The Capital: Ring in the New

The mood of expectancy swept through Washington. It lurked in the crowded corridors of the Capitol Building, where returning Congressmen jostled painters touching up the Brumidi frescoes, buzzed through the downtown Democratic clubs and patronage offices, rang out in the lilt of High Hopes and Walking Down to Washington among the New Year's Eve dancers at Chevy Chase Club and in the jammed hotel ballrooms. Along Pennsylvania Avenue, workmen rushed new tiers of spectator stands for John Fitzgerald Kennedy's inaugural parade, and the requests for tickets reached blizzard stage.

A team of workers prowled the parade route atop a mobile boom, spraying the sycamores with a bird-repellent, Roost-No-More, which is hopefully expected—at a cost of $10,000 to the inaugural committee—to keep the top-hatted politicians and a million spectators safe from Washington's plague of starlings (it worked fine in 1957).

Beaming Dome. Focal point of all the bustle, and of the inauguration itself, is Capitol Hill. Chandeliers were being polished. The old Senate Office Building gleamed after a scrubdown. The $10 million whim of House Speaker Sam Rayburn —the two-year job of moving the Capitol's east front 32½ feet forward—was a gleaming reality (although the new inte rior space will be useless until another $3,000,000 is sunk in remodeling). The outdoor platform where Kennedy will take the oath of office was in readiness, facing a jungle gym of stands for the press (more than 600 reporters—a record —have applied for credentials, including 75 foreign correspondents from as far away as Viet Nam, Malta and Indonesia).

At night the Capitol dome, which has just had a dazzling, million-dollar facial, beamed down on the city.

The House Office Buildings were warrens of chaos, as defeated Congressmen took their time about moving out and their successors queued up impatiently to move in. Last week 55 Congressmen-elect drew lots for new office suites (Pennsylvania Republican Dick Schweiker, drawing Lot No. 55, found there was no more space available, will have to wait until an office can be found). The quest for jobs on the Hill was becoming frantic. Surprisingly, many of the most anxious Capitol job seekers were Democrats: with 45 new Republican representatives, and only 18 new Democrats, a few secretaries of outgoing Democratic Congressmen were wringing their hands. The U.S. Employment Service's Capitol Hill office reported that, out of some 400 applications received, fewer than 40 persons had been placed. The House Education and Labor Committee screened 125 applicants to fill the twelve positions it has to offer.

Nowhere was the search for jobs more frenzied than in the noontime babble at the National Capital Democratic Club, a luncheon club that suddenly found itself doing a land office business. Initiation fees leaped from $30 to $50, and the board of governors was seeking a larger clubhouse to replace its outgrown quarters in the Sheraton-Carlton dining room. The new elite were greeted effusively at the club: Labor Secretary-designate Arthur Goldberg, dropping in for lunch with Michigan's Senator Pat McNamara, was welcomed by kisses from female members, wrenching handshakes from the men.