Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-11-19
The True Capital Centennial.

The removal OF the seat of government
from Philadelphia to Washington in the
year 1880 was so gradually accomplished
that it is difficult to select any one day as
that on which the actual centenary of the
national capital should be celebrated. The
personages who formed the administration
of the day. the Congress and the federal
judiciary. together with their goods and
chatteIs. personal and official. drifted in
during the months of that year with an
irreguIarity characteristic of the period,
when transportation was slow and roads
were bad. Perhaps, however. this day may
be rightly regarded as that on which the
government began work in Washington for
on the third Monday of November, 1890,
Congress assembled for the first time with
in the ten miles square" The southwark
trek of the government in the executive
and legislative departments had been COM
pleted by that time and the various fea-
lures of the great federal machine-yet
how small in size when compared with that
of the present-were assembled here to pur-
sue their work of providing and enforcing
laws for the states and territories.
While looking along Pennsylvania avenue
today in the stretch of a mile and third
from the White House to the Capitol, it is
almost impossible to conceive true the
descriptions which have been written
of the Washington of a hundred years ago,
when the legislators made their way to the
unfinished building standing lonely on the
commanding hill. Muddy roads, made worse
than usual by the heavy hauling of the
past months in preparation of the seat of
government for the work of the winter,
offered slight inducement for frequent trips
between the place of legislation and the
Of, mi no
cars no omnibuses. One writer of the peri
cd describes the journey from his boarding
house in Georgetown to the Capitol as tor
ture. \ rickety farm wagon was the We
hicle used. The residences were scattered,
forests stood here and there to intercept
the view. The vistas suggested by l. En-
fant'S beautiful plan were wholly lacking.
The paper capital was yet to be created.
The public buildings were few and. to strict
ly apply the familiar phrase, very far be-
tween.
The houses that met at the Capitol
building on that third November Monday,
a century ago, had then, as their successors
have now, exclusive jurisdiction over the
ten miles square which had been donated by
the states of Maryland and Virginia In
this century of guardianship under these
auspices Washington has Jared both badly
ana well. fOr many years the capital was
neglected 1t was as a mere abiding place
for the few months of the session or the
few years of official residence. 1t lacked
many, if not most, of the attributes of a
city. 1t remained for vigorous individual
enterprise. after the civil war had brought
here a comparatively large permanent popu-
lation to begin to develop the city along
the lines of its conception. The real Wash
QStOu NAV be said q he the product o 10
last quarter of century.
Congress has in the main admirably and
faithfully discharged its obligations to the
city in these last years. Yet much remains
exclusive jurisdiction which was inau-
guTated a hundred years ago today. There
are comprehensive plans to be executed to
realize the ideal of the capital founders
There are injustices in the relations Of the
city To the government to be corrected.
There are principles to be adopted in legis-
latton which will insure a more adequate
maintenance. 1t is the hope of the capital
that this centenary will evoke true real
ization of the responsibility which the Con-
sttution makers imposed upon Congress in
the matter of the federal district, a re-
sponsibility which has grown intellectually
since that November Monday in 1900 when
the embryo capital first began to buzz with
the talk of legislation and the movement
of the machinery of administration.