EXODUS

SO IT WAS THAT less than a year after the first opening, the quarters became too crowded and a more spacious and fairer home was sought. In March of 1909 when the Club was but one year old it removed to an ancient structure at Fifteenth and F Streets. Across Fifteenth Street to the westward stood the Treasury, still there today. Southward across F. Street stood the Corcoran Building (today the site of the Washington Hotel), one of the first substantial privately-built and operated office buildings, a commercial monument to William Corcoran, a business pioneer of the District and a founding partner of Corcoran and Riggs, banks, known today as the Riggs National Bank, whose first Corcoran Gallery of Art on Pennsylvania Avenue now houses the Court of Claims.

15TH & F STS., 1909 A.D.

On the ground floor of the new quarters was Affleck's Drug Store, an old-time apothecary's establishment which antedated the soda fountain era and where good honest nostrums were dispensed. The Press Club rooms occupying the second and third floor of the structure, spread over many times the space of the drugstore. They reached northward along Fifteenth and eastward along F Street. The building was then nearly a hundred years old but sound in sill and rooftree.

When the lease had been signed but before the Club had actually taken possession, profitable use was made of the new quarters. The lease ran from March 1st and on March 4th fell Inauguration Day when William Howard Taft would pass first to the Capitol to take the oath and then back to the White House to begin his Presidency. On each trip he would pass beneath the windows of the new quarters.

While grandstands were erected along the line of march of an inaugural parade, inclement weather placed a premium on windows giving sheltered command of the spectacle. The story goes that it was John Hays Hammond who was the first customer, taking space enough in the Club's windows to accommodate a party of guests. The windows numbered ten on the Fifteenth Street side and eight on F Street whence a sidelong but good view could be obtained. Even in those days of sound, gold standard dollars such a desirable outlook found ample renters and the Club in a day found its coffers enriched by $900.

The decoration and furnishing proceeded apace and, on March 20th, in the evening, there occurred an extraordinary parade along F Street. Led by the two tallest policemen of the city force and a brass band, the Club marched from the 1205 F Street place westward along F street to Fifteenth. James Preston who was to remain Superintendent of the Senate Press Gallery for 35 years, then a slim young man; Henry Sweinhart, Michael Flynn, Earl Godwin are reputed to have been leaders of this parade with other members following.

Whlle the more ponderous articles of furniture such as the bar were handled by draymen, members bore lighter matters such as pictures, the piano stool, small chairs. The less athletic members were delegated to the easier burdens of playing cards and chips. Otto Carmichael was one of the very few members who possessed an automobile, a vehicle which while not quite a rarity in those days still was regarded as in an experimental stage. Into this had been piled books, bottles, talking machine records and such odds and ends of lares and penates as the Club, in its first year, had collected. Most of the traffic, of course, was horse-drawn and it is a question whether, on that day, more horses shied at the Carmichael car or the Press Club parade.

The Club had begun its career with the figure of a "Billiken", a small statue defined by the dictionary as "a squat, smiling, comic figure" as a sort of mascot. One legend has it that this one had been fashioned by Michael Jacobs, an artist who later was associated with Felix Mahoney. At any rate, the Billiken was borne in state on a sort of platform along the street, much as a saint's figure is borne in a Spanish or Italian fiesta. The procession was noisy, the members bursting into song as they marched, presenting an unusual spectacle to astonished and curious passers-bv. One of the next day's papers saw fit to headline the story of the removal with the words LITTLE FAT GOD MOVES which may have created the impression that the marchers were members of some recondite pagan sect. Ah well! Maybe they were!

And that evening such guests as Nicholas Longworth, Gllbert Hitchcock - ah, ah, refer to the Congressional Directory of the period - joined the newspapermen in wearing the hours away with song and story. The Club was at home in the coziest and, in many respects, the pleasantest quarters it ever has known.

The Club occupied these quarters from 1909 to 1914 and, in some respects, that brief era was the most notable in its entire history. There was no gleaming ballroom, no high-ceiled main lounge, but there was a common room of comfortable dimensions with a useful fireplace as its most dominant feature. The rooms were not so high above the street that, in summer when windows were opened, the clop-clop of horses hooves and the occasional cough of a motor car could not be heard.

In the halcyon years from 1909 to 1914, before World War I unleashed its havoc, Press Club quarters were over Affleck's Drug Store, northeast corner of Fifteenth and F Streets. The view is looking toward the old Riggs House, present site of the Albee Building.

Frank Endres, a restaurateur of the city, had been given the task of conducting the dining room, and good food was served. The bar stocked the finest spirits and wines for, in those days, so long before Prohibition, the Club included many excellent judges of vintages. The card rooms. the small library had a snugness about them which more splendid quarters have never seemed to capture.

There was no Speaker's Committee to make elaborate arrangements for addresses by eminent men. Dignitaries and celebrities were brought to the Club or dropped in of their own volition and became not formal guests, seen at a distance, but members of groups sitting around the fireplace and talking at large.

There were evenings when notice was given that special guests would be present, but the time was more likely to be spent in telling old tales than in making policy statements in the expectation of appearing on the front pages of all newspapers the next day. For example it was fascinating to hear Henry Watterson of the Louisville Courier-Journal recall how Charles Dana had paid him $5 for the first story he ever wrote. Marse Henry, in his youth had been a reporter on the old Washington States from 1858 to 1861 and remembered well when the Senate sat in what was to become the Supreme Court Chamber, and the House had but recently moved from what now is Statuary Hall. He came to the Forty-fourth Congress himself in 1876 but did not stay long preferring to remain in the newspaper business where, by the way, he later employed Louis Brownlow the newspaperman who was to become a District Commissioner.

Dr. Frederick A. Cook reached Scotland from the northern regions in time to file a prior claim to discovery of the North Pole and, on October 3, 1909, he appeared at the National Press Club in Washington, his colors still flying unchallenged, when he explained his accomplishments to eager reporters and others, among them Dr. Harvey W. Whitey, Chief of the Bureau of Chemistry who plied him with questions concerning his diet in the polar regions.

A correction caught up with the adventurous Dr. Cook, for on November 23 who should appear at the Club but Commander Robert E. Peary, U.S.N., who claims to discovery bore closer scrutiny. Walter Wellman, the early aeronaut who, himself, had attempted a flight over the Pole in a balloon, introduced him.

It was on January 31, 1910 that the Club first was visited by a President of the United States. Mr. Taft stopped in on his way back from an automobile ride. Every President since that time has been a visitor, some frequent ones, and all have been members save President Eisenhower.

In 1910 Arthur Dodge of the Kansas City Journal, became the second President of the Club. He had come from Wisconsin and represented papers in that state, in Chicago and elsewhere. He was a man of great dignity and presence, and while he looked too grave himself ever to have been a boy, he brought into the Club Gov. George W. Peck of Minnesota, the author of Peck's Bad Boy, together with the original, George W. Peck Jr., who became an associate member of the Club. Mr. Dodge later became a public relations adviser to the Attorney General and remained active in the Club until his death at the age of 84.

It was in 1910 that Theodore Roosevelt returned from his big game hunting trip in Africa, a "Return from Elba," as some political writers of the period sought to find it. On the evening of November 19, he appeared at the Club. It must again be emphasized that, on such occasions, the visitor was not on a stage, at a high table as in the later days of Club history, but lounged with the members in complete informality, chatting at large. On that occasion, for example, Colonel Roosevelt told of how entirely happy he was to be free of official responsibility. There was no shadow before of the coming days of the Bull Moose Party that followed the rift with President Taft and he told of how, in the African jungle, a lion had sprung at him three times and how three times he had successfully evaded the king of beasts, finally shooing it away. And he went on to relate that the next morning, seeing a commotion among birds not far distant, be raised his binoculars and saw the same lion practicing, as he said, short jumps in the hope of better performance. (Was it before or afterthis evening that he had formed the Ananias Club?) Al1 was still harmonious between him and Mr. Taft, who again visited the Club on New Year's Eve of 1910.

First Presidential visitor, William Howard Taft, later Chief Justice of the United States. On January 31, 1910, President Taft climbed the narrow stairs to our cozy quarters over Affleck's Drug Store. Frank Matera, then as now behind the Club bar, served him a drink of water, and received the rosebud the President wore in his lapel. The Matera family still has it, pressed in a book.

It was in this jolly period that the Club inaugurated a series of special entertainment nights, bringing the Club a particular cachet which endured longer in reputation than in practice. There has been nothing quite like it of recent years. On January 30 1912 was presented the first Hobby Night.

Many people have hobbies which they ride, often to the ennui of their associates; a Press Club Hobby Night had wider scope. If anyone that night had any prescience of what was to come but a few years later, he made no mention of it when the Count von Bernstorf, the Ambassador of the German Emperor, declared to the Club that his hobby was peace. Philander Knox, the Secretary of State, also claimed peace as his subject while both asserted that accurate newspaper reports were of great value in diplomacy.

Frederic J. Haskin, who had started newspaper life on a Missouri weekly and had built a wide-spreading newspaper syndicate and produced books on governmental subjects, and became a world traveller and gifted story-teller, was President that year of 1912. In addition to the others, he introduced Dr. S. W. Stratton, Director of the National Bureau of Standards, an agency which stood in about he same relation to the press in those days as the Atomic Energy Commission does today: that is, it meant the last word in science.

Then followed Victor Herbert, in mellow mood, who made no effort to speak save with his cello. By that time Mr. Herbert's accomplishments as a composer of light opera and an orchestra leader were so overshadowing that few people realized that he was himself, a notable performer. It was Mr. Haskin who had drawn the reluctant Herbert forth and it is almost certain that the Press Club was the last audience ever to hear him as a cello soloist.

Hobby Nights were held on several occasions. Indeed, both the Club and its guests seemed eager to spread knowledge of these special interests widely. And always, such entertainments would be in an atmosphere of informal pleasure. Joseph Cannon and Champ Clark, both eminent Speakers of the House, talked about their hobbies which usually in their cases, had historical and political twists. Andrew Carnegie confessed that his youthful desire was to become a newspaperman. As organizer of the telegraph department for the Union Armies in the Civil War he had encountered the certainly picturesque war correspondents of that hectic time and was captivated by the idea of bringing news to the people.

The big game hunter, fresh from jungle adventure, gets ready to go gunning for the biggest game of all! Theodore Roosevelt, unhappy with Taft, before the Bull Moose campaign of 1912, as Cliff Berryman of the Washington Evening Star figured it.

The most notable and indeed the most interesting public figure to confess to or boast of his hobbies was President Woodrow Wilson. The Club had moved on to its next quarters when Mr. Wilson appeared but his story belongs here. He said that his hobbies included fishing, baseball and wrestling but, more intimately, running to fires behind the clanging engines, gossiping with the policeman on the beat, reading the grislier type of detective stories, the circus and watching street dog fights. These were the things he missed in the White House.

It was while the Club was in the old quarters that burlesque joint debates were first held. On December 12, 1912 there was a debate on the question Resolved: That bow-legs are a greater menace to navigation than knock-knees. This obviously, was a juvenile sort of performance but it gained in interest from the character of the debaters and the fact that, assuredly, in no other case could such a debate be held between such participants. The debaters were the bow-legged team of William Selzer, Representative from New York and, later Governor, and James M. Cox, Governor of Ohio and in 1920 the Democratic candidate for President. The knock-kneeded team consisted of Thomas P. Gore, the blind Senator from Oklahoma, and Boies Penrose, Senator from Pennsylvania and among the most controversial politicians of his era. And who should be the referee but John Hays Hammond, the mining engineer!

It was while the Club was in the old quarters, too, that an extraordinary spelling bee was conducted. On June 6, 1913, soon after the Wilson Administration had begun, it became quickly obvious that a more spacious room would be necessary to hold the people who wanted to attend. So the ballroom of the Willard Hotel was taken for the occasion and there came President Wilson, his Cabinet and everyone else who could command an invitation.

In former times newspapermen took pride in their ability to spell, having had stern schooling in their younger days from city editors, copy desk men and, of course, the high court of appeal, the proof room. Yet they were spelled down by Members of Congress. Secretary of Agriculture David Houston, later to serve as Secretary of the Treasury in Mr. Wilson's Cabinet, took the part of schoolmaster and read out the words to the contestants.

There were fourteen on a side and their names are an absorbing footnote to history in themselves. On the Congressional side was Senator Ashurst who today is the only living man who served as a first Senator of any State. He was one of the first two Arizona elected on being admitted to the Union as a State. Then there was Senator George Norris of Nebraska the conservationist and liberal who pressed through the Amendment providing for the popular election of Senators. There was Senator Joseph T. Robinson of Arkansas, the Majority Leader and Vice Presidential candidate on the 1928 Democratic ticket. There were Representatives Hardwick of Georgia, Kahn of California and Willis of Ohio.

The newspaper team included Ira Bennett, Editor of the Post, Frank Carpenter, the world traveler, Fred Emery of the Associated Press and Frank Essary of the Baltimore Sun. The contest ran on and on and it looked as though there would be no victory. Then William J. Showalter of the National Geographic Magazine brought forth the old blue-backed Holmes Speller which the little red school-houses of his Shenandoah boy- hood had known and the Secretary began with the back of the book. Oddly enough the farm boy, Senator Norris went down on cantaloupe; Fred Essary failed on exsiccate; Senator Robinson on quintessence and Frank Carpenter on desiccation. Two lawmakers and one newspaperman remained when Ira Bennett went down on bdellium. Senator Poindexter of Washington and Representative Frank B. Willis of Ohio remained until Senator Poindexter failed on hydrocephalus, and Mr. Willis was declared the winner.

Yet there was a sequel. The morning papers announced the victory but learned men came forward the next day and asserted with authority that there were both noun and adjective forms or hydrocephalus. Both of which could be regarded as acceptable. So the match was tied as between the statesmen but nothing could redeem the failure of the newspapermen . It was a blow.

1910 Officers and Board of Governers. Seated from left: Arthur C. Johnson, Secretary, Chicago Tribune; Gideon A. Lyon, jr., Treasurer, Washington Star; Arthur J. Dodge, President, Kansas City Journal; Ernest G. Walker, Boston Herald; Elmer E. Payne, Associated Press. Standing: John Russell Young, Washington Star; Thomas Kirby, Washington Herald; Scott C. Bone, Washington Herald; Louis Strayer, Pittsburg Gazette.

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