Evening star., 1934-11-18


busy carrying in cards and bringing
out messages from the score or so
of men, boys and women, each of
whom wants to see some member very
particularly.
The ladies of the lobby are the
greatest bore Of the average Con-
gresham. BY this I do not mean
the lady lobbyists. There are few
purely business lobbyists among the
ladies of the Capitol, and the char
acter abounds more in fiction than
in reality. But there are scores of
women with claims, woman Office
seekers and adventuresses of differ
ent kinds who almost live at the Cap
itol. The rooms reserved for their
reception are always full while Con-
gress is in session.
The ladies' reception room of the
House is opposite the north door. 1t
marble Corinthian columns running
through its center and with a num-
ber of red cushioned leather chairs
and sofas around its walls. When
entered it today found 1t filled with
about 40 ladies, some sitting and
waiting, and others engaged in talk
ing to Congressman. Gen. Rosecrans
was engaged with one lady and
Tom Ochiltree was talking to another.
Ladies Of the Lobby.
Some of the ladies were dressed in
the finest of garments, cut after the
latest styles; there were a number of
sealskin cloaks and not a few dia-
monds. Mourning, however. predom-
mated and I judge there were more
soldiers widows wanting pensions
than society women who had come
to gossip. noticed many fresh young
girls and the polite Confederate
colonel who has charge of the room
told me that these, in nine cases out of
ten, are young women who want
places in the departments and who
have come to solicit their Congress-
mans influence. Said he:
You have no idea how many Office
seekers come here. There are women
from all over the country. Many of
them are deserving. We have from
one to two hundred ladies in here
every day to see Congressman. They
must all apply to me and I send in
their cards by page. Sometimes
the members receive them and some
times not. Often they tell the boys
to report them not in, so that the
ladies, going later in the galleries and
seeing them in their seats, come down
and denounce the boys for not having
given their cards to them.
Many of the claimants are meri-
torious ones and some of them are
very needy. They tell me their pitt
full stories and once in a while we
have scene here. have seen many
acts of congressional kindness in this
room. Last year there was a poor
old woman who used to come here
and send in her card about once a
week. The members generally came
out to listen to her story. The few
she called out always gave her money
and I have seen two, five, and even
ten-dollar bills, go out of their pock-
cts into hers. Congressman are gen.
orally liberal and kind-hearted and
they give freely"
As left this room stopped mo-
ment and spoke to the doorkeeper. He
told me that ladies sometimes try to
go into the House while it is in ses-
sion, and that during the last term one
came to his door with blood in her eyes
and cowhide whip under her sealskin
jacket. She started to go inside, but
was gently pulled back. She said a
certain Congressman had Ill used her
and she was bound to go in and horse
whip him in the presence of the
House. Only the threat of policeman
restrained her, and she waited outside.
Washington Without Shirt.
For the past 40 years and more peo-
pie have laughed at the chilly air and
naked form of George Washington as
he sits in marble at the east front of
the Capitol. He has been the butt of
all the jokes Of Senators, Representa-
tives, strangers and guides for the past
four decades, and even solemn Senator
Allen G. Thurman has aided in the
ridicule. Still this statue has a longer
history than any other at the Capitol.
1t was ordered by Congress at the end
OF Andrew Jackson's first term, and
1t took eight years for Horatio Gree
nough to make it. He did the work in
Florence, Italy, and he made the statue
in sitting posture instead of a pedes-
trian, as the act of Congress demand
ed. 1t was designed, you know, to
stand in the center of the rotunda in
Side the Capitol. Well, when it was
completed, in 1910, the next question
was how to get it from Italy to
America.
Congress haggled over the matter for
some time, and finally sent a man-of-
war to bring the statue from Genoa
IL weighed II tons, and it took % woke
OF oxen to haul it. AS it went on its
way through Italy, it is said that the
peasants thought it the image of some
saint; that here and there they knelt
and crossed themselves as it went by.
When the statue reached Genoa. it
was found that it was so large that
1t could not be taken through the
hatchWay OF the man of war which
was to carry it to Washington. SO a
merchant vessel had to be chartered
At last 1t arrived at the Washing
ton Navy Yard, and Congress was
Mortified to see that their pedestrian
statue was sitting in a chair. and
that he was nude to the waist
Henry A. Wise then said: THE
man does not live, and never did live.
who saw Washington without his
Shirt" and the country applauded
the sentiment. But the Navy Yard
is not the Capitol, and it cost SIS 900
to bring the statue from it to the
rotunda. When 1t was brought to the
Capitol doors, the statue. like the
painting of the Vicar of Wakefeld's
family, was too large to go through.
The masonry had to be cut away
and the door enlarged When it was
finally installed, it is said that the
floor began to sink. A pedestal had
to be built under it to support it. It
was soon found, however, that the
rotunda was no place for it, and
finally, after number of removals, it
AL