Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-10-18

commission have not a particle of author
ity from the national legislature for their
acts, and the House has de clared in very
emphatic terms its opinion of the man
ner of their appointment by a Senate
committee without consultation with
its branch of Congress.
And now who Is this Superior Person
E. w Dom. junior. with his contemptu-
Gus nose in the air-who undertakes to
viIlify the whole people of Washington on
behalf of the tree butchers? He Is quite
unknown to fame hereabouts, and nobody
seems to have been aware OF his existence
until he butted into notice with his Wilt
fications OF the reputable citizens who
have ventured to protest against the de-
struction of the peoples park.
And now who are the ignoble, undesir-
able citizens berated by E. w. Dom. jul
nior? Does he refer to that Grand Old
Man Justice Harlan. that broad minded.
sagacious statesman and jurist whose
ben fcent life has been devoted to the
service of his country, to the cause of
good government and especially to the up
lifting of the city of Washington to its
proper position as the capital of great
nation. His latest service in this way
work of tree butchery proposed by the
park commission.
Does he aim at William R. Smith,
whose intelligent work in behalf of
gr alter and more beautiful Washington
has just been referred to?
Is the object of his derision Dr. Frank
Bristol. the esteemed pastor of the Met
ropolitan NJ T. Church. who has raised
HE ~
scheme to destroy the beautiful and
health giving shade trees in the Peoples
Park?
Is it Mr.. Charles C. Glover to whose
indomitable energy and able advocacy the
construction of the magnificent Rock
Creek park and the reclamation of the
malarial Potomac flats is largely due?
Is he striking at the patriotic and pub
lic-spirited citizens associations who
have denounced in no measured terms the
whole abomlnable scheme of tree-butcn-
cry?
Does he mean the band of good cit
zens who under the lead of Alexander
f. Shepherd rescued the National capital
fro mthe slough of despond and made it
one of the most beautiful capital cities in
the world?
And now a word to the park COM
mission.
When Congress authorized the plac-
ing of the Grant Monument in the Bo
tanic Gardens it distinctly specified
that it should be located on ''unoccu-
pied ground Now somebody by
disCredtable trick has placed the site
on ground fully occupied by stately
historic trees. This somebody was I'M
mistakably working in the interest of
the park commission scheme for de-
stroying the whole body of the finest
trees in the District of Columbia i'll
order to convert the gardens into
bare, graveled. paved. sun-baked open
square.
Now if the commission endorse the ac-
ton of this somebody, and insist upon
retaining the site thus Illegally seized,
they will assume a grave responsibility.
They cannot throw this responsibility
upon the Grant Monument commission, as
they seem disposed to do. The commits
sion-Secretary Taft. Senator Wetmore
and Gen. Grenville Dodge-are all out of
the country or the city. They can I'm
doubtedly prove an alibi.
The plan of the commission as an en-
tirety is noble one. but it has some
Objectionable features-that, for instance
contemplating the destruction of the
shade trees in the Mall fifty years before
they can be replaced by trees of a size to
afford any adequate shade. They had
better go slow. therefore, in the work of
slauShtering the present majestic trees
(some of them eighty years old) in the
Botanic Gardens or elsewhere in the pub
lie grounds.