War-Time Washington BY HARRISON RHODES HE arrival by railway at the nation's capital used to take place in a cloud of eager and smiling blacks, cheerfully called "Red-Caps,' who competed for the privilege of carrying your hand-bag. Under the station's portico numerous willing taxicabs, circling like gray doves, waited to bear you to hotels behind the desks of which suave clerks welcomed you with semi-Southern hospitality. "Other times, other customs!" You tote your own grip now. wait, in the far hope of securing a taxicab, or a part of one, you can make acquaintances and swap stories concerning the incredible difficulties, dangers, and delays of the pilgrimage Washingtonward. It was here recently that two happy youths were encountered who had come back to the station for their suitcases, having, after a four hours' search through twenty-two hotels and boarding-houses, by the grace of God, found a room in a Turkish Bath which they were to share with only three others! Those who actually sleep in bedrooms of their And while you own in Washington hotels seem like a Copyright, 1918 by Harper & Brothers. All Rights Reserved. race apart, fabulous, like the gods. Important arrivals often only secure cots in the ladies' parlor or under the telegraph counter, while less great people are glad of a go at the billiard-table when the balls are silent and the lights low. The congestion in private houses is equally notable. A friend in need is always a friend indeed, but a friend in Washington-Washingtonian hospitality is stretched almost to the breaking point. Exhausted hostesses rush to the peace and quiet of New York for a few days' rest and come back, only to find that in their absence friends have occupied all the spare-rooms, having forced themselves upon defenseless butlers left in charge, who had known them as honored and welcome guests in earlier less aggravated days, and scarcely dared turn them out to sleep in the near-by parks or gutters. There is a storydoubtless untrue-of one woman at bay who is actually having the workmen in to tear down partitions and reduce radically the number of bedrooms in her house. She expresses the fear, however, that her friends will merely convert the enlarged quarters into dormitories and come in even greater numbers. Every American who can must now live at the capital, every one who cannot must constantly visit there. Washington is now the nation's housing problem, its congested district. There is a feeling in Washington that if the excess tax upon war profits is properly adjusted it will be the realestate agents of the capital who will bear almost the greatest part. They themselves admit that a month's business now is worth what a decade's was. The crush for houses, furnished or unfurnished, and the prices paid for them, have been astounding. One Washingtonian who had just moved into a charming but modest new residence which cost her $30,000 to build, was sorely tempted by an offer of $15,000 for it for this past A PROFUSION OF OUR OWN UNIFORMS AND THOSE OF OUR ALLIES winter's season! Prices were not so fantastic last spring; terque quaterque beati those who heard the call of the capital in April and closed with the owners then. As winter set in and in a passionate November the whole nation determined to live in Washington, house-hunting became a strenuous game. The forgotten, sleepy, pleasant parts of the town. which lie toward the Capitol from the haunts of fashion were invaded. The lovely older city across the ravine was remembered, and "combing Georgetown for houses," as it was technically termed, became a leading outdoor sport-fashionable ladies hunted a home as in other days a fox. And some, touched with hysteria, even spoke of the possibility of living in those unexplored districts northeast and southeast of the Capitol. Any one having a furnished house to let is strategically in a very strong position, and can demand things of prospective tenants which are not ordinarily "But I mean it," she went on. "And it's been put in the lease." And she did mean it, and they refused to sign and did not get the flat! If the impression has been given that Washington now consists wholly of people who came there last week to live, this is exactly what is meant. The old Washington and the old Washingtonians now swim like the debris on a spring flood. Some, of course, having let their houses advantageously, have retired on a competence and are gone altogether. month. This makes a metropolis fast and provides a "floating population beside which the famous "floaters" of New York almost sink into insignificance. Washington has never been thought a "theater-town." But this last winter, while the playhouses elsewhere have been sparsely patronized, those of the capital-one almost writes "the metropolis"-have been continuously and profitably filled. The audiences are cosmopolitan and competent. Will the day ever come when they "try it on the dog" in New York before they risk the Washingtonian verdict? In other ways the capital has become agreeably metropolitan. Just as soon as she felt she could risk it, Washington began to tear up the streets-quite in ographers. And equally monstrous accommodation will be required for every kind of helper in the great governmental machine of war. Just now Washington is swamped. Its inconveniences and inefficiencies are an endless tale. The telephone service is chaotic, sometimes almost non-existent. The company does not exaggerate when, appealing for operators by placards in the street-cars, it assures young women that work in the exchange is a genuine patriotic service to one's country. The street-cars, contrived with a cruel ingenuity for close-packing, are crowded in a way that would do credit even to New York's rush hour in the Subway. The express companies are distracted; goods confided to them may be consid |