Perley's reminiscences of sixty years in the national metropolis, v. 1-2

by Benjamin Perley Poore

That the tone of society has been wonderfully improved during the past sixty years the earlier chapters of this book bear testimony. Duels and personal encounters are no longer witnessed at the national metropolis, and yet our legislators have not grown craven- hearted, nor do they lack indomitable energy and sound judgment. Neither is it true that Congress has become demoralized by railroad speculations, or degraded by the influence of shoddy, although the war subjected its members greatly to these influences, and some succumbed to them.

When the silver-toned trumpets of peace proclaimed the close of hostilities, Washington suffered from the laxity of morals and corruption attendant upon the presence of a great army of soldiers and a more unscrupulous legion of contractors. "I have seen," said Senator Hoar, on the impeachment of Secretary Belknap before the Senate, "the Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs in the House, rise in his place and demand the expulsion of four of his associates for making sale of their official privilege of selecting the youths to be educated at our military school. When the greatest railroad of the world, binding together the continent and uniting the two great seas which wash our shores was finished, I have seen our national triumph and exultation turned to bitterness and shame by the unanimous reports of the three Committees of Congress, two of the House and one here, that every step of that mighty enterprise had been taken in fraud. I have heard in the highest places the shameless doctrine avowed by men grown old in public offices that the true way by which power should be gained in the Republic is to bribe the people with the offices created for their service, and the true end for which it should be used when gained is the promotion of selfish ambition and the gratification of personal revenge."

The time was when the "Rex Vestiari," as the King of the Lobby styled himself, on a silver cup which he impudently presented to a retiring Speaker, had no difficulty in assembling the leading Congressmen and prominent diplomats around his table to enjoy his exquisite repasts. But there has come a more vigorous code of morality, and society is now rarely disgraced by the presence of these scoundrels.

The tone of the political newspapers of the country has greatly changed since the Democratic organ at Philadelphia, then the seat of Government, thanked God, on the morning of Washington's retirement from the Presidential chair, that the country was now rid of the man who was the source of all its misfortunes. The Federal newspapers at Washington City denounced President Jefferson for his degraded immorality, and copied the anathemas hurled against him from the New England pulpits as an atheist and a satyr. The letters written from Washington to newspapers in other cities used often to be vehicles of indecent abuse, and once one of the caused a duel between two Representatives, which resulted in the death of Mr. Cilley, of Maine. While there is less vituperation and vulgar personal abuse by journalists of those "in authority," the pernicious habit of "interviewing" is a dangerous method of communication between our public men and the people. The daily and weekly press of Washington will compare favorably with that of any other city in the Union.

A sad feature of Washington life is the legion of Congressional claimants, who come here session after session, and too often grow old and destitute while unsuccessfully prosecuting before Congress a claim which is just, but in some respects irregular. These ruined suitors, threadbare and slipshod, begging or borrowing their daily bread, recall Charles Dickens' portraiture of the Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce Chancery suite, which had become so complicated that no one alive knew what it meant. The French spoilation claims that were being vigorously prosecuted in 1827 are yet undetermined in 1886. None of the original claimants survive, but they have left heirs and legatees, executors and assignees, who have perennially presented their cases, and who are now indulging in high hopes of success. Government, after more than fourscore years of unjustifiable procrastination, is at last having the claims adjudicated, and in time the heirs of the long-suffering holders will be paid.

Up to the commencement of the great Rebellion, Washington was socially a Southern city, and although there have since been immigrations from the Northeast and the Northwest, with the intermediate regions, the foundation layer sympathizes with those who have returned from "Dixie" to control society and direct American politics. Many of those known as the "old families" lost their property by the emancipation of their slaves, and are rarely seen in public, unless one of the Virginia Lees or the daughter of Jefferson Davis comes to Washington, when they receive the representatives of "the Lost Cause" with every possible honor. There are but few large cities at the South, and intelligent people from that section enjoy the metropolis, where they are more at home than in the bustling commercial centres of the North, and where their provincialisms and customs are soon replaced by the quiet conventialities and courtesies of modern civilization. There are a few of the old camp-followers here who perfected their vices while wearing "the blue" or "the gray," and they occasionally indulge in famous revels, when, to use one of their old army phrases, they "paint the town red."

Washington society does not all centre around the Capitol, or in the legal circle that clusters around the Supreme Court, on in the Bureaucracy, where vigor of brains atones for a lack of polish, or among the diplomats, worshiped by the young women and envied by the young men. Vulgar people who amass fortunes by successful gambling in stocks, pork, or grain can attain a great deal of cheap newspaper notoriety for their social expenditures here, and some men of distinction can be attracted to their houses by champagne and terrapin, but their social existence is a mere sham, like their veneered furniture and their plated spoons.

Meanwhile, Washington, from a new settlement of provincial insignificance, has become the scientific and literary, as well as the political capital of the Union. Unfitted by its situation or its surroundings for either commerce or manufactures, the metropolis is becoming, like ancient Athens, a great school of philosophy, history, archaeology, and the fine arts. The nucleus of scientific and literary operations is the Smithsonian Institution, which, under the direction of Professor Spencer F. Baird, reflects high honor upon its generous founder, and is in fact what he intended it should be—an institution "to increase and diffuse knowledge among men."

In the National Museum there is a judicious admixture of the past and present, and still more, happily blending with these, are not only the wonders of the vegetable and floral kingdom, but of those geological, zoological, and ethnological marvels which it is the privilege of this age to have brought to light and classified. It is not only the storehouse of the results of scientific expeditions fitted out by the United States, but the depository of the contributions of foreign nations, which added so much to the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia in 1876. The work of the United States Fish Commission is too well known to require description, and is of itself well worth a journey to Washington. Then there are the museums of the State, the War, and the Navy Departments, with that of the Department of Agriculture and the Army Medical Museum.

The Observatory, with its magnificent instruments for astronomical purposes, the Coast and Geodetic Survey, and the Naval Hydrographic Bureau, each with its stores of maps and charts; the Bureau of Education, the Indian Office, the General Land Office, and the Geological Survey are all scientific institutions of acknowledged position. The Corcoran Art Gallery, and the Roman Catholic and the Protestant Colleges, with their law and medical schools, add to the scientific and artistic attractions of the capital, while the facilities afforded by the Congressional and other libraries for study and research are of such a superior character that many men engaged in scientific pursuits have been attracted here from other sections.