Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1917-07-15
War time Washington.

war time washington.
That's q phrase which for years car
ried with It tho romance of the Capital
city as It stood ringed by forts In tho
sixties. It carried the thought of anti
ouated beaver hats, tall black things
without the verve and curve and shine
Of tho present silk hat. so popular with
commissions from foreign countries.
Washington houses at that time still
bore the traces OF the commodious style
thirties and forties, and Capitol Hin
was looking with interest on the new
additions to the Capitol Itself. the ad-
ditions being the present House and
Senate wings. The Monument. now
lighted nightly by white beam from
roof garden, was then stubbly bit
Of marble arising from the midst of
mud ponds.
Engines pulling into the old Baltimore
and Ohio and Pennsylvania railroad
stations had queer wide-mouthed fun
nels. and on cold days old gentlemen
frequently wore shawls. And for every
little mustache you see nowadays on
the upper lips OF men of military are.
IN those days You saw 7 grand flowing
beard. Cavalry officers IN those days
rode horses. I for one have not seen Il
cavalry officer riding anything bur q
street car or taxicab for six years.
Those were the days of the boys IN
blue. There phrase that's buried for
ever. This war may develop a new
name for tho men in tho army, but 1t
Will never again be called the boys in
blue. That name died with the Spanish
warm that summer the army went
south in thick blue breeches. waiting
for the khaki uniforms to come from
the factories.
Let some ghost of an old boy in blue"
OF 1851 step into the bushes back of the
White House any night and see those
many brown-clad sentries marching up
ghost and a regular fighter he viii
start a scrap right there. because those
White House sentries look more like
the butternut-clad "johnntes" on the
other side" than they do like boys in
blue"
Washington was crowded in that old
war time. and is crowded now It will
always be crowded in war times, as
capitals of nations are at such times
damned with people intent upon the
business of the war
This present war time Washington is
taking on moro festive air than did
the washington of Lincoln's day OF
course. Civil war, that was, with the
enemy encamped near at hand in places
where now the unthinking motorist
passes with never a thought except
that he is making more miles per gal
lon than he did this time last year and
that he will be able to encircle the city
In mornings run and be back for
lunch. Washington today knows there
is a war because it reads about it in
the papers, sees appeals for enlistments
In the windows, on windshieIds and at
the movies. Also large numbers of gen
tlemen who yesterday We're plodding
along like ordinary civilians 'today
bloom forth in neat khaki or sparkling
white. You didn't know that the chap
you saw each day as you walked to
work was an officer. Well, he Is, and
for the first time Washington-or at
least a large part Of it-begins to in
terest itself in the problem of how to
tell a lieutenant junior grade, U. S. N,
from a major in the Engineer Corps,
U. 8. A.
War time Washington. 1917 style. has
the soldiers. the sailors. the officers,
the White House ringed by guards at
night, the men who block your way at
the State Department door, and all that
but as yet the war, the big black ugly
war, has not yet set its hand upon our
manners and customs. Even Herbert
Hoover's bright but modest sign upon
the building housing him and his food
policies does not yet suggest to the av-
erage man that Washington is the CEN
ter of our end of the war.
The dear ladies who are working for
the Red Cross, some of them, do not yet