Evening star., 1898-05-07
HIGHWAY EXTENSION
Repeal Of the Act of March 2, 1893,
Recommended.
ANNULMENT OF ALL PROCEEDINGS
Report Of the House District
Committee.
FULL DISCU SSION

The report of the House District commit
tee on the bill to repeal the highway act
has been submitted to the House by Chair
man Babcock. The report says:
1.-The committee have had the benefit of
full explanations from the Commissioners
of the District; they have given numerous
hearings to all persons who have desired
to be heard; and they have carefully con-
cidered all the information which they have
been able to obtain concerning the very i'm
portant subject to which the bills referred
to relate.
Upon one proposition there appears to
be absolute unanimity of opinion, and that
is that the existing law is impossible of
execution and that it would cause great
and irreparable injury and injustice to the
residents of the District to continue it in
force in it's present form.
Notwithstanding the fact that the act
has been on the statute book for more than
five years. maps of only two sections, COW
ering not one-haif of the area of the Dis
and recorded
THE committee incorporates as part Of
its report the report of the special counsel
of the Commissioners (Senate Doc. No. 1S0,
Fffty-fifth Congress. second SESSION.. show
ing that of the forty-eight condemnation
cases reIdtiHS 10 SUBDIVISIONS IN SectlOn i,
embracing the territory between Rock
creek and North Capitol street, begun in
the District court, not one has been brought
to conclusion. Six cases have been tried
but in neither one of these has there been
final verdict, and in four instances the
jury found it impracticable for them to rem
der a complete verdict in accordance with
the requirements of the act
mo rights of way have, therefore, been
acquired. no streets or avenues have been
paved and improved as expected, and in
the report referred to it is said that active
operations in the courts under the act have
been suspended since the early part of last
February to await the action of Congress.
Great Expense Involved.
''The verdicts of the juries in the cases
referred to. although they did not become
effective plainly Indicated the enormous
expenditure that the execution of the act
would require.
The area of the subdivisions to which
the six acres above mentioned related was
small and insignificant in comparison with
the entire area of section 1, yet the jury
found that the value OF the land proposed
to be condemned and included within the
streets and avenues proposed to be opened
within these six sui divisions amounted to
over $s'o,0o0 P of Doc. 1907
when it is remembered that the entire
area of the District outside the city limits,
and not including parks and reserva-
tons, is over $1,000 acres, and that of
this more than one-third, or over 5000
acres, is included within the boundaries of
the streets and avenues which appear on
the Elaps and plans which have been or
are being completed under the require
ments of the act, the magnitude of the out
lay that would be required and the burdens
that would be imposed by the enforcement
OF the law becomes apparent
1T was the intention of Congress- plain
iy expressed in the fifteenth section of the
act. that the entire cost of obtaining the
.Dh M ff,ra
ing the highways that were to be estab-
lished under the act was to be paid one
falf out of the revenues of the District and
cne-half by the owners of benefited lands
Nothing was TO be paid; no contribution
was to be made by the United States
THE efforts that have thus far been
made to execute the law have made 1t ap-
parent. and everybody appears now to ad-
init, that the money that would be re-
qIired TO carry out the plans on the great
scale and with the completeness laid down
on the prepared maps can not be paid by
the District and the individual property
owners.
Leaving out of consideration the ques-
ton of the justice or injustice of the to-
tai exemption of the United States from
any share of the burdens that are imposed
by the act. the committee Is satisfied that
the revenues OF the District are wholly in
adequate to meet the requirements made
by the act, and that an attempt to charge
the revenues of the District and the land
owners with the assessments which the
law contemplated would most seriously
affect the credit and prosperity of the
municir llity.
This the committee understands to be
the view held by the Commissioners of the
District and of the board of trade of the
city Of Washington, and the committee un-
derstands it to be the opinion of the board
of trade that unless the provision can be
made for the payment by the United States
of its proper share or proportion of the
&C st of the establishment of the intended
system of the highways, it is desirable and
highly important that the entire act should
be repealed.
The committee was therefore brought
directly to the consideration, primarily, of
the question whether it should bring in
bill reversing the policy and repeating the
provisions contained in the fifteenth Sec
ton of the act of 1893.