A New Book*

Pop Questions that Do Not Matter a Tittle

One cannot drive a gasoline engine with lubricating oil alone, and one cannot drive it well without a lubricating oil. It is the same with History. One cannot write a history consisting only of anecdotes and sidelights, but a history without these is barren, inadequate, unpalatable. So it is not a history that David S. Barry, onetime Senate page, longtime newspaper correspondent, and more recently Sergeant-at-Arms of the Senate, has written in his memoirs of four decades at the Capitol. He has furnished one of the lubricants of history.

For those who are beginning to put on their lean and slippered pantaloons, for those still full of wise saws and modern instances, Mr. Barry has written a book reanimating the great politicians of their younger days. It is a wandering book digressing confoundedly. The greater part of its space and the better part of its piquancy are allotted to the first two of the four decades in review. McKinley, Roosevelt, Taft and Wilson pass through with dignified despatch at the end. Perhaps too many of the dramatis personae of the later acts are still living, for Mr. Barry to tell his best anecdotes of them.

Forty Years is full of those facts which do not matter a tittle, but by the sheer surprise of their forgottenness make nonpareil tattle. It fills a reader with pride at his newly acquired knowledge, and he turns to his ignorant family, challenges them with a string of questions:

"Under what President was the White House first dry ?-- Under Rutherford B. Hayes. Mrs. Hayes of the Lucy Webb Hayes Temperance Society, would not allow wine on the table.

"What two women in the United States can each boast of having been the daughter, the wife, the mother of a Senator? -- Mrs. Eugene Hale, daughter of Zachariah Chandler of Michigan, wife of Eugene and mother of Frederick Hale of Maine, all Senators; Mrs. Stephen B. Elkins, daughter of Henry G. Davis, wife of Stephen B. and mother of Davis Elkins, all Senators from West Virginia.

"What Senator was popularly known as 'The Mormon Elder'? -- The late Joseph E. Brown of Georgia who was not a Mormon, but old, sanctimonious and rubbed his hands as if washing them 'with invisible soap in imperceptible water.'

"What Mormon elders are there in the Senate?--Senators Smoot and King of Utah, neither especially old nor sanctimonious.

"What Senator was jocularly known as 'Moses'?--George Franklin Edmunds* of Vermont, because he had a shiny bald head, a wavy gray beard, long nose, and because he often led his party out of the wilderness of defeat.

"How many colored men have there been in the U.S. Senate and who was the last?--Two, the latter was Blanche K. Bruce of Mississippi, who was eulogized by his colleague Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar, an old-line blue-blood aristocrat of the South, as one who reflected credit upon his race, his state and the American Government.

"Who was and what connection with the Government had the man who first used the word 'crank' in its psychological sense?--His name was Charles J. Guiteau and he used the word in describing himself after he had assassinated President Garfield.

"Who was the last man to wear a swallow tail coat* in the Senate?-- Omar D. Conger of Michigan, who went to the Senate in 1881, after several years as Republican whip in the House.

"For what three prominent men in the last century has it been necessary to construct special chairs?--Judge David Davis of Illinois, once President pro tempore of the Senate; Boies Penrose, Senator from Pennsylvania and William H. Taft (as President) all had special chairs built to accommodate their proportions.

"What Senator was so short that he had his seat and automobile altered to fit him--The late Senator Knox, colleague of Penrose. "Who was the only man who ever took off his coat in the House of Representatives?--Elisha Adams Morse, manufacturer of shoe polish, who took off his coat while making a speech, was admonished by Speaker Reed, and put it on again; no one has done it since.

"Who was the Secretary of State who received diplomats in his shir) sleeves and had a secretary, later to become well known, who approved of the innovation?--Walter Q. Gresham of Indiana; and his private secretary, who later fined the Standard Oil Co. $22,000,000 and became Dictator of Baseball, was Kenesaw Mountain Landis.

"What famous officeholder had his health so impaired by his arduous office that his lunch was, by physician's orders, one apple, sliced thin?--William Howard Taft who while President grew to weigh 320 pounds from lack of exercise. Now he walks three miles to the Capitol every morning, smiling all the way, takes a bath, and then goes to the Supreme Court Chamber, with the result that he weighs about 60 pounds less.

"What President used to sit in an upper room of the White House, studying papers and tapping out his own comments on a battered typewriter?-- Woodrow Wilson.

"What an ignorant family you are never to have learned any of these important facts!"

*Forty YEARS IN WASHINGTON -- David S. Barry-- Little, Brown ($3.50).

*Not to be confused with George Higgins Moses, now Senator from New Hampshire.

*This garment, in fashion during the Civil War, was worn both day and evening, and is not to be mistaken for the Prince Albert which in turn is becoming extinct in favor of the business suit.