Walks about Washington

by Francis E. Leupp

The conversion of the hall from its former to its present uses was at the instance of the late Senator Morrill of Vermont, who procured legislation permitting every State in the Union to contribute two statues of distinguished citizens to this temple of fame. No restriction having been placed on the sizes of the figures, one result of his well-meant effort is a grotesque array of pigmies and giants, some of the personages biggest in life being most diminutive in effigy, while others of comparatively insignificant stature are here given massive proportions. Most of the notables thus immortalized are persons with whose names we associate a story. Here stand, for example, Ethan Allen as he may have looked when demanding the surrender of Fort Ticonderoga “in the name of the great Jehovah and the Continental Congress”; Charles Carroll, who wrote Carrollton after his name so that the servants of the King, when sent to hang him for signing the Declaration, would know where to find him; sturdy John Stark, who snapped his fingers at Congress and whipped the British at Bennington in his own fashion; Muhlenberg, the patriot parson, throwing back his gown at the close of his sermon and standing forth as a Continental soldier; and fiery Jim Shields, who once challenged Lincoln to a duel, but was laughed out of it when, arriving on the field, he found his adversary already there, mowing the tall grass with a cutlass to make the fighting easier!

Another corridor brings us to the present Hall of Representatives, which has been in use since the latter part of 1857. It is a spacious rectangular room, with a high ceiling chiefly of glass, through which it is lighted in the daytime by the sun and after nightfall by the modified glow of electric lamps in the attic. Its plan is that of an amphitheater, the platform occupied by the Speaker being at the lowest level in the middle of the long southern side. Facing this are the concentric curved benches of the members. Formerly the body of the hall was filled with desks but, as the membership increased with the population of the country, these were found to take up too much room, not to mention the temptation they offered for letter-writing and other diversions. Back of the Speaker’s chair hang a full-length portrait of Washington by Vanderlyn and one of Lafayette by Ary Schaeffer. The Washington is the conventional portrait as far as the waist-line, but the legs were borrowed from a prominent citizen of Maryland, who had a better pair than the General, and who consented to pose them for the benefit of posterity.

Now let us go back to the north or Senate wing of the building. On our way we swing around a little open air-well, through which we look down into the corresponding corridor of the basement. The well is surrounded by a colonnade supporting the base of a circular skylight. The columns are worth noticing, because their capitals are of native design, using the leaf of the tobacco plant somewhat conventionalized. They date from the period when the clerk of the United States Supreme Court, whose office is near by, used to receive a part of his compensation in tobacco.

A few steps more bring us to the Court itself, sitting in a chamber considerably smaller than the Hall of Statuary, but laid out on the same plan. This was the first legislative chamber ever occupied in the Capitol, having been till 1859 the Hall of the Senate. Here it was that Thomas Jefferson was twice inaugurated as President. Here Daniel Webster pronounced the famous “reply to Hayne” which every boy orator once learned to spout from the rostrum. Here Preston Brooks made his murderous assault upon Charles Sumner, and here Henry Clay delivered the farewell address which we used to find in all the school readers. On the walls of this chamber once hung the life-size oil portraits of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, which were presented by the Government of France to the Government of the United States just after our Revolution, and which disappeared when the British burned the Capitol in 1814. The room has always suffered from the same bad acoustic properties which caused the House of Representatives to exchange its old hall for its new one; and it has a similar whispering gallery, so that a court officer in one corner can communicate with a colleague in the other in a tone so low as to be inaudible to any one else.

Since it took possession here, the Court has rendered its legal tender and anti-trust decisions, and a number of others of historic importance. In this room sat, in 1877, the Electoral Commission which decided that Mr. Hayes was entitled to take office as President. Here occurs, every day during a term, the one ancient and impressive ceremonial which can be witnessed at our seat of government. At the stroke of noon there appears at the right corner of the chamber the crier, who in a loud voice announces: “The Honorable the Supreme Court of the United States!” All present—attorneys, spectators, and minor functionaries—rise and remain standing while the members of the Court enter in single file, the Chief Justice leading. The lawyers bow to the Justices, who return the bow before sinking into their chairs. Thereupon the crier makes his second announcement: “Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! All persons having business with the Honorable the Supreme Court of the United States are admonished to draw near and give attention, as the Court is now sitting. God save the United States and this Honorable Court!”

All the Justices wear gowns of black silk. John Jay, the first Chief Justice, relieved the somber monotony of his by adding a collar bound with scarlet, but the precedent was not followed. The Court has sometimes been styled the most dignified judicial tribunal in the world, and doubtless it deserves the compliment. Certainly no American need blush for its decorum. The whole atmosphere of its chamber is in keeping with the fact, reverently voiced by one of its old colored servitors, that “dey ain’t no appeal f’m dis yere Co’t ’xcep’ to God Almighty.” The arguments made before it are confined to calm, unemotional reasoning. The pleaders do not raise their voices, or forget their manners, or indulge in personalities or oratory while debating: and the opinions of the Court are recited with a quietness almost conversational. These opinions are very carefully guarded up to the moment they are read from the bench; but now and then, after a decision has become history, there leaks out an entertaining story of how it came to be rendered.

One such instance was in the case of an imported delicacy which might have been classed either as a preparation of fish or as a flavoring sauce. The customs officers had levied duty on it as a sauce, and an importer had appealed. The Justices, when they came to compare notes, confessed themselves sorely puzzled, and one of them suggested that, since the technical arguments were so well balanced, it might be wise to fall back upon common sense. That evening he carried a sample of the disputed substance home to his wife, who was an expert in culinary matters.

“There, my dear,” said he, “is a sauce for you to try.”

With one look at the contents of the package, which she evidently recognized, she exclaimed: “Pshaw! That’s no sauce; that’s fish—didn’t you know it?”

The next day the Court met again for consultation, and on the following Monday handed down a decision overruling the customs officers and sustaining the importer’s appeal.