The Personality of American Cities Part 9

Bob Evans, there with the tree against the window. His house was--"

"What was that about the Confederates?" the deaf man interrupts from the back seat. The lecturer, with an expression of utter boredom, repeats.

At this moment the chauffeur comes into the limelight. He recognizes a girl friend on the sidewalk and in the enthusiasm of that recognition nearly b.u.mps the grandstand into a load of brick. When order is restored and you go forward in a straight course once again, the lecturer resumes--

"On our right the United States Pension Office, the largest brick buildin' in the world and famed for the inaugural b.a.l.l.s it has every four years--only it didn't have one las' time. But when Mr. Taft was inaugurated nine thousand couples were a-waltzin' an--"

Some of the folk upon the car look shocked. They come from communities where dancing is taboo, and the lecturer seems to hint at an orgy there in one of the taxpayer's buildings.

"There is also the largest frieze in the world 'round that building," he continues, "an' it ain't the North Pole, either. Eighteen hundred soldiers and sailors--count 'em some day--marchin' there, the sick an'

the wounded laggin' behind, the trail of martyr's blood markin' their path, comrade helpin' comrade--all a-bringin' honor an' glory to the flag."

He drops the megaphone to catch his breath and whispers into your ear.

He realizes that you have understood him--and half apologizes for himself:

"They like that," he explains, in an undertone. "A little oratory now an' then tickles 'em. An' then they like this:"

The megaphone goes into action.

"We are travelin' west in F street, the Wall street of Was.h.i.+ngton, the place of the banker an' broker."

"Ain't we goin' to see the houses of the fas.h.i.+onable people?" demands the wife of the bald-headed Baltimorean. "Now over in our city Eutaw place is--"

"We are comin' there, madam," says the lecturer, courteously.

And in a little while you do come there. You sit back complacently in your seat and smack your mental lips at the sight of the mansion of the man who owns three banks; of that of him who, the lecturer solemnly affirms, is the president of the Whiskey Trust; at a third where dwells "the richest minister of the United States." A little school-teacher, who has come down from Hartford, Conn., makes profuse notes in a neat leather-covered book. It is plain to see that she takes the duty of the true Americans as a serious enterprise, indeed.

You all start and look when ex-Speaker Cannon's house is pa.s.sed, and you catch a glimpse of the old man coming down the door-steps. The public interest in him has not seemed to cease with his retirement from the center of the national arena. But it has lessened. You realize that a moment later when your peregrinating grandstand rolls by a solemn-faced man walking down the street--a big man in a black suit, his face hidden by a black slouch hat.

"Mr. Bryan," whispers the lecturer, this time without the megaphone.

It is quite unnecessary. For a brief instant Was.h.i.+ngton is forgotten. In that instant the crowd regards the second or third best-known man in America--silently and curiously. The lecturer brings them back to their dollar's worth. He boldly points out the Larz Anderson house as the home of "the richest real estate man in the country," the new home of Perry Belmont as having "three stories above ground and three below"--an excursionist from Reading, Pa., interrupts to ask how much coal they will need to fill such a cellar--you see the home of the late Mr. Walsh with "a forty-five hundred dollar marble bench in the yard, all cut out of a single piece," the sedate and stately house of Gifford Pinchot.

It is pleasant, driving through these smooth Was.h.i.+ngton streets, even if the low-hanging tree branches do make you jump and start at times. You go up this street, down that, past long rows of neat Colonial houses that some day are going to look neat and old--turn by one of the lovely open squares of the city. They have just erected a statue there--grandstands are already going up around about it and there will be speeches and oratory before long.

Was.h.i.+ngton is constantly in the throes of an epidemic of dedications.

There are now more statues in the city than Mr. Baedeker ever can tally and each of them has undergone dedication--at least once. The President has been corralled, if possible, although Mr. Wilson has already shown a reticence for this sort of thing. If the President simply will not come, a Governor or a rather famous Senator will do as well. And in the far pinch there are many Representatives in Was.h.i.+ngton who are mighty good orators. You can almost get a Representative at the crook of your finger, and you cannot have a real dedication without a splurry of oratory. It is almost as necessary as music--or the refreshments.

As you slip by one of those statues--"the equestrian figure of General Andrew Jackson on horseback"--the gentleman from Reading demands that the car stop. He wants to ask a question and apparently he cannot ask a question and be in motion at the same time. So he demands that the car be stopped. It is one of the privileges of a man who has paid a perfectly good dollar for the trip. The car stops--abruptly.

You will probably recall that Jackson statue, standing in the center of Lafayette square and directly in front of the White House. Perhaps General Jackson rode a horse that way and perhaps he did not, but there the doughty old warrior sits, his bronze mount plunging high upon hind legs.

"What is ever going to keep that statue from falling over some day?"

demands the man from Reading. He has a keen professional interest in the matter, for he has been a blacksmith up in that brisk Pennsylvania town for many a year.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Through the portals of this Union Station come all the visitors to Was.h.i.+ngton]

The lecturer explains that the tail of the bronze horse is heavily weighted and that the whole figure is held in balance that way. But the blacksmith is Pennsylvania Dutch--of the sort not to be convinced in an instant--and he sets forth his opinion of the danger at length, to the bald-headed man from Baltimore, who sits just behind him.

The lecturer goes forward once again. You look at the proud old mansion that faces Lafayette square, and gasp when the intelligent young man with the megaphone tells you that it was given to Daniel Webster by the American people and that he gambled it away. You notice the house that Admiral Dewey got from the same source, and wonder if he could not have contrived possibly to gamble it away. You note St. John's church--"the Church of State," the young man calls it--and turn into Sixteenth street. But alas, it is Sixteenth street no longer. Through a bit of the official sn.o.bbery that frequently comes to the surface in the governing of the national capital that fine highway has been named "the Avenue of the Presidents," a name that is so out of harmony of our fine American town that it will probably be changed in the not distant future.

The lecturer points your attention to another house.

"The Dolly Madison Hotel, for women only," he announces. "No men or dogs allowed above the first floor. The only male thing around the premises is the mail-box and it is--"

He has gone too far. You fix your steely glance of disapproval upon him and he withers. He drops his megaphone and whispers into your ear once again:

"I hate to do it," he apologizes, "but I have to. The boss says:--'Give 'em wit an' humor, Harry, or back you goes to your old job on a Fourteenth street car.' Think of givin' that bunch wit an' humor! Look at that old sobersides next to you, still a-worryin' about that statue!"

Wit and humor it is then. Wit and humor and wealth and fas.h.i.+on. It almost seems too little to offer a mere dollar for such joys. You make the turn around the drive in back of the White House and you miss the Taft cow--which in other days was wont to feast upon the greensward. You ask the lecturer what became of Mr. Taft's cow.

"She was deceased," he solemnly explained, "a year before his term was up--of the colic."

And of that somewhat ambiguous statement you can make your own translation.

The sight-seeing car stops at the little group of hotels in Pennsylvania avenue, near the site of the old Baltimore & Potomac railroad station.

The lecturer begins to use his megaphone to expatiate upon the advantages of a trip to Arlington which is about to begin, but Arlington is too sweetly serious a memorial to be explored by a humorous motor-car. And--in the offing--you are seeing something else. Another car of the line upon which you have been voyaging is moored at the very point from which you started, not quite two hours ago. Upon that car sit the same two young black-haired ladies. Two young men are climbing up to sit beside them. Your gaze wanders. On the rival car across the way the two very blondes in black are still holding giggling conversation. Your suspicions are roused.

Do they ever ride?

Apparently not. Tomorrow they will be upon the cars again, the blondes upon the right, the brunettes upon the left. And the day after tomorrow they will sit and wait and appear interested and in joyous antic.i.p.ation.

And if it rains upon the following day they will don their little mackintoshes and talk pleasantly about its being nearly time to clear up.

Now you know. Seein' Was.h.i.+ngton employs cappers. Those young ladies sit there to induce dollars--faith, 'tis seduction, pure and simple--from narrow masculine pockets. You do know, now.

If we are giving much s.p.a.ce to the tourist view of Was.h.i.+ngton it is because the tourist plays so important a part in the life of the town.

He is one of its chief a.s.sets and, seriously speaking, there is something rather pathetic in the joy that comes to the faces of those who step out from the great portals of the new station for the very first time. There is something in their very expressions that seems to express long seasons of saving and of scrimping, perhaps of downright deprivation in order that our great American mecca may finally be reached. You will see the same expressions upon the faces of the humbler folk who go to visit any of the great expositions that periodically are held across the land.

That expression of eminent satisfaction--for who could fail to see Was.h.i.+ngton for the first time and not be eminently satisfied--reaches its climax each week-day afternoon in the East Room of the White House.

If President Wilson has reached a finer determination than his determination to let the folk of his nation-wide family come and see him, we have yet to hear of it. And there is not a man or woman in the land who should be above attending the simple official reception that the President gives each afternoon at his house to all who may care to come.

There is little red-tape about the arrangements in advance. The tendency to hedge the President around with restrictions has been completely offset in the present administration. A note or a hurried call upon the President's secretary in advance--a card of invitation is quickly forthcoming. And at half-past two o'clock of any ordinary afternoon you present yourself at the east wing of the White House. Your card is quickly scrutinized and you may be sure of it that the sharp-eyed Irishman who is more than policeman but rather a mentor at the gate, has scrutinized you, too. His judgment is quick, rarely erring. And unless you meet his entire approval, you are not going to enter the President's house. But he has approved and before you know it you--there are several hundred of you--are slipping forward in a march into the bas.e.m.e.nt of the Executive Mansion and up one of its broad stairs. There are numerous attendants along the path.

"Single file!" shouts one of them and single file you all go--just as you used to play Indian or follow-your-leader in long-ago days. And you all step from the stair-head into the East Room, while the women-folk among you conjure imagination to their aid and endeavor to see that lovely apartment dressed for a great reception or, best of all, one of the infrequent White House weddings.

Other attendants quickly and easily form you into a great crescent, two or three human files in width and extending in a great sweep from a vast pair of closed doors which give to the living portion of the house. No one speaks, but every one takes stock of his neighbors. If it is in vacation season there are many boys and girls--for whole schools make the Was.h.i.+ngton expedition in these days--there may be several Indians in war-paint and feather making ceremonious visit to the Great White Brother. If you are traveled you will probably see New England or Carolina or Kansas or California in these folk, whose hearts are quickened in antic.i.p.ation.

Suddenly--the great door opens, just a little. A thin, wiry man in gray steps into the room and takes his position near the head of the crescent. An aide in undress military uniform stands close to him, two sharp-faced young men stand a little to the left of them and act as a human Scylla and Charybdis through which all must pa.s.s. There are no preliminaries--no hint of ceremony. Within five seconds of the time when the President has taken his place, the line begins to move forward. In twenty minutes he has shaken hands with three or four hundred people and the reception is over. But in the brief fraction of a single minute when your hand has grasped that of the President you feel that he knows no one else on earth. He concentrates upon you and that, in itself, is a gift of which any statesman may well be proud. And while you are thinking of the pleasure that his word or two of greeting has given you, you awake to find yourself out of the room and hunting for your umbrella at the check-stand in the lower hall. The pleasant personal feeling is with you even after you have left the shelter of the White House roof.

It is showering gently and a man under a tree is murmuring something about Secretary Bryan seeing visitors at a quarter to five but neither makes impress upon you. You are merely thinking how much easier it is to come to see the President of the greatest republic in the world than many a lesser man within it--railroad heads, bankers, even petty politicians.

In other days it was not as easy to gain admittance to the President, but the tourist who was not above guile could be photographed shaking hands with the great person. A place on that always alluring Pennsylvania avenue did the trick. You stepped in a canvas screen into the place of the enlarged image of a sailor who was once snapped shaking hands with President Taft. When the picture was finished you were where the sailor had been, and you had a post-card that would make the folks back home take notice. True you were a little more prominent in it than the President, but then Mr. Taft was not paying for the picture. In fact Mr. Taft, when he heard of the practice, grew extremely annoyed and had it stopped, so ending abruptly one of the tourist joys of Was.h.i.+ngton.

After the White House, the Capitol is an endless source of delight to those who have come to Was.h.i.+ngton from afar. A little squad of aged men, who have a wolfish scent for tourists, act as its own particular Reception Committee. These old men, between their cards and the sporting extras of the evening papers, condescend to act as guides to the huge building. We shall spare you the details of a trip through it with them.

It is enough to say that they are, in the spirit at least, sight-seeing car lecturers grown into another generation. Their quarrels with the Capitol police are endless. On one memorable occasion, a captain of that really efficient police-force had decided to mark the famous whispering stone in the old Hall of Representatives with a bit of paint. You can read about that whispering stone in any of the tourist-guides which the train-boy sells you on your way to Was.h.i.+ngton. Suffice it now to say that when you have found this phonetic marvel and have stood upon it your whisper will be heard distinctly in a certain far corner of the gallery of the room. It is an acoustic freak of which the schoolboys out in Racine can tell you better than I. And it is one of the prized a.s.sets of the Capitol guides. The police captain forgot that when he set out to mark it.

It came back to him the evening of that day, however, when the building had been cleared. He chanced to cross the old hall and, looking for his marker, found three of the guides upon their knees carefully restoring it to absolute uniformity with its neighbors. And the captain nearly lost his job. He had sought to interfere with prerogative, and prerogative is a particularly sacred thing at the Federal capital--as we shall see in a little while.