The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1913-04-28

With the coming of hot weather, a
hirsutorial event of much moment is go
ing to set people blinking hereabouts.
Senator James Hamilton Lewis of Illi-
nois, tho man with the gorgeous whis-
I kers, famed throughout the land in song
and story, Is going to tIrn smooth-faced.
Lewis has not yet made formal an
nouncement of the date for his depluma-
ton. but his mind is made up. He itches
with curiosity to know what he really
looks like with face unadorned, and has
made solemn covenant with himself that
ere the ides of June have come and gone
he will come out into the open and show
his true self.
Many preliminary arrangements must
be worked out before the depilatory event
takes place. Just what to do with the
wondrous whiskers about which miles of
columns have been written is a problem
TO which Senator Jim Ham is giving
much thought. Whether il Is better to
have them divided up and tucked into
dainty little sachet bags to be sold for
the benefit of INDECENT BARRIERS, or to lay
them away intact. or have them suitably
mounted by some gentlemanly taxidermist
all these propositions must be weighed
with infinite care.
One sees many nice sets of whiskers, Of
course; but, without casting aspersions on
the efforts of other painstaking young
whisker growers, 1t may be said that
probably no other person in public life, or
elsewhere, has ever brought whiskers to
such a high state of cultivation as those
of James Hamilton Lewis. They not only
excel all others in color and luxurisnce,
but in a certain rare quality of animation.
Each whisker seems to vie with the 9TH
ers for recognition, standing out alone
like a cats. And they were not grown
in a day, or even month. Lewis began
them many years ago when he was a
struggling young lawyer out on the Pa
cific Coast. At first they were intended
to minimize the youthful appearance of
their owner and help him to meet the
competition of maturer heads. Then
they became so bound up with his iden-
tity that he did not have the heart to put
them aside.
Now that the parting of the ways has
come and the dauntless Jim Ham Lewis
is going to face the world alone, only
time can tell whether Lewis made the
whiskers or the whiskers made Lewis.
At any rate, their place in history is
secure, and no others. not even the out
fit of William c. Redfield, can take their
place.
James S. Parker, a new Representative
from one of the York State districts, is
a farmer. But he doesn't look it. Stand
Parker up before a multitude of his
peers and let them guess his occupation
from all the various lines of human en-
deavor, and probably none would guess
that he has consecrated himself to filling
the soil. He Is sprucely dressed,
smooth-faced, youngish person, who looks
as IL he would be a good judge Of cigars
and men and dogs. His appearance is
more that of an insurance agent or
a receiving teller than a farmer. Yet
he has big place of $500 acres and
lives on it, and plays his part in add
ing to the gay, glad cornucopia of
plenty. Besides being farmer, Parker
has been active in politics nearly all
his life. For several years he has been
a member of the New York State Leg
islature, and is just as good at manpu-
lating invisible wires as he is at max
ing two radishes grow where none grew
before.
The closing of the luxurious Turkish
bathrooms by, the Senate, and the dis
missaI of the employees. recalls the sad
case of the Keeper of the Crypt, dropped
from the pay rolls a year or two ago.
The crypt is down in the sub-basement
of the Capitol, and is just what the
name implies. 1t is a crypt built to
hold the body of George Washington.
But as Georges body lies at Mount Yer
non, the crypt Is needless except as
relic, and few visitors to Washington
know that 1t exists. It is out of the
beaten paths about the Capitol, and the
guides rarely head expeditions there.
However, empty as the crypt is there
was for fifty or seventy-five years a
keeper of the crypt on the pay rolls at
something like $1,000 year. Once the
Job was created 1t stuck, being just one
more place to tuck away party patriot.
1t was just such delightful job as
that held by the telegraph operators at
the House and Senate ends of the Capt.
toll after telephones came in and the
telegraph instruments ceased to be used.
Another nice job used to be that of
doorkeeper at the Presidents room,
which, before Woodrow Wilson's day was
used only on the last day OF session
OF Congress. At AL other times the door