The Daily Routine at Wentworth

 

Transportation from the hotel to the Shipyard included both automobiles and a Concord coach.

Inside the grand Wentworth spaces the American social set admired, the spirit of hospitality prevailed.

 

The newspaper noted, “It is said that M. Witte is very lavish with his tips, and he gives them with a free hand. .. each morning he takes $50 in American money for use during the day, and there is seldom a day that he does not use it all, the greater part going for tips.” Still, the staff that was alert to the daily distribution of tips never forgot their duty to provide unobtrusive service. Their delivery might have been a little less than perfect but was nonetheless sincere. As the celebrities moved through the hotel, the Governor hosting a dinner party here; the Japanese needing an urgent telegram coded for dispatch to Tokyo there, Wentworth functioned as the smoothly choreographed ensemble its reputation promised.

 

As the tide of diplomats surged in and out each day, the shoals of newspapermen and onlookers, would settle, never far from the door or telegraph should breaking news erupt. The mood, the buzz of conversation, must have been electric. The Herald wrote, “Surely, never in the history of this country has there been such a convention of the Lost Legion, the Wanderers of the World as is now taking place at the Hotel Wentworth. There’s hardly a region on the face of the earth, except interior Tibet, where someone now quartered at the Hotel Wentworth has not been. East and West meet there. Nearly every language on earth is spoken in the hotel’s big dining room.”

 

At dinner, from the first night on, the waiters served the two sides in the same room, at separate tables, without offense, successfully navigating the diplomatic rocks that Roosevelt had feared the hope of peace would founder upon. As the Herald reported,

“A certain space… separated the two boards; yet the plenipotentiaries were within speaking distance of each other and all sat under the same hospitable and welcoming roof. That this quasi-fraternization of the envoys should have taken place in a large banqueting hall common to all the guests of the hotel was itself fraught with democratic suggestions, and to many of the spectators seemed like a happy augury of the outcome to the congress.”

 

The Russians led by Witte were voluble; the Japanese silent. Neither side cared for the food; but both sides seemed to appreciate the company in their own very different ways, lingering in the Palm Court or hovering as the Japanese did, on the edge of a musical entertainment, their backs turned in seeming indifference but nonetheless partaking of the scene.

Next: Witte and Rosen enjoy the Palm Court.