The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1902-11-20
WHITE HOUSE CHANGES.
General Tear-up Not Pleasing Historic
Lines Lost-Texas Steers Heads for
Ornamentati0n.

The new White House is not going t.
please those who have gone in and out
under the old pOrtico for the last 30 years
1t will not please those who have enjoyed
the hospitality of the historic NJ Ision il
the last 10 years. say, and it certainly vii
not please those who want the very newest
of things. because the White House is now
neither old nor new.
A long time ago, one who spoke Otter
in parallels said: No man putteth piec,
of new cloth unto an old garment.
Neither do men put new wine into old bot
ties" and gave as his reason for the as
sertion that in neither instance was the
patching up process satisfactory. This
feeling strikes one upon entering the EN-
ecutive Mansion, which is yet in the hand.
of the renovator, and inStinctively til,
thought presents itself that in the might!
effort to modernize our dear old Whit.
House, many anachronisms have beer
committed, and the ancient structure is
now neither fish. fesh fowl or good rec
herring-it is just an old garment refined
with new material and the fit is no longer
perfect.
Two things that the architect has done
are, in the eyes of the antiquarian, abso
lutely objectionable. In the two ends OF
the White House are two arched windows
They might be called Cathedral win
dOws, in that they are arcled and have
had from the beginning the tiny panes OF
glass associated with the windows of an
cient cathedral architecture. The Arclii
tect who has this Renaissance" of the
White House in charge, and who is arbiter
of its fate until it is once more turned over
to the Government, secuted this barbarian
idea. "Whoever heard of cathedral win.
in II v-a ta a o.
scornfully, and folding his arms ordered
the quaint little panes of glass smashed
out, replacing them with big ones. The
hermaphrOdite effect of this combination
of Cathedral shaped windows with cottage
plate glass pancs is something to make an
artist rend his garments.
But there is something worse than this.
In the quaint old State Dining room were
two mantels. They were not ornate. but
bore exquisitely carved scenes on the fin
est of snowy Italian marble, and they were
put there by John Quincy Adams, who
speaks of them in his letters. 1t is said
that there is not iii the United States to-
day finer examples of the sculptors art.
The State Dining room had to be made
larger. So the historic stairway, down
which every President since John Adams
has passed in stately pace with the First
Lady of the Land upon his arm. into the
Blue Room for the ceremonious state re-
ceptions. has been torn away and taken
for kindling wood. The beautiful marble
mantels have been pulled out and laid
away with the other trash" and when
Adams ghost comes back to warm itself
by the chimneys where it toasted its Sims
when in the flesh, perfectly gorgeous
hardwood mantel will greet its Mortified
gaze, and nice furnace heat strained
through the most approved of registers.
or it may be steam heat through hand
painted iron coils.
1t seems as though the Adams mantels
might have been spared. True, the archi-
tect says lie will find a place for them,'
but where? There is no doubt that there
are rich men on two continents who would
pay fabulous sums for those marbles. so
dignified in their rich simplicity, and who
would build house in which to put them
them "out of harmony" with his plans.
The United States doesn't sell things
like that, however. They are just put
away" and then they disappear.
Another change that CRATES on the old
timer is the lowering of the door ways
leading from the main hall through the
corridor into the East Room. The upper
floor has been leveled, and to do this the
doorways have been made squatty and
cruelty out of proportion with the massive
lines in other parts of the great entrance
hall.
The splendid mosaic partition put in by
y iffany during President Arthur's time at
tremendous cost, for the purpose of sep
arating the vestibule from the parlors,
thus forming a long hall which became
known as the RED Corridor" has disap-
peared. Its historic value was small, but
its intrinsic value, greatly enhanced now
by its associations in the White House, is