Evening Star Newspaper, March 3, 1935, Page 48

< By John J. Daly. OING, golng—gone!” And a queen’s necklace is sold at auction. | At intervais in Wash- | ington treasures of the | worl1 are auctioned—*knocked down,” | as the auctioneer says—to the highest | bidder. Anything is liable to be put on the auction block here, since the Capital comprises men and women of wealth who have traveled to the far ends of the world, bringing back treasure trove of the ages. In the settlement of estates Washingtonians have opportunity to appraise the taste of those who once sat in the seats of the mighty. Frequenters of Washington's auc- tion sales have seen on the public block such treasures as gifts be- stowed upon American statesmen by the Emperor of Japan, the Kings of England, the Popes of Rome, and | other world rulers and celebrities. | Though the auctions are intimately essociated with death, there is usu- ally no sentimentality or sorrow about | them. On the contrary, a spirit of | levity, of laughter and longing rules the auction sales. The average auction is as good as | & show. 44 LIKE the theatrical show, there is| here presented elements of drama —the clash and conflict of human will, jealousies, ambition and some- times supreme selfishness. Whatever 4t is, the lure of the auction draws vast crowds. Only recently Adam Weschler, & Washington auctioneer, saw fit to cap- italize on this tendency in human nature—the yen to see the sale of other people’s belongings. At the Henderson estate sale Mr. Weschler put in the proverbial box office and sold tickets at $2 apiece. Not ac- tual tickets, but catalogues. were sold to patrons of the Henderson sale. The understanding was that the purchase price of the catalogue would be re- funded if any article were purchased by the catalogue holder. Four thou- sand persons purchased tickets to the Henderson sale; 2,500 actually at- tended the sale. The others had gone merely out of curiosity to see what the old castle on the hill held. | That was good showmanship. After the sale the auctioneer confessed that he could not have got one-half the| sale prices had the auction been staged | downtown. In the language of show | business, “the castle was the come | on.” Some people who had seen Mrs. Henderson—and some who had not— gathered at her castle every day and | imagined the glories of the past.| Mostly they wanted to see the house. | One dear old soul started up the stairs | to the second floor, after the second- floor goods were sold and the place closed to visitors. “You can’t go up there,” a watch- man told her. “But I must,” she said. “I want to see where I slept one night.” “Heavens,” the watchman ex- claimed, “if she only slept one night, guess I'll have to let her see the spot where the body snored.” The old lady went up the stairs like | & queen going to her boudotr. ALF the glamour of the auction | comes from the proximity to greatness. So many persons are anx- ious to have in their possession some- thing that was once owned by & fa- | mous man or woman. What it is| makes little difference. Just so it is | attractive. “This came from the estate of Ad- | miral Dewey. That was in the Henry Cabot Lodge sale.” An auctioneer, knowing this tend- ency, sold off & lot of books. They were handsome books because the man who owned them was a book lover, and was rich. He had his own bindings | put on his treasures. “Here is a particuiarly fine sample | of the book binder’s art,” | tioneer said, by way of introducing an- | other article the auc- “One of the finest books in all the collection. What am I offered?” “What is the name of the book?” & prospective buyer demanded. The aucticneer ignored the ques- tion. -Instead, he ran the palm of | his hand over the book cover: “Leath- er,” he shouted. “Morocco! The finest leather binding money can buyl” “What is the title of the book?” the man in the audience persisted. Mob psychology ruled. Others want- ed to know the title of the book. The | auctioneer was troubled. He could not | | = pronounce the title. In despair, he | Lodge went under the hammer one of | Clay. fumbled: & "tThe title of the book is ‘Don Quix at.” " sneered the original tor- “You mean Cervantes' ‘Don Quixote'! Amid much laughter the auction- eer stepped down from the auction THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C., “GOING—GOING—GONE!"—TO HIGHEST BIDDER MARCH 3, 1935—PART FOUR. | of the Auctioneers and Their Customers, or Opponents. block and turned his gavel over {o other hands. | | It is not often, however, that the |laugh is turned on the auctioneer. Usually, 1t is the other way round: for the auctioneer, on his high stand, commands an eminent position. | When the estate of Henry Cabot | the strange objects was a newspaper | | printed on wall paper. The auctionee |expln.lned this. The paper was pub- lished at Vicksburg, Miss.,, just after | the surrender in 1863: | “I see,” 8 shouted, “a newspaper gone to the | wall.” | “No,” the auctioneer- came back; -Pistol holsters belonging to Theodore branding it as an antigue that came “gone to aall paper.” H In that same sale was a bust of Daniel Webster: ‘Locks like Daniel O'Connell, to one auditory remarked. ‘No matter who it looks like,” the uctioneer rejoined, me ALF the time the banter caused at an auction sale is staged by the collectors who come from far and near to get prize pieces. They hope to throw ‘ an in the audience |interested parties off the track. by |used making wise cracks and derogatory re- | marks. Roosevelt were put on sale: “If those holsters ever belonged to ‘Teddy Roosevelt, I'm a horse thief,’ an out~of-town buyer said, so that all could hear. ‘The auctioneer produced the proof. “It is not Henry Then he said: “There must be a horse | house keeper.’ thief in the house. We were going to | auction off a bronze horse next, but somebody stole it.” The auctioneer, in other words, has to be quick on the trigger. When the dining room table once by Abraham Lincoln in the White House found its way to the auction rooms a wise old buyer went around from a boarding house. “Abraham Lincoln did many things’ in his life,” the suctioneer explained, | recalling what he overheard, “but he | mever rented this table to & boarding Nevertheless the remark had its | effect—and the prized table went for | the small sum of $25. | That table, according to the records, had been bought originally by Joseph | Waggaman when Lincoln’s effects were | sold after the assassinated President’s lbelonnno had been moved from the White House. Treasurcs Gathered All Over the World Draw Curious 4 Crozvds to W ashington’s Auction Rooms— Little Stories At the sign of the swastika, that strange, ancient symbol marking the auction houses, anything is liable to be sold. Especially here in Washing- | ton. Because of this Uncle S8am himself keeps an eye on the auction seles. He goes not as a buyer, but to keep rec- ord. Hirsh Milholland of the Fine Arts Division, Library of Congress. at- tends almost every sa’e where oil paintings, etchings and rare objects of art are offered. - This, beciuse so many persons from all parts of the country Afe” ¢ohstantly writing bere for Also, there is ng telling when some historical docu- ment of great worth may appear un~ ex| in a sale. The Library likes o keep track of these purchases; hopifig that some day they may even- tually come to the Library. Only recently one of the early let- ters of Danie] Webster, a letter marked “personal and confidential,” went up for sale and was sold in a batch of papers—odds and ends. Aside from the value of the signature, the content of the letter itself was | remarkable, for in that letter Daniel | webster confessed his love for a fatr i beauty of New York State, Miss Cath- | erine Van Renselaer, daughter of | Gen. Stephen Van Renselaer, who afterward jilted the statesman. The .etter was purchased by Dr. R. E, Moran of this city for the sum of §16. N THE past century some of the rarest objects imaginable have been placed on sale in Washington, bought by collectors and connolsseurs at rela- tively small prices and afterward re- sold by them at 10 times the original auction sale price. Of such extraordi~ nary objects have been articles belong- ing to George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, Napoleon, the last Greek royal family, the former Kaiser and the late Czar. ; Collectors come here from all parts |of America and from abroad when great estates are to be sold off at auc- tion, and great estates are sold here week in and week out. There is the excitement, the thrill and the satis- faction of bidding on pieces once awned by prominent persons. There is also the unexpected, in not knowing | when some memoriabilia will come to | light. | Auctioneers themselves sometimes are in the dark. They do not always { know what prizes they offer for sale. | They explain it in this way. Estates | are offered for sale. Auctioneers must | catalogue them after they have been appraised. Court appraisers usually | do this work. Nor is there time always | for the court appraisers to make care- ful search of everything; to go through books and find out first editions; to | go through desk drawers and search for valuable papers. So it was that recently 8 woman bought a desk at the Dewey sale. When she got it home and opened its middle drawer she found a will that Admiral Dewey had written in his own handwriting, but had never probated. When the estate of James E. Har- vey, American Minister to Portugal, went on sale three rare Lincoin let- ters showed up—and a Lincoln letter |is worth all kinds of money, since Abraham Lincoln seldom wrote letters or signed his name to many docu- ments. His secretary wrote most of his letters. Yet here were three in one batch, anr they went for practically nothing. | About once a week, on an average, { social Washington turns out to see the | estate of some aristocrat sold at public | auction. Usually there is a story be- { hind the sale. Old-timers here know | this. The story has to do, usually, with | 8 decadent fortune. Or, sometimes, | with disagreement among relatives. | Whatever the cause, pieces of art cole lected throughout the years are scat- tered over the counter and go to the highest bidder. | When W. T. Mathews, the painter, died many historic portraits were offered for what they would bring. These included the celebrated full- length portrait of Lincoln, painted by Mathews for the United States Gov- ernment. and also a Mathews’ portrait _ of President McKinley. Ordered by Congress, the mystery is how these paintings got into a public auction. “We sell 'em, we don't explain ‘em,” the auctioneer says. Hardly a statesman ever lived in ‘Washington who did not leave behind some rare relic that eventually was purchased by some eager buyer in | the auction houses. | The field glasses of Admiral Dewey, the walking stick with which Andrew | Jackson marked the site of the Treas- | ury Building, the shaving mug of | Henry Clay. These are some of the oddities. “Going, going, gone’—they go to the highest bidder. NATIONAL TRAINING SCHOOL HAS CREATED LOYAL SPIRIT Institution on Bladensburg Road Has Grown From Small’ Enterprise Due to Philanthropic Impulse_-Present Site Once Was Fort Lincoln in the Civil W ar_Ear[}/ History. Main building, destroyed by fire December 19, 1905. & trious citizens, if due care were taken to rescue destitute, neglected and criminal children from the dangers and temptations incident to their po- sition. It is very desirable that the house of refuge contemplated by Con- gress should be finished as soon as | possible, that these unfortunate chil- dren may not be obliged to be con- fined with the hardened criminals |in prison.” "THIS was the same story that had | fallen on deaf ears and unre- sponsive souls before. Indeed, so de- plorable became the situation, that in 1862 some of the more sympa- thetic citizens of Washington or- ganized “The Guardian Society,” in accordance with the act of Congress, approved by President Lincoln on July 1 of that year. Of course, it was privately conducted and the funds had to be obtained through volun- tary subscriptions, which, in this case came from a few citizens and bank- By John Clagett Proctor. ! HOUGH we are still in this en- lightened age, far from being 100 per cent perfect, and can readily see many things to justify severe condemnation, yet in many respects our social prob- lems are now being handled far better than they were when the city was still in the making. Indeed, | prior to the establishing of St. Eliza- beth’s Hospital, in 1852, the mentally ill of Washington were treated with & degree of inhumanity that today would be revolting, and, up until about 1857, the unfortunate deaf and dumb were accorded as little sym- pathy and consideration as were many persons bereft of their reason. So it was with certain deficient, derelict or criminally inclined youth of the District of Columbia, who, prior to the close of the Civil War, were herded together with adult criminals, even to the disgust, and sgainst the better judgment of the warden of the jail, who, in his report of November 1, 1866, addressed to the Secretary of the Interior, said: “The large number of children of both sexes committed for crime, who have to be confined with old offend- ers, shows the importance of a house of refuge to which these juveniles can be sent. “The statistics of our jail show, what common sense would lead us to expect, that these vagrant and neglected children form the raw ma- terial out of which our dangerous criminals are in due course manu- factured. “A large proportion of the present eggregate of crime might be pre- vented, and thousands of miserable human beings, who have nothing before them but a helpless career of wickedness and vice, might be con- verted into virtuous, honest, induse ? A Civil War view of Fort Lincoln, site of the National Training School for Boys. ing institutions of Washington. Its object, as stated in the act, was “to reform juvenile offenders in the Dis- trict of Columbia.” Naturally the soclety realized from the start that the most necessary mmm-ummummummumu‘wm A thing to have before it could begin the work it had in mind was a build- ing in which the children might be housed, and for this purpose per- mission was given to use the Govern- ment farm, originally & part of the land purchased for use of the aque- duct, and located about one-half mile from the Potomac River and about three miles northwest of Georgetown. ‘The War Department helped out by donating one of the units of the Mount Pleasant Hoapital, which stood on the Holmead estate, in the vicinity of Park road and Fourteenth street, then called Piney Branch road. ‘This section of the hospital was aoon taken down and the lumber re- moved to the aite selected for fits erection, and $3339 of the amount aubseribed was used in putting the building togethey again Money was not sa free in those days; the society ¢oyld not meet all of ita obligations, and 1t soon found | itself with a defieit of §1,300 for labor and material which it eould not meet. It is probably the society became dis- couraged and quit, At any rate, it ceased to function prior to July 25, 1866, when it was sudceeded by the House of Correction 6f the District of Columbia, in acordance with the |lct of Congress approved that date, which soon took over the aingle tem- ‘A | porary wooden building its predeces- | | sor had built. | the trustees of the House of Correction were appointed and took office, October 15, 1866, they found awaiting them only the single . building, then not entirely completed: a quantity of lumber and materials collected for that purpose, and the $1,500 debt. But the board was made up of some of the foremost men of Washington, including P. D. Gurley. William B. Webb, George 8. Gideon, H. D. Cooke, B. F. Wiggett, D. K. Cartter and Richard Wallach, and soon a report was made to Congress that resulted in an appropriation of $12,000, which, however, only sufficed to complete the building already un- | der construction for the boys for| whom the institution seems to have been exclusively intended. It was David K. Cartter, Chief Jus- tice of the Supreme Court of the Dis- trict of Columbia, who signed the first report, and he called attention to the opinion of the trustees that the building already erected could only be considered at most as temporary and that it was utterly unfit for perma- nent purposes. The site also was de- clared to be unsatisfactory because of the lack of all drainage, causing it | to become overflowed during heavy rains and at all times making it damp | and unhealthy. | Following the $12,000, made July 25, 1866, no fur- ther appropriation was made until May 6, 1870, and even the following year Congress forgot the slight neces- sity of providing funds for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1871. In the meantime, however, the trustees had admitted to the institution the first two boys sent there, which occurred oh January 13, 1870, and Charles New- man became boy No. 1. By May 2§ of that year the number of boys had increased to 16, and by July 1, 1871, when no further funds were avall- able, there were 63 boys in the home. ‘What to do under the circumstances was a problem. Private assistance for the maintenance of the school had to be secured or the boys be given their | freedom to wander where they pleased. In this critical predicament a number of liberal merchants and othefs fur- nished supplies to tide over the situa- tion with the hope of reimbursement when Congress convened, while the salaries of employes and incidental expenses were raised on individusl notes of the trustees. 3 ACT of Congress, approved May 6, 1870, the name of the institu- the “Reform School of the District . A appropriation of | §* Memorial window to Crosby S. achool, dedicated January 20, 1909. Columbia,” and the trustees appointed as superintendent George E. Howe, superintendent of the State Reform School of Ohio. His brother, F. W. Howe, was engaged as assistant su- perintendent and manager, and his wife as the matron. ‘When F. W. Howe took charge of the institution there were but 16 boys in the school, and yet in less than a month, with their assistance, he had fenced in & considerable portion of | the farm, ploughed and planted 20 acres, besides making a garden, and | we are told they worked cheerfully, willingly and diligently. The presi- | dent of the board adds: “They are well fed, well clothed, have comfort- able beds and are made to realize that | they have a good home—such a home as probably most of them never had . Noyes in the assembly hall of the Richard Wallach, Henry A. Brewster and Willlam B. Todd. Mr. Sargent was the commissioner of customs in the Treasury Depart- ment, De Vere Burr was connected with the Police Department and re- D. Cook was the first Governor of the District of Columbia and lived in Georgetown, Mr. Wiggett was presi- dent of Gonzaga College, Mr. Wellach a former mayor of the city, H. A. Brewster was an insurance agent, and. Mr. Todd a lawyer. During the existence of the House of Correction and during the early stages of the Reform School, up to March 5, 1872, the school was under the general control of the Secretary of the Department of the Interior, who ‘had authority to appoint four of the seven trustees provided for. How« ever, after the date mentioned this suthority was vested in the Depart- ment of Justice, where it remains l_fi it D. mul:lfl-.mh.fithhm “{Contiziued oo Fage 8, Cotumn &) ¢ / sided on the Brentwood road, Henry .-