Of all these the old Chesapeake and Ohio canal is by far the most distinctive. And how the Washington folk do love that old waterway! What fun they do have out of it with their motor boats and their canoes. If that old water-highway, almost losing its path in the stretches of thick wood and undergrowth, had been created as a plaything for the capital city, it could hardly have been better devised. The motor boats and the canoes set forth from Georgetown--on holidays and Sundays in great droves. They go all the way up to Great Falls--and even beyond--working their passage through the old locks, exchanging repartee with the lock-tenders, loafing under the shadows of the trees, drinking in the indolence of the summer days.
But Shafer's Lock or Cabin John's Bridge is not the Chevy Chase Club and official Washington knows that. It reads in the daily papers of that other life, of the folk who wear white flannels and dawdle around great porches all day long; hears rumors brought, Lord knows how, from the gossipy Metropolitan Club; almost touches shoulders with its smart breakfasts and lunches and dinners when it comes in and out of the confectioners' and the big hotels. But it is none the less apart, hopelessly and irrevocably apart. Uncle Sam may take the office folk of his capital and give them the assurance of a livelihood through long years, but that is all. He gives them no chance to step out of the comfortable rut into which they have been placed. The good positions, the positions that mean rank and title and entrance to the hallowed places, rarely come through promotions. They are the gifts of fortune, gifts even to strange folk from Cleveland or Madison or Stockton. They are not the reward of faithful service at an unknown desk.
And so official Washington, as we have seen here, is quite helpless. The other official Washington--the official Washington of the society columns--little cares. It is not above noticing the twenty thousand, but it is mere notice and nothing more. And as for interest or graciousness or kind-heartedness--they are quite out of the question. Washington is being rebuilt, in both its physical and its social structure. The architects of its social structure are not less capable than those folk who are working out marvels in steel and marble. These first see the Washington of tomorrow, modeled closely after the structures of European capitals. Already our newly created class of American idle rich is establishing its _habitat_ along the lovely streets of our handsomest town. That is a beginning. In some of the departments they have begun to serve tea at four of an afternoon--just as they do on the terrace of the House of Commons. That is another beginning. We are starting.