Evening star., 1925-07-04
GHOST OF OLD 4th SMILES WRYLY
ON NOISELESS, DESERTED CITY
Thousands Leave Capital, Picnics and Poetry Re.
place Liquor and Explosives Amusements
of Those Who Spend Holiday at Home.

was great change noticeable in his
character when he came back from
the war. Before that he had shown
tendencies of following the old mans
footsteps, used to sneak a few sWigs
from a gin bottle behind the school
house and loiter on the fringes of
noisy parties.
He was interviewed this morning as
he was changing tire on one of the
nearby Maryland roads, sweating and
cursing a little at the task.
80 the old mans ghost was around
last night" he said. 1T must look
pretty tame to the old fellow now. He
did according to his lights in his day
tried to be patriotic the best he knew
how. But to me there's more patriot
ism expressed in the voice of the sea
waves or the birds singing in the
woodland than in the explosion of
lO,000,000,0 900 cannon crackers. One
'attains a greater love for the country
by watching the green ribbons of grass
unwind along it's roadsides than by
listening to a million village parsons,
country lawyers, legislators and such
like shout to high heaven and twist
the tail of the lion.
'As for the old man-he thought he
was some scrapper. but he always end
ed up witt a couple of black eyes, a
big head y liich stayed with him for a
week. and Is clothes all covered with
blood arlst@nud. l could beat him up
with one hand tied behind my back
I'D hate to think of an army which
must fight war as wars are fought
nowadays, made up of poor. old buns
like the old man. In no time at all
the enemy would be sitting in the
White House"
Exodus Sets Record.
Which all comes back to saying that
the young fellow led an enormous pro-
cession of Washingtonian out of
town today. At Union Station it was
stated that the crowd purchasing tick
cts for the past three or four days had
been more than double the ordinary
number and even larger than last
Fourth. But the most striking dis
tance noted this year was in the num-
ber purchasing long-distance tickets.
A great increase in the, local business
is expected, but the ticket sellers found
themselves making up tickets for hun
dreds of Washingtonians bound for
distant points-for California, for Vel
lowstone Park, for the White Noun
tains. Most of these left three or four
days ago in order to be at their desti-
nations in time for the national holi.
day. 1t was estimated that more than
60. 900 tickets a day have been sold for
all sorts of trips on the Fourth.
Street railway cars going into the
suburbs pulled out with every seat
taken and men and women standing
in the aisles. The traffic into nearby
Virginia was particularly heavy, it
was stated at the office of the Wash
ington and Old Dominion Railway Co.
On the whole, officials said, it was bet
ter than last year in spite of the
threatening rain early i'll the morning.
Many entire families with wraps and
lunches defied the clouds and left for
the country at dawn.
Steamboat travel also compared very
favorably with other years. Every pos
sible ticket was sold on the boats
running down the river and on the
Chesapeake. Bay boats.
The great bulk of those who left the
city travelled by auto. 1t was estimated
that a considerable ma ajority of the
100 ,000-odd cars owned in the Capital
were pressed into service for the new
age way of celebrating Fourth of
July.
Independence day doesn't beat a
drum and blow on a bugle any more.
He swings a golf stick or munches
sandwiches in the shade.