Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-01-29
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Bottled Only
at the Spring, Neuenahr,
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Its Own Natural Gas
THE QUEEN OF TABLE WATERS.

as an antecedent condition; one bill re-
quires the payment of a money considera-
ton collateral before proceedings shall
begin: all the others require neither dedi-
cation OF land nor a payment OF money.
But the main question-who shall pay
for these improvements answered Dy
these acts in an absurdly contradictory
manner. Some Of them require that all the
damages shall be assessed against other
land benefited. In other cases only 30 per
cent of the damages Is to be SO assessed
In others a discretion is given to the Com
missioners by which an amount less than 90
per cent may be assessed.
'In arranging for the deferred assess
ments some of these acts give two equal
annual assessments and charge 10 per cent
annual interest thereon; others give five
years at per cent annual interest. and
still others four years at 5 per cent annual
interest.
"All of these special acts apply to one
particular part of the city and ignore all
other parts. They all up to the present
have applied TO that region lying between
Tenleytown road and the Soldiers. Home
north of Rock creek. or In the neighborhood
of the National Park. 1t Is needless to say
that this region is the one in which the
speculative Interests have predominated
since 1885,
Mr.. Morrell then stated that he had in
vestigated the thirteen special acts. and
proceeded to point out the differences in
them to which he had just called attention.
The Sixteenth Street Extension.
I'm the first session of the Fffty-sixth
Congress" said Mr. Morrell, 1.-THE 10th street
extension act was passed. This required a
dedication of three-fourths of all the land
and that SO per cent of the damages should
be assessed against abutters, but not
against the dedicants. These dedicants gave
about fifty acres of agricultural land the
price for the enormous exemption which
they received in the act referred to. 1t is a
strange commentary upon this character of
legislation that IL the act requires an
sessment, of all the damages against ben
efits the jury has no trouble in finding
full hundred per cent of beneficiaries; and
IL the act requires 80 per cent the jury APP
parently finds this with equal ease. In
other words. a jury seemed to have no diff
fculty in finding whatever percentage of
benefits may be demanded by the act in the
property abutting, adjacent or contiguous
to the improvement, but In the 10th street
extension the jury broke down. Although
required to find but per cent of benefited
property after eXempting the dedfcants, it
could find but about Is per cent of bene-
ficiaries. The damages assessed by the
jury were $129, 952. The benefits were $10S,
S3i. Although the act required that 30 per
cent of the damages should be assessed
against beneficiaries, under the discretion
airy power given the Commissioners. this
finding was approved and this balance.
s620. 01S was cast one-half on the abutters
who were not dedfcants and one-half upon
the District of Columbia.
Separate Improvement Districts.
lone great difficulty in the opening of
new streets under the Washington system
is the modus operandi of the initial pro-
ceedings. Too much has been left in the
initiative to interested parties. and the little
to the owners of the real estate of the Dis
trct to be improved. There is a system
very much in favor among American cities
very much like the provision set out in the
code, which authorizes the creation of sep
arate street improvement districts. These
districts are to be found throughout the
American Union and have contributed no
little to the solution of the vexed question
of street opening and the original or first
cost of street Improvement. The citizens
of the District of Columbia, and by this l
mean those whose residence is here and
not elsewhere, are deprived of the right of
suffrage; to give them the right to form
special Observation-Disclosures, either in the
old city in the outlying suburbs, would,
in my opinion, not only add to their privt-
leges as citizens, but would contribute
largely to the improvement of the streets of
the District. The provision of the code
limits the street improvement based upon
the petition of more than half the owners
of real estate to a square black and to
minor streets. It should be enlarged to
permit majority of the real estate owners
along any street or system of streets to so
petition and to form a special improve
ment district, whose entire expense shall be
cast upon the property of that district and
assessed at not more than per cent per
annum until full payment is made This
system has worked well elsewhere because
it to a large measure places these improve
ments directly in the hands of the property
owners themselves. And as they pay the
bills and improve in harmony with plans
furnished by the Commissioners of the Dis
trict there should be no objection to its
enactment here