Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-10-12
WITH ALL ITS FAULTS
Washington is Yet the Place for the
Worlds Big Reception.
A LADY GIVES ITS PROS AND CONS,
Recalling the Crudities Dickens Criticized
30 Years Ago,
COMPARED WITH WHAT HE DIDN'T SEE
rcoRRnspoNDrNcr OF THE DISPATCH,

simply becoming craze. If we listen to
the zeal of nationality, the passion of pstri-
otism and honor, the consecrated memories
of the martyrs of liberty, Washington is the
city that the heart of the American will
choose, and the world therefore pay homage
to the capital of the greatest government on
the globe. The American, from the North
and the South, the East and the West, will
make the pilgrimage, and behold, perhaps
for the first time, the Mecca OF the Union.
A national celebration of such import
capital. The memories, humorous, pathetic
and historical, that cluster around this city,
are dear to every patriotic heart. After the
timid affected Anglo-maniac, how exhilarat-
ing it is to hear even great hulking West
erner express himself, for he shows his heart
I. and his loyalty when he says:
81 have travelled over Europe, seen St.
Paul's and Westminster Abbey, st. Peters
and the cathedrals, and have never seen a
building yet that comes anyways near the
capitol at Westinghouse is so big and SO
lphitel''
Not until the great conflict between the
North and South threatened our capital,
did the city of Washington become truly
the capital of the nation; but in the hour
of danger, it became sacred to millions of
people.
ITS SIMPLICITY.
The simplicity of our Republican Govern
ment is illustrated in the rise from humble
positions in the capitol to seats in Congress.
Many of our best Senators have thus worked
their way from page or employe to honored
positions.
In the days when the Senate sat with
closed doors (if we glance over Congressional
records, we shall fnd) human nature was
just as hard to manage and as inharmonious
as now. These records show that the men
now alluded to as dignifed statesmen
were very human-some of them pos
sessing fiery tempers, sensitiveness
to criticism and temperaments obstinate
over an opinion hastily formed. Closed
doors kept the world from knowing of these
cyclones of sectional passion. The despot
of the debates, for many years, was the &C.
centric John Randolph, whose replies to
sentiments he did not favor were full of
stinging criticisms and angry sarcasm.
He was followed by John Quincy Adams,
whose delight was to raise a storm of de-
bate. Cold-blooded, logical and merciless,
no insinuation or sarcasm e1asperated him,
crackers at an iceberg"
There is surely less interest taken in Con-
gressional proceedings now than in the old
days. The question now is "How long did
he speak?"-not "What did he say?" As
the Senators begin to congregate, groups
are formed until rap from the presiding
officer commands silence. The prayer that
follows does not often have many devout
hearers. The members, comfortably seated
in easy chairs,
PRETEND TO LISTEN,
if the session is their first, but soon attain
that concentration of thought which enables
them to read newspapers, write letters or
the question, with no other forfeiture of
principle than the sweet sin of welding
official power as they will.
The forms of business in the House, too,
are unintelligible to strangers, and the
gesticulations and cries of "Mister Speaker
not needed, for Mr.. Speaker is keeping his
promises of days before, in recognizing
those members who have had the promise of
the floor.
II have been q member of this House
three successive sessions" said an angry
Representative day or two ago, "and dur
lag that time have caught the measles, the
whooping-cough and the influenza; but I
have never yet been able to catch the
Speakers eye."
"Wire pulling" is, perhaps, the most
effective business of the Senate also.
Through the press representatives legisla-
tive action is daily reported to millions of
people. The oratory cannot compare with
the days of e1temporaneous speaking when
the sentiments came from the heart of the
speaker and were not penned by some "hired
secretary" In the old days speeches that
were desired for publication would be
written out in full by the Senator after they
had been delivered. To-day so much do
some of the speeches belong to other minds |
that the Senator who reads would scarcely
recognize his eloquent utterances" after
the lapse of few weeks.
Washington has been called "the head
quarters of tobacco tinctured saliva" and
critics thought they could not exaggerate
the extent to which the habit is practlced.
The judge, the lawyer and the prisoner
Is ALLOWED HIS CUsPIDoRE,
while jurymen and spectators cannot be out
done in this habit. 1t is not 30 years since
Charles Dickens wrote a description of
saying:
"Plant great deal of coarse turf in every
place where it ought not to be; plow up all |
the roads; erect three handsome buildings |
in stone and marble anywhere-but the |
more entirely out of everybodv's way the |
better-call one the postofice, one the Pat |
ent Office and one the Treasury; make it |
scorching hot in the morning and freezing |
cold in the afternoon, with an occasional tor |
nado of wind and dust; have brick field |
without the bricks in all central places |
where street may naturally be expected. |
Spacious avenues that begin in nothing and |
lead nowhere; streets, mile long, that only |
want houses, roads and inhabitants; and |
that's Washington r.
Peace to the ashes Of the departed En-
glishmanl Dickens, with all his keen per-
ception of the hidden springs of action in
human nature, couldn't see that here all |
End protection, homes and friends; voice
in our laws, and recognition, whether
they be sons OF the peerage or of the yeo-
manry.
Critics condemn the architect of the Cap-
itol, the paintings that mean nothing but |
glare, the statuary with their meaningless
and soulless countenances; but it is the
Capitol, and the highest man in
he nation owns nothing here that does not
belong equally to the humblest of her sons
Within its walls every State holds its
memoirs; every arch and alcove, every
painting, artistic or not, is eloquent with
he history of its past. We have preserved
'ur Government from anarchy and rebellion
1t the cost OF the lives of 1000, 900 men and
he tears of more than 100000 women.
To-day, as the seat of the national Govern
nent, is Washington the Mecca of the loyal
as it should be the site of that
cosmopolitan congregation we expect, to
lonor Columbia in 1892 M. M.
For disordered liver try Beecham's Pills.