Evening star., 1925-02-22
BY HARLEAN JAMES,

TT is the fashion nowadays to belittle the
heroes of history; to chow how Fate
Ambition lent a glow of greatness to
men of poor Judgment and small ability.
We hear much of research into cotem-
porary opinions concerning the great leaders
of the past, and find then, as now that
. the adverse criticisms of those in the public
eye were apt to fill the printed page and
even the private letter. Warm approval often
makes stupid reading. Iconoclastio comment
commands more ready audience.
But research into the life and work of
George Washington, while it reveals, indeed,
man of sufficient human frailty to establish
kinship with his fellows, also discloses
whose Judgment of the days problems was
sound and sensible and whose vision of the
future has rarely been excelled
George Washington saw in his minds eye
that the United States was to become great
and populous country and that the Federal
City in the course of hundred years would
become. though not large London a
city with "a magnitude inferior to few others
in Europe" If he did not estimate to its
fullest extent the sweeping drift of the pop
ulation into cities which would in 1920 result
in more than 80 European cities of size
greater than Washington, neither could he
have predicted that there would be 13 cities
In the United States of greater magnitude
than the Capital. But for all that, the Dis
trict of Columbia in 1925 claims population
of half million, which surely justifies the
belief Of George Washington, expressed at
the end of the eighteenth century, that the
Federal City would become an important me-
tropolis.
The Congress of the United States was so
convinced that there should be built cap
ital city free from conflicting jurisdiction
and directly under the control of Congress
that in the Constitution of the United States
it is expressly provided that
The Congress shall have power: To exer-
nio
soever, over such District (not exceeding 10
miles square) may, by cession of particular
States and the acceptance of Congress, be-
come the seat of the Government of the
United States"
Though the general location on the Potomac
was the result of act of Congress, which
had more or less remote connection with
the famous trade between Hamilton and JEFF
ferson the actual choice of the exact site
was left to the President. who was authorized
to appoint three commissioners to select a
district of territory not exceeding 10 miles
square to be located the River Potomac
at some place between the mouths OF the
Eastern Branch and the Conococheague"
President Washington chose a 1o-mile
square placed diagonally 80 that both sides
of the Potomac River from Alexandria to a
point above Georgetown were included
we'll the Eastern Branch (Anacostia
River) almost to Bladensburg. When the
confines of the district of territory had been
marked there still the problem of Sc
lecting from the wilderness the site of the
city. Instead of mapping little settle
ment which might have been huddled to-
gether in small way and which would have
made immediate impression of neatness
and order, Washington determined that the
Federal City should be planned unit
on a scale to meet the demands of the century
to come.
X X
In order to plan a city worthy to be the
capital of great nation, Washington adopted
a unique and effective method to secure
troll of the entire by entering into
agreement with the 1s proprietors of the land
which he expected to use. BY this instrument
the proprietors agreed to convey in trust to
the President to the commissioners all of
their land which the President might think
proper to include within the confines of the