The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1904-03-06

with his wife. smoked cob pipes and
home-cured tobacco.
The proper way to address the chief
executive is. Mr.. President In the time
Of the first Adams it was plain Your
Highness, the President Of the United
! States and Protector of our Liberties"
Thomas jefferson cut this out, but Madi-
son restored il in modified form and ii
/ continued until Jackson came in, with
| his cob pipe, his lighting cocks. his race
1 horses and his faverite expression, by
/ the Eternals" He pat his heavy heel
| down on al etiquette that savored Of
! royalty. Strangely enough his successor.
Martin Van Buren,, although the first
( President in the history of the country
not born British subject. sought 10 have
adopted the etiquette Of the English court
but Jackson's Republicanlsm had so in
I fuenced the country that Van Buren, was
afraid 10 carry out his enterprise.
1t now requires fifty policemen and
I twelve secret service men to watch a
Presidential reception. The policemen are
in uniform but the secret service men
are in full evening dress and you do not
know them. Carriages are called by
megaphone. or a communicating series OF
Glegaphones, and the wSole thing is gov
erned by an interesting system.
Outside of official society there is said
to be existing a permanent society of a
high order. but il is mostly fiction. II is
said TO exist among or between southern
people OF aristocratic lineage and north
ern and western people of wealth, and
who de not think political fortune should
give people social preference
In the large hotels strict etiquette pre-
walls. 1t is not in good form to loaf about
the Hobbies in the evening in less than
semi-evening dress. and il is considered
to be absolutely coarse and improper to
enter the dining-room for dinner in less
than full evening dress. At stag parties
and at the clubs the Tuxedo can be
worn. At the opera house, if you are in
box party. etiquette demands full even
ing dress.
The rules governing men are alike en-
forced in the case of ladies' The fair sex
in Washington society have a sort OF
sub-rule that is. TO my mind at least, quite
a sensible thing. II is this: That girls
under twenty are kept in the background
At any rate they are given to understand
that they are not expected to have very
much to say before they attain TO that
age.
Each class of ladies in the social or
der has its own days at home. Twenty
five or thirty women call on each con-
gressmans wife during the afternoon OF
her day at home. tell her what lovely
apartments she has, how much nicer they
and then hike over to Mrs. Sassa frases'
apartments 10 tell her precisely the same
thing.
The social custom imposes chains on
women. They may not like Mrs. Snod-
grass or Mrs. Sassafras, but they dare not
evidence it, for Mrs. Snodgrass and Mrs.
Sassafras are in congress and possibly
by their votes may kill a bill that inter-
ests the lady's husband if he happens TO
be congressman, or the appropriation
for increased clerk hire in the bureau of
the lady's husband if he should happen to
be chief. All these things have to be
watched Besides, society wants every
body in its class to play the game, and If
they refuse to play it they are sort of
ostracised. The wife of Senator Hoar
died recently. She was woman of rare
intellect and refinement, besides being
the wife of one Of the most distinguished
living Americans. In the papers the news
Of her death occupied less than two inch
es of space. As a newspaper man this
interested me very much. and my inquiry !
Of the cause led TO the discovery that she
had always refrained from gadding about
with society.
At the receptions of the President one
sees considerable common sense after
all. The crowd is usually a fair average
of Americans, and many of them are
social skeptics. They josh one another
in line. as fellows do at the Wichita post
office Sunday mornings. They exercise