In my vain attempt to read all the books referencing Capitol Hill, I recently came across another odd item: Frontier on the Potomac. Written in 1946 by Jonathan Worth Daniels – that’s him on the left – it purports to give the inside scoop on what goes on in Washington by looking at 20 different groups and organizations in Washington, from Congress to the Civil Service Commission. He even has a chapter about women in D.C., entitled “’The Saloon, the Salon, and the Salome.’”
Unfortunately, Daniels attempts to tell his story by writing up a series of “anecdotes” that either happened to him or were told to him. Some of the stories are dubious, including one about a Lieutenant Governor of an unnamed state, who died in a plane crash – and before his body could be moved, the Governor showed up and removed a briefcase from the crash site. The historical record does not support this story in any way; no Lieutenant Governor has ever died in a plane crash, at least according to the (fairly thorough) Political Graveyard website.
Nonetheless, some of the stories he tells are of interest to Hill aficionados. The first chapter, which is devoted to the day the Harry Truman became President, includes this snippet:
Just fifteen minutes before sunset that evening they had found him in the pleasant hide-out office of bald-headed Sam Rayburn, Speaker of the House, on one of the maze of hardly used corridors in the Capitol. The Vice-President, dry after presiding over hours of Senatorial debate on a water treaty, had come to join the Speaker and other convivial officials and friends in late afternoon relaxation. “Harry” smiled through his thick lenses as he came in eager for the Speaker’s bourbon. He got the telephone call instead.
Later, in a chapter on Congress, Daniels returns to the subject of entertaining members of Congress. In this case, it is Biffle’s Tavern, also referred to in other sources as Biffle’s Diner. Leslie Biffle was a long-time employee of the Senate, and rose to the position of Secretary of the Senate. As such, he had access to a beautiful suite of rooms on the second floor of the Senate wing of the Capitol.
It is not far from the floor. Senators go in past clerks and ledgers. There always seem a large number of elderly gentlemen on the Senate’s clerical staff. Beyond them are a small room and a long one. I remember that the smaller room has windows in a southwest corner which look across to Lee’s house and Lincoln’s memorial. Also, I remember that there was good whisky on the table. And that it was a place where good fellows get together – but not merely for pleasure.
While Daniels mentions that Truman was a favored guest at this table as Vice President, one has to go to the Senate’s history site to find that Truman remained loyal to it even after becoming President: The day after his inauguration, he went back to the Capitol for a lunch with seventeen of his closest colleagues from his time in the Capitol, and thereafter, Biffle remained a close confidant and connection to Congress.
If you want to see these rooms today, go visit Senate Majority Leader’s Schumer’s offices in the Capitol – in 1987, Senator Byrd took over the space for his use, and it was inherited by Schumer.