The National tribune., 1910-09-15

| he paws his harbor dues, Is,a bachelor
should with a handful of loes, silver.
and dispenses with the opening of safes
and the formality of papers and led
gers. His name and port of register
are merely his visiting card, bearing his
club address, where you may inquire
| for him.
The Lee Incident.
There is a determined effort being
made in Washington to have old Rep
resentative Hall in the Capitol cleaned
out This is the room now known as
the Hall of Horrors to those who have
seen the statuary in it, but which is
aristocratfcally titled the Hall of Fame.
This hall is almost circular. 1t has a
tiled floor, many pillars and a low gall
lery all across one end. 1t is also known
as the whispering hall" for the reason
that standing on certain blocks of the
tiling your voice comes to you from the
floor on other blocks, over your shoul-
der into your ear Oh other blocks, from
| the winged-viCtory clock that faces you,
and there are many other blocks which
give forth strange echoes when you
stand upon them. No one has ever
been able to tell why these echoes are
| or why other tiles give forth nothing
at all. They just do it; that is all there
| is of it, Then there are a lot of statues,
and they are freaks from way back.
| There is only one piece of really good
sculpture il the whole bunch of some
| 35 or 40. and that is Father Marquette
| which was presented by Wisconsin. 1t
| is an exquisite piece of work. The rest
of the statues are practical caricatures.
| There is one of Fulton, who is seated in
a chair with piece of machinery in
| his hand. He lops all over the chair
| his legs are sprawled in all sorts Of
ways, and it is about as woe-begone
piece of marble as can well be imag-
| ined. There is a marble of Webster
whom everybody knows was not a large
man, but the statue makes him q
regular giant. There is a statue of John
]. ingalls,, the only one as yet sent by
Kansas, and excepting that it is like
line, has neither breadth nor thickne S.
which was a good description of In
gals. 1t is the limit for ugliness. There is
a statue of Frances Willard in a basque
and ill-hanging dress, which bears not
the slightest resemblance to that dainty.
isweet-faced woman. There is q statue
of Phil Kearny in bronze. which is very
pretty to look at. but has very little
artistic merit. and there is one of Shoup,
of Idaho, which looks as tho 1t might
have been sandpapered out of piece
of marble. And then there is Wash
ington, dapper-little darling with
III,
and then there is the statue of Robert
f. Lee, the last two presented by Vir-
ginia. Lee wears full regimentals
sword, stars and all. The bronze at
first glance seems to be pretty fair, but
on examination it is just as inartistic
and crude in conception as any of the
rest.
The Washington newspapers some
time ago began crusade to have tie
law placing statues in Statuary Hall by
the States repealed. It is to be re-
pealed- on the ground that the hall Is
already jammed to ioverfowing, and IL
any more statuery is presented 1t will
be necessary to make d second and in
ner row. 1t is simply appalling to step
into Statuary Hall. 1t looks SO much
like the marble yard of gravestone
factory. If the examples of bronze and
marble there had any artistic merit, it
would not hurt so much but in the
whole of them, you could not find
even one of them that would make an
artistic hitching post. The Washington
Evening Star has suggested that this
statuary be either sent back to the
States to let them do what they please
with it, or else distributed thru the
parks in Washington. more particular
ly along the Mall, as 1t will be when it
is completed. While they would un-
doubtedly mar the beauty of the Mall,
the jar "OulU HOI De quite 80 severe,
since they would not be very close to-
gether, and in doing this we get rid Of
the Lee statue and also the possibility
of having placed opposite Lee a statue
Of jeff Davis
A great many have asked the ques-
tion of who was responsible for placing
the statue in the Capitol. The statue
was received by Senator Daniel. Of
Virginia, now dead; Senator Wetmore.
Chairman of the Senate Committee on
Public Buildings and Grounds. and Ell
liott Woods. Superintendent of the Cap
itol Building and Grounds. The only
committee that has any righ. to accept
statuary or anything else that goes in
side of the Capitol is the joint CornInit-
tee on Public Buildings and Grounds,
and this committee has never accepted
the statue and never said that it could
come in. There is a very dark-colored
citizen in the wood pile, to tell the
truth of the matter, of about the way
the statue was sneaked in, and the
sneaking was done during the Summer,
when Congress was not in session and
nobody knew anything about it until 1t
was set up. 1t is stated that several
members of the cOmmittee are pretty
wrathy about the way they were treat
ed. The Lee incident is not over yet by
any means. as it will be discovered pos
sibly in the near future.