The uniformed pages who sit on the steps around the presiding officer's chair represent an old tradition in the United States Senate. Since Daniel Webster appointed nine-year-old Grafton Hanson as the first page in 1829, pages have served in and about the Senate Chamber, running errands, carrying messages, sorting papers, filling ink wells and snuff boxes, and doing whatever tasks were assigned to them. Donald J. Detwiler served as a Senate page from 1917 to 1918 during momentous years for the Congress and for the nation. Born in Toronto, Canada, in 1903, Detwiler spent his early years in Kansas City. At the age of 14, Detwiler received the opportunity of a lifetime when his father, a Kansas City attorney, arranged for his appointment as a Senate page under the patronage of Kansas's senior senator, William H. Thompson. On November 28, 1917, Donald, in the company of his mother and younger brother, boarded a train for Chicago and thence to the nation's capital. In this interview he recounts, with great clarity and insight, the subsequent events and images of his tenure as a page.