The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-01-31

l :" Washington gave its twenty 1 fourth annual winter dinner tonight at the New Willard Like it's predecessors
 1t was a great occasion, not only in re- gard to the prominent guests around the table. but for the decorations and the programme of wit and fun as well as speeches given during the evening. Ihe Gridiron dinners for the last five years have taken place in the large banquet hall on the tenth floor of the New Will lard This immense apartment is decor ated in a most lavish style by Small, and tonight the room resembled fairy gar den, for the walls were hung with south ern smilax and greens. while the symbolic Gridiron tables, at which were seated over 23o guests, were literally one mass Of beautiful flowers. Great plaques of roses. tuplips. carnations. lilacs and orchids adorned the table, while in front of the presidents place was a great mass of exquisite spring flowers and roses. Back of the presidents chair was hung the large electric gridiron. which was set in q mass of over a thousand American Beauties The gridiron itself was heavily draped with black and white ribbons the colors of the club. The recesses of the windows were filled with giant palms and growing evergreens. The Marine band' under Lieutenant Santelman, furnished the instrumental music. From 7:SO until o'clock the president and members of the club received the guests in the reception room, which adjoins the banquet hall. Among the 2SO odd guests tonight can be mentioned the following distinguished notable men: The President of the United States, Vice President of the united States. the British ambassador, the Ger man ambassador MT. Justice Brewer or the United States supreme court, Sec retary of State Bacon, Rt. Rev. Alfred Harding. Bishop of Washington, Post master General Meyer, Secretary Straus' Secretary Newberry. Secretary Wilson, Mir. H H. Rogers, Speaker Cannon, Gen. Felix Agnus. Frank H. Hitchcock, Sec retary Loeb, Senator-elect Root, Senators Crane Curtis, Clapp Bourne, Stone, Kit tredge, Nelson, ex-Senator Dryden, c. G. Bennett. secretary of the Senate; Herbert Putnam, librarian of Congress; Repre- eentatives Lowden, Tawney, Payne, Dal- zell, Champ Clark, Stevens, Kahn. Small, Rartholdt and others. There was also present distinguished number of news paper editors, proprietors and publishers, among them being Melville F. Stone of the Associated Press. Herman Ridder, New York staats Zeitung; l.. E. Holden and E. L. Lilley, Cleveland Plain Dealer; Col. William Hester. Brooklyn Eagle; James H. Lambert. Philadelphia Press; George S. Mandel and W. E. Brigham or the Boston Transcript, Charles H. Grasty of the St. Paul Dispatch. Frederick Ray Martin. Providence Journal; Frank B. Moves. Chicago Record-Herald; Charles A. Rock, Pittsburg Dispatch; Hugh K. Taylor, St. Louis Star; John A. Sleicher, Leslie's Weekly; Brockholst Mathewson. Golfers Weekly; Fly. Mayer, New York Times, and many others. Among the railroad people present were George W. Stevens, president Of the Chesapeake and Ohio railroad; George ". Boyd. Penn- sylvania railroad; James H. Hustis, Bos- ton and Albany, and Harry W. Fuller Chesapeake and Ohio railroad Among the army and navy officers were Gen. Clarence Edwards, Maj. W. P. Richard son, U. s. A: Col. Charles L. McCaw- ley. U s. M C.. and Col. Frank Denny, U. s. M. C.; Major Carson, U. s. A; Capt Charles J. Badger, superintendent of the Naval academy at Annapolis; Commander simms, U. s. N; Colonel Taylor, U. s. A; Huntington Wilson, United States minister to Argentine Re- public Thomas F. Walsh, Herbert I. Satterlee, assistant secretary of the navy, and many others, whose names if printed would fill over a column.
 At o'clock the old-fashioned dinner bell was heard ringing in the large dining hall, and as the curtains separating the reception room from the banquet hall were drawn aside, President Hall of the Gridfron club, accompanied by President Roosevelt of the United States, led the long line of guests. When they had all found their seats, before they sat down, the lights in the banquet room were ex- tinguished and the Gridiron quartet sang song of welcome, and then President Hall addressed a few words of greet ing and flashed the big electric gridiron. At the plate of each guest was found
 small booklet, gotten up in the style of a patent medicine almanac. The remedy 1t extolled was H-2-0, Natures Own Remedy" Tho little book was filled with cartoons hitting off certain phases of political life In Washington. It was full l of patent medicine jokes. the following being a sample:
 Conundrum: What will Cortelyou do
 with the treasury March 4?
 Ans: Give 1t up."
 Notice-Gentlemen who have been
 mentioned" for the Taft cabinet will
 march in procession at the inaugural, forming division 23. under command of l William Loeb, Jr., who has been "men- tioned' most frequently.
 The following quotations from states men were also found in the little book, "Early to bed and early to rise makes | a man miss a lot of fun."-vice President ] Fairbanks.
 "You may lead a man to water. but he