Year: 1874

Senator Morrill's Report, accompanying the
bill for the better government of the District
| Of Columbia, is based upon right principles.
| It takes the ground that the national capital
| ia essentially different in character from all
other cities it is not merely the home of Its
few thousands of residents but it is the
possession of the whole people, built upon
plan and scale commensurate with the national
dignity, and requiring expenditures far beyond
tho means of its permanent inhabitants Not
only is Congress empowered to pass laws for
its government, but as the trustee of the
nation it is bound to administer the affairs Of
this national city in the interests of the
American people at large His bill therefore
leaves tho power of legslating for the District
exclusively with Congress, and intrusts the
duties of administration to executive commits
sions over whose appointment Congress re-
tains o more or less direct control.


For long time to come the principal duty
of the District Government will bo spending
money. Washington is city of vast unfin-
ished projects, national metropolis whose am
bition has outrun its growth. On every hand
there are inchoate avenues, chaotic pleasure
grounds, the skeleton frames of abortive i'm
provements, the dust, and rubbish, and dis
turbance of works half done. Monuments of
folly and extravaganza, miracles Of lncOn-
venence and ugliness. shock the stranger and
put the American to the blush ut every street
corner. Though We have pressing need of
economy in public expenditures, pretty liberal
appropriations must inevitably be made for
the national capital; the schemes already
begun have involved system Of outlay from
which we cannot Immediately retreat, and the
District itself, having no commerce, will never
grow fast enough to pay the cost of its own
establishment. There is no reason whatever
why the inhabitants of this little territory
should control the disbursement of sums paid
out of the National Treasury for the nations
benefit. Even if it were right in theory that
they should do it, experience has shown that
they cannot do it intelligently, and will not
do it honestly. A large number of the voters
of the District are ignorant, and it is notorious
that during the rule of the Ring the law
makers we're chosen in great measure by tho
votes of negro colonists, brought in from
Maryland and Virginia about election time to
work on the street improvements, and vote
according to orders.


The scheme of administration embodied in
Mr. MOrrill's bill is open to the obvious OBJ
lection that it intrusts to President Grant the
appointment of the Board of Regents, and of
course his first impulse will be to "viudicater
Messrs Shepherd and Harrington. It rests
with the Senate, however, to confirm the
Presidents nominees. and it is possible that
the Senate has learned enough from the re-
cent election to show little spirit. The
Commissioner of Public Works is to be ap-
pointed by the President from the Engineer
Corps of the Army. Babcock. Perhaps it will
be as well to add an amendment to the bill.
prohibiting the reappointment of anybody
connected with the old District Government,
Otherwise nothing but the possible objections
of the Senate will probably hinder the restora
ton of the whole Ring. And the Senate -.