The Washington herald., 1913-12-01
Statesmen, Real and Near.
BY FRED c. KELLY.
Washington, ID.

This is to deal with the horrible mis-
take made by former Secretary of War
Henry L. stimson when he had his Off
cial portrait painted.
The portrait now adorns the walls OF
the outer office of the Secretary of War.
Stanton, William Tecumseh Sherman, and
other grave old war secretaries and war
heroes. There the picture is to remain
through the succeeding ages, as con-
slant source of inspiration and comfort
to the young OF our broad land.
Now let us suppose thai. you were
about to have your portrait there. 1t is
TO be painted, mind you, not by the man
who paints pictures on the sides OF ice
wagons and on saloon mirrors, but by a
high-priced artist, and the result is TO
be permanent. You can't come around
in a few weeks and sit again. Doubtless,
in view Of the company in which you
are to be thrown, you would wish TO
glare forth from those walls just as
solemnly as anybody. when the painter
got ready to use you for his target, you
would indubitably put on your best
clothes, a high collar. roach your hair
back in neat, conservative fashion, and
Try 10 lOth dS SlAalN dS ~ sOS
had just that minute arrived at the solu-
ton of an intricate problem in higher
mathematics.
Did Henry L. Stimson approach the
situation in any such attitude as that?
No. frankly he did not. Instead of getting
out his Sabbath clothes when the painter
came around, he determined that he
would make himself instrumental in
Frightening up the portrait gallery OF
the War Department, and he hunted uI
the most ornate riding clothes he had
His family tried to demonstrate with him
but he had his mind made up to go down
| to posterity looking like the cover design
of the midsummer 6ction number of a
15-cent magazine. He put on a pair OF
| tan riding breeches, a yellow coat, q
gallery vest. a stock in place of a collar
| seized his riding crop, clutched his gloves
jauntily in one hand, jabbed a thumb Of
! that hand into a side coat pocket-which
gives an effect only a trifie less jaunty
| than slapping ones gloves gaily against
| the Highland then he stepped up be.
fore the painter and bade him do his
worst.
The result is a work that seems to
have been done by Harrison Fisher In
collaboration with George Barr Nc.
Cutcheon and Richard Harding Davis
II one didn't know it was Stimson one
would say just offhand that the mans
name was Cecil Mainwaring or Algy
Trevor, and that in the closing chapter
he will be forced into marriage with an
athletic young creature named Mathildt
van Tulle. Certainly one would never
suspect from the picture that Stimson's
name is Henry.
As a matter OF fact this tendency to-
ward ornate portraiture in the War De-
partmenI gallery was started by no less
person than William Howard Taft
Up until the time Taft retired as Sec
retary of War, the pictures there had
! been either in army uniform or in the
conventional black-but always sombre
Taft's double-width picture shows him in
light blue coat. white vest and red
necixtie. This color gayety on the part
Of his predecessor may have been Stim-
sons inspiration.
Whatever may have given Stimson his
notion, our prediction is that within two
or three years his better Judgment will
once more gain control OF the delegates