Reminiscences of a Raconteur, Between the '40s and the '20sHam, George H. (George Henry)
History
Reminiscences of a Raconteur, Between the '40s and the '20s
Ham, George H. (George Henry)
Canada; Ham, George H. (George Henry), 1847-1926; Journalists -- Canada -- Biography
Under the big dome of the Capitol is a rotunda on whose walls are
pictured historic scenes. One is of Pocahontas, where one of the figures
has six fingers on the one hand, and in another work of art two girls
are painted, and I’ll be hanged if one of them hasn’t got three
arms—one hanging by her side and another around her companion’s waist
and—the third around that young lady’s neck. Suppose the artist didn’t
like the lay of the second arm and after painting the third forgot to
remove the other. The artist’s error has never been corrected.
The dinners of the Gridiron Club at Washington were swell affairs, and
the press men had as their guests some of the biggest men in the land.
One time I was present. It was during the scandal when prominent people
for obvious reasons were accused of paying big money to have their
portraits published in the New York _Town Topics_. Elihu Root, perhaps
the brainiest man in the United States political life of the time, but
whose cast of countenance was the reverse of jovial, began a speech this
way: “At the last Cabinet council (President Roosevelt quickly looked at
him in surprise at his publicly mentioning the doings of a cabinet in
private session) when you, Mr. President, and we considered (the
President very uneasily twisted and turned in his chair) that is, we
were considering the advisability (Mr. President looked daggers at him
for daring to publicly repeat what was always considered confidential,
but Mr. Root went unconcernedly on) the advisability of getting—of
getting our pictures in _Town Topics_—”
The rest of the sentence was lost in the wild hilarious shouts that
filled the room.
William H. Taft, afterwards President Taft, and a man of great humor,
spoke at another gathering. He was then a member of the Roosevelt
cabinet—and he claimed that his “rotundity of person was looming larger
in the public eye than the President’s teeth.” and Teddy _did_ have
prominent molars.
I heard Mr. Harriman, the widely known railway magnate, try to make a
speech, and, after a minute or so, get entirely lost, stick his hands in
his pockets, and aimlessly wander around, vainly endeavoring to say
something or other, which he couldn’t remember. He was a man of brains,
but not of gab. Then Pierpont Morgan, able as he was, couldn’t make an
after-dinner speech, for while he was long on money, he was short on
language. But everybody was vociferously applauded all the same.
Case of “Much Wants More”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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