Chapter XXIII: Washington in 1910

Between 1894 and 1910 we lived more in Italy than in America and had the opportunity of observing the amazing developments that were taking place in the country that was, until the World War, the youngest of the Nations. Modern Italy was born in 1870, when France and Germany were too busy cutting each other’s throats to interfere with the realization of that dream of a United Italy that had so long haunted the imagination of poets and patriots. America’s part in the Risorgimento has still to be written; like England, the Great Friend, she played no small rôle in the happy consummation. From the early part of the last century Italian patriots and political exiles were comforted and upheld in the United States. In my mother’s girlhood some of the greatest lived in New York by giving Italian lessons. She and her sisters numbered in their circle of friends Foresti and Albinola, the companions of Silvio Pellico.

In Italy Margaret Fuller and other ardent Americans threw themselves and their resources into the struggle that gave the world a free and united Italy. We Americans are bound to Italy by the strongest of all alliances,--sentiment and sympathy. The American colonies in Rome, Florence, and Venice, while not to be compared in size with the “Little Italys” of Boston and New York, have done much to create a mutual good-will. They have fostered a reverence for Italian genius in our own land, and the reaction has been that the Italian immigrants in America have been received with a more intelligent understanding than many others. The marriages between American heiresses and Italian nobles--though it has been the custom to scoff at them--have proved, for the most part, extremely fortunate. The children of these unions show that the American woman can be safely trusted to choose her mate among Italians, to the advantage of both races.

About the middle of the nineteenth century Luigi Monti, a young Italian liberal, fleeing for his life, managed to conceal himself on board an American vessel lying in an Italian port. Though he had little English, the lad made the Captain understand that he wished to go to America.

“I will take you to the only place in America worth living in,” the Captain assured him. After a long cruise the skipper brought his young friend to Nantucket, where he was hospitably welcomed by the inhabitants, and settled down to learn English and teach Italian. He remained on the island for some time, in the belief that he was in the most important place in the United States, an impression first given by the skipper and fully maintained by the islanders. Somehow--and here my memory is at fault as to just the how and wherefore--Longfellow got wind of the young Italian teacher at Nantucket and managed to convince him that Boston was even more important than Nantucket. In my youth Signor Monti was one of the most prominent Italian residents of the Hub and held, if I mistake not, the post of Italian Consul.

In Sicily, after the Messina earthquake, Roosevelt was given a reception by the survivors that surpassed their welcome of their own King Victor. The horses were taken from his carriage and he was drawn by a cheering populace, who hailed him with shouts of:

“_Viva il nostro presidente!_”

The other day two Italians were seen at Oyster Bay, scraping up handfuls of earth from Roosevelt’s grave.

“What’s the idea?” asked the guard on duty.

“We are returning to Italy, where Theodore Roosevelt is greatly honored, and we wish to take this sacred earth with us as a relic,” the Italians explained.

On one of my visits to America, during our long residence in Rome, I had the happy idea of founding in Boston a little Italian club, now grown into an influential society, known as the Circolo Italiano. During the first few years of its existence, my mother was the leading spirit of the Circolo, in which she held the office of Honorary President. The first acting President was Count Salone Campello. We met at the houses of the members once or twice a month, and from time to time enjoyed a banquet at one of the Italian restaurants at the North End. At a certain dinner at the Lombardy Inn my mother made a great hit when she said in her speech of welcome:

“Out of the egg of Columbus was hatched the American Eagle!”

Novelli, the actor, who was the guest of honor, congratulated her on her beautiful enunciation. Years before Tommaso Salvini spoke to me of her rare gift of oratory; and Adelaide Ristori, who twice acted with her in private theatricals in Rome, praised her acting. It is not wonderful perhaps that my love for Italy is second only to that for my own country, for I have been privileged in knowing some of the great Italians of my time.

The first decade of the new century was nearly over before I found myself in America with the prospect of remaining there. An artist’s wife, like a soldier’s, must be ready to march at the tap of the drum and follow her husband wherever his work calls him. I remember saying this to Marion Crawford, and his whimsical summing-up of the whole duty of wives:

“My dear, no matter where your husband’s affairs take you, the most important thing you can do for him is to remind him to put on his rubbers when it rains.”

While thankful for all I had enjoyed in Italy, I rejoiced to be at home again among my own people. During the winter of 1910 we were much in Washington, for the installation of “Diana of the Tides.” This creation of my husband’s brush was given by our friends, Isabel and Larz Anderson, to the New National Museum, where it now occupies a place in the hall of the totems. We missed our friend, Czar Langley, who had been much interested in Diana.

Mr. Langley, for years secretary of the Smithsonian Institute and leading spirit of its manifold undertakings, died in 1906. It has been said that his useful life was shortened by disappointment at the failure of his flying machine and the cruel ridicule he received when the airplane, after rising from the ground, came to grief in the Potomac River.

One bright winter day, two years after Mr. Langley’s death, the notables of Rome were assembled on the russet plain of the Roman Campagna to witness America’s latest victory, the conquest of the air. King Victor was there, surrounded by a group of officers and representatives of the great powers. The Americans were led by the Ambassador’s wife, lovely Elsa Griscom, who seemed, with her eager upturned face, her slight figure a-thrill with expectation, the living embodiment of American genius. It was a proud moment for us when the white-winged airship appeared from its hangar, ran along the ground for a few rods, and rose, circling like a gigantic bird, up and up till it looked no bigger than an eagle.

“Hurrah for Wilbur Wright!” The words burst from an excited Westerner.

“Hurrah for U. S. us!” shouted another compatriot.

I could only murmur under my breath, “Oh, Langley, Langley!”

“This is an historic scene!” a friend said. “Wilbur Wright, the first man to make a practical success of aviation, soaring over the towers of Rome. Not since Daedalus flew from Crete to Cumae and hung up his wings in the Temple of Apollo has such a thing been seen in Italy.”

A few nights later I met Wright and his sister at an Embassy dinner. Miss Wright, a breezy, sprightly girl, took pains to impress it on me that her brother Orville deserved as much credit as Wilbur for their joint invention, though for the moment Wilbur seemed to be getting the lion’s share of limelight. I put this question to Mr. Wright:

“Will you tell me just how much help Mr. Langley’s experiments have been to you?”

He gave an evasive answer; for all that, the name of Samuel Pierpont Langley of Boston will always be numbered among those pioneers who, for good or ill, have made aviation possible. Years before either Langley or Wright, Tennyson foretold it all in Locksley Hall, as the poets have always prophesied every step in human progress:

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the Vision of the World, and all the wonders that would be;
Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew
From the Nations’ airy navies grappling in the central blue.

Washington, since we had seen it, had grown in grace and beauty beyond belief; it was now a noble city with broad avenues, spacious parks, magnificent public buildings, and palatial dwellings. In this, the second year of President Taft’s administration, the capital seemed gayer than ever before. The entertainments were far more formal and elaborate than in the sixties, when my mother visited Mrs. Eames of the famous salon. One dined out every night as a matter of course, just as in London during the season. I found a few of the old friends, Mrs. Bayard, Senator and Mrs. Cabot Lodge, Justice and Mrs. Wendell Holmes, and Uncle Joe Cannon. Some of these regretted with me the changes in the social life since the simpler days I remembered of Miss Loring’s Sunday evenings and Mrs. Bancroft’s afternoons. The changes were inevitable, of course, and only reflected those in the life of the nation. In our great cities to-day, plain living and high thinking are rare as snow in August; this does not imply that they do not exist; only one must light a candle and look for them! The growth of wealth and luxury seems even to have affected the national physique. There were fewer of the spare American type than when I first remember Washington, and more fat men among our legislators. Marking this, I became reconciled to the monstrous growth of public interest in athletics and sports. Uncle Sam, realizing the dangers of too good living, has gone into training as a matter of self-preservation!

On this visit I first realized that to-day the world is run by committees. I spent much time at the Capitol, where the best speaking was heard in the different committee rooms, rather than in the Senate or the House. The Pinchot-Ballinger controversy on the preservation of the forests and other natural resources was the issue of the hour; my journal records that I was present at many of the hearings.

More than once we were included in the group that gathered every day for luncheon at the table of Henry Adams. He lived in a large house built for him by his friend, Richardson the architect. The dwelling was characteristic of both men; it had a rare flavor, expressive of its owner’s taste and character--all for use and comfort, nothing for show--and the ample spaciousness the colossal architect put into everything he built.

Mr. Adams was that _rara avis_, a good talker who is a good listener as well. This in some measure accounts for the many distinguished men among his intimates; he possessed, besides, a positive genius for friendship, not often found in our hurried land, and his company was eagerly sought by such overworked men as Roosevelt, John Hay, Saint-Gaudens, John La Farge, and Cabot Lodge. Though Henry Adams accomplished more than most people, he gave the impression of a certain large leisure and of always having time for his friends. This was in part due to his having a fortune large enough to make him independent, yet not so cumbrous as to bring heavy responsibilities, and in part to the tragedy of his married life. In middle age he lost a beloved wife. All the pain and mystery of his irreparable loss his friend, Saint-Gaudens, was able to express in that shrouded bronze figure, popularly called Nirvana, that broods over her grave in Rock Creek Cemetery. No happily married person can hope to compete in the capacity of friendship with such a man as Adams, if for no other reason, because the day is but twenty-four hours long.

He was working, I think, at this time on that unique volume, “The Education of Henry Adams.” Interesting as it is, the book does not do justice to its hero, and leaves behind a curious sense of disappointment and thwarted ambition that one did not feel in the man himself. The same thing is true of the autobiography of his brother, Charles Francis Adams. Both the Adamses were men of uncommon ability, gifted far above the average of their fellows; each attained an enviable distinction in their day and generation, yet in their memoirs they seem to confess themselves woefully disappointed with life. Different interpretations have been made of this attitude of frank disillusionment, in both brothers. I believe it to have been purely temperamental.

“Is life worth living?”

“It all depends upon the liver.”

The last time I met Henry Adams I found him delightfully mellowed, like a russet apple in the month of February. His wit was less caustic; it was as if, in spite of himself, the man were softening. It could not have been long after this that he said to the friend who bore him company during the latter stage of the journey:

“I have not heard my wife’s name spoken for over twenty years. That was a great mistake.”

The mistake was largely his own. His friends believed--and no man ever had warmer friends--that Mr. Adams did not wish them to mention his wife after her tragic death. So, wittingly or unwittingly, he and they entered into a conspiracy of silence that was only broken when the sands of his life were nearly run.

[To Laura Richards.]

Washington, March 15, 1910.

This morning our old friend, Franklin MacVeagh, now Secretary of
the Treasury, called for us by appointment with the Treasury
carriage--rather an old-fashioned turnout with two horses and a
colored coachman--and took us to call on President Taft. We drove
to the executive offices in one of the new wings McKim has added to
the White House. We waited in a big round room with a soft green
carpet. A picture of Roosevelt hung on the wall, a vase of pink
roses stood on the table under it.

“I brought you early,” Mr. MacVeagh explained, “that you might see
the Cabinet assemble and meet the Ministers, while waiting for the
President.”

The first to arrive was Mr. Dickinson, Secretary of War.

“Is this your office?” I asked him. “Aren’t these roses emblems of
peace rather than of war?”

“My office is next door,” the Secretary answered, “but there are
roses there too. Washington is famous for its flowers; we have many
fine conservatories. I have, by the way, more concerns of peace
than of war on my hands at present. The Panama Canal and the
Philippines take up most of my time.”

George Meyer, Secretary of the Navy--and incidentally our distant
cousin--was the next comer. He was very dapper, wearing, like the
others, a frock coat and tall hat. We had not met since Meyer was
Ambassador to Italy. He asked many questions about Rome, which he
seemed to regret. We talked of the splendid work our navy did for
Italy after the Messina earthquake. I asked him if he had read
Commander Belknap’s report.

“Enough of it to get an idea of what good service you all did down
there,” he answered.

I seemed to hear again the click of Belknap’s typewriter at the
American camp at Mosella, when he sat writing those notable reports
to the Navy Department late into the night.

Admiral Brownson thinks that Meyer is the best Secretary of the
Navy we have ever had. Adams says that Senator Lodge got him the
job. Mr. Lodge was offered the post of Secretary of State, but
refused it and tried to get the position for Meyer, but had to be
content with the Navy portfolio.

“What gossip!” I hear you cry.

Well, isn’t to-day’s gossip to-morrow’s history?

Mr. MacVeagh next introduced Mr. Knox, Secretary of State, a small
stocky man with an harassed face. He was the only one of them who
seemed to show his hand. One had a sense of the heavy
weight--superhuman almost--that rested on all these men; the others
seemed to be able to make light of it for the moment, while Mr.
Knox seemed troubled and nervous. His son’s sudden marriage last
week may have had something to do with it.

“I have been bothered by interviewers all the morning,” he
complained. “We are unlike any other Cabinet officers in the world.
Delcassé tells me he never sees any but the most important persons,
and those only by appointment. The English Cabinet members are
equally well protected. We are at the mercy of Tom, Dick and Harry.
Our time is wasted on all sorts of minor matters, by insignificant
nobodies. Some of us, like your friend MacVeagh here, have social
duties as well. I myself avoid those as much as I can.”

“I like to dine out,” Mr. MacVeagh put in; “it takes my mind off
public affairs and is a real treat. I even like to make calls on
certain people--this season they have been out of the question, we
are all too hard pressed with work.”

“I get my rest in walking and driving,” Mr. Knox observed.
“Whenever it is possible I run down to my farm at Valley Forge.”

As we were talking, President Taft walked in upon us, unannounced.
He has a perfectly disarming personality, kind blue eyes and the
golden smile of a child. As he shook hands with us, he looked a
little piteously at Mr. MacVeagh for prompting. The royalties we
have met learn their lessons better, and seem to know quite as much
about you as you can know about them.

“Mr. Elliott had a very nice letter from you, Mr. President,” Mr.
MacVeagh explained, “thanking him for the work he did at Messina
and conferring upon him the medal of the Red Cross.”

The kind blue eyes, that had been so bewildered, softened as Mr.
Taft said:

“Miss Mabel Boardman is the Red Cross--I am only the President.
Every now and then she tells me what to do and I do it.”

The sweetness and lack of pose of him were enchanting. Many men
would have let us suppose that he was the power behind the Red
Cross, but he gave all the credit to a woman. Mr. MacVeagh then
told him that, like La Fille de Mme. Argot, I was the daughter of
my mother.

“I have had some correspondence with her about the Armenians,” said
the President. “I was obliged to her for bringing their sad
condition to my notice.”

“I have brought you a poem written by the old sibyl in her
ninety-first year. It contains a message for you all.” I handed him
the magazine containing the poem on the Capitol, with these lines
underscored:

Let him who stands for service here
With deeply reverent soul draw near,
To lift the weight that most offends,
The need that other needs transcends.

We now passed into the Cabinet room, where we were introduced to
Mr. James Wilson, for the last thirteen years Secretary of
Agriculture.

“Sit in my chair, Mrs. Elliott,” was his greeting. “We shall have
women in the Cabinet some day, you know.”

When Mr. MacVeagh told him I was Mother’s daughter, he almost
hugged me; he seemed to feel the magic of her name more than any of
them.

“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!” he
quoted. Mr. Wilson looks much older than the others. He seems a man
of real weight, with an impressive personality. He is tall, grave,
and cavern-eyed. How he must have suffered from the battering of
the Ballinger-Pinchot controversy! I showed him a photograph of
Mama.

“I never saw her,” he said; “but she looks just as I thought she
would.”

“I brought this for our Unitarian President,” I confessed, “but I
did not have the courage to give it him.”

“Let me have the honor,” Mr. MacVeagh volunteered.

The Cabinet was now assembled, it was time to leave.

“Thank you all for letting us have a peep at the centre of the big
beehive,” I said.

“You are right,” Mr. Nagle exclaimed, “we are all busy as bees.”

I told Mr. MacVeagh I felt ashamed to have taken up even a few
minutes of their time.

“Not at all,” he answered gallantly. “We are all glad to see you.
You did not want anything; if everybody would only let us off so
easily!”

This was as he was putting us in the carriage. We drove to the
White House to leave our cards, then to Mr. Adams’ for lunch. I
told him how all the Cabinet impressed me as being men too heavily
weighted down, but very gallant in their bearing.

“They are,” he said. “We kill all our Presidents. There is never
more than one ex-President alive. By killing, I don’t mean
murdering them like Lincoln and McKinley; we work them all to
death.”

The fact is, we have outgrown ourselves! The evolution of the
machinery of government has not kept pace with our amazing
development as a nation. I imagine in the future we shall be forced
to subdivide the country into departments, like the Ancient Romans,
grouping the States into South, North, Middle West and North West,
all united under the central Federal Government, as were Hispania,
Britain, and Gaul, at the height of Rome’s power.

Since that visit to the Cabinet, I have been torn with conflicting
feelings. I am still furious about the treatment of Gifford Pinchot
and all he stands for, but this is the crew that must sail the ship
this voyage, this is the captain with his hand on the tiller. We
ought all to stand by, oughtn’t we? And yet, and yet, we cannot
forget! The situation is very strange! There was an article in the
_Washington Post_ last week, called “The Back-to-Elba Club.” It is
aimed at the Rooseveltians. They are a strongly entrenched body,
Henry Adams one of the strongest. There is a sort of romance, a
“Charlie-over-the-Water” sentiment, which is lovely, romantic, and
touching--but is it quite fair? Harry White has ranged under the
new banner, though he was unjustifiably chucked out of office by
the Administration. He is now in high favor, and going down to
South America as the head of the delegation to the Conference at
Argentina. I am full of wonder about this Cabinet. The present is
surely in a very difficult political situation. I suppose to those
who have more knowledge, this is true at all times.

In the winter of 1912 I was again in Washington, on a visit to our old friend, John Loudon, and our new friend, Lydia Loudon, his charming American wife. Loudon was now Minister from the Low Countries to the United States, and the Dutch Legation was counted one of the most attractive houses in the capital. The Loudons had been stationed in Japan, where Lydia had taken a course in the art of arranging flowers. Early on the first day of my visit we drove to the market, where I watched her choose with care branches of yellow forsythia, bunches of daffodils, jonquils, primroses, sprays of feathery mimosa. By lunch time it seemed that spring had come to the legation, though winter still reigned outside. Madame Loudon, like every true artist, is possessed with the passion for perfection that compels her to do whatever she does with all her heart. As I watched her patient, tireless hands, weaving the spell that held her guests of the afternoon enthralled, I had a realizing sense of my own artist’s motto:

“If a thing is worth doing at all, it is worth doing well!”

The Loudons’ musicale brought together the music lovers of Washington, who listened in complete silence to a perfect program. Madame Loudon’s singing is a pure joy. As I heard the rich notes of her contralto voice blend with the dearly familiar tones of my old friend, the harmony seemed happily to express the union of these two uncommon persons. The Loudons are what all hostesses recognize as the rarest of created beings, a perfectly delightful couple. We all know plenty of charming women, and dozens of interesting men, to invite to our dinners; but a pair like the Loudons is a rarity not often met in any sphere, least of all in formal society where such twin souls are scarce as roc’s eggs.

During my stay I had the pleasure of lunching with Mr. and Mrs. Cabot Lodge, another pair of wedded stars; and after lunch I had a few words over the coffee with the host, on the subject that was at that time beginning to be whispered wherever Roosevelt’s friends chanced to meet. I asked Mr. Lodge flatly if in his judgment it would be expedient to nominate Theodore Roosevelt for President at the June convention.

“No,” he said, very decidedly. “In 1916, possibly--it is too early to say more.”

In spite of this pronouncement from Roosevelt’s sagacious and well-loved friend, I went a few days later to see Mr. Roosevelt, at the office of the _Outlook_ in New York, and urged him to allow his name to be proposed for President at Chicago. In that hour I nailed the Roosevelt colors to my mast where they still fly. Looking back to that time, and weighing well all that has happened since, I do not regret my action, though it cost me more than one of my best friends. Could I hope to be remembered at all, it would be as one of the founders of the Progressive Party. Like thousands of Progressives, I would have died for Roosevelt without a thought. We loved him without measure and beyond reason as our leader, the champion of human progress, the hope of the world, the greatest American of our time.