The age-herald., 1902-02-09

world by which Washington can be meas ured. It Is just unique in our time as was the Athens of Plato, though vastly diff ferent. The human the moral truth of Athens in the fullness of its artistic beauty and the glory of its learning can not now be so much as hinted at in print, and the wise and morally great have ceased to discuss it orally, because the mere mention of the bare facts Is offensive to politeness and morality. Athens in It's greatness feel lower in the scale of morals than the lowest deeps of imaginable depravity in our time.
 But whatever may be said by saffron newspaperism and by scandal-mongers of all degrees, Washington is perhaps the most moral large town in the world
 This city is fortunately not good in the sense that it falls to the dead level of humbug as exempified by such wretched mountebanks as that soul-slaying howler Parkhurst, the New York person who still cumbers the earth. though as an ass praying in the brambles.
 Washington Is not town of angels Congress assemblies here-but it is thoroguhly human, light-hearted and happy town. wherein there is much danc- ing. much feasting much frolic, much merriment and much of the serious busi- ness of governing the country. A Wash ington crowd is singularly good-natured, easy to please. glad-spirited, generous and charitable Turbulence is rarely heard of in any walk of life; the people find 1t too much bother to be rowdy for they know that rowdyism is punished In this city-this ideal community which is free from the manifest evils of popular municipal government; that is without mayor. town council, or that ridiculous officer a chief of police elected by pop ular approval; community in which no man has the right to vote and in which therefore there are no votes for sale and no elections in which to cast them if they could be bought.
 Last night one hundred and fifty of the most representative business men of Washington. attending banquet, wildly cheered member of Congress who de- clared that the day would never come which could bring the ballot back to Washington.
 Our fathers and grandfathers used to proclaim the absurd boast that this coun- try had "the best government the world ever saw" That never was true, and hu- manly speaking can never be true under our system. The fact is that we now have almost the worst government of any great power in Christendom. No other civilized nation except France is so wretchedly misgoverned as the United States. Yet Washington has the least objectionable municipal government Tn America, and, judging by this city, one would rejoice to see every large commun- ity in this country governed under the direction of Congress.
 The wonderfully high and glad society season that is now fading into the gray of the Lenten time is declared to have been the most successful, the gladdest the brightest of all the seasons society here has ever experienced.
 This Is probably true; for greater reign of society pleasures, more engag- ing period of daily and nightly merrl- ment is not conceivable even in Wash- ington, where the higher society partakes of so many of the dearer qualities of neighberliness the like of which pre- vailed in that olden South that is to most of us nowadays-merely a tradition of our race, a glory of enlightenment and wide culture that passed before we were brought into the world to struggle through the new order of things wherein the slaves became the masters of their masters.
 How singular 1t is that the swell charm of neighborhood has never passed from cosmopoIitan Washingtonl How entranc-