“‘Oh,’ she explained, ‘Secretary ----’s daughter was there, and none of us could go until she left, and we thought she never would go.’ And I find that precedent is carried out in the strictest possible way all through Washington society in all its sets, down to the very children.” If there are any persons in official life in Washington who do not attach importance to precedence, do not resent being seated out of rank at table, or being in all other ways given their exact official amount of deference, those persons keep extremely quiet. In Washington one ceases to be surprised at hearing men of national reputation complaining fiercely because they have been subjected to some trivial slight in this matter of precedence. It irritates a Cabinet officer to be put a shade out of his rank just as much as it irritates a Congressman from nowhere or a Government clerk. Precedence is killing Washington as a place of residence for sensible people. It is destroying its chief charm. If one thinks of going there to live it is because he expects to meet in the easy circumstance of social intercourse those who are interesting or amusing or curious. That sort of social intercourse is becoming practically impossible. No one giving any sort of entertainment, however informal, dares to arrange his or her guests according to congeniality. The same people must always be put next each other. The same man must take the same woman in to dinner. The same youth must dance with the same girl. And as official life expands the blight of precedence spreads. It is difficult for an outsider to listen without laughing or showing irritation as the Washingtonians discuss precedence and relate incidents of national and international catastrophes almost brought about by violation of it. But as some of the persons who most strenuously insist upon it are otherwise high above the human average, it would be well, before utterly condemning the Washingtonians, to reflect whether the craze for precedence is not a universal human weakness, latent--happily latent--in most of us because it has no chance to show itself. There is a certain officer who, in the official lists, is called Superintendent of Public Buildings and Grounds. In fact he is “Lord Great Chamberlain” to the President. Perhaps there was once a Lord Great Chamberlain who was merely Superintendent of Public Buildings and Grounds at the lower end of Pennsylvania avenue. But that was a long time ago.