Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1888-07-08
FROM WASHINGTON.
A Letter About Our New Court House
and Other Matters.
WASHINGTON CITY, June 80, 1SS

WASHINGTON CITY, June 80, 1888.
Editor Eagle, Wichita Kan.
Dear Sir: BY. official courtesy, l, being
in the abstract thoroughly interested in
the growth of Wichita, was permitted to
see and have photographed at my own
expense our new government building
as shown by elevations, etc., now pre-
pared and filed with the supervising ar
chitect of the treasury department here.
The plans show a fine building, SOx116
feet on the ground, with a clock tower
on the east end, square in form and 101
feet in height. First floor for postoffice
uses solely; second, court purposes;
third. other governmental uses, such as
land, revenue, ETC.; any rooms above
this as additional rooms, .janators apart
mentS, storage, ETC.: basement for steam
heating and storage.
Today visited the grave-in the beau
tiful Arlington cemetery, where eleven
thousand brave men Iie-the grave of
one always friend of Wichita-a friend
of Hon. VIM. Matthewson and of the
writer-General VIM. B. Hazen. late
chief signal officer U. S. A., whose name
| came across recently in going over GER
tain records of Sedgwick county. and
upon return from my trip met the father
of one of our well known townsmen.
Judge Douglass, the father of Mr.. George
Douglass.
AS financial guest. l am stopping at
the home of Mrs. Key and her family.
daughter-inlaw of the world famed
author of the Star Spangled Banner
to whose memory good Geo. w. Curtis has
Just erected memorial. These people,
some of the finest | have ever met, have
in their dining room the portraits of Lee
and Jackson, just as we do those of Grant
or Logan. They were impoverished by
the war and two members of the family
have positions under the government.
Representatives of the families of our
most prominent men in military and civil
life are to be found here, doing clerical
work in the various departments.
In this city, and in fact throughout the
south, man is thought thousand per
cent more of on account of having prom
inent ancestors. They have not wax
ened up to our true western principle
that IT'S neither birth. nor wealth nor
state, but 'git-up-and-git' that make men
great"
| have the honor of personal acoaint.
anceship with the Republican nominee
for vice president, who. as Bill Nye
might say, had the pleasure of giving
me an alternate appointment to West
Point in 1880, and will have to present
him one of the souvenirs of our town.
In seconding Mr.. Mortons nomination
Colonel Hallowell spoke of John Brown.
and 1 enclose you herewith a rough
sketch of that gentleman's fort" as seen
from the cars of that Hogarthian line of
beauty. the Baltimore & Ohio railway,
when passing Harpers Ferry few DAYS
since.
Washington is the paradise of wheel
men. The youths use the ordinary
cycle and two-wheeied safeties. the
ladies light tricycles, the senators, Judges
and other men generally heavy tricycles
and some few safety bis: a young man
and his intended ride sociahle tricycle.;
two chums, tandem, either bi or tri.
Colored boys are to be seen delivering
goods from self-propelled tri or quadri-
cycles, with goods basket before or be-
hind the rider.
! have been in the senate chamber re-
Gently and the more l see of it the more
l think of it as fine resting place for
respectable old gentlemen with plethoric
bowels-orderly, so unlike the house.
OF course there are number of brainy
men-hke ingalls,, Hawley, Sherman
and Evarts-but, as a general thing, re-
spectability and wealth seem to have
been the causes for election to that
august body.
Respectfully and sincerely yours.
WILSON b. STRONG,
OF Hyde d Strong.