidents. 34 
 
 Pp""=vlvania Avenue, 53-62, 222, 
 
 237! 261, 264, 285 
 Ptnn>]yvania Dutch, 353 
 Pension Building, 223-224 
 Pershing. 84, 85 
 Peter the Great, 2 
 Pierce, Franklin, 21, 98 
 Pierce. Mrs., 179 
 Pise, Father, 236 
 
 37 
 
 — R.— 
 
 Raleigh Hotel, 58 
 Randolph, John, 87, 273 
 Rappahannock. 307, 30S, 310, 312 
 Red Cross, American, 253 
 Reed, Thomas B., 97 
 Representatives. 71-101 
 Restaurants, 202, 263 
 Rochambeau, 120 
 Rock Creek. 181, 187, 247 
 Roosevelt, Theodore, 19, 23, 25, 
 
 28, 46, 48, 51, 85, 95, 129, 148, 
 
 234., 242, 273 
 Roosevelt. ^Irs.. 179 
 Root, Klihu, 140-147 
 Ro.'^s, General. 343, 350 
 Rotunda, the, 68-71 
 
 — S.— 
 
 S street, 139, 215, 363 
 
 Saint Gaudens, 158, 160, 161, 
 
 171, 182 
 Sampson, Admiral. 67 
 Satterlee, Bishop, 293 
 Schools, 111 
 Scott, General, 59, 128, 137, 195 
 
INDEX 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter. 237 
 
 Scottish Rite Temple, 215 
 
 vSellers, Colonel, 227 
 
 Seniple, Mrs. Letitia Tyler, 145 
 
 "Seventh of March" Speech, 90, 91 
 
 Seward, 62, 207 
 
 Shenandoah, 15 
 
 Sliepherd, Colonel,, 112 
 
 Sheridan, General, 137, 224 
 
 Sherman, General, 17, 20, 84, 
 102, 145, 196 
 
 Slierman, John, 20, 141 
 
 Sickles, General, 132 
 
 Sixteenth Street, 211, 249, 250 
 
 Smithsonian Institute, 166, foun- 
 der, 240-243 
 
 Society, 199, 200, 250, 251, 259, 
 260, 261 
 
 Soldiers' Home, 181 
 
 Southworth, Mrs. E. D. N., 231 
 
 Stanton, Edwin M., 289 
 
 Star Spangled Banner, the, 287 
 
 Sprague, Kate Chase. 125, 126 
 
 State Houses, old: 66, Annapolis, 
 335, 336, 341 
 
 State War and Navy Department, 
 55. 219 
 
 Statuary Hall, 71 
 
 Statues: Allen. 74; Emancipa- 
 tion, 152; Franklin, 60; Free- 
 dom, 67; Grant. 103; Jackson, 
 17, 103, 119: Koscius/.ko. 121; 
 Lafayette, 121; Lee, 74; Lin- 
 coln," 190; McCIellan. 102, 159; 
 Pulaski, 60; Rochamheau, 120; 
 Scott, 137, 161; Sheridan, 137, 
 138; Sherman. 17. 102; Steu- 
 ben, 121; Suffragists, 74; 
 Washington. 13, 74, 243. 244, 
 325; Webster, 73; Wither- 
 spoon , 115 
 
 Steuben, Baron von, 121 
 
 Suffragists, statue of, 74, 
 
 Sumner, Charles, 119 
 
 Supreme Court, 78 
 
 Surratt, Mrs. 151 
 
 — T.— 
 
 Taft, William Howard, 61, 141. 
 258, 259, 301 
 
 Taft, Mrs., 180, 280 
 Taney, Chief Justice, 106-107 
 Tayloe, 56, 57, 194, 206 
 Taylor, Zackary, 29, 30, 31, 32, 
 
 169, 170 
 Thackeray, 21, 119, 232. 233, 251 
 Thomas. General, 161, 196 
 Thornton, Doctor, 64, 303 
 Titles, 199-200 
 Tobacco in the Senate. 86 
 Treasury Annex, 221 
 Treasury Buildings, 55, 56, 130, 
 
 220 
 Trees of Mount Vernon. 319, 320 
 Trumbull, John, 68. 70 
 Tudor Place. 290-292 
 Twain, Mark. 227 
 Tyler, John, 29. 31 
 Tyler, Mrs., 179 
 
 — U.— 
 
 "Uncle Tom's Cabin." 230 
 Union Station, 60. 213 
 Upper Marlborough. 287, 334 
 
 — v.— 
 
 Van B-.iren, Martin, 21, 31, 88, 
 
 110, 133, 179 
 Vernon, Admiral, 316 
 Volta Place. 290 
 Voting, 210 
 
 — W.— 
 
 Wade, Benjamin, 90 
 Wallace, General Lew, 352, 356 
 War College. 155. 278. 279 
 War Risk Building. 130. 223 
 Washington. George, 1-16. 33. 49, 
 
 63. 6S. 175, 176, 244, 257. 274, 
 
 296, 298, 304, 305, 307. 308, 
 
 311. 332 
 Washington, Lawrence. 316 
 Washington, Mary, 309-310, 311, 
 
 323 
 Washington Memorial, 170 
 Washington Monument, 168, 169 
 Watterson, Henry, 72 
 
 174 
 
INDEX 
 
 Webster, Daniel. 59, 62, 73. 80, 
 81, 82, 88. 90, 124, 125. 272. 341 
 
 Webster-Ashburton Treaty, 125 
 
 Weema. Parson, 307 
 
 Wheat Row, 157 
 
 Whistler, 187 
 
 White House, the. 17. 18, 19. 23, 
 24, 34-36, 37, 38, 39, 43, 44, 46, 
 47. 48, 135, 148, costumes, 177- 
 180 
 
 White. Stanford. 221. 279 
 
 Wbitinan, Walt, 226-227 
 
 Whittier, 227 
 
 Willard. 56 
 
 Willard Hotel. 57, 114 
 
 Willis, N. P., 230 
 
 Wilson, Vice-President, 83 
 
 Wilson, Mrs.. 179. 180, 2(i4. 302 
 
 Wilson, Woodrow, 24, 28, 43. 45, 
 
 51. 52, 61. 138, 139. 214, 259, 
 
 278, 300, 3G1, 302 
 Winder, General, 346 
 Winstanlev 50, 348 
 Winthrop." Robert (\, 169 
 Witherspoon, 98, 115 
 Woodlawn, 303 
 
 375 
 
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