Evening star., 1901-05-25
THE NEW YORK VIEW
Washington as Pictured in Gotham's
Yellow Journals.
H0FBED OF VICE AND CRIME
Nothing That We Can Do Meets
With Their Approval.
IT'S ALTOGETHER TOO BAD
Special Correspondence OF The Evening Star.

| Special Correspondence of The Evening Star.
NEW YORK, May 23. 1901.
New Workers who have never been in
Washington, and who read the New York
| yellow newspapers, are bound to gain the
| impression that the national capital is a
queer place. If they are naturally credulous
| and, a whole. yellow newspaper read
ers are necessarily a credulous lot. The
hogwaSh printed in New Yorks sensa
tional newspapers about happenings in
| Washington is positively stunning, for its
| extraordinary deviation from the probable,
or even the possible. Every month the
Manhattan yellows contain page after
page of luridly written inventions about
| persons and things in Washington. The
Sunday editions of these publications are
| particularly offensive in this respect They
| portray Washington as a sort of hybrid
cross between Babylon and bull pen.
| They people Washington. the most con-
servative and the best-behaved city on the
| American continent. with fools, criminals
| and libertines. They sneer at the capacity
and the probity of Washington men and
at the virtue of Washington women.
| Whepever arrangements are in progress
| for ceremonial affairSuch as an Inaugural
| tion. they poke elephantine and completely
| pointess fun at Washingtons foremost
| citizens. They seize upon the most minor
| happening that is not of an everyday ma
| ture in Washington, and magnify 1t until
| it looks like Mauna Loa in eruption.
| They print details of Washington scan
| dals" that are never so much as heard or
| by the people of Washington. They pub
| lish ludicrous fake pictures Of Washing
| ton persons and places to Illustrate these
| yarns.
| The way the daily yellows. morning and
evening of New York have handled the
| Kenmore Hotel affair of last week is an
| example. Barely a month passes that New
| York city does not have from five to
| dozen equally unsolvable crimes within her
| limits Such affairs are so common over
| here that only the pick of them, as 1t were,
| are taken up by the yellows and worked
| up into sensations
The Kenmore Case.
| But because this affair happened in
| Washington-as it might just well have
| happened in Kokomo or kankakee - the
yellows Of New York pounced upon 1t as
| something rich, and the stuff they have
| printed about it, and the pictures they have
published. would be little short Of funny
| were not the of such a tragical char
| acter. Dozens of pictures of the lad who
| was found dead have been thrust into these
| sheets. one of them in the remotest de-
| gree resembling another. Dozens of pic
| lures of the Kenmore Hotel have been
| printed. A few of these pictures bear a
strong resemblance to the old eating house
! out at Cabin Johns, others look suspicious
! ly like the Ogle Tayloe mansion, and Stlil
others strikingly suggest the Peterhof
| palace at st. Petersburg. photograph"
| after photograph" has been published of
the room in which the body was found"
| with Maltese crosses to mark the position,
| some of the pictures indicating that the
dead youth lived in a state of the most
| desperate destitution, others clearly show
| ing that he lived surrounded by Sybaritc
| luxury.
Dark hints We're printed to the char
! acters of nearly everybody - particularly
| the women-who lived at the hotel. Col
| umns of the widest possible theoriZing
| were printed to the possible motives
| for the crime and prominent personages
| almost up to the rank Of members of the
| cabinet have been weirdly yanked into the
| affair. Long fake interviews were printed
with Washington detectives, and even Maj.
| Sylvester. one of the most reucent of police
officials. has been made 10y the yellows to
talk like any poll parrot. And on top of it
all the hashers of these stories have not
scrupled to broadly state that this is about
| the sort of thing that should be expected
| of Washington, which is held up as one of
the most secretly vicious cities of its size
in the world.
They Claim Too Much.
A while ago, when a prominent official OF
one of the Washington departments died
away from the national capital under some
| what peculiar circumstances, the New York
yellows printed the most outlandish and
criminally libelous rot about the case. Some
of them deliberately stated that the dead
man was tens of thousanCS-a few of them
made it hundreds of thouSandS-Of dollars
short in his accounts with his department,
and they hinted that numerous other high
personageS'' involved in the theft of de-
partmental funds were trembling in their
boots over the investigation that was about
to begin. Then, for the hundredth time,
illustrating the depravity of Washington
| and the lack Of common honesty on the
part of its most exalted citizens" they re-
hashed the stories of the flight of Capt.
Howgate and absconder Silcott.
The same yellows have been pointing the
| finger at Washington during the past week
for producing the deceased Mitkiewicz.
| They have blandly stated that Mitkiewicz
was really characteristic product Of
Washington" There may be one or two
persons on earth who really know just ex-
actly where Eugene Mitkiewicz came from;
but anybody at all familiar with contempo-
rary history must know that so far from
being a citizen of Washington. Mitkiewicz
had had an extraordinarily tumultuous and
checkered career in many parts of the globe
long before he ever so much as clapped an
eye on Washington. MitkiewicZ spent q
good many years in Washington because he
| liked Washington, and this, a matter of
fact, was a distinct compliment for Wash
ington; for whatever else Eugene Mitkie-
wicz may have been, he most assuredly was
a cosmopolitan and a man Of Superfine taste,
and he had done deal of knocking about
Washington.
Sheer at the Women.
The New York yellows rarely or ever al
lude to the subject of the female employees
| in the Washington departments without
| sneering. Every ten years they single out
one of the bureaus Of more or less ephem-
eral character, that gives employment to
some thousands of Woodworking women for
a busy year SO at the end Of each decade
and the incredibly vicious attacks they
make upon this bureau and all of its female
workers are little less than startling to
those who possess any real information
whatever about the matter.
These same newspapers never advert to
any of the clerks in the Washington de-
partmental service, men or women, with
out plainly calling them lazy, vicious, no.
account, half-witted shirkers. They picture
the chiefs of divisions hot sports" who
spend the major portion of the time be-
tween and making goo-goo eyes. OF
the alleged doings that they calmly por
tray as taking place beneath the dome Of
the Capitol during the sessions Of Con-