Now that we are outside, let us look around. To the eastward lies the part of the city broadly designated as Capitol Hill. As far as the eye can reach, it is a beautiful, evenly graded plateau—an ideal residence region as far as natural topography, verdure, sunshine, and pure air are concerned. It is the part which George Washington and other promoters of the federal city picked out for its residential end, and the Capitol was built so as to face it. These circumstances made it a favorite locality for speculative investment, and the prices at which early purchasers of land held out against later comers sealed its fate: the tide of favor turned toward the opposite end of the city, and the development of the northwest quarter took a start which has never since halted. The first plans of Capitol Park included on its eastern side a pretty little fish-pond, circular in shape, which must have been about where the two raised flower-beds with mottled marble copings now flank the driveway to First Street.
The west front of the Capitol overlooks a gentle slope pleasantly turfed and shaded. The building itself descends the slope a little way by an esplanade and a series of marble terraces, from which broad flights of steps lead down nearly to the main street level. The perspective view of the Capitol is much more impressive from this side than from the other, thanks to an admirable piece of landscape gardening. In old times, the lawns on the west side were used by the residents of the neighborhood for croquet grounds, and the whole park was enclosed in an iron fence, with gates that were shut by the watchmen at nine every evening against pedestrians, and at a somewhat later hour against carriages. With characteristic impatience of such restraints, sometimes a Congressman who had stayed at the Capitol past the closing hour would save himself the trouble of calling a guard to open the gate, by smashing the lock with a stone. The increasing frequency of such incidents undoubtedly had much to do with causing the removal of the fence.
No point in the city affords so fine facilities for fixing L’Enfant’s plan in the mind of the visitor and enabling him to find his way about the older parts of Washington, as the Capitol dome. A spiral staircase, the doors to which open from obscure parts of two corridors, leads first to the inside circular balcony crowning the rotunda. This is worth a few minutes’ delay to test its quality as a whispering gallery. The attendant in charge will show you how, and, if you can lure him into telling you some of the funny things he has seen and heard in his eyrie, you will be well repaid.
More climbing will bring you to an outside perch, which forms a sort of collar for the lantern surmounting the dome. Now open a plainly printed map of Washington and hold it so that the points of the compass on the map correspond with those of the city below you. With a five minutes’ walk around the base of the lantern, to give you the view from every side, you will have mastered the whole scheme designed by L’Enfant. Here are the four quarters—northeast, southeast, southwest, northwest—as clearly spread before you on the surface of the earth as on the paper in your hand. Here is the Mall, with its grass and trees, leading up to the Washington Monument and abutting on the executive reservation where stand the White House, the Treasury, and the State, War and Navy Department buildings. Well out to the northward you can descry a tower which fixes the site of the Soldiers’ Home, and to the southward the Potomac, flowing past the War College and the Navy Yard. East of you loom up the hills of Anacostia. On all sides you see the lettered streets running east and west, intersected by the numbered streets running north and south, while, cutting both diagonally at various angles, but in pursuance of a systematic and easily grasped plan, are the avenues named in honor of the various States of the Union. Once let this chart fasten itself in your mind, and there is no reason why, total stranger though you may be, you should have any difficulty in finding your way about Washington.
Capitol, from New Jersey Avenue
CHAPTER IV
THESE OUR LAWMAKERS
THE House of Representatives, albeit presenting an average of conduct equal to that of any corresponding chamber in the world, is a rough-and-tumble body. It is apt to carry partisan antagonisms to extremes and wrangle over anything that comes up, with accusations and recriminations, and at rare intervals an exchange of blows. Repeatedly I have seen the Sergeant-at-Arms lift his mace and march down one aisle and up another, to compose disturbances which seemed to threaten a sequel of riot, while the Speaker pounded his desk in an effort to overcome the clamor of several members trying to talk at once. By laxity of discipline and force of custom, there is a degree of freedom here, in even a peaceful discussion, unknown to the Senate. Members will bring, to exemplify their statements in a tariff debate, samples of merchandise—a suit of clothes, a basket of fruit, a jar of sweetmeats, perhaps. One day a debater, discussing olive oil, accidentally dropped a bottle of it on the floor, and several of his colleagues lost their footing in crossing the scene of the disaster. Another, who had a pocketful of matches designed for illustrative purposes, suddenly found his clothes ablaze and made a fiery bolt for a water-tank. Still another, inflamed by his own eloquence in trying to show how Congress ought to wring the life out of an odious monopoly, impetuously laid hands upon a small and inoffensive fellow member who happened to sit near and shook him till his teeth rattled, amid roars of delight from every one except the victim.
Usually, the Senate is as staid as the House is uproarious. All routine business is transacted there “by unanimous consent”; it is only when some really important issue arises that the Senators quarrel publicly. When a serious debate is on, there is no commotion: every Senator who wishes to speak sends his name to the presiding officer, or rises during a lull and announces his purpose of addressing the Senate on a specified day. The rest of the Senators respect his privilege, and, if he is a man of consequence, a goodly proportion of them will be in their seats to hear him. If a Senator is absent from the chamber when a matter arises which might concern him, some one is apt to suggest deferring its consideration till he can be present. It is the same way with appointments to office which require confirmation by the Senate: a Senator objecting to a candidate nominated from his State can count upon abundant support from his fellow Senators, every one of whom realizes that it may be his turn next to need support in a similar contingency. This is what is called “Senatorial courtesy.” So well is it understood that no unfair advantage will be taken of any one’s absence, that the attendance in the chamber sometimes becomes very thin. An instance is often cited when the Vice-president, discovering only one person on the floor at the beginning of a day’s session, rapped with his gavel and solemnly announced: “The Senator from Massachusetts will be in order!”
The strong contrast between the two chambers has existed ever since the creation of Congress. This is not wonderful when we reflect that the Senate was for a long time made up of men chosen by the State legislatures from a social class well removed from the masses of the people, and that they held office for a six-year term, thus lording it over the members of the House of Representatives, who, besides being drawn directly from the rank and file of the body politic, had to struggle for reëlection every two years. In the early days, the Senators were noted for their rich attire and their great gravity of manner; whereas most of the Representatives persisted, while sitting in the House during the debates, in wearing their big cocked hats set “fore and aft” on their heads. Whether the Senate sat covered or bareheaded for the first few years of its existence, we have only indirect evidence, as it then kept its doors closed against everybody, even members of the House. Little by little a more liberal spirit asserted itself, until the doors were opened to the public for a certain part of every morning, with the proviso that they should be closed whenever the subjects of discussion seemed to require secrecy. By common consent, these subjects were limited to certain classes of business proposed by the President, like the ratification of treaties and the confirmation of appointments to office. Such matters remain confidential to this day, and the Senate holds itself ready to exclude spectators and go into secret session at any moment, on the request of a single Senator.