Evening Star Newspaper, December 2, 1923, Page 75

'MAGAZINE SECTION " Che Sunday Shar. - \ VASHINGTON, D. C, SUNDAY MORNIN( DECEMBER 2, 1923. Congress Speeds Back to Washington After Months of Absence BY GENE THOMAS. We, hear no more of the clanging hodf _And the stagecoach rattling by; For the steam king rules the traveled world And the old plke's left to die. —O0ld Coachman's Lament. ~W-I-S-H—Thump! Down the ditchside rolled the Congres- slonal stagecoach, jolting its ten passengers—all members of the House of Representatives—from hard seats to harder roof. Upside down the vehicle landed, fvheels level with the Washington- Frederick, Md, turnpike, from which 1t fell. “We were like a load of live hogs in a country wagon, uttering a squealing sound as the stage rolled into the gully,” Representative Charles A. Wickliffe, Bardstown, Ky., sald feelingly, describing the upset to the House of Representative January 14, 1820, Nine other rep sentative from Kentucky, Teny and Ohio, who had limped away the wreck, nodded nt This spill, and the upset of Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky nd his coach on a pile of limestone in Uniontown, Pa., as well as the sta ment of Representative orge Poin- sippl, that traveling bn is the most lab congressmen's dutie: corded in early debates and congressmen’s writin, They make entertaining with the luxurlous. sp. portation enjoyed by s ntatives who have returned shington for the opening of ixty-eighth Congre fomorrow. Before the contin could ed comfortably ety hours there was a Jjourneys to Congress by horse covered wagon, roundabout routes and slow locomotive Roads within a fifty-mil Washington must have early congressmen like the fi of the opposition party to ke from taking seats in the ¢ Senator Gouverneur Morris, York, in 1801, wrote that from napolis to Washington the ro: ‘80 deep in mud that the sta stalled and stuck fast. It hours to go twenty-five miles.” “The road from Baltimore Washington is so exceedingly bad that a carriage sometimes sinks so deep as to defy the utmost exertions of the strongest horse to draw it for- ward. Bridges built across creeks are perilous, being for boards totter passes over them driver has wind stones, logs and stump raveler of the same time Senator Jes: ranklin from Surry county, North Carolina, h: to make kis own paths Crossing western Carolin mountains, he came upon thickets which were im- passable on horseba Dismount- ing, he cut a pa and. leading his horse, walked toward Con- sress. Tennessee’s early senators had ne- groes walk behind their stage- coaches, ready to remove obstacles from the path. QUCH handicaps made to Washington as walking. Twe twenty-four hours was the rate travel over Kentucky roads as as 1519. To go from Richmond, to Fredericksburg, V miles, required two ¥rom Ruffalo, N. Y., eity miles, took actual travel, in 1816. Congressmen felt all of the bumps wreteh ads gave, for few coaches had springs and seats were of wood, varely covered. Thomas Moore, the Irish poet, found still other obstacl to a comfortable stage coach trip “The coach from Baltimore to Wash- Ington takes twelve “passengers, which generally consist of squalling children, stinking laborers and re- publicans smoking cigars,” he wrote tn 1804, West of the Appalachian mountains “this companionship would have been more welcome. There help often was far away when a lone traveler's conveyance broke down or he suf- fered other mishaps. . David Crockett, representative from Tennessee (1827-1831 and 1833-1835), tells, in his autobiography, of a journeving preacher who needed all his resourcefulness to arouse aid: “Hurrying to the river crossing, we were struck all of a heap at behold- ing a man seated in a sulky in the middle of the river, and playing on a fiddle. The horsc was middle in the water and it seemed if the flimsy vehicle was ready to be swept away by the current. Still the fiddler fiddled. “‘You have missed the crossing! shouted one of my men. “I. know 1 have” returned the fiddler. contrasts dy ators nt in hip dins of to Ul efiort p them New An- 1w w wh to » Congress on coach-riding about as ive miles slow in s of Va., a., d. to 100 hours of as and | took ten | up to his| 1 Comfortable Return for Tomorrow's Opening Makes Contrast to Days When Wretched Roads Forced Members Some- times to Walk on Way to CapitaI'—Henry Clay Jolted From Stage Coach—First Train on Which Representative Davy Crockett Rode “Wheezed Like It Had Tizzik"—Western Senators Carried Rifles to Ward Off Indians and Beasts—Califor- nia’s First Senators Almost Perished Crossing Panama—gleeping Berths on First Transcontinental Trains Were Bare Boards. Gouverreur Morris and Henty Cluj to Congress td |an Ohio river boat. The Savanah, firet steamship ) Ga toliverpoolin 18days w1819 sailed from Savanah his was a clean new sight to me; about a dozen big stages hung onto one machine, and it aimed to start up hill,” Crockett wrote. “After a good deal of fuss, we moved slowly off, the engine wheez- ing as if she had the tizzick. By and by she began to take short breaths and away we went with a Llue streak after us. The whole ance was seventeen miles and it was run in fifty-five minutes.” A steamboat took Crockett Delaware City to Philadelphia. The “fast stage” carried him to Pitts- burgh in four days. Here he boarded After changing from | boats at Cincinnati, Ohio, and Louis- ville, Ky., he landed at Mills Point, Tenn. His son, William, met him with a sulky, in which they drove thirty-five miles to the Crockett home. Maintenance of schedules apparent- 1y meant little to river boat captains then, for Crockett wrotq that Capt. Stone held his boat and its other passengers at Pittsburgh one day after starting time to wait for the representative. Wheeling, Ohio, city fathers asked the Ycaptaln to steam back up the river several miles and enter the port again, so they might fre a salute to Crockett. The captain promptly acquiesced. Representative Crockett his Tennessee home July 22, twenty days after leaving Washington. One can go from Washington, D. C. to Tokio, Japan, in that time now. Covered wagons became congres- slonal “carriages” in 1846, when Iowa was admitted to the Union. These rolling “ships of the desert” were the only means of reaching Washington available to Jowa's first senators— Augustus C. Dodge and George W. Jones—Cassius C. Dowell, present representative from Des Moines, Towa, said. “Past my mother’s early home, oxen drew those large canvas-topped wagons. Senators plodded along be- reached “If you go ten feet farther You|gide their teams, whip in one hand will be drowned.” and rifle in the other. Indlans, * T know I shall,” replied the fiddler. | pears and snakes were near, and ““Furn back,’ cried my man. “I can’t. Come you and help me.’ “Several who understood the river Yode thelr horses up to the sulky and after some diffic parson safe to shore. “He sald he had been fiddling to the fishes for a full hour and had ex- hausted all the tunes he could play without notes. “We asked him what induced him to fiddle at a time of such peril. “He replied that there was noth-, sng in universal nature so well cal- culated to draw people togethér as the sound of a fiddle. He knew he might bawl untll he was hoarse for assistance and no one would stir a forts were far apart,” Representative Dowell sald. ‘“‘Few were the ferries and even fewer the bridges to help the na- ulty brought the | yiona) 1egislators over rivers. Some- times streams were so swollen that a senator's family could not cross safely in their wagon.” Oxen would be unyoked and swum across the river. The senator's wife and children alighted and securely fastened their baggage to the wagon floor. The senator next attached strong ropes to the wagon, towed the ropes across stream and hitched them to his team. The wagon then was rolled into peg; but that they would no sooner|the river and the senator started hear the scraping of his fiddle string | the oxen off; shouting at and cheer- than they’would quit theilr business|ing them. Thus the ‘equipage was &nd come to the spot In flocks."” * k k% R states when Crockett came to Con- hauled through the current and up the opposite bank. ) To get his family across the water ILROADS were belng introduced | n, genator took soundings until he throughout the Atlantic coast|goung a strip where the water was not much above his waist. There he gress, but were yet only small links|carrieq over those who could not the nation’s transportation sys- tem. To come to Washington from his home, near Mills Point, Tenn., Representative Crockett hed to use stage coach, river boat and train. Leaving Washington for home, in swim, ore by one. * ok ok % NIGH'I'FALL brought new dangers, even though the congressional family might be fortunate enough to Puly 2, 1834, Crockett went by stage | be lodged In a trading post hut. One to Baltimore. From Baltimore he |fearful night was described by salled down Chesapeake bay to “a|Jessle, daughter of Thomas H. Ben- place where We boarded the rail- woad cars.” ton, Missouri's ploneer senator. “I was awakened by e sound full to cross the Atlantic of pain and grief and wild rage, too —It was a she-wolf, looking for her cubs, which hunters had killed that day. “A panic swept over me as I real- ized Aunt Kitty was the only one in the room with me. Bight of the great fird she had made brought on a new fear. The windows were near the ground and without shut- ters or curtains. What if the blaze should serve to guide the wolf? “We hair-pinned shawls over the windows, but by that time men's voices and sounds of the dogs gave us a sense of being protected.” Alone on horseback, the delegate of the territory of Washington, Maj. Gen. Isaac I. Stevens, used to come. Over the snow-capped Rockies he picked his way. Through swift cur- rents he swam. Across prairies he galloped. Meals he won with fishing rod from the wild west's game supply. Reaching the .Mis- sissippi river, he and his steed let a train bring them the rest of the way to Washington. Gold rewarded the Forty-niners who went by thousands to California, and volumes have been written of their hardships. But who has heard how California’s first senators, John C. Fremont and William M. Gwin, fought back to Washington in 1850 to represent the new state? Indians were on the warpath. Cholera was scourging the “Great American Desert.” Therefore, Sen- ator Frempnt would not risk taking his wife ghd little daughter overland but deciffd to come to Washington his rifle and ting to and from steamers in | 1an. = ,g‘ Such gtage coaches broudht James Madiso e Al Pilot Harold Harris and Reptesentative Titzgerald leaving McCookb field for Washmgion. those days of wharfless Pacific ports | mule back. Senator Fremont was was dangerous,” Mrs, Fremont wrote. #At San Francisco, we had to row to the steamer. At Mazatlan, Mexico, the first stop, sailors, after rowing passengers near land, jumped into the water and laid thelr oars in a compact bridge from boat to shore. *“Each of us took cold from an imprudent change of dress at Mazat- Fevers soon came on. When We reached Panama, I was too ex- hausted to make the land crossing on | crippled. The chilling he received at Mazatlan had brought, on rheu- matic fever in the leg, which had been frostbitten the winter before. “We were carrfed down'the gans- plank and taken to the house of, Mr. Stephens, one of the supervisors .of the Panama railroad :construction. Four weeks we lay there. The steamer which lert East Panama for New York . February. 1. sailed with- out us. Covered wagons brought lowa’s first Sew- ators to Condress .This one boasts of the /F—l? Speed withWwihich it carsied freight i 1800. Pikadciha niflufiu@ TRROUGH IN 3: DAYS: Py e SumKvET tHe CrTHm AT NE St rom PITISBURGI fo LOVINVILAE, “Waruiwvery moruiag, from ts corver of Brosd » Base 5 ey G IRt e Pusaagers’ e Rormnsit. Lonethe, Koihes, Xosboile, 51, Lank, K Bttty 2 o s St 815, o g e i S At A OFERCEL K. K COMNER OF FOCKTW AXD CRRENCY, BT, fiigiad e it ot NG i A CeRA M B IND Hand bill destgned to win those who wanted fast® | My 1ttle girl's fever became worse | and her splendid hair was cut close. ! * Kk ok x - [¢¢T© get me ‘across the isthmus vithout jarring, the captain of a man-of-war, which was in the har- bor, prepared a palanquin. This was | a ship's cot, swung to two poles, with 'a light awning and curtains over a | trame. “We had to have a sufficiently strong party to meet a new danger | which had grown up on-the isthmus —a banditti force, which waylaid and robbed, and sometimes murdered, passengers. “My men were very proud of my unique equipage. People flocked to look at it as they would at any other show. The carrlers stopped to ex- plain it and my condition. The na- tives at times Seemed to be betting whether I would live to reach the other side. ~4At Gorgena we heard of the re- cent murder of thirteen persons, a whole party, by the banditti. This WHEN EVERY ONE CRIES “MAD DOG!” BY ALBERT PAYSON TERHUNE. LD man Negley was trimming the Shrady hedge, on Vine street, one morning, when Dick Benner came running bareheaded across the street, in evi- dent distress, and hailed him. “Negley!” he exclaimed, “we're just back from the shore ten ‘min- utes ago. We left our big St. Ber- nard with the maid- while. we were gone. He has rabies! He developed it three days ago, one evening just after she had fed him. It came on all at once. She sent for the vet. He sald it's.a ‘true case ‘of dumb rabies and the only thing-to do is to shoot him. Will you do it for us? . I haven't the heart-to. I'll pay you | .well. The. poor fellow is in awful agony. I left my wife crying overy him. She' thinks the world of-that poor old dog. Hurry, won't'your”. . Old:man Negley laid down his clip- pers and followed ‘the excited man across the street to a shaded back yard. There, securely tied to his kennel with a chain that would have held an ox, stood or rather crouched a beautiful St. Bernard dog. Just out of reach of the chaln—in case the dog's madness should take a turn toward violence—stood a weeping woman, ‘The St. Bernard was slumped ‘weakly against the side of his kene nel. His great head was hanging. Now and then he made a feeble ‘effort to stick his mouth into a pail of drinking watér. But that was all the good it did him. His powerful Jaws were wide open, nor could he move them nor lap water with his swollen tongue. For a dog must use his jaws as well as his tongue in drinking, though few humans realize this. And this dog’s jaws were stretched wide and immovable. 0l1d man Negley studied the sufferer for a2 moment while Benner went in- doors for his pistol. Then, disre- garding Mrs. Benner's tearful warn- ings, the old man walked calmly up to the rabid dog and knelt beside him, forcing the dog’s head upward and gazing into the wide mouth. * ok kX SECOND later he thrust one of his own hands in between the slav- ering jaws and yanked hard at some- thing. After which he drew forth in triumph a.small khuckle-Bone of mutton that had wedged itself at the point of contact of the big jaws, far back where the “hinge” is formed, on the right-hand side. Bolting his dinner three days earlier, the St. Bernard had been chewing this bone when its knuckle had become wedged there, prevent- ing him from closing his mouth or moving his jaws from their wide- open position. For seventy-two hours the poor creature had remainedthus, suffer- ing and helpless to eat or to drink, especially to drink, though the ‘weather was hot and dry. As Dick Benner came out of the house with his pistol he saw the dog q | from the water. make a frantic dive for the water pail and begin:to drink ravenously. “A grain of common sense is worth 2 ton of cartridge lead,” commented Old Man Negley. ~“The ' execution’s postponed. Here,” holding up :the knuckle-bone; “here’s’ your ‘dumb rables’ Such bones have caused many ‘a mad dog scare’ ‘in their time and made many a suffering dog lose his life by a bullet. “Hold ‘on, there!” he. interrupted himself, gently pulling the dog away “That's enough for now. Another. drink. in.a few. min- utes. Too much, after three hot days’ thirst, might hurt you. I suspicioned what was the matter when he sald the rables came on’you all at once, right after dinner. That isn’t the way of rables or;any other disease.” “But,” cried /Mrs. Benner, throw- ing her arms afound the shaggy neck of the rescued, trembling dog, “but T don't understand—" “Most folks don't,” responded -Old Man Negley. “That's why €o many mag dog scares Start every year. There {sn't one mad dog to every. thousand mad ‘dog scarers. “For instance, you'd have sworn this dog of yours was_ in the last stages of dumb rables, and you'd have had him shot to put him out of his misery. and to save yourselves from a bite. - I'd be as sensible to shoot & man who'has an ulcerated tooth. Only the man can tell you what ails him and the dog cad'te . SOV, vou can take another drink, old boy,” he interrupted him ‘self. “Only a few laps, though.” “Yes, ma'am,”. he,continued, “of all the fool. terrors that spring up. from the fright swamps at the bottom of the human brain the ‘mad’dog scare’ is the silllest. . “A dog gets lost in the street. He can't find his master. He doubles back to look for him. He gallops around in circles. He's scared. “His tongue hangs out, most likely. Maybe he happens to run through a mud puddle and gets splashed. “Some boys see him and give chase. They pelt him, maybe, with stones. He's all confused and terrified. Some one yells ‘Mad dog!" “When & child gets lost in the street he just stands and cries, and all the world rushes up to help him. ‘When a dog gets lost he runs around to find his master, and all the world vells,‘Mad dog! “That's the end -of it. The fool cry is taken up. A cop comes with a gun, or the stones find their mark. A poor, friendly, harmless little dog is killed, and the crowd breathes free to think that an awful peril ie stamped out. “Or maybe a dog is sick and wants to crawl away somewhere to hide or to dle. Dogs are more considerate .than us humans. . They try to get out of the way and not bother any one ‘when they're sick. ~ “Folks see him slouching down the road with his tongue out and froth ) travel 11 1837 S ] made us decide to boat down the river. “After two days and a night of moving slowly down this stream we | reached Portobello and boarded a | New York-bound steamer. “I was lashed to a sofa in the main cabin to keep from rolling off, for it was now March and the boat rolled and pitched tremendously. Thin and haggard, we docked at New York city in mid-March, seventy-five days after leaving San Francisco. “How good it was to get to regu- lar things again! The warm, car- peted rooms, the large bath, the white roses and my ar violets.” To save his family from ocean travel and tropical sWamp hazards, Senator John B. Weller|of California, Fremont's successor, ft them at home. “But T can.-have.no ¢ with my family short he told the Senate, lamenting the lack of telegraph and fast malfl service between Washington and the (Pacific coast. Fastest sailing ships the world has known offered to save | California jcongressmen the loathsome trip across the isthmus by taking them around South America. But this trip took over five months. Central Pacific railroad tracks, be- } ing built from San Francisco, and the Union Pacific rails, running from the — e e 'sepondence f a month,” at the mouth and the mad dog scare starts. “I've talked with doctors who know about such things. They tell me there isn't an average of two cases of real rables in any state in the Union in & whole year. ' They tell me, too (and T've seen it myself), that a really rabld dog won't turn out of his way to bite people any more than a typhoid paatient will jump out of bed to chase his nurse down the street with an ax. “He'll snap’ at people in his path, and he'll snap at the empty-air, but he won't move a step.-out of his way to attack. “In old times they used .to say that if a dog refused to drink it was a sign that he was mad. Ever hear such idlocy? “If only we'd learn to use half the common sense about dogs. that dogs use in dealing with us what a grand ‘world this'd be! “By the way, I've bees litten twice by dogs that were supposed to be mad, and I haven't gone mad from it to any extent yet, though that ‘was ten years or more ago. Another fake shown up! “Now then, doggy, one more drink for you. Then, while they're warm- ing a little pan of bread and milk for your dinner, I'l go back .and finish my work on that hedge.” (Copyright, 1923.) |east. were joined at’ Promontory Point, Utah, May 10, 1869. |, “It took <za first, transcontinental {locomotives nine days to go from |San Francisco to Chicago,” recalled | Representative Charles F. Curry. | Sacramento, Calif., who fifty years ago came east over the new road “From Chicago to Washington took three more days. ‘ “Those trains had neither sleep- ing nor dining cars. At night pas- sengers lay on boards placed over seats, or rested heads against win- dowpanes. Those who did not bring | several days' provisions had to snatch | meals at stations where the train | stopped. Seats in the cars were not | upholstered. “Progress our railroads have mad |since then has been remarkabl | satd Senator Francis E, Warren, Cheyenne, Wyo. who came to the Senate thirty-three vears ago, before any other present senator was there. “In 1850, it took me four days and nights to come to Washington from | Cheyenne. This year 1 came in two days and nights. Then only one or | two trains left or reached Cheyenne | each day. Now eight or nine leave and arrive daily. “Electric locomotives today draw trains across the Rocky and Cascade Mountains to Puget Sound, Wash Passengers have at their disposal barber, manicurist, valet, ladles’ maid, bath, writing desk, stenog- rapher, telegraph and mall service, magazines and late editions of news- papers containing stock quotations and sports results.” * ¥ PBUT the climax of congressional transportation has' not been reached ye! # Flying to Congress is being intro- duced by Representative Roy G. Fitzgerald. lle breakfasts in his Dayton, Ohio, home, then files 500 miles to Washington in three hours and elght minutes, and lunches in the Capitol restaurant Representative Fitzgerald last week made his sixteenth flight to Wash- ington in three years. On some of them he was his own pflot. His secretary, Lieut. E. M. Rossiter, pilots a plane to Washington, too. Congressional flving, like congres- slonal stage-coaching, must have its spills, Representative Fitzgerald says. Speeding over West Virginia at a 160-mile-an-hour clip, he became lost in the clonds above the Appalachian mountains, October 3, 1921. Slipping into a tall spin, he foll 3.500 feet. The plane was righted in the valley, but crashed at Keyser, W. Va. Running into a hard rainstorm over Fairmont, W. Va.. September 4 1922, he was driven far from his course. He ran out of gasoline and had to land in a rough fleld. Never have Fitzgerald's spills done more than cut and bruise him. TUncle Sam always has helped pey Congress' stage coach, rallroad or airplane bills, whichever the case has been. When the trip from Phila- delphia to Washington cost congress- men $500 (1800-1503) they wers al- lowed not over $30, or “six dollars for each twenty miles from their place of residence to the seat of Congress by the most usual road.” Now, congressmen receive 20 cents for each mile traveled, and are al- lowed mileage for one round trip each session. ‘“Congress’ total trans- portation bill has averaged $170,000 a year for the last decade. Last year it was $163,742.60," Kenneth Romney. cashier of the House of Representa- tives, sald. “The largest single bill pald last year, $2,119.60, was presented by Hawaif delegate, Henry A. Bald- win. The smallest was $8, submitted by Representative R. Walton Moore, Fairfax. Va. The largest bill pre- sented by a voting member of Con- gress was that of Representative John E. Baker, Alturas, Calif, for $1,453.20. Old Manuscripts HOTOGRAPHERS have found that they can obtain very different effects when quartz lamps are used in place of the more common sources of 1ight. The reason is simple enough The quartz allows the ready passing of the so-called ultra-violet rays of light, which will not penetrate glass, and these in turn produce a different effect from the rest of the rays. With colored vases, flowers or dress goods the effects are equally surprising and sometimes may lead to important applications. For in- stance, a French photographer has found that ink which has faded into illegibllity may still be opaque to the ultra-violet rays. By photographing documents on which the ink had faded he has been able to restoro the legibility. Moreover, the investigator has found that in some old docu- ments, dating back to the twelfth century, his quartz light photographs showed the original wording, which had later been changed in a still le ible ink. Such a deciphering of old manuscripts which heretofore have not been readable ought to aAd great- 17 to our knowledge of other days. In the present, when many old manuscripts are being discovered. this process is in iuable. Echo Boards. IN all probability the most ingenious of all alds to navigation are the echo boards, When a dense fog set- tles down along the coast the most powerful lights are blotted out and even the bell signals are soon muf- fled. To guide the bewlldered navi- gator at such times an ingenious ar- rangement of boards is bullt which will throw back the whistles of pass- ing steamers. The echo boards are long and wide, with great ear-like projections at the ends that catch and echo these salutes. An experi- enced mariner when caught in a fog in these regions sends out a series of whistles until one of them is echoed back to him, when he can locate the position of his vessel with surprising accuracy. One advantage of the echo boards is that they need no attendant and are always “on the / Job.™ a