The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-18
A. Maurice Low in Harpers Weekly.

A. naullce LOW III ftdrperS WeelNly.
 WHERE is one house in Washington
 where Sunday is observed as strict
 \ ly as in the days when Sunday was a day of soul searching. The White House has not become ''contfnentalized," and during President Taft's administra- ton it has been understood that on Sun day only intimate friends are expected at the White House, and no general hos pltallty is indulged in on that day. Lunch con and dinner at the White House on Sunday are family gatherings with, only house guests or one or two close friends of the President or Mrs Taft present, and politics or affairs of state form no part in the conversation. Mrs. Taft is very fond of music, but she is of an essentially religious temperament, and no secular music has been heard in the White House on Sunday during the present regime.
 The substitution of the continental Sun day for the Puritan Sabbath has not been accomplished without much criticism and a good deal of protest. There are many old fashioned persons who hear of Sun day goings on as too awful to contem- plate and as proof that the republic is going to destruction. They bemoan the passing of the simple days when Wash ington took it's pleasures quietly and rather tremendously; when to dine at ' betokened ones extreme worldliness, and at 10 o'clock the lights were out and all respectable people were in. It is the new rich, they say, who have worked all the mischief; the people who have built great houses and brought with them re- tinues of servants and transformed Washington from village into capital. It is the new rich who are always blamed for everything and who are never given any praise. although it is to be presumed that in this rather chaotic scheme of ours they serve some useful purpose. Perhaps 1t is true that the new rich have brought about the change. but it is only in the last decade or so that Washington can be said to have become capital in the broader sense. The social soil, still in virgin state waiting for the seed of letters and art, has become, nevertheless, the soil of a recognized capital. Washington is as yet too much d political center to be d capital as the term is used in Europe, where not only politics focus but also liter ature, art and science; it resembles rather on greatly magnified scale, state cap ital where position is due to the accident of election. Washington has not yet reached the calm serenity that is the charm of an old world capital, or a grande dame who knows her world and is secure of her station and can afford to be grac- ious to her interiors or freezingly polite to ould be equals There is something still breathless in the atmosphere of this spoiled child of American cities.
 A witty woman once said that Washing ton was the city of detached sentences;" everybody was in such hurry that no one had time to finish conversation. The observation was better than most epi- grams for it has the merit of truth. The Americans. like the English. used to be accused of taking their pleasures sadly, as if they were punshing themselves for playing when they ought to be at work
 No one will say that about Washington, which seems to take it's pleasures, too few erishly to get the most out of them. The more things that can be crowded into a day the greater success that day is counted.
 Washington always gives one the im- pression of a great hotel where every thing is transient and the last thins one expects is permanency. There are no ..permanent guests in Washington Peo- nie stream through the great houses Of Washington as they do through the cor riders of a hotel, and everyone feels that ,oro-row or next day there will be new | face. at the table. The attractive wife of diplomat at whose house you have d;ped or whom you have frequently met at other peoples houses tells you she is dasolated.'' for her husband has been | transferred and she has got to pack up. 1 yo, are sorry, of course, but your sorrow | is not so keen that you do not take a live | iv interest in her husbands successor. l What is he like? Is he married? What is she like? You will miss her. naturally z | hui that's Washington, to meet and to part. In Washington many acquaintances 1.