Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-02-02
BEAUTY OF WASHINGTON.
Commentator Of Plan to Purchase
Property Along South Side Of Avenue.
From he New York SIM.

Commentator Of Plan to Purchase
Property Along South Side Of Avenue.
From the New York Sun.
The Senate committees bill appropriating
$1O.0O0.OOO for the reclamation of the south
side of Pennsylvania avenue in Washington
Is a bill which should be enacted into law
without delay or hesitation.
The national capital which belongs to
the whole country and in which all the
people take a genuine pride, has not thus
far been beautified as the people at large
would like and as in their character Of
taxpayers they have a right to demand.
Washington is undoubtedly a beautiful
city in spots. Wealthy persons. attracted
from all parts of the country by the official
pageantry of the court and by certain
climatic virtues which undoubtedly apper-
tain to the locality, have lined such avenues
as Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode
Island and New Hampshire with costly If
not always graceful palaces, and thereby
contributed greatly to the spectacular eff
feet The plain people. however. who in
steadily multiplying numbers visit the cap
ital year after year. see little that the gov
eminent has done for them with their own
money to the end of national pride and
gratitude. 1t is a fact. indeed. that the
Washington first beheld by the visitor pre-
sents as shabby ana disreputable a spec
tacle as can be found in the most aban-
doned slum of any of our big, vociferous
and dirty towns.
stretc hof more than mile, crowned at
one end by the Capitol, perhaps the noblest
structure in the world, and gladdened at
the other end by a revelation Of Grecian
architecture such as Athens itself would
gratefully add to it's illustrious monuments
Pennsylvania avenue is undoubtedly the
most sovenly and raffish thoroughfare
imaginable. 1t is bordered on the south
side, excepting here and there a govern
ment building Of particularly hideous
countenance, with bar rooms, lodging
houses. cheap hotels and huckster shops
of more or less acceptable appearance.
In the rear of this abominable fringe is
purlieu of which the less said the better
1t is the lair of criminals and ruffians, the
hiding place of malefactors and we are told
and angry blister shall have been removed
the splendid park devised by L'Enfant and
approved by George Washington will re-
main terra incOgnita as concerns respect
able society, and theater for cutthroats.
highwaymen and assorted felons. From the
south windows Of the White House Presi-
dent Roosevelt can inspect this loathsome
jungle. He knows, none better that Wash
ington can never be a decent or q pretty
town while that unutterable blot exists
Now comes the bill in question, proposing
to erase the stain; proposing, in fact, to
realize the dreams Of Washington's most
enlightened friends in the generation that
has vanished. A quarter of century or
more ago Senator Morrill, of Vermont and
Senator ingalls, of Kansas matured the
scheme to which this much-belated but
most meritorious movement evidently leads
up Should Congress take an hour off from
oratory of questionable value and devote 1t
to really intelligent and patriotic purpose
the chances all are that Washington will
be converted from a theoretical to an actual
inspiration of enthusiasm.