Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-06-09
TRIP OF THE ARCHONs
A PLEASANT EXCURSION TO
RIVER VIEW.
ar
In Honor of Capt. Ware, Commissioners
Of Pensions-Some Guests q
Made Speeches.

evening. The Archons are the past COM
manders of the Department of the Poto-
mac, G. A. r. The cadse for their exist
ence as an organization seems to be fun,
pure and simple, and the entertainment of
distinguished Grand Army men. The fun
Saturday evening centered about Captain
Eugene F. Ware Of Kansas, the new COM
missioner Of pensions. For the purposes of
the occasion the Archons travelled tempo
rarily under another title, and the whip
poorwill Club Is the alias under which
they woke the echoes at River View. the
boat in which they sailed to this pleasure
resort being the Pentz.
The Whip poor-wills are nothing If not
original. They would not resort to any
thing so common as menu or so ordinary
as a program. The dainty little souvenir
which set forth the line of action for the
Libretto." The first page Of this libretto,
which bears a fine ha1f-tone Of Commits
sioner of Pensions Eugene F. Ware, recites
that the libretto is the '.'crankless organ OF
the uncrankable Whip-poor-wills.' 1t
bears the date line. washington, D. c.,
June Z, 1902 and is volume 1. No. 1. 1t
further announces that this is the Special
summer sitting and feast Of the Archons,
IN honor of Capt. Eugene Ware, commits
sioner Of pensions"
At the foot of the page are the now ia
nous lines beginning
"Oh,. Dewey was the morning.
which are attributed by the Libretto to the
'Ware-y Wordsworth of the Washita."
The libretto explains that the whip-poor
will, whose name the club has appropriated,
us a strictly nocturnal bird. He has the
largest proportional mouth of any known
bird. The French call him 'Engouvant.
or 'wind-swallower. He is so impartial
in his attitude that he sits lengthwise of
the fence instead of across it as other
birds.-Audubon and other authorities
On the back of the souvenir is a whip
poor-will in full chase after huge butter
fly, under the alias of an "anti-imperialist.
and on another page is an illustration of
one with its mouth open. when the top Of
it's head seems to come off
Capt. Wares Biography.
The biography of Captain Ware is Excess
ing sentences indicate the general surprise
at the cracking of SO many states at the
time of the appointment of a pension COM
missioner.
mo more striking exhibition has been
given of the unusual sagacity of the Presi-
dent 1t says, than the way he peered
straight through the maze of lightning rods
raised to attract his glance, and selected a
commissioner of pensions of whom no one
else had thought and yet whom everybody
at once hailed as the best man for the place.
MANY of us were laboringi under consider
able embarrassment. in selecting just the
right kind Of a man for commissioner Of
pensions, but the President seemed to have
no embarrassment whatever in picking him
out for himself, and he was not on single
one Of our states.
"Jolts like these make necessary quite a
consumption of nerve food in editorial sane
tums. They also point to the humanity of
providing all band wagons with facilities
for climbing on in a hurry.
1T required three great states to develop
the present commissioner Of pensions: Con-
necticut with her steady habits and mental
activity, to properly launch him on life's
troubled sea: Iowa, where the air breathes
empire building, expansion and LIES
earnestness, to rear him to manhood, and
Kansas where the eternal gladness of the
forms of golden wealth, and where men s
thoughts are widenedt by the prairies'
boundless horizon, to- mature and ripen his
powers .-r--
When sinister Jeff. Davis ct al. started
their rash and fatuous pyrotechnics at Fort
Sumter, Eugene F. Ware promptly united
with the Great American Thrashing Ma
chine his particular lot being cast with the
splendid old ID Iowa Volunteer Infantry,
where he received his elementary education
in the art of war from such superb teach
ers as Colonies Curtis, futile. Baker and
Crocker. At Fort Donelson his regiment
set the pace for American soldiership for
evermore in its magnificent rush over the
rebel parapets, when Grant proposed to
move Immediately upon the enemy's
works Down to as late as Pekin all
other American regiments have emulated
this achievement.
'Comrade Ware showed such proficiency
IN the lower grades that he was steadily ad-
vanced to the higher ones, graduating from
the 7th Iowa Cavalry, and then taking
postgraduate course fighting Indians in the
far west.
Returning to peaceful life-if such there
be IN kansas-Captain Ware took up law as
a vocation, and politics as a public duty,
with poetry on the side.
He mas been eminently successful in all
three: AS to his poetry, it is sufficient to
say that the American people have recent
ly read much more Of it, and with deeper
interest than they have Shakespeare's or
any other old authors.
ihe Archons welcome and honor him as
a nne type of the American citizen-soldier"
The libretto includes copious selections
from Capt Wares poems, including his
John Brown" and the "Washerwoman's
Song" entire.
Some Good Speeches.
The chief archon, John McElroy. senior
vice COMMUNICATIVE chief of the G. A. R.,
presided at the dinner at River View.
Beside the libretto, Of which a limited
edition was printed, the souvenir of the
evening was sunfower, the golden en-
blem of the state of Kansas A particular
~ conspicuous example, fully eighteen
inches In diameter, was presented by Col.
Hopkins, in welcoming address, to the
guest of honor, Capt. Ware, who blushing-
~ acknowledged the compliment and the
Keen pleasure he had experienced at the
warm greeting extended He also said that
ne hoped that he would never merit any
other than the friendship so generously eX-
tended.
One of the incidents of the evening was
! me attempt OF the chief archon to sing
IN as Happy as a Big Sunf1ower" He
was pac1fied before much harm was done
and the vocal honors went to Capt Ross
VINO was permitted to finish the song
, Short talks were made by Cen robert
q. Beath. Col. St. Clair Mulholland, Rep.
resentative Chester l. Long of Kansas. r.
II: Warner, Representative Gibson of Ten
nessee; Representative Alexander of New
YORK, Frank Campbell, Capt. Henry Castle,
and Gen. Dudley. = Ii. 'e'
Archons and Guests.
The Archon whippoorwills are given as
follows: Chief archon. John McElroy: vice
archon, Thomas Hopkins; escribano. Geo.