Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-11-24

formances q Gotham housemaid "a literary
one. to be sure,) is represented as an
nouncing to an out-of-town friend IN iet-
ter that
''Since you writ us
The Congress and court have determined
to quit us,
and then, referring to her masters feelings
on the subject
"He hopes and he prays they may die in
stall
If they leave US in debt for federal hall;
In fact he would rather saw timber or dig
Than see them removing to Conococheague,
Where the houses and kitchens are yet to
be framed,
The trees to be felled and the streets 10 De
named
Luckily the country was not destined to
be inflicted with Conogocheague as a per-
petual joke, for somehow it dropped com
pletely out of sight in couple of years
In the Constitution and in the authorizing
acts the projected capital was referred to
vaguely as the seat of government" JEFF
ferson subsequently alluded to it as the
Federal city and the Federal Town
and Washington wrote of it as the Fed
era, City" A little later. on March 20,
1871 Major Peter Charles L'Enfant. the
French engineer in charge of the plating,
called it the Capital City" Finally the
commissioners appointed to lay out the
place in accordance with L,Enfant's plans
christened it. September 9. lI9l, with happy
taste and fine discrimination, the City OIL
Washington"
Streets All on Paper.
The streets and avenues of the new city
we're beautifully deineated and carefully
named on Major L'Enfants maps but for
many years there was but little indication,
if any, that there were really any streets
or avenues about 1t. AS late as the year
1872 Charles Dickens. then on his first visit
to America. described Washington physi-
cally the city of magnlhcHt "a =
as really the city OF magnificent inten-
tons" and stated that - >-.s-.-., t. :
features were spacious avenues that be
gin in nothing and lead nowhere. streets
miles long that want only houses, roads
and Inhabitants, and public buildings That
need but public to be complete" From
all that we can learn of it from old letters,
printed chronicles and recoilectons OF aged
Inhabitants, it would seem that DICKENS
droll description must have held good clear
from the war Of 1872 down to the close OF
the civil war.
1t was only after the close of the civil
war in Grants administration, and through
the courage Of the District governor. Alex
antier Shepherd, that L'EnfantS original
plans We're carried out. Then it was that
the abnormal growths and chaotic eXc1eS-
cences that had sprung up to mar It's llrst
design were cleared away and the founda-
ton laid for that splendid development
which in thirty years has made Washing
ton the most beautiful city in the land
and the most attractive capital in the
" orld
How narrowly it escaped destruction as
our symbolic capital, in two distinct crises
of our national history, is known to every
student-first when British barbarity and
vindictiyeness reduced its executive and
legislative halls to biackened ruins in 1Slf.
and next in our civil strife fifty years later,
when the confederate hosts drew so near
that the thunders of their artillery shook
the Capitol dome and reverberated IN the
chambers of the Executive Mansion.
Today safe, preserved, magnificent and
infinitely stronger than ever before, the
whole country is proud of it and proud of
all that 1t stands for. Aside from its mere
physical aspects it is as a seat of world
power and diplomacy no longer inferior to
the proudest capitals of Europe, and ITS
steady rise in the past and its substantial
spIendors Of the present are the best aug
uries for a still more glorious future.
JOHN DORLAND CREMET.