The Personality of American CitiesHungerford, Edward
History
The Personality of American Cities
Hungerford, Edward
Cities and towns -- United States; United States -- Description and travel; United States -- Social life and customs -- 1865-1918
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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