The Washington times., 1936-03-03
NOW
WashingtOnidns
GiUen Acid Bath
ALL IN FUN
By HELEN ESSARY

dine with the Right People ha
composed in his Manhattan RI
treat some acid remarks on WASH
ington. Laugh, if you can, at wha
he says. It's all in the spirit o
good clean fun.
SOME WASHINGTON PEOPLE
"The small group Of Wash
ingtonianS whose ancestors first
fIOundered in the mosquito
swarming swamps of. the POtO-
mac, survive here as vestigial
structures in the manner of the
vermifOrm appendix. They are
Of the body but without a func-
ton. Bewildered by the rapid
growth of q village into a city,
they are incenSed that they did
not buy land at time when
they shot ducks where the Agri-
culture Building now stands.
Outraged by the fact that they
have no part in the ordering of
the affairs or the people of the
town, they achieve a fancied re-
venge upon the barbarians from
the outside by affecting a sniff
fling superiority to them, or
suIking in silence in their sound
proof tents.
Daytime they plOd about to
dreary teas, enveIOped in a thick
fog Of sealSkin muffs and
snOOtineSs in which they are
able to recognize each other
only by abnormally developing
their tactile senses. Nature, ever
keen to variations in the human
animal, will eventually do for
them what it has done for in
sects and for the same purpose:
Equip them with feathery, quest
ing antennae.
cat night old Washington re-
treats behind its Victorian what
nots and dusty feather fans
brought back from the Paris
Exposition of 1876, and mildly
titillates itself with bits Of
warmed-Over gossip dragged in
by it's old, faithful servants.
Then it goes to sleep in fOur-pOS-
ter beds to dream of the ancient
splendid days when Prince
Henry of Prussia came to town
and waltzed the ladies into a
state of delicious inSensibility.
"The OutOf-tOwn barbarians
occasionally ask old Washington
to teas and dinners as quaint
survivors of the Colonial era.
Here they serve the same pur-
pose that "antiqueing" new
lighting fixtures serves; or the
making of window seats in
freshly built home of old yellow
PrOvencal petticOatS. After all,
three old WaShingtOnians in the
flesh at a dinner party provide
almost as much mellow back
ground as one badly done anceS-
tor portrait. And how the bar
barianS know it.
washington is the asylum of
the arthritic, the Rome Of the
rheumatic, the seat of the senile.
1t is filled with old ladies whose
husbands long ago skunk happily
into their graves on the theory
that it is sometimes better to let
live than to live, and while they
moulder peacefully their good
wives infIict on the public what
was inflicted on them in private.
''MOst Of them, like Godfrey
of BOulOgne, are out on one kind
of crusade or another, and often
i'm q very frenzy of zeal for the
public welfare, are on both sides
at once. They are for pacifism
and preparedness, for liquor and
against liquor, for birth control
and against it. They encourage
the planting of roadside daisies,
teaching the use of the tooth
brush to mOuntaineers, the
bringing about of a better under
standing between this country
and Azerbajian, making little
gentlemen of rough American
Seamen, sending uplift maya
zines to cOnvicts in the death
house, making fudge for un-
married mothers, teaching little
boys to be kind to birds and bees,
providing arch-SuppOrts for flat
footed mattresses in Bulgaria,
and putting up little jars of Jelly
for the boys in the Marine Hos.
pital.
"In their quieter moments.
they hunt culture in packs, chas-
ing poets to their holes, beard,
ing lecturers on their platforms,
driving painters to their attics,
screaming lovely, oh, how
lOvely!' And where they have
passed naught is left save
Sterility and silence, as when
the IOcusts came down on Egypt
"Yet one knows that when
successive generatiOn3 of sailors
have ceased to make love to girls
on moonlight nights along the
river because the girls are no
more, when this Administration
and many Eore have come and
&1Gen .r6~ ,,,ouoN 80 -