Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-12-24
WASHINGTON NOVELS

ASSSAeA5 ooSSfFeu, q wealthy "oStsTHSK Wuo
has spent the last four winters here with
his family II have ploughed through most
Of the so-called novels which. under more
or less sensational titles, have been thrust
upon the reading public az 'portrayals of
life at the oapitai,' and have found them
uniformly trashy untrue. and, generally,
idiotic. Of ID
"Some Of them were written by emanci-
pated persons Of the female sex, with just
the symptoms Of literary ability, who have
swooped upon Washington to spend win
ter season, with the trumpeted announce
ment that their purpose was to absorb
enough or the Washington atmosphere to
enable them to write novels about Wash
lngton nfe am bound to say that the
printed and bound results Of the labors of
most of these would go far toward indi-
eating that they absorbed a lot Of other
things besides atmosphere during their
Sojourns here.
''Other alleged novels processing to de-
pict Washington-as-it-is. have been pub
ltshed by sore-headed government clerks,
who. having been fired from their jobs, have
essayed to get back at Washington as a
whole community. Possessing not even the
fundamentals Of talent as writer's. these
grouchy ones have inflicted a lot Of dreary
ciap-trap upon their credulous readers.
"A number Of eccentric foreigners, cling
ing to the skirts of letters, and catapult-
ing through the states for the announced
purpose Of getting material, have tackled
the job Of holding Washington up to in
famy'-which, by the way. seems to be the
chief motive Of these pfn-headed parfahS
who have executed stuff between covers
with the capital for the scene thereof. To
read their nonsense, you'd imagine that
Washington was on moral all-fours with
Rome during the regime OF Caligula.
''These novels of Washington life re-
dound with risky allusionssto the same old
crowd Of characters.
There's the black-eyed Juno of a female
lobbyist, for example, who swishes through
the corridors of the Capitol as If she owned
the building in fee simple. compelling meek
and obSequiOus senator's and representa-
tives to put through jobs involving any old
number of millions by the simple power of
the sachet powder of violets which she diff
fuses in her wake, or by barely limited
threats that she'll fetch the columns a-tum-
bling about their ears if they decline to do
her bidding.
Now, I've been about the Capitol quite a
whole lot, and yet l never clapped an eye
on any of these superb and imperious Mes
salinas of the lobby. I've noticed lot OF
pathetic figures in the shape of little old
women who were hopelessly endeavoring to
push through private claims the memory of
which had long since passed away; but as
for these glorious-orbed queens of the
lobby as the Washington novels invariably
call them, they assuredly must have all got
away from my view during my many and
protracted visits at the Capitol.
Neither have met up with any Of those
ornate. ostentatious chaps, with fur
trimmed overcoats. who are always de-
scribed in the Washington novels - kings
of the lobby They're generally depicted as
getting senators and representatives whose
votes they want into games OF poker In
their (the 1obbyistsD luxurious apartments,
and then amiab1y losing few hundreds Of
thousands to the legislators whose favor
they require in their business. Or, upon
the departure of the lawmakers from these
poker seances, the statesmen are frequently
represented as finding large packets of new,
crisp-always crlsp-$1O,0OO bills tucked
away in their inside overcoat pockets.
Now, l have RUN across large number
of men who have been sent to Washington
to look out for various interests, but they re
no more like the type of lobby kings de-
picted in these Washington portrayals'
than I'm like, Cassie Chadwick or the adj
miral of the BALTIC fleet. AS rule, they re
exceedingly quiet. plain hammered men, to
whom you wouldn't give credit for possess
ing $3.50 in ready cash, or any more brains
than is necessary TO induce a man to enter
place Of shelter in case of rain.
''Then there is often the red-faced, coarse
hammered, heaYy-booZing senator, who,
from dallying in stocks, gets to pushing the
limit too far in hurting mammoth moneyed
jobs over the 'seaa torial plate who comes
into conflict with the highly virtuous and
noble-minded senator with the pointed
beard, and whotIfinally has to sign two or
three reams of confessions relating his own
legislative iniquity to save himself from ex-
poSure ---7
Gay, gladstone dreams! Any senator,
no matter how 'red-faced, coarse-mannered
heavy-drinking he may be- who permits
any other senator to get the bulge on him
that way, ought to be moving pianos or
carrying the hod, and probably is-for it's
a cinch that he has never existed in real
life as United States senator.
And then there are always some mighty
toppy gambling scenes in these realistic
pictures of life az the capital Now. there
used to be. long time ago, lot of wide
open gambling In Washington-in the days
when as a boy, made my first series of
visits here
But open gambling In Washington. as
everybody knows who knows anything, Is
as much a thing of the past as the 3-cent
bob tailed car on Pennsylvania avenue.
Therefore, there is no chance for the elo-
quent young representative in Congress, as
shown in the conventional Washington
novel, to totter away from the faro bank,
after having dropped $4,000 or $4,000,
with the exclamation, L am roo-in-ed!
There's plenty of gentlemen's poker going
on here in Washington pretty much all the
time, and quite few well-managed games
in which there's rake-off for the house;
but if you want to stack up your chips on
faro table or listen to the music of the
marble leaping around the roulette wheel
you've got to go over to Jackson City, and
if you haven't got any more horse sense or
self respect than to do that, then it's SAM
taTium treatment you neeQ, ana nothing
else.
again, the Washington novel infalltbly
contains some mighty whacks at the gov
eminent clerks. The government employees
are portrayed as lazy and incompetent, or
as moral lepers If these novelists' ever
saw the tired looking bunch of folks, men
and women. who Chamber board the
Washington cars on week days at half past
4 O'Clock in the afternoon, he must have n
babe of Imagination
THUS on indefinitely. 1t would be idle
for me to continue to dig out the characters
that joggIe their feverish days and ways
along through the pages of the Washington
novel The divvle of it is, however, that
the folks who have never been in Wash
ineton and who read these paltry yarns,
swallow them as Gospel. Go to any part of
the country from Washington and you'll
hear folks exelaim, Gee, but what a vi
cious. red-hot, Ubiquitous son-of-a-gun of a
burg that Washington must ber'
.fThere's lot of fine material in Wash
layton for the novelist Of genuine ability to
sec and write and some day some chap or
some clever woman'H come along and make
use of 1t. For Washington surely needs re-
ha utilization in fiction, even if it is all right
in fact
n rUyTSr1