THE CENTENARY OF THE CITY OF WASHINGTON.
MHE centenary of the city of Washington has just been
celebrated. On September 18th, 1793, the corner-stone of the Capitol was laid, but it was not until June, 1800, that the United States Government moved into its new home, and the foundation of the city has therefore always dated from the latter year. The seat of government was first in Phila- delphia, then it was removed to New York, where Washington was inaugurated as President in front of what is the Sub- Treasury in Wall Street, then it was once more transferred to Philadelphia, and finally was established in the brand-new city on the banks of the Potomac, the only instance in any great modern State of the capital being a purely political city with no trade, no finance, no traditions,—a city literally carved out of the wilderness. The wife of John Adams wrote to a friend : "We are surrounded by woods, with no wood to burn." The Minister from Portugal first used the well-known phrase about the "city of magnificent distances," while another writer called the new capital a "wilderness city set in a rand-hole almost equal to the great Serbonian bog." In a work published in 1807 we read that there was no impression of anything like a city, and that you might have to go through a deep wood for a mile to see your next-door. neighbour. A member of Congress writing in 1800 describes the celebrated Pennsylvania Avenue, now one of the world's famous streets, as "nearly the whole distance a deep morass covered with elder bushes, which were cut through to the President's house." The discomforts of the new city were great. The White House was a bare ban-ask, the linen was dried inside, labour was so scarce that firewood could not be collected, and tie Presidential household shivered over miserable fires on winter nights. It was an unpleasant change from the luxury and good cheer of New York and Philadelphia. The rudeness which prevailed has been exag- gerated. The old story, for instance, of Jefferson hitching his horse to the palings while he went into the Capitol to read his inaugural address is now known to be false. But still even the leading statesmen had to board in poor lodging- houses. In 1814 this was the case with Webster, and in 1825 with Everett. For years all but the bare necessaries of life were bought at Baltimore.
Although Washington grew, that growth was mainly due to the official class, since there was no business in the city to cause a great increase of population. Great public buildings were erected, and a good many hotels, but otherwise the city cannot be said to have greatly improved for about half a century. Even such men as Clay, Webster, and Chief Justice Marshall lived mostly in hotels, Webster having no house of his own till he was Secretary of State in 1811. His second house, in a degenerate condition, still stands. Dr. W. H. Russell describes the state of the leading streets in Wash- ington, when he visited it at the outbreak of the Civil War, as deplorable. Carriages sank in the mud, and next to a fine modern building one saw a wretched negro shanty. It may be said that this chaotic state lasted till after the Civil War, when a remarkable man saw what splendid opportunities Washington afforded for being a very fine city, and he took hold of its government and carried out a series of changes which have made Washington the clean, stately, and beauti- ful city it is to-day. This enterprising person was " Boss " Shepherd. He made the city pay for his reforms, but the price was probably cheap in the long ran, since the modern Washington is not merely the purely political city it was once on a time, but is a city of lovely houses, of fashion, of society, and of as many cultivated and learned men as one can find in any place in the world.
Washington was deliberately made, it did not grow, in more than one sense. Not only was it created as a political city, it was all laid out on a plan. It is to Major L'Enfant, a French engineer and architect, that Washington owes its spacious and attractive thoroughfares, and it is to an Irishman, James Hoban, that the original building of the Capitol is due. The essence of the laying out of the city was to secure two central spots from which immense avenues should radiate. Such spots were found in the Capitol and the White House, and these huge avenues were named from the States of the Union. But the best-laid plans may go agley, and the visitor to Washington will soon find that, in spite of the fine site of the Capitol with its soaring dome, and the splendid proportions of Pennsylvania Avenue, the great street (160 ft. wide) which leads by the White House and the Treasury to the hill on which the Capitol stands, some- thing is not quite right. The fact is that it was assumed that the city would grow towards the east, whereas it has chosen to grow to the west of the Capitol, and the east front, which is the proper front, is turned away from the city, while the back door, through which most members enter the great building, is the side which fronts one on coming up the Avenue. If the east front, with its stately Corinthian façade, were seen from Pennsylvania Avenue, one has no hesitation in saying that the effect would be finer than that of any other legislative building in the world. There are a hundred details to find fault with in the Capitol, both inside and out, but the general design is grand and imposing, suited to the climate, and in keeping with the dignity of the Republic of which it is the political centre. Mr. Shepherd, therefore, when he took hold of the renewal of the city, found a noble plan ready to his hand. All he had to do was to convert the shabby lines of houses and filthy quag- mires into order. The city was asphalted all over, so that now it is the best paved and cleanest city on the American Continent, perhaps in the world.
Washington is still pleasantly free from business. No smoke stains its clear air, no hurry of trade encumbers its quiet avenues. It is a city which leaves the impression of a blend of red, white, and green, most of the houses being of red brick, the public buildings being of white stone, and every- where are trees and grass, the whole city being embosomed in foliage. In spite of its dignity and cosmopolitan aspects, one still finds some of the old-fashioned homeliness in the city, nowhere more so than in the fine market, where coloured " aunties " from the surrounding Virginia or Mary- land country sit in the midst of a luxury of fruit and vegetables unknown in an English town. The negro is still a gre-at factor in Washington. You meet him everywhere, and he may be said to do all the rough work of the city, though he is most fond of repairing to the Capitol and listening to his favourite orators in Congress. The Washington negro is generally poor, and one hears much of his hardships in winter. No city in the civilised world is probably more stratified in its population'. An Englishman, accustomed to government being in the hands of the chief families, would expect to find Senator This or Congressman That a leader of society. But he learns that that great function is largely in the hands of "old families" of Virginia who have their town houses in Washington, and who are apt to look down on the purely political element, unless it has something to recommend it besides politics. Times have changed since Clay, J. Q. Adams, Marshall, Calhoun, Webster, Story all lived in one hotel. What a time such a group of men must have had ! One would have travelled a good distance to be in such company, but Washington " society " will not go out of its way to meet a mere member of Congress. Society is probably wrong in this attitude of pride, for there is a good deal of "human nature" in the average man in Congress, and one may make pleasant companionships among members. Of course the President, though a politician, is yet head of the social as well as the political system, but the diplomatists and the Supreme Court Judges take social precedence of most of the politicians on Capitol lrill. Next, perhaps, come the scientific men, such an army of whom have been attracted to Washington by the immense scientific bureaux of the Government. At the Kosmos Club near the corner of Lafayette Square you will meet more distinguished men of science than at any other given spot on the planet. Next in order comes the vast concourse of politicians, not only members of both Houses of Congress, but that singular phenomenon the office-seeker, who is always in evidence in the hotel corridors. Then you will discover as a distinct class the clerks in the various departments, an enormous body running up into the tens of thousands, after whom come the retail dealers, and at the bottom of the great social edifice, the negro population. There is no such unique social stratification anywhere else in the world.
The new Washington, it has been said, is clean and beautiful. It is doubtful whether any such delightful residential street as Massachusetts Avenue is to be found on the globe. American domestic architecture is as successful as public architecture Is expensive and often bad, but in these Washington avenues it is carried to the height of comfort and beauty. The green, well-watered, fenceless lefts, the grouping of gables and oriels, the pretty porches and exquisite trees and flowers, combine to give a most delightful series of pictures. There is not the ostentation of New York or -Chicago, but there is more charm. The city is favoured, too, by its environment. You will soon discover many interesting walks and drives. On a fine day in the late Indian summer One finds a great delight in taking the boat on the broad stream of the Potomac to Mount Vernon, the fine old estate of George Washington, or in going to General Lee's home at Arlington, or to the Arlington burial ground where the soldiers who fell in the
War lie buried in serried masses side by side. Or you may ascend to the top of the great obelisk (by elevator, they never are so cruel as to make you climb such a height in America), the loftiest building in the world, save the Eiffel Tower, where from the height of 550 ft. You gaze down on the citi lying steeped in the golden light, and over on the distant hills of Virginia and down the silvery ribbon of the Potomac. You will wonder, after such experiences, that such a city was so long neglected.
It is a significant fact that, while all the large cities of America, self-governed, complain that they are often robbed by their civic rulers, and always maladministered, Washing- ton, governed not by "general palaver," but by three Com- missioners with no responsibility whatever to the people, is admitted by universal consent to be the best-governed city on the American Continent. The residents of Washington enjoy no suffrage, they partake in no Conventions, they elect no member of Congress, no Mayor or Municipal Council. If they have votes, they must cast them in the States where they have legal domicile. Washington is an autocratic city, and it is safe to say that nobody there wants the old municipality back. From a mere backwoods settlement it has grown to a city of nearly two hundred and eighty thousand people, seat of a mighty government, which has but to sit still, as it were, and grow of its own accord. It will have to make another bargain one day with the neighbouring States for more room, but that will be some time ahead. Meanwhile, if we leave out the negroes, it would be hard to find such a well-administered, orderly, interesting community in the world. And perhaps it would not be easy to find such a nest of intrigue,—but of that we say nothing here.
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