Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-03-03
Closing the Great Work.

Everything is ready for tomorrows great
event. The city is ablaze with decorations,
stands are built, the pension building Is In
the final stages of preparation for the ball
reception, the committees of citizens are
instructed in their various duties In at
tending to the comfort of the guests and
the preservation of order and so far as
human labor can go the streets are cleaned.
Tonight and early tomorrow morning the
last touches will be put upon the work.
Meanwhile the visitors are swarming in by
the tens of thousands from every part of
the country.
1t has been a gigantic task, yet it is
being accomplished with a minimum of
wasted energy and maximum of results,
by body of citizens trained in the work
by their participation in previous affairs of
this kind. The men who compose the COM
mittees are experts in organization. Some
of them have served for three decades and
even more in the making of arrangements
for the induction of the President into Of
flee. From time to time new workers are
enlisted to supply the necessary enterprise
In covering the ground in the brief stretch
of time allowed in the circumstances, while
the direction of the great affair is man.
aged by men who have become perfectly
familiar with the thousand and one details
of a complex and often perplexing work.
1t is to be doubted if many of the guests
who will witness tomorrow's ceremony real
lie the labor involved in these preparations,
the sacrifices of time and energy and means
the unselfshness of the toilers in the ranks
of the inaugural committees. They see the
city In gala attire, with an equipment of
stands and other facilities for the trans
action of the business of Inauguration
and accept the results. Perhaps many of
them believe that all this work is done by
the government. They do not know. unless
particularly informed, that the United
States attends to only a small part of the
preparations and provides only modcum
of the means. They are apt to confuse the
spectacular features of the celebration,
which delight them so much with the for
NAL ceremonies at the Capitol which meas
ure all that the federal government itself
undertakes in the premises.
The greatest reward of the members of
these local committees is the realization
that they are dischargng a duty laid upon
them In their capacity as citizens of the
national capital. They are often misun-
derstood and in this connection they are
even charged by malicious or ill-informed
critics with conducting a great money
making enterprise. The other day, for ex-
ample. a New York newspaper printed a
letter from a chronic grumbler asserting
that the ball-reception which will be held
tomorrow night is a private financial enter
prise, based upon the generous donations of
the government. This affair it should be
explained to out-of-town visitors to the in
auguration, is an established feature of the
occasion, to enable the thousands of the
guests to see the President and the mem
bers of his personal and official families at
close range, and otherwise to enjoy the
celebration. The proceeds from the recep
ton go to defray the enormous expenses of
the general preparations. mounting into the
tens of thousands of dollars. If It were
not held the city would not be able to pro-
vide as it does the necessary equipment for
the reception and direction of visitors, the
preservation of order and the constructions
essential to the review of the grand parade.
In no sense is it a mOney-making enter
prise beyond the defraying of these neces-
sary and legitimate expenses, and no penny
of profit goes into the pockets of the citi-
zens forming the committees.
For the good public work they have done
and are now finishing the District. knowing
all the circumstances renders thanks to its
capable and self-sacrficing representatives
of these committees, and it is not to be
doubted that the sentiment will find echo
ir the hearts of all guests who are aware
Of the exact facts