Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1907-02-26

days amply connfm what the neWSpa-
pers then printed.
This riot of the millions was in.
creased when Calvin s. Brice became
a senator from Ohio and took the fam
Gus Corcoran mansion facing Lafay-
cite Square, directly across from tbs
White House. Since then this high
rate of living has been maintained and
even elevated by the ever-sWelling
numbers Of multi-mil lionaires in SEN
ate, congress and cabinet. 1t lis said
that Weep President Morton kept up
| the pace set by Whitney and Brice.
And Vice President Hobart lived mag
nifcently and was sumptuous in his
generous and beautiful hospitality,
Thirty thousand dollars a year is very
ordinary outlay for the maintenance
of one Of these establishments. Forty
thousand dollars year is by no means
rare There are some who spend as
high as 100000 annually. was told
by one individual that his expenses
/ are $4,000 every year; and in that es-
Establishment there is only husband and
wife-no children.
This means, of course, an almost un.
interrupted series of sumptuous and
elegant entertainments dinners,
| dances, receptions, theater parties,
and what not! Gradually rap
idly the result of all this has been to
cause extremely wealthy people not in
public life but devoted to society" to
build palatial winter homes in Wash
ington and make the nations capital
the scene of costly gayety. In the
train of these devotees of pleasure a
stream of fairly rich people has set in
toward Washington people who do
not want to build homes but who are
quite willing to rent apartments and
pay price for them which, to the
public man depending upon his salary,
is absolutely prohibitive.
i Think now, in contrast, of the cost
i of living in Webster's time and even
down to the period of Summer and
/ Conkling. Senator Conkling, conced-
eddy one of the greatest men in Ameri-
can public life, lived at 'Wormley ST.
i a small, old-fashioned hotel conducted
i by colored man. His living expenses
I were not more than $25 a Weekat
any rate, he could have gotten along
on that amount very well.
Thaddeus Stevens, the famous Com
moner" from Pennsylvania and abso-
lutte dictator of the house for several
sessions, lived in a small frame house
on 'sB " street southeast--a none too
1 pleasant quarter of the city,
John A. Logan lived at Mrs Rine's
boarding house, Twelfth street, be
! tween III and New York avenue
/ table board being sls month for
each person.
Il Lot M Morrell, chairman of the
j house committee on appropriations
4 lived at boarding house on Fourth
i street between ID and e. streets
| an extremely questionable part Of sthe
! city, with very modest charges.
4 In 1860 Senator Sumner lived at
Mrs. Cammack's boarding house. Fol
4 years Senator Wade of Ohio lived al
Il Mrs. Hyatt's boarding house. While
i Senator William P. Fessenden lived q,
Mrs Chipman's boarding house
4 very humble hosiery. s.
1 Sometimes several senators dubbed
and lived at a single modest boarding
house. For example, in 1866 Senator
Doolittle Of Wisconsin, Senator Cowar
j Of Pennsylvania, Senators Foote and
Collmar Of Vermont, all lived at Mrs
Carriers boarding house on "A street
northeast
In the time Of Clay, Calhoun and
Webster, the living expenses were
| even more modest. Common necessi
i ties today were luxuries then. The
scale Of living from the humblest gov
| eminent employe to the greatest sen
ator was only a fraction Of what the
same class Of persons Of either ex
| IRENE absolutely must pay out today
| for the simplest existence. The cost
i Of living everywhere throughout the
/ republic is many hundred per cent
4 what it was a hundred years ago, sew
i enty-ive years ago, fifty Years ago
Yet, great as has been the cost Of lily
ling throughout the whole nation, tbs
Il increase Of the cost OF living in the
Il repnbIic's capital has been vastly
n greater than and enormously out 81
proportion with the greatly increased
lcost Of living elsewhere Throughout
/ the country But Notwithstanding this
tine salaries of congressman and sena
ttors remain precisely what they were
forty years ago Most state treasurer
and state auditors get much more, am
hundreds Of county officers get man.
times more than the salary Of a Unit
ed States senator
And still the latter must live amis