Turns about Town Part 17

When we had entered the grounds through the gate at the far side of the lawn my thoughtful friend had thrown away his lighted cigar, feeling that promiscuous smoking here would be taboo from danger of fire to so precious a national jewel as the White House. Within the anteroom to the executive offices the scene very decidedly suggested one of those jovial masculine gatherings termed a "smoker." The seething and motley company of (obviously) newspaper men put one in mind of the recent arrival at a military training camp of a nondescript batch of drafted men not yet got into uniform. General air about the room of loafing in a corner cigar store.

Then, suddenly, a rising murmur and a pell-mell push toward the door. My friend and I were swayed out upon the step, and saw at the gate directly at the street corner of the building the movie camera men very vigorously clearing for action. They had halted close before them a tall, striking and very distinguished figure. You instantly recognized him by the insignia which he wore on the slope toward his chin of his under lip--a wisp of whisker (light straw color) such as decorated the ill.u.s.trious countenance, too, of the late James Abbott McNeil Whistler.

He was, this gentleman, looking very sheepish, continually bowing in a rather strained manner to the camera men and lifting his black derby hat to them. They were scrambling about the legs of their engines and cranking away with a rattle. "Over this way a little, Mr. Paderewski!"

yelled one. "Hold on, Mr. Paderewski, there you are!" bawled another.

Boisterous mirth about the doorway.... "That's good!" "Sure, he's only a premier."

Then, a deferential scattering to make way for him as he approached.

Held him up again, the camera guerrillas, on the steps. He was bowing with an effect of increasing strain and the intensity of his sheepishness becoming painful to contemplate. His hair a white bush thrusting out behind. Ghostly white bow tie. His black clothes beautifully sleek and pressed. At close up, his features blunter, less sensitive in chiselling than appears in his photographs. The flesh of his face striking in the degree of the pinkness and fairness of complexion of the races of Northern Europe.

My friend and I had not yet seen Mr. Christian. Had that morning called upon Mr. Tumulty on a matter of business. Found he had set up shop in a business structure called the Southern Building. Transom Legend: Law Offices ... Joseph P. Tumulty. On entrance door: Joseph P. Tumulty, Charles H. Baker. Outstanding feature of ante-chamber a life-size cream plaster bust, on tall polished wood pedestal, of Woodrow Wilson. Mr.

Tumulty, stocky of stature, driving in manner, bustled forth from his private office. Exhaled atmosphere of ruddiness.

My friend at times (I fear) speaks with some circ.u.mlocution. Our real business here settled, he was ambling on toward the expression of his hope that we might possibly be able sometime, just for a moment, to see, just get a glimpse of....

"The President," Mr. Tumulty cut in, with an antic.i.p.ating nod. My friend looked a bit confused as (I could see) the words "the ex-President" were about to come from him. But, undoubtedly, both of them meant the same gentleman.

In the executive offices we trailed along with the newspaper men for their daily afternoon interview with Mr. Christian, my friend bathing himself in tobacco smoke as complacently as anyone of the party. Entered a sort of council chamber. Long table down the middle. Conspicuous ornament of the apartment, on a mantel, a plaster cast of a humorous Uncle Sam in a dress coat, holding aloft an American flag, and flanked by a turkeyfied looking eagle.

Congregation pressed close about the table, behind which in a swivel chair sat in a relaxed and rather pensive att.i.tude an angular figure, swinging leisurely looking legs which terminated in very white sox and low-cut shoes. A rather thick thatch of greying hair, large aquiline features, a rather melancholy cast of expression, eyes cast downward at the table, clothes not recently pressed and which no one would be inclined to call dapper, Mr. Christian in general effect suggested a good deal one's impression of a somewhat dusty "reference librarian" at the information desk of the New York Public Library being besieged by an unusually large number of questioners.

"Well, gentlemen," he uttered very quietly and slowly, "what have you got on your mind?"

"George," asked a figure with pad and pencil in hand, "what about this?"

Mr. Christian appeared to ponder the matter a good while, and the upshot of his cogitation appeared to be that there wasn't much of anything about it. "And what is there to that?" inquired another. Well at length there didn't seem to be much to that either. A few items of information were given. And the audience briefly closed.

When we had filed out with the company from the room my friend and I took seats in the corridor. He had given his letter to the doorman. A couple of soldiers in uniform, a group of very spruce, robust and cheery-looking Catholic priests, an elderly individual of very dejected pose, and a miscellaneous a.s.sortment of humanity also were waiting. The doorman was being continually accosted. "Just want to shake hands with him, that's all," and "Just want to say 'How de do'," were solicitations frequently overheard.

The doorman beckoned to us and told us to go into an apartment which he indicated and "take a seat." Probably my friend didn't hear that instruction, as he marched straight up to Mr. Christian directly upon entering the room flooded with afternoon light pouring through an imposing row of tall and beautiful windows. Mr. Christian slowly arose from his desk, coming gradually to his full height, and yielded a cautious hand to my friend. He looked at the bright and somewhat fl.u.s.tered countenance of my friend rather sadly, as it seemed. Though at some sally of my friend's about the p.r.o.nunciation of his name he smiled with considerable natural human warmth. Then very gravely he stated that with so many appointments at present to be made, and with the mult.i.tudinous labors now upon him, and so forth and so on, it was hardly possible that he could just now arrange for my friend to have a word with, as he said, ... "the Senator."

My friend was, obviously, a bit taken aback by the term, as his mind had been careering along with visions of his seeing no less a person than the President. But there was no doubt that both he and Mr.

Christian were referring to the same gentleman.

I should add that my friend's self-imposed mission of shaking hands with Mr. Harding and writing an article about his impressions of him before the President had yet given an audience to the accredited representatives of the press was more or less audacious. And I should add still further that Mr. Christian seemed genuinely reluctant to dismiss my friend without a ray of hope, and suggested that he call again after a few days. Suggestion was at Mr. Christian's own volition.

As we turned to leave the room we saw that the bevy of Catholic Fathers and several other persons had also been admitted, and were all beaming with bland cheerful confidence.

We strolled along the driveway leading by the front entrance to the White House. The baggy looking policeman lazily sunning himself beside the portico recalled to my mind with amusing contrast the snappy Redcoats who briskly pace back and forth before Buckingham Palace.

They are superbly haughty and disdainful beings. A charmingly democratic character, this policeman. "'At a fierce cloud over there," he observed to us as we paused nearby.

A splendid looking army officer together with a caped naval commander emerged with springy step from the White House door, both carrying an air of high elation. A sumptuous car rolled up and halted beneath the portico roof extending over the driveway. From it a lady leaned out extending a card. Out pranced a gleaming negro flunky to receive it with bows of elaborate courtliness. As he turned to re-enter the White House it struck me that I did not believe I had ever seen a happier looking human being. Also, in his beautiful dark blue tail coat with bright silver b.u.t.tons, and delicately striped light waistcoat, he brought to my mind (incongruously enough) the waiters at Keen's Chop House. The lady rolled on.

A b.u.mptious looking character mounted to the entrance, and sent in a card. It was evident in his bearing that he expected within a moment to stride through the doorway. A figure in a skirt coat emerged. b.u.mptious being springs upon him and begins to pump his hand up and down with extraordinary verve, straining the while toward the doorway. Skirt coat (his hand continuing to be pumped) deferentially edges b.u.mptious character outward toward descending steps.

It had been an exceedingly hot day for early spring. Traffic policemen had stood on their little platforms at the centre of the street crossings under those mammoth parasols they have to shield them from the rigors of the Washington sun. As we proceeded toward our exit from the grounds, approaching to the White House came a diminutive and decrepit figure m.u.f.fled in an overcoat extending to his heels, bowed under a tall top hat, a pair of mighty ear-m.u.f.fs clamped over his ears.

We had that morning visited the Capitol. My friend had been much more interested in the guide-conducted touring parties than in the atrocious painting of the Battle of Lake Erie, and so on, expatiated on to them.

Parties which, he said, made him feel that he was back again at the Indiana State Fair. We had sat, in the visitors' gallery of the Senate, in the midst of a delegation of some sort of religious sect, whose beards had most decidedly the effect of false whiskers very insecurely attached. Had been much struck by the extreme politeness of a new Senator who bowed deeply to each one in turn of a row of pages he pa.s.sed before. Had responded within a few minutes to the command of "All out!"

because of executive meeting, and sympathised with the sentiments of fellow citizens likewise ejected who went forth murmuring that they hadn't "got much."

We had wandered through the n.o.ble and immaculate Senate Office building, and been much impressed by the scarcity of spittoons there, an abundance of which articles of furniture we had since boyhood a.s.sociated with all public buildings. We had sat in the outer office of our state's senator, and listened to one lady after another explain to his secretary in this wise: "I just made up my mind ... I just decided to go right after it ... I just determined ... I just thought ... Otherwise, of course, I shouldn't presume to ask it."

In the Library of Congress we had been much interested to hear an European gentleman of vast erudition connected with the Library declare that "there was more intellectual life in Washington than in any other city in America--that it was an European city, in the best sense." We had been accosted on the street by a very portly and loud-voiced man who introduced himself by inquiring where we were from; who confided that his business in Washington had to do with an alcohol permit; and who asked to be directed to Corcoran Gallery. We had run into an old actor friend who was here playing, he said, "nut stuff"; and who observed that Washington was "more of a b.o.o.b town than ever." We had been a.s.sured by a newspaper friend that Washington was so full of inventors and blue law fans that if you "dropped a match anywhere a nut would step on it."

We had been charmed by the vast number of elderly couples apparently on a final mellow honeymoon before the fall of the curtain. At lunch had overheard an inland matron inquire of a waitress if scollops were "nice." Had enjoyed hot corn bread with every meal. Had been unable to account for the appearance on the streets of so many wounded soldiers.

Had made the mistake of getting up so early that in the deep Washington stillness of half past seven we were scared to run the water for our baths for fear of rousing the sleeping hotel to angry tumult. Had noted that nowhere except in London is the fashion of freshly polished shoes so much an inst.i.tution. Had speculated as to why the standard model of the American statesman's hat should be a blend of an expression of the personalities of W. J. Bryan, Buffalo Bill and Colonel Watterson.

And, finally, listening in the evening to the orchestra in the corridor of the New Willard, we discussed the large opportunities for a serious literary work dealing with the varieties and idiosyncrasies of the Washington hair cut. There is the Bryan type, with the hair turned outward in a thick roll above the back of the neck, and forming a neat hat rest. There is the roach back from a n.o.ble dome. There is the grey curly bushy all around. There is the heavy grey wave mounting high over one side. And--well, there seem to be an almost endless number of styles, all more or less peculiar to the spirit of Washington, and all of distinct distinction.

II

"Who's the old bird gettin' so many pictures took?" inquired a loitering pa.s.serby.

A hum of much good nature was coming from the motley throng about the steps before the executive office of the White House. "Beer and light wine," called out someone, apparently in echo to something just said by the queer looking character being photographed by the battery of camera men, and a rattle of laughter went around through the group.

"That's old c.o.xey," replied someone. "He's down here to get Debs out,"

he added. The amiable and celebrated "General" who a number of years ago had led his "army" on to Washington was smiling like a very wrinkled and animated potato into the lenses of the cameras which had been moved to within a couple of feet or so of his nose.

My friend and I crossed the street to the State, Army and Navy building.

We had been there the other day to see a young man in the State Department to whom he had a card. Had been much struck by his beauty.

And had wondered if handsomeness was a requisite for a statesman in this Administration.

Now we sought the press room. Presented our credentials to a press a.s.sociation man there. Cordial chap. Said, "Stick around." Others floated in. Pretty soon press a.s.sociation man heartily calls out to my friend (whose name is Augustus), "George. Come on!" And we trail along with about fifty others into the ante-chamber of the new Secretary of the Navy, who at half past ten is to give his first interview to the newspaper men.

Funny looking corridors, by the way, in this building. Swing doors all about, constructed of horizontal slats, and in general effect bearing a picturesque resemblance to the doors of the old-time saloon.

I noticed that as we went along my friend punched in one side of the crown of his soft hat and raked it somewhat to one side of his head. He felt, I suspected, uncomfortably neat for the society of this bonhomie crowd of bona fide newspaper men, and did not wish to appear aloof by being too correct in attire.

The company pa.s.sed along the corridor and into the anteroom under a heavy head of tobacco smoke. There the press a.s.sociation man presented each of the flock in turn to a chubby little fellow behind a railing, whom I took to be secretary to the Secretary; and presently the delegation was admitted to the inner office, a s.p.a.cious apartment where one pa.s.sed first an enormous globe, then a large model of the _Old Kearsarge_ in a gla.s.s case; and at length we ranged ourselves closely before a mountain of a man in a somewhat saggy suit. Clean shaven, ma.s.sive features, very bald dome, widely smiling, Secretary Denby looks just a bit (I thought) like Mr. Punch. His voice comes in a deep rumble and he has entirely ample ears. Trousers too long.

No; he had not seen the story in that morning's paper which was handed to him by one of the reporters. He would not confirm this; he would not deny that. After all, he had been "only a week in the job." And one might so very easily be "injudicious." "Wily old boy," was one comment as the party trailed out and made for the press telephones, discussing among themselves "how would you interpret" this and that?

Next, at eleven o'clock, the Secretary of State was down on the newspaper men's schedule. We went into a kind of waiting room across the corridor from the real offices of the Secretary. Most conspicuous decoration a huge painting of a Bey of Tunis, the presentation of which (the inscription said) had something to do with condolences from France on the death of Lincoln. Also on one wall a portrait of Daniel Webster.

Mr. Fletcher, Under Secretary of State, appeared before us. Very dapper gentleman. Athletic in build. Fashionable clothes. Grey hair but youthful in effect. Handsome, smooth-shaven face. Suggested an actor, or perhaps a very gentlemanly retired pugilist. Held beautiful sh.e.l.l spectacles in hand before him. Stood very straight. Had another fellow alongside of him to supply information when himself in doubt. When asked concerning someone who was in jail, inquired "Where is the old boy?"

Smiling cordially, seeking continually for an opportunity for some joke or pleasantry, trying bravely to keep up a strong front, but obviously becoming more and more uneasy under the ordeal of rapid-fire questions about Russia, Germany, j.a.pan and so on and so on. On being asked concerning diplomatic appointments under consideration, bowed briskly, replied "A great many," and escaped--almost, it might be said, fled.

Secretary of War next on the list. Full length portraits in his offices of Generals Pershing, Bliss and Petain. Many flags, historic ones (presumably) in gla.s.s cases. Heavy build, Secretary Weeks, very wide across the middle. Straggling moustache, drooping. Very direct and business-like in manner. Entered room saying, "Well, there are a number of things I have to tell you gentlemen." Frank and positive in his statements and denials. Stood twisting a key-ring as he talked. Wore neat pin in tie. When told that the War Department was supposed to have such and such a thing under consideration, he replied, tapping himself on the breast, "Not this part of the War Department." One questioner sought to obtain from him a more direct reply to a question that had been put to the Secretary of the Navy. He answered, "I know nothing about the navy." When there was apparently nothing more that he had to say, he concluded the audience very deftly.

"He's a different guy, ain't he?" was one correspondent's observation as we pa.s.sed out of the room. "One of the biggest men in the government,"

he added. "Gives the impression of knowing as much about that job now as Baker did when he left."

To the National Press Club we went for lunch. It is pleasant to see in what esteem this club holds those two eminent journalists, Eugene Field and Napoleon Bonaparte, whose portraits hang framed side beside on one of its walls. Napoleon, however, is held in such very great regard as a newspaper man that another and larger picture of him hangs in another room.

The newspaper army had shifted to the business office of the White House. As we entered Secretary Weeks was departing. He pressed through the throng of reporters cl.u.s.tered about him. "Nothing to say," was apparently what he was saying. "We are referred to Warren," said one of the men. "Looks like we really were going to see him," said another. The President had not yet given an interview to the press men. So we took seats among the rows of figures ranged around the walls.