The times., 1899-03-05

Duyer. at Two cents loOt. Generhl van
Ness lived in almost regal state at the
southwest corner of Twelfth and d Streets
northwest, which neighborhood was for
many years a fashionable place of resi-
dence for Government employees. The
stately Doric pile of the Interior Depart
ment now covers the site of what was
then an ice house, and people crossed the
creek on what is now i Street between
Ninth and Tenth on a bridge of a single
log. 1t is hard to realize that in those
days the ground now occupied by The
Times and all the surrounding country,
from the Avenue to + Street and from
Ninth TO Thirteenth Street was an oat
field. where reed birds were slaughtered
for the principal hotels of the city.
Its Distinctive Character.
Yet different as the Avenue is today
from what it was ninety years ago-with
concrete pavements and electric cars in
stead of plowed fields aud country wagons
it is still the same Avenue, with the
same distinctive character. To the
transient visitor 1t represents Washing
ton. He may go up Connecticut or
Massachusetts Avenues to Dupont Circle,
the centre of the fashion and wealth of
the town. and he sees only n beautiful
section of city, that, while differing in
detail, does not differ in character from
other large cities. But on Pennsylvania
Avenue-"the Avenue" as much as 1t was
fifty years ago-he breathes different at
mosphere: he falls in with another life;
he is moved with another and different i'm
preston from what he gets in any other
city in the country. As Washington is
the political metropolis of the nation, so
is the Avenue the metropolis, SO to
speak. of Washington. The transient
G1ppn
street he lives" on the Avenue" 1t is
not a mere sentiment, abstract, poetical,
metaphysical. superstitious. whichever you
please. that invests inanimate and insen-
tient things with the properties and quail
tiles CT animate and sentient beings.
1t is 4 truth which may elude our analy-
sis. but is none the less a truth. So it
was not a mere imaginative dream of Poe
that sentient atmosphere made UP of
the hopes. the fears. the lives OF that an
cent race, surrounded the melancholy
House of Usher and lay like thick yapor
upon its gloomy tarn. 1t was an insight
into a terrible truth. which neither the
wonderful analysis nor the brilliant i'm
agination of Poe could resolve into its
original elements or calculate its mys-
terious relations. So with Pennsylvania
Avenue.
The Spell of n Dead Past.
The spell OF the dead past hangs upon
it and invests it like shroud Beneath
its changing exterior is the same familiar
lineaments. the same peculiar individual
ity, the same potent and mysterious
identity.
All men feel this in greater or less de-
gree, who see it for the first time, For
does lapse of years nor familiarity with
its features dissipate though 1t
may deaden the spell. The great men
who walked its rutty pavements in far
OF years, the beautiful women. whose rust
ling drapery lent charm to its rude cob
blestones, have left upon it something OF
their individuality which will never dis
appear. The policeman who perambu' ates
the Avenue is brought into contact with
the soul of Clay, or Jefferson, or Jack
son, or Calhoun, or Webster, and the in
fluence of the mighty dead wields a spell
over his hopes, his plans, his fears, his
ambitions. 1t is the street of intrigue in
Washington. 1t is the cosmopolitan street.
Though the slavepen once stood on its
line, and the statues of Peace and Free
dom have replaced it, the change does not
destroy either the memory or the influ-
ence of the past. 1t simply marks the evo-
luton of perhaps a higher civilization.
different life than before. The environ
ment has altered, but the spirit is still
the same. And nowhere in America does
the foreigner. whether European, African
or Asiatic, feel so strongly the influence
Of our country and its institutions, and
nowhere does he become so quickly
Americanized. as on Pennsylvania Avenue
1t is the main artery of the nation, the
great aorta leading directly to its heart
Many Notable scenes.
1t has seen Inauguration after Inaugural
tion, the equivalent of kingly coronatfons
Westminster Abbey nor the cathedral at
Rheims nor ST. Stephens, in Vienna, has
witnessed more imposing or more start
ling ceremonies. For ii must be remem-
bered that change of Administration in
this country is equivalent to a change OF
dynasty in Europe, and that while the
one is seldom accomplished without hlooi
shed and turmoil. the other is effected in
peace and harmony by the simple voice
OF freemen. 1t has seen more splendid
and more sorrowful funeral than Rome
gave to Publius Sylla or Paris to Henri
Quaue. For the obsequies of Abra-
ham Lincoln, which filled the broad street
with mourning humanity from White
House TO Capitol, was more mournful and
more magnificent than those France paid
TO her Gascon King or Rome to her bloody
Dictator.
1t has witnessed the grand review and
which the combined world itself could not
have overthrow, the battle baptized vet
Grams OF the Union who marched from four
years OF the bloodiest struggle on record,
crowned with victory to stack their arms
and be at once absorbed into the general
mass. But Pennsylvania Avenue has seen
more than these. II has seen men and
women, chained together, marched down its
broad sidewalks chattels. recognized
property, to the block where the auc-
| tioneer Knocked them down TO the highest
| bidder, like horses and COWS and in doing
! so covered their backs more closely that
| their new owners might not behold the
angry scars of the lash.
Its Future.
As it has been in the past so Will IT be
in the future, the most intensely American
of all thoroughfares. Wealth may line il
| with stately palaces, taste may adorn It
| with the most glorious monuments of art
| the splendor and the magnifcence of the
most beautiful Capital on earth may vie
| in decorating and magnifying its glories.
yet the spirit that pervaded it when Jeffer-
son ambled his horse down its plowed
| roadway; that crowned It with fearful
| eyes and begioomed IL with funeral drapery
| when the mortal remains of Abraham Lin
| coin passed down its broad surface. that
| same spirit will continue TO pervade TO
| animate, 10 crown, and 10 fill IL as long
as our institutions last, or our country has
being. The famous mighty dead that it
| once knew still in spirit traverse it and
| their influence. accommodating with the
ages will more and more intensity the
| individuality, the entity. of the Avenue "
Though they are dead. their influence lives.
| Though they have passed away. the insti-
| tutions they founded and preserved are
present. and as long as Pennsylvania Ave
nue. lasts, so will their mighty memories
| and the spell of their characters, though
they have become invisible.