Sacramento daily record-union., 1890-09-19
BUILDING OF WASHINGTON.
What Was Considered Extravaganza il
1900

1t was not until 1876 that the tempest
tossed Congress of the thirteen colonies
saw the first evidences of the federal city
that excited the mirth of the wits, the
forebodings of the timid, says writer in
Hmper's Weekly, The circumference of
the city as it now spreads out under the
great dome is greatly contracted from the
imposing dimensions originally laid out by
the engineer L'Enfant. Where the superb
Patent Office now stretches in marble
majesty, the poetic Frenchman, inspired
bv recent events in Paris, had marked the
sight for a national tabernacle, where ma
tional events were to be religiously COM
memorated, where national obsequies were
to be celebrated, and the dead honored by
the country were to be buried and their
monuments be perpetuated-a sort of
Pantheon to the glories of the republic.
Two columns of majestic proportions were
to rise at specified distances from the Cap
Itol, the one representing IN bronze and
granite the memorabilia of the seven years
war from Lexington to Yorktown, the
other such prodigies by sea as in ten years
had made our little navy a rival of Brit
aims. The streets running eastward from
the Capitol were to be continuous arcades,
like the sequestered alcoves of Bologna
and Venice Between the Capitol and the
Presidents residence were to be Elysian
fields, and palatial dwellings for the for
eign ambassadors, and the public build
ings. But even at that early day rings"
and ''jobs' found their account. The in
dignant Frenchman, beset on all sides by
venal legislators and self-seeking iobbers,
threw up his commission in disdain, and
the city as it now stands was perfected by
Andrew Ellicott.
In 1892 $500 in gold were offered, with
out restriction as to calling, to the citizen
who should send in the accepted design for
the Presidents house Five hundred dol
lars and lot in the new city, or gold
medal, were offered for the best design for
the Capitol To generation that has be-
come familiar with the sums annually
voted for Postofiices and Custom-houses in
Plumville and Pumpkintown, our fore
fathers will seem thrifty indeed, embark
ing upon city-building with grant of
$4,000 from the States of Virginia and
Maryland. This was supplemented by a
national lottery, for which $4,000 tickets
were sold Sixteen thousand seven hun
dred and thirty were to draw prizes, the
capital one being hotel which was to cost
S50,000 The price of ticket was 81, and
the prizes ranged from $40 to S25,0O6 Nor
need the student of current morals and
manners, depressed by the laxity of our
times, wholly despond, when he reflects
that the lottery was made use of hundred
years ago not only in the building of our
national Capitol Churches, schools, col
leges, even Harvard itself, were indebted
to the wheel for moneys to secure their
usefulness In 1896 the Presidents house
and the Capitol were the only evidences of
a city where the traveller now sees squares
and monuments, edifices and gardens, that
eclipse Paris and Vienna in beauty and
taste. When the lottery failed, and the
sums voted by Virginia and Maryland
gave out, Washington was less of city
than the humblest suburb of Jersey City
or Brooklyn. Three hundred thousand
dollars were asked by the Commissioners
to 90 on with the work, and the country
was distracted by such proaigate outlay.
The press of the time thundered against
such wasteful extravaganza.
In 1900 the capital was sore trial to
men accustomed to the homely comforts OF
New England and New York. There was
but one good tavern in the town. The
members of Congress were herded together
in a few mean tenements like soldiers in a
barrack. Land was rated at twenty-five
cents square foot, the spectators holding
for rise The residents were mostly ne
groes, or shiftless vagabonds, thrown out OF
regular industry by the visions Of sudden
city-making Though the whole city was
covered with wood, Mrs. Adams, the wife
of the first President who took up his resi-
dence in Washington, could secure none
for the CRATES OF the White House. The
house required thirty servants to keep ii
in order, and all the food had to be
brought from Baltimore, Georgetown or
Alexandria. Gouverneur Morris, writing
to the Princess de la Tour ct Taxis, in De-
cember, 1900, says, sportively 1--WE want
nothing here but houses, cellars kitchens,
well-informed men, amiable women and
other trifes of this kind to make our city
perfect; for we can walk here as in the
fields and woods, and considering the hard
frost, the air of the city is very pure. If,
then, you are desirous of coming to live in
Washington, hasten to assure you that
freestone is very abundant here; that ex.
cellent bricks can be burned; that there is
no lack of sites for magnificent hotels
that contemplated canals can bring vast
commerce to the place. In short, that 1t Is
the very best city in the world for future
residence"