The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-07-24
SPIRIT OF TEE PRESS.
Editorial Opinions of the Leading Journals
Upon Current TOpics-COmDiIed Every
Day tor the Evening Telegraph.
REMOVAL oF THE CAP1TAL.

capital to the Mississippi Valley have met
. with very general and unquestioning assent,
with a few exceptions from the Western
press. few ask for the selection of some
smaller city or wholly rural site, like Nauvoo.
But we got through with asking for the
removal of the capital to Nauvoo several
years ago. If anybody really wants the
capital removed to Nauvoo, let him unite
with the West generally to secure decision
that the capital shall at least be brought to
the Mississippi Valley. Then if the majority,
of forces tend towards Nauvoo instead
of st. Louis we will abide by it. The Gin
cinnati Gazette does us the hUnor-prObably
in return for our disinterestedness in advo-
eating st. Louis--to nominate Chicago as the
future capital, provided Chicago will enter
into bonds not to elope or disappear. Chicago
will do no such thing If the time ever comes
when more money can be made elsewhere
than here, there as not SOLITARY Chicagoan
on horseback who will not cheerfully leave
ours seven-story marble fronts, our imp posing ele-
vators and our Nicolson pavements, tomoulder
by the lake like the ruins of Carthage by the
Mediterranean, and strike tents for the new
Chicago, wherever it may be located. Our
Contemporaries doeful references to Babylon,
Nineveh and Gomorrah, as examples of what
may happen to Chicago several thousand
years after the capital should be
brought here, are not only in order, there
fore, but well put. We acknowledge that
we are fast, and that if the capital were
packed and shipped for this port, by the time
IT arrived tins entire metropois-the first in
patriotism, the second in area, the third in
virtue, and the fourth in population in the
Union-might have taken its departure by the
last train-especially if the capital were for
warded via the Gulf and the Mississippi river
But st. Louis is so much less mercurial
and locomotive that even the skeptics of Gin
cinnati may indulge in the lively hope that,
should the national capital ever be shipped
for that port in good order and condition,
however long or tedious the voyage, the con-
signee would be found on the levee, with his
spy-glass steadily pointed down the river, in
dustriously awaiting its arrival
But, seriously, the unanimity with which
our proposition for Capitoline emigration is
received is so intense as utterly to destroy the
complacency with which we had hitherto
regarded it. A decent amount of opposition
is necessary to the achievement of any sort
of a victory, and the faint show of hostile
guns from Cincinnati, with an occasional
spent shot from New York, is hardly enough
to give the necessary zest to the conflict.
by way, therefore, of suggesting where
these opposing guns might be placed to draw
our fire to best advantage, we present such
objections as are likely to arise in the reflect
ing mind, with the view of testing how much
they are worth.
The proposition to remove the capital has
first to overcome the vast deep-seated, and
highly-respectable els 5aelt5a or force of
gravity of the nation at large, which opposes
all new movements. This power of dead
ness stands in the same relation to the brains
that move and determine events as the Chi
nese race stands to the Caucasian, or as the
Catholic Church sustained to Calico, or as
adipose fat bears to nervous tissue. 1t is the
ball and chain wherewith the timid andfoolish
tether the bold and wise lest they may lose
their good company. But the GiS inertia in
the minds of men has its counterpart in the
giS inertia of the capital itself. While it
would be easy to obtain three-fourths vote
of the people that it were better if the capital
we're at st. Louis, two-thirds of those so
voting would at first oppose any removal,
on the simple ground of the alleged waste
of time, labor, and money involved. Here is
the great physical, engineering, financial OBJ
stacle which will defeat the measure at
every step, unless the people of the valley
of the Mississippi can heartily unite upon a
policy, ascertain the cost of overcoming
all obstacles to its successful achievement,
and unanimously commend it to the nation at
large. The first subject to be discussed and
settled is, Could a removal of the capital be
most wisely and economically effected by a
sale of the present Capitol buildings, or theil
retention by the Government for other pur.
poses and the erection of new Government
buildings at the new seat of government, OF
by the removal of the present buildings, stone
by stone, from Washington to the desired
point in the Mississippi valley? The very
question launches the ordinary reader o.
writer beyond his depth, and even the ex
pert in ordinary questions of engineering
would perhaps demand months of time for
investigation and calculation before hazard
ing any estimate on an undertaking so unpre
cedented, or a financial and architectural pro
blem so complicated. Probably, as in mos
questions depending on the testimony of eX
perts we would find them quite equally di
yided between the theory that the actual re-
moval and restoration of the Capitol building
would be wholly chimercal and impossible
and the rival theory that it would be nC
'tgreat move after all
We would regard the project of removing
the Capitol buildings as almost an entire vast
of their Value. g., that new and bette
edifces could be erected at st. Louis thai
those now existing at Washington Tor abou
what it would cost to remove the latter. W.
see no reason why the Government coult
better afford, on removing its place OF resi-
dence, to remove the buildings in which /
had resided, than why an individual reslden
of the East migrating to the west should d'
the same thing. But, in Difference to TN
movers of this matter in Congress last winter
IN who seemed to contemplate physical re
uioval of the Government edifces themselves
we have entertained their view as equall
tenable with the other
The general public can arrive at no conclu
sion relative to the questions of engineering
and finance involved in the removal Of tn
seat of government from the data heretofor
an oTipIOO which shall ID