Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-08-19

TN q recent Issue of Harper's Weekly
there appears an article by Sydney
Brooks. AN English View Of Wash
II ington." which is decidedly interest
ing In that 1t gives residents of the
national capital an idea Of how 'ithers
see u.s. The article Is reprinted here as
follows:
1t Is in Washington more, think. than
in any other American city. that Euro
pean finds himself reminded of home. But
not by any means to the exclusion Of the
United States. On the contrary, he feels
that there, II anywhere, he Is assisting at
the great composite panorama Of Ameri-
can life. The city is national reservoir,
fed by unnumbered tributaries. and shap-
ed. like Madrid, deliberately to that cad.
1t Is the clearing house for the humanity
of the whole continent. Underneath the
clock in Charing Cross station. 1t is said,
you will, sooner or later, meet every one
you have ever known. Underneath tho
rotunda at the Capitol you will assuredly,
sooner or later, meet every American you
have ever known. You Will meet many,
too, whom you neither know nor want to
know. but whose identity with the Amer
lean tourist. familiar to European eyes
and ears, is established at a glance.
1t is the question of questions for Amer
leans (and not less for Britishers, in
France or Egypt or Italy, where so many
of their fellow-citizens can possibly live
when they are at home. The mystery is
one. perhaps, that 1t were better not to
probe, and / throw 1t out merely as q
matter of observation. and not at all as n
clue that the type OF Americans, whom
their countrymen and countrywomen in
Europe are more or less eager to disown
and smuggle out of sight as fagrantly
'unrepresentative and libelous, are by no
means inconspicuous In Washington. I
would not suggest for a moment that
they live there; nobody, a matter Of
fact. lives in Washington: but they come
there In vast gregarious herds and test
their sightseeing mettle upon the ma
tional capital. The CITY, In short. Is a rail-
lying point for excursionists. AS city 1t
alone on the American continent approach
es the European display of Shows and
offers the same easy target to the trip
per. But that merely adds to the COM
pgehensiveness of its summing up. and
makes II beyond all It's rivals distribu-
ton of the entire country. One feels one
self in touch with all the states and Ger
ritortes.
But this. while II would seem to make
Washington the most American OF Ameri-
can cities, only accentuates what l began
by saying-that In the national capital the
European feels curiously at home. The rea-
son is that the social framework carries an
altogether disproportionate fringe. The
floating population is large and diverse, but
the island around which 1t floats is small,
settled, and. in a sense, secluded. That part
of Washington which really counts is rela-
lively less to the part that does not count
than In any other city know of. Trippers,
of course. count nowhere. and do not ex-
poct to, but 1t gives ones English notions
something of a shock to discover that for
social purposes politicians go for little
more. When you have licked off the names
of a score OF senators and perhaps a dozen
representatives. the sum OF the contribu-
tion which politics make to the real life OF
Washington Is fully stated.
Social existence on any settled basis only
begins when boarding houses and hotels
end. and In Washington they are far from
ending yet. Grimmer, because more in
genuous and wholly unlooked-for social
tragedies you will hardly find anywhere
than among the wives of congressman to
whose imaginations Washington had pic