Down in Washington
Washington, the capital of the great United States, is one of the finest cities in the Union. It is well laid out, has fine residential and business sections, and the Capitol itself occupies a commanding position. The city is the great political centre of the Republic and a swell social centre as well. It is a pleasant place to visit, especially if one has lots of friends like I have—the boys of the press gallery and some who are just ordinary, and a few who are not ordinary statesmen. Before the Civil war, it was an almost entirely southern city—but of course it is not now.
Under the big dome of the Capitol is a rotunda on whose walls are pictured historic scenes. One is of Pocahontas, where one of the figures has six fingers on the one hand, and in another work of art two girls are painted, and I’ll be hanged if one of them hasn’t got three arms—one hanging by her side and another around her companion’s waist and—the third around that young lady’s neck. Suppose the artist didn’t like the lay of the second arm and after painting the third forgot to remove the other. The artist’s error has never been corrected.
The dinners of the Gridiron Club at Washington were swell affairs, and the press men had as their guests some of the biggest men in the land. One time I was present. It was during the scandal when prominent people for obvious reasons were accused of paying big money to have their portraits published in the New York Town Topics. Elihu Root, perhaps the brainiest man in the United States political life of the time, but whose cast of countenance was the reverse of jovial, began a speech this way: “At the last Cabinet council (President Roosevelt quickly looked at him in surprise at his publicly mentioning the doings of a cabinet in private session) when you, Mr. President, and we considered (the President very uneasily twisted and turned in his chair) that is, we were considering the advisability (Mr. President looked daggers at him for daring to publicly repeat what was always considered confidential, but Mr. Root went unconcernedly on) the advisability of getting—of getting our pictures in Town Topics—”
The rest of the sentence was lost in the wild hilarious shouts that filled the room.
William H. Taft, afterwards President Taft, and a man of great humor, spoke at another gathering. He was then a member of the Roosevelt cabinet—and he claimed that his “rotundity of person was looming larger in the public eye than the President’s teeth.” and Teddy did have prominent molars.
I heard Mr. Harriman, the widely known railway magnate, try to make a speech, and, after a minute or so, get entirely lost, stick his hands in his pockets, and aimlessly wander around, vainly endeavoring to say something or other, which he couldn’t remember. He was a man of brains, but not of gab. Then Pierpont Morgan, able as he was, couldn’t make an after-dinner speech, for while he was long on money, he was short on language. But everybody was vociferously applauded all the same.