Evening star., 1950-01-01


Hamilton until becoming Speaker.
when he went to the Shoreham,
then on the site of the present
Shoreham Building. That hotel
had been built by Levi P. Morton,
Vice President under Harrison,
1889-1893, who named it for the
town in Vermont where he was
born. Still earlier there had been
the famous Wormley's Hotel,
nearly opposite. on H street.
The Baltimore g. Ohio Railroad
Station was northwest of the Cap
itol, in a space so wholly absorbed
by the new development in that
quarter that it would take John
Clagett Proctor to lead you with
any exactness to the spot where
it stood. 1t was in the Pennsyl-
vania Railroad terminal that
President Garfield had met his
death in 1881 at the hands of an
assassin, as a marble tablet on
the walls recorded.
We had in those days a goodly
number of theaters of the spoken
word, including the National,
which became the last survivor.
OF course, the Belasco was quite
modern. There was theater
just south Of the Avenue, where
the Department of Commerce
Building now stands, but occupy
ing a very minute section of its
ground floor space. There was
one on the south side of F street
near Tenth, as the architectural
formation of its entrance still
bears evidence.
| Newspaper Row
The newspaper correspondents
of that day we're largely in that
block of Fourteenth street be-
tween F and the Avenue. That
was a genuine newspaper row."
When I started to furnish a
bureau, so-called, for the Boston
Evening Transcript at the turn
of the century, was told that I
could buy my furniture cheaply
from the New York Times. This
was before the coming of Mr..
Adolph Ochs with his miraculous
power. The Times had been a
two-man bureau, but in period
of retrenchment had been cut
down to a one-man bureau, and I
bought some of the excess furni-
ture for $40. I was always lavish
in my expenditures. Today the
Transcript Is no longer in exist
ence. while the New York Times
maintains in Washington, under
the leadership of Arthur Krock. a
larger staff of writer's than the
Boston Transcript then employed
in all its activities.
At the turn Of the century, or
slightly before, one Of the great
sights for visiting children, was
to take them on the horse-cars
to Georgetown, via Dupont Circle
and P street, where they could
see the horses embarrassed about
where the P street bridge now
stands, and a new pair brought
into service.
| Yardstick for Doctors
Fifty years ago physicians here
were customarily identified by the
prominent persons who had died
under their ministrations If you
sought a new. doctor for your
arthritis or your cold, you were
promptly regaled with the great
statesmen who had died under
such physician; why not go to
him? In my first search for a
physician here 1 was the recipient
Of q very delicate courtesy. I
came down with ld-fashioned
diphtheria, as adults frequently
did. before the days Of antitoxin.
The boarding house smuggled me
off into a top-floor room, other
wise unoccupied. which had just
one framed picture about a foot
square on its walls. When I re-
covered, I complimented the
boarding house keeper on the at
tention she had extended to me in
having on the wall of my room a
solitary picture, that of a man
who had died Of diphtheria-
Phillips Brooks. the Episcopal
Bishop of Massachusetts, and the
greatest pulpit orator Of his time.
My physician had been the one
under whom Mrs. Harrison and
Secretary Gresham had died. II
have forgotten his name. For al
bad cold was helped out by the
doctor under whom Senator
Leland Stanford of California had
succumbed.
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