1876 (24 page)

“That is the name I write under. For the
Washington Evening Star
.
This is my daughter.” A slightly larger version of “Fay” advanced upon us through the menagerie of politicians and constituents (who paid us no attention, thank Heaven, political chicanery taking precedence over mere theatre). “You doubtless know her by the pen name Miss Grundy. In real life she is Miss Augustine Snead. She also writes regularly for the
Evening Star
.
Now, if you will come this way.”

Obediently, blindly, we followed the two alarming women to the far end of the rotunda where I could see, through swinging doors, the blessed accoutrements of a bar room. “You may imbibe, Mr. Schuyler,” said Mrs. Snead. “I am tolerant through tolerance, like all the Sneads. The darkey yonder will serve us. You, Princess, will want tea.”

“Yes, yes.” Emma eagerly agreed as we sat in a circle close to the bar room, from which the waiter brought me a mint julep (an excellent cocktail that McAllister often praises but never produces) and tea for the three ladies.

“Most European royalty stay at Wormley’s Hotel. Why haven’t you, Princess?” asked Miss Augustine Snead, a sly-looking young woman with a squint.

“I wish to be a real American like my father,” said Emma. “Willard’s is more democratic.”

This went down well enough.

“We shall be very curious to know, in due course, your impressions of Washington, Princess,” said Mrs. Fayette Snead.

“Yours, too, Mr. Schuyler,” said Miss Augustine Snead. Then mother and daughter each produced a small notebook and proceeded to interview us. They were very thorough. We went through our paces with some panache, particularly Emma, who has, finally, got the range of our newspapers and will now give in the boldest, baldest way the most astonishing invented-on-the-spot receipts for inedible dishes, not to mention arcane processes for the maintenance of youth and beauty. “Once a week, Mrs. Snead, I wash my hair in kerosene.” Emma’s eyes were aglow, and I had to look away for fear of laughing.

“Kerosene?” Mrs. Fayette Snead’s pencil paused.

“
Kerosene
, Mother!” Miss Augustine Snead knew a rare story when it came her way. “Yes, we’ve heard they do that in Paris.”

“It was the Empress herself who made the discovery first.” Emma’s voice was hushed. “I myself find that within one hour of the washing, my hair has the most lustrous texture. You both must try it. Not,” said Emma quickly, aware of the rather thin lustreless heads of hair opposite her, “that you are in any need ...”

“Oh, yes, we are.” Miss Augustine Snead was firm. “Fact, Mother’s going a bit bald on the top if the whole truth were known.”

“Let us try then to
contain
the whole truth, Gussy dear.” Mrs. Fayette fairly beamed her displeasure. Then, to Emma: “But is there not, Princess, some danger of conflagration should one draw too close, let us say, to a lamp?”

“No, not at all. At least not during the one hour when you must sit absolutely still with your head held as far back as it will go so that the loosened hairs can freely breathe.”

Other subjects were handled by Emma with the smoothness of a professional lecturer. I’m not at all sure that she ought not to go out on the circuit. If she were not engaged to be married, I would without conscience despatch her to thirty cities, with myself as personal manager and advertisement concocter.

The ladies knew of Emma’s engagement.

“Won’t you miss not being a Princess any more?” asked sly Miss Augustine.

For the first time, Emma was irritated. But she concealed it from the ladies. “There is no European title, Miss Snead, that is finer than that of the simple American Missis.”

“Hear, hear!” I said gravely, swallowing the last of my mint julep. A few moments later we were in our suite, roaring with laughter. The thought of the Sneads, mother and daughter, with hair aflame like so many wigs of Nessus did us both a world of good.

Bathed and rested (one must, alas, go down the hall to the bathroom—the appointments here are not in a class with those of the Fifth Avenue Hotel, but then neither, thank God, is the price), we met Charles Nordhoff in the lobby at seven o’clock.

I confess that at first I was somewhat intimidated by this stern Prussian-born man of forty whose profession it is to write about Washington politics for the
Herald
.
I feared that he would regard me, rightly, as a presumptuous dilettante, a celebrated writer from outside sent by a frivolous publisher to take precedence over him for at least twelve weeks.

Our first encounter at the reception desk in the lobby was not encouraging. Nordhoff is a thick-set man with what I believe is known as a “nautical swagger”; at least, he walks with a peculiar lurching gait, memorial to his many years at sea. Like my old friend Leggett of the
Post
, Nordhoff’s career began at sea: first with our navy, then aboard various sailing vessels. He is the author of a once-popular book that I have not read called
Nine Years a Sailor
.
Nordhoff worked for Bryant at the
Post
until he was sacked because—everyone but Bryant says—of his attacks on the Tweed Ring (must ask him the truth of that story). Jamie then took him on for the
Herald
.
Last year Nordhoff found time to write a most interesting book which I
have
read called
Communistic Societies of the United States
.
This subject proved to be our bond.

Nordhoff clicked his heels for Emma, bowed low and kissed her hand. Warned by me of his German background, she spoke softly to him in German. Surprised and pleased, he answered. Then he took my hand, gave me a long thorough look and said, “
Paris Under the Communards
is the best and most serious work I have yet read on communism, published in any language.”

I do believe I blushed. Certainly I felt giddy with this unexpected praise, so much so that I did not for once mind that he had, like everyone else, got the title wrong. I have always had bad luck with titles. I should, obviously, imitate the masters and be terse, stark, memorable.
Madame Bovary
,
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
,
Bleak House
:
no mistaking those titles once seen or heard.

Just before we got to the main door, Nordhoff said, “You should meet Mr. Roose. He knows everything. If you’ll forgive us,” he said to Emma, who smiled forgiveness.

Nordhoff then led me in to a small tobacconist’s shop just to the right of the front door as you enter. Here were sold not only cigars, cigarettes and plugs of chewing tobacco, but newspapers and periodicals from all over the country. Mr. Roose is a dignified, almost senatorial figure; solemnly he welcomed me to Washington as he gave Nordhoff an envelope (he runs a sort of post office, too). “Our special telegraph office is right there, should you be needing it, Mr. Schuyler.” And sure enough, in the next room, there was indeed that modern convenience, courtesy of Western Union. Mr. Roose also promised to reserve for me each day a copy of “our” paper, the New York
Herald
.

A long line of hackney cabs is permanently stationed in front of the hotel but Nordhoff suggested that if Emma was game we walk to a restaurant called Welcher’s. “It’s not far from here, and there’s a sidewalk most of the way.”

Emma was game. “It is Africa!” she whispered to me in French as we made our way along the uneven brick sidewalk, where scores of blacks sat comfortably as though at home. Some drank, some played at dice, others made mournful music on homemade pipes whilst overall, in the distance, floating like a dream carved in whitest soap, was the Capitol, ringed by boarding houses.

Although the sun was gone, the evening was unnaturally balmy. The traffic in the broad avenue had almost ceased except for the streetcars that continued to rattle back and forth. As we turned the corner just opposite the Treasury Building, Nordhoff showed us a tall elm tree named for the painter-inventor Morse. Apparently some awesome thought like gravity occurred to him in its shade.

“How lovely,” said Emma.

Nordhoff made a curious barking sound, which I now recognize is his way of laughing. “The only good thing to be said about this city is that it was worse until five years ago when we got our own Boss Tweed, a local criminal who is stealing the city blind but paving the streets in the process.”

“Does no one complain?”

“About the paving? Yes, he’s got the gradings all wrong, so that when it rains much of the city resembles Venice.”

“I meant, complain about the stealing.”

“Good God, no! That’s the American way, after all. And improvements
are
being made. Also, no matter how dreary Washington is, it is still the Heavenly City to most members of the Congress. Compared to where
they
come from, this is a place of wanton luxury and dazzling architecture. There’s the White House.”

In the dark, through tall trees, the large white building looked like an abandoned box. “Charming,” said Emma. Since my last visit a number of glass conservatories had been added to the White House; they do not improve its somewhat forlorn appearance.

“The inside is worse,” said Nordhoff. Then he led us to Fifteenth Street and the restaurant, which is housed in an ordinary brick building about the size of a New York brownstone. How marvellous, by the way, to see nothing brown in this city save the Negroes. Most Washington houses are made of dark red brick, a colour that appeals to me but puts Emma in mind of dried blood.

Nordhoff led us up the stairs to the main dining room, where a black ma
î
tre d’h
ô
tel showed us to a corner table. The room was pleasant, with crimson plush curtains and an old-fashioned Turkey rug on the floor. The lighting came only from candles, a relief after New York’s ubiquitous calcium glare.

Emma took her seat as if perfectly unaware of the interest the other diners showed in her. All round the dining room, mouths were forming small O’s to make the word “who.”

“I shall get a number of inquiries tomorrow.” Nordhoff was amused. “Everyone will want to know the names of my guests.”

“Guest,” I said. “It is Emma they’re staring at.”

“Are they
all
senators?” Emma’s gaze travelled swiftly about the room, as though at the theatre or viewing a diorama.

“Senators are upstairs,
Madame la Princesse
.
In small dining rooms, with bottles of wine and long cigars ...”

“And ladies?”

“Sometimes. But usually senators prefer to dine with other senators and plot ways of emptying the Treasury.”

“How exciting! Then these people are ...?” She indicated our fellow diners.

“Lobbyists. They only meet the senators in dark alleys, where money changes hands.”

“It would seem,” said Emma, “that the government here is simply the giving and taking of money.”

“Amen!” shouted Nordhoff, startling the next table. Then he proceeded, “at Jamie’s expense, of course,” to order us a splendid meal (again terrapin; also, marvellous small crabs from Maryland). The wine list was admirable.

I could very easily like Washington if I did not have to write about it. Nordhoff has been kind enough to give me his notes on the Babcock affair, and I now have the makings of my first piece, which will be a general physical impression of the city after forty years’ absence, with assorted ruminations on corruption, the Whisky Ring and O.E. Babcock.

“You’d better meet Bristow, the secretary of the treasury. He’s the one who’s destroying Grant.”

“His own president?” Emma is surprisingly interested in politics. I am beginning to wonder if I did not make a mistake. For years I always took Emma with me to the Princess Mathilde at Saint-Gratien, where all was art, when she might have been much happier at a political salon or even at the Tuileries, trying to make conversation with the poor Emperor, who was so entirely political, so much of a political genius, in fact, that he was, necessarily, one of the most boring men in France, for he could never speak candidly to anyone of anything that mattered. Happily, Emma did have one year as lady-in-waiting to the Empress and, I suppose, heard some political talk. Unlike Napoleon III, the Empress could talk of nothing else; she, too, was a politician but a bad one and because of her we (“we” or “they”?
“We”!
That is or was my country) went to war with Prussia and lost our lovely world.

Note: the incorruptible Benjamin H. Bristow of Kentucky became secretary of the treasury in June of 1874. To everyone’s surprise he turned out to be an honest man. When he discovered that the Treasury Department was manned by thieves, he cleared them out as best he could.

The so-called Whisky Ring began in 1870, when Grant appointed an old crony named General (naturally) John McDonald as chief of the Revenue Office in St. Louis. Like Babcock, McDonald served with Grant at Vicksburg, and whoever served with the great commander during that celebrated campaign may have, if he wants, the key to the mint. In any case, the tax on whisky in the West did not go to the government but to McDonald and his cronies, as well as to Babcock and, perhaps, to the President himself. To date some ten million dollars have been stolen.

“Is the President involved?” I am deeply curious.

Nordhoff shrugged. “I suspect that he is. Certainly, he’s been warned often enough about Babcock, and certainly, he is doing everything possible to stop the investigation.”

“But it is normal to try to protect your administration.” Emma was practical.

“So the Stalwarts say. Anyway, the trial goes forward in St. Louis, and Grant has said that he is willing to testify in person on behalf of Babcock.”

“That
sounds
like an honest, stupid man,” said Emma.

“Or a sly guilty one,” said Nordhoff. “Anyway, the Cabinet has talked him out of going to St. Louis.”

“As he no doubt intended they would.” Emma is getting most eerily the range of these monsters. She has already confessed to preferring Africa to Apgar-land.

“What makes me think that Grant is guilty has been the behaviour of the Attorney General. First, the U.S. attorney prosecuting the Ring was discharged. Then just before Babcock went on trial, the Attorney General ruled that the government may not obtain evidence by promising immunity or leniency to any of the witnesses. Well, that of course has stopped the prosecution cold.”