The Washington critic., 1888-03-15
WASHINGTON, MARCH Is, 1sss.
PLANS FOR posToFFIcEs.

PLANS FOR PosTOFFICEs.
The Senate Committee on Public
Buildings and Grounds have under
consideration wonderful scheme for
furnishing the country with post
Office buildings on an economical and
equitable plan, of which population
is made the basis, the idea being that
a town of say 10000 inhabitants can
get along with n one-story brick, not
to cost over $4,000, and so on up
in other words that expenditure shall
be proportioned to growth in an
ascending scale. So that city of
$4,000 population might be entitled to
two-story house worth $4,000, and
city of 10000 population to three
stories, worth $4,000, the actual
necessities of each case governing the
appropriation.
This is all well enough in theory,
but in country like ours, where so
many little villages of yesterday be-
come towns of considerable size to-day
and big cities tomorrow, we do not
see how the arrangement can be made
10 work.
Judging by the time usually con
sumed in the erection of public build
ings, it would very likely happen that
a one-story town which had been
voted 80, 0,000-6ollar postoflice would
become two-story town, entitled to
a 50,000-dollar establishment, before
the first one was finished.
Cities spring up so suddenly and
grow so rapidly that it would be ex-
tremely difficult to devise system to
keep pace with them. In five or ten
years at the furthest every enter
prising town in the new West or South
would be crying out for another and
more commodious building, and have
its increased census figures at hand to
show the justice of its claim.
To make the proposed plan sue
cess, therefore, the Government will
be under the necessity of building its
new postotfices on wheels and keeping
q large and diversified stock in hand,
to suit the shifting wants of the coun-
try, with the understanding that
whenever town has outgrown its
one-story office, it may return the
original and order a double-story and
continue the exchange until it has
reached the climax of six or eight
storied, half million dollar ediice,
such as all well regulated cities of two
TO three hundred thousand inhabi-
tanis ought to have.
We simply throw out the suggestion
to the Senate committee, with the
hope that before being pigeon-holed it
will receive their prayerful consider
alton.
In all seriousness, however, The
CRITIC has this to suggest--that the
new Postofiice for Washington, of
which there are men now living who
will probably see the cornerstone
laid, should not only be erected in a
style and upon scale commensurate
with the prospective magnitude of the
city and comporting with the dignity
of its location at the National Capital,
but in its general plan, the ornateness
of its architecture and the complete
ness Of its appointments, be the
model Postofiice of the country, from
which the towns and cities of the fu-
ture, according to their several neces-
sites, may take pride in patterning.
As it is to be built exclusively for a
Postoflice, from the ground up, there
is no reason why it should not be the
nearest perfection for its intended
uses of any similar editce in the world;
and instead of its capacity being
gauged by the present population of
the city, it should be constructed with
view to the accommodation of not
less than million inhabitants, as the
new General Postofiice, whenever it
is erected, will have to be upon the
basis of a national census of not less
than double what it now is.
The natural increase Of population,
without the ever active influx of i'm
migration, precludes the idea, except
ing here and there in places of slow or
fully matured growth, of regulating
the size or cost of public buildings by
merely existing demand. What will
suit the Birmingham or Kansas City
of to-day will be found entirely in
adequate a decade or two hence, and
building that would simply answer
the needs of Washington in 1890, in
the line Of postal facilities, is likely
10 fall far short Of what Washington
will need with the opening Of the new
century.
The CRITIC publishes to-day a series
OF interviews with number of able
Republican statesmen relative to the
Presidential outlook They will be
found MIGHTY GOOD roadino 40 tbf