The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-05-23
HONOR MAN WHO
 DESIGNED CAPITOL Erect Monument to French
 Engineer L'Enfant
TAFT MAKES ADDRESS
Ambassador Jusserand Speaks of the Friendship Existing Between the United States and
 France

In front of the old Lee mansion in Arl- ington cemetery, overlooking the broad Potomac and the capital, a memorial was unveiled today to Maj. Pierre Charles L'Enfant, the French engineer, to whose prophetic vision Washington owes its broad avenues and its symmetry of de- sign
 President Taft, Ambassador Jusserand of France and Senator Root of New York spoke in eulogy of Major L'Enfant.
 "There are not many,' said President Taft, "who have to wait 100 years to re- ceive their just reward. The man whose memory we celebrate today had highly artistic temperament and he had the de- fects which not infrequently accom- pany that temperament, and it Is that fact which has obscured at times and in some degree the merit of what he did. and les- sened the gratitude we owe him for what he did"
 Senator Root declared that Washington is being extended more in accord with the ideas of real estate men than in ac- cordance with those of lovers of art 'It would be much better now" said the sen- ator, If we were to follow the ideas of L Enfant in extending Washington"
 Ambassador Jusserand referred to the death of Minister of War Berteaux. Der teaux,'' said he, twas a man like l. En- fant. He died victim of the new inven- ton, the aeroplane. in which he was much interested. We, in France, cannot forget the way in which your President ex- iaf at haf I shows more than ever that your joys are our joys and your sorrows are our sor- rows"
 By the million every year, on ships more and more nuremous, immigrants, travellers, tourists, men of business and men of leisure visit the United States" said M. Jusserand. ''The majority of them see this land for the first time. Without exception they are struck by its imn1ensity, it's resources, the number of it's inhabitants, now nearing 100000, 900. All of those who visit the capital city are unanimous in their praise of it's beauty and its exact adaptation to the needs of a great nation.
 Mind of a Poet
 eA.i ig gas mind oi a poet. with the soul of prophet perceiving further ages as clearly as if they were the present. a man foresaw, over a century ago, what we now see and that man lies under the monument which a generous vote of Congress allows us to dedicate today Maj. Pierre Charles L'Enfant."
 The speaker told dramatically the story nf T. 10 pa ieia n hor m of royal painter, holding the rank of lieutenant of engineers in the French army, came to America in one of the ships of a Beaumarchias mythical firm of
 Hortalez & Co., and cast his fortunes with the struggling revolutionists, serv- ing first as volunteer and at his own expense, and later rising to the rank of major. He spoke of the building of what lis now called Fort Washington as being among the works of the French engineer, but said that his great work, the one for which he now enjoys the supreme honor of the presence at this ceremony of the respected successor of George Washing ton, President Taft, was the planning of the federal city,
 Referring to the wonder with which Washington as town of streets with out houses and houses without streets" was viewed by many in the early sos, one writer observed, 'it seems as if the au- thor of the plan had dreamed of a city with 100000 inhabitants
 The ambassador continued: "L'Enfant had not dreamt of that; he had foreseen that and more. The city he planned was meant, not for men of |his day but for those of ours. and when the time shall come that people will wonder at our own wonder at the rapid expansion of this country when the hun dred million inhabitants of today will look like a petty number still L'Enfant's plan will hold good, and for our successors as for us, he might be able to say; For you lit was that I worked W