Ladysmith news-budget. [volume] (Ladysmith, Rusk County, Wis.) 1907-1927, 1908-07-09

says d LOuuOu CI1lIC.
''It is an interesting development,
and not less interesting than newt
able" he continues. Things simply
could not go on as they were. Twelve
House, it was 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
a decaying boarding house. Enter.
tainments were bear fights, and din
ners long agony. There were next
to no Hobbies or cloak rooms, or prop
er exits and entrances. The president
lived just above his workshop. What
should have been 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 overran the building. Privacy
was as impossible as dignity.
"All this, since Mr.. Roosevelt's ac-
cession, has been revolutionized The
White House has been reconstructed;
new wings have been thrown out; the
official quarters are to-day 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 a 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 it's 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 a re-
mote and abstract meaning to it's
mind. Commerce and all it's banalities
are refreshingly, delightfully."- absent.
There is serenity, almost benignity,
in it's ordering of the routine of life.
Nobody 'hustles' in Washington. 1t
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
intent upon getting a good social re.
turn for their outlay. I imagine this
tendency is one that will certainly
grow A few years hence it may be
as much the thing to have a house
at Washington and spend the winter
season there as it 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 a city of leisure, Washington
must have something to amuse itself
with. Being also the headquarters of
officialdom, the seat Of government, it
is natural that it should amuse Nitseli
with the problems of republican
court and the minutiae of precedence
[ sometimes doubt whether any CAPT
tai, even Vienna or Madrid, troubles
itself so much about these questions
at Washington.
ct is inevitable, suppose, that
this should be so. There is no court
chamberlain in Washington, and few
traditions The consequence is that
/. is left for chance or individual bold
ness and insistence to settle the in
Vulnerable points of precedence that
in Europe have long been decided by
usage, prescription, and fixed code.
Then, again, the citizens of republic
are as a rule more and not less anx
ious than the subjects of monarchy
for some mark of distinction that will
cnnaratn them from their fellows -