The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-08-11
MOST UNIQUE IF
 ALL GREAT CITIES Washington is Full of Peculiar
 Conditions HAS NO CITY GOVERNMENT Citizens of the Capital Enjoy Freedom From Municipal Poitics-orien of the City Is Not Natural,
 But Artificial.
HAS NO CITY GOVERNMENT I
BY FREDERIC l. HAsKIN.

IL is the most cosmopolitan because rep
 resentatiVes of all other nations dwell 1T
 It, yet 1t has no foreign quarter Wash
 ingtons greatest industry Is government
 and its greatest product is politics, but the
 issues are all national. It Is the only
 American city where there is no local par
 ty politics. in fact 1t is the only city oi
 the civilized world which cannot choose
 any of it's local officers by vote. The
 President appoints the executive and jul
 dictal officers, and Congress. sitting as
 a city council "exercises exclusive leg
 islation.' Despite the anomalous spec
 tacle presented by the capital city of a
 democratic country being governed in
 theory by an autocracy the people are
 content, public opinion rules, and the l city Itself is a masterful argument for the
 continuation of the present plan. 1 Washington is the most beautiful city l in the United States, and is claimed by
 many authorities to have no peer in the 1 world. Paris has more magnificent yistas, l but there are quarters of the French l capital with never claim to beauty. l There are more shade trees in Washing l ton than i'll any city in the world. It l has 92000 trees, while Paris, the next in 1 the list, has only S5,000. It must be re- membered in this connection that Paris l has nearly 3,0000OO population, while l Washington has but S3O000.
 The national capital is the only city in the United States which had an artificial i origin. All the other places ''jes growed," Topsy fashion, but it was a city complete in the mind of George Wash 1 tngton before it was traced on paper by. i Major l. Enfant and Major Elicott The plan made for the capital, where there was naught but squares in morasses and obolisks in trees" has been sufficient for l the needs of the great city of today, and extensions of the system as indicated by the original plan will open the whole territory of the district and eventually accommodate as many people as live there now.
 Washington streets are wider than those of other cities, being originally from 80 to lb0 feet wide. Many of these were too wide for the demands of traffic and when the improvement of the city began in the seventies the thoroughfares were mar rowed and portions ne, buildings were reserved as par
 pretty strip of green
 of Washington thoro
 d part of the Street.
 of the United States
 control of the oWne
 property, although ht
 lawn. The real estat
 the square foot inste
 front foot method.
 compel the people to D,
 the sidewalks in winter. because .-
 the property of Uncle Sam, and a priva,o citizen cannot be compelled to care for government property.
 More than half of the property in the District of Columbia is owned by the United States, which pays half the total expenses, while the property owners of the district pay the other half Until 1878 the general government paid nothing at all toward the maintenance of the dis trct. Even now the great undertakings for the permanent improvement of the capital outside of the public buildings. of course are half paid for by the resi- dents of the District of Columbia, al though the whole people are interested in the completion of the plans which will make Washington the envy of the na- tions.
 The original plans for the city as ap- proved by Washington and Jefferson pro vided for a system of streets running east and west and north and south. These streets were cut at irregular angles by two systems of avenues which radiated like the spoKes of a wheel from the Presidents house and the capitol. The east and west streets were named for the letters of the alphabet, from "A" to w" A pecularty of the system is that there is no "J'' street. This was because few fonts of type made a distinction between capital "T' and capital "J' until ISIS, and these streets were named before the dawn of the nineteenth century. The long avenues cross the streets and each other at angles which confuse the stranger, but at each crossing there is a little park or patch of green to relieve the monotony of a desert of asphalt. Where two or three avenues are gathered together there Is circle or a square, usually ornamented by a statue and al ways with grass and flowers and trees.
 There are 275 of these little parks less than one acre in extent, and twenty-sx others that are more than an acre in size. There are also ten large parks in the cen tral portion of the city, the largest being the Wall. reaching from the Botanical Gardens at the foot of Capitol Hill, to the Monument, distance of three-fourths of mile. The crowning glory of Wash ingtons park system Is Rock Creek park and the Geological park, which are prac- tically one. These have a combined area of IT'S acres. Rock Creek Is not ex- celled in beauty by any driving park in the country. The drives wind about the val ley of a swift stream flowing through great boulders, and there have been no dishguring Improvements" The roads are good the bridges pretty and the lords paved but otherwise one sees Nature un- profande by man. Few cities have the advantage of so wild a forest at their very gates.
 Washington Is the cleanest city in the United States It has few factories and is strictly a residential city. A rlgidly en- forced anti-smoke law has been opera tive for seven years and practically no smoke is made In the city now except by locomotives There are POO of these. and when threatened with legislation the rail- roads volunteered to reduce the amount of smoke by burning hard coal or oil It is possible to wear a collar all day on the streets of Washington without getting d sign of smudge on 1t. Soot does not fly in a the windows and smoke does not choke the early morning air.
 Washington has a greater number of institutions of learning than any other city. Universities. training schools, fn- ishing schools, professional schools, and preparatory schools are supplemented by the excellent public school system which was started in 1895. The wealthier eiti- zens subscribed funds from their private purses, but opened the school to all com CTS. Thomas Jefferson was then Pres ident of the United States. He was elect ed to the board of education and became it's frs president The Smithsonian In stitution, the Carnegie institute, the scien- tifc bureaus of the government and the great libraries In Washington attract scientists from all over the world, and there are more men actually engaged in scientific research there than in any other one city on the globe. The tele- graph and telephone are among the thou- sands of inventions that have come rom the workshops of Washington scientists.
 More negroes live in Washington than in any other city. e5ooo of the total popu-