Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-08-09
HUB OF THE UNION.
Kate Field Writesa Large Sized Boom
for the Capital City.
DESCRIPTIONS OF ITS DELIGHTS.
What Private Enterprise and Public Insti-
tutions Are Doing
AN INTELLECTUAL AND ART CENTER

CORRESPONDENTS OF THE DIsPATCH.1
| WASHINGTON, Aug. 81 am not among
those who protest because millions of dol
lars are spent annually in Europe by Ameri
cans. That money is expended largely in
cultivating eye, ear and taste. Travel
means expansion. 1t is the travelled Ameri.
can who returns with clarified vision to ask
for the same beauty, the same art, the same
comfort, the same educational advantages al
home as can be found abroad; it is because
have travelled that I appreciate Washing
ton, have made it nv residence.
Eighteen months ago when determined
to set up my household goods in the Capital
New Workers and Bostonians sneered. They
talked about "village," "only fit for habi.
tation during the Congressional sessions. II
Those critics had no comprehension of what
they were talking about A few, hav-
ing recently condescended to come here to
scoff, have returned to praise. Not little
of this change Of opinion is due to foreign
influence. As New York and Boston are
.idiotically Anglomaniacal, an English YER
dict carries great weight. No European has
visited Washington within five years who
has not preferred it to all other American
| towns.
| WHAT STANLEY SAID ABOUT IT.
Said Henry NJ. Stanley, just before sail
ing home: II share your enthusiasm re-
garding the capital of the United States. 1t
| is magnificent. 1t is q treat to go through
its noble avenues and note how Government
and citizens are doing their best to carry
out the designs of the genius who laid out
| Washington. Even now it is unique. Soon
! it will be the show of America; and as
Americans now go to Europe to see its OBJ
jects of interest, so Europeans will cross the
Atlantic to visit your capital"
| predict that within ten years Washing
ton will be the social and intellectual as
well as the political center of the United
States, and that even in summer the Dis
trict of Columbia and the adjacent hills of
| Maryland and Virginia will harbor more
people worth knowing than any watering
place in the world. If government be the
| grandest of all sciences, tine greater should
| include the less; the best of art and of So
ciety should be attracted as naturally to the
hub of the nation as steel filings are at
tracted to q magnet. 1t is manifest destiny.
THE CAPITALS OF EUROPE
Look at Europe to-day. London, Paris,
Rome Vienna, Berlin, Madrid, st. Peters
burg are the social, scientific, artistic no
less than the political foci of their respective
countries. In Europe commerce also gravi-
tates to the capital, and like result would
be seen here did not our Republic embrace
the best part of a continent. New York
now rightly claims commercial supremacy,
but in no distant future New York will be
but one of many business marts. In the
ratio that commerce is diffused government
will be centralized, and with it all that
makes life beautiful and interesting.
Therefore, as years 60 on, Americans will
look to Washington as the Mecca of thought
in all phases at all seasons. The bigger the
Republics growth the more necessary be-
comes rallying point. North, South,
East and West meet here on common
ground. Sectional egotism must disappear
in the light of national glory, and the Con-
gressman who fails to vote for appropria-
tions to advance the interests of Washing
ton will fail to satisfy. his patriotic constitu-
ents. Who has not visited the capital since
the war has not seen a miracle 1t has risen
from mud and dust to be the only we'll
paved town in this country. So clean and
smooth are its streets that pedestrians pre-
fer their asphalt to the more irregular bricks
of the sidewalks
WHERE WHEELS RUN SMOOTHLY.
1t is in consequence the paradise of BIZ
cycles, the poor mans and poor woman's
horses; thus clerks and other stay-at-homes
whose incomes are limited enjoy a means
of locomotion which takes them far and
near with greatest ease. Lovers of driving
and riding heave sigh of relief at the ab-
sence of the noise, holes and cobblestones
peculiar to our great towns, hideous facts
that make exercise on wheels or in the sad
die an agony instead of q pleasure
Delightful as are the broad avenues lined
with well-grown trees and intersected at
many points by verdant squares and parks,
the neighboring country is still more at
tractive. Nowhere is nature so accessible,
and nowhere is it so varied in its beauty.
Go east, go across the eastern branch of the
Potomac and you enter woods as wild as
though they were primeval, with views of
water, hills and town that await the brush
of Turner In this direction, but nearer
Capital Hill, the Roman Catholics,
always far-seeing, have begun
university which will cost millions before
its completion. 1t is situated on rising
ground and the scenery from its windows is |
exquisite; here glimpse Of the capitals !
dome, there of the Monuments Sum-
init, nearby the tower of the Soldiers |
Home-all of white marble and far enough |
away to seem like pictures in dream or q |
romance. By moonlight it is fairyland.
AN ADVISORY BOARD OF sAGEs.
Adjoining this university is the Soldiers |
Home with its hundreds of acres of we'll |
kept drives, of hill and vale, of flowers and |
primeval forest. A few miles distant is |
the country home of the Riggs family, and
not far off loom up the commodious barn,
which make the stock farm of General E. |
T. Beal landmark. Still further north is
Holly Hills, the lovely retreat where ex-
Secretary McCulloch and his family spend
half the year. Though eight miles from
town, Holly Hills is high enough to COM
mand view of capitol and monuments
while the woods are as wild and the brooks
babble as merrily as though far from the
haunts of Congress.
1t is privilege to spend day with the
ex-Secretary of the Treasury,
who, at Salmon P. Chase's urgent request,
left the presidency OF his bank in Indiana
to become Comptroller of the Currency and
organize our present system of national
banks. Mr. McCulloch is as vigorous as
ever mentally, and discusses national is
sues with breadth and an impartiality
which it were q blessing did high officials
tollow. What pity that the real solons of
his Republic are not utilizedl Why could
here not be sort of advisory board ap-
pointed from retired naval, military and
'lvil officers? 1t seems a shame that some
If our best brains should be thrown away.
Perhaps We shall learn the science of econ
,my in all things, brains included, one Of
hese days.
PROOF OF A DOCTORS OPINION.
Nearer town are Columbia Heights, where
Mrs. John A. Logan has a charming home,
md where DR.. William A. Hammond has
'ut up not only palace for himself and his
lQreGahle wife hut Sanit for hia |