by Smith, Gene;
They turned up the Avenue and headed northwest, the crawling line of cars going no faster than the slow march of the boys by the hearse, the unbroken line of people under the black dripping umbrellas motionless save for those women—and men, also—who reached under their coats and brought out handkerchiefs. Fort Myer’s guns thudded.
In New York, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise spoke to the crowd jamming Madison Square Garden. His words were carried out to the overflow in the street by transmitters. He touched for a bitter moment on those who opposed the League: “May history compassionately embalm in oblivion the names and deeds of those who, to punish your and my leader—the hope-bringer of mankind—struck him down and broke the heart of the world!” He tried to go on, but a terrible roar, a great swelling snarl, reached up to him. “God forgive them!” he shouted, but he could not be heard. Outside in the street the overflow crowd joined in and the frightening sound rolled in to meet that of the people inside. Rabbi Wise shouted again, “God forgive them!” In a soft hat wet with New York’s rain a small, slim man looked on: Colonel House, uninvited to the funeral.
Up Massachusetts Avenue wound the silent procession approaching Mount Saint Alban and the towering arches of the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul. The sound of the tolling bells came through the wet air to meet the cars, and when the hearse turned into the spacious grounds the bells played Nearer, My God, to Thee.
The tires of the cars whispered through the slush on the winding road leading past the gardens to the church itself. It was maintained by the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation, but all Christian denominations made use of it, for it had no congregation of its own. It was meant to be, and was, a church of prayer for all groups. Under dripping cedars the fifty thousand who waited pressed forward, their umbrellas making a solid black mass.
The hearse stopped, the other cars halting behind it. The eight boys reached in for the casket and drew it out and took it up and in step marched with it to the door of the Bethlehem Chapel. Over that entrance, in raised stone lettering was: The Way to Peace.
The boys carried their burden down the narrow corridor leading to the chapel sepulchre, passing thousands and thousands of banked flowers, the greatest floral display Washington had ever seen, flowers from the Republic of Armenia, Gouvernement Beige, Embasada Mexico, flowers “with the homage of the President and Government of the French Republic,” the People of Poland, the Girl Scouts of America, the King of Siam, and an old woman who lived along Conduit Road to whom a President and a First Lady had once given a set of knitting needles in appreciation for a scarf she had knit and sent to the White House. In front of the entrance to the chapel was a big American flag made of flowers, the tribute of a group of Confederate veterans. Pinned to it was a little silk Stars and Bars.
The eight servicemen went in and put the casket down in the center aisle in front of a beautifully carved altar of the Nativity. Tall waxen candles gleamed and dim light came through the high Gothic windows, each showing in tinted glass a part of the story of the Nativity. The invited guests for whom there had been no room in the house sat in their seats on either side of the aisle; those who had been in S Street filed in and sat down also. The organist, Warren F. Johnson, who had been a White House Executive Office employee, played Chopin’s Funeral March. Outside, transmitters brought the sound to the people; radio stations brought it to listeners gathered by their sets in every part of the country and to the now silent throng inside and outside Madison Square Garden. Above the waiting tomb in the very heart of the crypt shone a tri-cornered lamp symbolic of the Trinity.
The choir came down the corridor and entered and stood in the aisle with the casket, some at the head, some at the foot. Bishop Freeman said, “‘I am the Resurrection and the life, saith the Lord. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.’” The Reverend Taylor said, “‘The days of our age are three score years and ten, and though men be so strong that they come to four score years, yet is their strength then but labor and sorrow; so soon passeth it away and we are gone.’” Outside the church and outside the District of Columbia and many miles away, the prayer was heard; in the Cathedral grounds people sank to their knees in the slush and men took off their hats and prayed even as the dampness of the fading gray day came drifting down in soft snow to wet their heads and drop upon their shoulders.
Bishop Freeman said, “‘So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O Death! Where is thy sting? O Grave! Where is thy victory?’”
The organ notes sounded faintly a favorite, favorite hymn. The choir sang:
“Day is dying in the west,
Heaven is touching earth with rest.
Wait and worship while the night
Sets her evening lamps alight.”
The singing ended, and in the chapel and through the transmitters outside and the radios came the Apostles’ Creed recited by clergymen and mourners. They recited the Lord’s Prayer and Bishop Freeman prayed for the family. Then with raised hand he pronounced the benediction. Those members of the choir between the altar and the head of the casket moved past the casket and joined the other members at the foot and went down the aisle and out into the corridor. Their chanting grew softer and softer in the distance, so that finally only a gentle hint wound back to the hearing of the people sitting in the chapel with the black coffin and the orchids: “‘That we may live and sing to thee, Alleluia,’” and a far-off final “Amen.” It was dusk outside.
The organ played the Recessional softly. President Coolidge arose and walked out and the other mourners followed him. Only the family and Cary Grayson were left with the eight servicemen at attention in the rear of the room and the workmen who would move away the marble slab in the aisle that covered the entrance to the underground cavern where the casket would rest. Those workmen stepped forward and moved the great heavy slab and put it to one side. The boys came and took the casket and put it on the beams that would lower it down many feet into the vault’s darkness.
Edith stood at the foot of the casket by the open hole in the floor which the slab had covered and looked up toward the altar. The girls were with her, and McAdoo, and Cary Grayson. Bishop Freeman said, “‘Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up and is cut down like a flower. He fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay. In the midst of life we are in death.’” He recited Tennyson’s Crossing the Bar:
“Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark.”
Slowly the casket began to sink down into the vault, the orchids riding down with it and with the simple plate on it saying Woodrow Wilson Born December 28 1856 Died February 3 1924. Bishop Freeman’s hand moved slowly through the dim candlelight. “‘Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.’”
Outside, standing by the chapel door, Sergeant Frank Withey of the Third United States Cavalry lifted the bugle with which he had sounded Taps for the Unknown Soldier at Arlington and raised it to his lips to send into the darkness of this day once again the notes he played then.
Day is done.
Gone the sun.
Goeth day, cometh night,
And a star,
Leadeth all,
Speedeth all,
To their rest.
Edith turned and headed blindly toward the door. McAdoo took her arm and led her out, and the two girls trailed after them. The clergymen went out. The eight boys went out.
Only the workmen stood waiting for the casket to finish its slow trip to the vault so that they might move the great slab back into position, only they and one other: Cary Grayson. “Please take good care of Woodrow,” Ellen had said. The casket went down and vanished from view.
&
nbsp; Not long afterward, Edith Wilson in her home at S Street came across a little change purse that her husband had always carried in his pocket. She opened it and saw that in a special closed section of the purse there was an object carefully wrapped in tissue paper. She undid the paper and shook it out. Something fell into her hand. At once she knew what it was she held. It was the dime the little boy handed up as the train pulled out of Billings, Montana.
* Chief Justice William Howard Taft’s office also announced that illness would prevent his attendance. However, the decision was made upon the recommendation of Cary Grayson following an examination at Taft’s home.
* Who, it is interesting to know, had years earlier advised McAdoo to have nothing to do with E. L. Doheny.
Acknowledgments, Bibliography, and Notes
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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