The Washington herald., 1914-08-05
Paving for Street Paving.

question of vital Importance to the District has
been raised in the protest made by Washington
property owner against the proposed action Of the
District Commissioners in assessing him for part of
the cost of laying pavement. The Commis-
soners are acting under authority of law recently
enacted by Congress as part of the District appropa
ton bill placing upon property a portion OF
the burden of keeping the streets in repair.
The point raised in opposition to this law is that
the streets and avenues of the city of Washington
are owned in fee simple by the United States gov
ernment and that individual citizen be COM
PEELED to pay out of his pocket for the repair
Improvement of government property 1t is true, of
course that in the past onehaI of this expense has
been borne general burden and against this sys-
TEN, which rested equitably upon the entire CON-
munity, no objection has been made When it comes,
however, to enforcing payment upon invidiudal a
very serious legal question is raised More than
the courts have held nviolate the governments title
to the streets and avenues. In the of MCGUIRE
the District of Columbia In which the validity of
a law compelling citizens to snow and ice
from in front of their premises questioned JUS
tice Morris upheld the contention and said:
This class legislation is undoubtedly an attempt on
the part of the municipality shift to the shoulders
of individual citizens the burden which it is primarily
incumbent upon itself to BEAR namely that of keeping
the purpose for which they intended. That this
duty is primarily upon the municipality cannot reason
ably be questioned.
In other cities the property owner bears portion
of the cost of street paving because he has either
proprietary interest in the streets they owned
by the city and he is partner in the municipal
poration. This is not the case in the District of
Columbia, where as already stated the streets and
avenues are purely government property 1t will be
interesting to how the decide this question,
which property owners, We submit, have right to
raise without being charged with unpatrotic motives.
The probability is that the courts will in the future
they have in the past hold that the streets and
avenues government property to the same degree
and extent the navy yard the Mall or any other
Federal reservation As to the jurisdiction of the
government over these latter there can be no
doubt whatever, and District citizen would ever
be directly assessed for their maintenance or repair
Another point raised in this case viz that the
present Board of Commissioners is illegally consti-
tuted because judgment of custer has been rendered
against of its members will also certainly come
before the courts and is phase of our present mu-
ncipal situation which has already been commented
upon by The Washington Herald. This question,
however concerns only the personnel of the present
board The larger issue involved and that affects
the future of the District is whether individual prop
erty can be compelled to pay for the repair
and improvement of the property of the Federal gov
ernment. The affirmative answer to this question
leads logically to placing upon the taxpayers of the
District the burden of caring for every square foot
of government land within the borders of the National
Capital