The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1902-06-29

Washington, June 2S.-(Special)-m the
sounding of the tools of carpenters ano
masons In the dismantled White House
there came TO me an hour ago the long
silent echos CT 1ong-gone murmtrs OF the
great world that is past.
Trod by the feet of all the great lead
ers of the people for hundred years.
and pressed under the soft tread OF a
hundred thousand fair women who long
since passed the gentle way of old age
TO slumber, the very flooring of the his
toric public apartments has been re-
moved and carted away to some place OF
safe storage, the treasure of unitarian
contractors to be disposed of to seekers
after relics.
These apartments, the names of which
are familiar to every American and the
appearance of which had become known
by actual observation to a multitude
scattered all over the land are as for
hidden now as the rude rough hand OF
tho destroyer con make them. the DUST
flies In such clouds as to whiten the
workmen as they toll, and 1t rolls In ming
clouds through the wide-open windows
which were but the other day closed TO
keep in the harmony Of sweet music set
to charm the world of fashion gathered
there.
You wouldn't know the old place o.
fame now. you fair and light-hearted
maiden of the far green valley of the
fair city, who found pleasure there when
the snow last lay deep You wouldn't
know It, sweet and gracious mother OF
the far hills. You wouldn't know it,
man of the world quafflng the brlmmed
cup of worldliness, You wouldn't know
It, statesman Of care seekong other
cares. You wouldn't know 1t, ambitious
prospector for Presidential place. None
of you would know the White House
now, save outwardly. All Is changed.
All is wreck and ruin, made by the van
dals of progress for the ready hands OF
the restorer and decorator. ever the foes
the historic and nearly always the enc
mics Of the artistic. Restoration and
modern Improvement, the head and front
of all Philistinism have the nation-loved
old White House in the possession, and
the wraiths of the great are fed
IlOSe W1u6 WiIluOWS Wiiiiih bhO Soi
tains of which century of lovers have
loved to pause for whispered nothing
whilst the great company murmured
soft and low and the music beat happily,
are now mere holes in bare walls The
long conservatory with its wilderness OF
flowers wherein President won his
bride and a thousand lesser men have
sought to win fair women's favors, is a
mere heap of rubbish. a giant vase
shattered, about which hangs no scent
of the roses that are gone. And there Is
to be no restoration of this house of the
flowers. In its place will be mere
covered way leading from the White
House to that most unlovely of all the
conven.cnces modernism has ever
planned-an office-building. Yet the ia
nous conservatory was modern enough.
1t was built by that President who ruled
five and twenty years ago to please his
wife, a woman who loved flowers, but
whose peculiar taste in other directions
made the hospitality of the White House
the Jest of the world. Still one is CRATE
full to her for having reared that most
beautiful house of flowers on the walls
of a former Presidents house of horses!
AS 1t stood, an annex to the first floor
and opening out from the great public
apartments of the White House, the con-
servatory has been a source of delight
to countless thousands who have for
gotten that the dwelling place Of the
Presidents ever had a mistress who bore
the name of Hayes, or that there was
a. President by name of Jackson who
built a stable which she in the long af-
terwhile was to hide under bower of
beauty From Peggy O'Neill to Mistress
Hayes, from Old Hickory to Rutherford
Burchard seems a thousand years in
morals and in history.
It requires no peculiar gift of historic
retrospection or poetic Imagination to
stand In the dismantled chambers Of the
anew with the splendid company of the
past. Alone of all our great ones. only
one Is missing, though he was greatest
of all and without him there would have
been no White House. no nation to build
a Capital here in the wildwood on the
northern shore of the Potomac. adams
built the White House for Jefferson to
live in," as the old phrase runs. the arch
iteotural plans being in part those of tho
country palace Of the Duke of -Leinster
in Ireland; the White House being far
less extensive than the ducai palace over
the sea, Since Jefferson'a time all the
Presidents have dwelt IN the White
House; though Il was for a considerable
time uninhabitable after the British In
vaders applied the torch to It In 1914.
Only the stone walls remained, and they