The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1893-10-16

An Address by the Decentralization by
william Writ Henry-Chorus by Thou
sand Voices "A Retrospective View.
Changes Wrought by the Hand of Time.
Especial Correspondence
WASHINGTON, Sept. 1.-THE people of
Washington are anticipating great times
pn the 18th of September. On that day
Washington will practically celebrate its
own existence, for just 100 years before the
cornerstone of the capitol building was
laid. The citizens have been at work for
some time preparing for the event, and the
promise is for celebration of unusual pro-
portions. Congress has made the day a
legal holiday in the district; grandson Of
the illustrious Patrick Henry, whose clarion
notes sounded the Virginia cavaliers to
arms, will be the orator of the day, and
parts will be taken in the celebration by
both houses of congress. OF course there
will be bands, plenty of them, for who ever
heard of a celebration in Washington with
out bandsp There will also be a chorus of
over a thousand voices.
The idea of celebrating the centennial of
the great pile whose magnificent proper
tions and stately grandeur have extorted
exordiums from Italians familiar with St.
venerate st. Paul's, originated with the in
habitants of capitol hill, whose forefathers
got the capitol building erected facing
their way and then put up the price Of their
land until the town went the other way
over boys, creeks and morasses into the
high ground of the now fashionable north
west section.
The celebration naturally suggests a ret
respective view of what changes the cen
fury has witnessed in the American capital
located in a presidential swamp and now re-
garded rs the most beautiful of cities. But
the most striking point in the glance back.
ward is what has not taken place-the ut
ter absence of any mob uprising, to over.
come which and enable artillery to be con.
verged on any threatened point L'Enfant
the French engineer, brought up amid the
turbulence of tn French capital, set of
the future city of Washington into wide
streets and wider avenues, all radiatinp
from the capitol.
Tradition has it that the site where con
gress now convenes was the council ground
of the Manahoacs and Monacans, Indian
tribes who occupied the District of Colum
bia region when the first English settle
ments were made. 1t is also narrated that
in 1868 the present site of the capitol wa.
named Rome by its Scotch occupant, ont
Pope, who christened the little creek thai
then ran at the foot of the hill where thu
Peace monument now stands (the creek has
since been converted into sewer) Tiber.
The original structure of the capitol
which has since been added to from tim,
to time, was the production of French
man named Stephen Hallet, improved b!
an Englishman named William Thornton
and right lively quarrel the Gaul and thu
Anglo-Saxon had over the authorship o
the PLANS.
1t was on Sept. Is, 1893, that, with i'm
pressive ceremonies and in the presence o
large concourse, President Washington
laid the cornerstone of the building. Wash
ington made an address, but there wer
then no lively, hustling newspapers to re
port the big men of the day. In Philadel
phia there had been suspension of publ
cation of the large newspaper owing to
yellow fever outbreak, so that the news o
the cornerstone was still fresh, SO far a
publication went, when the Alexandra
(Va.) Gazette of Sept. 25 came out and de