Westward with the Prince of Wales Part 26

CHAPTER XXIII

WAs.h.i.+NGTON

I

My own first real impression of the United States lay in my sorrow that I had been betrayed into winter underclothing.

When the Prince left Ottawa on the afternoon of November 10th in the President's train, the weather was bitterly cold. I suppose it was bitterly cold for most of the run south, but an American train does not allow a hint of such a thing to penetrate. The train was steam-heated to a point to which I had never been trained. And at Was.h.i.+ngton the station was steam-heated and the hotel was steam-heated, and Was.h.i.+ngton itself was, for that moment, on the steam-heated lat.i.tude. America, I felt, had rather "put it over on me."

It was at 8.20 on the night of Monday the 10th that the Prince entered the United States at the little station of Rouses Point. There was very little ceremony, and it took only the s.p.a.ce of time to change our engine of Canada to an engine of America. But the short ceremony under the arc lamps, and in the centre a small crowd, had attraction and significance.

On the platform were drawn up ranks of khaki men, but khaki men with a new note to us. It was a guard of honour of "Doughboys," stocky and useful-looking fellows, in their stetsons and gaiters. Close to them was a band of American girls, holding as a big canopy the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes joined together to make one flag, joined in one piece to signify the meeting-place of the two Anglo-Saxon peoples also.

With this company were the officials who had come to welcome the Prince at the border. They were led by Mr. Lansing, the Secretary of State, Major-General Biddle, who commanded the Americans in England, and who was to be the Prince's Military aide, and Admiral Niblack, who was to be the Naval aide while the Prince was the guest of the United States.

The Prince in a Guard's greatcoat greeted his new friends, and inspected the Doughboys, laughing back at the crowd when some one called: "Good for you, Prince." To the ladies who held the twin flags he also expressed his thanks, telling them it was very nice of them to come out on so cold a night to meet him. Feminine America was, for an instant, non-plussed, and found nothing to answer. But their vivacity quickly came back to them, and they very quickly returned the friendliness and smiles of the Prince, shook his hand and wished him the happiest of visits in their country.

The interchange of nationalities in engines being effected, the train swung at a rapid pace beside the waters of Lake Champlain, pus.h.i.+ng south along the old marching route into and out of Canada.

On the morning of November 11th it was raining heavily and the train ran through a depressing greyness. We were all eager to see America, and see her at her best, but a train journey, especially in wet weather, shows a country at its worst. The short stops, for instance, in the stations of great cities like Philadelphia and Baltimore were the sort of things to give a false impression. The stations themselves were empty, a novelty to us, who had had three months of crowded stations, and, also, about these stations we saw slums, for the first time on this Western continent. After having had the conviction grow up within me that this Continent was the land of comely and decent homes, the sight of these drab areas and bad roads was, personally, a shock. Big and old cities find it hard to eliminate slums, but it seemed to me that it would be merely good business to remove such places from out of sight of the railways, and to plan town approaches on a more impressive scale. America certainly can plan buildings on an impressive scale. It has the gift of architecture.

The train went through to Was.h.i.+ngton in what was practically a non-stop run, and arrived in the rain. The Prince was received in the rain at the back of the train, though that reception was truncated, so that the great Americans who were there to meet him could be presented in the dryness under the station roof.

Heading the group of notable men who met the Prince was the Vice-President, Mr. Marshall, and with him was the British Amba.s.sador, Lord Grey, and General Pers.h.i.+ng, a popular figure with the waiting crowd and a hero regarded with rapture by American young womanhood--which was willing to break the Median regulations of the American police to get "just one look at him."

Outside the station there was a vast crowd of American men and women who had braved the downpour to give the Prince a welcome of that peculiarly generous quality which we quickly learnt was the natural expression of the American feeling towards guests.

I was told, too, that crowds along the streets caught up that very cheerful greeting, so that all through his ride along the beautiful streets to the Belmont House in New Hamps.h.i.+re Avenue, which was to be his home in Was.h.i.+ngton, the Prince was made aware of the hospitality extended to him.

But of this fact I can only speak from hearsay. The Press Correspondents were unable to follow His Royal Highness through the city. We were told that a car was to be placed at our disposal, as one had been elsewhere, and we were asked to wait our turn. Wait we certainly did, until the last junior attache had been served. By that time, however, His Royal Highness had outdistanced us, for, without a car and without being able to join the procession at an early interval, we lost touch with happenings.

By the time we were able to get on to the route the streets were deserted; all we could do was to admire through the rain the architecture of one of the most beautiful cities of the world.

Apart from the rain on the first day, there was another factor which handicapped Was.h.i.+ngton in its welcome to the Prince--the warmth of which could not be doubted when it had opportunity for adequate expression. This was the fact that no program of his doings was published. For some reason which I do not pretend to understand, the time-table of his comings and goings about the city was not issued to the Press, so that the people of Was.h.i.+ngton had but vague ideas of where to see him. The Was.h.i.+ngton journalists protested to us that this was unfair to a city that has such a great and just reputation for its public hospitality.

However, where the Prince and the Was.h.i.+ngton people did come together there was an immediate and mutual regard. There was just such a "mixing" that evening, when he visited the National Press Club.

He had spent the day quietly, receiving and returning calls. One of these calls was upon President Wilson at the White House, the Prince driving through this city of an ideal in architecture come true, to spend ten minutes with Mrs. Wilson in a visit of courtesy.

The National Press Club at Was.h.i.+ngton is probably unique of its kind.

I don't mean by that that it is comfortable and attractive; all American and Canadian clubs are supremely comfortable and attractive, for in this Continent clubs have been exalted to the plane of a gracious and fine art; I mean that the spirit of the club gave it a distinguished and notable quality.

America being a country extremely interested in politics--Americans enter into politics as Englishmen enter into cricket--and Was.h.i.+ngton being the vibrant centre of that intense political concern, the most acute brains of the American news world naturally gravitate to the Capital. The National Press Club at Was.h.i.+ngton is a club of experts.

Its members.h.i.+p is made up of men whose keen intelligence, brilliance in craft and devotion to their calling has lifted them to the top of the tree in their own particular _metier_.

There was about these men that extraordinary zest in work and every detail of that work that is the secret of American driving power. With them, and with every other American I came into contact with, I felt that work was attacked with something of the joy of the old craftsman.

My own impression after a short stay in America is that the American works no harder, and perhaps not so hard as the average Briton; but he works with infinitely more zest, and that is what makes him the dangerous fellow in compet.i.tion that he is.

The Prince had met many journalists at Belmont House in the morning, and had very readily accepted an invitation to visit them at their club, and after dinner he came not into this den of lions, but into a den of Daniels--a condition very trying for lions. Arriving in evening dress, his youth seemed accentuated among so many shrewd fellows, who were there obviously not to take him or any one for granted.

From the outset his frankness and entire lack of affectation created the best of atmospheres, and in a minute or two his sense of humour had made all there his friends. Having met a few of the journalist corps in the morning, he now expressed a wish to meet them all. The President of the Club raised his eyebrows, and, indicating the packed room, suggested that "all" was, perhaps, a large order. The Prince merely laughed: "All I ask is that you don't grip too hard," he said, and he shook hands with and spoke to every member present.

The Prince certainly made an excellent impression upon men able to judge the quality of character without being dazzled by externals, and many definite opinions were expressed after he left concerning his modesty, his manliness and his faculty for being "a good mixer," which is the faculty Americans most admire.

II

Wednesday, November 13th, was a busy day. The Prince was out early driving through the beautiful avenues of the city in a round of functions.

Was.h.i.+ngton is one of the most attractive of cities to drive in. It is a city, one imagines, built to be the place where the architects'

dreams come true. It has the air of being a place where the designer has been able to work at his best; climate and a clarified air, natural beauty and the approbation of brother men have all conspired to help and stimulate.

It has scores of beautiful and magnificently proportioned buildings, each obviously the work of a fine artist, and practically every one of those buildings has been placed on a site as effective and as appropriate as its design. That, perhaps, was a simple matter, for the whole town had been planned with a splendid art. Its broad avenues and its delightful parks fit in to the composite whole with an exquisite justness. Its residences have the same charm of excellent craftsmans.h.i.+p one appreciates in the cla.s.sic public buildings; they are mellow in colouring, behind their screen of trees; nearly all are true and fine in line, while some--an Italianate house on, I think, 15th Avenue, which is the property of Mr. McLean of the _Was.h.i.+ngton Post_, is one--are supremely beautiful.

The air of the city is astonis.h.i.+ngly clear, and the grave white buildings of the Public Offices, the splendid white aspiration of the skysc.r.a.pers, have a sparkling quality that shows them to full advantage. There may, of course, be more beautiful cities than Was.h.i.+ngton, but certainly Was.h.i.+ngton is beautiful enough.

The streets have an exhilaration. There is an intense activity of humanity. Automobiles there are, of course, by the thousand, parked everywhere, with policemen strolling round to chalk times on them, or to impound those cars that previous chalk-marks show to have been parked beyond the half-hour or hour of grace. The sidewalks are vivid with the shuttling of the smartest of women, women who choose their clothes with a crispness, a _flair_ of their own, and which owes very little to other countries, and carry them and themselves with a vivid exquisiteness that gives them an undeniable individuality. The stores are as the Canadian stores, only there are more of them, and they are bigger. Their windows make a dado of attractiveness along the streets, but, all the same, I do not think the windows are dressed quite as well as in London, and I'm nearly sure not so well as in Canada--but this is a mere masculine opinion.

Through this attractive city the Prince drove in a round of ceremonies.

His first call was at the Headquarters of the American Red Cross, then wrung with the fervours of a "tag" week of collecting. From here he went to the broad, sweet park beside the Potomac, where a n.o.ble memorial was being erected to the memory of Lincoln. This, as might be expected from this race of fine builders, is an admirable Greek structure admirably situated in the green of the park beside the river.

The Prince went over the building, and gained an idea of what it would be like on completion from the plans. He also surprised his guides by his intimate knowledge of Lincoln's life and his intense admiration for him.

At the hospital, shortly after, he visited two thousand of "My comrades in arms," as he called them. Outside the hospital on the lawns were many men who had been wounded at Chateau Thierry, some in wheeled chairs. Seeing them, the Prince swung aside from his walk to the hospital entrance and chatted with them, before entering the wards to speak with others of the wounded men.

On leaving the hospital he was held up. A Red Cross nurse ran up to him and "tagged" him, planting the little Red Cross b.u.t.ton in his coat and declaring that the Prince was enrolled in the District Chapter.

The Prince very promptly countered with a dollar bill, the official subscription, saying that his enrolment must be done in proper style and on legal terms.

In the afternoon, the Prince utilized his free time in making a call on the widow of Admiral Dewey, spending a few minutes in interesting conversation with her.

The evening was given over to one of the most brilliant scenes of the whole tour. At the head of the splendid staircase of white marble in the Congress Library he held a reception of all the members of the Senate and the House of Representatives, their wives and their families.

Even to drive to such a reception was to experience a thrill.

As the Prince drove down the straight and endless avenues that strike directly through Was.h.i.+ngton to the Capitol, like spokes to the hub of a vast wheel, he saw that immense, cla.s.sic building s.h.i.+ning above the city in the sky. In splendid and austere whiteness the Capitol rises terrace upon terrace above the trees, its columns, its cornices and its dome blanched in the cold radiance of scores of arc lights hidden among the trees.

Like fireflies attracted to this centre of light, cars moved their sparkling points of brightness down the vivid avenues, and at the vestibule of the Library, which lies in the grounds apart from the Capitol, set down fit denizens for this kingdom of radiance.

Senators and parliamentarians generally are sober ent.i.ties, but wives and daughters made up for them in colour and in comeliness. In cloth of gold, in brocades, in glowing satin and flas.h.i.+ng silk, multi-coloured and ever-s.h.i.+fting, a stream of jewelled vivacity pressed up the severe white marble stairs in the severe white marble hall.

There could not have been a better background for such a s.h.i.+ning and pulsating ma.s.s of living colour. There was no distraction from that warm beauty of moving humanity; the flowers, too, were severe, severe and white; great ma.s.ses of white chrysanthemums were all that was needed, were all that was there.

And at the head of the staircase a genius in design had made one stroke of colour, one stroke of astounding and poignant scarlet. On this scarlet carpet the Prince in evening dress stood and encountered the tide of guests that came up to him, were received by him, and flowed away from him in a thousand particles and drops of colour, as women, with all the vivacity of their clothes in their manner, and men in uniforms or evening dress, striving to keep pace with them, went drifting through the high, clear purity of the austere corridors.

It was a scene of infinite charm. It was a scene of infinite significance, also. For close to the Prince as he stood and received the men and women of America, were many original doc.u.ments dealing with the separation of England and the American colonies. There was much in the fact that a Prince of England should be receiving the descendants of those colonies in such surroundings, and meeting those descendants with a friendliness and frankness which equalled their own frank friendliness.