“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
Soren Kierkegaard
Finding Something You’re Not Looking For
In August we published two stories, “What a Spectacle!” about marble tournament competition medals. In the stories we explain how we found the online Library of Congress newspaper archive at the Website Chronicling America. You can use the website to search and read newspaper stories dating from 1690 to the present.
We were having fun reading about marble championship play from the start of the National Tournament in 1922. When we found this photograph we stopped in our tracks.
While the photograph did not fit into the theme of championship marble medals, we really wanted to share it. It says so much about yesteryear in America!
Can you even imagine?
This news photograph is from the Washington Evening Star (the Sunday Star on Sundays) for April 27, 1924. The Star was a daily afternoon newspaper published between 1852 – 1981. The Chronicling America tag for this photograph is: (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, April 27, 1924, Page 16, Image 16.
A Bipartisan Marble Game!
The heading for the photograph reads: “Senators drop their cares to show pages how marbles should be played.” The Senators are members of the 68th Congress (1923 – 1925). While the pages are not named, the senators are (left to right): Johnson, Overman, Ralston, and Fess.
While we cannot be positive, we think that this is Senator Hiram W. Johnson who was a Progressive Republican from California. He served in the Senate from 1917 – 1945. There is a possibility, however, that this is Senator Magnus Johnson, Farmer-Labor Party, from Minnesota. He served from 1923 – 1925, and he lost the election in November 1924. It looks like Senator Johnson is shooting.
Next is Senator Lee Slater Overman who served as a Democrat from North Carolina between 1903 – 1930. We can’t tell if he is waiting to set up or what!
Senator Samuel Mofett Ralston is up next. We understand that Ralston, who served as a Democrat in the Senate between 1923 – 1925, was from a poor family in Indiana and that he worked in a coal mine as a child. He served as Governor of Indiana from 1913 – 1917. Ralston’s party was caught in an controversial dilemma late in the Senator’s career involving political influence. You might want to Google “Complicity in Neutrality…” to check out the story for yourself. Oddly, in the photograph it looks like Ralston is about to shoot at the same time as Senator Johnson!
Finally we have Senator Simeon Davison Fess who was a Republican from Ohio. It seems that he, too, is about to shoot! Senator Fess was an educator and he served in the House of Representatives from 1915 – 1923 and as Senator from 1923 – 1935.
A Brief and Shining Moment
Take another look at the photograph. The ring was drawn at the bottom of the steps of the United States Capitol Building. Ninety eight years ago a bipartisan group of Senators and their pages took time to play marbles and socialize. Just think about how much history those steps have witnessed in the last 98 years!
While we will never know, we hope that Senators often played marbles with their pages. We think that the lessons learned there would transcend both time and place. And we wonder: what newspaper stories and photographs will people be looking at in the archives from 2022?
