Evening Star Newspaper, December 26, 1936, Page 13

‘Books—Art—Music e CAPITOL PHONE SYSTEM HAS PERSONAL SERVICE RENDERED he WASHINGTON, FEATURES D L, pening Shap WITH SUNDAY MORNING EDITION Onetime Single Operator for House of Congress Has Expanded Service Until Now It Numbers 37 Attendants and . Is One of Busiest Units in Town. By Lucy Salamanca. ’ AY back in the days when | Representatives and Sen- | ators had no such per-} fectly equipped offices for the conduct of their affairs as they have today—indeed, when they had no | offices at all-—one little switchboard set | in the window of an unobtrusive niche | in the wall on the first floor of the | Capitol building served to carry on| the infrequent telephonic communi- | cation legislators then had with the | outside world and with each other. This was in 1898, and because the Capitol served as the gathering place for the various representatives of 48 States, life was genial and cozy and intimate. Groups met informally ln‘ the halls to conduct business with the | casual caller, and the only meeting place for Senator, Representative or constituent was in the public cor- ridors. ‘There was & constant buzz of con- versation abroad in the Capitol in those days. People did not scurry through its marble areas intent only upon getting somewhere else, as they do today. They used the building's public spots for office and the halls | vied with the public tavern in the op- | portunities then afforded for coming ly: upon one's friends. ‘There were only two committees of great impertance—the Committee on Accounts and the Committee on Appropriations—and they operated throughout the year, so even with the | adjournment of Congress there was a | pleasant stir in the building. Watching the passing scenes from that unobtrusive window niche was @ young lady lately arrived from New ‘York, who had been appointed to the position of sole telephone operator on all Capitol Hill. Born in Virginia and resident since her marriage in New | York, Harriott G. Daly took up her duties in the midst of all the corridor activities with a resolve to give these gentlemen who hasiled from every State in the Union “a hundred per cent service.” Today, in her office in the new House Office Building, from @& desk behind which she contemplates the activities of 37 operators, Harriott | G. Daley, white-haired and gentle- voiced, declares herself to be “just as ambitious to give hundred-per-cent eervice” as she was in the days of her novitiate. UILT into this first-floor window | in those early days was a little switchboard consisting of 51 lines. ‘Those 51 lines, Mrs. Daley assures me, “buzzed all day long and were just| as buey in their own limited way as | this whole switchboard is now.” Gov- ernment departments and branches of the Legislature had no central switchboards. Every time Mrs. Daley put through a call from the Hill she had to go out on the main line and | make the connection as one does to- day between private homes. Before the introduction of this 51- line board there was only one telephone available for the use of all Senators and Representatives. This was in the post office of the House side of the Capitol, and members had to stand in line to make a call. Of necessity, con- versation via the wire in those days was very brief and to the point, with @ long queue of fellow members shift- ing impatiently from one foot to the other and glancing at the big gold watches they drew at intervals from eapacious vest pockets. Operating her little switchboard en- tirely alone, Mrs. Daley knew what it meant to put in a couple of days’ work every day. She would come on at 8 o'clock in the morning and work until 6 pm. After a brief dinner interlude she would return to the Capitol for night service and work until 10:30 at | night. For two years she kept up this arduous schedule, when increasing business and the expanding ramifi- cations of Government, as well as the limitations of human endurance, made | it necessary to appoint an assistant. A small switchboard also was in- stalled on the Eenate side of the Cap- itol and this was run by the pages. ‘There were no interconnections. A page on the Senate side, wishing to call Mrs. Daley on the House side of the same building, had to plug into an outside wire and put his call through the general exchange downtown. With expansion, these two boards were put together and the two operators occu- pied a small office in the Capitol crypt. The force grew to include four op- erators, and with the necessary changes that were then being made in the arrangement and assignment of ' a rooms in the Capitol, the telephone of- fice was shifted about from place to place, until it was realized that some- thing had to be done about provid- ing the enlarging organization with something akin to permanent head- quarters. Representatives growing more accustomed daily to depend upon the telephone for the conduct of their affairs, both "personal and national, the system was growing complicated, particularly in view of the fact that as yet no central exchange service had been inaugurated and every call was still an outside matter. Congressmen and Senators, too, were having growing pains. It began to strike them as unseemly to have to | lean against a marble pillar in a public corridor and discuss the crops back home with a constituent who was kept standing upon his feet. They wanted some kind of an office into which they might invite their visitors and where | they might dispense hospitality—in- | cluding offering a seat—to those whose votes would count in the next elec- | tion. Besides, they were taking upon themselves more of the dignity of of- fice. No longer were the corridor gatherings such informal and chatty | affairs. More passing of one another | with a nod and “Good-morning, Sen- | ator,” or “Good afternoon, sir.” was being done than formerly. Not so many first names were sung out as heretofore. & As a result of this changed attitude and deviation in custom plans were laid to take care of the situation. The building now known as the “old” House Office Building was the result of this planning, and in due time Representatives moved into private offices, beaming with pride and pleas- ure upon the new mahogany furniture, the shining brass' nameplates on tall docrs and the big handsome private telephones upon expansive new desks. On January 10, 1908, Mrs. Daley, her force increased now to include eight operators, left her old domain in the Capitol to take up headquar- ters on the fourth floor of the House Office Building so newly constructed. The staff, faced with the array of ad- ditional telephones and the apparent desire of every Representative to try out his private telephone on any and all occasions, soon expanded, and it was a very short while before 12 op- erators were plugging their wires into the central switchboard. Y NOVEMBER 28, 1925, the te! phone force had grown to such extent and the board before whil that force sat had lengthened so sidefably that it was necessary to stall them all in a new set of offices, and they moved up to the fifth floor in the same building, where they stayed until the completion of the present “new” House Office Building. When that was made ready, Mrs. Daley, now chief operator, took up - | headquarters in an especially designed and provided ‘office in the basement | of the building. and she has been there from April 8, 1933, to date. < | (1) Miss Nena Thomas, (3) Lines criss-cross when t service. Today tHat basement headquarters the opposite wall runs the switch- | board, an intricate blackboard filled | which sits a row of young ladies who keep up a running line of brief in- assistant chiet of the United States Capitol telephone urvice. (2) The U. S. Capitol. (4) Part of the long switchboard which handles the phone calls' for the House, Senate and U. S. Capitol Building. Ordinarily one of the busiest switchboards in the world when Congress is in s_essio‘n, the rush reaches peak nt.inaufluration time. (5) Harriott G. Daley, chief operator of the Capitol e ruul}is on. !.quxry and response, so that the room | distracting to the visitor—this low, | steady hum—not because of its ob- ‘ but because it is so measured, so pre cise, so orderly, so impersonal and SATURDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1936. RECOR News of Churches PAGE B—1 50 constant. One derives the feeling that this row of well dressed, well coiffed young ladies, presenting imper- | sonal backs to the intruder and glanc- ing neither to right nor left of the board before them, is a part of the great mechanism that so miraculously links human voices in a chain that can travel on occasion across the vast expanses of the oceans or even forge !a tie of words between a man with the clouds at his feet and the desk of a legislator. They lose their iden- tity as human beings with personal emotions as they sit before that |15 a far cry from the little Capitol |is constantly filled with the low hum board somehow. They become part of | window box of 1898. From a richly | of businesslike voices that continuously , 8 system, beautifully precise, dis- decorated corridor one opens a ma- [ inquire and respond without ever at- | passionate as the cords and plugs | hogany 'door upon a long, well lighted | taining that lilt and animation that | themselves, efficiently submerging the | room. Directly facing the door along | marks the conversational tone. It is | personal in the exacting routine of their offices. | There are 37 operators in that row | with winking colored eyes, before | trusiveness, for it is very unobtrusive, | before the switchboard today, and | each is a skilled, trained workman. ! Most of the girls in Mrs. Daley’s force have been answering your “National 3120” for a good many years. One op- erator entered service in 1911, another in 1912, another in 1915. Many have | been at this post since 1918, some since 1919 or 1922. There are two extra operators at two extra “po- sitions” on the board this year, and Mrs. Daley is trdining a newcomer. | Even the newcomers are excellent op- erators arrived from other fields to sit at the Capitol switchboard. WHEN it is realized that this year there will be 2,529 private tele- phones on “the Hill” demanding serv- | ice of the 37 operators in that base- ment office, some idea of the efficiency of the system will be gained. This number of telephones is 200 more than last year, and so every girl must han- | dle about 120 telephones in her “po- sition.” Naturally, some of these telephones are in more frequent use than others, All Seasons Have Served to Mark the Beginning of Calendar Time, With All Parts of Civilized World Moving Toward Uniformity. By Mary Machin- Gardner. HE calendar has been, through the ages, the plaything of the | rulers of church and state,| with or without the sanction | of the mathematicians or astronomers. Consequently, different calendars of- ten existed simultaneously in coun- tries bordering on or trading with each | other. Although the Gregorian cal-| endar is now in general use through- | out the world, several others, notably | | the Jewish, Chinese and Mohamme- dan, still exist and are followed by | millions of people. | During the World War several coun- tries adhering to the Greek Orthodox | | Church changed from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar because of the | difficulties of adjusting the 10 days’ difference between the two calendars. | In 1923 Greece finally joined the rest | of the world in using the Gregorian ~ el !conunued as the beginning of the! reckoning, and in 1924, for probably the first time, all Christendom cele- brated the same day—January 1—as New Year. January 1 as the beginning of the calendar year is an arbitrary date of comparatively recent origin. In times past the equinoxes, vernal and autumnal, were used, depending upon the Caesars, but with the disintegra- tion of the Roman Empire old re- ligious and civil calendars came back into use. Throughout most of Western Eu- rope in 800 the ecclesiastical year began on March 1 and the civil on March 25. To eliminate this con= fusion Charlemagne ordered the adop=- tion of January 1 of the Julian cal- endar as the year’s beginning in both religious and civil calendars, In medieval times and even well into the modern period, some coun= tries used March 25 as the beginning of the ecclesiastical calendar year, | because the number 25 was a more fully rounded number than 22, the date of the equinox. The civil year, moreover, continued January 1 as New Year. Annunciation day, March 25, was New Year in Germany until the 11th century, and in Spain and Portugal until the 14th century. In England this day, called Lady day, Lecflemlxncll year until 1752. | Ancient Babylon and India seem | fo have been the first countries com- | puting calendars from the Winter | solstice, December 22, although about 3000 B. C. Babylon deserted this cen- | | turies-old custom and adopted the |autumnal equinox, as the new year | whether the planting or harvesting of | date. crops was stressed in the customs of tions celebrated the transition from one year to another at the Winter golstice, and, in at least one country, the Summer solstice marked the new year. Through the ages many dates of the year, some without any appar- ent reason. New Year dates include March 1 and 25, Easter, July 19, August 29, September 1 and 24, Octo- ruary 19. 'HE year started for the ancient Persians at the vernal equinox and the old Sumerian new year fes- tival was held in March as far back as 2600 B. C. Mesopotamian events were also ulc( ted from the vernal equinox. March 25 was New Year day for the Roman territories previous to 46 B. C. when Julius Caesar inaugurated his calendar. Finding that the calendar year was 90 days ahead of the true solar year, Caesar casually dropped the 90 days and designated January 1 instead of March 25 as the beginning of the year. This Julian calendar was adopted throughout the lands of | ! at the Winter solstice and the | early Greeks also dated their year| | from December 22 until about 430 |B.C., when, seemingly at the whim ‘uf & ruler, the year's beginning was | have been accepted as the beginning | changed to the Summer soistice, June 22. This is apparently the only in- | stance of the use of the Summer | solstice as the beginning of the year. Probably the most unsatisfactory | ber 1, November 1, December 25%and | date ever tried for New Year was any day between January 20 and Feb- Easter, the date of which is determined | by calculations based upon the rela- | tive positions of the moon and sun. | This day, commemorating the resur- | rection, seemed an appropriate time to start a year, and its use as such continued in several countries well into the Middle Ages, and in France | until the. sixteenth century. The dif- ficulties of using Easter as the New Year date can be realized when, for example, in 1907 there were 50 Sun- days betwedn Easters and in the fol- lowing year there were 55. The ian religious calendar, adopted in 4241 B.C., started the year with the helical rising .of Sirius, or Sothis, as it was known to' the Egyp- tians, on July 19, present reckoning. This was & very fitting New Year day ’ the peoples. Some very early civiliza- THE early Romans began their year | Jashion. for that ceuntry, as it marked the be- ing of the annual overflow of the River Nile, upon which the fertility of the land” depended. At a much later period, the Egyptian year began t the Autumnal equinox. The Syrians, using the Romanized | calendar, started the year in the month | of April and, during the same period, the Copts, Abyssinians and Armenians, | using the Alexandrine calendar, dated | their year from August 29. In more | recent times, the Syrian Catholics reckoned the year from September 1, while the rest of the country, until late in the nineteenth century, used October 1 as New Year day. The very ancient Greeks, before accepting the Winter solstice year beginning, fol- | lowed the old Seleucidian epoch and dated the year from October 1. The ancient Macedonians, however, started their year on September 24. The Rus- sians untfl 1725 and the Greeks until 1821, when they adopted the Christian era dating, used a calendar dating events in the Constantinopolitan epoch, with the New Year on September 1. ‘THI stars, whose changing positions like the moon phases eould be GREAT RULERS SELECTED VARYING DATES F Old 1936, tottering on his last legs, is shoved out of the pic- ture by Shirley Temple, representing 1937 in the approved —Wide World Photo. easily observed, determined events for many ancient peoples. The evening rising of the Pleides on November 1 marked the beginnig of the new year for many ancient people living near or south of the equator. According to the present calendar this would be October 31, but in those very early times the day started at sunset. In the Chinese calendar, based on the phases of the moon, the year starts with the first new moon after the | sun enters Aqarius, and therefore the | first day of the year may occur on any day from January 20 to February 19 of the Gregorian calendar. | The moon reigns supreme in the | time reckoning of the Mohammedan calendar, and no effort is ever made to adjust it to sun calculations., As the lunar year has only 354 days, the Mohammedan New Year varies so that in about 33 years the New Year date moved through the complete cycle of the solar year. ‘The oldest continuous time-reckon~ ing scheme, the Jewish calendar date ing from the creation, has used many different days as New Year. The Hebrews and many other ancient peo- ples revered the moon, whose chang- OR NEW YEAR | Ancient, Medieval and Modern Times Have Contributed Their Shares Toward Perfection in Conforming to Regular Movements of Sun, |ing phases could be easily observed, | and calculated important events, espe- cially religious observances, by its phases. The Jewish lunar year was |12 days short of the solar year, so |an intercalary month was added to correct the difference. In early times | this month was added “whenever on the 16th of Nisan, April, the barley was not ripe.” In their modern cal- endar the additional month, Veadar, is introduced seven times in 19 years 80 that religious observances will come at the proper seasons of the solar year. In the time of Moses March was the first month of the Jewish year. Before the Babylonian exile, however, the year’s beginning had shifted to the Autumn month of Tishri, seed- time in Palestine. During the exile, under the influ- ence of the more scientific Baby- lonian calendar, the Hebrew civil year commenced in the Spring month of Nisan, April, while the ecclesjastical month of Tishri, September. BOUT the beginning of the Chris- tian era two calendars were rec- ognized in the Jewish time-counting plan, one for the sacred year, which started in the Spring and was used for dating sacred feasts and the reigns of kings, and the other for Autumn and was used for deciding Sabbatical years, years of jubilee and dates for vegetable and tree planting. The present Jewish calendar, which is & continuarice of the sacred calen- dar, starts in the month of September. The Christian era, numbering the years from the birth of Christ, was not started until several hundred years | after His birth. As Judea was under the control of the Romans, early Christians used epoch dating, calcu- lated from the founding of Rome. Dionysius Exigus of the Roman Cath- olic Church is credited with originat- | ing the idea of a new epoch dating, and through his influence Justinian proclaimed a mew era with events dated from the birth of the Messiah. In the acceptance of this plan, as in that of the January 1 year begin- ning, centuries elapsed before all the nations of the world were in accord. The new era was used in most of Western Europe by the eighth century, though not by any legal action of the authorities. The German Synod | appears to be the first group to take | definite action and adopted the Chris- | tian era dating plan in 742. This | was established in the realm of the L] year continued to date from the the civil year, which began in the | Roman Catholic Church by Pope Eugenius in 1431, but the Russian adherents of the Greek Orthodox Church did not accept it until 1725. Even before the suggestion of dat- ing the epoch from the birth of Christ. many countries celebrated the Na. tivity, December 25, as the beginning of the year. New Year was Decem- ber 25 in England until 1066, when William the Conqueror was crowned on January 1 and thereafter by his edict the year began on that date. One early writer says, “The year of Our Lord was seldom mentioned, that of William being substituted in its stead.” The Nativity was accepted as New Year day in Germany in 11th century. According to the An- glo-Saxon calendar, December was the first month of the year and after they accepted Christianity, Decem- ber 25 became the recognized new year date. latter part of the sixteenth cen- tury the calendar and the sun were out of step. Pope Gregory brought them into agreement in 1582 by step- ping up the calendar 10 days, chang- ing October 5 to October 15. This plan kept January 1 as New Year day and returned the dates to their proper seasons according to solar calculations, as they had been following Julius Caesar’s correction. In the Roman Catholic countries of the world this Gregorian calendar was adopted with- in a few years, but more than three centuries elapsed before it was ac- cepted by the entire world. James VI of Scotland ordered that dar instead of March 25, as was then customary. About a hundred years officially dated their year from Jan- uary 1. This calendar was not adopted, however, in England and the Thirteen Colonies until 1752. Previously in most English-speaking countries March 25 had been the first day of the official year and January 1 the beginning of the popular year, During the three months from January 1 to March 25 dates were recorded as, for example, January 30, 1648-9—'48 the legal year and "49 the popular year. Sweden ac- cepted the Gregorian time-reckoning scheme in 1753. Over 19% centuries passed after Julius Caesar set January 1 as the be- was adopted throughout the world. Y g ESPITE Caesar’s leap year. by the | the year 1600 begin on January 1 in | accordance with the Gregorian calen- | later Holland and Protestant Germany | ginning of the calendar year before it | |~ (Continued on Fage B-2), D CITIES MAY ENVY and when too many “hard” telee phones come into one position Mrs. Daley distributes the activity accorde ingly. Thus, this year she has taken care of congested areas on the board by the addition of the two new posie tions. There are 23 positions on the Cap= itol switchboard, with 55 incoming lines to the Capitol and 70 outgoing | lines from the Capitol. Likewise, there are “tie-lines” to every Department of the Government, incoming and oute going. In addition to these tie-lines, there are 18 outgoing lines known as ‘Government lines” and 12 incoming “Government lines” That is, these represent lines that go through the regular city exchange and they are used when a department called cane not be reached over the tie-line be- cause of being busy or for any other reason. “If some Senator wants to get & certain Government department im- mediately, and all lines over that switchboard are busy,” Mrs. Daley ex- plains, “he does not need to wait. We go right in on one of these outside ‘Government’ lines and he gets the connection through the downtown ex- change.” There is a special “Govern« ment” board at the local telephone of- fice that takes care of this excess Government call work. During the session, each operator on the Capitol switchboard will handle from 250 to 300 calls an hour, on every one of the 23 positions of the board. The peak last year, in one day’s work, recorded by Mrs. Daley from every position, was more than 38,000 telephone calls—a record that some small cities cannot equal. WORK!NG on the Capitol switche board is different from telephone work anywhere else in the world. For one thing, there is a periodic and com« plete change of personnel. With Rep- resentatives in and out of office every two years, it behooves every operator to keep abreast of the changes in names, offices and locations of new members. She must do the same with respect to Senators, and this change, occurring as it does every six years, presents an additional problem in keeping abreast of political moods as reflected in the legislative membership Besides these changes, there are presidential years to be considered, when a complete change in cabinet members’ names, location or numbers may be looked for, as well as familiare ity with the names of administrative officers who have been retained. As if this were not enough to come plicate the life of the most alert and intelligent operator alive, there are such matters as committees, new Governe ment department officials, and resige nations or replacements. For the ope erator is not only called upon to have a thorough knowledge of the personnel directly using the switchboard from the Hill, she is expected as well to know those with whom the Senator or Representative would connect at the other end of the line. And, in view of the frequent newcomers to the Hill, her knowledge is essential, for legisia« tors ‘“‘green” at the ropes depend upon her to put through their calls prope erly. There is another feature of tele~ phone service on the Hill which dise tinguishes it from service anywhere else. Very few numbers are used over the Capitol switchboard. You, in your private home, cannot pick up your telephone and say, “I'd like to speak to Mrs. Jones,” or “Is Frank Smith home tonight?” But Representatives and Senators can do things like this. In fact, they ask for practically every connection made, by name instead of number. “I'd like to speak to the Vice Presi- dent,” says a senatorial secretary, That’s easy. But when another sece retary, picks up the phone and says, “Id like to speak to the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee,” or, “When the chairman of the Appro- priations Committee comes out of the