*****
You arrive at this canal after sailing three hours down the Delaware river from Philadelphia—past the Navy Yard at League island, the piers and jetties at Marcus Hook that help to keep navigation open throughout the winter and many and many a town whose age does not detract from all its charm. The river widens into a great estuary of the sea. The narrow procession of inbound and outbound craft files through a thin channel that finally widens in a really magnificent fairway.
Suddenly your steamer turns sharply toward the starboard, toward another of the sleepy little towns that you have been watching all the way down from Philadelphia—the man who knows and who stands beside you on the deck will tell you that it is Delaware City—and right there under a little clump of trees is the beginning of the canal. You can see it plainly, with its entrance lock and guarding light, and if the day be Sunday or some holiday the townfolk will be down under the trees watching the steamer enter the lock. It is not much of a lock—scarcely eleven inches of raise at the flow of the tide—but it serves to protect the languid stretch of canal that reaches a long way inland. This gateway is a busy one at all times, for the Chesapeake and Delaware is one of the few old-time canals that has retained its prestige and its traffic. An immense freight tonnage passes through it in addition to the day-boats and the night-boats between Philadelphia and Baltimore. Moreover, the motor boats are already finding it of great service as an important link in the inside water-route that stretches north and south for a considerable distance along the Atlantic coast.
In Baltimore HarborIn Baltimore Harbor
Engines go at quarter-speed through the thirteen miles of the canal and the man who prefers to take his travelfast has no place upon the boat. Four miles an hour is its official speed limit and even then the "wash" of larger craft is frequently destructive to the banks. But what of that speed limit with a good magazine in your hands and a slowly changing vista of open country ever spread before your hungry eyes? You approach swing-bridges with distinction, they slowly unfold at the sharp order of the boat's whistle, holding back ancient nags of little Delaware, drawing mud-covered buggies; heavy Conestoga wagons filled with farm produce for the towns and cities to the north; sometimes a big automobile snorting and puffing as if in rage at a few minutes of enforced delay.
On the long stretches between the bridges the canal twists and turns as if finding its way, railroad fashion, between increasing slight elevations. Sometimes it is very wide and the tow-path side—for sailing-craft are often drawn by mules through it—is a slender embankment reaching across a broad expanse of water. You meet whole flotillas of freighters all the way and when edging your way past them you throw your Philadelphia morning paper into their wheel-houses you win real thanks. All the way the country changes its variety—and does not lose its fascination.
So sail to Baltimore. At Chesapeake City you are done with the canal, just when it may have begun to tire you ever and ever so slightly. Your vessel drops through a deep lock into the Back creek, an estuary of the Elk river. The Elk river in turn is an estuary of Chesapeake bay and you are upon one of the remote tendons of that really marvelous system of waterways that has its focal point in Hampton Roads and reaches for thousands of miles into Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and North Carolina.
You sweep through the Elk river and then through the upper waters of the Chesapeake bay, just born from theyellow flood of the Susquehanna, as the day dies. As the sun is nearly down, your ship turns sharply, leaves the Bay and begins the ascent of the Patapsco river. Signs of a nearby city, a great city if you please, multiply. There are shipbuilding plants upon distant shores, the glares of foundry cupolas, multiplying commerce—Baltimore is close at hand.
And so you sail into Baltimore—into that lagoon-like harbor at the very heart of the town. The steamboats that go sailing further down the Chesapeake that poke their inquisitive noses into the reaches of the Pocomoke, the Pianatank, the Nanticoke, the Rappahannock, the Cocohannock, the Big Wicomico and the Little Wicomico—all of these water highways of a land of milk and honey and only rivaling one another in their quiet lordly beauty—sail in and out of Baltimore. There are many of these steamers as you come into the inner harbor of the city, tightly tethered together with noses against the pier just as we used to see horses tied closely to one another at the hitching-rails, at fair-time in the home town years ago. And they speak the strength of the manorial city of Lord Baltimore. For the city that sits upon the hills above her landlocked little harbor draws her strength from a rich country for many miles roundabout. For many years she has set there, confident in her strength, leading in progress, firm in resource.
For well you may call Baltimore—quite as much as Philadelphia—a city of first things. There are almost too many of these to be recounted here. It is worthy of note, however, that in Baltimore came the first use in America of illuminating gas, which drove out the candle and the oil lamp as relics of a past age. Baltimore's historic playhouse, Peale's Museum, was the first in all the land to be set aglow by the new illuminant. And one may well imagine the glow of pride also that dwelt that memorable evening upon the faces of all thefolk who were gathered in that ancient temple of the drama.
And yet there was an earlier "first thing" of even greater importance—the hour of inspiration a century ago when an enemy's guns were trained on that stout old guardian of the town's harbor, Fort McHenry—an engagement to be remembered almost solely by the fact that the "Star Spangled Banner" first lodged itself in the mind of man. But to our minds the greatest of the many, many "first things" of Baltimore was the coming of the railroad. For the first real railroad system in America—the Baltimore & Ohio—was planned by the citizens of the old town—ambitious dreamers each of them—as an offset to those rival cities to the north, Philadelphia and New York, who were creating canals to develop their commerce—at the expense of the commerce of Baltimore. So it was that a little group of merchants gathered in the house of George Brown, on the evening of the 12th of February, 1827, a date not to be regarded lightly in the annals of the land. For out of that meeting was to come a new America—a growing land that refused to be bound by high mountains or wide rivers. Not that the little gathering of Baltimore merchants pointed an instant or an easy path to quick prosperity. The path of the Baltimore & Ohio was hedged about for many years with trials and disappointments. It was more than a quarter of a century before it was a railroad worthy of the name, meeting even in part the ideals and dreams of the men who had planned it to bring their city in touch with the Ohio and the other navigable rivers of the unknown West. And at the beginning it was a fog-blinded path that confronted them. Over in England an unknown youth was experimenting with that uncertain toy, the steam locomotive, while a Russian gentleman of known intelligence gravely predicted that a car set with sails to go beforethe wind upon its rails was the most practical form of transportation. And it is worthy of mention that the earliest of the Baltimore and Ohio steam locomotives was beaten in a neck-and-neck race toward the West by a stout gray horse. The name of the old locomotive is still recorded in the annals of the railroad but that of the gray horse is lost forever.
*****
To know and to love the Baltimore of today, one must know and love the Baltimore of yesterday. He must know her lore, her traditions, her first families—the things that have gone to make the modern city. He must see, as through magic glasses, the Baltimore of other days, the city that came into her own within a very few years after the close of the American Revolution. His imagination must depict that stout old merchant and banker, Alexander Brown; Evan Thomas, the first president of Baltimore's own railroad; B. H. Latrobe, the first great architect and engineer that a young nation should come to know and whose real memorial is in certain portions of the great Federal Capitol at Washington. He must see Winans, the car-builder, and Peter Cooper, tinkering with the locomotive. He may turn toward less commercial things and find Rembrandt Peale; and if his glasses be softened by the amber tints of charity he may see a drunkard staggering through the streets of old Baltimore to die finally in a gutter, while some men put their fingers to their lips and whisper that "Mr. Poe'sRavenmay be literature after all."
It is indeed the old Baltimore that you must first come to know and to love, if you are ever to understand the personality of the Baltimore of today. The new Baltimore is a splendid city. Its fine new homes, its many, many schools and colleges proclaim that here is a centerof real culture; its great churches, its theaters, its modern hotels, its broad avenues are worthy of a city of six hundred thousand humans. Druid Hill Park at the back of the new Baltimore is worthy of a city of a million souls. From it you can ride or stroll downtown through Eutaw place, that broad parked avenue which is the full pride of the new Baltimore. Suddenly you turn to the left, pass through a few mean streets, the gray pile of the Fifth Regiment armory, known nationally because of the great conventions that have been held beneath its spreading walls, see the nearby tower of Mount Royal station—after that you are in the region of the uptown hotels and theaters—thrusting themselves into the long lines of tight, red-brick houses. These are builded after the fashion of the Philadelphia houses, even as to their white marble door-steps, and yet possess a charm and distinction of their own.
There are many of these old houses upon this really fine street, and you crane your neck at the first intersection to catch its name upon the sign-post. "Charles Street" it reads and with a little gladsome memory you recall a bit of verse that you saw a long time ago in theBaltimore Sun. It reads somewhat after this fashion:
Its heart is in Mount Vernon square,Its head is in the green wood:Its feet are stretched along the waysWhere swarms the foreign brood;A modicum of Bon Marche,That sublimated store—And Oh, the treasure that we haveIn Charles street, Baltimore!I love to watch the moving throng,The afternoon parade;The coaches rolling home to tea,The young man and the maid;The gentlemen who dwell in clubs,The magnates of the town—Oh, Charles street has a smile for them,And never wears a frown!The little shops, so cool and sweet;The finesse and the graceWhich mark the mercantilityOf such a market-place;And then beyond the tempting storesThe quietness that runsInto the calm and stately squareWith marble denizens.The little and the larger storesAre tempting, to be sure;But they are only half the charmThat Charles street holds to lure;For here and there along the way,How sweet the homes befall—The domicile that holds his Grace,The gentle Cardinal.The mansions with pacific mienWhose windows say "Come in!"The touches of colonialness,The farness of the dinThat rolls a city league awayAnd leaves this dainty streetA cool and comfortable spotWhere past and present meet.A measure of la boulevardBefore whose windows passThe madame and the damoisel,The gallant and the lass;The gravest and the most sedate,The young and gay it calls;And, oh, how proper over it—The shadows of St. Paul's!Dip down the hill and well away,The southward track it takes,O fickleness, how many quips,How many turns it takes!But ever in its greensward heart,From head to foot we pourThe homage of our love of it—Dear Charles street, Baltimore!
Its heart is in Mount Vernon square,Its head is in the green wood:Its feet are stretched along the waysWhere swarms the foreign brood;A modicum of Bon Marche,That sublimated store—And Oh, the treasure that we haveIn Charles street, Baltimore!I love to watch the moving throng,The afternoon parade;The coaches rolling home to tea,The young man and the maid;The gentlemen who dwell in clubs,The magnates of the town—Oh, Charles street has a smile for them,And never wears a frown!The little shops, so cool and sweet;The finesse and the graceWhich mark the mercantilityOf such a market-place;And then beyond the tempting storesThe quietness that runsInto the calm and stately squareWith marble denizens.The little and the larger storesAre tempting, to be sure;But they are only half the charmThat Charles street holds to lure;For here and there along the way,How sweet the homes befall—The domicile that holds his Grace,The gentle Cardinal.The mansions with pacific mienWhose windows say "Come in!"The touches of colonialness,The farness of the dinThat rolls a city league awayAnd leaves this dainty streetA cool and comfortable spotWhere past and present meet.A measure of la boulevardBefore whose windows passThe madame and the damoisel,The gallant and the lass;The gravest and the most sedate,The young and gay it calls;And, oh, how proper over it—The shadows of St. Paul's!Dip down the hill and well away,The southward track it takes,O fickleness, how many quips,How many turns it takes!But ever in its greensward heart,From head to foot we pourThe homage of our love of it—Dear Charles street, Baltimore!
Its heart is in Mount Vernon square,Its head is in the green wood:Its feet are stretched along the waysWhere swarms the foreign brood;A modicum of Bon Marche,That sublimated store—And Oh, the treasure that we haveIn Charles street, Baltimore!
Its heart is in Mount Vernon square,
Its head is in the green wood:
Its feet are stretched along the ways
Where swarms the foreign brood;
A modicum of Bon Marche,
That sublimated store—
And Oh, the treasure that we have
In Charles street, Baltimore!
I love to watch the moving throng,The afternoon parade;The coaches rolling home to tea,The young man and the maid;The gentlemen who dwell in clubs,The magnates of the town—Oh, Charles street has a smile for them,And never wears a frown!
I love to watch the moving throng,
The afternoon parade;
The coaches rolling home to tea,
The young man and the maid;
The gentlemen who dwell in clubs,
The magnates of the town—
Oh, Charles street has a smile for them,
And never wears a frown!
The little shops, so cool and sweet;The finesse and the graceWhich mark the mercantilityOf such a market-place;And then beyond the tempting storesThe quietness that runsInto the calm and stately squareWith marble denizens.
The little shops, so cool and sweet;
The finesse and the grace
Which mark the mercantility
Of such a market-place;
And then beyond the tempting stores
The quietness that runs
Into the calm and stately square
With marble denizens.
The little and the larger storesAre tempting, to be sure;But they are only half the charmThat Charles street holds to lure;For here and there along the way,How sweet the homes befall—The domicile that holds his Grace,The gentle Cardinal.
The little and the larger stores
Are tempting, to be sure;
But they are only half the charm
That Charles street holds to lure;
For here and there along the way,
How sweet the homes befall—
The domicile that holds his Grace,
The gentle Cardinal.
The mansions with pacific mienWhose windows say "Come in!"The touches of colonialness,The farness of the dinThat rolls a city league awayAnd leaves this dainty streetA cool and comfortable spotWhere past and present meet.
The mansions with pacific mien
Whose windows say "Come in!"
The touches of colonialness,
The farness of the din
That rolls a city league away
And leaves this dainty street
A cool and comfortable spot
Where past and present meet.
A measure of la boulevardBefore whose windows passThe madame and the damoisel,The gallant and the lass;The gravest and the most sedate,The young and gay it calls;And, oh, how proper over it—The shadows of St. Paul's!
A measure of la boulevard
Before whose windows pass
The madame and the damoisel,
The gallant and the lass;
The gravest and the most sedate,
The young and gay it calls;
And, oh, how proper over it—
The shadows of St. Paul's!
Dip down the hill and well away,The southward track it takes,O fickleness, how many quips,How many turns it takes!But ever in its greensward heart,From head to foot we pourThe homage of our love of it—Dear Charles street, Baltimore!
Dip down the hill and well away,
The southward track it takes,
O fickleness, how many quips,
How many turns it takes!
But ever in its greensward heart,
From head to foot we pour
The homage of our love of it—
Dear Charles street, Baltimore!
Charles Street—BaltimoreCharles Street—Baltimore
You are standing in Mount Vernon square, the very heart of Charles street. It is a little open place, shaped like a Maltese cross rather than a real square or oblong, with a modern apartment house looming up upon it, whose façades of French Renaissance give a slightly Parisian touch to that corner of the square. To the rest of it, bordered with sober, old-time mansions there is nothing Parisian, unless you stand apart and gaze at the Monument, which sends its great shaft some two hundred feet up into the air. There are such columns in Paris.
It is the Monument that dominates Mount Vernon square, that adds variety to the vistas up and down through Charles street. For eighty years it has stood there, straight and true; for eighty years General Washington has looked down into the gardens of Charles street, upon the children who are playing there, the folk coming home at night. It is the most dominating thing in Baltimore, which has never acquired the sky-scraper habit, and because of it we have always known Baltimore as the Monumental City.
*****
Now turn from the modern Baltimore—right down this street which runs madly off the sharp hill of Mount Vernon square. Charles street, with all of its shops and gentle gayety, is quickly left behind. At the foot of the hill runs St. Paul street and it is a busy and a somewhat sordid way. But at St. Paul street rises Calvert station and since you are to see so many great railroad stations before you are done with the cities of America, take a second look at this. Calvert station is not great. It is not magnificent. It is not imposing. It is old, very,very old—as far as we know the oldest of all the important stations that are still in use today. From its smoky trainshed the trains have been going up the Northern Central toward Harrisburg and the Susquehanna country—the farther lands beyond—since 1848. And that trainshed, with its stout-pegged wooden-trussed roof held aloft on two rows of solid stone pillars, seems good for another sixty-five years.
Old Baltimore holds tightly to its ideals of yesterday. Over in another of the older parts of the town you can still find Camden station, which in 1857 was not only proclaimed as the finest railroad terminal that was ever built but that ever could be built, still in use and a busy place indeed. The Eutaw House, spared by the great fire of a decade ago, but finally forced to close its doors in the face of the competition of better located and more elaborate hostelries, still stands. The ancient cathedral remains a great lion, the old-time red shaft of the Merchants' Tower still thrusts itself into the vista as you look east from the Monument square there in front of the Post Office. Across the harbor you can find Fort McHenry, as silent sentinel of that busy place. Baltimore does not easily forget.
And here, as you plunge down into the little congested district roundabout Jones Falls you are at last in the really old Baltimore. The streets are as rambling and as crooked as old Quebec. Some of their gutters still run with sewage although it is to be fairly said to the credit of the town that she is today fast doing away with these. And once in a time you can stand at the open door of an oyster establishment and watch the negroes shocking those bivalves—singing as they work. For just below Baltimore is a greathabitatof the oyster as well as of the crab, to say nothing of some more aristocratic denizens—the diamond-back terrapin for instance. Boys with trays—many of them negroes—walk the wharves and streets of old Baltimore selling cold deviled crabs at five cents each. Those crabs are uniformly delicious, and the boys sell them as freely on the streets as the boys down in Staunton and some other Virginia towns sell cold chicken.
Now we are across Jones FallsB—that unimpressive stream that gullies through Baltimore—and plunging into Old Town. Other cities may boast theirquartiers, Baltimore has Old Town. And she clings to the name and the traditions it signifies with real affection. Here is indeed the oldest part of Old Town and if we search quietly through its narrow, crowded streets we may still see some of the old inns, dating well back into the eighteenth century, their cluttered court-yards still telling in eloquent silence of the commotion that used to come when the coaches started forth up the new National Pike to Cumberland or distant Wheeling, north to York and Philadelphia. And everywhere are the little old houses of that earlier day. Even in the more distinctively residential sections of the town many of them still stand, and they are so very much like toy houses enlarged under some powerful glass that we think of Spotless Town and those wonderful rhymes that we used to see above our heads in the street cars. But they represent Baltimore's solution of her housing problem.
BDuring the past year Baltimore has made a very creditable progress toward building an important commercial street over Jones Falls; thus transforming it into a hidden, tunneled sewer. Residents of the city will not soon forget, however, that it was at Jones Falls that the engines of the New York Fire Department took their stand and halted the great fire of 1904. E. H.
BDuring the past year Baltimore has made a very creditable progress toward building an important commercial street over Jones Falls; thus transforming it into a hidden, tunneled sewer. Residents of the city will not soon forget, however, that it was at Jones Falls that the engines of the New York Fire Department took their stand and halted the great fire of 1904. E. H.
For she has no tenements, even few high-grade apartments. She has, like her Quaker neighbor to the north, mile upon mile of little red-brick houses, all these also with white door-steps—marble many times, and in other times wood, kept dazzling and immaculate with fresh paintings. In these little houses Baltimore lives. Youmay find here and there some one of them no more than ten or twelve feet in width and but two stories high, but it is a house and while you occupy it, your own. And the rent of it is ridiculously low—compared even with the lower-priced apartments and the tenements of New York. That low rent, combined with the profuse and inexpensive markets of the town, makes Baltimore a cheap place in which to live. The proximity of her parks and the democracy of her boulevards makes her a very comfortable place of residence—even for a poor man. And you may live within your little house and of a summer evening sit upon your "pleasure porch" as comfortably as any prince.
In Baltimore it is always a "pleasure porch," thus proclaiming her as a real gateway to the old South—the South of flavor and of romance. In Baltimore, you always say "Baltimore City," probably in distinction to Baltimore county, which surrounds it, and your real Baltimorean delights to speak of his morning journal as "thatSunpaper." The town clings conservatively to its old tricks of speech, and if you pick up that newspaper you will perhaps find the advertisement of an auctioneer preparing to sell the effects of some family "declining housekeeping."
That same fine conservatism is reflected in her nomenclature—first as you see it upon the shop signs and the door-plates. She has not felt the flood of foreign invasion as some of our other cities have felt it. She is not cosmopolitan—and she is proud of that. And the names that one sees along her streets are for the most part the good names of English lineage. Even the names of the streets themselves are proof of that—Alpaca and April alleys, Apple, and Apricot courts, Crab court, Cuba street, China street—which takes one back to the days of the famous clipper ships which sailed from the wharves of Baltimore—Featherbed lane, Johnny-cakeroad, Maidenchoice lane, Pen Lucy avenue, Sarah Ann street—who shall say that conservatism does not linger in these cognomens? And what shall one say of conservatism and Baltimore's devotion to Charles street, sending that famous thoroughfare up through the county to the north as Charles Street avenue and then as Charles Street Avenue extension?
*****
Do not mistake Baltimore conservatism for a lack of progress. You can hardly make greater mistake. For Baltimore today is constantly planning to better her harbor, to improve the beginning that she has already made in the establishment of municipal docks—her jealousy of a certain Virginia harbor far to the south is working much good to herself. She is constantly bettering her markets—today they are not only among the most wonderful but the most efficient in the whole land. And today she is planning a great common terminal for freight right within her heart—a sizable enterprise to be erected at a cost of some ten millions of dollars. For she is determined that her reputation for giving good living to her citizens and at a low cost shall be maintained. She realizes that much of that cost is the cost of food distribution, and while almost every other city in the land is floundering and experimenting she is going straight ahead—with definite progress in view. Such purpose and such plans make first-rate aids to conservatism.
*****
"Baltimore can prove to any one who will give her half a chance, what a good, a dignified, a charming thing it is to be an American town," writes one man of her. He knows her well and he does not go by the mark. Baltimore is good, is dignified, is altogether charming. And she is an American town of the very first rank.
Just as all the roads of old Italy led to Rome so do all the roads of this broad republic lead to Washington—its seat of government. At every season of the year travelers are bound to it. It is in the spring-time, however, that this travel begins to assume the proportions of the hegira. It is a patriotic trek—essentially. And the slogan "Every true American should see Washington at least once" has been changed by shrewd railroad agents and hotel-keepers to "Every true American should see Washington once a year," although some of the true Americans after one experience with Washington hotel-keepers are apt to say that once in a life-time is quite enough. But the national capital is worth all the hardships, all the extortions large and small. It is a patriotic shrine and, quite incidentally, the most beautiful city in America, if not the world, and so it is that there is not a month in the year that Americans are not pouring through its gateway—the wonderful new Union station.
That terminal still opens the eyes of those folk who come trooping down toward the Potomac—old fellows who still remember the last time they went to Washington and the entire country was a-bristle with military camps and bristling guns, little shavers entering for the first time the City of Perpetual Delights, lovelorn bridal couples, excursions from Ohio, round-trips from off back in the Blue Ridge mountains, parties from up in Pennsylvania—the broad concourse of the railroad station atWashington is a veritable parade-ground of latent and varied Americanism.
The members of a self-appointed Reception Committee are waiting for the tourists—just outside the marble portals of the station. Some of them are hotel-runners, others are cab-drivers, but they are all there and their eyes are seemingly unerring. How quickly they detect the stranger who has heard the "true American" slogan for the first time, and who has the return part of his ten-day limit ticket tucked safely away in his shabby old wallet.
"Seein' Washington! A brilliant trip of two hours through the homes of wealth an' fashion, with a lecture explainin' every point of interest an' fame."
Here is the first welcoming cry of the Reception Committee—and seasoned tourist that you are, you do not yield to it. You shake your head in a determined "no" to the barker at the station but a little while later over in Pennsylvania avenue you succumb. Two dashing young black-haired ladies—slender symphonies in white—are sitting high upon one of the large travel-stained peripatetic grandstands. On another sight-seeing automobile over across the street are two very blondes—in black. You cast your fate upon the ladies with the black hair and the white dresses and climb upon the wagon with them. At intervals you look enviously upon mere passers-by. Then the intervals cease. Two young men climb upon the wagon and boldly engage themselves in conversation with the young ladies. At the very moment when you are about to interfere in the name of propriety, you discover that the young ladies seem to like it. At any rate you decide it will be interesting to listen to their conversation and the important young man who is in charge of the grandstand has taken your non-refundable dollar for the trip. Otherwise you might still change in favor of the blondes who are sitting huddledunder a single green sunshade and who look bored with themselves.
You sit ... and sit ... and sit. An old lady finds her cumbersome way up on the front seat and fumbles for her dollar. A deaf gentleman perches himself upon the rear bench. After which you sit some more. Three or four more true Americans find their way upon the wagon. You still sit. An elderly couple crowds in upon your bench. The man has whiskers like Uncle Joe Cannon or a cartoon, but his wife seems to have subdued him, after all these years. The sitting continues. Finally, when patience is all but exhausted, the personal conductor of the car shouts "All aboard" and the two young ladies in white duck drop off nimbly. For a moment their acquaintances seem non-plussed. Then they understand, for they, too, jump off and follow after.
The chauffeur fumbles with the crank of the top-heavy car. It does not respond readily. The chauffeur perspires and the personal conductor—who will shortly emerge in the rôle of lecturer—offers advice. The chauffeur softly profanes. Interested spectators gather about and begin to make comments of a personal nature. Finally, when the chauffeur is about to give it all up and you and yours are to be plunged into mortification—you can safely suspect those young blondes on the rival enterprise across the way of laughing in their tight little sleeves at you—the engine begins to snort violently and throb industriously. The chauffeur wipes the perspiration from his brow with the back of his hand and smiles triumphantly at the scoffers across the street.
He jumps into his seat briskly, as if afraid that the car might change its mind, and you are off. The ship's company settles into various stages of contentment. Seein' Washington at last.... The lecturer reaches for his megaphone.
But not so fast—this is Washington.
The real start has not yet begun. All these are but preliminaries to the start of the real start. You are not going to bump into the world of wealth and fashion as quickly as all this. You go along Pennsylvania avenue for another two squares and for twenty minutes more traffic is solicited. The novelty wears off and contentment ceases.
"I don't purpose to pay a dollar for a ride and spend the hull time settin' 'round like a public hack in front of th' hotels," says a bald-headed man and he voices a rising sentiment. He is from Baltimore and he is frankly skeptical of all things in Washington. The lecturer and the chauffeur confer. The performance with the engine crank is given once again and you finally make a real start.
Entertainment begins from that start. But you get history as a preliminary to wealth and fashion, for it so happens that wealth and fashion do not dwell in that part of Pennsylvania avenue.
"Site of first p'lice station in Washington," the young man rattles out through his megaphone. "Oldest hotel in Washington. Washington's Chinatown. Peace Monument. Monument to Albert Pike, Gran' Master of the Southern Masons; only Confederate monument in the city. Home o' Fightin' Bob Evans, there with the tree against the window. His housewas—"
"What was that about the Confederates?" the deaf man interrupts from the back seat. The lecturer, with an expression of utter boredom, repeats. At this moment the chauffeur comes into the limelight. He recognizes a girl friend on the sidewalk and in the enthusiasm of that recognition nearly bumps the grandstand into a load of brick. When order is restored and you go forward in a straight course once again, the lecturer resumes—
"On our right the United States Pension Office, thelargest brick buildin' in the world and famed for the inaugural balls it has every four years—only it didn't have one las' time. But when Mr. Taft was inaugurated nine thousand couples were a-waltzin'an—"
Some of the folk upon the car look shocked. They come from communities where dancing is taboo, and the lecturer seems to hint at an orgy there in one of the taxpayer's buildings.
"There is also the largest frieze in the world 'round that building," he continues, "an' it ain't the North Pole, either. Eighteen hundred soldiers and sailors—count 'em some day—marchin' there, the sick an' the wounded laggin' behind, the trail of martyr's blood markin' their path, comrade helpin' comrade—all a-bringin' honor an' glory to the flag."
He drops the megaphone to catch his breath and whispers into your ear. He realizes that you have understood him—and half apologizes for himself:
"They like that," he explains, in an undertone. "A little oratory now an' then tickles 'em. An' then they like this:"
The megaphone goes into action.
"We are travelin' west in F street, the Wall street of Washington, the place of the banker an' broker."
"Ain't we goin' to see the houses of the fashionable people?" demands the wife of the bald-headed Baltimorean. "Now over in our city Eutaw placeis—"
"We are comin' there, madam," says the lecturer, courteously.
And in a little while you do come there. You sit back complacently in your seat and smack your mental lips at the sight of the mansion of the man who owns three banks; of that of him who, the lecturer solemnly affirms, is the president of the Whiskey Trust; at a third where dwells "the richest minister of the United States." A little school-teacher, who has come down from Hartford,Conn., makes profuse notes in a neat leather-covered book. It is plain to see that she takes the duty of the true Americans as a serious enterprise, indeed.
You all start and look when ex-Speaker Cannon's house is passed, and you catch a glimpse of the old man coming down the door-steps. The public interest in him has not seemed to cease with his retirement from the center of the national arena. But it has lessened. You realize that a moment later when your peregrinating grandstand rolls by a solemn-faced man walking down the street—a big man in a black suit, his face hidden by a black slouch hat.
"Mr. Bryan," whispers the lecturer, this time without the megaphone.
It is quite unnecessary. For a brief instant Washington is forgotten. In that instant the crowd regards the second or third best-known man in America—silently and curiously. The lecturer brings them back to their dollar's worth. He boldly points out the Larz Anderson house as the home of "the richest real estate man in the country," the new home of Perry Belmont as having "three stories above ground and three below"—an excursionist from Reading, Pa., interrupts to ask how much coal they will need to fill such a cellar—you see the home of the late Mr. Walsh with "a forty-five hundred dollar marble bench in the yard, all cut out of a single piece," the sedate and stately house of Gifford Pinchot.
It is pleasant, driving through these smooth Washington streets, even if the low-hanging tree branches do make you jump and start at times. You go up this street, down that, past long rows of neat Colonial houses that some day are going to look neat and old—turn by one of the lovely open squares of the city. They have just erected a statue there—grandstands are already going up around about it and there will be speeches and oratory before long.
Washington is constantly in the throes of an epidemic of dedications. There are now more statues in the city than Mr. Baedeker ever can tally and each of them has undergone dedication—at least once. The President has been corralled, if possible, although Mr. Wilson has already shown a reticence for this sort of thing. If the President simply will not come, a Governor or a rather famous Senator will do as well. And in the far pinch there are many Representatives in Washington who are mighty good orators. You can almost get a Representative at the crook of your finger, and you cannot have a real dedication without a splurry of oratory. It is almost as necessary as music—or the refreshments.
As you slip by one of thosestatues—"the equestrian figure of General Andrew Jackson on horseback"—the gentleman from Reading demands that the car stop. He wants to ask a question and apparently he cannot ask a question and be in motion at the same time. So he demands that the car be stopped. It is one of the privileges of a man who has paid a perfectly good dollar for the trip. The car stops—abruptly.
You will probably recall that Jackson statue, standing in the center of Lafayette square and directly in front of the White House. Perhaps General Jackson rode a horse that way and perhaps he did not, but there the doughty old warrior sits, his bronze mount plunging high upon hind legs.
"What is ever going to keep that statue from falling over some day?" demands the man from Reading. He has a keen professional interest in the matter, for he has been a blacksmith up in that brisk Pennsylvania town for many a year.
Through the portals of this Union Station come all the visitors to WashingtonThrough the portals of this Union Station come all the visitors to Washington
The lecturer explains that the tail of the bronze horse is heavily weighted and that the whole figure is held in balance that way. But the blacksmith is Pennsylvania Dutch—of the sort not to be convinced in an instant—and he sets forth his opinion of the danger at length, to the bald-headed man from Baltimore, who sits just behind him.
The lecturer goes forward once again. You look at the proud old mansion that faces Lafayette square, and gasp when the intelligent young man with the megaphone tells you that it was given to Daniel Webster by the American people and that he gambled it away. You notice the house that Admiral Dewey got from the same source, and wonder if he could not have contrived possibly to gamble it away. You note St. John'schurch—"the Church of State," the young man calls it—and turn into Sixteenth street. But alas, it is Sixteenth street no longer. Through a bit of the official snobbery that frequently comes to the surface in the governing of the national capital that fine highway has been named "the Avenue of the Presidents," a name that is so out of harmony of our fine American town that it will probably be changed in the not distant future.
The lecturer points your attention to another house.
"The Dolly Madison Hotel, for women only," he announces. "No men or dogs allowed above the first floor. The only male thing around the premises is the mail-box and itis—"
He has gone too far. You fix your steely glance of disapproval upon him and he withers. He drops his megaphone and whispers into your ear once again:
"I hate to do it," he apologizes, "but I have to. The boss says:—'Give 'em wit an' humor, Harry, or back you goes to your old job on a Fourteenth street car.' Think of givin' that bunch wit an' humor! Look at that old sobersides next to you, still a-worryin' about that statue!"
Wit and humor it is then. Wit and humor and wealth and fashion. It almost seems too little to offer a meredollar for such joys. You make the turn around the drive in back of the White House and you miss the Taft cow—which in other days was wont to feast upon the greensward. You ask the lecturer what became of Mr. Taft's cow.
"She was deceased," he solemnly explained, "a year before his term was up—of the colic."
And of that somewhat ambiguous statement you can make your own translation.
*****
The sight-seeing car stops at the little group of hotels in Pennsylvania avenue, near the site of the old Baltimore & Potomac railroad station. The lecturer begins to use his megaphone to expatiate upon the advantages of a trip to Arlington which is about to begin, but Arlington is too sweetly serious a memorial to be explored by a humorous motor-car. And—in the offing—you are seeing something else. Another car of the line upon which you have been voyaging is moored at the very point from which you started, not quite two hours ago. Upon that car sit the same two young black-haired ladies. Two young men are climbing up to sit beside them. Your gaze wanders. On the rival car across the way the two very blondes in black are still holding giggling conversation. Your suspicions are roused.
Do they ever ride?
Apparently not. Tomorrow they will be upon the cars again, the blondes upon the right, the brunettes upon the left. And the day after tomorrow they will sit and wait and appear interested and in joyous anticipation. And if it rains upon the following day they will don their little mackintoshes and talk pleasantly about its being nearly time to clear up.
Now you know. Seein' Washington employs cappers. Those young ladies sit there to induce dollars—faith,'tis seduction, pure and simple—from narrow masculine pockets. You do know, now.
*****
If we are giving much space to the tourist view of Washington it is because the tourist plays so important a part in the life of the town. He is one of its chief assets and, seriously speaking, there is something rather pathetic in the joy that comes to the faces of those who step out from the great portals of the new station for the very first time. There is something in their very expressions that seems to express long seasons of saving and of scrimping, perhaps of downright deprivation in order that our great American mecca may finally be reached. You will see the same expressions upon the faces of the humbler folk who go to visit any of the great expositions that periodically are held across the land.
That expression of eminent satisfaction—for who could fail to see Washington for the first time and not be eminently satisfied—reaches its climax each week-day afternoon in the East Room of the White House. If President Wilson has reached a finer determination than his determination to let the folk of his nation-wide family come and see him, we have yet to hear of it. And there is not a man or woman in the land who should be above attending the simple official reception that the President gives each afternoon at his house to all who may care to come.
There is little red-tape about the arrangements in advance. The tendency to hedge the President around with restrictions has been completely offset in the present administration. A note or a hurried call upon the President's secretary in advance—a card of invitation is quickly forthcoming. And at half-past two o'clock of any ordinary afternoon you present yourself at the eastwing of the White House. Your card is quickly scrutinized and you may be sure of it that the sharp-eyed Irishman who is more than policeman but rather a mentor at the gate, has scrutinized you, too. His judgment is quick, rarely erring. And unless you meet his entire approval, you are not going to enter the President's house. But he has approved and before you know it you—there are several hundred of you—are slipping forward in a march into the basement of the Executive Mansion and up one of its broad stairs. There are numerous attendants along the path.
"Single file!" shouts one of them and single file you all go—just as you used to play Indian or follow-your-leader in long-ago days. And you all step from the stair-head into the East Room, while the women-folk among you conjure imagination to their aid and endeavor to see that lovely apartment dressed for a great reception or, best of all, one of the infrequent White House weddings.
Other attendants quickly and easily form you into a great crescent, two or three human files in width and extending in a great sweep from a vast pair of closed doors which give to the living portion of the house. No one speaks, but every one takes stock of his neighbors. If it is in vacation season there are many boys and girls—for whole schools make the Washington expedition in these days—there may be several Indians in war-paint and feather making ceremonious visit to the Great White Brother. If you are traveled you will probably see New England or Carolina or Kansas or California in these folk, whose hearts are quickened in anticipation.
Suddenly—the great door opens, just a little. A thin, wiry man in gray steps into the room and takes his position near the head of the crescent. An aide in undress military uniform stands close to him, two sharp-faced young men stand a little to the left of them and act as ahuman Scylla and Charybdis through which all must pass. There are no preliminaries—no hint of ceremony. Within five seconds of the time when the President has taken his place, the line begins to move forward. In twenty minutes he has shaken hands with three or four hundred people and the reception is over. But in the brief fraction of a single minute when your hand has grasped that of the President you feel that he knows no one else on earth. He concentrates upon you and that, in itself, is a gift of which any statesman may well be proud. And while you are thinking of the pleasure that his word or two of greeting has given you, you awake to find yourself out of the room and hunting for your umbrella at the check-stand in the lower hall. The pleasant personal feeling is with you even after you have left the shelter of the White House roof. It is showering gently and a man under a tree is murmuring something about Secretary Bryan seeing visitors at a quarter to five but neither makes impress upon you. You are merely thinking how much easier it is to come to see the President of the greatest republic in the world than many a lesser man within it—railroad heads, bankers, even petty politicians.
In other days it was not as easy to gain admittance to the President, but the tourist who was not above guile could be photographed shaking hands with the great person. A place on that always alluring Pennsylvania avenue did the trick. You stepped in a canvas screen into the place of the enlarged image of a sailor who was once snapped shaking hands with President Taft. When the picture was finished you were where the sailor had been, and you had a post-card that would make the folks back home take notice. True you were a little more prominent in it than the President, but then Mr. Taft was not paying for the picture. In fact Mr. Taft, when he heard of the practice, grew extremely annoyed and had it stopped,so ending abruptly one of the tourist joys of Washington.
After the White House, the Capitol is an endless source of delight to those who have come to Washington from afar. A little squad of aged men, who have a wolfish scent for tourists, act as its own particular Reception Committee. These old men, between their cards and the sporting extras of the evening papers, condescend to act as guides to the huge building. We shall spare you the details of a trip through it with them. It is enough to say that they are, in the spirit at least, sight-seeing car lecturers grown into another generation. Their quarrels with the Capitol police are endless. On one memorable occasion, a captain of that really efficient police-force had decided to mark the famous whispering stone in the old Hall of Representatives with a bit of paint. You can read about that whispering stone in any of the tourist-guides which the train-boy sells you on your way to Washington. Suffice it now to say that when you have found this phonetic marvel and have stood upon it your whisper will be heard distinctly in a certain far corner of the gallery of the room. It is an acoustic freak of which the schoolboys out in Racine can tell you better than I. And it is one of the prized assets of the Capitol guides. The police captain forgot that when he set out to mark it.
It came back to him the evening of that day, however, when the building had been cleared. He chanced to cross the old hall and, looking for his marker, found three of the guides upon their knees carefully restoring it to absolute uniformity with its neighbors. And the captain nearly lost his job. He had sought to interfere with prerogative, and prerogative is a particularly sacred thing at the Federal capital—as we shall see in a little while.