Okolona messenger., 1908-07-08


year that passes,
J says London critic.
1T is an interesting development,
and not less interesting than newt
able" he continues Things simply
could not go on as they were. Twelve
years ago, when first knew the White
House, it was a museum OF horrors.
Young married couples visited it that
they might learn what to avoid in the
way of furnishings and decorations.
The entrance hall looked like the bar
room in a second rate restaurant.
Tastelessness and vulgarity had given
+ to the reception rooms the aspect of
decaying boarding house. Enter
tainments were bear fights, and din
ners a long agony. There were next
to no lobbies or cloak rooms, or prop
er exits and entrances. The president
lived just above his workshop. What
4 should have been a series of bedrooms
for himself and his family had to be
turned over to clerks No guests
could be put up because there was no
room for them. At every moment OF
the day politicians. Office seekers and
callers overra1 the building, Privacy
was as impossible as dignity.
"All this, since Mr., Roosevelts ac-
cession, has been revolutionized. The
/ White House has been reconstructed;
new wings have been thrown out; the
official quarters aro today absolutely
separated from the residential; all the
rooms have been transformed in a
style that Is nearly the last word in
/, taste and simplicity; $500 guests can
: be accommodated at state reception
without overcrowding; and both inside
and out the White House is now all
that Georgian mansion and an Of
/ fetal residence should be.
"The change is symbolical 1t re
fleets the new passion which Washing
! ton has developed for the forms and
observances of social etiquette and
/ manners. The beautiful and spacious
city on the banks of the Potomac Is
unlike any capital In Europe, or any
of its sister cities in America. 1t Is
an American community, doing un-
American things, leading an un-Ameri-
can life. 1t lives simply for two
| things - society and politics. 1t
neither talks business nor thinks It;
the word conveys no more than re-
mote and abstract meaning to its
mind. Commerce and all it's banalties
are refreshingly delightfully."- absent
There is serenity, almost benignity,
in it's ordering Of the routine of life.
Nobody 'hustles' in Washington. It
is the one city on the continent where
America is really at leisure.
That indeed is it's great attraction.
That. together with the lure and gilt
ter Of the diplomatic corps, is the rea-
son why Washington steadily tends to
become the center of American fash
ion and the haunt of the nouveaux
riches. A decade ago it showed few
signs of becoming rich mans city.
But to-day mansions that are almost
palaces are rapidly rising, and the
men who build and own them care
nothing for politics, and are simply
turn for their outlay. | imagine this
tendency is one that will certainly
grow A few years hence it may be
as much the thing to have house
at Washington and spend the winter
season there as 1t used to be to have
house in Newport; and foresee the
time when Washington will compete
with and perhaps overshadow New
York as the radiating center for the
fashions and follies of the smart set.
Being city Of leisure, Washington
must have something to amuse itself
with. Being also the headquarters of
ofiicfaldom, the seat of government, It |
is natural that it should amuse itself |
with the problems of republican
court and the minutiae of precedence.
| sometimes doubt whether any CAPT
=, even Vienna or Madrid, troubles |
tself so much about these questions J
4 washington. They are debated |
vfth heat, an ingenu0usness. and
that can hardly be matched.
EFT IS inevitable, | suppose, that
his should be so. There is no court
in Washington, and few
.raditions. The consequence is that
a 1eft for chance or individual bold
ness and insistence to settle the in
,rmerable points Of precedence that
4 europe have long been decided BY |
,sage. prescription, and fixed code.
rhen again, the citizens Of q republic
are "A 4 rule more and not less anx-
Ious than the subjects Of q monarchy
Tor some mark VI distinction that viii
them from their fellows \
--------------- = Z.