Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1888-12-21
ITS EXCLUSIVENESS GONE.
Final Removal of the Barriers about the
State Department.

Visitors to the State, War and Navy DEPART
ments building have, during thapast few years,
been puzzled at the existence of certain
barriers between the precincts of the State
department and those of the Navy department.
Promptly at o'clock these barriers-latterlv
In the form Of wire screens and gates-were
closed and locked to the exclusion of traffic.
It has always been understood that these
barriers were there because of q desire on the
part Of the State department officials to secure
seclusion and quiet in the last hour of the
departmental day. Yet there was no evidence
of any such desire in the minds of the officials
in the War and Navy departments. The reason
for this difference was
MYSTERY TO ALL.
But now the landscape around the State de-
partment is changed; no longer is the air fl
tered through the meshes of an iron fence
reaching from floor to ceiling across the CORR
doris. In fact the mysterious barriers have
been taken down, and intercourse between the
State department and the outside world is free
and unfettered. The change is the result of
the evolution.
OF NEW IDEAS AND NEW CONDITIONS.
Some years ago, when the west wing of the
War department was in the hands of the
builder, and the corridors on that side were
blocked up from necessity, Representative
Cannon happened to visit the building late one
afternoon. He first transacted his business in
the northern end of the building. and then
turned his steps toward the State department.
But he suddenly came to a solid wooden wall.
built to the roof, and effectually blocking the
passage way. He knocked on the locked door.
but to no effect; and he was at last compeIled
to go around, outside Of the building. through
the snow, with thin shoes, and then into these
guarded precincts. The next day he introduced
a resolution in the House, the result of which
was shown in the removal of the walls in the
State department corridors.
1t was not long, however, before the exclu-
sive tendencies Of the department caused the
erection OF the iron lattices. To prevent per-
sons from clambering over the stairway
railing around the fence and into the
hallowed ground, great cheua,r de f,ise were
placed on the turning pillars. armed with enor-
nous spikes that forbade intrusion. Thus.
again, for some years, was the public shut
out from the State department by way of the
corridors of the Navy department. But lately
the custom OF locking the gates on the stroke
Of 8 has
FALLEN rs7o ISNocUous pEsuRrupE,
and for the past year-in fact since the re-
quested resignation of certain State DEPART
ment official to whose tastes the barriers were
popularity attributed-the passageway has been
left clear from 3 to 4. This result was some-
what affected by the fact that on the compile.
ton of the west and center wings Of the War
department the barriers to those corridors
were removed as being no longer necessary.
and thus passage into the State department
could at any time be had by way of those en-
frances. As no one seemed willing to go to the
expense Of erecting additional iron gates at
these new avenues the utility of the old bar
riers was destroyed
At last by sort of common consent and
with no objections from the State department,
as at present constituted, the gates were YES,
terday taken down, the checdux de rise re-
moved, and the State departments exclusion
destroyed