Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1901-01-31
SEENTHROUGH BRITISH EYES
THE CAPITAL As IT APPEARS TO A
CORRESPONDENT.
Solfdity Of Architecture Impresses
the Stranger-People Have q Hertz
age of Practical Institutions.

the stranger-Peop1e Have n Hertz
age of Practical Institutions.
Douglas Story of the London Mail in the New
York Herald.
The other morning threw open my VIM
dows and peered out across the warm. red
roofs Of Washington. Clear to the horf-
ION my view was unrestrained by factory
or by skyscraper, so that thanked God at
my deliverance from New York, with its
ostentation, its clatter and its predatory
cabmen.
had grown tired of the great city. with
its uneasy populace, It's disreputable gov
eminent and its unrepresentative cosmopol-
itanism. 1 had come to study the Amert-
cans and 1 found New York is as little
American as Paris is French or Cairo
Egyptian In great part New York Is but
a suburb of Ellis Island, and I speedily
realized that the ruffian who made the
elevated railroad still more hideous was not
an American, but an Italian; that the over
dressed women of the hotels and reStau-
rants were not American ladies. but the
immediate descendants of continental Eu-
ropeans. and that the autocrat of the city
was an IriShman.
Good Americans there are and in plenty,
but their presence does not obtrude itself
his impressions is the least significant. They
are not the people of the highways and the
public gathering places, but of the clubs
and the great houses in 9th avenue. In
the streets l searched in vain for typical
face, for typical tongue. Broadway is a
panorama of the nations, and one might as
well seek to generalize from it's constitu-
ents as to judge France from the sigh seers
at the exposition New York holds the
most restless elements Of dozen nations,
and from their doings one can deduce little
OF value to an understanding Of the people
of the United States.
In New York questions of national import
claim slight attention because the people
have not rested sufficiently long within the
United States to understand a national as
pfratlon, to master national policy. Press
and platform are provincial because in their
localism lies the only common interest.
Instrumentation is the essential charac-
teristic of New York society, and whatever
differs from 1t in habit or opinion Is bar
barrie and ultramontane. Mammon Is It's
god and Wall street is his altar. For one
who feels no call to join in this worship of
the goldbug, who merely seeks cue to
American thought and American evolution.
New York has little to offer, and hence my
JOY at the glad promise of the sun-kissed
roofs of Washington as l gazed down upon
them for the first time spread out before
me
It's Impressive Buildings.
There is a solidty about the architecture
Of Washington that at once impresses the
stranger. In New York the buildings, like
some of their occupants, seem to be eter-
naly striving to balance themselves at the
extreme limit of their capacity to stand
upright. Let the merest break of adversely
blow and Wall street will be Uttered with
the ruins of a house. There is no provision
for tornado, no preparation for the IN
evitable slump. The weather is calm; New
York speculates upon its remaining calm
and adds another story to the rocking edi-
flee.
Here in Washington the height of the
buildings bears a more conservative ratio
to the ground area. They are no longer
tottering towers one hurries past lest they
fall at the passing, but solid structures de-
signed to stand the Bullets of the ages,
impressive, grand. One realizes that in
Washington the people have deposited their
inalienable rights, their national securities,
and have erected over these. their title
deeds edifices worthy Of the trust they
guard. Everywhere in Washington one Is
impressed with the sense of responsibility.
the consciousness Of trusteeship.
More than in London or in Paris or Berlin
one realizes that this is place conse-
Grated to government to the permanent IN
terests of the people. The great Captoi
rears itself above the surrounding streets
Washington all roads lead to the Capitol.
and every resident, directly or indirectly,
derives his life's blood from it.
In Europe there is no such sanctification
IL.
struggle with factories, breweries and
chemical works for breathing space. But
here, in place set apart for 1t. the people
have enshrined their government All those
who would abide near 1t must resign their
rights of citizenship, must deny themselves
a voice in the management of their mu-
ncipal affairs, must forego their birth
right as members of a republic to elect
their representatives to the national Con-
gress. They must become. as it were. the
members of an order devoted to the service
of the government In return they are
clothed and fed were the vassals of our
medieval feudal lords.
The True Greatness of Warrington.
For those Of us who are strangers here
the most lasting memories must be the
great modern Institutions Of Washington
the Congressional Library, the Post Office.
the Smithsonian Institution. the National
Museum. the Army Medical Museum
lie institutions impress the stranger with
the earnestness. the energy and the intel
lect of the American people more than
streets Of shoddy antiquities.
In the Congressional Library I saw the
noblest building the world has raised to
guard its literary treasures. Not less than
with the building l impressed with the
method and the arrangement of everything
within the building. Forty-five miles Of
books dealt with simply and as
noiselessly 1 deal with the revolving
book case at my elbow. ] had lost faith
in American machinery and was distrust.
full of its typewriters, its monographs and
much of its so-oalled labor-saving machin-
cry, but journey through the Congress
sional Library brought back my faith
chids
l have read in the British Museum and
have suffered from it's lack of space, Its
plethora Of books and its general unwieldi-
ness. Here ones request for a book van
ishes in a leathern carrier and five minutes
later the volume pops out Of chute like
a bolted rabbit before ones eyes. What
mysterious connection there is between the
leathern carrier and the book Is not vouch-
safed to one, but this much I do know, the
alchemy Of the Washington method is vast
ly superior to the ladder and librarian sys-
tenn of the British Museum.
I am told there is another city of the
United States that usurps to itself q mo-
nopoly Of culture. OF its claims I cannot
write. but 1 have difficulty in imagining
better opportunities for earnest study than
those possessed by Washington. Many of
the institutions are still but in their In
fancy, as is the Congressional Library, but
each and all Of than arc rama hlo IF nv.