aass-£ \^-^ Book _-J" ^^ C(r ?n / J^3 WASHINGTON THE CITY AND THE SEAT OF GOVERNMENT WASHINGTON THE CITY AND THE SEAT OF GOVERNMENT BY C. H. FORBES-LINDSAY AUTHOR OF 'America's Insular Possessions," "India, Past and Present/' etc. ILLUSTRATED PHILADELPHIA THE JOHN C. WINSTON CO. 1908 C L^ LIPKf'JV -tf CONGRESS StP .24 1908 COP^ A. ('^•I•^ i:ii;nT. 1!H»S, hy Tin: .1.111 N ('. Winston C 2)eDicatc& TO THE HONORABLE HENRY B. F. MACFARLAND PRESIDENT OP THE COMMISSIONERS OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA ** May this territory be the residence of virtue and happi- ness ! In this city may that pifty and virtue, that wisdom and mag^nanimity, that constancy and scif-jxovtTnment, which adorn thc^rcat charai'ter whose name it bears, be forever held in ven- eration." AUAMS. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. The National Capital i II. The Ten Miles Square 11 III. Planning the City 41 IV. Breaking Ground 73 V. The Government Takes Possession . . .107 VI. The Government of the District .... 132 VII. A Sluggish Growth 154 VIII. Washington in War Times 175 IX. Washington in the Twentieth Century . . 224 X. Journalism in Washington 248 XI. Social Life in the Capital 271 XII. The Suburbs of Washington 294 XIII. The Presidents and the White House . . 319 XIV. The Capitol and the Library of Congress . 343 XV. Congress and the Supreme Court .... 363 XVI. The Executive Government 383 XVII. The Executive Government 401 Appendix 423 ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE The Capitol Frontispiece Old Pierce Mill 16 Washington's Tomb, Mount Vernon 32 BuRNEs' Cottage 48 View North from Washington Monument .... 64* Great Falls of the Potomac 80 Bridge in Rock Creek Park 96 Washington Monument 112 The Capitol from Washington Monument .... 128 St. John's Church 144 Soldiers' Home 176 Thomas Circle 208 Smithsonian Institution 240 Corcoran Art Gallery 244 Statue of Rochambeau 272 Arlington 304 Vista from Arlington 310 Bladensburg 312 White House, from North 320 White House, from South 336 Library of Congress 352 In the Congressional Library 360 New Senate Offices, Union Station in Background, 368 State, War and Navy Building 384 Treasury Department 392 WASHINGTON CHAPTEK I. THE NATIONAL CAPITAL. To the chief city of every nation is attached some romantic legend connecting it with the times preceding its foundation. Washington, though of comparatively modern establishment, is no excep- tion, unless it be in that the traditions relating to the territory now known as the District of Columbia, have an unusual basis of truth. Long before the proprietary regime of the Cal- verts, the region was the site of a capital. Here was the center of the powerful Algonquin tribe. The division of it known as the Powhatans occu- pied what is now the District at the time that John Smith explored this section of the country and had his memorable adventure with the daughter of their chief. The capital of the Algonquins con- sisted of a group of villages situated in the angle formed by the Eastern Branch and the Potomac. The principal camp and the wig^vams of the chiefs 2 WASHINGTON. were at Greenleaf's Point. The council house stood in the very shadow of the hill that is now crowned by the Capitol. For a long period after the colonization of Mary- land — until its occupation by the Government, in fact — the land covered by the city of Wash- ington was almost virgin wilderness and contained but a handful of settlers. The site of the city was overspread, in the main, by dense woods, relieved here and there by patches of corn or tobacco. When the Government moved to Washington, there were but two houses between the Executive mansion and the Capitol. The scanty population was clus- tered for the most part in two settlements, Ham- burg, on Observatory Hill, being one, and. Carrolls- burg, on James Creek, the other. Even after the location of the Government at Washington, the growth and improvement of the city were so slow as to excite the ridicule and contempt of visitors. Xor were these feelings confined to foreigners. The site of the capital had been decided upon in the face of the strongest opposition on the part of the northern States and a considerable element among the first two generations of Americans entertained pro- nounced sentiments of unfriendliness towards the national center. To this attitude, wliicli was fre- quently accentuated by active efY(^rt^^ to remove the seat of government, must be largely attributed THE NATIONAL CAPITAL. 3 the early stagnation and neglect in which the city lay. Washington for so long a period played the part of " Ugly Duckling " among our urban centers, was for so many years allowed by its legal spon- sors to remain in a state of rustic backwardness, that early Americans acquired a habit of think- ing of their capital with indifference and speaking of it slightingly. Not until sixty-five years after it became the seat of the government was it un- questionably accepted as the permanent center of the country, and still another decade passed before Congress assumed its equitable share of the burden of maintenance and improvement, and so made it possible for the city to grow to its present con- dition of beauty and magnificence. The factors that militated against the growth of the city, the actual and constructive relations that existed between the municipality and the Government, and the splendid struggle made by the inhabitants to lift the capital out of the slough of stagnation in which it lay for more than half a century, are not generally known. They are matters that have been omitted, as a rule, from books dealing with the city of Washington, but the writer of the present volume believes that he has served a useful purpose in setting them forth at some length. The progress of Washington is necessarily, to a considerable extent, a reflection of the progress 4 WASHINGTON. of the nation. It is, therefore, doubly interesting and instructive to view the development of the capital from the days of small beginnings when Congress was too poor to pay a chaplain and the Vice-president and President-elect of the United States lived in a boarding house on Capitol Hill ; when a carter, in his smock, might attend a White House reception without let or hindrance and a for- eign ambassador be received by the highest officer of the land in dressing-gown and slippers. Following the story of the city through the cen- tury of its existence, Ave find it passing through several distinct phases of social and political con- dition. Previous to the Civil War, officialdom comprises polite society but its standard of man- ners and morals is far from the highest. States- men of the greatest repute openly frequent the gambling rooms and drinking saloons along Penn- sylvania Avenue and consort with the Beau Hick- mans and similar adventurers of their times. In the legislative chambers, quarrels, in which weapons are drawn, frecpiently interrupt the proceedings and the duel is a recognized institution. The War dvow t<> Washington a numerous riff- raff and its close saw the ])o]ndation augmented by a number of wealthy individuals who exerted a marke(l intlnence upon the social life of the capi- tal. At this period, too, it became the Mecca of the office-seeker and the lobbvist. THE NATIONAL CAPITAL, 5 A wonderful change has been wrought in the past thirty years. Washington has developed into one of the most beautiful and attractive cities of the world. Its population has doubled, the prop- erty of its residents has increased at least three- fold in value, its public utilities have been placed upon the basis of the most modern methods, and its business interests have expanded greatly. The visible transformation is so striking as to excite the wonder even of the inhabitants, who have the dis- advantage of a view contracted by a foreshortened perspective. But, when they contrast their earliest impressions with the tangible picture of the pres- ent, the evolution of recent years astounds them. " Chronic Eow " and '' Old Mother Damnable's " are within the recollection of men not yet old, whilst " Foggy Bottom '' is but a thing of yester- day. Nor need one be a patriarch to recall the un- sightly presence of negro shanties on Massachusetts Avenue and other localities now lined with palatial houses, and the lumbering herdic, that still pre- serves a precarious but picturesque existence, is a reminder of the not-distant day when the city, which now has the finest street car service in the country, was dependent on horse-drawn vehicles of a sorry type. Coincident with the material development of Washington and commensurate with it, has been the intellectual and social growth of the city. Dur- 6 WASHINGTON. ing the period of expaii.sioii under consideration, the number of i)upils in the public schools has doubled and the number of teachers, quadrupled. Numerous institutions of higher learning have come into being or sprung into unwonted vigor. The cherished hope of George Washington that the capital would be the home of a great national seat of learning is realized in the university named after him. The extraordinary facilities for education and research offered by the capital have become widely recognized, with the result that Washington is con- stantly attracting students and writers in such numbers as to justify the statement that it is already the literary center of the nation and may soon claim a like position in the matter of educa- tion. For similar reasons, the capital has become the center of scientific study and investigation and is drawing to itself an ever-increasing number of the devotees of art. During the Civil War the people of Washing- ton depended upon outside papers, — mainly those of Baltimore, — for the news. Now the daily jour- nals of the city are the equal of any in the country and every paper of consequence in America has a correspondent at Washington. Equally marked is the advancement of the city as a social center. Time was when GeorgetowTi's old families opened their doors to only a select THE NATIONAL CAPITAL. 7 and favored few of the residents of Washington and for many years after its foundation, polite society at the capital was composed mainly of a handful of high officials, prominent officers of the military forces and representatives of foreign oyvers, with a sprinkling of members of Congress. To-day, Washington can boast the most intellectual society in the country and has become the regular winter residence of many persons of wealth, who have no commercial nor political interest in the place. Officials and members of Congress bring their families to the seat of Government, make homes there and, in many cases, remain after re- tirement from public life. The palatial homes of Washington and its commodious hotels are con- stantly entertaining distinguished visitors from various parts of our land and from foreign coun- tries, whilst the city is rapidly growdng in favor with the casual tourist, and as a place for conven- tions. Within the past decade there has been a marked increase in the popular interest displayed in AVash- ington and a tendency to look upon it, with pro- priety, as the people's city, occupying a territory peculiarly the property of the whole nation, and representing the focal point of all the most im- portant national interests. W^ith the change of public attitude has arisen a desire to know more about the capital and its history, as well as willing- 8 WASHINGTON. ness to correct the misconceptions that have for so long been entertained with regard to it. With a double object in view, the author of this volume has given an unusual amount of space to the early growth and government of the city, subjects gen- erally slighted in previous books devoted to Wash- ington. It is designed, thereby, to clear up the most flagrant of the fallacies to which reference has been made, and also to afl'ord a basis of com- parison that will tend to a better appreciation of the w^onderful advancement of the capital since the Civil War. The physical aspects of the city and suburbs at different periods are descril>ed and the coinci- dent improvement of its material, social, and intel- lectual interests. Incidental features, such as '^ Journalism in Washington," have not been neg- lected and space has been found for the intersper- sion of historical events and interesting characters associated with the city. The growth of our Government since its incep- tion has been marvelous. A fuH 'appreciation of what it has been can be gained only by a survey extending from the times when a Secretary of State might almost carry his papers in his hat. Such was the case when the Government fled to Germantow^n to escape the epidemic of smallpox in Philadelphia, and Jefferson boarded with the Diitclnuan, Bockius. The heads of departments THE NATIONAL CAPITAL. 9 seem to have conducted their business at their lodg- ing places without difficulty or serious inconven- ience, and cabinet meetings were held at one or another boarding house. In 1800, the men in the employment of the Fed- eral Government numbered one hundred and thirty- six. To-day, the civil service rolls carry more than twenty-five thousand names, not to mention the much greater number employed outside of Wash- ington. At the former period the disbursements for all purposes were but $137,000. N^ow the budget for administrative needs exceeds $20,000,- 000. Many a comparatively unimportant bureau of the present day has a larger staff than all the Departments together had a hundred years ago. When the Government moved to Washington, most of the Departments managed well enough with the accommodations afforded by ordinary private houses and, 'in one case at least, the premises sup- plied lodgings for a family besides the space occu- pied by the office. This wonderful expansion of the Government during the century of its location at Washington is traced in a few chapters, which include brief histories of various Departments. The general design of the author has been to bring the past and present into view — to show the city and the Government as they were and as they are. This comparative method of treatment will not only afford a realization of the achieve- 10 WASHINGTON. ment attained, but will also furnish a basis for an introspective view of the possibilities of the future. In this w^e shall hardly fail to conceive of our capital as a city of several millions of inhabitants, occupying a position of preeminence in every re- spect save that of commerce and in that yielding superior rank to only a few cities of the country. CHAPTER II. THE TEN" MII>ES SQUARE. In the development of urban centers, there is something not unlike the growth of human beings. The precocious child disappoints our expectations no less commonly than does the " boom " town and, just as the dull and weedy boy often becomes a bright and handsome specimen of his kind, so the unpromising village frequently blossoms into a beautiful and bustling city. Thus we may ex- cuse the pessimistic opinions of the future metrop- olis expressed by early visitors to the settlement on the banks of the Potomac, surrounded by '' end- less and almost impenetrable woods," with '' no objects to catch the eye but a forlorn pilgrim forcing his way through the grass that overruns the streets, or a cow ruminating on a bank." In- deed, the wonder is that a few, in the natal period, had the faith and foresight to predict for the for- lorn infant a healthy adolescence and a vigorous maturity. It was during the chaotic days immediately fol- lowing the Revolution, when few men's minds 11 12 WASHINGTON. were calm or their lieads clear, that the idea of a national ca])ital took form. Under the circum- stances, it had been strange if that proposition, or any other of general concern had failed to arouse conflicting views and counter suggestions. Sus- picion and jealousy were rife, not only among the leading men of the embryo nation, but also auiong the several States which formed the confederation. Coupled with these disturbing factors, were the fear of the commonwealths of one another and their general distrust of the people. liiot and insurrection were among the elements that rendered the five years following the peace of 1783 the most critical period in the history of the American Republic. Hardly less sinister -were the dis- sensions between various sections of the country — the greater and the lesser States — and the numer- ous boundary disputes. The rancor excited by these differences naturally extended to the rep- resentatives of the people and made it extremely difficult to reach a decision on the question of the site of a national ca]iital and retarded for many years the work of ('stal)lisliiii('nt. The gen- eral government was feeble in the extreme and Congress was frequently placed in the position of a suppliant to States that assumed a degree of independent sovereignty inconsistent with the the- ory and practice of union. Hardly in any res])ect, except for the making of treaties with the Indians THE TEN MILES SQUARE. 13 and the organization of the western territory, did Congress exercise the prerogatives of government. So little cohesion or agreement of thought marked the relations of the States in the formative period of the Union that the idea of a convention to form a national constitution, advanced by Alex- ander Hamilton as early as 1780 and supported by Thomas Paine and other leaders, was not put into effect until some years later, and then timor- ously and with evasive announcement of purpose. The convention which met in Philadelphia, May, 1787, after four months of contentious delibera- tion framed a Constitution, which was not finally accepted by all the States until more than two years later. ^ot in a single matter, since the date of their independence, had the states been united in thought and action, when they were called upon to com- bine in the establishment and upbuilding of a national capital. The immediate outcome was what might have been expected under such cir- cumstances. The leaders of the convention that framed the Constitution — or at least the leaders of the I^sl- tional party in that convention — conceived the establishment of a seat of government under the control of Congress as essential to the freedom of that body from undue local influence and to the permanency of the national life. On the motion 14 WASHINGTON. of James Madison, there was added to the enu- merated powers of Congress in the Constitution a general provision in the following words : To exercise exclusive jurisdiction in all cases whatsoever over such district (not exceeding ten miles square) as may by cession of particular States and acceptance of Congress become the seat of the Government of the United States. (Section 8, Article 1.) The Continental Congress (1774 to 1778) and the Congress of the Confederation (1778 to 1789) had been movable bodies, whose sessions were held in four different States and in eight different locali- ties. The first Congress under the Constitution took into consideration the question of a permanent location and the matter became at once the subject of bitter and protracted wrangling. North and South were, in general, competitors for the site and in each of those divisions individual States con- tended for the honor and advantage of containing the national capital. The strongest claims were advanced for Philadelphia, Germantown, Havre de Grace, Wright's Ferry, an indefinite place on the Potomac and another on the Susquehanna, In September, 1789, the House, by a vote of ol to 19, decided in favor of the last named location. This action aroused the intense indignation of the South- ern members and Madison doubtless expressed the feelings of a majority of them when he affirmed that THE TEN MILES SQUARE. 16 had a prophet arisen in the Virginia Convention to foretell the proceeding, that State would have refused to ratify the Constitution. Nor were the ^^Torthern representatives less intemperate in voic- ing their sentiments. A Connecticut member declared, after the later selection of the Potomac site, " he feared that the whole of ]^ew England would consider the Union destroyed." When the House resolution favoring the Sus- quehanna site reached the Senate, that body sub- stituted Germantown for the locality named in it. The amendment was immediately accepted and the Capitol would probably now stand in the historic suburb of Philadelphia but for the fact that a further amendment — in no way affecting the loca- tiou, however, — carried the bill back to the Cham- ber, where final action upon it was precluded by the close of the session. During the ensuing recess of Congress, the Southern members, encouraged by Washington and led by Jefferson and Madison, continued to canvass their claim to the capital. In the following year (1790) they achieved their purpose by means of a political bargain which furnished the first re- corded instance of " log-rolling " in the annals of Congress. At this time the country was keenly interested in the vital proposition, fathered by Hamilton, for the national assumption of the in- dividual debts of the States. The less encumbered 16 WASHINGTON. States were opposed to the measure, and Virginia, wljicli had funded its debt at six per eent, and had provided for the payment of the interest, was the strongest opponent of the bill which Hamilton hoped to pass at the next session of Congress. Such was the condition of the two most important questions agitating the political leaders of the in- fant republic when Jefferson gave his famous din- ner '' with punch and Madeira." He tells the story thus in his Anas: '' As 1 was going to the President's one day, I met him (Hamilton) in the street. He walked me backward and forward before the President's door for half an hour. He painted pathetically the temper into which the Legislature had been wrought, and the disgust of those who were called the creditor States, the danger of the secession of their members, and the separation of the States. He observed that the nuMubers of the Administra- tion ought to work in concert ; that though the ques- ticm Avas not in my r)e])artment, yet a common duty should make it a common concern ; that the Pres- ident was the center on which all administrative questions ultimately rested, and that all of us should rally round him ; and that, the question hav- ing l)een lost (in the preceding Congress) by a small majority only, it was probable that an appeal from me to the judgment and discretion of some of mv friends might effect a change in the vote, TflE TEN MILES SQUAKE. 17 and the machine of the Government, now sus- pended, might be set in motion again. I told him that I was really a stranger to the whole subject; not having yet informed myself of the system of finance adopted, I knew not how far this was a necessary sequence; that undoubtedly, if its re- jection endangered a dissolution of our Union at this incipient stage, I should deem that the most unfortunate of all consequences, to avert which all -partial and temporary evils should be yielded. I proposed to him, however, to dine with me the next day, and 1 would invite another friend or two; bring them into conference together, and I thought it impossible that reasonable men, consult- ing together coolly, could fail, by some mutual sacrifices of opinion, to form a compromise w^hich was to save the Union. '^ The discussion took place. I could take no part in it but an exhortatory one, because I was a stranger to the circumstances which should govern it. But it was finally agreed that, whatever im- portance had been attached to the rejection of this proposition, the preservation of the Union and of concord among the States was more important and that therefore it would be better that the vote of rejection should be rescinded, to effect which some members should change their votes. But it was observed that this bill would be peculiarly bitter to the Southern States, and that some concomitant 2 18 WASHINGTON. measure should be adopted to sweeten it a little to them. There had been propositions to fix the seat of government either at Philadelphia, at Ger- mantown, or on the Potomac, and it was thought that by giving it to Philadelphia for ten years, and to Georgetown permanentl/ afterwards, this might, as an anodyne, calm in some degree the ferment which might be excited by the other measure also. So two of the Potomac members (White and Lee, but White with a revulsion of stomach almost con- vulsive) agreed to change their votes and llamikon undertook to carry the other point. In doing this, the influence he had established over the Eastern members, with the agency of Robert Morris with those of the ^liddle States, effected his side of the engagement, and so the assumption was passed, and twenty millions of stock divided among fa- vored States and thrown in as a pabulum to the stock-jobbing herd." Thus by a stroke of " practical politics," two highly important measures were effected. The As- sum])tion Act was passed on a close division and the bill to locate the seat of government on the banks of the Potomac was carried by an extremely small margin. Indeed, it required the votes of South Carolina, which had just previously joined the T'nion. The Ilonse voted 32 to 2t) mid tlie Senate 14 to 12 in its favor. The strong opposi- tion continued to antagonize the movement during THE TEN MILES SQUARE. 19 the decade of preparation and during more than half a century after its establishment, efforts were made to remove the Government from Washington. In July, 1790, Congress passed the act which provided ^' That a district of territory not exceed- ing ten miles square, to be located as hereafter directed on the river Potomac at some place be- tween the mouths of the Eastern Branch"^ and Conogocheague, be, and the same is hereby accepted for the permanent seat of the Government of the United States," and further provided that until the first Monday in December of the year 1800, the various offices of the Government should remain in Philadelphia and the sessions of Congress should be held in that city. Previous to the passage of this act the states of Maryland and Virginia had by legislative action offered to Congress the requi- site extent of territory wdtli free choice of selec- tion. Previous to the coming of the white man the territory from w^hich the District of Columbia was carved had been occupied by a number of allied * The Eastern Branch is now almost universally called the Anacostia River, the change in appellation being due to Jeflferson. In 1792 he requested Major Ellicott to ascertain the original name of tlie stream. To this Ellicott replied that in old surve^^s it appeared as " Anna Kastia." Com- municating with Ellicott two years later on the subject of a map of the city, Jefferson suggested : " Supposing you were to consult them (the Conmiissioners) on the propriety of adding to the Eastern Branch the words Annakastia, this would probably revive the ancient Indian name instead of the modern one." 20 WASHINGTON. bands of Iiidiaii.s, who found good fishing in the Potomac and its tributaries and abundance of game in the surrounding forests. A large vilhige was sit- uated on the present site of Anacostia, and it is from the name of the tribe located there that the place received its name. It was known as Xacot- chant, or Nacochtank, from which the name of Anacostia was evolved. Nacochtank, which was the residence of a chief and contained eighty war- riors, was the principal settlement within or adjoin- ing the District. The Jesuits, who came out later with J.ord ] Baltimore, Latinized the name of Ana- costan, whence we get Anacostia, the modern name of the Eastern Branch at Washington. For much of Avhich and a great deal more relating to the early Indian inhabitants we have the authority of Henry Fleet, who was on the spot in 1631 and was, with the possible exception of John Smith, the first white man to set foot on the site of the City of Washington." At the time of its transfer to the nation this territory contained tlie flourishing and rival towns of Alexandria and Georgetown. Outside of these centers it w-as for the most part forest and wood- laud with here and there a plantation worked by * Brief journal of a voyajje made in the bark Warwick to Vir. V. 1. [)p. 14-20. Also manuscript account of "The Place " by Henry Fleet. Library of Congress. THE TEN MILES SQUARE. . 21 slaves. The owners were generally men of good birth, education and means — in short, representa- tive Southern planters. Some of these, who figaired in the early history of the city, will be referred to later but it may be of interest to notice briefly here a few of the principal manors and their masters that occupied the vicinage. Almost at the same time that the genial " Spec- tator " was born in the Milston rectory of the Rev- erend Lancelot Addison, a son appeared in the Maryland home of John Addison, a brother of the Wiltshire parson. In due course Thomas Addison was sent to England to be educated and became a class-mate of his cousin Joseph at Oxford. On his return to the colony, Thomas Addison married and built a fine manor house on the banks of the Poto- mac opposite Alexandria, which he called '^ Oxon Hill " in memory of his alma mater. In 1713, a grant of 8,000 acres lying between Rock Creek and the Potomac was made to Colonel Thomas Addison and James Stoddert. At about this time Nancy Addison appeared upon the scene, her ad- vent following closely after the birth of William, the son of the Reverend George Murdock, rector of the Rock Creek Parish. These two married at an early age and inherited from Colonel Addison the Rock Creek property. They built upon it a spacious mansion which stood until recent years. William Murdock occupies a bright place in colonial 22 WASHINGTON. history and was one of the leading men of his State.* A daughter of William and Xancy Mnr- dock married into the family of President Adams and during the first years of the capital the home- stead on the hill frequently saw distinguished guests under its roof. The family retained Friend- ship, as the property was called, for some fifty years thereafter. Its site is now occupied by the College of History of the American University. Major Benjamin Stoddert and General Uriah Forest jointly owned a tract of land to the north of Georgetown and west of Eock Creek, called Eose- dale. These life-long friends had fought side by side in the Revolutionary War and at its close found themselves penniless. In partnership they estab- lished a business in Georgetown from which they amply recruited their fortunes. Stoddert built a house in Georgetown, at the corner of Prospect and Frederick streets, which during his tenure of the office of Secretary of the Xavy was a social center. Forest, having purchased his partner's interest in Rosedale, erected upon the property a modest frame domicile, still standing, which he made his resi- dence from the year 1704 until his death. The place is still occupied by descendants of the old sol- dier. In his later years, General Forest engaged in * William Murdock was a delegate from Maryland to the fiimous " Stamp Act Confrress." held in New York in 1765. William :Nrurdock, with Robert Livinjjston and Samuel John- son sitmed the noted address then made to tlie King. THE TEN MILES SQUARE. 23 speculation by which he lost all he possessed. His brother-in-law, the brilliant Philip Barton Key, who himself lived in great luxury at Woodly, orig- inally a portion of the Rosedale estate, bought the house and one hundred and thirty acres of sur- rounding land for Mrs. Forest at the sale of her husband's property. During the Revolutionary period the district north of Georgetown was almost thickly settled by people of easy means who were noted for their hospitality and social tendencies. Along the roads which ran from Georgetown through this neighbor- hood and continued into Montgomery County were many old manor houses upon estates obtained by patent from the Lord Proprietary of Maryland and Avalon. One of the most notable of these was Hayes, still standing near Chevy Chase. The house was built just before the outbreak -of the Revolutionary War by the learned and witty Alex- ander Williamson, Rector of Rock Creek Parish. With an income of ninety hogsheads of tobacco a year, Williamson was one of the richest men thereabouts and he indulged freely in the pleasures then common among gentlemen. He rode straight to hounds, negotiated his three bottles at a sitting, freely backed his own and his friends' race-horses, and played whist for double-eagle points and five on the rubber. Parson Williamson Avas distinctly popular with his parishioners. His house, like 24 WASHINGTON. many another of colonial times, is reputed to have been built with '' bricks brought from England." It is highly improbable that any house in this country Avas ever constructed of brick brought from England. A rough calculation of the weight of the material that would be required for a residence of modest size is sufficient refutation of these persist- ent myths. Some of the wealthy families of Xew Netherlands, such as the Van Eensellaers, indulged sentiment to the extent of importing bricks and tiles from Holland to form portions of their man- sions, and it is possible that a few English did so, but the practice could not have been at all general. Brickmaking was extensively carried on in the American colonies during the seventeenth century and before the close of it almost every village had its brickyard. At the time that the seat of gov- ernment was established at the District of Colum- bia, Daniel Carroll of Duddington had a large brickyard on his estate and supplied the Greenleaf- Morris-N'icholson partnership with the greater part of the material used in their extensive building operations. Bruce in his " Economical Ilistoiw of Virginia " declares that " all bricks used in Virginia in the seventeenth century were manufactured ther6; that bricklayers and brickmakers arrived in 1007;^' * I believe that the writer in question is in error as to this date. There does not apjioar to be evidence of brick- niakers anionj;: the workmen brought over in the expedition THE TEN MILES SQUARE. 25 that in 1622 bricks formed one of the principal arti- cles exported from Virginia to the Bermudas ; that the Royal Governor Berkeley's brick house had only six rooms; that the Indians were repulsed with brickbats ; that it was highly improbable when l)ricks were rated at eight shillings a thousand in Virginia, planters would have been led to import them from England where, between 1650 and 1700, they could not be purchased for less than eighteen shillings, adding to that transportation across the ocean."' A near neighbor and boon companion of Parson Williamson was ^' Uncle Charlie " Jones of Clean Drinking Manor, a name derived from a particu- larly clear spring upon the estate. The first owner of Clean Drinking was John Coates, who received a Crown grant of fourteen hundred acres of land in 1680. This he bequeathed to his son John, by whom it was in turn left to his daughter Elizabeth, who married Charles Jones, gentleman. Charles Jones erected the manor-house, in 1750 and it has remained in the family ever since. The builder of Clean Drinking was a convivial soul who at- tracted to his board and hearth the bon vivants, the debonair cavaliers and the dashing beauties of the surrounding country. And, also, at times Clean Drinking harbored guests more august and sober. of which John Smith was a member but they were certainly included among those that came with the " second supply " under Captain Newport. 26 WASHINGTON. Here Washington tarried for a thankful rest upon his way home to Alexandria from Fort Duquesne in 1755. Here Postmaster Monroe, driven from his office by the invading British, took refuge and kept his mail bags moving by circuitous route. At a later date. Clay, Webster, and Calhoun found relaxation from the cares of State within the con- genial confines of Clean Drinking. At Warburton lived and died George Digges, Esquire, whose widow built Green Hill and there resided with her two young children and her mother, Anne Carroll. Green Hill was a portion of the Chilham Castle manor estate, named after the ancestral home of the Digges in Kent, where the famous Sir Dudley lived in the reign of James the First of England. William Dudley Digges, son of the aforesaid widow, married Eleanora, daughter of Daniel (^n-roll of Duddington and the young couple made their lioine at (ireen Hill, where the architect, L'Enfant, fnuud a refuge in his last days. An hour's ride to the south-east brought the oc- cupants of (Jreen Hill to Tiiversdnle, one of the finest plantations in ^Faryland, lying about a luile beyond the then thriving port of T)ladensburg. George Calvert was a handsome man of cultivated tastes who lived in the lordly fashion (^f the wealthy planter of his time. His house was a focal point of culture and good breeding and its dignified THE TEN MILES SQUARE. 2Y hospitality was enjoyed by the most distinguished men and women of the day. After the removal of the Government to Washington, the drawing rooms of the old mansion-house were frequently filled with official dignitaries and leaders of fashion. Besides these there were several family seats of consequence — Arlington, Analostan, Duddington and others which we shall have occasion to notice hereafter — but enough has been said to indicate that the territory from which the District of Colum- bia was carved was far from being the desolate, del- itescent wilderness that has sometimes been pictured. Many of the residents were related by blood-kinship to the best families of England with whom they maintained more or less close intercourse. The sons of the prosperous planter went to England for their education, whilst his daughters were sent to one of the excellent seminaries in Baltimore or George- town. The members of these old families inter- married and kept up a constant exchange of social courtesy and festivities. A ten-mile ride for the purpose of paying a visit, or attending a dance, was no matter of account to the young man or woman of those days. The urban centers supplied them with all the conveniences and most of the luxuries of the period, and it is doubtful if the best country life of to-day is productive of anything like as much enjoyment as our colonial ancestors contrived to get out of theirs. They were keenly alive — 28 WASHINGTON. those early Americans. The men were strong, active and chivalrous; the women, fresh, healthy, enthusiastic Dianas. The men drank a trifle more than was good for them, perhaps, and were a little too much addicted to cock-fighting and duelling, but they were a virile lot and their daughters made magnificent mothers. Many a man who to-day leads the life of a galley-slave, chained to a desk, owes his ability to sustain the incessant grind to the vitality derived from his colonial ancestors. The landowners from whom the site was ac- quired had, of course, a direct and permanent inter- est in the city, and most of the surrounding families became connected with it, either as residents, or by marriage with citizens, and so you may trace the best and oldest families of Washing-ton to the colonial planters of the surrounding region. In pursuance of the act authorizing him to make selection of the '' ten miles square," President Washington on January 22, 1791, appointed Daniel Carroll and Thomas Johnson of Maryland, and David Stuart of Virginia, commissioners for sur- veying the district and '^ for performing such other offices as by law are directed." Each of these gentlemen had been members of a committee cre- ated by Congress in 1784 to examine and report " on a location at or near the lower falls of the Potomac " for the seat of government. Washing- ton seems to have predetermined the position of the THE TEN MILES SQUAEE. 29 district, which he was capable of doing with judg- ment owing to an intimate acquaintance with the section of country which it embraced and, at least, fair knowledge of the entire territory available to his choice. He had encamped with Braddock's army on Observatory Hill, w^hen that general set out upon the ill-fated expedition against which the newly-commissioned officer had strongly advised him. Later he had explored the Potomac from mountains to tidewater. It is quite probable that in his professional capacity he had surveyed many tracts on the Maryland as well as the Virginia side of the river and quite as likely that social occasions often drew him to different parts of the ceded ter- ritory. Two days after the issuance of the letters patent to the commissioners, he sent them explicit instruc- tions for the survey. '' After duly exercising and weighing the advantages and disadvantages of the several situations within the limits aforesaid,'' he directed the commissioners to proceed forthwith to run '^ lines of experiment " beginning at a point on Hunting Creek, to be determined by a line '^ running from the Court House of Alexandria, in Virginia, due southwest half a mile, and thence a due southeast course until it shall strike Hunt- ing Creek." Thence the first of the four lines was to run " due northwest ten miles ; thence the second into Maryland, due northeast ten miles; thence 30 WASHINGTON. the third, due southeast ten miles ; and thence the fourth line due southwest ten miles, to the begin- ning on Hunting Creek." A glance at the map will show that the initial point of this survey is ten or more miles below the mouth of the Anacostia, the mark specified by the enabling act as the southern limit of the area from which the district ^vas to be taken. Furthermore, Congress did not contemplate the inclusion of any portion of Virginia, for the section of the act direct- ing the acquisition by commissioners, states that they shall '' purchase or accept such quantity of land on the eastern side of said river (Potomac) within the said district (that lying between the mouths of the Conogocheague and Anacostia rivers), as the President shall deem proper for the use of the United States, and according to such plan as the President shall approve." N"© explanation has been offered for what would appear to be a deliberate violation on the part of President Washington of two or more important provisions of the act. Within six weeks of his order directing the survey. Congress legalized the departures involved in his project by an amenda- tory act which, however, contained a prohibition against the erection of any public buildings upon the Virginia side of the river. It is reasonable to suppose that Wasliington had secured the agree- inent of the leaders in Congress to his proposed THE TEN MILES SQUARE. 31 modification of location before lie directed what he probably regarded as a tentative survey. The wisdom of including in the district any territory west of the river was never generally accepted and the restriction against placing public buildings on that side excited the dissatisfaction of the Vir- ginian residents of the ^' ten miles square," and in 1846, the territory was retroceded to the State by act of Congress. The Maryland boundary, how- ever, extends to the farther bank and thus the en- tire river lies wnthin the present limits of the District of Columbia. Washington's action in moving the location of the federal district southw^ard in what seemed to be an arbitrary manner excited a great deal of unfavorable comment and the opponents of the Potomac ^ site did not hesitate to declare that he was moved by a desire to enhance the value of his Mount Vernon estate and the Arlington prop- erty of his wife's grandson. However, the matter seems to be capable of explanation without the aid of any such ungenerous imputations. It must be admitted that nowdiere w^ithin the hundred mile stretch between the Anacostia and the Conogo- cheague can be found a site comparable wath that wdiich was chosen. The policy of including both banks of the Eastern Branch and the tow^ns of * Potomac, e. i., Potow-oni-eke — " The people who come and go." in other words the traders. The name was borne by a tribe before it was applied to the river. 32 WASHINGTON. Alexandria and Georgetown in the '^ ten miles square " is patent when we remember that Wash- ington believed that the capital would become the ^' greatest commercial emporium " of the United States. A sufficient inducement for the acceptance of the Virginia territory might have been found in the grant of $120,000 which the act of cession provided should accompany the land. Small as the amount appears to us to-day, it w^as in that incipient stage of the nation a very considerable sum to a government terribly embarrassed for the means of administration, and quite at a loss to know whence the money for the building of the federal city should come. As a matter of fact, private enterprise assumed the burden of the undertaking at the outset and for many years the largest pro- portion of the expense of improving the metropolis was borne by its citizens. The laws of the States from which the respective territories w^ere acquired remained in force over them, involving a complex system of jurisdiction from which the District has been relieved only in recent times. Long after they had been re- pealed or modified in the criminal statutes of ^Fary- land, the laws making the following and many other oifenses of a similar character punishable by death remained in force in the District of Co- lumbia : Burning a court-house or mansion ; break- ing into tobacco or other outhouses and stealing \' THE TEN MILES SQUARE. 33 goods to the value of live shillings ; burning tobacco, stored or on the stalk; burning a ship, sloop or boat; stealing a horse, a negro or a boat; destroy- ing, or conspiring to destroy, any magazine of pro- visions, or military or naval stores of the United States. These laws were in force in the District at least as late as 1834. Towards the close of March, 1791, Washington went to Georgetown to confer with the commis- sioners as to the actual location of the city and to secure from the owners the necessary land. The site Avas already settled in his mind and overtures of a definite character had doubtless been made to the proprietors, for at the close of the day on which the President went over the ground, the following agreement was signed and witnessed: We, the subscribers, in consideration of the good benefits w^e expect to derive from having the Fed- eral City laid off upon our lands, do hereby agree and bind ourselves, heirs, executors, and adminis- trators, to convey in trust to the President of the U. S. or Commissioners, or such person or persons as he shall appoint, by good and sufficient deeds in fee simple, the whole of our respective lands wdiich he may think proper to include in the lines of the Federal City, for the purpose and on the con- ditions following: The President shall have the sole powder of direct- ing the Federal City to be laid off in what manner 3 34 WASHINGTON. he pleases. He may retain any number of squares he may think pro^^er for any public improvements or other public uses, and the lots only which shall be laid off shall be joint property between the trustees on behalf of the public, and equally di- vided between the public and the individuals as soon as may be after the city is laid oU'. For the streets the proprietors shall receive no compensation, but for the squares or lands in any form which shall be taken for public buildings or any kind of public improvements or uses, the proprietors whose land shall be taken shall receive at the rate of £25* per acre, to be paid by the public. The whole wood on the lands shall be the prop- erty of the proprietors, and should any be desired by the President to be reserved or left standing, the same shall be paid by the public at a just and reasonable valuation, exclusive of the £25 per acre to be paid for the land on which the same shall remain. Each proprietor shall retain full possession and use of his land until the same shall be sold and occupied by the purchase of the lots laid out thereon, and in all cases, when the public arrange- ment, as the streets, lots, etc., will admit of it, each proprietor shall possess his building and other improvements and graveyards, paying to the public only one half the present estimated value of the * Equivalent to $06.66 in Pennsylvania currency. THE TEN MILES SQUARE. 35 land ou which the same shall be, or £12 slO per acre; but iu cases where the arrangements of the streets, lots, squares, etc., will nut admit of this and it shall become necessary to remove such build- ings, etc., the proprietors of the same shall be paid the reasonable value thereof by the public. Nothing herein contained shall affect the lots of the parties to this agreement which they may hold in the towns of Hamburgh and Carrolsburgh. In witness whereof we have hereunto set our hands and seals this thirtieth day of March, in the year of our Lord, 1791. Robert Peter, Ciias. Beatty, David Burnes, Anthony Holmead, Jas. M. Lingan, Wm. Young, Uriah Forrest, Edward Pierce, Benjamin Stoddert, Abraham Young, NoTLEY Young, James Pierce, Daniel Carroll, of Dudding- Wm. Prout, ton, Robert Peter, Overton Carr, Jas. Warren, by Benj. Stod- Thomas Beale, of George, dert, Wm. King, Carrollsburgh and Hamburgh w^ere two flourish- ing but unincorporated settlements. The former, situated at the junction of the Potomac and the Anacostia, occupied part of the original ^' Dudding- ton " j)roperty which passed in 1770 from Charles Carrol, junior, to Daniel Carrol, Xotley Young and Henry Rozer. The village of Hamburgh was founded in 1765 by Jacob Funk and was originally known as Funks- 36 WASHINGTON. town. It lay along the Potomac about a quarter of a mile to the west of w^iat are now^ the Monu- ment Grounds. The owners of land in Hamburgh and Carrollsburgh transferred their interests to the Commissioners in 1793 and 1794 in considera- tion of receiving certain lots in other parts of the city. The Commissioners experienced a great deal of difficulty in dealing with the original proprietors. There were genuine misunderstandings, and dis- putes as to extent of boundaries and locations of public buildings. There was general discontent with the action of the Commissioners and some dis- position to question the good faith of the President. Out of these disagreements arose a very silly and improbable story that has been repeated, I be- lieve, by every Avriter on the City of Washington. It is told with numerous variations, but was first recorded by Ben Perley Poore who heard it from his grandfather. As Poore tells the story, Wash- ington having agreed with the Commissioners that what is now Lafayette Square should be a reserva- tion, rode over to the house of David Burnes, who owned the property, to negotiate with him for its acquisition. Burnes refused to donate any more ground for public use. After a protracted argu- ment, Washington lost his temper and said : '' Had not the Federal Citv been laid out here, vou would THE TEN MILES SQUARE. 37 have died a poor tobacco j^lanter." To this the Scotchman retorted : ^^ A^'e, mon ! an' had ye nae married the Widow Custis, wi' a' her nagurs, you would hae been a land surveyor to-day, an' a mighty poor one at that." In the first place David Burnes never owned the land now occupied by Lafayette Square. It was originally held by the Pierce family and passed to the Government through George Walker. Burnes's name is the second among the signers of the agreement with the original proprietors and there is no record Avhatever of any difficulty with him. On the contrary^ in the President's letter from Charleston to the Commissioners, May 7, 1791, respecting these disputes he mentions five discontented proprietors, but Burnes is not included among them. It is very unlikely that the farmer would have spoken to the President in the manner described and much more unlikely that Washing- ton made use of the language attributed to him which is utterly inconsistent with what we know of his character and habit. More than one writer has fancifully described David Burnes as an ignorant uncouth Scotchman. There is no evidence that he was other than an American by birth like almost all of his neighbors. If he had been the rude boor he is pictured, it is difficult to account for men of education and refine- 38 WASHINGTON. Tiient, siu'li as Van Xoss — wlio married his daugh- ter — freqneiitiiig his liouse as Ave know tliat thej did. In short there does not ajopear to be a single point in the Bnrnes story to recommend it to the credence of a sensible person. Aside from his natural desire to accelerate the establishment of the city in which he was keenly interested, Washington was moved by apprehension on account of the opposition to it and the imdis- guised plans to retain the seat of government per- manently in Philadelphia. A few days after his agreement with the proprietors he writes to the Commissioners, urging expedition and quoting a recent letter from erefferson in which the Secretary wrote: '' A bill was yesterday ordered to be brought into the House of Kepresentatives here for granting a sum of money for building a Federal Plall, house for the President." As to which the President connnents: "This, though I do not want any sentiment of mine promulgated with re- spect to it, marked unequivocally in my mind the designs of that State, and the necessity of exertion to carry the residence law into effect." The survey had been couqileted according to the directions already cited,'" and on April 15, 1701, the corner-stone which now fonns ]iart of the founda- * Tn ISSl it was foimd to bo dofootivo, each lino l>einf^ from 0;] to 280 feet in excess of ten miles. THE TEN MILES SQUARE. 39 tion of the Jones Point Light-house, was laid at the extremity of ^' the upper cape of Hunting- Creek, in Virginia/' by Doctor Elisha Cullen Dick with Masonic rites.* It will be observed that in the agreement with the proprietors, the name '' Federal City " occurs several times and as this is the first record of that designation it may be attributed to Washington, for he doubtless drafted the document in question. A few months later the Commissioners wrote to Major L'Enfant : " We have agreed that the Fed- eral district shall be called the ' Territory of Co- lumbia,' and the Federal City the ' City of Wash- ington.' The title of the map will, therefore, be ' A Map of the City of Washington in the Terri- tory of Columbia.' " '^ We have also agreed the streets to be named alphabetically one way, and numerically the other, the former divided into north and south letters and the latter into east and w^est numbers from the Capitol." The Commissioners had no authority of law for conferring names upon the district and city, but their dictum does not appear to have been ques- tioned and with slight modification their nomen- clature obtains to-day. But, although the territory * Doctor Dick was the first physician to reach the bedside of Washington in his fatal illness and remained with him to the last. 40 WASHINGTON. is frequently mentioned in statutes as the ^' Dis- trict of Columbia " previous to that year, it is first so definitely designated by law in the opening para- graph of an act passed June 11, 1878, which pro- vides : " That all the territory which Avas ceded by the State of Maryland to the Congress of the United States for the permanent seat of the Government of the United States shall continue to be designated as the District of Columbia/' (20 Stats. 102.) CHAPTER III. PLANNING THE CITY. There prevails in this country a pojDular belief — whicli is not shared by intelligent foreigners — that the plan of the City of Washington was the mental creation of Charles L' Enfant, the Erench- man. It is less difficult to trace the source and growth of this fallacious idea than it is to find sub- stantial ground for its maintenance. Contempo- raries of Major L'Enfant and later writers have been too ready to accept the production of a phys- ical plan as evidence of creative conception. We have ample proof that Washington and Jeffer- son entertained many original ideas on the subject and took the keenest interest in it. Under such circumstances it is not reasonable to suppose that they left the matter entirely, or in large part, to a young man of limited experience. The magni- tude and grandeur of the design is sufficient refuta- tion of such a supposition. We can not imagine L'Enfant planning a city upon such lines in the face of the opposing opinion of almost the whole nation. With the exception of Madison, George 41 42 WASHINGTON. Washington "was the only man among tlie leaders of his jDeople who cherished snch an abounding faith in the growth of the young republic as to justify provision for a future population of half a million or more." To Washington we owe, with- out doubt, the conception as a whole and to Jeffer- son much of the detail. This we may concede with- out robbing Charles L'Enfant of the credit due him for his fine professional achievement in con- structing the plan. The name of L'Enfant is inseparably connected with the City of Washington. To him is justly conceded the honor of being the author of the original plan, the principal features of v\'hich were adhered to in laying out the capital. The fame of L'Enfant seems to have completely overshadowed the achievements of a no less able man — Andrew Ellicott — who played an important part in the work and completed the official map. Pierre Charles L'Enfant came to America from France in 1777, being then twenty-two years of affe. He had been a lieutenant in the Provincial Service of his native country and when he tendered his sword to the Continental Army he was commis- sioned Captain of Engineers. His services earned * The year before his death, Washington wrote to Mrs. Fairfax : " A century hence, if this country keeps united, it will produce a city though not as large as London, yet of a magnitude inferior to few others in Europe," He re- ferred to the capital, which he confidently believed would become the chief city of tlie country. PLANNING THE CITY. 43 him promotion to the rank of Major and at the close of the war he remained in the country, enerao- ing in the business of civil engineer and architect. He erected an important structure for the corpora- tion of New York and was the designer and builder of " Morris's Eollj " in Philadelphia, which was never completed. Andrew Ellicott came of a remarkable Quaker family whose members by their inventions and enterprise contributed largely to the industrial progress of their age. He was one year older than L'Enfant and like him served in the Revolutionary War. Ellicott early gained distinction as a sur- veyor — one of the most useful and responsible professions of the time — and was employed in many important tasks. In 1784 he ran the bound- ary line between Virginia and Pennsylvania and in the following year, jointly with David Eittenhouse and Andrew Porter, located the western line of the latter State. In 1798 he was commissioned by President Washington to settle by survey the boundary disjmte between the States of New York and Pennsylvania and to decide the location of the town of Erie which New York claimed as within its confines. In later years Andrew Ellicott was regarded as one of the leading scientists of the time — particularly in the branches of astronomy and mathematics. The greatest men of the time enter- tained the highest estimate of his talents. 44 WASHINGTON. Addressing the Commissioners, January 15, 1791, Thomas Jefferson writes: '^ The President thinks it better that the outline at least of the City, and perhaps Georgetown should be laid down in the plat of the territory. I have the honor now to send it and to desire that Major Ellicott may do it as soon as convenient, that it may be returned in time to be laid before Con- gress." February 2, 1791, the Secretary of State in- structs Ellicott to ^' proceed by the first stage to the Federal territory on the Potomac, for the pur- pose of making a survey of it." The date of his commission and his previous employments entirely refute the careless statement of some writers that Major Ellicott secured his appointment to service in connection with the capital operations by under- mining L'Enfant. In March, 1791, Jefferson directed L'Enfant to go to Georgetown for the purpose of making " draw- ings of the particular grounds most likely to be approved for the site of the Federal town and the buildings." A few months later, Colonel John Trumbull, the painter, passing through Georgetown on his round of making studies of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, ^' found Major L'Enfant drawing his plan of the City of Wash- ington." It is almost certain that Washington and Jeffer- PLANNING THE CITY. 45 son contributed in important measure to the design, the one out of his great intellect, professional abil- ity and familiarity with the principal towns of the country; the other from his wide knowledge of European cities. To Washington must be at- tributed the idea of laying out a capital adapted to a population of eight hundred thousand in a country containing less than ^ve million peo- ple. To him, penetrating the future with the eye of faith, appeared upon this spot one of the great commercial centers of the world — the focal poin.t of a powerful nation. From personal observation of foreign capitals Jefferson was able to — and doubtless did — afford the designer many useful suggestions. If the truth were known Jefferson's hand might be discernible in a much larger portion of the plan than we imagine. In April, 1791, he writes to L'Enfant: " In compliance with your request, I have ex- amined my papers and found the plans of Erank- fort-on-the-Mayne, Carlsruhe, Paris, Amsterdam, Strasburg, Paris, Orleans, Bordeaux, Lyons^ Mont- pelier, Marseilles, Turin, and Milan, which I send in a roll by the post. They are on large and accu- rate scale, having been procured by me while in those respective cities myself. As they are con- nected with notes I made in my travels, and often necessary to explain them to myself, I will beg your care of them, and to return them when no 46 WASHINGTON. longer useful to you, leaving you absolutely free to keep them as long as useful. 1 am happy that the President has left the planning uf the town in such good hands, and have no doubt it will be done to general satisfaction." In the same letter the Secretary volunteers a sug- gestion, thus : '" Whenever it is proposed to pre- pare plans for the Capitol, I should prefer the adoption of some one of the models of antiquity, which have had the approbation of thousands of years; and for the President's house, I should pre- fer the celebrated fronts of modern buildings, which have already received the approbation of all good judges, such are the Galerie de Louvre, the Garden Meubles, and two fronts of the Hotel du Salm." Many of the details of his plan L'Enfant derived from features of European cities and some of them, perhaps, from those of American towns. Glenn Brown '^' is of the opinion that the plan may have been influenced by the scheme of Annapolis which ^' has two focal points from which several streets radiate,'' and that the idea of them all may have had its origin in the similar feature of Williams- burg, Virginia. ^' Washington was familiar with these two cities and undoubtedly appreciated the pleasing effect of their plans." However, that may be, L'Enfant's design was in no sense a copy but * The author of numerous interesting and valuable papers and magazine articles relating to Washington as viewed from its architectural and landscape standpoints. PLANNING THE CITY. 47 bears the stamp of originality and a fine artistic conception. The resemblance at points between Washington and the Paris of to-day has given rise to a wide-spread belief that the arrangement of the former is based upon the plan of the latter. Such, however, is by no means the case. In the Champs 'Elysees and Versailles, a landscape architect, striv- ing after beauty and natural effect, could hardly have failed to find inspiration, but otherwise there was little in the Paris of the eighteenth century that Avould have appealed to him. Its present system of radiating avenues, begun by the Pirst, and com- pleted by the Third, Napoleon, may, indeed, have been suggested by the arrangement of the City of Washington, the engraved plan of which was ex- tensively circulated in Europe before it was put into execution. Following a general report on the treatment of the site, L'Enfant submitted a tentative plan in June, 1791. This did not meet Avith the approval of the President, who returned it with suggestions for alteration. Two months later the engineer made his final report and accompanied it with a com- plete and annotated map. Nor does this appear to have satisfied General Washington. He for- warded it to Congress but in his letter of transmis- sion intimated that it was not final and requested its return. Peferring to the matter six years later, the President wrote : " After the map had been sent to 48 WASHINGTON. Congress several errors were discovered and cor- rected, many alterations made, and the appropria- tions * (except as to the Capitol and President's house) struck out." This plan of L'Enf ant's contained several fea- tures which were rejected but might have been adopted with advantage to the future city. From the Capitol to the '^ President's park " was to run a ^' Grand Avenue, 400 feet in breadth, and about a mile in length, bordered with gardens, ending in a slope from houses on each side." This avenue was retained in Ellicott's draAving and now exists as the '^ Mall." The recent building operations upon it are designed to produce something of the grandeur conceived by L'Enfant. lie intended to place at its termination, on the spot now occupied by the Monument, the equestrian statue of George Wash- ington, voted by the Continental Congress. It was contemplated that tliis spacious thoroughfare should be lined witli ])ublic buildings and witli the resi- dences of liigli officials and foreign ministers. The most curious feature of the plan is the ap- propriation of a square for the erection of a church, to be devoted to " National pur])oses, such as pub- lic prayer, thanksgivings, funeral orations, etc., and assigned to the special use of no particular sect or denomination, but equally open to all." It was further designed to contain " such monuments as * " Appropriations " or reservations of sites, that is. PLANNING THE CITY. 49 were voted by the late Continental Congress, for those heroes who fell in the cause of liberty, and for such others as may hereafter be decreed by the voice of a grateful nation.'' The edifice is shown in EUi- cott's map, although it is not easy to believe that the proposition for the establishment of an institution of religious character by the Government could have had the endorsement of Washington or Jefferson. It is probable that L'Enfant had Westminster Abbey in mind when he made the suggestion. The plan also appropriates squares '^ for the use of all religious denominations " on which it was in- tended they should erect individual places of w^or- ship. Water was to have been a prominent feature in the ornamentation of the city according to L'En- fant's design. Noting that '' there are wdthin the limits of the City, above twenty-five good springs of excellent water abundantly supplied in the driest season of the year," he provides for " five grand fountains, intended wdth a constant spout of water," one to be placed on Pennsylvania Avenue, midway between the '^ President's Palace and the Congress House," and the others at conspicuous points. The waters of the Tiber, which had a fall of over two hundred feet in their course through the city, were to be led '^ to the high ground where the Congress House stands, and after watering that part of the city, the overplus to fall from under the base of 50 WASIIIXGTON. that edifice, and in a cascade of twenty feet in height and fifty feet in breadth into the reservoir below; thence to run in three fills * through the gar- den into the Grand Canal." The Grand Canal, designed to afford " a free ■flowing fresh waterway through the heart of the city and effectively drain the lowland along its course/' started where the Tiber joined the Poto- mac at the foot of Seventeenth street ; thence it ran straight along the '^ Grand Avenue " to the reseiwoir of the '^ Grand Cascade/' continuing along the course of the Saint James Creek, and finally reach- ing the Potomac through Greenleaf's Point. The scheme of the canal evidently appealed to Jefferson, for in the next year we find him urging it upon the Commissioners. Xo steps for its construction were taken, however, until Congress — some seventeen years later — incorporated the '^ Washington Canal Company." The resultant waterway, which was in use for ab(jut half a century, became an unsightly nuisance and a menace to health, and was filled in. The plan provided for a reservation — and this feature was among those approved by the President — of somewhat more than two acres at the place marked on the map for one of the '^ grand foun- tains," and noAV occupied by the Central Market. * Doubtless fils, that is filft cVeau. L'Enfaiit never ac- quired irreat facility in writing' En. The President then authorized the Commissioners to dispose of land by private sale and thus opened the way to the momentous con- tract with Tames Greenleaf. In the nine years, 1791-99, the Government sold seven thousand lots in the City of Washington and six thousand of these BREAKING GROUND. 77 Avere embraced in the agreement with the speculator Avhose ill-fated investment gave the much-needed impetus to the stagnant affairs of this singular na- tional project. Numerous schemes for raising money were sug- gested and in some instances adopted without suc- cess by the harassed Commissioners. One of the most fantastic and visionary of the many question- able expedients originated with Samuel Blodget, who. built a large hotel wdiich he undertook to dis- pose of by lottery. His idea, like many of the others, purported to have in view the enhancement of value of the lots and the attraction of capitalists to the city but it does not appear that anyone save the promoter benefited by the plan. A great deal of interest had been exhibited abroad in the plan of the city and the fact may have aroused the hope that foreign capital could be at- tracted to the spot. This idea probably prompted Congress to the enactment of legislation granting to aliens the right to hold realty in the District. In the exercise of this privilege, Thomas Law, William - Duncanson, and others who were beneficially active in the upbuilding of the capital, settled in Wash- ington. During the period of establishment the city was largely indebted to foreigners for its prog- ress. Very important portions of the initial work were performed by L'Enf ant and -Hallet, French- men, by Thornton and Hadfield, Englishmen, and 78 WASHINGTON. by Iloban, the Irishman — to mention but a few. In May, 1796, the President induced CongTess to pass an act authorizing the Commissioners to borrow three hundred thousand dollars. It was soon evident, however, that the authority to borrow^ did not entail the ability to do so. Capitalists could not be persuaded to subscribe to the proposed loan but the State of Maryland did, at the urgent solicitation of General Washington, lend the Com- missioners one-third of the desired amount. The straits to which the Commissioners Avere reduced by the need of money will account for much in the early history of the city which would otherwise be incomprehensible. The construction of the Ca[)itol and its comple- tion in time for the reception of Congress in 1800 Avas the most urgent necessity imposed upon the Commissioners and we find them addressing them- selves to the task with such limited facilities as they can command. Ground had been broken for the foundation of the President's house in October, 1792, and (he corner-stone of the Capitol was laid on the eighteenth day of the following September,' but when the monetary stringency makes the Com- missioners doubtful of their ability to proceed with both buildings, Washington counsels them to sacri- fice progress on the former in favor of expedition with the lattor. Just at this time James Greenleaf arrived in BREAKING GROUND. 79 Washington and a few days after the ceremonies in connection with the commencement of the Capitol made his great contract with the Commissioners, This transaction marked a turning point in the af- fairs of the future city. It gave an impetus to the operations and attracted the private capital with- out the aid of which the requisite buildings could never have been erected. The benefits that accrued to the city from the speculations of Greenleaf and his associates are generally overlooked in the con- templation of their disastrous results to the capital- ists who staked their all on the success of the ven- ture. They believed that a metropolis of large dimensions would rapidly spring up from the virgin land in which they sank their money and they in- fected others with their belief. They converted flat stagnation into a lively " boom " wdiich, al- though it w^as short-lived, served to carry the proj- ect over the first difficult stage in the constructive period. The Greenleafs of Massachusetts were a notable family. William Greenleaf, merchant and High Sheriff of Suffolk County, performed the some- what hazardous act of reading the Declaration of Independence from the balcony of the State House in Boston, July 18, 1776. The twelve children who survived him were remarkable for their in- tellect and culture. James added to these charac- teristics an extraordinary aptitude for commercial 80 WASHINGTON. pursuits. At the time tliat Greenleaf embarked in the Washington venture, ahhough still short of thirty years of age, he had accumulated more than a million dollars in mercantile enterprises. Greenleaf plunged into this speculation with the ap]:>earance of bold recklessness. He assumed enor- mous obligations with a readiness that can be ex- ])lained only by his firm belief in the future. Greenleaf was an honest man and one of sound judgment. He displaj-ed these qualities in a marked degree during his career as a merchant, whilst Consul General of the United States in Hol- land and in the lifetime of litigation that followed the failure of the North American Land Company, and other enterprises in which he was associated with ^lorris and Nicholson. The Washington ven- ture was his one great mistake and in that he had for partners men of the widest experience and the greatest intellect. They were, however, necessarily standing upon unstable ground. During the forma- tive period of the nation uncertainty overshadowed every project. The government itself was specula- tive. In financial and commercial transactions there were no empirical data to serve as guides. Forecasts rested upon the most slender founda- tions and were liable to be overturned by in- numorable contingencies entirely beyond the range of prevision. At that time, had all our pcoj)le ])rosorve(l the conservative caution which BREAKING GROUND. 81 would have accorded with the dictates of wis- dom, the infant republic had never shaken off its swaddling clothes. Bold enterprise was essen- tial to the development of the country and men like Greenleaf stimulated it. Their failures should not blind us to a sense of their public services. The records of the transactions of Greenleaf and his associates defy unravelment. If collected they would form, j^erhaps, the most intricate and com- plicated set of documents in existence. After the year 1797, the principals had no clear idea of the condition of their affairs, and Morris least of all. Cranch, who had been their agent, clear-headed and bred to the law as he was, admitted in Chancery proceedings that he could not give a lucid state- ment of their accounts. Men of standing, nomi- nated as trustees and administrators, declined to assume charge of such involved interests. Years — generations in fact — of litigation grew out of these speculations and the courts failed to untangle the mass of equities and obligations. Greenleaf, who without legal training was a lawyer of great ability, succeeded in reducing the chaos of his interests to some degree of order and — by dint of nearly forty years of legal process — saved from the wreck suf- ficient to enable him to pass his later years in com- fort. His partners died — one in a debtor's prison and the other in secluded poverty. It Avould be neither interesting nor practicable to 6 82 WASHINGTON. present more than a suninaary of Greenleaf's vast real estate investments in Washington. Survey- ing the ground from the point of view of one who believed, with General Washington, that the city was destined to become the '' great commercial em- porium " of the United States, he decided that the small peninsula lying between the Eastern Branch and the Potomac embraced the most promising site. Business would be attracted, so he thought with just anticipation, by the ample anchorage and wharfage facilities and the Capitol might be expected to draw a residential population to its vicinage. Buzzard's Point — or Greenleaf's Point as it was to be more euphoniously called thereafter — appeared to offer so many advantages over any other part of the city area that the speculator was fully justified in se- lecting it for the medium of his investment. Looking around from an eminence on the point of land where the Anacostia merges its entity in the Potomac, the sanguine speculator saw^ " Car- rolsburg, in it an only mansion, brick and wide, on the banks of the Annakastia, the home of the founder, Charles Carroll, father of Daniel Carroll, of Duddington ; directly across, another point, Geis- borough and a landing; farther south on the other sbore, wreaths of smoke and the spire of Christ Church, aristocratic Alexandria ; on the same side and nearer, tlie Custis plantation, Abingdon, and a glimpse of the old homestead in the grove; on the BREAKING GROUND. 83 city side of the Potomac, the pretentious manor house of the proprietor, Notley Young; somewhat farther on, the settlement of Hamburgh, in which distinctly the house of little brick from Holland, residence of Peter Funk, its founder . . ." " And a few years after in financial stress he lets go all his holdings in the federal establishment, all except this dedicated spot. And in the indentures is the reservation: ^Except square 506, square next- south of 506 and square next south of the square last mentioned ; ' three squares on the bank of the Potomac beginning one square south of the present Arsenal wall, thence southward. And when the stress was still greater he sold to his close friend, William Deakins junior, from w^hom he could redeem, the two squares northward. And w^hen the stress was direst sold the remaining square to his wealthy brother-in-law merchant, John Ap- pleton with the hope of eventual recovery." * A few^ days after his arrival in Washington, Greenleaf contracted with the Commissioners to purchase three thousand lots and within a few months, more than doubled the extent of his invest- ment. The public lots numbered slightly more than ten thousand and were, of course, equaled by those of the original proprietors. Of the former Greenleaf secured six thousand and of the latter, * Greenleaf and Law in the Federal City. Allen C. Clark, Washington, 1901. 84 WASHINGTON. more than twenty-five hundred. Some thirteen hundred of these he withheld from the partnership agreement and retained individually. The aggre- gate price of the property was about seven hundred thousand dollars, to be paid in equal annual install- ments without interest in the course of seven years. The purchaser agreed with the Commissioners to build twenty houses a year during the period of pay- ment and this obligation must have represented an outlay of half a million. In addition to this were undertakings of a simihir character entered into with Daniel Carroll, of Duddington,* and Xotley Young. To these obligations Greenleaf added a promise to lend the Commissioners a sum approaching two hun- dred thousand dollars for use in public improve- ments. Before he was fairly launched in this ven- ture Greenleaf had associated with himself in it Robert Morris and John Xicholson. Kobert Morris is best remembered as the finan- cier of the Revolution and as such one of the prin- cipal factors in its success. Coming to America from England in 1748, at the age of fourteen, he found employment in the mercantile house of the Willings in Philadelphia. Six years later the firm was reorganized as Willing, Morris and Company, *Most writers have confused Daniel Carroll, the Com- missioner with Daniel Carroll, of Diuklington, one of the original proprietors. The former, a man of seventy, was tlie uncle of the latter, who was barely of age at this time and lived until 1849. BREAKING GROUND. 85 with Thomas Willing and Eobort Morris as part- ners. They engaged in the export and import of general merchandise and transacted banking busi- ness. The concern thrived, especially during the war, and at the close of the struggle Robert Morris was worth at least one million dollars and his credit was so great that his notes passed current where those of the United States Government were unac- ceptable. He then began a series of speculative in- vestments in land of enormous proportions. He bought large tracts in New^ Jersey, in Pennsylvania, and other States and at one time owned almost all of iSTew York lying to the west of Lake Seneca. " Morris bought from the waters of the furious Genesee to the sluggish Savannah, anywhere, every- where, in enormous stretches, whose areas are de- scribed in acres, tens of thousands. A century passed and now, when a tract in the Carolinas or the Virginias is subject of negotiation, the lawyer from the metropolis must needs travel through primeval forest whose stillness is unbroken save by the cawing of the inhabitants of the air and the reverberating music of the axe, to the remote little brick courthouse, there to ascertain if the title is a continuous chain from the original owner — Robert Morris." ^ It is doubtful whether Morris was ever actually * Greenleaf and Law in the Federal City. Allen C. Clark, Washington, 1901. 86 WASHINGTON. solvent after he entered upon these speculations. He lived in luxury, confidently expecting fabulous returns from them. The North American Land Company is a typical illustration of the delusive basis upon which these expectations were laid. The company was formed in 1795 by Morris, Nicholson and Greenleaf with thirty thousan 1 shares and three million dollars capital. The promoters conveyed to the corporation six million acres of land, situated in six States, but principally in Georgia, at fifty cents per acre. This land was valued by the com- pany at one hundred pounds sterling per acre and the public was invited to buy it with the assurance that : " The proprietor of back lands gives him- self no other trouble about them than to pay the taxes, which are inconsiderable. As Nature left ,them, so will they lie till circumstances give them value. The proprietor is then songjit out by the settler who has chanced to pitch u]ion them, or who has made any improvement thereon, and receives from him a price which fully repays his original advance with great interest.'^ Gradually, but with increasing pressure, embar- rassments march upon the unfortunate ^lorris. The Washington speculation, which he embnrks upon with such zestful enthusiasm, seriously in- creases his difficulties but is not the cause of his ruin as has so frequently l>een stated. In his de- BKEAKING GKOUND. 87 spair and vexation, cooped Avitliin prison walls, he writes as follows : '' James Greenleaf. This is an unsettled ac- count, and I suppose ever will be. Here com- menced the ruin which has killed poor I^icholson, and brought me to the necessity of giving an account of my affairs." But in his petition in bankruptcy, Morris traces his insolvency to the failure of two British houses which involved him in a loss of six hundred thousand dollars. This statement he re- peats more than once in his letters. Xor does Morris at any time accuse Greenleaf of the '^ dis- honesty and rascality " w-ith which some writers unwarrantably charge him. John Nicholson was the third of this remarkable trio of financiers. That he was a man of extraor- dinary ability may safely be inferred from the, fact that he was appointed to the position of Comp- troller General of the finances of the Common- wealth of Pennsylvania when no more than twenty- two years of age. He possessed a marvelous capac- ity for mastering details and, perhaps, exercised it in an unwdse degree. Such, at any rate, was the opinion of Morris expressed in one of his letters : " I know that you are never idle, it is not in your nature to be so, but I think you are too often em- ployed in doing what ought to be done by others, correct this error and you w^ill accomplish more real 88 WASHINGTON. business in a short time than any other man living." A close friendship existed between these, two partners in business and companions in misfortune. The younger man — Nicholson could hardly have been more than forty years of age when he died — exercised a strange influence over the other and more than once in important matters induced him to act against his better judgment. Thus against Morris's urgent pleadings Nicholson entered upon the newspaper Avar against Greenleaf and eventually persuaded Morris to join in it. This was after Greenleaf had retired from the tripartite venture and the result of the publicity — for '^ mas- ter Jemmy " gave good measure in retaliation — was disastrous to the interests of the Pennsylva- nians. Morris refers to the matter in these terms : '^ With the purest intentions he unfortunately vlaid a train that ended as it hath done. I here say laid the train, because there are living witnesses that I opposed as soon as I knew it, although from infatuation, madness or weakness, I gave away afterwards." Nicholson, like Morris, speculated enormously in land. It is ofBcially recorded that at one time he had indisputable title to one-seventh of the area of the State of Pennsylvania and doubtful interest in much more. His business association with Mor- ris commenced in 1793 a few months before they joined Greenleaf in his Washington investment. BKEAKING GROUND. 8d A few days after the completion of Greenleaf's agreement with the Commissioners to purchase three thousand lots, President Washington wrote to his confidential secretary and friend, Colonel To- bias Lear: ^' You will learn from Mr. Greenleaf that he has dipped deeply in the concerns of the Federal city, — I think he has done so on very advantageous terms for himself, and I am pleased with it notwithstand- ing on public ground ; as it may give facility to the operations at that place, at the same time that it is embarking him and his friends in a measure which, although it could not well fail under any circum- stances that are likely to happen, may be consid- erably promoted by men of Spirit with large Capitals.'' When a few months later Greenleaf made his second contract on a similar scale. General Wash- ington expresses his disapproval. The first pur- chase, he says in a letter to Daniel Carroll, w^as de- sirable because at the time affairs " seemed to be in a stagnant state, and something was necessary in order to put the wheels in motion again." But since then Greenleaf, who bought his lots for eighty dollars a piece has sold a large number to " a gen- tleman from England " at nearly three hundred dollars per lot. The President is impressed with the idea that the speculator is " laying the founda- tion of immense profit to himself " and his asso- 90 WASHINGTON. ciates, and he inquires : '' Will it not be asked, why are speculators to pocket so much money ? Are not the Commissioners as competent to make bargains ? " Thus at the outset there prevailed in the minds of all concerned an idea that Greenleaf and his partners had got the better of the bargain in their purchases and there was evidenced a disposition to hold them to the letter of their contracts with what was sometimes unnecessary severity. This was the attitude of the private owners as well as the proprietors and Daniel Carroll, of Dudding- ton, in particular appears to have regretted the sale he made. The most important of the early building opera- tions was the erection of ^he " "Jwenty Buildings " which were in fact thirty in number. These were put up in accordance with a contract between Green- leaf and Daniel Carroll, of Duddington, which re- quired that they should be finislied on or before the twenty-sixth day of September, 1706. But pre- vious to this date Greenleaf, findiug that he could not agree with Nicholson, withdrew from the part- nership, offering to buy or sell, as Morris records, adding the opinion that the propositi^^n was very creditable to liim. The fuflillment of this and other obligations incurred by Greenleaf devolved, there- fore, upon Morris and Nicholson and the effort BREAKING GROUND. 91 strained their resources to the utmost. In July, 1795, Morris found cash, owing mainly to the monetary stringency in Europe, ^' so cursedly scarce that nothing will command it.'^ Labor, too, was difficult to engage and it began to look as though the ^' Twenty Buildings " could not be completed in contract time. Early in the following year Cranch in his ca- pacity of agent for the speculators, offered Carroll eight thousand dollars in notes of the Bank of the United States in consideration of extending the building contract one year. This Carroll flatly re- fused to do on any condition and thus affords cor- roboration of the charge that he was extremely obstinate and unconciliatory and thereby impeded the development of the section in which his prop- erty lay. The builders bent themselves to the task with all their energy and accomplished it, though at oner- ous cost. Fifteen of the structures were under cover three days before date; the other fifteen hardly three hours before the expiration of the contract term, the implacable master of Dudding- ton viewing the feverish work of the laborers with a grim determination to enforce his rights to the ultimate letter of the bond. It was a great occa- sion, for, according to the Gazette of the proximate date, " The above buildings are the greatest effect 92 WASHINGTON. of private enterprise of any in the city, and for the time in which they were building, w^e believe the greatest in the United States." A barbecue was held upon the spot and attended by all the " first citizens " of the infant capital. Among the newcomers who had thrown in their fortunes with the Federal City were William Cranch, the young wiseacre, skilled in booklore and cunning in business ; Thomas Law, the East Indian ^' Nabob," and his three young sons ; Clotworthy Stephenson, military man — as were all save cripples in those days — and practical builder ; Benjamin More, editor of the Washington (jazctte, sanguine and inquisitive; William Tunnicliffe, tavern-keeper; Xicholas King, surveyor; and Fred- erick May, physician. For several years the '' Twenty Buildings " rep- resented the chief private building operation in the District and long after it became apparent that Greenleaf's point would not become, within cal- culable time, the busy and populous center that the pioneer promoters had pictured, the h(»uses stood in various stages of decay, aifording point to the dis- paraging remarks of the native sceptic and the for- eign cynic. Morris and Nicholson were building at many other points, completing structures com- menced by Greenleaf in couf1 sickness compelled me to relinquish my station and since my arrival in England/' etc. He was in the capital at the time that the prosecution was presenting its case (the defense opened in Feb- ruary, 1702"). Mild Ills nitcndance at the trial might easily have Ix'cn assured. The antecedents and character of Thomas Law derive some importance from the facts that he was connected with George Washington by marriage, contributed no little towards the iinj^rovement of BREAKING GEOUND. 97 the capital, and left descendants who cherish a just pride in the memory of their first American ances- tor. Law's talents were of a very high order, else he would not have been intrusted, when hardly more than a youth, with the virtual rulership over two million souls. William Duane, one of the several Anglo-Indians who settled in Washington at this period, and the editor of the Aurora writes thus of him : '^ We have known Mr. Law now more than thirty years. We knew him when he was inferior to no man in eminence and in power, the third or fourth in degree in a great empire; and this was at a time, too, when by his own generous efforts, pursued with zeal and talent that commanded general ad- miration and esteem, he brought about a revolution, the influence of which now^ extends to one hundred and twenty millions of people, as great in its moral and political influence as the extinction of the feudal system." This is potent testimony though tinged with ex- aggeration. Law was not quite as exalted '' in emi- nence and power " as the enthusiastic writer states ; nor were the blessings of the Morcurrery system of land tenure quite so all-pervading as he seems to have believed. Furthermore, we can not credit Law, as some writers have done, with the origina- tion and establishment of the Permanent Settlement without robbing Sir John Shore (afterAvards Lord 7 98 WASHINGTON. Ti'igiiiiKJUthj nf liis ju.st claim tu that distinction. The Murcurrery, ur l*crnianent Settlement, ^vas mooted when Law was an infant and put into effect in 171)3. However, divested of all doubtful quali- fications for respect and admiration, the widower who married Klizabeth Parke C'ustis is revealed to us a gentleman of the highest character and of un- common al)ility. Law came to America in the summer of 1T1J4, induced to leave his native country, as he declares, by tlie unjust treatment of the Company he had served with fidelity, and by disapprobation of the war with France. He does not appear to have been at all moved by the republican sentiments with which he has been credited, nor is it probable that such feelings would actuate a man who, as Twining states, " had been accustomed to the . . splendor and consequence of a prince.'' However that may be, he determined to make his home on this side of the Atlantic and, coming under tbe seductive spell of Greenleaf's eloquence, soon in- vested his fortune of fifty thousand pounds in the real estate of the Federal City. Law (juickly became one of the most enthusiastic promoters of the capital enterprise. Before he had seen the ground he secured an option on a great number of scpuires from James Greenleaf, and when he has been but a few months in the country, we find him writing from his rented mansion in BREAKING GROUND. 99 New York, on lower Broadway near the Battery: ^' I shall certainly go to Washington City and my heart and mind are full of it — you may say that I had rather sell my horses or books or any thing rather than part with a foot at present of Washing- ton City." And so in February of the following year he comes to tlie site of the future metropolis and far from being dismayed by the dreary aspect of the place, he plunges with increased enthusiasm into building projects. Law's was the kind of tempera- ment that impels a man to assault with fervor and optimistic zeal any task to which he may put his hand. He was married a little more than a year after his arrival and Claypoole's American Daily Adver- tiser, Philadelphia, March 28, 1796, announces: '^ On the 20th instant at the seat of David Stuart, Esq., Thomas Law, youngest son of the late Bishop of Carlisle, to Miss Custis, granddaughter of the Lady of the President of the United States." Pending the completion of the mansion on N'ew Jersey Avenue, the young couple — Law was exact- ly forty and carried his age well — lease a commo- dious house at the northeast corner of Sixth and N" Streets Southwest, from William Cranch and set up an establishment which for years was the social center of the infant city. The residence on New Jersey Avenue, which stood on part of the ground 100 WASHINGTON. iiuw occupied by the Vanium,^ frequently sheltered distinguished guests. General and !Mrs. Washing- ton were habitual visitors. Here the Laws enter- tained Louis Philii)pe and his brothers, and in fact every notable stranger who came to Washington. TIk y lived " in great splendor," as Oliver Walcott informs his wife, and were the acknowledged lead- ers of society in the ca])ital. it was probably Law who in<]uccd General Wash- ington to invest in city property, in order '' that the j)ublic might have encouragement to build.'' At any rate, an entry made in the President's diary at this period relates that he '^ dined at Mr. Law's. Examined in company with the Comrs. some of the I>)ts in the Vicinity of the Capitol and fixed u})on No. 10 in G34 to build on." Law entertained the hope of inducing a consid- erable colony of Anglo-Indians to settle in Wash- ington. Besides himself, there were from India, James Barry, William Duneanson, William Duane, James Bay, and others. Twining, who visited Law shortly after his marriage, refers to this project: "One anticij)ation in which he indulged, with great confidence and satisfaction, was that other East-Indians would join him; and he hoped, I was sorry to see, that I might return to Bengal with impressions tending to encourage this migration. As we stood nne ev(Miing on the bank of the river • Tlu> oiWcv annex of the Cajiitol now covers tlie spot. BKEAKING GKOUND. 101 before his door, he said : ' Here I Avill make a terrace, and we will sit and smoke our hookahs.' " Weld was in the city during the year 1795, just before Law began his extensive building opera- tions, and thus records his observations : '' The private houses are all plain buildings ; most of them have been built on speculation, and are still empty. The greatest number at any one place, is at Green Leafs Point, on the main river just above the entrance of the eastern branch. This spot has been looked upon by many as the most convenient one for trade ; but others prefer the shore of the eastern branch, on account of the superiority of the harbour and the great depth of water near the shore. There are several other favorite situations, the choice of any one of which is mere matter of speculation at present. Some build near the capitol, as the most convenient place for the residence of members of congress, some near the president's house ; others again prefer the west end of the city, in the neighbourhood of George Town, thinking that as trade is already established in that place, it must be from thence that it will extend into the city." Law shared Greenleaf's opinion that the Point was the most favorable locality and in the spring of 1796 began building on both sides of Xew Jer- sey Avenue from the Capitol south to the Potomac. His investment was extended beyond his indi- 102 WASHINGTON. vi.liKil opcrMti(.iis l)_v loans iiiado to others for the jdirix'sc of ])r(>s(*ciitiiii2; improvements. In later chaneery ])n.f('(Mliniis his interests are scheduled thus: Survey, Measurement and Valuation of the Brick Ihiihlings erected on the property of Thomas Law, Esq., l)y himself and Otlicr Purchasers $211,637 Framed W 1 r.uildinos 33,218 $244,855 William Duncanson, Law's fellow-countryman and liis f('ll(>\v-])asson2;er from England, invested his iiind(', hounded hy South Carolina Avenue, 1), Sixili and Seventh Streets southeast. 'I'he propei'ty is now '* The ^[aples," the home of Mr-. I'lmily Edson l>riggs. Except that wings ha\(' hecn added to the east and west flanks of the liouse, there is ii<> cliange in ihe place. Willi what sanguine anticipations these men en- tei-(d into tlie venture may he gathered from Dun- canson's otTer to give haw tliree hundred and seventy-iiv<' dollars a ])i<'ce for a nunihcr of h^ts which the latter had purchased for two hnndred and fifty dollars each. A serious quarrel resulted from BREAKING GROUND. 103 Law's failure to stand to the bargain. But in 1800, Duncanson was obliged to abandon his mansion for a humble home on the banks of the river, built on a single lot in square 300. Here he ended his days. Duncanson's fate was, perhaps, more pitiable than that of any other among the speculators. Every- thing went wrong with him — land speculations and business ventures alike. He executed mort- gages of real estate, then of chattels, down to his silverware, pictures, swords and pistols. His last years were passed in extreme poverty. Presently Law became disgusted with many as- pects of the situation and began to see his '' pleas- ing prospects vanish." He wrote to Greenleaf bit- terly complaining of the Commissioners, Avho failed to realize that " the City should branch out from the proper root, the Eastern Branch." He de- manded some relaxation of the terms of his exten- sive purchase and declares: "If not — like an hunted Boar I will seat myself at the end of the New Jersey Avenue, relinquish all my plans of pro- motions, and foam and goar until I fall under chagrin." Under this hyperbole is real vexation. Never- theless, he proceeds with his plans and in the end, alone of the early heavy investors, comes out whole. Greenleaf arranged for him a mortgage wdiich, when the crash came, enabled him to recover his advance in full, whilst none of the other creditors 104 WASHINGTON. roccivcd iii(»rc than ii .small proportion of their clniiiis ii<;aiiist the syndicate. It is (litticnlt to acqnit Janson of deliberate false- li.M.d in the statement that J.aw was '' nnder the niurtifvini]^ circumstance of daily witnessing whole rows of the shells of his houses falling to pieces." Xo more substantial structures than those erected bv the '' nabob " existed in the city at that time and as tliev stand tonlay they show no signs of ^' falling to pieces." The most notable is the block at the corner of Xew Jersey Avenue and C Street south- east, which was built in 1706. It was here that Conrad and IMunn ^'opened houses of entertain- ment ■ ■ — the building originally constituted three resi per cent, $15,21)0.23." Assistant Postmaster-General Abraham Bradley, Jr., r('|>«.riiiii:- his ai'rival to the head of the Depart- ment, Secretary JIahersham, who was aljsent in Georgia, says: "it took us a week to })re})are to move, load, etc., and it will take another week to get our thlujis in •»rder." Tile cost of transporting the personnel of the (Jovernment was $o2,872.o4. The actual expenses iiicni'i-ed hy every employee in moving aud the travelini:- expenses of himself and family were made a pul)lic charge. The following bill was rendere li<.])0 wa^ naturally strongest in I'liiladcljiliia where the Government had for so many years been domiciled. The build- ing erected by the State of Pennsylvania on Ninth Street between ^larket and Chestnut for the ac- commodation tie of the men of the day, who went about the upbuilding of the republic in much the -;ame s])irit of self-sacrifice and confidence in the future that jietuated their forefathers in the ])io- neer perio<, the jiieture of its desolation has been some- what ((verdrawn. Foreign travelers unconsciously subjected the infant capital to unfair comparison with Euro])ean towns and even Americans fre- quently failelo«lget's Hotel. Mr. Bradley informs his chief: ** We have taken Dr. Cracker's house for this office (close by the Great Hotel) and for my family at $<500 a year. The apportionment of the rent I shall leave to you. It appears that $200 is as much as I . I'ailey and ^Irs. Brown, would look like a refectory of monks." The general discomfort extended even to the White House. Mrs. Adams complains in a letter to her dauiihtcr that the gi'ounds are not fenced off, the house is unfinished and there is difficulty in heating it, the main stairway has not been built nor bells hung, and she is obliged to use the audience chamber — what is now known as tlie '^ East "Room " — to dry clothes in. However, like the ma- jority of the newcomers, she is disposed to make tlie ])est of the situation. ^' If they ])ut u]) bells," slie concludes, ^' aiul let me have wood enough to keep fires, T design to be pleasant, l^ut, sur- rounded with forest, can you believe that wood is 7iot to be had, because ]')eo])le cannot ])o f(^und to cut and cart it? . . . We have indeed come to a new country." THE GOVERNMENT TAKES POSSESSION. 123 Mr. Wells, who acted as chairman in the original survey, and was living in 1866, stated that at the time of the advent of the Government, more than half the territory inckuled in the limits of the city " was covered with woods and swamps." Weld, in 1799, wrote: "A spectator can scarcely perceive anything like a town ; excepting the streets and avenues and a small part of the ground adjoining the public buildings, the whole place is covered with trees. To be under the necessity of going through a deep woods for one or two miles, perhaps in order to see a next-door neighbor, and in the same city, is a curious, and, I believe, a novel circumstance." Almost every record of observation at this time em- phasizes the predominance of woodland and yet within a few years we have the complaint that the ground has been recklessly denuded of its trees. Warden"^ wrote in 1816: ''Washington has been lately deprived of a luxury in a warm climate — the spreading shade of magnificent trees. Be- tween the Capitol and the President's house, a cer- tain space of thickly shaded ground, extended to- wards the river, destined for a public walk, was ad- mirably fitted for this purpose; but the oaks and other forest trees with which it was adorned, have been wantonly destroyed by a spirit which will never cease to excite disgust and indignation. In * " Chorographical and Statistical Description of the Dis- trict of Columbia." David B. Warden. Paris, 1816. 124 WASHINGTON. the act of cession of these lands it had been stipu- lated that all the wood growing thereon belonged to })nrchasers.* The abuse of this privilege might have been readily anticipated, but the evil was felt when there was no longer a remedy. The commis- sioners interposed for the preservation of the trees wliicli remained, but this late interposition was of no avail. Venerable oaks, which shaded a fine s])ring, sitnated at the foot of Capitol Hill, near the l*cnnsylvania Avenue, were cut down by barbarian hands, which did not even spare the honeysuckle, eglantine, and other flowering shrubs. A spot like this would have been worshipped by the ancients; it would have been emphatically denominated Sylva Sacra ; he wbo would dare to profane it would have been doomed to an ignominous juuiishment. The case is widely ditferent with the first settlers of Washington, who arriving there in indigent state, unabl(» t(» ]uirchasc wood for fuel or for the constmc- tion of their cabins, through necessity lay the axe to some of the finest timber. Tn this wild state, trees were considered as common property — res nul- bus. Christian Tlines states that between the years 1800 and 1S0(;, ''there were several clusters of * Til is is not a strictly correct stntcincnt. See para. 5 of llip original ponvcvaiico, (jiiotod on pajros 33-35 of tlie present volume. It is clear that the terms of the agreement left it witliin the power of the President to preserve the standing trees to any desired extent upon condition of a reasonable comi)ensation to the owners. THE GOVERNMENT TAKES POSSESSION. 125 beautiful forest trees jet standing in different parts of the city. . . . The Capitol was not then en- closed, but was surrounded by a large number of forest trees, at least the west side of it. Near the trees a gallows was erected." At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Washington had a population of between three and four thousand. The great majority of the inhab- itants were artisans or laborers attracted to the spot by the prospect of remunerative employment. To such, of course, the original building restrictions could not have been applied. They were satisfied to live in the meanest cabins of temporary construc- tion and these they knocked together on any avail- able spot that offered. The permanent buildings Avere scattered from Georgetown to the Eastern Branch with intervening patches of woodland."^ Each speculator had his individual opinion as to the development of the city and naturally followed it in the erection of residences designed for the accom- modation of the future population. There was no concerted action nor any controlling design. The official plan, although it influenced most of the opera- tions, was too vast and prospective to effect any co- hesive action. It was many years before the growth of the city took a definite and determined form. * See Appendix for an enumeration of the houses standing within the city limits in 1800. 12G WASHINGTON. On liidepciulencc Day, ISOO, Oliver Walcott, Jr., wrote to his wife as follows : " There are but few houses at any one place, and most of them small, miserable huts, which present an awful contrast to the public buildings. The people are i)oor, and so far as I can judge, they live, like tishes, by eating each other. All the ground for several miles around the city being, in the opinion of the people, too valuable to cultivate, remains unfenced. There are but few enclosures, even for gardens, and these are in bad order. You may look in almost any direction, over an extent of ground nearly as large as the City of Xew York, without seeing a fence, or any object, except brick- kilns and temporary huts for laborers. Mr. Law and a few other gentlemen, live in great splendor; I tut most (if the inhabitants are low people Avhose appearance indicates vice and intemperance, or ne- groes. " All the himls which 1 have described are valued, by the superficial foot, at fourteen to twenty-five cents. There ap])ears to be a confident exj)ectation that this j)lace will soon exceed any city in the \\(»rle in advance of the advent of inhabitants ( Wolcott need not have been surprised to find a poinilation of laborers composed mostly of ^Mow jH'ople " devoid of "society or business." And (Jallatin would have had greater ground for conmient had he seen the warehouses filled with goods and the wharves crowded with vessels. Xo little enterprise and c(niragc was displayed by the men who invested their money in Washington and decided to rise or fall with its doubtful fortunes. If they laid their ])lans with a view to their owti profits rather than the convenience of the coming Concressnien, who shall blame them? They w^ere d('lnf al)ont 0,500, the entire amonnt de- voted to that purpose was only $1,4G0, and that in- cluded the salaries of treasurer, register, secretaries of councils and clerks of the markets. In 1820, the extended term of the act of incor- poration expired, and Congress superseded it with a new measure. This provided for the election of the mayor by the male inhabitants of the city, sub- ject to specified color and property qualifications. All the officers of the corporation, not elective, were a])]iointw('re(l the Commissioners to make building regulations; phunbing regulations; to make and en- force all such reasonable police regulations as they may deem necessary for the safety and comfort of tlie public iiml the ]U'otection of property within the District and other regulations of a municipal na- ture. They may not, however, enter into any con- THE GOVEKNMENT OF THE DISTKICT. 145 tracts or incur any liabilities without the consent and approval of Congress. The Commissioners are required to submit to the Secretary of the Treasury, once every year, an estimate of the amount necessary to defray the ex- penses of the government of the District during the ensuing fiscal year. This estimate is transmitted to Congress by the Secretary Avith a statement of his approval or otherwise. The organic act de- clares that : ''To the extent to which Congress shall approve of said estimates, Congress shall ap- propriate the amount of fifty per centum thereof; and the remaining fifty per centum of such ap- proved estimates shall be levied and assessed upon the taxable property and privileges in said district other than the property of the United States and of the District of Columbia." The assessment of real property for the purpose of general annual taxation is made by a board of three assistant assessors, who sit also with the asses- sor as a board of equalization to hear appeals from their assessments. This assessment is made every three years, but the assistant assessors have the power to assess at any time any assessable real prop- erty wdiich may have escaped assessment in regular course or become liable thereto after the last trien- nial assessment, and to strike off any property which for any reason shall have since become exempt. Assessments against private real property for its 10 146 WASHINGTON. share of the cost of public works especially bene- ticial thereto, and for other special charges, except fur use of water, are also made by the assessor. Water rates are assessed by the water department. The rate of taxation in any one year shall not exceed $1.50 on every $100 of real estate not ex- empted by law; and on personal property not tax- able elsewhere, $1.50 on every $100, according to the cash vahiation thereof. Upon real property hekl and used exclusively for agricultural purposes without the limits of the city of Washington, and to be so designated by the assessors in their annual returns, the rate for any one year shall not exceed $1 on every $100. The judges of the Supreme Court of tlie District of ('(ihuiihia ha\(' the a})pointment of the board of education, consisting of nine persons who have been for live years innnediately preceding their term of office, bona fide residents and taxpayers of the Dis- trict. The board whose term of office is three years, makes all regulations for the government and conduct of the schools, and has the right of appoint- ment and removal in the case of all officers and emjiloyees connected with the public schools. A board of charities to consist of five mem- bers residents of the District, are appointed by the President, with the approval of the Senate, each for a term of throe years. Xo member of this l)oailiiiig little mutual su|)))()rt, hardly sustaining a market, and divided by great puhlic reservations." This conlila, altlioiigh it failed, was not witlioiit a rctareliiig ctfeot upon the progress of the ciiv. Warden, writing in 181C, says: ''The vahie «if lots has diminished on account of the proj- ect of Kastern niendjers of Congress to transfer the seat uf Government to some other place." Even at the red need ])rices, there was little sale of lots for some time. The city expanded very slowly as may be inferred from the fact that in 1824, Mr. Crawford, Secretary of the Treasury, being "sent to the country for his health," betook himself to a remote honse on (Tement Hill, where, at present, Fourteenth Street intersects Massachusetts Avenue. At this period, the residents of Washington made vigorous efforts to remove from the capital the re- proach of backwardness under which it had lain for a (piarter of a century. Indeed, their patriotism and ambition outrode their prudence, for they ex- pcuiU'd sums ahogetlier beyond their resources. The streets were improved and municipal buildings trccted, and an effort Avas made to stimulate com- mercial (k'velo])ment by the construction of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, a cherished project of General Washington. The consequence of these ])raiseworthy, if somewhat injudicious, activities was linancial end)arrassment, which prompted an appeal to Congress for aid. Tn 1835, Senator Southard of Xew Jersey ably cham])ioned the cause of the city in Congress. He A SLUGGISH GROWTH. 165 reported its debt to have reached '' the enormous sum of $l,806,4i2," towards the liquidation of which it had not a dollar available for application. He showed the affairs of the canal to be in such a precarious state that there was serious danger of foreign bankers coming into possession of a large proportion of the property within the capital of the Union. The Senator went into an exhaustive re- view of the just relations between the nation and the city of its creation and demonstrated that in all equity the Government should permanently assume a proper proportion of the expenses incident to the development of the District. The residents he maintained had, being left to their own resources, been impelled to incur expenditures which did not rightly pertain to them, but that they had been prompted by motives of a liberal and public-spir- ited character, and there was nothing in their con- duct to justify a denial of the relief which they sought. In response to this appeal. Congress saved the capital from its impending bankruptcy but turned a deaf ear to the suggestion that it should share the necessary expenses of its legal ward. George Combe, a British traveler, described Washington, in 1839, as '' like a large straggling village reared in a drained swamp.'' A corpora- tion law of the period prohibits the running of geese and hogs at large ^' south of Massachusetts avenue." As a matter of fact, however, all domes- lOG WASHINGTON. tic iiiiiiiials li:i(l the frofdoin of the entire city until a imich hiter date. A few years later, Dick- ens recorded his impressions of '' the headquarters of tobacco-tinctured saliva," as be was pleased to characterize Washington: ''It is," be says, in terms of facetiffi, which were doubtless galling to the contenijiorary residents, " it is sometimes called the City of ^lagnificent Distances; but it might, with iireater propriety, be termed the City of Mag- nificent Intentions, for it is only on taking a bird's- eye view of it from the top of the Capitol tbat one can at all comprehend the vast designs of tbe pro- jector, an as])iring Frenchman. Spacious avenues tliat begin in nothing and lead nowhere, streets, mile long, that only want houses, roads, and in- habitants; ])ul)lic l)uildings that need but a public to be complete, and ornaments of great thorough- fares which only need great thoroughfares to orna- ment, are its leading features. One might fancy the season over and most of the houses gone out of town Avith their masters. To the admirers oi cities it is a liarmecide feast; a pleasant field for the imagination to rove in; a monument raised to a deceased project, with not even a legible inscri}> tion to record its departed greatness. Such as it is, it is likely to remain. . . . It is very un- healthy. l'\"\v ])('(ij)l(> would live in Washington, I take it, wlio were not obliged to reside there; and the titri('t was to execute." The f(>regoing statement is quoted with the de- sign of marking a stage in the development of the City of Washington. It by no means describes the present condition of the capital. Since the date at which it was written, and more especially since the centennial celebration of 1900, Washington has made wonderful advance towards its ultimate posi- tion, which will be that of the most beautiful and. the most magnificent city in the world. A separate chai)ter is devoted to the recent improvements and the contemplated changes. CHAPTER VIII. WASHINGTON IN WAR TIMES. Twice in its history — at times separated by half a century — Washington has been the focns of a war and the actual object of an enemy's attack. The former occasion steeped the nation and the city in gloomy disgrace and strained to the break- ing point their slender bonds. From the latter struggle the country and its capital emerged tri- umphant and knit together for all time. In the early summer of 1814 the Administration received explicit warning of the impending assault. Albert Gallatin wrote from London — whither he had been sent in the hope of securing peace — that the British Government had ordered a force of sev- eral thousand veteran troops and a score of ships of war to be despatched from the Bermudas. This reinforcement was to make a junction with Admiral Cockburn's fleet in Chesapeake Bay and resume hostilities. That the attack would be in the nature of a raid and that it would be made upon some point near the rendezvous was the general belief but there was serious disagreement as to the pre- 175 170 WASHINGTON. rise locality tliroatened. ]\raiiv snrniised witli reason that the British wouhl aim at the capital, the defenseless state of which could not be un- known to them. Those who held this view argued that, whilst Washington offered little attraction in I he way of plunder, the moral effect of its capture would be a weighty consideration with an invader. The President and his Cabinet refused to enter- tain the idea. General Armstrong, the Secretary of War, scouted it as absurd and, on his advice, supported by that of Colonel Monroe, Madison made hardly any preparation to defend the capital from the onslaught that ensued. Fort Washington was strengthened without ex- tending its effectiveness landward and General Winder was ap]iointed to the command of a mili- tary district created for the occasion that embraced the State of ^Tarvland, including the ^' ten sqmire miles," and a ])()rtion of northern Virginia. When Winder took conunand on the 2Gth of June, he found that the entire force at his disposal con- sistcil (d' two fragments of regular regiments num- bering about 1i\'e hundred. Aside from these, there were ncithci- men nor munitions on hand. Thir- teen regiments of militia had been drafted and the General proposed to arm, mobilize, and drill them but, with fatuous disregard of his pleas, the Ad- niinisii'ation determined that they ^^hould not be called out until the last moment. WASHINGTON IN WAR TIMES. 177 About the middle of August, the enemy, having effected the contemplated organization, opened hos- tilities by moving against Commodore Barney's flotilla of gunboats which had taken refuge in the Patuxent. Barney was ordered to destroy his ves- sels, which he did by burning them. He then marched his sailors and marines, with a few guns that he had contrived to mount, across the peninsula and joined Winder's command. Secretary Armstrong still maintained his opinion that Baltimore was the objective of the British and that there was no need for alarm as to the safety of the capital. Winder, himself, believed that Annapolis was the point aimed at, and others reached yet different conclusions. Meanwhile Col- onel Monroe had gone on a reconnaissance and on the 23d of August a despatch was received from him stating that the enemy were marching in force upon the city. He concluded with the disquieting advice to ''have the material ready to destroy the bridges " and to '' remove the records." When this alarming intelligence became public the city was thro^\^l into turmoil. The removal of the women and children began, valuables were hid- den and old arms were furbished. The preceding supineness gave place to feverish activity which, for want of intelligent direction, altogether lacked effectiveness. At this time. General Wilkinson tendered advice which, had it been taken, might 12 178 WASHINGTON. have averted the disaster. lie suggested tliat the roads over which the eiieiiiv must advance should be obstructed and mobile bodies of troops detached in different directions to harass his flanks and rear. The route of the British Avas over ground that lent itself admirably to guerilla tactics and there is every reason to believe that by the adoption of Wilkinson's plan they might have been turned back, if not cut up and put to flight. But here again, Armstrong, the evil genius of the situation, pre- vailed with counsel that reflects little credit on his militar)' reputation. The advice of the Secretary of War to General W^inder, which was practically in the nature of a command, was as follows: '' I would assemble my force in the enemy's front, fall quietly back to the Capitol, giving only that degree of resistance that invites a pursuit. When arrived in its front I would immediately put in battle my twenty pieces of artillery, give the direc- tion and management of these to Baniey and Peters, fill the upper part of the building and the adjacent buildings with infantry, regulars and militia, amounting to 5,000 men, while my 300 cavalry held themselves in reserve for a charge the moment a recoil appeared in the British columns of attack/' The affair of Bladensburc: — it does not deserve WASHINGTON IN WAK TIMES. 179 the style of ^' battle " — is not pleasant to dwell upon. It was not the fault of the men, but of their superiors, that the defense ended in a fiasco which excited the derision of their ovm. countrymen. The gallant stand made by the small bodies under Bar- ney, Magruder and Peters, after the main force had broken and fled, showed what might have been done had the troops been handled with ability. When Winder drew uj) his 6,000 men in the face of the British, he had formed no definite plan of action, he lacked confidence in his troops, and he was confused and embarrassed by the conflicting counsel of the superfluous generals who encumbered the field of action. Wilkinson tells us that the President busied himself in penciling despatches to his wife at Washington until the advance line of the enemy came in sight, when he turned to his companions saying : " Come, General Armstrong ; come. Colonel Monroe, let us go, and leave it to the commanding general." Winder had been bet- ter for their absence when he was making his prep- arations, but' having come upon the field, it was a pity they left it at the very time when their presence might have proved of some benefit by affording moral support to the soldiery. As it was, their carriage driving away at the first moment of the appearance of the enemy must have suggested flight to the troops who lost no time in following ISO WASHINCiTON. tlicir (*.\inii|tl('. A Xew York journal concluded a satirical account of the affair with the following ])arodv of Scott's lines: "Fly, Monroe, Hy! Kuii, Armstrong, run! Wore the last words of Madison." Staved only by the scanty rearguard, which in- flicted greater loss upon the British, in proportion to the numbers engaged, than they had ever before sustained in battle. General Ross's army moved on to the Capitol, which it found undefended. The sun was sinking, as the redcoats, first firing a suc- cession of volleys into the windows, set fire to the building and its combustible contents. There is a story current, which has been handed down from one to the next writer on the subject Avithout a break, to the effect that this barbarous proceeding- was rendered doubly disgraceful by a mock parlia- mentary session at which Admiral Cockburn pre- sided and at which General Ross was present. Having a few years ago, gained by chance a some- Avhat intimate knowledge of the character of the gallant soldier and accomplished gentleman, who served with distinction in the war against Xapoleon, my sus})icion of the truth of this story was aroused and T decided to investigate it. Painstaking in- quiry, wliich embraced correspondence with many descendants of the principal characters involved, failccl to educe one iota of evidence in support of it. On tlie contrary, it is in conflict with several WASHINGTON IN WAR TIMES. 181 circumstantial accounts written at the time by actors in the affair. Before the flames of the Capitol arose to accentu- ate their fears, the people of Washington had heen panic-stricken by the sight of the fleeing militia which passed hurriedly through the city in small bodies making their way to their homes in Virginia and Maryland. All who could do so made haste to abandon the doomed capital. The streets were crowded with wagons, horses and human beings, streaming toward the bridges that crossed the river. The event proved, however, that the citizens might with safety have remained in their homes for, with the exception of the plant of the National Intelli- gencer, the invaders respected the persons and prop- erty of private individuals. The Intelligencer was deemed beyond the pale of consideration because Joseph Gales, its proprietor, was an Englishman by birth. During the night of the 24th and the morning of the following day, the torch was applied to all the Government buildings but the War Office, which for some inexplicable reason was spared. The "■ President's Palace," as General Ross styles it in his official report, was the first prey of the flames. Any further acts of destruction that might have been contemplated were frustrated by the terrific hurricane that swept over the desolate city on the afternoon of the 25th. Thirty of the invaders were 182 WASHINGTON. killed by falling houses during the storm and about as many more had been l)lown up a few hours previous by an explosion at the Navy Yard. The utterly defenseless condition in which the city had been left and some rumors of an approach- ing army that were probably set afloat with design, led the enemy to suspect that a trap had been laid for it. With this idea the commanders of the ex- pedition made a hasty retreat on the night of the 25th, taking all the horses and vehicles that could be found for the conveyance of as many as possible of their wounded. Many of the most seriously injured were left at Bladensburg to be cared for by the Americans. It is a satisfaction to know that the vandalism of the British troops on this occasion aroused the utmost indignation in Great Britain. Their action was condemned in the warmest terms by the press and upon the floor of the House of Connnons, where it was characterized as no less futile than disgrace- ful. But condemnation of the invaders should bo tempered with a remembrance of the fact that they were not without some justification in the burning of the parliament house at York and the y James 11. Lane of Kansas, were or- ganized in a few days and assigned to the duty of guarding the White House. Employees of the Treasury raised a regiment among themselves for its defense. Nor was age a deterrent, for many of those exempt from the draft on that account formed a company, called with proud significance the Silver Grays. False alarms and wild rumors constantly agi- talcil the p()i)ulace and disturhed the officials who had no means of ascertaining the approach of relief until it was actually in sight. Even the Presi- dent's hahitual equanimity was more than once hrokon during those trying days. It was with the wihlc'st enthusiasm that the people Avelcomed the weary and travel-stained Seventh New York, when they reached the city at noon on the 2r)th of the month. A few hours later, the Eighth Massachu- setts came in and the next morning, the First Ehodo Island. Thenceforth, excepting for the brief alarm occasioned by Early's dash at the capital, no acute fear was experienced for its safety. The city soon became a huge military camp. Troo})s were quartered in the Capitol and other p\d)lic Imildings. Tents rose on every hand and hos])itals increased until they exceeded seventy in iiuiiilxT. Wasliington iKH'ame ringed around with forts which, before the close of the war thickly dotted tlic cufirc "ten miles square." The capital WASHINGTON IN WAK TIMES. 195 was, of course under military government from the outset. Sentries were posted at many points and patrols traversed the streets. A strict press censor- ship was maintained during the first year and bad news was suppressed or modified. x\n extensive secret detective service was organized under Colonel Baker and constant work w^as found for it in Wash- ington for, from the outbreak of the conflict until the assassination of Lincoln, spies and traitors Avere ever present in the city. Strangers in large num- bers thronged to the capital after every battle, searching the hospitals for friends or relatives and pestering the authorities ^vith inquiries and requests that it was seldom possible to satisfy. Office-seek- ers and petitioners of all sorts infested the Depart- ments and besieged the White House. The iron man at the war office gave a cold reception to all supplicants, but the humblest and least w^orthy never failed of kind and sympathetic treatment from the head of the nation. Lincoln was the easiest official to approach in those days and no matter how press- ing or important the business on his hands, he would find time to hear the story of some poor woman in distress or to read the papers in the case of a pri- vate soldier condemned to death. W^hilst few of- ficials could stoop to consideration of the minor incidents of war, their chief never forgot that the common people furnished the bulk of the material with which to prosecute it and bore the greater 106 WASHINGTON. share uf its hardships. ]No chapter of his life is more appealing and characteristic than that which relates to the numerous acts of mercy and justice that he performed during this period. On the 17th of Julv, the first army of the North was sent against the enemy, then entrenched along the banks of Bull Run, about thirty-five miles south- west of Washington. In the city, the outcome of this opening encounter was awaited with the utmost anxiety. At length, toward nine o'clock on the evening of the 21st, an army correspondent arrived with the first news. According to his report, Mac- IJowell had gained a victory. But the rejoicings were short-lived. The correspondent had left the field before the termination of the engagement and Inter tidings disproved his conclusion. About half an hour before midnight, a hack deposited the next arrivals from the battlefield at the Metropolitan — then Brown's — Hotel. To the few listeners who were about at that hour, they told a different story. The North had sustained a defeat. Several newspaper correspondents had already tiled the previous report with extensive details. The censor refused to permit the contradiction to go over the wires and so the false news of victory was published throughout the N'orth. The people of Washingtou went to their beds cheered by the carlv news of the eveninii" and awoke to find the WASHINGTON IN WAK TIMES. 197 defeated army streaming in disorder into the city by way of the Long Bridge. It was now perceived that the aggressive move- ment had been premature. Thorough preparation was determined upon. General McClellan was ap- pointed to the chief command. The army Avas re- organized, the troops were drilled and forts and earthworks were erected on the Virginia side of the Potomac. The anxiety that had prevailed in Wash- ington for several weeks gradually gave way to re- newed confidence. At the inception of the war, the United States Sanitary Commission was organized by private en- terprise to " direct inquiries to the principles and practices connected with the inspection of recruits and enlisted men, the sanitary condition of the vol- unteers, to secure the general comfort and efficiency of the troops, and provide cooks, nurses, etc., for th.^ hospitals. '^ Its services were gladly accepted by the Government and proved to be of inestimable value. It had- agents with the annies in the field and at every military depot in the North. In Washington, the association maintained a soldiers' retreat, several model hospitals, and a number of lodging houses. Assistance of every description was extended to the soldiers and they were pro- tected against the numerous sharpers who made Washington their headquarters. Similar and 198 WASHINGTON. equally good work was done by the United States Christian Commission. Exactly one year after the draft proclamation, Congress passed an act providing for the liberation of all slaves held in the District of Columbia, thus anticipating the general Emancipation Act wdiich was proclaimed five months later. The law apply- ing to the District made provision for the compen- sation of owners. The terms of the Act Avere to be carried out as speedily as possible and three com- missioners were appointed to determine the various indemnities. The business occupied nearly nine months and was barely concluded before Lincoln's famous Emancipation Proclamation Avent into ef- fect. The commissioners hold their sessions daily at the City Hall, assisted by an expert slave dealer in the capacity of appraiser. During the progress of the examination, a crowd of vociferous negroes w^as constantly about the building and many dra- matic scenes and amusing incidents took place. Compensation was allowed to only such o\\Tiers as would take the oath of fealty to the Government. Very few refused to comply Avith this condition but a number of slaves w^ere liberated whose masters had left them in the care of others whilst they them- selves joined the Confederate Army. Xearly three thousand negroes w^ere set free in the District in compliance with this law at a cost to the Govern- iiiont a])proximnting one million of dollars. WASHINGTON IN WAE TIMES. 199 As the conflict wore on, the people of Washing- ton fell into a state of phlegmatic calm Avhich was not easily disturbed. There did occur, however, two or three momentous events that wrought the populace up to the highest pitch of excitement. One of these was the threatened capture of the city in the summer of 1864. Grant was engaged in the operations against Petersburg and Richmond when General Jubal A. Early made his bold dash, through the Shenandoah Valley, at Washington. The capital at this time contained fewer than five thousand armed men and a large part of these were convalescents and the irregular corps of which men- tion has been made. There was no suspicion of danger and on the morning of July the 9th, the inhabitants were rudely awakened from their sense of security by the warning boom of cannon to the northward. Countrymen and couriers soon arrived with the alarming news that Early with an army of thirty thousand picked troops had crossed the Potomac and was contesting the passage of the Monocacy railroad bridge with General Lew Wal- lace who had something less than thirty-five hun- dred men at his disposal. It needed no military knowledge to realize that if Early gained the highroads that ran into Wash- ington from the point where Wallace opposed him, the capital was lost and there was no ground for hope that he would fail to do so. The authorities 200 WASHINGTON. made i)re2)arations to defend the situation to the last, fearing above all other results of capture that Great Britain would recognize the Confederacy. Thirty-five hundred men on hospital duty were hastily formed into combatant corps. The Depart- ment clerks and other Government employees were anned and hurried to the line of defenses in the threatened quarter. Even the teamsters were mounted upon their draft horses and formed into a regiment after having drawn their wagons and other impedimenta to favorable spots and massed them as barricades. Towards the close of the day, anxiety Avas in- creased by the tidings that Wallace, after a gallant- stand, had been forced to retire. The approaches t(» Washington were now open to the enemy. The recently emancipated negroes displayed the wildest terror but an observer has recorded the impression made upon him by the composure and determina- tion displayed generally by the defenders. At this most acute crisis, they appeared to be prepared to give a good account of themselves and to make the most (»f what seemed to be a hopeless situation. Many of them had never discharged a fire-arm and they were confronted by a veteran foe but there was no dismay nor wavering visible in their ranks. Th(y had not the encouragement of knowing that reinforcements were approaching with all the speed at their command. But so it was, for Grant had WASHINGTON IN WAR TIMES. 201 despatched the faiiiou^^ Sixth Corps and part of the Xineteenth to the relief of the capital. The Second Regiment of District ]\Iilitia held the line between Fort Stevens and Fort Slociim dnrine: the two days of Earlv's advance and tl 'to lOU- sands of civilians, drawn by cnriosity and a desire to be near their relatives repaired to that point each day. There too, the President and Secretaries Stanton and Seward passed mnch time anxiously watching the developments of the situation. On the 11th, the enemy was within the District and before night had entrenched within a mile of Fort Stevens which stood a little to the northwest of the present site of Brightwood. Early's purpose was to mass his forces on the old Seventh Street Road which was the weakest place in the defenses. The city was already beleagured and everyone looked for an assault on the morrow. At four o'clock of that afternoon — not an hour too soon and when it would have been too late but for Wallace's stand — the relieving force swung into the streets of Washington and accompanied by a wildly exultant crowd continued its march through the city to the fighting line. The next morning, they attacked the enemy vigorously and before nightfall, Early's army was in full retreat. The Confederate capital fell on the fourth of April, 1865, and four days later, Lee surrendered and Grant turned towards Washington with his 202 WASHINGTON. -• virlni'ious army. At the news of these events the |)e()])le ill the capital gave themselves up to unre- strained rejoicing. President Lincohi was then in tlie vSoiith. He returned to Washington on the 10th of the month and a large crowd awaited him at tlie White House. In response to repeated calls for a speech, he appeared at an open window on the second floor, looking more serenely happy than any there had ever seen him. A correspondent who was ])resent on the occasion, has thus recorded his I'cmarks and tlie interjections of the crowd which was hrimming over with irrepressible good humor: " I am greatly rejoiced that an occasion has oc- curred, so pleasurable that the people can't restrain ihcmsclvcs. (Laughter and cheers.) I suppose that arrangements are being made for a formal demonstration, to-night or to-morrow night. (Cries of ^ We can't wait.') I shall have to respond. I shall have nothing to say then if I dribble it all out now. (Laughter.) I see you have a band of mu- sic with you. (A cry, 'We have two bands.') I propose fdi- closing up, that you will have them play the air called 'Dixie.' ('Agreed!') I have al- ways tli(juglit it was the best tune I ever heard. Onr adversaries over the way have attempted to a])pro])riate it as their own national air. T insisted, y(\sterday, that we had fairly captured it, and are entitled to it. 1 asked the opinion of the Attorney- General, and he states that we have lawfully cap- WASHINGTON IN WAR TIMES. 203 tiired it, and that it was therefore ours. I now re- quest the band to play it." (Cheers.) The band played ''Dixie" which was greeted with hearty applause. The President then pro- Dosed '' three good, rousing cheers for Lieutenant- General Grant and all under his coniniand." The crowd responded with a will. Then Lincoln asked them to repeat the demonstration in favor of the ^' gallant navy." On the loth, a general celebration was observed in the city. The occasion was observed as holiday and the populace gave itself up to merry-making. The White House, Capitol and other public build- ings were decorated with a profusion of flags and many private residences and business places hung bunting to the wdnd. Throughout the day, at in- tervals, the guns of the forts thundered in salute. At night there were bonfires and a general illumina- tion and an immense throng gathered in front of the White House to hear an address delivered by President Lincoln from the portico. Soldiers marched the streets in informal parade singing the songs that had become popular with the Army as march-tunes. On many a corner and other vantage point homely orators made patriotic speeches to easily-satisfied audiences. Music mingled with the shouts and cheers of the crowd. Enormous quan- tities of wine and spirits were consumed but, al- though many drunken men w^ere abroad, the gen- 204 WASHINGTON. cral disposition towards jojoiisness would not permit of any trouble. The jubilation which had commenced on the 9th, continued until it was brought to an abrupt termination by the tragic event that cast a deep gloom over the city. Xo characteristic of Lincoln was more pro- nounced than his abounding charity. His last day on earth was marked by several exhibitions of this amiable trait. The newspapers of the city had an- nounced that on the evening of the 14tb, the Presi- dent and (Jeneral Grant would attend the perform- ance of " Our American Cousin/' in which Laura Keene was playing at Ford's. Every seat in the theater was booked at an early hour in anticipation of the presence of the two most honored men of the nation. ^lembers of the household have said that Lincoln never seemed more cheerful and happy than he did that day. At the breakfast table he joked and chatted with his famil}^ after the maimer which they had almost forgotten since leaving their home ill Illinois. After the meal, Robert Lincoln gave them an account of his experiences in the Virginia ('am])aign, through which he had served as aide-de- camp to General Grant. Later there was a Cabinet meeting at which the President earnestly impressed upon his advisers the desirability of clemency in dealing with the South. Secretary Welles, writing of that conference, says: "He hoped that there WASHINGTON IN WAK TIMES. 205 would be no persecution, no bloody work, after the war was over. None need expect he Avould take any part in hanging or killing these men, even the worst of them. Frighten them out of the country, let down the bars, scare them off, said he, throw- ing up his hands as if scaring off sheep. Enough lives had been sacrificed. We must extinguish our resentment if we expect harmony and union. There Avas too much desire on the part of our very good friends to be masters, to interfere and dictate to those States, to treat the people not as fellow citi- zens; there was too little respect for their rights. He didn't sympathize in these feelings." In the afternoon, a telegram was received at the War Department from the provost-marshal at Port- land, Maine, which read as follows : '^ I have posi- tive information that Jacob Thompson will pass through Portland to-night in order to take a steamer for England. What are your orders ? " Thomp- son, at one time a member of Buchanan's Cabinet, had entered the Confederate service and during the latter part of the war had been employed in Canada as a diplomatic agent. Stanton's immediate order was to arrest the refugee but, probably calling to mind the strong expressions of the President, ut- tered but a few hours previous, decided to refer the matter to him before taking decisive steps. When Assistant Secretary Dana arrived at the White House with the telegram, he found the office closed 206 WASHINGTON. and business over fur the day. Turning to retrace his steps, he was accosted by the President from an alcove in which he was washing his hands. '' Hallo, Dana ! " cried Lincoln, '' what's up now ? " Dana read the telegram. '' What did Stanton say ? '' asked the President. ^^ He ordered his ar- rest," replied Dana, " but said that the matter should be referred to you first. Sir." Lincohi rubbed his hands slowly with the towel whilst he gazed thoughtfully at the telegram. " Xo, Dana," he said at length, '^ I rather think not. When you have an elephant by the hind leg and he is trying to run away, it is best to let him go." And so Thompson was permitted to escape unhindered. The President then set out on his daily drive with his wife. They were generally alone on these occasions and made them the opportunities for mu- tual confidences and private conferences, for Lin- coln was in the habit of asking his wife's advice about the most important affairs. Mrs. Lincoln never forgot her husband's hopeful ])lans for the future, expressed as they drove out to the suburbs. '^ Mary," he said, '' we have had a hard time of it since we came to Washington ; but the war is over, and with God's blessing we may hope for four years of peace and happiness, and then we will go back to Illinois and pass the rest of our lives in quiet. We have laid by some money, and during this term, w^e will try and save up some more, but we shall not WASHINGTON m WAK TIMES. 207 have enough to support us. We will go back to Illinois, and I will open a law office at Springfield or Chicago, and practice law, and at least do enough to give us a livelihood." The Spring evening was setting in when the Pres- ident returned to the White House. He found some old friends from his native State awaiting him and with them passed the time until summoned to dinner, dismissing them with an invitation to call again on the morrow. General and Mrs. Grant were to have dined with the Lincolns and after- wards to have accompanied them to the play-house but at the last moment the General's w^ife sent their excuses with the explanation that they were unex- pectedly called out of the city on urgent business. Thus one of the intended victims escaped the doom that had been planned for him. The party was already somewhat late for the the- ater when it rose from the table, but Lincoln lin- gered to exercise that never-failing spirit of mercy and kindness in a last official act. At the opening of the war, two brothers named Vaughan, residents of Canton, Missouri, espoused opposite causes. Allmon enlisted in the Union Army, whilst George joined the Confederate forces. In course of time, the latter received a commission and was appointed to the staff of General Mark Green, an old-time friend and fellow townsman. After Shiloh, George Vaughan undertook a secret 208 WASHINGTON. visit to Canton for the pnr})0SG of seeing bis family and carrying a message to the wife of his General. ]Ie passed successfully through the enemy's lines, spent several days at his home and commenced the journey back to bis command. On his return, how- ever, he was discovered and captured. He was tried by court-martial and sentenced to be shot as a spy, although he protested his innocence of any sinister purpose and there was nothing but his pres- ence within the Union lines to be advanced against him. Allmon Vaughan, who was now a captain in the Xortlicrn army, made an effort to save bis brothers life and enlisted the interest of Senator John B. Henderson. Henderson appealed to Stan- ton, with no better effect than others had upon that man of adamant. The Senator then laid the case before Lincoln, who ordered a new trial. This re- sulted in another verdict of guilty. Again Lincoln was besought to intervene and again he instructed a new court-martial to sit. For the third time George Vaughan was sentenced to death but his friends did not despair. Richmond had fallen when Llender- son again sought the President in behalf of the con- demned Southerner and the impending close of the war lent an additional argument for clemency. '' Go to Stanton and tell him that this man must be reprieved," said Lincoln. ^' T have been to Stanton and he refuses to move in the matter," res])onde(l the Senator. "■ Go to him again," said Thomas Circle WASHINGTON IN WAE TIMES. 209 the President, '' and if he still refuses, come back to me.'' On the evening of the 14th of April, Sen- ator Henderson, having failed of success in his in- terview with the Secretary of War, returned to the White House and found the President upon the point of setting out for Ford's. After hearing Sen- ator Henderson's report, Lincoln took pen and pa- per and with his own hand wrote an order for the unconditional release of George Yaughan. This was the last time that he wrote the well-known sig- nature. In a few minutes, he was on his way to the theater. Speaker Colfax was at the White House when the party left. To him the President spoke regret- fully of the engagement, saying that Mrs. Lincoln Avas not feeling at all well but that, as Grant could not be present, they must not altogether disappoint the people by absenting themselves. It was some- what later than half past eight when President and Mrs. Lincoln, accompanied by Miss Harris and Major Rathbun, who had been invited to occupy the seats designed for the Grants, made their way along the rear of the dress circle and entered the proscenium box on the second tier. The perform- ance was immediately interrupted whilst the orches- tra broke into '^ Hail to the Chief " and the audi- ence rose to its feet cheering and waving handker- chiefs. About an hour later and whilst the third act was in progress, Wilkes Booth, who was well- 14 210 WASHINGTON. kiiowii to lilt' attaches of the house and had the run of the place, made his way to the box occupied by the distinguished party and entered so quietly that none of them was attracted by his presence. Lin- coln leant forward in an armchair, intent upon the performance. Placing his pistol against the back of the President's head, the assassin fired. Major Kathbun immediately sprang to his feet and grap- pled with Booth, but reeled back under a blow from the dagger which the madman had drawn after drop- ping his pistol. Booth now stepped to the front of the box and faced the audience shouting in exultant tones, ''^ Sic semper tyrannis!" He then leapt to the stage but one of his spurs catching in some dec- orations, he was thrown heavily, breaking a bone of liis left leg. He rose quickly, however, and unim- peded by the horror-stricken actors, made his way behind tlie scenes and out of the building to the alley where a horse awaited him. The dying President was carried to the house of Mr. Peterson, across the way from the theater, where he lay unconscious until the end. The news of tlie dreadful tragedy spread through the city and environs with the utmost rapidity, ^lounted messengers dashed off in every direction bearing the direful tidings; the telegraph warned the outlying ])osts of the catastrophe; men ran through the streets shouting excitedly and many stood in the |)ublic wavs and sobbed with hysterical WASHINGTON IN WAK TIMES. 211 abandon. Drums called tlie troops to arms in the camps and fortifications. Church bells summoned the inhabitants to the streets. Cavalry patrols were soon in motion and military guards were posted at important points including the house in which the dying President lay and before which a crowd col- lected and remained until after the sad announce- ment of his passing. Terror was added to the excitement and sorrow of the people when it was learned that at about the time of the attack upon Lincoln, an attempt had been made upon the life of Secretary Seward who was confined to his bed by illness. The most ex- travagant rumors were set afloat and men's minds were filled with fear of a plot of wholesale assassi- nation. A correspondent, Avho was on the spot, has said: ^^ I can never forget the alarm and horror of that night. The streets were crowded with persons, talking over the startling and shocking events. It was feared that a wide-extended conspiracy existed, and it was not known where the stroke w^ould next fall. Thousands of persons feared to retire to their beds. Meantime, military guards were stationed throughout the city, and at the principal avenues of exit." At sunrise of the 19th of April, the forts began firing minute gims, reminding the inhabitants of the sorrow-stricken city that the funeral services of the man they had learned to know and love would 212 WASHINGTON. ])(" held that day. At an early hour a crowd gath- ered about the White House whither the remains of the shun President had been removed after his death. The buikling was draped in the insignia of mourning, as were the public offices ,and many pri- vate residences. The coffin reposed in the East Room, where the portraits upon the w^alls were hung about with black and white crape. After noon the services for the burial of the dead, according to the rites of the Episcopal Church, were performed by Bishop Simpson and Doctor Hall of the Church of the Epiphany, and Doctor Gurley, pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church which Lincoln had attended, delivered a funeral oration. Around the bier was gathered a distinguished company, including Andrew Johnson, his successor as President of the United States, the Justices of the Supreme Court, members of the Cabinet and of Congress, executive officers of the Government and other officials, generals of the army, representatives of foreign countries, and a number of prominent citizens from different parts of the country. At two o'clock, one of the many soul-stirring processions that have traversed Pennsylvania Av- enue, started from the Executive ]\ransion. Headed by a military escort a mile in length, marching to the wailing tones of the funeral dirge, which was accentuated by the measured discharge of cannon WASHINGTON IN WAR TIMES. 213 and slowly-tolling bells, the column moved between lines of silent and bareheaded spectators, who filled the sidewalks in a dense mass. Immediately after the militia came the civic procession, with Marshal Lamon and the physicians who had attended the deceased at its head. Then followed the bier with its fifteen pall-bearers, selected from both branches of Congress, from the army and navy and from civil life. The funeral car was succeeded by a car- riage containing Eobert and " Tad," the sons of Abraham Lincoln, their mother being unequal to the public appearance. Behind the family and rel- atives, rode President Johnson, with two mounted ofiicers on either side. Then came carriages con- taining the members of the Supreme Court, those of the Diplomatic Corps, Senators and Kepresenta- tives, and various public officers. The rear of the procession was brought up by representatives of several societies, delegations from different parts of the country, a band of colored citizens and another military body. The entire procession was three miles in length and, moving at a funeral pace, took more than two hours to pass. Arrived at the Capitol, the body was placed in the center of the rotunda, which to- gether with the surmounting dome had been appro- priately draped. Here it lay in state for two days with a military guard and was then carried to Springfield, Illinois, for interment, following, as 214 WASHINGTON. nearly as possible the route that had been taken by Lincoln in coming to the capital, and stopping at many cities on the way. A little more than a month after the funeral of Abraham Lincoln, an event occurred in striking contrast to it. Whilst one was the saddest and most solemn spectacle in the memory of the people of Washington, the other was the grandest and most inspiring sight they had ever witnessed. As the war gradually drew to a close with the surrender of one after another of the Confederate bodies during the month of April, the L'nion sol- diers thus released from service in the field were massed at various points preparatory to disband- ment. By the middle of ^lay, two hundred thou- sand men were encamped in the vicinity of Wash- ington, representing the Army of the Potomac, un- der General Meade, and the Division of the Missis- sippi, under General Sherman. It was decided to hold a grand review of these veteran troops before discharging them, the 23d and 24th days of the month being set for the purpose. The former day of the great pageant opened in balmy splendor, with such spring weather as is one of the attractions of Washington. Flags and bunt- ing decorated every building along Pennsylvania Avenue and many \n other parts of the city. Crowds of unusual density filled the city, for the review had been heralded far and wide in the news- WASHINGTON IN WAR TIMES. 215 papers of the country and many thousands were at- tracted to the capital by it. The reviewing stand, flanked on either hand by extensions, had been erected on the broad sidewalk in front of the White House. Facing it on the other side of the street was another pavilion, designed for the accommoda- tion of members of Congress and visiting officials of various States. This inclosure was the midway point of a line of stands extending from Fifteenth to Seventeenth Streets. ^' Let us witness the pageant from the reviewing stand. A brilliant company has gathered there. President Johnson occupies the center, with Lieu- tenant-General Grant seated beside him as review- ing officer. In the second line from the front are Generals Sherman, Hancock, and Torbert, Secre- taries Sherman, Stanton, W^elles and other Cabinet officers, while the pavilion and the stands on either side are crowded with officers of the army and dip- lomatic corps in brilliant uniforms, with ladies in gay attire, with governors, senators and civilians. " General Meade passes the stand at 9 :15 A. M. and salutes. The drum corps opposite peals out a salute in reply, and the march now commences. The splendid Cavalry Corps imder Merritt first passes under review. General Grant gives it a nod of approval as he recalls its record. Hooker mob- ilized it. Pleasanton first successfully fought it. Enough to sav of it is that it has been with Sheri- 216 WASHINGTON. dijii in the Valley. It passes in platoons of sixteen horses, each trooper with drawn sahre. '' There around the corner of Fifteentli Street c(»nies Custer heading his famous Division. A fair liand throws him a flower wreath, which he catches galhmtly on his sword-arm; but the movement alarms his spirited stallion, which rears, plunges, and dashes off at a frightful speed down the Av- enue. But the General is not easily thrown. Still holding the garland in one hand, he subdues the steed with the other, and after properly punishing liini, forces him l)ack into the ranks. The troopers of this division all wear the '^ Custer tie," a scarf of red silk, merino, or flannel tied round the neck, with the ends falling nearly to the waist. The brave fellows are cheered all along the line, and as Davis' division passes there are more cheers, for in its rear rides a lonely contraband on a mule, the picture of independence, receiving cheers and laugh- ter with the nonchalance of an old campaigner. " Xext, with a clatter, comes those pets of the cavalry, the horse batteries, brigaded under their chief. Colonel Eobertson. Those three-inch rifles and brass twelves have raided it with the cavalry up and dowTi every valley and highway in old Vir- ginia. The batteries pass by in sections, tlie bu- glei-s playing the calls in chorus with fine effect. They disappear and (he mixed infantry and cavalry of the Provost-Ma rshaPs force, ' the law-and-order WASHINGTON IN WAR TIMES. 217 brigade ' of the Army of the Potomac, take their place. The Engineer brigade of General Benham succeeds, — men of valor, skill, and patience, mem- bers of that indefatigable corps which has bridged every notable stream of the war — which could, if necessary, bridge the Potomac yonder in three hours. Two of their famous pontoon boats follow them ; thus the cavalry passes — it has been an hour and fifteen minutes filing by — and the infantry, headed by the gallant Ninth Corps, comes march- ing by, officers, men, and horses fairly covered with bouquets. " The Ninth — where has it not marched and fought ? In North Carolina first, at Roanoke Island with Burnside, then with the Army of the Potomac at South Mountain, Antietam, and Fred- ericksburg, then transferred to Kentucky, Missis- sippi, to East Tennessee and the defense of Knox- ville, and back to Virginia again, where imder Grant, it smelled powder in the battles of the Wil- derness, of the James, and of the Appomattox. A score of times it has been cut to pieces, and yet it has twenty-five thousand veterans in line to-day." " Here march two regiments that fought at Roa- noke on February 8, 1862. Here are the bagpipes of the Seventy-ninth from New York, discoursing as stirring strains as when it marched down Broad- way in the first week of the War, and here the shot- rent, blood-stained banners wave above the color- 218 WASHINGTON. guard, some in tatters, some barely holding to the staff, and others tied to the staff, the threads too precious to lose a single one. These fragments of silk speak volumes; they are more eloquent than words, and the ])eople greet them with thunders of applause. ^' A gap now intervenes and then ^ve see the Mal- tese Cross of the Fifth Corps advancing up the Av- enue. The men have been under arms since 5 A. M., yet they march \vith the free swinging step of the trained soldier, a step that carries its twenty- three thousand men past in an liour and fifteen min- utes. The column is closed with the Second Corps of twenty-five thousand men, and the review of the Army of the Potomac is accomplished. The marching has been by company front tw^enty men in line, and has been perfect in its "svay. The alignment has been especially commended — so many glittering bayonets in line, so many helmets, so many knapsacks, so many right feet advanced ; thus they have passed, — companies, battalions, reg- iments, ])rigades, divisions, corps, — nearly one hun- dred TJiousand men, in five and one-half hours with- out delay, mishap or error of any kind. Xo "svon- der the foreign diplomats and officers turn to one another and remark that there are no soldiers in the world that could surpass these American veterans. " President Johnson has frequently acknowledged the salutes of the brigade commanders as they rode WASIIINOTON IN WAK TIMES. 219 by, but General Grant has sat imperturbable, — now and then making a commendatory remark as some exceptionally brave officer or distinguished regiment passed. Along the line of march, however, the brave veterans have been received with flowers, flut- ter of handkerchiefs, clapping of hands, and plau- dits of the spectators. " The prettiest feature of the day was a band of some two thousand teachers, scholars, and trustees of the public schools of Washington, who were sta- tioned on the north side of the Capitol, the girls gaily bedecked with ribbons of different colors, the boys with rosettes of similar hue upon their breasts, and all bearing flags, banners, and mottoes suitable to the occasion. As the hosts descended Capitol Hill, two thousand childish voices took up the strains of the ' Battle Cry of Freedom/ and sang it through in honor of the victors. ^^ The next day the Division of the Mississippi passed in review before the same august assemblage. More interest, if possible, was taken in this pageant than in that of the day before, partly because the Armies of Georgia and Tennessee were new to the people of Washington, and also because their career showed more of romantic incident and chivalric dar- ing. By seven o'clock spectators begin to seek for good positions ; there are more present than on the previous day. '^ It is a little past nine as General Sherman, 220 WASHINGTON. leading the advance, appears around the corner by Fifteenth Street, attended by his staff. Resound- ing cheers greet the hero of that grand march to the sea, who has added a new chapter to military history. Men wave their hats, ladies flutter deli- cate handkerchiefs and rain flowers on the favorite. He advances with the ' light of battle in his eyes,' salutes his reviewing officer and, dismounting be- yond, joins the group in the pavilion. Meantime the serried ranks are sweeping by. The order of march is by close columns of companies, all colors unfurled, the brigade bands playing as on the march, the battalion colors to salute the reviewing officer by drooping, the field music by making three ruflles in passing without interrupting the march. Their General gazes proudly on them and wuth cause. " These are the men who have counted their mile- stones by thousands, who began their career by marching from the Ohio to the Tennessee under Ihiell, who made that gallant raid into Alabama under the daring Mitchell, who checked the Confed- erate advance at Stone River under Rosecrans, who carried the passes of the Cumberland to seize Chat- tanooga, who stormed ^lissionary Ridge under Sherman, and fought above the clouds of Lookout "Mountain under Hooker, who marched from Chat- tanooga to Atlanta, and from Atlanta to the sea. WASHINGTON IN WAE TIMES. 221 and who, under Sherman and McPherson, Slocum, Howard, and Kilpatrick, swept like a tornado through Georgia and the Carolinas and struck the death-blow to the rebellion. " Spectators note the splendid physique, the sturdy, swinging step of the men. There are but few eastern regiments. These ranks have been filled chiefly from the yeomanry of the prairies, from the dwellers by the Great Lakes, and the pi- oneers of the Far West. '' First comes the Army of the Tennessee led by General John A. Logan, black-haired, dark-skinned, riding a superb, dapple-gray stallion, and who is greeted with repeated plaudits. Following him marches the Seventeenth Corps, General Frank P. Blair, then the Fifteenth Corps led by Hazen, hero of Fort McAllister. At the head of each brigade is a battalion of black pioneers clad in the old plan- tation garments, with axe and shovel on shoulder, marching with even, sturdy step, and superior air, for Sherman has declared that the parade shall be an exact picture of his army on the march. In the Twentieth Corps, under General Mower, the First Division, under the veteran General Williams, has the advance. Army men speak of the latter as having seen more battles than years, and tell over the list of his engagements — Avith Shields in the Valley, with Banks at Fort "Royal, with Slocum at 222 WASHINGTON. Aiitielaiii, with ILjoker at Chaiieellorsville, with Meade at Gettyshurg, and with Hooker again at Lookout Mountain, Kesaca, and Peach Tree Creek. " Another crack division, General John W. Geary's ' White Star,' marches by, and then every- l)<>dy is on the qui uice, for here, following General IJarnuni's brigade of Xew York troops, swings into view the first army pack-mule train ever seen in Washington. First come two diminutive donkeys, ridden by two small contrabands. Then a dozen patient pack-mules fitted with Mexican pack-sad- dles, laden with boxes of hardtack on one side and camp equipage on the other. x\s many stolid mule contrabands lead the mules, and they are followed by colored females on foot, and by a white soldier on horseback to see that all goes Avell. The mess and the mess-kit are borne by this cavalcade, and reclining contentedly on the mule's panniers we see half a dozen game-cocks, a sure-footed goat, and a pair of young coons — a grotesque spectacle truly, one that provokes cheers and laughter from ten thousand throats. '' But again the bayonets glisten, colors gleam, and bugles blare. The Fifteenth Corps, forming the rear-guard, is passing now, famous for fighting and marching, once commanded by General George IT. Thomas, and to-day partaking not a little of the qualities of the "Rock of Chickamauga. Xow^ the last battalion dips its colors, the last rank passes WASHINGTON IN WAE TIMES. 223 and recedes from view. The Army of the Potomac and the Division of the Mississippi have passed by and into history." " * " The Story of Washington," Charles Burr Todd. New York, 1893. CHAPTER IX. WASHIXGTOX IX THE TWEXTIETH CENTURY. DuKiNG the decade following the opening of the Civil War, Washington's population doubled and its wealth greatly increased, but the close of the con- flict found the city unchanged and unimproved in its permanent features. It was a collection of ill- assorted houses and unfinished public buildings, lin- ing poorly-graded streets, the whole surrounded by swamp-land and unreclaimed waste. Hovels were often found in close proximity, if not actual jux- taj)ositi()n, to the finest residences — a survival of the earliest conditions in which we find General Washington lodging with his niece, Mrs. Peter, next door to the log cabin of the '' ])ump borer named ]\rathias." There was no public water su])])ly and the sewerage system was a fruitful source of dis- ease. A restricted horse-car service was newly in- stalled. Pennsylvania Avenue alone enjoyed the distinction of being lighted and that but poorly. The citizens were obliged to place their dependence upon the crudest kind of fire service and the most inadequate ])(>lice protection. Thus, whilst Wash- 224 IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. 225 ington in 1870 contained a population of 130,000, it was less advanced in the matter of civic conven- iences than many a State capital of smaller size. Washington had, however, in this decade made a great gain in the place it had attained in the re- gard of the nation. It was no longer looked upon as a mere political camp and hunting-ground for office seekers. It had been fought for and held at the price of much precious blood. It had been the stronghold of the Union and was marked as its fu- ture focal point. Its inhabitants had done more than their share in support of the country's cause. Their men had been first in the field and their women had devoted themselves with whole-sovded self-abnegation to succor and ministration. With the return of peace, Washington found itself re- garded for the first time in its existence as the un- questionable permanent capital of the United States. Congress displayed an unwonted disposi- tion to promote its progress and a President came into office who evinced a strong personal interest in the welfare of the long-neglected city. At this auspicious time one of the citizens of Washington came forward and, taking advantage of the favor- able conditions, threw himself with enthusiastic en- ergy into the task of improving the capital. Early in 1871 Congress abolished the old Eng- lish form of municipal government by mayor and councils and instituted the territorial system, with 15 226 WASHINGTON. a guveriKtr, legislature and delegate. A board of public works was created and Alexander 11. Shep- herd became its first chairman. Shepherd, who was subsequently elevated to the position of governor, was a remarkable man, whose great services to the city are only now tardily meeting with full appre- ciation and receiving just recognition by the erec- tion l)y popular subscription of a statue in front of the New Municipal Building. lie was a native of Washington, born in lowdy circumstances and en- tirely dependent upon his native talents and unaided efforts for his rise in life. At an early age he had built up a large business as a master plumb?r and later dealt extensively in real estate. The latter circumstance had, perhaps, much to do with the un- just suspicions that were cast upon him at the close of his career, but it is now^ certain that Shepherd did not profit personally by the operations he con- ducted in behalf of the city and when he left his native place to begin life anew in a foreign land, it was with money l)orro\ved from his friends. With Alexander ^lullett, the architect, as his chief adviser. Shepherd entered upon a scheme of improvement so comprehensive that it embraced every feature of the city and entailed a task of stupendous proportions. The urgent need of an efhcieiit sew(»rage system first demanded his atten- tion. Great difficulties lay in the way of its con- struction. Extensive portions of the city lay below IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. 227 high watermark. The Tiber, which flowed into the canal near Capitol Hill, presented a serious problem. This was solved bj deflecting the stream from its natural course into the Eastern Branch. The former beds of the creek and some of its branches were then bricked over and converted into the main arteries of the system. The canal was subjected to similar treatment, and before the close of 1875, there were one hundred and twenty-three miles of these sewers in operation and Washington's system of sewerage had been transformed from the worst to the best in the country. At the same time work w^as in progress on a sys- tem of water supply. Some years previous an aque- duct had been built from the Falls of the Potomac which carried a generous flow of pure water to a reservoir two miles west of Georgetown. Hereto- fore, this reservoir had been connected only with the public buildings. Mains were now laid for the use of the city and in three years' time, one hundred and thirty-three miles of pipes were in operation. Private enterprise was encouraged to instal an extensive gas-lighting system and, before the end of the year 1873, more than three thousand street lamps were in use. At the same time the Governor and his aide were engaged in the laborious task of reducing the streets to a uniform grade and paving them. The main avenues were one hundred and sixtv feet in width and the streets from one hun- ■228 WASHINGTON. dred and thirty to one hundred and forty feet in width, the aggregate area occupied by them being twenty-five hundred acres. In most cases these streets were of altogether too liberal proportions. ^NFullett hit upon an admirable plan for reducing the enormous expense of paving them. He extended the pavements a uniform distance into the streets and sodded corresponding spaces between the former and the house fronts, thus securing economy with a desirable improvement. Upwards of two hundred miles of sidewalk were thus treated, seven miles beino: laid in stone or concrete and the remainder in l)rick. Finally, there were planted along the thor- oughfares twenty-five thousand shade trees of many varieties. In this operation of street improvement, nearly sixty-miles of wood-paving were laid, nearly thirty miles (»f concrete, and more than ninety miles of cobble, macadam, gravel, and Belgian block, in all one hundred and eighty miles. In three years' time. Shepherd had performed the arrears of seventy-five, and had lifted Wash- ington from a position of disgraceful backwardness towards its proper place among the cities of the country. The efi'ect of his work was immediately felt in the increase of population and enhancement of real estate values, but the heavy cost obscured the view of the great benefits to many people and he was assailed bv abuse and accusations of dis- IN THE TWENTIETH CENTUKY. 229 honesty from every side. An investigation by Con- gress showed that not a dollar had been misappro- priated, nor had oneybeen expended for Shepherd's personal benefit, but the feeling ran so high against him that he was forced to leave the city. In Mex- ico, he met with unbounded success and later re- turned to Washington with the satisfaction of find- ing himself fully vindicated and occupying an hon- ored place in the memory of the people of Wash- ington. Under the government by Commissioners, which replaced the territorial system in 1878, Washington has thriven and grown apace, but with the opening of the present century the city made a sudden bound forward and it is now at the commencement of a new period of activity and improvement which will leave it, in many respects, enjoying a position of undisputed preeminence. One revisiting the cap- ital to-day, after a brief interval of absence, is struck by the evidence of progress on every hand. Magnificent structures for the use of the Govern- ment are rising at several points. Municipal im- provements of various descriptions are being car- ried forward on liberal and artistic lines. In al- most every block of the down-town district private enterprise is erecting handsome buildings for busi- ness purposes. Trains no longer traverse the streets, but enter the city through a tunnel. All the lines use the new Union Station, which is one 230 WASHINGTON. of the largest and most commodious railway sta- tions in the world. Many important and far-reaching improvements are contemplated and will be carried out at no dis- tant date. Of these, the chief is that which will involve the entire reconstruction of the large dis- trict embraced in the triangle bounded by Pennsyl- vania Avenue, the Mall, and Fifteenth Street, with the Capitol at its apex and the Monument bisecting its base. The plan contemplates the purchase of the property in private hands and the conversion of the triangle in question into an ornamental park, with boulevards, pathways, statuary, fountains and flower-beds. The outer edges — particularly Pennsylvania Avenue, — will be lined with impos- ing public buildings, of which the General Post Ottice and Municipal Building are forerunners. The area as a whole, with its splendid vista through the central boulevard from the Monument to the Capitol, will present a more attractive aspect than any portion of any city at present in existence can boast. This scheme is not one of mere embellishment, though it could not have been better designed, if such had been the case. As a pure business propo- sition, it recommends itself strongly to Congress. The Government has, since its first days in Wash- ington, been embarrassed for lack of adequate quar- ters for the transaction of its administrative busi- IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. 231 ness and the pressure has constantly been increas- ing. Not only is serious loss of time and incon- venience occasioned by the scattering of the vari- ous offices, but the system of leasing — wasteful at the best — has entailed unwarranted extravagance. In the year 1907, the Government paid out in rental of office premises in the city of Washington, a sum in excess of three quarters of a million of dollars, or the equivalent of three per cent on the amount for which the property needed for the im- provement under consideration can probably be ac- quired. The erection of public buildings upon the south side of the Avenue will certainly stimulate private enterprise to the improvement of the opposite line and the street will eventually become the most hand- some thoroughfare on earth. Commencing with the N'ew Willard, at the head of this stretch, there will be a succession of fine hotels to accommodate the rapidly increasing transient traffic. N'ewspa- pers, railroads, commercial corporations, financial institutions and retail merchants will erect build- ings in keeping with the surroundings and in har- mony with one another. A number of great public buildings are in course .of construction at the capital and many more will be commenced as soon as the desired sites along Pennsylvania Avenue are available. The triple oc- cupancy of the War, State and Navy Building will 232 WASHINGTON. IK ►t be possible nuicb longer. Either one of these Departments could now find use for the entire ac- commodations and two of them must be provided with separate buildings. The Department of Jus- tice and the Department of Commerce and Labor need to be furnished quarters and there are a dozen or more of important bureaus and commissions scat- tered about in leased premises, that should be ade- quately housed. The creation of one or two new Departments is imminent and everv' indication points to the expansion of the executive machinei^ (»f the Government with the course of time. The District Commissioners and their staff have never enjoyed the advantage of a permanent loca- tion or convenient offices. Their present quarters — the best they have ever occupied — are composed of bare, dingy rooms, in an out-of-the-way rented office building. They now move into a handsome white niarl)le structure at the junction of Pennsyl- vania Avenue and Thirteenth Street. With its ap- proach of grass and shrubbery, forming a setting for the statue of Shepherd, the District Building is a fitting companion to the great Government edifices that are to rise on the same alignment. Work on the new Agricultural Building is far advanced. It will be a truly magnificent structure, oc('U]")ving a position near the middle of the triangle wliich has been described. In close proximity to it will stand the new Smithsonian Institution, in IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. 233 course of construction. The ground has been broken for the imposing home of the Bureau of xVmerican Republics, which has hitherto conducted its busi- ness in a small private house at the corner of Jack- son Place. In October, 1907, the foundation stone of the National Episcopal Cathedral was laid upon St. Alban's Mount. This w^ill be the most beautiful and imposing ecclesiastical edifice in America and will bear comparison with the celebrated cathedrals of England. Its dominant site w^ill bring the Gothic towers and pinnacles into view from every part of the city. An interesting tradition attaches to the founda- tion of the Cathedral. When the capital of the nation was first established in the District of Co- lumbia, Joseph Nourse, Registrar of the Treasury, lived upon St. Alban's Mount. He was a religious enthusiast and much given to meditation and prayer in the oak grove that stood contiguous to his house. His most cherished dream was that when the strag- gling village in the bottom-lands should have grown into a populous city, a house of worship befitting a great nation might be erected upon the ground upon which he stood. The ceremonies connected with the laying of the foundation stone of the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul took place in this very grove. Nor was this mere accident. Phoebe Nourse, in- spired by her grandfather's enthusiasm, left her all 234 WASHINGTON. — " forty gold dollars in a hair-pin box," the pro- ceeds of needlework, — and gave the ground for the founding of a church. This was in the forties, and from that humble endowment the first free church in the district of Columbia, — an Episcopal place of worshi}), — rose on St. Alban's ^Fount. It was fit- ting, therefore, that the same site should be chosen for the twentieth century cathedral. The grand boulevard bridge, designed to carry Connecticut Avenue over the gorge of Rock Creek, was completed before the close of the year 1907. It is the largest concrete bridge in the world and has been constructed at a cost of nearly one millicm dollars. Another work of this character, which is likely to be undertaken before many years, is the ^lemorial Bridge across the Potomac, to be ^^ erected as a tribute to American patriotism." The design, which is the joint production of !Mr. E. P. Casey and ^Ir. W. II. Burr, is unique and combines the extreme of gracefulness with the appearance of strength. Extensive improvement of Rock Creek Park is in progress, in which the Commissioners are wisely refraining from unnecessary interference with the natural features that are so widely noted for their beauty. On the other side of the District, a park is planned to extend along the Anacostia, and in con- nection with that work, the river will be deepened with a vicnv t<» improving navigation. IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. 235 It frequently happens nowadays tliat travelers who are familiar with the capitals of the world, concede to Washington the premier place for beauty. This distinction is earned for it by its clear air and cleanliness, its beautiful public build- ings and private residences, its broad streets and avenues, with focal circles and — above all — by its wealth of magnificent trees. Every thorough- fare in the city is shaded and every reservation wooded. The work — which was started by Jef- ferson, who planted Pennsylvania Avenue with Lombardy poplars — has been done under intelli- gent and tasteful municipal direction, so that there is apparent a distinct design, characterized by har- mony and variety. Here we see a broad avenue, lined with stately oaks or spreading elms ; there a less wide street appropriately bordered by lindens, sycamores, maples, or gingkos. The Capitol owes much of its impressive aspect to the splendid trees that surround it and not a little of the attractive- ness of the White House is derived from similar accessories. Where can a more imposing vista be found than that of Massachusetts Avenue, as one looks through its ranks of American lindens to Thomas Circle ? Or can one imagine anything more beautiful than the approach to the Agricul- tural Department through symmetrical rows of Jap- anese gingkos ? Washington, with its frequent focal circles and 236 WASHINGTON. grassy triangles at tbc points where streets con- verge, has nnusual facility for the erection and dis- I)lay of statuary and this advantage has been pur- sued to the fullest extent. It is said that the city contains more equestrian statues than all the other cities of the world combined. This is to be ac- counted for by the national desire, keen in the pe- riod immediately following the Civil War, to do honor to the officers who took prominent parts in the conflict. In the pursuit of this very laudable object, it is not unlikely that some less picturesque, but no less deserving personages have been over- looked. There is a noticeable absence of any statue of Hamilton in the capital of the nation that owes more to liini than to any of his contemporaries save only Washington. John Smith is another worthy who deserves a place upon a pedestal in Washing- ton. But tlien one might readily name a score of men whose services to their country better entitle tlicni to a conspicuous place of honor in the capital than many whose carved effigies occupy prominent ])ositions. Hardly a visitor to Washington — be he native or alien, — but is surfeited with the present- ments of uniformed heroes and looks with regretful disappointment for some memorial of one or an- other noble character whose name is inseparably linked with the history of his country. Washington is justly proud of its institutions of science and learning. Foremost among the former IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. 237 is the Smithsonian Institution, which, together with the National Museum, occupies two buildings in the extensive reservation to the south of the MalL 'Whilst, how^ever, the Smithsonian is the chief ex- ponent of American scientific thought, its activities are extended to every branch of human knowledge. It has, for more than half a century, been one of the most important agencies in the intellectual life of our people and '' has been a rallying point for the workers in every department of scientific and educational work, and the chief agency for the free exchange of books, apparatus of research, and of scientific intelligence between this and other coun- tries." The founder of this inestimably useful institu- tion was James Smithson, or James Macie, as he called himself in early life. He w^as an illegiti- mate son of the Earl of Northumberland, by the cousin of that nobleman's wdfe. " The best blood of England flows in my veins," he once wrote ; ^' on my father's side I am a Northumberland, on my mother's I am related to kings, but this avails me not.* My name shall live in the memory of man when the titles of the Xorthumberlands and the Percys are extinct and forgotten." * As a matter of fact, the nobility of descent was all on the mother's side. The family of the Percys was long ex- tinct and Sir Hugh Smithson was related to the Earls of Northumberland only by his marriage to the daughter of one of them. 238 WASHINGTON. James Sniithson devoted ln< life to scientific studies, especially that of mineralogy, in which he was considered one of the leading men of his day. Tpon his death, which occurred at Genoa, in 18-!1), it was found that he had bequeathed all his prop- erty to the United States ^' to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowlcMlge among men." No reason can be definitely assigned for this gen- erous and altogether unlooked for endowment. So far as is known, he had never been in America, nor is there any evidence, other than the bequest, of special interest on his part in the country. It is not even knowni that an American ^vas among his intimate friends, and his library contained but two books relating to the United States. It is probable that he was prompted by a belief in the future great- ness of the new nation and consideration of its needs. Six years after the death of Smithson, the United States legation in London was notified that his es- tate, amounting to about half a million dollars, was held by the British Court of Chancery. But at this point great public opposition to the acceptance of the gift developed. Calhoun and other eminent statesmen contended that it was beneath the dignity of the United States to receive presents and some intinuited that the donor was seeking immortality IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. 239 for too moderate an equivalent. But the influence of John Quincy Adams, who took a more practical view of the case and had a just realization of what it involved, prevailed at length and a commissioner was sent to England to prosecute the claim on hehalf of the Government. A favorable decision was eas- ily secured and the legacy was conveyed to Amer- ica in the form of upwards of one hundred thousand gold sovereigns, which were immediately recoined into current money. The permanent fund thus es- tablished has, by the increments of interest and vari- ous legacies, swelled to the amount of practically one million dollars, the greater part of which is held on deposit in the United States Treasury, at six per cent. The first meeting of the Board of Regents took place in September, 1816, when Professor Joseph Henry was elected to the office of Secretary and his plan of organization approved. '^ The successful organization of the Institution," says one of its pub- lications, '^ has been the result of long-continued effort on the part of men of unusual ability, energy, and personal influence. Xo board of trustees, or regents, no succession of officers serving out their terms in rotation could have developed from a chaos of conflicting opinions, a strongly individualized establishment like the Smithsonian Institution. The names of Henry and Baird are so thoroughly identified with the history of the Institution during 240 WASHINGTON. its first four decades that their biographies would together form an ahiiost complete history of its op- orations. A thirty-two years' term of uninterrupted administrative service Avas rendered by one, thirty- seven years by the other. Perhaps no other organ- ization has had the benefit of so continuous an ad- ministration of forty years, beginning with its birth and continuing in an unbroken line of consistent policy — a career of growing usefulness and enter- prise." Samuel P. Langley was the third in the succes- sion of heads of the Institution. To him was due the establishment of the Xational Zoological Park and of the Astrophysical Observatory. Under his administration, also, an additional building for the Xational Museum to cost three and one-half mil- lions of dollars Avas authorized by Congress and is in course of construction. Upon the death of Professor Langley in 1907, the Pegents of the Smithsonian Institution ap- pr»inted Charles I). Walcott, who for many years liad been the Director of the Geological Survey, to fill the vacancy. Dr. Walcott, besides being one of the leading scientists of the world, is a man of great executive ability and breadth of vision. It is con- fidently believed that under his direction the Smith- sonian Institution will enter upon a ]~>eriod of greatly extended usefulness. The Smiths(jnian Institution is the custodian of IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. 241 the National Museum, wliicli is the only lawful place of deposit of " all objects of art and of foreign and curious research, and all objects of natural his- tory, plants, and geological and mineralogical speci- mens belonging to the United States." The Mu- seum is divided into three distinct branches, those of Record, Research and Education, and its con- tents conform to this classification. It is not generally known that Ave have a national gallery of art, or, more strictly speaking, the ma- terial for one. That such is the case must be ap- parent from the explicit conditions of the foregoing quotation, for the United States owns many paint- ings and other works of art that are scattered about in numerous places. But, aside from these, the nation owns a valuable and extensive collection of pictures that need only a building to make a very considerable display. A few years after the passage of the x\ct of Con- gress, in 1846, which constituted the Smithsonian Institution the legal depositary for the national art possessions, the Marsh collection of prints was purchased, but aside from this little has been done in the way of accumulating an art collection. Erom time to time the Government has made ad- ditions to the collections of the Library of Congress and the Corcoran Art Gallery, whilst the officials as well as the public in general had gradually for- gotten that we possessed a legally constituted na- 16 242 WASHINGTON. tiunal gallery of art. Attention ^vas directed to the matter in a very peculiar way. In 1903, Mrs. Harriet Lane Johnston left a collection of paint- ings to the Corcoran Gallery with the proviso that in case a national gallery should ever be established the collection should revert to it. The Corcoran Gallery declined the bequest under the conditions and the President, desiring to save the collection to the nation, recommended in his annual message of December, 1904, a legislative measure which would have been practically a repetition of the Act of 184G. This led the way to the discovery of the '' mislaid institution " and a decree of the Su- ])reme Court, in 1906, '^ gave legal standing to a national galler}'." Although there are as yet no buildings de- voted to their reception, the collections of the United States have grown rapidly in recent years. In 1900, ^Ir. Charles L. Freer, of Detroit, deeded to the Smithsonian Institution his collection of paintings, prints, potteries, and oilier art objects, valued at six hundred thousand dollars and prom- ised to bequeath to the Institution the sum of half a million dollars for the purpose of constructing a building in which to house them. In March, 1907, ]\Ir. William T. Evans, of New York, offered to present to the National Gallery a collection of paintings by American artists of reputation — an IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. 243 offer which was promptly and gratefully accepted. Other gifts of less extensive character have been made to the Government since the existence of a national gallery has become known and the privi- lege of exhibiting several noted collections has been extended to it. The Corcoran art collection, together with the building it originally occupied at the corner of Seventeenth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, and an endowment fund, was the gift of the late Wil- liam Wilson Corcoran to the public by deed dated May 10, 1869, "to be used solely for the purposes of encouraging American genius in the production and preservation of works pertaining to the Fine Arts, and kindred objects." AVith the condition that it should be open to visitors without pecuniary charge whatever at least two days in each week, with authority to charge for admission at other times such moderate and reasonable fee as might be prescribed. The present handsome building, which was open- ed in 1897, stands fronting on Seventeenth Street, between E Street and N'ew York Avenue. The style of architecture is ISTeo-Grecian, the material being white Georgia marble, on a basement of Mil- ford pink granite. The first story is pierced by windows, the second rises in a solid white wall, broken only by a row of open-work marble panels 244 WASHINGTON. along tlie upper edge, used as ventilators to the galleries, which receive their light from the glass roof. The collection is rich in paintings, statuary, bronzes, and other works of art. In connection with the Gallery a free school of art is maintained. Early in 1007, the Corcoran Gallery of Art held a notable exhibition of contemporary American oil paintings which was marked with extraordinary success. During the month that the exhibition was open to the public, it was viewed by over sixty thousand persons. Twenty-six pictures were sold for nearly fifty thousand dollars in the aggregate, thirteen of them being purchased for the perma- nent collection of the Gallery. Similar exhibition-^ are to be held annually in the future and it is hoped that the movement will do much to encourage American art and perhaps prove to be the inception of a permanent American salon. One of the most cherished hopes of George Wash- ington in connection with the capital was that it should become the seat of a great institution of learning and in his last will and testament he urged the establishment of a university there. In 1821, a charter was granted by Act of Congress creating ^' The Columbian College in the District of Colum- bia." In 1825, the Medical School was organized, niid f<^rty years later, the Law School. In 1866, William Wilson Corcoran arave the Medical School IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. 245 a building and in 1872, made an endowment for the purpose of converting the college into a uni- versity. In the following year an Act of Congress authorized the desired change. From time to time there were organized a Scientific School, a Dental School, a School of Graduate Studies, and a De- partment of Jurisprudence and Diplomacy. In 1904, the George Washington Memorial As- sociation proposed that the name of the institution should be changed to that of " The George \Yash- ington University," and offered if that should be done to erect a new building for graduate study and scientific research at a cost of half a million dollars. The change was made in the same year. Shortly afterwards Congress authorized the incor- poration of colleges under the University charter, since when there have been organized the Washing- ton College of Engineering, the National College of Pharmacy, the College of Political Sciences, and the Division of Education. The George Washington University is a non- sectarian institution, maintaining as high a stand- ard of education and offering as extensive facilities as any university in the country. During the year 1907, it had upwards of thirteen hundred students entered upon its books. These were drawn from every part of the United States and many of them from foreign countries. The faculty and teaching staff, numbering over two hundred, include men 246 WASHINGTON. of the very highest attainments in their several specialties. The University offers a number of prizes and sohoh^rships for excellence in various branches of study. The Howard University, for the higher educa- tion of negroes, was established by Act of Congress in 1867, and named after General Oliver O. How- ard, who was for six years its president. Although especially founded for the benefit of the colored race, it is open to all without any distinction of sex or race, and there are among its teachers and students a number of white persons. It has about five hundred students from all parts of the country who are distributed among its departments of the- ology', medicine, law, college, normal, and prepara- tory. The courses are from two to four years in extent. The medical department which is always largely attended has the benefit of the clinical in- struction of the Freedman's Hospital. The corps of instructors is capable and sufficiently numerous. Tuition is free in the preparatory, normal, and college departments and the cost of it low in the others. Congress makes an annual appropriation for the support of the institution. Georgetown T^niversity is the oldest Catholic educational institution in the United States. It was founded by John Carroll, first Bishop of Balti- more, in 1702. Tt was originally a small college, but in 1815, was converted into a universitv. Its IN THE TWENTIETH CENTUKY. 247 present splendid building was begun in 1877. It is said to be the largest devoted to educational pur- poses in the United States. The University has a large number of students, mainly from the South, and an able corps of professors. CHAPTER X. JOURNALISM IN WASHINGTON. The United States Government is one of the few that have not '' official gazettes," as they are usually termed. Such a publication is, however, in con- templation and probably will be soon established at Washington. It will probably be restricted to executive orders and similar announcements. This is almost the only civilized country in which there is not at least one government organ — a news- paper whose political utterances are knowQ to be inspired by the administration and whose editor consults with the prime minister or some member of the cabinet before committing himself to any important expression of opinion. Our papers are mostly partisan but they all maintain their inde- pendence and right of free discussion. Such has not, however, always been the case. In the early years of the Government several public sheets were avowed representatives of the administration or its opponents and in cases were practically subsidized. The Gazette of the United States was started in IN'ew York as a distinctly Government organ. It 248 JOURNALISM IN WASmNGTON. 249 was edited by John Fenno, but controlled by Alex- ander Hamilton and contributed to by John Adams and other prominent Federalists. As an offset to this newspaper, Madison aided Philip Freneau in establishing the National Gazette, and during Jef- ferson's term, the publisher was taken care of with a position in the State Department. Personalities soon figured in the warfare of these organs and be- came a pronoimced feature of the journalism of the times. Hamilton, writing anonymously, character- ized Freneau's occupancy of the dual position of government clerk and partisan editor as ^' indeli- cate, unfit, and inconsistent with republican purity." Freneau replied with an affidavit declaring that Jef- ferson had never contributed a cent nor a line to the National Gazette. Hamilton seems to have been the first to introduce the personal note to the journal- ism in America and in the exchange of attacks that followed he and his party had decidedly the worst of it, although it must be admitted that they were less reckless and vulgar in their expressions than were their opponents. Washington was intensely disgusted by the intemperance of the assaults of the opposition press and wrote that the '' publica- tions in Freneau's and Bache's papers were out- rages on decency." Bache, a grandson of Franklin, published the Advertiser, afterwards called the Aurora, as a Jeffersonian organ. Fenno's announcement of ^' a national paper, to 250 WASHINGTON. be pllbli^lle(l at the seat of the Federal Govern- ment," defined the following objects: ^'1. Early and authentic accounts of the proceedings of Con- gress. 2. Impartial sketches of the debates in Con- gress. 3. Essays on the great subject of govern- ment in general, and the Federal Legislature in particular. 4. A series of paragraphs calculated to catch the ' living manners as they rise,' etc., etc. '' Published every Wednesday and Saturday. Three dollars per annum, exclusive of postage. Subscriptions will bo received in all capital towns on the continent; also, at the City Coffee House, and at 86 William street. April 15, ITSO." The price of newspapers at that time prohibited the sale of many copies but the circulation was large, for each copy had numberless readers. The journal that found its way to an outlying district or which was taken at a tavern passed through the hands of one after another rustic until it fell to pieces. Even in the towns several families com- monly (•lubl)ed a subscription to a newspaper and in New York, Philadelphia and Boston, the file of the current journals was one of the chief attrac- tions of the coffee house or hotel. Probably the ]iul)lic evinced greater interest in the doings of the Government during the administration of Washing- ton than at any subsequent period until the Civil War and llie earliest newspapers exercised an in- fluence much greater than they merited. JOURNALISM IN WASHINGTON. 251 During the presidency of John Adams there were fifteen dailies published in the coimtry and eight of these issued from Philadelphia, being a greater number than the city supports at the present day. For the most part the press was anti-Federalist and the administration papers were poorly edited. This led the party in power to attempt suppressive meas- ures. Despite the warnings of Hamilton, who was strongly averse to the step, the Sedition Bill was passed. It established the strictest kind of censor- ship. Prosecutions were set on foot and several editors were sent to jail or fined, whilst Cobbet, one of the most able, was forced to flee the country. He went to England and began the reporting of par- liamentary debates which was the inception of the present complete system. The Sedition Bill, which was repealed in 1801, failed to effect its purpose. The newspapers con- tinued their rancorous attacks and published the grossest calumnies and most indecent personalities. Reading the contemporary accounts of affaires de coeiirs with negresses and Hamilton's liaison with Mrs. Reynolds, one realizes that '' yellow journal- ism" is by no means a latter-day creation. The fatal duel between Hamilton and Burr w^as the cul- mination of a newspaper controversy carried on in the Evening Post and Morning Chronicle of New York. When the Government moved to Washington, 252 WASHINGTON. Samuel Harrison Smith accompanied it, with the encouragement, if not at the actual instigation of Jefferson, for the express purpose of starting a newspaper at the capital. This was called the lY^- i'lonal Intelligencer, hut the Federalists dubhed it the " National Smoothing-plane " and its editor, ^'' Silky, Milky Smith." Tlie Intelligencer was a decorous, but colorless and at times inane, sheet. It had practically no rival at Washington for a while and under the fostering wing of President Jeffer- son managed to establish itself securely, but it was never a paying property and although it had an exceptionally long life, it is doubtful if it ever exerted much influence outside of Washington. Gales was its proprietor at the time of the British invasion, when the office and plant were burnt. The elder Gales sat to Charles King for a portrait and, against the protests of the artist, insisted upon being depicted as holding a copy of the Intelligencer in his hand. The painter, who was noted for his wit, consoled himself by displaying the words ^' Dry Goods " very legibly, as though at the head of the advertising columns. The satire seems to have es- caped the family for it stands to this day, in whimsi- cal testimony to tlie general opinion of the Intelli- gencer. Perha])s, the period of the paper's greatest nsefulness was during the proprietorship of Seaton, wlio as mayor of Washington served the city well. With the advent of Jackson, the journal turned JOUKNALISM IN WASHINGTON. 253 Whig in politics and so remained nntil the Civil War, when it became Democratic and sympathized with the secessionists. The milk-and-water quality of the Intelligencer could never satisfy the ardent temperament of " Old Hickory." He desired a vigorous and domi- nant organ that should cow and overshadow all rivals. With a view to establishing such a medium, Jackson sent to Kentucky for Frank Blair, a man of the same domineering spirit as himself. Blair started the Globe and it soon made itself felt, though not always in a creditable manner. At any rate, the accusation of tameness was not applicable to Washington journalism from this time on. In February, 1837, Eeuben Wliitney, a member of the staff of the Daily Globe, was arraigned at the bar of the House for contempt in failing to attend the meeting of a committee, by whom he had been summoned. His excuse was that he could not obey without subjecting himself to outrage and violence in the committee room. Representative Fairchild, of Maine, a member of the committee in question, testified to the facts. It appeared that Bailie Peyton, of Tennessee, who was on the committee, regarding a certain answer of Whitney as offensive to himself, sprang to his feet and cried out : " Mr. Chairman, I wish you w^ould inform this witness that he is not to insult me in his answers; if he does, I will take his life on the spot." The Avitness, 254 WASHINGTON. rising, claimed the protection of the committee; on which Peyton exclaimed, " You shan't speak ; you shan't say one Avord while you are in this room; if you do, I shall put you to death." Henry A. Wise, the chairman, then intervened saying: ^' Yes, this insolence is insufferable." A few min- utes later, Peyton, observing that the witness was looking at him, exclaimed : ^' His eyes are on me ; he is looking at me — he shan't do it — he shan't look at me ! " Wise in a speech made the admission that he was armed, adding: "I watched the mo- tion of that right arm, the elbow of which could be seen by me, and had it moved one inch he had died on the spot. This was my detennination." That Whitney was unarmed and had no thought of break- ing the peace, carried no weight with the brutes who assailed him. James Watson Webb, Washington correspondent of the N'ew York Courier and the swashbuckler Wise conspired to bring about the duel between Graves and Cilley which was little less than a cold- blooded murder. The affair between Clay and Sen- ator King of Alabama, in which a duel was nar- rowly averted, grew^ out of the attacks of the Globe upon the former and his statement on the floor of the Senate Chamber that he considered Blair " a common libeller and the Glohe a libel." At this time a third paper was published in Wash- ington by Duff Green, on E Street, between Ninth JOURNALISM IN WASHINGTON. 255 and Tenth, northwest. It was called Thr Tele- graph and was the organ of Calhoun and the ex- ponent of the nullification doctrine. The career of the Telegraph — wdiich by-the-way antedated that convenience by several years — was short and tu- multuous. Green sought to establish a '^ Printers' College/' in which apprentices were to be educated at the case for the journalistic profession. The real object w^as to train nullification editors for service in different parts of the South and, perhaps, elsewhere. The Intelligencer and Globe, though opposed in politics made common cause against the Telegraph and instigated its printers to strike, which they were the more ready to do because they feared that Duff Green's scheme would glut the market with compositors and pressmen. Frequent meetings were held and culminated in a riotous fight between the '' rats," as Green's apprentices were tenned, and the " regulars." The ringleaders of the latter force were committed to prison and, although they had unquestionably provoked the dis- turbance, President Jackson promptly pardoned them. The Telegraph maintained a precarious ex- istence for a few^ years longer and then quietly sus- pended publication. '' Polk bought out old Blair and brought Father Ritchie from Richmond to edit his new paper, the Union. The venerable Blair forthwith retired from his long autocracy of luxurious pensionership ; 256 WASHINGTON. he had been the most dependent independent man who ever reduced public sentiment to a printing job. The old ^ galvanized corpse/ as Clay called him, had largely ruled the party which ruled the United States for three administrations. He used to prepare an article in the Glohe office and send slips of it to the papers dependent upon him for an editorial policy; these papers would alter it and publish it ; then old Blair would copy back into his own paper these modified articles, making a whole broad sheet, and call them ' Voice of the Democratic press.' This tyrannical and gifted old man used to be the political Pope of the party, to read people out of it. Some of his successors try to carry the keys, but there is no party nowadays strong enough to afford to lose a newspaper." * The National Era and the Southern Press w^ere started in Washington at about this time. The career of the latter was brief and imnoteworthy but the former created a stir during the mayorship of Peter Force, when its offices were attacked by a mob of Southern sympathizers who had been of- fended by the publication of " Uncle Tom's Cabin " in the columns of the paper. The good faith that newspapers and corre- spondents generally exercise towards officials and public characters at the present day, was by no * Washington, Outside and Inside. Geo. Alfred Townsend, Cincinnati, 1873. JOURNALISM IN WASHINGTON. 257 means the rule in earlier times. Many prominent men held the press and its representatives in the greatest distrust and not Avithout justification. During Fillmore's term, correspondents in the re- ception room adjoining the Cabinet chamber, Avere in the habit of eavesdropping. The discovery was made by Webster, Avho was highly incensed by it. President Pierce looked upon the correspondents as pirates and took the precaution of having his mes- sages set up in the White House. Lincoln had more than one unpleasant experience with news- paper men and said: ^^ I have found that docu- ments given to the press are always prematurely published." In the first half of the past century, public men were much more sensitive of printed abuse of them- selves than they are now and less disposed to con- cede the right of free expression or to recognize the futility of attempting to check it. Editors were prone to publish statements injurious to individ- uals without taking ordinary pains to gage their truthfulness and the most grossly vulgar person- alities appeared in the leading journals. The fol- lowing illustration is no exceptional one but rather characteristic. In 1858, the NTew York Tribune wrote of the Honorable William Sawyer, of Wis- consin, as a " critter " who devoured sausages be- hind the Speaker's chair and wiped his hands upon his bald pate. " Then," continued the article, " he 17 258 WASHINGTON. ])icks his teeth with a jack-knife, and goes on the floor to abuse the Whigs as the British party." Of course the statements were purely fanciful and equally of course the lampooned member made a mistake in bringing the matter to the attention of the House. It is true, he secured the disfranchise- ment of the offending correspondent, but at the ex- pense of attaching to himself the nickname of '' Sausage Sawyer." In his '^ Recollection of Men and Things at Washington,'' L. A. Gobright, who for many years represented a metropolitan paper at the capital, gives an interesting account of the censorship that was establislied during the first period of the Civil War, the only effective censorship of the press in the history of the country. The first messenger from the field of Bull Run was a newspaper correspondent who reported a Union victory and the glad news was telegraphed far and wide as soon as possible. Some hours later, the disheartening truth was learned and the correspondents at once filed de- spatches according with it. " Judge of our disap- pointment," says Gobright. " The papers which arrived here the next day, did not contain a single word of the ^ disaster ;' but only the telegrams of the first part of the occurrences. The people of the North were rejoicing over a victory, not having been permitted to leani that we suffered a defeat. The telegra])h censor, by official order had ' closed JOURNALISM IN WASHINGTON. 259 down ' on us. He permitted the good news to go, but suppressed the had. , . . The rule was so severe that censors had to be very circumspect, for they feared arrest and imprisonment if they shouhl, by inadvertence, suffer an obnoxious sentence to be telegraphed. Soft lead pencils for some kinds of paper, and heavy pen with the blackest of ink for others, were essential to the performance of their grave functions. The censors Avere not all passably good scholars; owing to this, it not infrequently happened that the marking out of a sentence, or less, left the remainder of the telegram a mass of nonsense, there being no proper connection of its parts. The censor was the sole, the supreme judge. If he did not like the despatch, he would assas- sinate it, or so maim it as to destroy its original features." It must be remembered, in this con- nection, that Washington was, at the time, a camp under martial law and the censorship was no more than the regulation of news despatches that is usually exercised by military authorities under sim- ilar circumstances. The restrictions on telegraphic despatches were not, however, such great hardships at the time. The w^ires were generally used for but brief items, the fullest statements being committed to the mails. There was no competition between the various cor- respondents, of whom there were about a score in the capital during the War. On the contrary, they 2G0 WASHINGTON. seem to have formed themselves into a sort of mutual aid society. Each was writing for several papers — in cases as many as a dozen — and mak- ing from ten to twenty thousand dollars a year. Strangely enough, the people of Washington did not look to their own papers for news. The Even- iiKj Siar was the only local journal that made any live effort to he up to date and it was in its in- fancy at the time. W^ashington depended on the I^altimore sheets for late and reliahle intelligence, and particularly upon the Sun, which kept three or four representatives at the capital. A story used to be current of a man meeting Gales, the publisher of the Inielligencer, upon the street one morning and inquiring, ^' What's the news V '' 1 don't know," Gales is purported to have replied, '' I haven't yet seen the Sun." The War gave a tremendous impetus to the press all over the country and to journalism in all its forms. This development has nowhere been more marked than in Washington. Since that time there have grown up in it at least two papers that rank with the very best published in America and since that time the outside sheets have sent their brightest and brainiest men to represent them at the national center. The character of the local papers has en- tirely changed. Whereas, in the early days, they were intensely partisan and often dependent in one way or another (m official aid, they are now entirely JOUKNALISM IN WASHINGTON. 261 independent in politics and carefully avoid the con- traction of any obligations to officials. '• Thirty years ago/' says Richardson,* who was one of the twenty-six correspondents at the capital after the close of the War, " it was connnon custom for men of the highest rank to visit the newspaper offices. In old Newspaper Row as it used to exist there might be found any evening senators, repre- sentatives, cabinet ministers, now and then the vice- president, foreign ministers, prominent Federal of- ficials from the large cities of the country, gov- ernors of states, etc. In the phrase then common among Washington correspondents, every one of them had his own senator, representative or cabinet member who came to his office and told him the news. All confidences of public men were regarded as inviolate, and I recall no incident of consequence where it was ever betrayed. On the contrary, the correspondents have faced the formal displeasure of the Senate and the House rather than give up the name of their informant." Although he is almost necessarily partisan, the Washington correspondent seldom suffers any cur- tailment of his mental breadth. His position de- mands so many admirable and useful qualities that it is no wonder that he frequently deserts his pro- fession for less arduous and more lucrative pursuits. * Recollections of a Correspondent, Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Volume 6, 262 WASHINGTON. Many have been appointed to important Govern- ment offices, generally on account of their personal abilities rather than their literary services. In- deed, it has come to be widely recognized in recent years that a capable journalist almost invariably makes an able man of affairs. Xot a few Wash- ington correspondents have taken prominent posi- tions in commercial corporations. Some have be- come editors or publishers of large dailies and others have stuck to the life they loved, despite its exactions, dying in harness, rich in the respect of their fellows and their host of friends. The work of the Washington correspondent is the most important in American journalism. It is he who informs the people as to what their Govern- ment is doing and the manner in which their rep- resentatives are acquitting themselves. He often prepares the public mind for some important legis- lative or administrative action which otherwise might create widespread misunderstanding or gen- eral distrust. He seizes a news item of vital con- cern, perhaps, late in the afternoon, scurries around and gets his details, digests them and sets his story forth in clear forceful language. Then Avhilst the millions slumber he keeps the wires hot so that his despatch, maybe occupying two columns of the paper, lies on the most distant breakfast tables the next morning. It is a hard life and one in which few men succeed. JOUENALISM IN WASHINGTON. 263 N'o account of journalism in Washington could approximate completeness without some description of the Gridiron Club, the most famous association of its kind in the world. It has been said, that at the close of the Civil W^ar there were somewhat more than a score of correspondents permanently stationed at Washing- ton. As their number — which now exceeds two hundred — increased with time, they began to feel the need of some social organization that should aiford entertainment for their leisure hours and promote cordial relations amongst them. The im- mediate outcome was a press club of the ordinary character which, however, failed to satisfy the un- defined but distinctly existent desire of these news- paper men. The birth of the Gridiron Club dates from a dinner given by Judge E. Y. Crowell, one of the Auditors of the Treasury, to a number of Washing- ton correspondents in January, 1885. The speeches of the evening elicited the suggestion of a club, one of the most prominent features of which should be the entertainment of their friends by the correspondents. Two weeks later, a number of the latter met at Welcker's famous restaurant to discuss the matter. As those present included the most talented and best known journalists of the day, sev- eral of whom have since become prominent in public life, their names will be of interest to the reader : 2C4 WASHINGTON. C. A. Boynton, Western Associated Press. II. V. Bojnton, Cincinnati Commercial Gazette. John M. Carson, Philadelphia Ledger. F. C. Crawford, Pittsburg Commercial Gazette. P. V. DeGraw, Xew York Associated Press. Frank A. Depuy, Xew York Times. F. G. Bunnell, N'ew York Times. Fdwin Fleming, St. Louis Republican. F. A. G. Handy, Chicago Times. Perry S. Heath, Indianapolis Journal. A. W. Lyman, Xew York Sun. David R. McKee, New York Associated Press. Charles T. Murray, Philadelphia Times. H. B. F. Macfarland, Boston Herald. J. J. Noah, New York Star. C. M. Ogden, Philadelphia Press. Ben Perley Poore, Providence Journal. Fred Perry Powers, Chicago Times. M. G. SecLndorff, New York Tribune. 0. O. Stealey, Louisville Courier Journal. E. B. Wright, Chicago Tribune. Robert J. Wynne, Cincinnati Commercial Ga- zette. At this meeting a plan was formed and one week later the Gridiron Club was organized with the fol- lowing officers: President, Ben Perley Poore; Vice President, John M. Carson ; Secretary and Treasurer, Charles T. Murray. The first dinners of the Club, which were held JOUEKALISM IN WASHINGTON. 265 each month at Welcker's, drew but a sparse at- tendance — at the fifth there were but seven mem- bers and three guests at the table. The organiza- tion was hardly ever mentioned in print at that time and the immense popularity that it enjoys at present is the culmination of a steady but slow success. From the first, however, the brains and energies of its members were devoted to making its entertain- ments unique. Gradually it gained a reputation for the originality and cleverness of the intellectual features of its feasts and later, as well, for the distinguished character of its guests. With so many men of exceptional parts working together towards the same end, the ultimate result could not be anything but unbounded success. Among the earliest rules adopted by the Club, are two which particularly affect the character of its dinners. One of these is that " Reporters are never present " and its rigid obser^-ance makes pos- sible the freedom of speech that is one of the uniqtie features of these gatherings. An annual dinner of the Gridiron will command a full page of the lead- ing papers but the account will not contain a line of the speeches delivered on the occasion. On one occasion only has this observance been deviated from and then for the convenience of a guest i he Tenth Annual Dinner of the Gridiron Club num- bered among the guests, Monsignor Satolh, the first Papal Legate of the Holy See in the I nited States. 266 WASllIXGTON. Being unacquainted with the rule regarding the publication of speeches made at its board, tlie dis- tinguished visitor planned to deliver at the dinner an address explaining his presence in America and (h'fining the object of his mission. There was a great deal of public interest and speculation on the subject and the (Hub decided, for the benefit of newspaper readers, to waive its regulation regard- ing publicity in this instance, so that the journals of the following morning might contain the im- portant announcement. The second rule in question admits of no possible suspension and at the opening of every Gridiron bancpict the President brings it to the attention of the assemblage. It is that " ladies are always con- structively present." Wit and hilarity hold sway at a Gridiron feast but they are always clean, wholesome and refined. The little gold griddle that one sees in the lapel of many men in Washington is frequently taken as the mark of llio hon vivant but it may safely be accepted as the badge of the gentleman. The Gridiron remains, as it was at the beginning, a club exclusively of newspaper correspondents. It has consistently refused to admit to membershi]) any but men actively engaged in journalism. Some years ago, when the organization had grown into pronounced pojmlarity, several Senators and Repre- sentatives applied for admission as limited mem- JOURNALISM IN WASHINGTON. 267 bers and, although the matter was taken into con- sideration, it was wisely decided to maintain the distinctive character of its composition. The mem- bership includes resident, non-resident and limited members. The active resident membership is lim- ited to forty, some of whom are not now engaged in journalism, although all must have been at the time of their election. There is always a large waiting list of applicants. On the non-resident list may be found the names of many w^ll-known men who have left their work in Washington to occupy the editor's desk or some equally responsible posi- tion on the paper they once represented at the na- tion's capital ; not a few, too, wdio have aban- doned their former profession for some other field of effort but whatever their present vocation, they are journalists for an evening three or four times a year when they attend a Gridiron dinner and wish, perchance, that they were back in the old circle of good-fellowship. The Club gives three '^ annual " dinners and a summer outing each year. On one of these oc- casions there will be present tw^o hundred and fifty or more persons, the guests including the President and Vice President of the United States, members of the Cabinet, Justices of the Supreme Court, am- bassadors and ministers from foreign countries, prominent members of Congress, high officers of the Army and ^^avy, and leading men in every other 268 WASHINGTON. walk of life. At no other similar occasion in America, and perhaps not in the world, is such a distinguished company ever gathered around one table. Any one wlio i>; willing to pay the price may readily secure an o])icurean meal, but, nowhere else in the world can money connnand such an enter- tainment as enlivens a Gridiron dinner, because the mise en scene and peculiar conditions are no- where else to be found. Between the courses are sandwiched burlesques, skits, and jokes, relating to current topics of public interest and generally involving some of the prominent guests. The whole fanciful program which includes a nund)er of comic songs composed for the occasion, is carefully prepared by the members beforehand and always displays a great deal of wit and cleverness. At the time that Secretary Taft was talked of in connection with a seat on the Supreme Bench and was also contemplated as a probable presidential candidate, he attended a Gridiron dinner, when a mimic messenger boy handed him a pretended tele- gram at the table which ran as follows: " Taft : Don't commit yourself on the presi- dential (lue^^tinn until you have seen me. Have been talking to Fuller. Brewer." All three of the dignitaries mentioned were present and none enjoyed the pleasantry more than themselves. When the country was swept by the Democratic JOURNALISM IN WASHINGTON. 269 tidal wave of 1890, the result of the election natur- ally offered the principal peg upon which to hang the star features of the evening at the dinner that followed. It will be remembered that the contest for Speaker of the House in the ensuing Congress was an historic one. Upon the occasion in ques- tion, Representative Crisp, who was eventually the successful candidate, occupied a seat at the festive board of the Gridironers. AYhen the President of the Club called ujDon Mr. Crisp, the members in chorus broke out with a parody on a well-known hymn, thus : " I want to be a Speaker, and with the Speakers stand, A book of rules before me, a gavel in my hand, And when the caucus meets here, I'm going for to try- To be elected Speaker, or know the reason why." Satire, the favorite medium for witticism as a rule, is tabooed at Gridiron dinners. A guest may find himself the object of the general merriment but the good humor and open-heartedness that per- vade the gathering preclude any unpleasantness and soon relieve temporary embarrassment. Old-timers — and there are distinguished public men who have become chronic Gridiron diners — generally like to be singled out for a distinct share of the current persiflage and know that the recital of the fact in the morrow's paper will raise them in the estima- tion of their constituents more than would the re- port of a long speech delivered in Congress, 270 WASHINGTON. Many members of the Gridiron Club have been called upon to serve the country in the service of the Government. To cite a few of the most recent instances: A few years ago, Hon. Robert J. Wynne, who was president of the Club in 1902, re- ceived the appointment of First Assistant Post- master General — a position Avhich had been held by Hon. Perry Heath, another Gridiron member, in a preceding administration. Mr. Wynne later became Postmaster General. General Henry V. Boynton, now deceased, was president of the Chicka- maugiia Commission, and had been one of the char- ter members of the Gridiron. Hon. Henry B. F. Macfarland and the Hon. Henry L. West, members of the Board of Commissioners of the District of Columbia, have both been Presidents of the Club. Other members, Avho hold important positions un- der the Government are P. V. DeGraw, Francis E. Leupp, James Rankin Young, and John M. Carson. CHAPTEE XI. SOCIAL LIFE IN THE CAPITAL. When the Government took np its seat in the District of Columbia, there were but two centers in the vicinity of the capital that could boast of a polite society. Those were x\lexandria and George- town. There were besides, a few scattered man- sions where a refined and elegant standard of liv- ing was maintained, such, for instance, as Mount Airy, near Bladensburg, Motley Hall, Duddington, and the residence of Thomas Law. The region was distinctly Southern and the customs were those of the old English colonial period. Sir Augustus Foster, an attache of the British legation during Jefferson's presidency, says: ^^ There were a number of rich proprietors in the State of Maryland. In the district around "Wash- ington, I was assured there were five hundred per- sons possessing estates which returned them an in- come of one thousand pounds. Mr. Lloyd, a mem- ber of Congress on the Eastern Branch, possessed a net revenue of betw^een six and seven thousand pounds, with which he had only to buy clothes for 271 272 WASHINGTON. liiiiiself and family, wines, equipage, furniture and ritlier luxuries. ~Mr. Tavloe also whose whole in- come exceeded fifteen thousand pounds per annum, held three thousand acres which his father bought for five hundred pounds. He possessed five hun- dred slaves, built brigs and schooners, worked iron mines, converted the iron into ploughshares — and all this w^as done bv the hands of his own subjects." Most of the members of Congress, he tells us, kept to their lodgings and lived in comparative se- clusion, but there w^ere not a few who cultivated the social virtues and whose families came to the capital for a season. Frequent balls were given at Georgetown and Sir Augustus, wdio may be pre- sumed to have had some experience in the old world, declares that he never saw prettier girls anywhere. '' As there were but few of them, however, in pro- portion to the great number of men who frequented the places of amusement in the Federal City, it is one of the most marrying places in the whole con- tinent — a truth which was beginning to be found out and became by and by the cause of vast num- bers flocking thither, all round from the four points of the compass. . . . Maugre the march of in- tellect so much vaunted in the present century, the litcrarv education of these ladies is far from beinsr worthy of the age of knowledge, and conversation is apt to flag, though a seat by the ladies is much coveted. Dancing and music served to eke out the SOCIAL LIFE IN THE CAPITAL. 273 time, but one got to be heartily sick of hearing the same song everywhere, even when it was, ' Just like Love is yonder Rose.' No matter how this was sung, the words alone w^ere the man-traps ; the belle of the evening was declared to be just like both — and people looked around as if the listener was expected to become on the instant very tender and to propose — and sometimes such a result does in reality take place; both parties when betrothed use a great deal of billing and cooing." He declares that some of the ladies "contract an aversion to water, and as a substitute, cover their faces and bosoms with hair-powder in order to render their skins pure and delicate." " In going to assemblies one had sometimes to drive three or four miles within the city bounds, and very often at the great risk of an overturn, or of being what is termed ' stalled,' or stuck in the mud, when one can neither get backward nor for- ward, and either loses one's shoes or one's patience. . . . Cards were a great resource of an evening, and gaming was all the fashion, at brag, especially, for the men wdio frequented society were chiefly from Virginia, or the Western States, and were very fond of this, the most gambling of all games. . . . Loo was the innocent diversion of the ladies, who when they were ' looed ' pronounced the word in a very mincing manner. . . . Church service can certainly never be called an amusement ; 18 274 WASHINGTON. but from the variety of persons who were allowed to preach in the House of Representatives, there doubtless was some alloy of curiosity in the motives Avhich led one to go there. Though the regular chaplain was a Presbyterian, sometimes a Metho- dist, a minister of the Church of England, or a (Quaker, and sometimes even a woman, took the Speaker's chair; and I do not think there was much devotion among the majority." But, withal. Sir AugTistus formed the opinion that Washington was the most agreeable place of residence for a lengthy stay. " The opportunity of collecting information from Senators and Representatives from all parts of the country, the hospitality of the heads of the government and the corps diplomatique of itself supplied resources such as could nowhere else be looked for." The newspapers of the time in Washington, of which the earliest was the Times and Potowmack Faclxet, started in 1789, give us interesting glimpses of the manners and customs of our forefathers and the condition of the country when it emerged from its successful struggle for liberty. The election of a sheriff in 1797, caused a great deal of excitement and an echo of the occasion is found in the obituary notice of " Mr. James Aull, another victim to the disorderly mode of election in this State." In Sep- tember of the same year, the editor of the V^^asli- incjion Gazette makes an announcement, prompted SOCIAL LIFE IN THE CAPITAL. 275 by his desire to induce immigration : " Any gen- teel family from either of the cities of Philadelphia or Baltimore may be accommodated with four con- venient apartments in a good house and pleasant situation imtil the first of May next — GRATIS — and if a person in business, with a large store and cellar, suitable for dry goods and groceries — on reasonable terms — Apply to the printer." About the same time, Miss Ann Vidler opens a day school for young ladies at Greenleaf's Point and undertakes to teach them ^' Reading, plain, open and tambour work," and a little later a French miniature painter makes the following announce- ment: '' Major Vermonnet informs the Ladies and Gentlemen who are desirous of having their like- nesses taken, that he will be happy in serving them, if they will honour him by calling at his house in the city, near Dr. Coningham's Brew-House." The public is informed that Lewis Clephane will pay " half a cent reward, without thanks or charges," to whoever will return his runaway ap- prentice. David Burnes inserts the following card : " I hereby forewarn all persons from hunting with Dog or Gun, within my enclosures or along my shores ; likewise, cutting down Timbers, Saplings, Bushes, or Wood of any kind, carrying off and burn- ing Fence logs, any old wood on the shores, or in the woods. If I should find any person tresspassing as above, I will write to my attorney, and suits will 276 WASHINGTON. be commenced against the tresspassers in the general Courts." It may be noticed that whilst the '" Dog" comes in for a share of the liberal distribution of capitals in the foregoing, '' my attorney " is not equally distinguished. In the next issue of the Gazette a curious citizen wishes to be informed where David Burnes's shores may be and ^' like- wise where his own property lays, within his en- closures," — this in evident allusion to the fact that the greater part of the property in question had been deeded to the Connnissioners. Personal con- troversy carried on in the colunms of the press was a common custom of the day. Greenleaf and Nich- olson — much to the disgust of Morris — thus ''aired their dirty linen" and injured themselves by the publicity given to their affairs. The author of '' The Freaks of Columbia" is '' preparing for the press, a play in three acts enti- tled * The Executor is the Heir at Law ' " and will bcnd it to press " so soon as five hundred persons have subscribed. It will be printed on good paper and with tolerably good type — Price to subscrib- ers 371/2 cents, payable at the time of subscribing." If it was ever published the copies have all disap- peared. During the times of Jefferson and Madison, the Tammanv Societv of Washington was an orcani- zation with numerous members. At one of its pow-wows. Sachem Smith delivered himself of the SOCIAL LIFE IN THE CAPITAL. 277 following, after the flamboyant style of the period : '^ Gracious God ! Are the scenes of La Vendee to be reacted in this country? Forbid it, ye shades of Washington, Franklin, Greene, Warren and Montgomery ! I am at a loss for words to express my indignation at the conduct of these modern Cata- lines. ' Is there not some chosen curse, some hidden thunder in the stores of Heaven, red with uncom- mon wrath, to blast the man ' who w^ould raise him- self to greatness ' or his country to ruin ' ? " Alas, for the decadence of oratory! The first circulating library in the city was " opened this day (June 1, 1801) first door west of President's square, on Pennsylvania Avenue." That must have been where the Mills Building now stands. James Lyon was the enterprising individ- ual who projected this public utility which was afterwards carried on by R. R. Dinmore. The same James Lyon published The National Maga- zine, "' a political, biographical, historical and lit- erary repository." It was mainly devoted to poli- tics of a partisan character. The editor declares that the receipt of sixty-six subscriptions from the State of Connecticut, leads us into a region of won- ders. ^^ This is the State that sends to Congress seven of the most bullying, servile sattelites (sic) that tremble at the ^od of John Adams or lick the dust at the feet of Robert Linton ; this is the State which gives to the Senate a Tracey, who wished to 278 WASHINGTON. wage a war of ' EXTINGUISHMENT ' ! to ^ arm every man, woman and child in the Union, against every man, woman and child in Erance,' yet this State has already produced to me GQ subscribers — This looks as if the people of Connecticut were beginning to think for themselves." Warden, who wrote in 1816, found '' the inhabi- tants of the District of Columbia social and hospi- table. At Washington respectable strangers, after the slightest introduction, are," he says, '^ invited to dinner, tea, balls, and evening parties. Those at the house of the President of the United States united simplicity with the greatest refinement of manners. Tea parties have become very exjDensive, as not only tea, but coffee, negus, cakes, sweet- meats, iced-creams, wines and liquors are often pre- sented ; and on a sultry summer evening, are foimd too palatable to be refused. In winter there is a succession of family balls, where all the species of luxury is exhibited. In the territory of Columbia women have no reason to complain of the degrada- tion to which they are exposed by the tyrant man. Free and innocent, they go where they please, boA before and after marriage, and have no need to have recourse to dissimulation and cunning for their own repose and that of their husbands." Warden mentions a number of '' peculiar cus- toms," of which the following are some: ''Both sexes, whether on horseback or on foot, wear an um- SOCIAL LIFE IN THE CAPITAL. 279 brella in ail seasons ; in summer, to Iveep otf the sun- beams, in winter as a shelter from the rain and snow; in spring and autumn, to intercept the dews of the evening. Persons of all ranks canter their horses, which movement fatigues the animal, and has an ungraceful appearance. Gentlemen wear the hat in a carriage with a lady as in England. ^' x\t dinner, and tea parties, the ladies sit to- gether, and seldom mix with the gentlemen, whose conversation naturally turns on political subjects. In almost all houses, toddy is offered to guests a few minutes before dinner. In summer, invitation to tea parties is made verbally by a servant, the same day the party is given. In winter, the invitation is more ceremonious. ^' Boarders in boarding-houses, or in taverns, sometimes throw off the coat during the heat of sum- mer; and in winter, the shoes, for the purpose of w^arming the feet at the fire — customs which the climate can only excuse. " Any particular attention to a lady is readily construed into an intention of marriage. '"^ The barber arrives on horseback to perform the operation of shaving; and here, as in Europe, he is the organ of all news and scandal." In the first half century of Washington's exist- ence, it contained very few hotels but a multiplicity of boarding-houses. Members of Congress, with few exceptions, made their homes at these places. 280 WASHINGTON. ■\vliere thej formed messes and roomed two or three together. Jefferson was lodging thus near the Cap- itol at the time of his inauguration and walked from his boarding-house to the Senate Chamber, return- ing to his accustomed place for dinner after the ceremony. The Justices of the Supreme Court lodged and messed together in similar fashion in the early years, at a house kept by Mrs. E. Dunn, near the Capitol. As late as 1842, they resided in one house ^' for the greater convenience of consulta- tion." The race-course was one of the earliest and most popular institutions of the city. Doctor Cutler thus describes it in 1803 : " The race ground is an old field with somewhat of a rising in the center. The race path is made about fifty feet wide, meas- uring just one mile from the bench of the judges round to the stage again. In the center of this cir- cle a prodigious number of booths are erected, which stand upon the highest part of the ground. Under them are tables spread much like the booths at commencement (at Cambridge), but on the top, for they are all built of boards on platforms to ac- commodate spectators. At the time of the racing these are filled Avith people of all descriptions. On the western side and without the circle is rising- ground, where the carriages of the most respectable people take their stand. These, if they were not all Democrats, I should call the noblesse. Their SOClxlL LIFE IN THE CAPITAL. 281 carnages are elegant, and their attendants and serv- ants numerous. They are from different parts of the Southern and Middle States, and filled prin- cipally with ladies, and about one hundred in num- ber. . . . While the horses were running, the whole ground within the circle was spread over with people on horseback stretching round full speed to different parts of the circle to see the race. This was a striking part of the show, for it was supposed there were about 800 on horseback, and many of them mounted on excellent horses. There were about 200 carriages and between 3,000 and 4,000 people — black, and white, and yellow; of all con- ditions from the President of the United States to the beggar in his rags ; of all ages, and of both sexes, for I should judge one-third were females." In January, 1824, Mrs. Adams gave the famous ball, at her residence, 1333 F Street, in honor of " the hero of Xew Orleans." An Englishman, named Agge, wrote some clever verses on the occa- sion, the following being one of them : "Wend you with the world to-night? East and West, South and North, Form a constellation bright And pour a blended brilliance forth; See the tide of fashion flowing, 'Tis the noon of beauty's reign — Webster, Hamilton are going. Eastern Lloyd and Southern Hayne Western Thomas, gayly smiling, Boaland, nature's protege, 282 WASHINGTON. . Young De Wolf, all hearts beguiling, Morgan, Benton, Brown and Lee, Belles and matrons, maids and madames. All are gone to ]\lrs. Adams'." The ball costume of the ladies of that j^eriod is described as with " skirts of five breadths, a quarter of a yard each, of the favorite Indian crape, co- quettishly short for the freer display of the slipper and silk stocking, matching the color of the gown, and fastened with ribbons crossed over the ankle and instep. The low baby waist, ingenious and frank, came to an end abruptly under the arms, which were covered with gloves so fine that they were some- times stowed cunningly in the shell of an English walnut. The hair, dressed high, was crowned with a comb of tortoise shell ; white turban and ostrich feathers were the peculiar ensigns of wives and ma- trons." Josiah Quincy, in his reminiscences of this time, says '' the evening parties were the social features, at which everybody appeared who occupied the nec- essary social position." Guests arrived promptly at eight and left at eleven o'clock, '^ having eu joyed the recreation of dancing, card-playing, music and con- versation." The first entertainment of the sort which he attended was one given by [Mrs. Wirt and to which he was taken by Daniel Webster. He was much impr(^ssod by tlie daugliter of the house and by the '' ])retty, learned, and agreeable Mrs. Hoff- SOCIAL LIFE IN THE CAPITAL. 283 man, of Baltimore." But all were surpassed by Mrs. Florida White '^ whose beauty was the admira- tion of Washington." He describes a function given by Mrs. Johnston, of Louisiana, in February, 1820, where was " found a crowd in comparison with which all other crowds that I have experienced sunk into nothing. . . . As there was no dancing, I contented myself with moving in the current around the room, first con- ducting Mrs. Florida White, and afterwards Mrs. David Hoffman. By the latter lady I was intro- duced to Miss Cora Livingstone, and I must be able to paint the rose to describe a lady who is undoubt- edly the greatest belle in the United States. In the first place, she is not handsome; I mean not tran- scendantly handsome. She has a fine figure, a pretty face, dances well, and dresses to admiration. It is the height of the ton to be her admirer, and she is certainly the belle of the country." Mr. Quincy was a guest at a number of brilliant balls given at the different legations, where his impressible temperament was successively stirred by contact with Miss Catharine Van Rensselaer, of Al- bany, Miss Morpin, of Kentucky, Aliss Tayloe, of Washington, and other beauties. He attended a number of dinners, too, one of the most pleasant being that which " took place at :Miss liver's board- ing-house, given by the gentlemen lodgers, who, by a small subscription, added a few dishes to the ordi- 284 WASHINGTON. nary bill of fare." In this connection, he remarks, ^' that the use of wine and spirits was practically universal. . . . Xobody thought it possible to dine without one or the other. At the boarding- houses and hotels every guest had his bottle or his interest in a bottle." In fact, in many such places liquor was included in the price of entertainment and most hotels had bottles on the table for the free use of the guests. Twice the narrator '^ dined at the White House; the first time with Charles King and Albert Galla- tin." The occasion was enlivened by the ^' amusing utterances of the President and Mr. King, who talked as if they were under bonds to furnish en- tertainment for the party." The other affair was '' a state dinner of forty ladies and gentlemen, very splendid and rather stiff." Only the presence by his side of the pretty Miss Bullett, of Kentucky, re- lieved " the icy monotony of that solemn dinner of high state." At a public ball at Caru^i's, Qnincy " saw the waltz introduced into society for the first time. The conspicuous performer was Baron Stackelburg, who whirled through the mazes with a huge pair of dragoon spurs bound to his heels. The danger of interfering with the other dancers, which seemed al- ways imminent, was skilfully avoided by the Baron, who received a murmur of n]^preciative applause as he led his partner to her seat." SOCIAL LIFE IN THE CAPITAL. 285 Could the Baron have been tlie '^foreign diplo- mat, recognized as a leader of society," who created a sensation in the year memorable for the intro- duction of the waltz, by appearing upon Pennsyl- vania Avenue mounted on a velocipede, newly im- ported from London. '^ People assembled en masse in eager expectation, along the way, under the scraggy poplars that bordered the broad highway, to witness the exhibition, and gazed in amazement at the dignified struggles of a gentleman in high life straddling a pommeled saddle between two wheels, and pushing himself along over the uneven surface of the dirt roadway, first Avith one foot, and then with the other, pressing against the earth, so that as the front foot tipped the ground along- side of the front axle the toes of the hind foot left their print alongside of the hind axle. lie held the handle bars with firm grasp of both hands, and with head erect looked straight to the front from the eye sockets. He was dressed in knee breeches, with buckles and pumps, dress coat, rufiled shirt and a high silk hat pressed closely down to his ears. In profile the gallant velocipedist exhibited a pictur- esque personation of an amateur athlete standing on tiptoe astraddle two wheels on parade before a multitude gaping with surprise and wonderment." In the thirties, dinner parties were favorite forms of entertainment. They were, we are told, '' very much alike, and those who were in succession guests 286 WASHINGTON. at different houses often saw the same table orna- ments, and were served by the same waiters, while the fare was prepared by the same cook. The guests were wont to assemble in the parlor, which was almost invariably connected with the dining- room by large folding doors. When the dinner was ready the folding doors were thrown open and the table was revealed, covered with dishes and cut- glass ware. Soup Avas invariably served, followed by boiled fish, overdone roast beef or mutton, roast fowl or game in season, and a great variety of puddings, pies, cakes and ice-cream. The fish, meat, and fowl were carved and helped by the host, while the lady of the house distributed vegetables, the pickles and dessert. Champagne, without ice, was sparingly supplied in long, slender glasses, but there was no lack of sound claret, and with the dessert several bottles of old madeira were gen- erally produced by the host, who succinctly gave the age and history of each. " At the evening parties the carpet was lifted from the room set apart for dancing, and the floor was chalked with colors to protect the dancers from slipping. The music was almost invariably a first and second violin, Avith flute and harp accompani- ments. Light refreshments, such as water-ice, lem- onade, negus, and small cakes, were handed about on w^aiters between every two or three dances. The crowning i;l« •ry, however, of the entertuinnient was SOCIAL LIFE IN THE CAPITAL. 287 the supper, whicli had been prepared under the supervision of the hostess, aided by some of her intimate friends who had loaned their china and silverware. The table was covered with a la mode beef, cold roast turkey, ducks, and chickens; fried and stewed oysters, blanc-niange, jellies, whips, floating islands, candied oranges, and numerous varieties of tarts and cakes. Very often the young- men, after having escorted the young ladies to their respective homes, would meet again at some oyster- house to go on a lark, in imitation of the young English bloods in the favorite parts of ^ Tom and Jerry.' Singing, or rather shouting popular songs, they would break windows, wrench off knockers, call up doctors, and transpose sign-boards ; nor was there a night-w^atchman to interfere with their roistering." A British Alinister to Washington at the period just preceding the Civil War, has left a picture of society at the capital as he found it. He tells us that "- winter time is the season of gaiety at Washington, and well the Americans economize every moment. They wisely prefer seeing their friends, to being merely acquainted with the out- side of their doors, as so frequently hapi)ens in London. Instead, therefore, of packs of cards bo- ing exchanged — most fruitless folly, — each lady proclaims to her acquaintances which day of the week she will receive from twelve to four, and in 288 WASHINGTON. that way has the pleasure, not only of really meet- ing her friends weekly, but also has the option of six days to herself unmolested by visitors. " To give an idea of the working of this system — Monday, all the government ministers' wives re- ceive; Tuesday, all the senators' wives; Wednes- day, the houses of the diplomats are thrown open ; Thursday, the judges' wives entertain; and so on from one week's end to another, all the winter. In this way those who wish can pay eight or ten visits a day in proportion to the time they wish to kin. ^' Let me briefly describe a morning reception in the height of the season: At the door stands the lady of the house, resplendent in the la^^t ultra- French fashions, ready with a compliment for every newcomer, who must return the same, both capital aiul interest, and besides assuring her she looks ' quite lovely,' must titillate her vanity by insinuat- ing how superior her reception is to the eight or ten he has already visited. . . . The visitor, having discharged his volley of pretty nothings, then rushes boldly into the busy talking throng, which gives the salon the appearance of an auction- room, as the talkers seldom sit down. Such a buzz as tliere is, such significant little groups, canvassing with the utmost volubility and vehemence the cur- rent topics of the day, the last duel murder, row SOCIAL LIFE IN THE CAPITAL. 289 in the House of Kepresentatives, or savage onslaught in the Senate. '^ The young ladies generally cluster round the inevitable refreshment table, and, while distributing broiled oysters, chocolate cakes, and wine, keep at least six or eight beaux each in full talk. Some- times, in the largest houses — such as that of the late Senator Douglas — the shutters would be shut, the gas lighted, the musicians summoned, and a dance got up, which would last with unflagging energy till six in the evening, when the exhausted dancers found a ball-supper prepared to revive them. '^ But there is one entertainment which can be seen nowhere else — a Presidential Keception. Such a motley crew throng in at the door, — rowdies, cab-drivers, belles, beaux; diplomats, like the new discovered fossil, half golden-scaled lizard, half-crested bird; last, not least, a troop of Red Indians in war paint, with their best necklaces of bears' claws, come to do honor to the gi'eat father. Having first shaken hands with the President, who stood in the center of a large salon, we waited to watch the behavior of the crowd. One and all in- sisted on vigorously shaking the poor President's hand, holding up afterwards thei-r dirty brats to be kissed. The next day the President had rheu- matism in his arm, and no wonder." 19 290 WASHINGTON. Naturally enough, the society of Washington was disrupted by the War and for a decade following 1860, it remained in a more or less chaotic condi- tion. A writer in the Atlantic thus described the population of the capital at the time it was a camp: ^' If the beggars of Dublin, the cripples of Con- stantinople, and the lepers of Damascus should as- semble in Baden-Baden during a Congress of Kings, then Baden-Baden would resemble Washington, Presidents, Senators, Honorables, Judges, Generals, Commodores, Governors, and the Exs of all these, congregate here as thick as pickpockets at a horse race, or women at a wedding in church. iVdd Am- bassadors, Plenipotentiaries, Lords, Counts, Barons, Chevaliers, the great and small fry of the Lega- tions, Captains, Lieutenants, Claim-Agents, Ne- groes, Perpetual-Motion-Men, Fire-Eaters, Irish- men, Plug-Uglies, Hoosiers, Gamblers, Californians, Mexicans, Japanese, Indians, and Organ-Grinders, together with females to match all varieties of males, and you have a vagne notion of the people of Washington." After the close of the War, Washington was re- lieved of the worst elements of the heterogeneous floating population that had gathered at the seat of the conflict with motives as mixed as its composi- tion. There were many, however, Avho remained and many more who were attracted to the capital at this time, so that its population more than SOCIAL LIFE m THE CAPITAL. 291 doubled in a decade. Wlieu society resumed its sway, it presented anything but an attractive as- pect. There were too many nouveaux riches, some of them with questionably-acquired fortunes. There was a tendency to display and extravagance that did not escape downright vulgarity. The pro- fusion and exuberance were, however, due in large measure to the joy of regained peace and the in- toxication of success. Whatever the cause, its effect soon passed away and the social life of Washington assumed the serene dignity and sane enjoyment of pleasure that has ever since characterized it. The people of Washington differ in several re- spects from those of any other large city of the country. The nearest resemblance — and that is not close — is to be found in the population of one of our university towns. The men one passes on the streets of the capital are a distinct type. They are well dressed, well fed and not overworked. They look, and are, unusually intelligent, for the center of government draws to it the best brains of the country. There is none of the care-worn stream of humanity that flows through Broadway, or State Street, to be seen on Pennsylvania Avenue. There are thousands of hard workers in Washing- ton but things are so ordered that all, with the possible exception of the very highest, get a reason- able amount of leisure. Xowhere in this country can the man of intellect so readily find congenial 292 WASHINGTON. associations ; nowhere can the man of refined tastes find so agreeable an atmosphere. About twenty years ago, persons of wealth and fashion began to find Washington an attractive place for a short sojourn in the Avinter months and gradually they learned that it afforded a most pleasant abode for the entire season. With that, one millionaire after another followed the example of Mr. Leiter and erected a mansion at the capital. Eich senators, too, built liberally and entertained extensively. The legations, beginning with that of the British on Connecticut Avenue, commenced to house themselves in palatial style. Even foreigners followed suit, and several of them now have winter residences at our capital. Thus, during the past decade Washington society has become truly na- tional and at the same time somewhat cosmopolitan in character. There are in Washington certain, more or less, exclusive circles as there are in every large city, but nowhere is personal merit better appreciated, or more readily recognized. To the man of talent or social brilliancy, doors open more easily than they would elsewhere, and the size of his bank ac- count is of less consideration. What is said of men, applies with greater force to the other sex. A clever, agreeable woman will find the social path much smoother at the capital than in Xew York or Pliiladclpliia, and many a commonplace man SOCIAL LIFE IN THE CAPITAL. 293 owes his success to the social qualities possessed hy his wife. There are something like a score of social clubs in Washington, of which the principal are the Metropolitan and the Cosmos. The former, which is now building a fine new home for itself, is com- posed mainly of high government officials, members of the diplomatic corps and officers of the Army and Navy. It has a membership of about six- hundred. The Cosmos Club is located in the old Dolly Madison mansion and tAVo adjoining houses. Its membership is drawn from men who have distin- guished themselves in science, literature, or art, and embraces a greater aggregation of intellect than any similar institution in the country. CHAPTEK XII. THE SUBURBS OF WASHINGTON. It may not bo improper to include Georgetown in a review of the snburbs of Washington for the old Maryland to\vn was not incorporated with the city until 1871, and even now is shai*ply distin- guished from the original capital by physical bound- aries and general appearance. Georgetown was laid out, by authority of the Maryland Assembly, in 1751, and soon became the commercial and social center of that part of the State, for the outlying landowners frequently re- sorted there for business and pleasure. It was a thriving port, to which vessels l)rought the luxuries craved by the colonists and returned laden with their produce, principally tobacco. During the Revoluti grandson by marriage. It was even thought that he at one time contemplated the location of the principal portion of the city and the Capitol on the west side of the river, a poutingency which was 20 306 WASHINGTON. elfectuallj prevented by the later prf^liibition of Congress. The Custises ranked with the Carrolls and Cal- verts as the three oldest and most distinguished families in the part of the country from which the District was partitioned. Major-General John Custis appears in colonial history as an official un- der a commission issued in 1687 by Lord Howard of Effingliam, His Majesty's Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia. His grandson, the Honorable John Custis, made alliance with another notable family when he married Frances, the daughter of Daniel Parke. From this union, which proved a most unhappy one, sprang two children^ Daniel and Fanny Parke (^istis. The former married ]\Lir- tha Dandridge and died at an early age, leaving a widow and two children, John Parke and Mar- tha Parke Custis. On a bronze tablet affixed to the right-hand wall of the main hall of Arlington House is the follow- ing inscri])ti()n, which recounts succinctly the hist- ory of the *' Arlington House Estate." The lands comprising the estate or property are a part of an original grant of 0,000 acres from Wiliam Berkley, (sic) Governor of Virginia, to Robert Howsen in October, 16G9, in consideration of the said TTowsen having transported a number of settlers into the colony. In the same j'ear Howsen conveyed these lands to John Alexander, tlie con- sideration being (5 hogsheads of tobacco, and on December 25, 1778, (Jerald Alexander, to whom the propoity had de- THE SUBURBS OF WASHINGTON. 307 scended, conveyed the Arlington Tract, about 1,100 acres, to John Parke Custis, the consideration being 1,100 pounds in Virginia currency. John Parke Custis was the son. of Martha Wash- ington by her first marriage. He was aide-de- camp to Washington during the Eevolution, and npon his death, November 5, 1781, of camp fever, contracted at Yorktown, Washington adopted his two youngest children, George Washington Parke Custis and Eleanor Parke Custis. George Wash- ington Parke Custis, who inherited the Arlington estate from his father, Avas a member of Wash- ington's family until the death of Washington, in lt\)dy and soon after removed to Arlington, where he resided until his death, October 10, 1857. By his will, bearing date of March 26, 1855, he de- vised the " Arlington House Estate " to his daugh- ter and only child Mary Ann Randolph Lee, wife of Lieutenant-Colonel Robert E. Lee, United States Army, for her use and benefit during her natural life, and on her death to his eldest grandson, George Washington Custis Lee, to him and his heirs forever. By an executive order by the President of the United States dated January 6, 1861, the entire tract of eleven hundred acres, more or less, was " selected for government use for war, military, charitable, and educational purposes," under the provision of the Acts of Congress of July 7, 1862, 308 WASHINGTON. and February G, 1863. By the same order it was directed that the property should be sold to meet the payment of $92.07 direct taxes due thereon. This was done January 11, 1864, and the property was bid in for the United States for the sum of $26,800. Mrs. Lee having died in 1873, legal proceedings contesting the legality of the tax sales were instituted by George Washington Custis Lee, an heir under the will of his grandfather, George Washington Parke Custis. The case was heard in the- United States Circuit Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, and verdict rendered in his favor, which, upon appeal, was affirmed upon the decision of the Supreme Court of the L'nited States, December 4, 1882. Congress, by Act of March 3, 1883, appro- l)riated the sum of $150,000 for the purchase of this property, and on March 31, 1883, George Washington Custis Lee conveyed to the United States by deed the title to the property in question for the sum appropriated. By an order of the Secretary of War dated June 15, 1864, the Arlington Mansion and the grounds surrounding it, not exceeding two hundred acres, were appropriated for a military cemetery. . . . The boundaries of this original plot have been ex- tended l)y orders of the Secretary of War to the southern boundary of the estate, the actual area THE SUBURBS OF WASHINGTON. 309 now inclosed and constituting the N'ational Ceme- tery is four hundred and one-third acres. The estate was named '* Arlington " by John Parke Custis, the adopted son of Washington. During his tenancy he improved it out of all recognition of the condition in which he found it. It had then consisted mainly of forest, with a few hundred acres of imperfectly cleared land, lying below the hills. The mansion-house was a small and unpretentious dwelling erected by the Alexanders upon the bank of what was then called Little River, at a distance of about a mile to the east of the present structure. The erection of Arlington House was begun in 1804, but not com- pleted until eight years later. Writers have fre- quently stated that it is modeled after the Temple of Theseus at Athens, but the tablet on the house states that it is patterned on the ^' Temple of Paestum near Naples." It was considered the finest example of the residence of a landed gentle- man in the State of Virginia, if not in the whole country. The main buildings have been preseiwed in a condition nearly that of their original ap- pearance. It has here that John Parke Custis played a leading part in the social life of the neigliborhood and entertained with lavish hospitality. '' The old Revolutionary heroes were welcome guests at his 310 WASHIXGTON. board, whilst tlie distingiiishod men of a snccood- ing generation delighted in visiting the hospitable farmer." He was keenly interested in agriculture and stock raising and sought to promote those in- terests in various ways. He held '' an annual fete," at his own expense and invited the neigh- boring farmers to take part in it by exhibiting ^' their sheep, cattle, and best products of the loom, and to dine with him under a range of tents, one of which belonged to the illustrious Washington," who was always highly extolled in the speeches that formed the closing feature of these occasions. There was a liberal distribution of liquid refresh- ments and '' prizes were awarded by Mr. Custis to those bringing, for purposes of exhibition, the finest specimens of sheep," in the improvement of Avliich he took special interest. There is no more beautiful spot near Washing- ton than Arlington. Lafayette pronounced the prospect from the porch of the house to be the most magnificent he had ever beheld. To-day the panorama stretched before the observer from the same point is even more delightful and imposing. The Potomac flows below at a distance of two hun- dred feet and on its farther side lie Washington and Georgetown backed by the encircling hills. Viewed on a clear day, the picture is one that can hardly be surpassed for stately loveliness by anv in tlie world. THE SUBURBS OF WASHINGTON. 311 On the level plateau that lies towards Fort Meyer, is laid out the city of the dead. A suburb occupies a space below the hill near the Ord and Weitzel gate and yet another the slope east of the mansion. Many thousands of soldiers — six- teen thousand that fell in the Civil War alone — lie buried here, reminders of our successive sacri- fices in the cause of freedom from the Revolution- ary War to that with Spain. Acres of ground are covered with the small square head-stones, running in orderly ranks, a few words on each sufficing for the name of the tenant and the State to which he belonged. A more imposing monument of endur- ing granite stands to the memory of the unknown dead, upon its face these words: BENEATH THIS STONE REPOSE THE BONES OF TWO THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN UNKNOWN SOLDIERS GATHERED AFTER THE WAR FROM THE FIELDS OF BULL RUN AND THE ROUTE TO THE RAPPAHANNNOCK THEIR REMAINS COULD NOT BE IDENTIFIED BUT THEIR NAMES AND DEATHS ARE RECORDED IN THE ARCHIVES OF THEIR COUNTRY AND ITS GRATEFUL CITIZENS HONOR THEM AS OF THEIR NOBLE ARMY OF MARTYRS. MAY THEY REST IN PEACE. ' SEPTEMBER, A. D. 186G. When the Government came to Washiagton, Bladensburg was a thriving port, shipjiing more tobacco than any other town in ^laryland with 312 WASHINGTON. the possible exception of Georgetown. Vessels from distant points came up the Anacostia to its wharves and, lying, as it did, on a main road, travelers frequently stopped at its taverns. A short distance from the town stood Mount Airy, the home of the Calverts, in an extensive and rich plantation. Here George Calvert, descendant of the Lords of Baltimore, lived in princely style and dispensed a liberal hospitality. Those were the halcyon days, but with the in- troduction of the railroad Bladensburg waned, its river was neglected, and it failed to find substitutes for its old-time industries, so that it has been long since no more than a village in decay. Now it is a favorite drive from Washington and visitors go out occasionlly to see the old battle-field and the duelling ground. " At this day Bladensburg is in essentials the same village it was when Decatur and Barron fought here on a morning in March, 1820 — a roadside village of three or four hun- dred people at a crossing of the East Branch of the Potomac, five miles from the Capitol at W^ash- ington. Its principal street stretches along a flat floor of sand, thirsty, like its citizens, and is, at both .ends, stopped by a ford and bridge; for the branch makes a turn round the bottom of the vil- lage ^nd shoots off a creek round the top of it. The main turnpike street, therefore, on which our old duelists' tavern stands, midway between the THE SUBUKBS OF WASHINGTON. 313 fords — is a good deal like a village built upon a sand bar or river beach. The back yards of those houses which keep the same side with the tavern go flatly back to the river. The yards of houses across the street scramble up at a small degree. Be- hind these latter houses is another broken street, parallel to the first, and both of them at the bot- tom, of the town lead into a street at right angles, which passes the branch by a bridge one way, and the other way leads back through the hills into the Chesapeake Necks of Maryland. It was by this last road that the British came from their shij) at Benedict to bum Washington. There are hills on that side of the town, and behind them the IJritish foniied. Then, charging across the old bridge, or slipping lip nnder cover of those old houses, they passed the branch, formed on the Washington side of the river, and that night moved into Washing- ton. The back lanes of this town, and the houses which lie up the green hill-terraces, show large and comfortable yet. The flat main street smells of the ague, feels of the rheumatism, and looks of staiwation. Its grave, hip-roofed, blackened old houses, look in the twilight like rows of wrecked hulks along a bar when the tide has gone out. In the baking sunshine of the day they look like tawny elephants, waiting in two lines to carry up the vast delay of cargoes which nevermore shall come to Bladensburg piers. Mighty <»utside chini- 314 WASHINGTON. nejs hold themselves and their old houses up. The porches hang limp, like the dislocated chins of dead men. There are no sidewalks. Xo wagon moves oftener than once an hour through those old waiting rows of mansions. There is a shop or two, but the merchant lolls in tlie door and looks where the river used to be f(U' tlie unreturning ships." Of the many '^ affairs of honor " that have been settled at Bladensburg, the most notable is the De- catur-Barron duel and after it, perhaps, the cold- blooded murder in which Graves and Cilley were the principals. Several of the famous duels of the times which took place elsewhere have been mistakenly connected witli tliis place. Duels were of frequent occurrence at the time that Jonathan Cilley, of Elaine, and William Graves, of Kentucky, had their fatal meeting. Tn February, 1838, the former charged in the House of Eepresentatives that James Watson Webb, the editor of the Xew York Courier and Enquirer, had received a bribe from the I^ank of the T'nited States. Representative Graves took upon liimself to champion the cause of the journalist and with the aid of Henry A. Wise, forced Cilley into a duel. Graves and Cilley met on the duelling ground of Bladensburg and faced eacli other witli ritles. At tlie first fire both missed. The challenge was THE SUBURBS OF WASHINGTON. 315 then suspended for the purpose of explanation, when Cilley repeated what he had before declared, that he had none but feelings of respect for Mr. Graves and no quarrel with him. This statement did not satisfy Graves and Wise who were bent on killing their man. Accordingly the opponents resumed their positions. A second time shots were exchanged without ef- fect and again General Jones, Cillcy's second, at- tempted to bring about a reconciliation. The otlicr side, however, was implacable and for a third time the men faced each other, the one reluctantly, tlic other with deadly determination. Before the word to fire w^as given Wise said to General Jones: ^^ If this matter is not terminated l)y this shot, and is not settled, I will propose to shorten the distance," to Avhich the latter replied: " After this shot, if without effect, I will entertain the proposition." At the word, the rifles rang out simultaneously and Cilley fell. Graves expressed a desire to see him, to which General Jones replied : '' ^ly friend is dead." Graves and Wise then went to their carriage and left the ground. The two seconds in this affair, one of whom was only slightly less culpable than the other, made a statement in which they said : " We cordially agree in bearing unqualified testimony to the fair and honorable manner in which the duel was con- 316 WASHINGTON. ducted. None can regret its termination more than ourselves, and we hope that the last of it will be the signatures of our names to this paper, which we now affix.'' The disgust excited by the account of this affair is not without the relief of humor, excited by the naive statement that '^ none can regret its termina- tion more than ourselves." They did, indeed, strive to make a ^' continuous performance " of the affair. Stephen Decatur belonged to a family in which duelling was apparently held to be something of a pastime. His father had counseled him to fight a duel before he became of age and in the course of his life he was either principal, second or in- stigator in innumerable affairs of the kind. It was but stern justice that he should at last fall at the hands of a man whom he had forced into a quarrel with himself. Barron was a brave but unfortunate officer whose lot had been disgrace and exile. When he re- turned to his native land seeking employment in the service to which he had devoted his best years, Decatur, who was firmly planted on the top of the ladder and might easily have afforded to be gen- erous towards his old enemy, opposed the applica- tion and induced his fellow Commissioners to take a similar stand. Not satisfied with thus balking Barron's desire, Decatur renewed his old-time per- THE SUBURBS OF WASHINGTON. 317 secution of liiui, spoke insultingly of liini in ])ul)- lic, and voiced gTOimdless slanders reflecting upon his personal character. Barron, mined in reputa- tion, lacking a livelihood, broken in spirit, anoston, who took the place of Latrobe and, following his plans, built the rotunda, the old dome and the library. An important piece of \vork performed by Bull- finch was the construction of the glacis and ter- races on the west side, thus giving the building THE CAPITOL AND Tlli! LIBRARY. U1 an appearance of eqnilibrinin lliat it prcvionslv lacked owing to the greater depth oi the structure at the end in question. Tlie Capitol was virtu:illv completed when Bullfinch retinal, in 1S:50. I If erected the old penitentiary at (Irceidcaf's Point, where Booth's associates were tried anies a field of more than forty-five himdrcd s(|uare feet. This THE CAPITOL AND THE LIBKAKY. 351 may be examined to greater advantage from the gal- lery which encircles the rotunda jnst above the frieze and which is reached by a stairway starting from the adjacent lobby. The spiral stair con- tinues up to the crowning cupola, which contains a large lantern, lighted only when Congress is in session, and above which stands the enormous statue of Liberty that — owing to its headdress of feath- ers and ample drapery — is so often taken by visitors to be an Indian wrapped in a blanket. The bronze figure, with its pedestal is twenty feet in height and weighs about fifteen thousand pounds. It was raised to its position in sections, the head and shoulders being put in place on the second of December, 1863, to the salute of cannon. From this point a wide and beautiful panorama extends on every side, such as can be secured else- where only from the top of the Washington monu- ment, but as the two structures are more than a mile apart each aifords a difference of view. It is only from some such elevation that one can gain a full realization of the natural beauties of Washington and the artistic excellence of its arrangement. The traveler who has seen '' all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them " shall find here an impression that no other city can make upon him. The clear air, broad streets and open spaces make the picture sharp and definite. Every essential detail stands out distinct and nowhere is the mar- 852 WASHINGTON. ring effect of congested slums. And this picture of a city, incomparable in many respects, is set in surrounding scenery of the most lovely and diversified description. But to return to tlie ground floor of the Capitol — Passing southward along the main corridor, one enters the Hall of Statuary, which until 1857 was the meeting place of the House of Representatives. It is a fine semicircular chamber, embellished with marble columns and designed upon ideas suggested by ancient Grecian models. It is a forcible re- minder of the growth of the country in half a cen- tury, for the present body of Representatives could hardly find standing room in it, whereas it for- merly contained not only the desks of all the mem- bers but left a liberal space beyond them. Abont thirty years ago, there was talk of sacrificing this historic chamber to some fanciful scheme of ai'chi- tectural improvement but fortunately the idea was abandoned. There is no point in the Capitol to which more stirring memories attach than this. Here the great questions that agitated the nation in the fifty years following 1808 were debated and some of the most important legislative measures iu our history decided. These walls have echoed to the eloquence, the wisdom and the wit of Webster, Clay, Adams, Calhoun, Ran(l<)l])h, AFarshall, Davis, and many more of the nation's most l)rilliant and gifted statesmen. THE CAPITOL AND THE LIBKARY. 353 Congress fittingly decided to devote the old cham- ber to a collection of statnes of the great men of the country and invited each State to send ^^ the effigies of two of her chosen sons in marble or in bronze, to be placed permanently here." The selection for such an honor is no light or easy mat- ter and many of the States have yet to exercise their privilege. Among the notables gathered here is one woman — Frances Elizabeth Willard, whose statue is the work of another — Helen Farnsworth Mear. At its base is inscribed the following eloquent plea of the apostle of temperance : " Ah ! it is women who have given the costliest hostages to fortune, when to the battle of life they have sent their best beloved wdth fearful odds against them. Oh, by the dangers they have dared, by the hours of patient w^atching over beds where helpless children lay, by the incense of ten thou- sand prayers w^afted from their gentle lips to heaven — I charge you give them power to protect, along life's treacherous highw^ay, those whom they have so loved." The present chamber of the House of Represen- tatives is a simple but spacious and imposing hall, one hundred and thirty-nine feet long and ninety- three feet W'ide. The floor space is occupied mainly with desks of the members arranged in paral- lel, diminishing semicircles, converging upon the 23 354 WASIilXGTON. Speaker's rostrum. "^ This is of white marble, stand- ing upon a platform at an elevation of four or five feet above the ground. To the right of it is a pedestal, on which is erected the Speaker's Mace, when the House is in session. When it is in Com- mittee of the Whole, the Mace is laid upon the floor. This symbol of authority is composed of a bundle of ebony rods bound with silver bands, in semblance of the fasces carried by the Roman lictors. It is surmounted by a silver globe on which an eagle is poised with outstretched wings. About the Speaker's desk are placed marble tables for the clerks and reporters of the House and above and behind it is the press gallery. The doors flank- ing this focal point open upon the House lobby, the walls of which are hung with portraits of by-gone Speakers. Some of the best paintings in the Capitol are to be found in the House of Repre- sentatives. Passing from the rotunda to the Senate wing of the building, one comes first to the Supreme Court Room, which was abandoned by the upper branch of Congress in 1859, two years after the Repre- sentatives took possession of their present hall. The chamber was designed by Latrobe after classic models and in its main features resembles Statuary * It has been decided to remodel the chamber. It is to be considerably curtailed in size in order to facilitate speak- injj with cfTcct. The dosks are to jrive place to benches after the fashion of the British House of Commons. THE CAPITOL AND THE LIBRAKY. 355 Hall. Along its diameter is a row of marble columns, screening a logia above which is a gallery. The ample chairs of the nine Justices are ranged upon a railed-in platform, in front of these columns. In the center of the room are large tables for the use of counsel and in the space beyond are seats for spectators. Around the walls are placed busts of former Chief-Justices of the United States, to wit, John Jay, of New York; John Rutledge, of South Carolina ; Oliver Ellsworth, of Connecticut ; John Marshall, of Virginia ; Roger B. Taney, of Maryland ; Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio ; and Mor- rison R. Waite, of Ohio. The Senate chamber is similar to that of the House in general plan but somewhat smaller in dimensions. The walls, like those of the House of Representatives, are finished in buff and gold, and embellished with statuary and paintings. The seats of the Senators are arranged in the same man- ner as those in the other legislative hall, but the station of the President is less imposing than that of the Speaker. The galleries surround the cham- ber as in the House but are neither so extensive nor so much sought, for the public appears to find the debates of the lower branch tlie more attractive, although the Senate has been drawing more popu- lar attention to itself in recent years than before. Opening off the lobby in the rear of the cham- ber is the beautiful and richlv decorated marble 356 WASHINGTON. room used by Senators for the reception of callers. Nearby is the President's room which is seldom used. The Chief Executive sometimes comes here to sign bills in the closing hours of a session. The handsome building of the Library of Con- gress stands in an open space that forms an exten- sion of the Capitol reservation. The ground was purchased for its present purpose from private owners at a cost of somewhat more than half a million of dollars. Six millions additional were ex- pended upon the structure which was commenced in 1889 and completed eight years later. It is a three- storied edifice with dome, constructed in the Italian Renaissance style of architecture, its walls on every side broken by frequent windows of which there are nearly two thousand in all. The length of the build- ing is one hundred and fifty yards and its breadth approximately, two-thirds as great. It covers three and one-half acres, or the same amount of ground as the Capitol. The exterior walls are of gi'anite, whilst marble is the princi])al material of the interior construc- tion. The main feature of the building is a central rotunda, rising to the apex of the dome. This is the public reading room. Two galleries, cor- responding to the stories of the building, encircle the walls. The rotunda is surrounded by a paral- lelogram of galleries and pavilions on two floors. These are devoted to a variety of purposes, but aside THE CAPITOL AND THE LIBRARY. 357 from the contents of the apartments, the building is one extensive art exhibit. Every square inch of surface on wall, ceiling or floor betrays the touch of the decorative artist. Paintings, sculpture, mosaics, carved wood and ornamental metal work meet the eye at every turn. In fact the wealth of decoration is embarrassing and oppressive at fir-t sight and it is not until one's third or fourth visit to the place that the beauty of the surroundings can be fully appreciated. When time has mellowed the colors and dulled the sheen, the Library of Con- gress will have one of the most enchanting interiors in the world. It is a matter for proud satisfaction that the architects, sculptors and painters who cre- ated this fairy palace are all Americans. The Library of Congress was founded by an Act of the national Legislature which, in 1800, appro- priated the sum of five thousand dollars for the purchase of " such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress at the City of Washington." At the time that the library Avas burnt in the Capi- tol fire of 1814, only about three thousand volumes had been accumulated. In 1815, the library of Thomas Jefferson, comprising about seven thousand well-selected books, was bought and formed the nucleus of a new national library. From 1817 it was lodged in the Capitol until removed to its pres- ent abode. During the closing month of 1851, a fire broke out in the librarv and destroved two- 358 WASHINGTON. thirds of the books which by that time numbered fifty-five thousand. An appropriation was at once made by Congress to replace as far as possible the lost volumes and to render the hall occupied by the library fireproof. In 1866, the collection, which had expanded greatly, was augmented by the acces- sion of the scientific library of the Smithsonian In- stitution and in the following year by the purchase of the historical material that had been gathered by Peter Force at the expense of great labor and pains. Further addition was made in 1870, when the copyright business was transferred from the Patent Office to the Library of Congress. As the law requires that two copies of every publication copyrighted must be deposited with the Librarian of Congress, this is a constant source of increase. The various articles received in compliance with the copyright law in the past ten years, such as books, maps, engravings, photographs, etc., have numbered 1,714,328. In the last year alone they amounted to 227,047, being an increase of nearly sixteen thou- sand over the receipts of the preceding year. The administration of the Library is under a librarian appointed by the President, subject to con- firmation by the Senate. The building and grounds are in charge of a Superintendent, similarly ap- pointed. At present Herbert Putnam, formerly of the Boston Library, holds the former position and Bernard R. Green, the latter. The Superintendent THE CAPITOL AND THE LIBRARY. 359 employs in tlie building, one hundred and twenty- seven persons and the Librarian, three hundred and twenty-four. In addition to these, the Public Printer details seventy-seven of his employees to work exclusively for the Library of Congress. In 1897 the Library established a Division of Manuscripts, with the purpose of creating one cen- tral place of deposit in which there should be every precaution taken for the safety of the manu- scripts and where there should be a force adequate to listing and making the documents accessible to the general public. It is fitted throughout with strictly modern appliances for receiving, hand- ling, and storing manuscript material. The more important collections now in the Library are: 1. The Peter Force collection, rich in colonial and Revolutionary history. 2. A mass of material of a unique description, chiefly relating to the colonial history of Virginia, from the library of Thomas Jefferson. 3. The Rochambeau papers, purchased by Congress in 1883. 4. Naval papers relating to a number of early commanders. 5. Papers of the early Presidents, and many other prominent public men. 6. Diplomatic papers of the Confed- erate States. The valuable maps and atlases belonging to the Library form probably the most extensive, cer- tainly the most thoroughly equipped and accessible, collection in the United States. It comprises over 360 WASHIXGTON. eighty-five thousand maps and thirty-six thousand atlases. The latter are especially noteworthy as including nearly all the geographical works of Ptolemy, Ortelius, Mercator, Blaeu, and others. Established in 1897, the Music Division has in its custody all the music and books on nuisic ac- quired by the Library either through copyright or by purchase. The collection amounted in July, 1906, to a grand total of 451,834 volumes, pam- phlets, volumes and pieces, of which 15,324 illus- trate the history, theory and study of music. The yearly accessions now amount to more than twen- ty-five thousand volumes, pamphlets and pieces. The collection of prints numbers upwards of a quarter of a million, covering ever process and rep- resenting all schools. There have recently been purchased a collection of twenty-five thousand pho- tographs of paintings and sculpture in European galleries and of foreign architecture. The Law Library of Congress and the Supreme Court was established by Act of Congress in 1832. It contains over one hundred and twenty thousand volumes and is the largest collection of strictly law books in the world. It includes the most complete single collection of Yearbooks (re- ports of the cases decided in tlie English courts dnring the reigns from Edward I to Heniy VIII), many early editions of the classical treatises on Anglo-American law, an almost complete collection THE CAPITOL AND THE LIBRARY. 361 of the first editions of the session laws of Rhode Island and Massachusetts, and it is rapidly devel- oping a good working collection of the modern law literature of all the countries of the world. The Library was originally established for the use merely of Congress. It is now, however, a general public library, open as freely for reference use as any in the world. Since its removal to the new building, its collections and its service have so extended that it is now familiarly entitled the ^' National Library." Any person from any place may examine within its walls any book in its pos- session, and may do this without introduction or credentials. The Library is open from nine in the morning until ten at night on ordinary days. On Sundays and all holidays, excepting the Fourth of July and Christmas Day, also excepting Saturday afternoons during July, August and September, from tw^o o'clock in the afternoon until ten at night. Books for home use are issued to certain classes designated by statute and, within the District of Columbia, in effect any person engaged in a seri- ous investigation which absolutely requires it. Of late the Library has also lent books to other libraries in various parts of the country for the convenience of investigators engaged in research calculated to advance the boundaries of knowledge. It also aids the same class of workers by publica- 362 WASHINGTON. tions exhibiting material in its collections upon topics under current discussion or within fields of special research. It answers inquiries addressed to it bj mail in so far as they can be answered by bibliographic information — that is by reference to printed authorities. The number of such in- quiries now exceed ten thousand a year and the Library is widely recoguized as a bureau of in- formation upon matters bibliographic. The Library is but one of a score of Govern- ment libraries at Washington. There are in the various Departments and scientific bureaus of the Government collections aggregating over one mil- lion volumes. Certain of these are preeminent in the world within the field with which they deal. With them, the Library of Congress is seeking to form an organic system. It will be this system, rather than the Library of Congress alone, which will comprise the National Library of the United States. In number of volumes it would already equal any library in the world. CHAPTER XV. CONGEESS AND THE SUPREME COURT. Congress convened in Washington for the first time, ^^ovember 17, 1800. A quorum was not secured until a few days later, when the announce- ment was made to the Executive that the Legis- lature was prepared to transact business and President Adams proceeded to the Capitol in some state and delivered his " annual message." Thomas Jefferson was then President of the Senate and Theodore Sedgwick, Speaker of the House. Nei- ther legislative body was comfortably provided for at that time nor until the chambers constructed by Latrobe were opened in 1817. In general, however, the members submitted to the inconven- iences to which they were subjected with little com- plaint. The House was distinctively the working body in those days. The Senate kept short hours and^ did comparatively little, having a much less extensive idea of its functions than at present. Members in both chambers sat with their heads, covered, after the fashion of the English parlia- ment, which is derived from a period when doffing 363 364 WASHINGTON. the liat was an act of greater significance than now. Snuff was generally taken and the furni- ture of the legislative hall included a large recep- tacle which was kept supplied with a quantity of that stimulant for the free use of members. Each body had its official pen doctor, who repaired the goose-quills of the members and its official sealer, who made their letters and packages fast with wax. It was a day of bare faces and powder and wigs; of decorous and stilted speech; of somber garb and simple life. In that CongTess — the Sixth in succession and the first at the Capitol — were many men who had already made their mark in the country's history and others who were destined to do so. Among the thirty-two Senators were not a few who had fought in the Revolutionary War or had taken an active part in the organization of the Republic. John Armstrong", of Xew York, had abandoned his books to shoulder a musket whilst yet in his teens. His colleague, Gouverneur ^lorris, who prided himself upon his likeness to Washington, had been a leadinc; liiiht in the Continental Congress, as also had been Samuel Livermore, of Xew Hampshire, Jonathan Trumbull, of Xew Jersey. Stevens ]\Iason, of Virginia, Charles Pinckney, of South Carolina, Humphrey ^larshall, of Kentucky, and JosejJi Anderson, of Tennessee, were among the Revolutionarv veterans who fiiiured in this Senate. CONGRESS AND THE SUPREME COURT. 365 In the House were the dignified and polished Sedgwick, Nathaniel Macon, of North Carolina, characterized bj the caustic John Randolph as ^' the wisest, purest and best man " he had ever known. From South Carolina, was General Sum- ter, soon to become a Senator, and from Pennsyl- vania, Peter Muhlenberg, who, at the instigation o£ Washington, exchanged a cleric's gown for the uniform of a colonel. Varnum, of Massachusetts, Roger Griswold, of Connecticut, Edward Living- stone, of New York, Albert Gallatin, of Philadel- phia, John Rutledge, of South Carolina, Littleton Tazewell and John Randolph, of Virginia, were among the notable men who came to Washington as Representatives in the second session of the Sixth Congress. The first provision of the Constitution is that all legislative powers granted by it ^' shall be vested in a Congress of the United States which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives." The instrument goes on to stipulate that the House shall be composed of members elected every second year by the citizens of the several States and that they shall be residents of the States they represent, shall be twenty-five or more years of age, and shall have been at least seven years citizens of the United States. The representatives are to be apportioned among the States according to population, the entire number not to exceed one for every thirty thou- 366 WASHINGTON. sand of the people, and each State to be entitled to at least one representative. The ratio of repre- sentation is now more than five times as great as it was in 1789. In the first Congress, Xew Hamp- shire had three representatives, Massachusetts eight, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New York six. New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, \'irginia ten, North Carolina five. South Caro- lina five, and Georgia three, — making sixty-five in all. At present there are nearly four hundred rep- resentatives and delegates. Delaware, Virginia and Maryland have the same representation as at first, but two members sit for New Hampshire and only four for Connecticut, whilst New York is rep- resented by thirty-four and Pennsylvania by twenty-eight. Every two years the terms of the members ex- pire and a new House is elected, this two-year period constituting a Congress. Each Congress has two regular sessions and may be called in extra session by the President at any time that he may deem their meeting advisable. The long session begins on the first Monday in December following the expiration of the previous body, and usually contiiuies for six or more months. The short ses- sion commences with the first Monday in Decem- ber of the second year and must terminate at noon on the fourth day of March following. This legal CONGRESS AND THE SUPREME COURT. 367 requirement is frequently the occasion for the per- petration of an interesting fraud. The last days of a Congress are generally very busy ones, and as the closing hours expire it is often evident that the business in hand will require for its completion more time than the body has legitimately at its command. On such occasions, the doorkeeper comes to the aid of the members and as the hands of the clock approach the hour of twelve, takes a stick and puts them back half an hour. This ma- neuver is repeated as often as necessary. Mean- while bills are presented and passed with as much rapidity as articles are put up and knocked down in an auction room. The Constitution provided that Senators are to be chosen by the legislatures of the several States and that each State, regardless of size, should be entitled to two Senators. The term of a Senator's office is six years and elections are so arranged that one-third of the body is chosen every second year. Thus, the Senate has no termination but is a con- tinuous body, like the Supreme Court. The sal- aries of Senators and Representatives are the same — seven thousand five hundred dollars each — and the President of the Senate and Speaker of the House receive the same amount — twelve thousand dollars yearly. The character and functions of the two bodies are very different. The House distinctly repre- sents the people, whilst the Senators are representa- 368 WASHINGTON. tives of the sovereign States. This at least was the idea of the framers of the Constitution, bnt it no longer jn-evails and the rapidly spreading practice of subjecting Senate nominations to primary elec- tions promises to make the upper house a popular assembly before long. The Senate has the ex- clusive privilege of ratifying treaties with foreign powers and the appointments of the President are STd3Ject to its confirmation. The House, on the other hand, has the exclusive right of originating appropriation bills. The business of both branches of Congress is performed mainly by the various committees, wliicli have meeting rooms scattered all over th(^ Capitol building. The committees investigate the subjects of bills submitted to them, hold hearings, summon witnesses, give the matter of each bill their best consideration, and report their con- clusions to the body to which they belong. Com- mittee reports are usually acted upon and debates in either chamber have comparatively little effect upon legislation, although the popular idea is that the speeches made upon the floor decide the action of the members. The Speaker has the appoint- ment of the several committees and as the majority of every committee — or at least of every one of importance — is made up of members from the party in power, the Speaker's control of legislation is great. Every Congress includes a handful of CONGKESS AND THE SUPKEME COURT. 369 men of exceptional ability in each chamber and these are generally responsible for the final action of momentous questions. The proceedings in House and Senate are much the same and resemble those of all parliamentary bodies. The latter has the reputation of being the more dignified and orderly body, though some of the speeches delivered and scenes enacted upon its floor in recent years have been calculated to rob it of that distinction. The House is none too de- corous. Visitors during a debate are apt to be disappointed and surprised at the confusion that often prevails when several members at once seek recognition by the Speaker. The general attitude, however, is one of listlessness. Whilst one is ad- dressing the House, others are conversing, writing letters, reading newspapers, w^alking the aisles, or lying back in their chairs with feet placed upon their desks. Kow and again, an exchange of un- printable compliments, or even a fist fight, relieves the monotony of the proceedings. The maintenance of the national legislature is a very expensive matter. The annual salaries and mileage amount to about two and one half millions of dollars. The staff of the Senate is numerous and includes a secretary, a chief clerk, a financial clerk, and sixteen under-clerks, with aggregate sal- aries of about fifty thousand dollars. There is a librarian with an assistant and a keeper of the 24 370 WASHINGTON. stationery with two assistants, whose j^ay amounts to eighty-five hundred dollars yearly. There are four official reporters who are paid six thousand two hundred dollars each annually. Then there are the sergeant-at-arms, the doorkeeper, with a num- ber of assistants, the bookkeepers, postmaster and deputy, and several mail carriers. These with in- cidental expenses will make a total approximating half a million of dollars. The expenses of the House of Representatives are very much greater than those of the Senate. The chief clerk of the House and his assistants have salaries aggTCgating nearly thirty thousand dollars. The Speaker has a private secretary and two clerks. There is a doorkeeper Avith something like fifty assistants and messengers under him, whose salaries amount to fifty thousand dollars. There are a host of committee clerks and a legion of pages. The sergeant-at-arms has a numerous staif. There are several official stenographers, a postmaster and assistant, with ten or a dozen clerks, an '^ upholsterer and locksmith," and a '^ conductor of the elevator," besides other attaches. The sta- tionery and newspapers for the House cost about fifty thousand a year, ten thousand is paid for the repair of furniture, and the expenses of special committees run into anotlier fifty thousand or more. If the amount of salaries and mileage is added to that of the miscellaneous expenses, we CONGRESS AND THE SUPREME COURT. 371 have a sum approximating two and a half millions of dollars. Each annual session of Congress, then, costs the country in excess of three and one half millions of dollars and it may easily be seen that our ad- ministrative work, even before the reforms insti- tuted by the Keep Commission, was performed much more economically than our legislation. If vje reduce these figures to a computation of the actual cost of sessions, it appears that for each day Congress sits the country is called on to pay fifty thousand dollars. The daily sessions begin at noon — most of the members having previously spent some hours in committee — and continue until four or five o'clock. Occasionally, press of business, or some party maneuver will occasion a night session, but these are seldom held except towards the close of a term. Each chamber is opened daily by its chap- lain with prayer, after which follows what is called " the morning hour." This is devoted to the read- ing of the journal, to the reception of the committee reports, to the introduction of bills and to their reference to the appropriate committees. Follow- ing the morning hour, bills are taken from the cal- endar and considered until adjournment. The official reporters of Congress take down the speeches and proceedings of each session in either chamber. These are afterwards printed in the offi- 372 WASHINGTON. cial publication styled The Congressional Record, The printed record of speeches is supposed to be a verbatim report but is actually very far from such. Proof-sheets are submitted to members, who make liberal revisions in them. Not a few of the speeches that appear in the Record have never been uttered, for Congressmen commonly secure '' per- mission to print," when all they have to do is to send the matter to the printer and mail copies of the publication to their constituents. The Record purports to be an account of the previous day's proceedings, but members frequently withhold their addresses in order to secure a good position for them at a later date and the publication runs for several weeks after the legislature has adjourned. Formerly the literal reporting of speeches in the Congressional Record was considered a matter of much greater importance than it now is and one of the many exciting incidents connected with Con- gress turned upon this point. One day in April, 1860, Koger Pryor, of Virginia, taxed a member from Wisconsin, named Potter, with making changes in the record of a speech delivered by the latter on the floor of the House. The accusation led to a spirited dialogue between the two in the House and to a subsequent challenge by Pryor. Potter accepted and named bowie knives as the w^eapons. To this Pryor demurred on the ground that they were barbarous and inhuman. Potter CONGKESS AND THE SUPREME COUKT. 373 rejoined that in his opinion, the whole system of duelling was barbarous and inhuman but, if he was to be forced into a fight, he proposed to place himself on equal terms with his adversary. As the objection was repeated, Lander, Potter's second, offered himself without restriction to Pryor, in the place of his principal. The challenger disclaimed any quarrel with Lander and the matter fell through. The ^' third house," as the lobby is sometimes called, has been in existence since the inception of Congress. With the growth of publicity and pub- lic knowledge of affairs, and the increasing honesty of members, it has become much less extensive and effective than it used to be. Still, all the most important commercial and financial interests of the country are represented at Washington by persons whose business it is to influence the passage of legislation or to prevent it. Lobbying requires talents of no mean order and it is a highly re- munerative calling. Among the most successful lobbyists have been women, ex-members of Con- gress, and retired army officers of high rank. The lobbyist does not depend upon mere persuasion to gain his ends. Various influences are brought to bear upon committee-men and other members, but it is doubtful if direct bribery is ever resorted to in these days. The lynx-eyed press has been the chief agency in working the decline of lobbying in 374 WASHINGTON. the national legislature and jobbery in the national administration. It is customary to talk of graft as rampant at the present time but a study of the past records of Congress will satisfy anyone that the public men of to-day are greatly superior to their predecessors in the matters of integrity and honest service. So also will a fair comparison show that we have to-day as talented men in office as we ever had. The historian of the future Avill give to some of our living statesmen and adminis- trators much higher place in our history than we are willing to accord them. The Constitution provided for the creation of the Supreme Court and the First Congress passed an Act organizing the body with a Chief-Justice and five Associate-Justices, to be nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Pres- ident Washington appointed Jolm Jay, the great- est jurist of the time in this country, to be Chief- Justice, and Avith him were associated William Cushing, of ^lassachusetts, James Wilson, of Pennsylvania, John Blair, of Virginia, James Ire- dell, of North Carolina, and John Rutledge, of South Carolina. John Tucker, of Boston, was the first Clerk of the Supreme Court. The first session of the Supreme Court was held in New York, on the first ]\ronday in February, 1790. In the course of the month several famous advocates were admitted to practice at its bar, CONGKESS AND THE SUPREME COURT. 375 among them being Theodore Sedgwick, Fisher Ames and Robert Morris. The requirements Avere that they should have been in practice before the State Supreme Courts for three or more years, and that their private and professional characters should be fair. It was not until one year later that a case was brought before the Court. The Supreme Court moved with the Govern- ment to Philadelphia, in 1791, and again accom- panied it to Washington, in 1801, holding its first session on the first Monday of February in that year, in a basement room of the Capitol directly beneath the present chamber. Previous to the Civil War, the docket seldom contained as many as one hundred cases. Now it commonly has more than one thousand entries at the time the Court enters into session. These are for the most part, appeals from the findings of the Circuit Courts. Original cases before the Su- preme Court are comparatively few. The presentation of a case to the Supreme Court requires printed arguments and briefs and a printed record of the proceedings of the lower court involved. Five days of the week are devoted to hearing arguments. On Saturdays the judges meet in consultation and on Mondays their de- cisions are delivered. If the Court is in session, the visitor will find the place pervaded by an atmosphere of quiet dig- 376 WASHINGTON. nity. The learned members of the highest tri- bunal in the land are ranged four on either side of the venerable Chief-Justice Fuller. A lawyer of national reputation is, perhaps, addressing an argument to the Court. These arbiters — for such they essentially are — listen attentively and oc- casionally one or the other asks a question or inter- jects a remark. Meanwhile the attorney who is presenting his case may talk on for two hours and with the special permission of the Court, for longer, whilst the listening layman votes it the dry- est speech that he has ever heard. Eloquence is at a discount here and rhetoric valueless. Cold fact and legal logic are all that count. Those nine grave, sable-gowned men will study the case and decide its merits from the matter-of-fact printed page and bring all their learning and experience to bear upon it without consideration for the oppos- ing counsel or their respective clients. Each of the nine is an acknowledged specialist in some par- ticular branches of law and to him are assigned the cases that come Avithin his peculiar province. All meet for consultation on Saturday, when each Justice presents to his fellows the conclusions that he has reached on the cases submitted to his ex- amination. Argument follows and finally tlie en- tire bench is polled, beginning witli the youngest, the Chief-Justice having the deciding voice in the event of a tie. The task of writing the final opin- CONGRESS AND THE SUPREME COURT. 377 ion of the Court is then imposed upon one of the members. After being approved by the body, the decision is read on Monday in open court and be- comes the most authoritative legal diction of the land. It is safe to say that the Justices of the Su- preme Court work as hard as any men in our hard- working community. The hours actually spent on the bench are, perhaps, the easiest portions of their day. Each performs what the average lawyer would deem a good day's work at his home every evening and forenoon, keeping a secretary busy. When they separate for the summer vacation, their baggage is bulky with the papers in important cases needing more than ordinary consideration. They carry a fearful weight of responsibility upon their shoulders, for the most momentous issues often turn upon their decisions, from which there is no appeal. It may be said, with truth, that this august in- stitution holds in its hand the destiny of the nation. It possesses extraordinary power — greater than that reposed in any other body in the \vorld — greater than that of the President of the United States, or, indeed, of most constitutional monarchs. The veto of the President may be overridden by a two-thirds vote of Congress, and neither King Ed- ward nor the Kaiser would dare persistently to oppose the pronounced action of their people's rep- 378 WASHINGTON. resentatives. But the Supreme Court may nullify a measure of Congress and its decision is final. It is very doubtful if the framers of the instrument which created the Supreme Court designed to give it this vital power over the acts of Congress, but popular assent has long since affirmed it. Upon the judgment of these nine men, or a ma- jority of them, depend the most momentous issues in our national affairs. When, in a speech deliv- ered at St. Louis in 1907, President Roosevelt stated that the fate and ultimate effect of his policy must rest largely upon the question whether the Consti- tution is to be construed broadly or otherwise, his thoughts and his hopes must have been centered upon the future dicta of the Supreme Court. With them it lies to make the reformative legislation instigated by the present Administration, permanent or to render it of no avail. When this great question conies before these nine eminent jurists, it will di- vide them more sharply than ever before, but we shall have the satisfaction of knowing that what- ever the decision it will be the outcome of honest conviction, deep learning and exhaustive reflection. Melville Weston Fuller was appointed Chief-Jus- tice of the Supreme Court by President Cleveland, nearly twenty years ago. Previous to his elevation to the highest legal position in the land, he had practised law in Illinois for more than thirty years without once having connected himself with a crim- CONGRESS AND THE SUPREME COURT. 379 inal case. He had been an ardent Democrat, but, of course, a member of the Supreme Court has no party political affiliations. Chief-Justice Fuller is seventy-four years of age, having been born within a few months of Justice Harlan. John Marshall Harlan has been a member of the Supreme Court for thirtj^ years, which is eleven years longer than any of his colleagues has served. He was an active leader in the Whig party of Ken- tucky before the Republican party was formed. He raised a Union regiment in the Civil War and was on the point of being gazetted brigadier when the death of his father prompted his resignation. He was a member of the Louisiana Commission that put Hayes in the White House and by that Presi- dent was appointed to the Supreme Bench. David Josiah Brewer was born, seventy years ago, at Smyrna, Asia Minor, where his father was stationed as a missionary. His mother was a sister of that famous quartet of Field brothers, one of whom preceded him in the Supreme Court. Kan- sas claims Justice Brewer and for many years be- fore he came to Washington he served that State as a judge of various courts. His present position is due to appointment by President Harrison in 1889. The only Associate-Justice from a Confederate State is Edward Douglass White of Louisiana, who fought on the side of the South before he was 380 WASHINGTON. twenty years of age. Justice White finished his education at Georgetown University, practised law in his native State and became a member of its Su- preme Court. He was afterwards sent to the United States Senate and soon secured recognition as one of the most able Democrats in that body. He was appointed to his present office thirteen years ago and is younger than most of his colleagues, having completed the sixty-second year of his life in No- vember, 1907. Rufus W. Peckham is the son of a celebrated New York Judge in whose office he received his le- gal training. He was a member of the Xew York Court of Appeals when, twelve years ago, his ap- pointment by President Cleveland to the Supreme Court of the United States w^as the occasion of an historic contest between the Senate and the Chief Executive. Justice Peckham is sixty-nine years of age and may this year, if he desires, retire on full pay. Joseph McKenna, of California, is the sole rep- resentative of the Par West in the Supreme Court. Justice McKenna was born in Philadelphia, sixty- four years ago, but went to his adoptive State when a boy. He served in Congress for four successive terms and resigned to become a judge of the United States Circuit Court. This position he gave up to enter President McKinley's Cabinet as Attorney- CONGKESS AND THE SUPKEME COUKT. 381 General. He has served in his present capacity for ten years. Oliver Wendell Holmes bears a name that is fa- miliar wherever the English language is spoken. Although he did not embrace his father's profes- sions of medicine and literature, he inherited his father's spontaneous wit and humor. One month after graduation at 'Harvard, he entered the Union army as lieutenant and at the end of the War had several wounds and a colonelcy to his credit. x\fter practising law for a few years in Massachusetts, he became the editor of the American Law Keview and afterwards professor of law at his Alma Mater. He was a member of the Supreme Court of his State when President Roosevelt appointed him, five years ago, to his present position, in the sixty- first year of his age. President McKinley brought his friend and fel- low-townsman, William R. Day, into sudden promi- nence by including him in his first Cabinet. Justice Day is the son of a celebrated Ohio judge, under whom and at the University of Michigan he re- ceived his law education. His appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States in 1903, Avas by President Roosevelt. Justice Day is younger than any of his colleagues with the single exception of Justice Moody, having been born in 1819. William Henry Moody, like Justice Holmes, is 382 WASHINGTON. of Massachusetts, and a graduate of Harvard. He has filled his present position for hardly more than a year and is the youngest member of the body in point of service as ^vell as in the matter of age, be- ing but fifty-four. Previous to his elevation to the Supreme bench, Justice Moody had served in four successive Congresses and had been Secretary of the Xavy and Attorney-General in President Roose- velt's Cabinet. CHAPTEE XYI. THE EXECUTIVE GOVEENMENT. The wonderful growth of this nation in the conrse of one hundred years is strikingly evidenced in the great expansion of its administrative ma- chinery. At the opening of the nineteenth cen- tury, there were five Departments in operation. Of these, the Treasury employed seventy-five per- sons. The combined forces of the State, War, i^avy, and Post-Office numbered no more than sixty-one, and four persons were employed in the office of the Attorney-General. There are now eight Departments, a number of independent bu- reaus and commissions, and an office force of thirty- five thousand in Washington alone. The adminis- trative business of the Government has increased enormously during the past decade and there are prospects of continued expansion in new directions. It is the tendency of the age to impose upon gov- ernment functions which our grandfathers never dreamed of associating with it. Thus the Admin- istration now exercises a wide control in matters of commerce and finance, labor and transportation. 383 384 WASHINGTON. It also operates with greatly extended scope in most of the matters that have always been recognized as within its purview. It enters upon new enter- prises of gigantic proportions, such as the Panama Canal, the reclamation of the arid and swamp land:^, and the improvement of inland waterways. And, in addition to the extensive and varied business entailed by all these utilities, is the work of gov- erning the outlying territories of Porto Rico and the Philippines, and of policing Cuba. The administrative government of the country is in tlie hands of the President and the nine heads of Departments who form his Cabinet and act as his advisers. Of these the Secretary of State is considered the senior and occupies in a sense a posi- tion analagous to that of tlie prime minister in a monarchical government. The '^ Department of Foreign Affairs " was or- ganized in 1781, witli Robert R. Livingston, of New York, as Secretary. The Department was under constant instructions from Congress and was not permitted to take any independent action. As a matter of fact, Congress managed the foreign rela- tions of the country, appointing committees, as occa- sion arose, to consider specific questions. It is both interesting and instructive to compare the re- ports of the recent " Committee on Departmental Alethods " and a Congressional committee ap- THE STATE DErAUTMENT. 385 pointed in 1788 to investigate tlie condition of the '' Department of Foreign Affairs." Erom the lat- ter we learn that the Department occupied two rooms, one the Secretary's, the other that of his deputy and clerks. The daily transactions were entered in a minute book and subsequently copied into a journal. The letters to ministers and others abroad were entered in a book called the '' Book of Foreign Letters," such parts as required secrecy being in cipher. The domestic correspondence was entered in the " American Letter Book." The " Book of Reports " contained the Secretary's re- ports to Congress. There was also a book in which was recorded the passports issued to vessels, and a volume of " Foreign Commissions," besides a '' Book of Accounts " and one containing Acts of Congress relating to the Department. The papers of the old Committee of Foreign Affairs and the correspondence of our ministers abroad w^ere prop- erly taken care of. The office was open for busi- ness constantly from nine o'clock in the morning until six o'clock at night, and either the deputy or a clerk remained in the office while the others were at dinner. '' Upon the whole," the committee found, ''neatness, method, and perspicacity throughout the Department." Upon the assembling of the new Government un- der the Constitution, the first business taken up, 25 386 WASHINGTON. after tlic election of the President and Vice-Presi- dent, was that of providing execntive departments, that for foreign affairs being considered before any others. The bill which passed in CongTess a few months later created a Department much the same in duties as that already in existence and John Jay was continued at the head of it. A later Act of the same year, however, provided that thc5 '' Executive department, denominated the Depart- ment of Foreign Affairs, shall hereafter be denomi- nated the Department of State, and the principal officer shall hereafter be called the Secretary of State." The secretary was required to receive and publish the laws of the United States ; to be the custodian of the seal of the United States; to authenticate copies of records and papers, and to receive all the records and papers of the office of the late Secretary of Congress, except such as re- lated to the Treasury and War Departments. The scope of the Department was thus greatly enlarged and it became the most important of the Govern- ment offices under the President. Almost imme- diately following this enlargement of the functions of the Department, Jefferson assumed charge of it and so became virtually the first Secretary of the Department as we have it. '^ From the beginning the Department of State Avas more closely connected with the President than any other Executive Department, Washington not THE STATE DEPARTMENT. 387 only referred to it all official letters bearing upon its business, but made it the repository of the drafts of most of his letters. The volume of business of the Government rendered it possible at that period for the President to attend personally to matters which are now rarely, if ever, brought to his per- sonal attention. It w^as Jefferson's custom to con- sult his chief frequently. He sent him the rough drafts of his letters for approval or correction, and carried to him all communications of consequence. The foreign ministers to the United States were not permitted to correspond directly with the Presi- dent, but were required to address the Secretary of State. This rule had been laid down before Jefferson's appointment, when Washington de- clined direct correspondence with Moustier, the French Minister, and Moustier's successor, the notorious Genet, received forcible reminder of it in 1793." The Department in its early years had charge of a number of affairs that have since passed out of its hands. Among these were the business of the Territories, superintendence of the census, grant- ing of patents and copyrights, and several matters of a judicial character. The machinery of the Department of State, as at present constituted, is officially described as fol- lows : The Secretary of State is charged, under the 388 WASHINGTON. President, with the duties appertaining to corre- spondence with the public ministers and the con- suls of the United States, and with the representa- tives of foreign powers accredited to the United States; and to negotiations of whatever character relating to tlie foreign affairs of the United States. He is also the medium of correspondence between the President and the chief executives of the sev- eral States of the United States ; he has the custody of the Great Seal of the United States, and counter- signs and affixes such seal to all executive proclama- tions, to various commissions, and to warrants for the extradition of fugitives from justice. He is regarded as the first in rank among the members of the Cabinet. He is also the custodian of the treaties made with foreign States, and of the laws of the United States. He grants and issues pass- ports, and exequaturs to foreign consuls in the United States are issued from his office. He pub- lishes the laws and resolutions of Congress, amend- ments to the Constitution, and proclamations de- claring the admission of new States to the Union. He is also charged with certain annual reports to Congress relating to commercial information re- ceived from diplomatic and consular officers of the United States. The Assistant Secretary of State becomes the Acting Secretary of State in the absence of the Secretary. Under the organization of the Depart- THE STATE DEPARTMENT. 389 ment, the Assistant Secretary, Second Assistant Sec- retary, and Third Assistant Secretary are charged with the immediate supervision of all correspond- ence with the diplomatic and consular officers, and are intrusted with the preparation of the corre- spondence upon any questions arising in the course of public business that may be assigned to them by the Secretary. The Chief Clerk has general charge and supervision of the clerks and employees and of the business of the Department. When the Department of Foreign Affairs w^as first organized, it took possession of a small house in Philadelphia, at 13 South Sixth Street, leased from Peter Du Ponceau. When the Department moved with the Government to New York, in 1785, it found quarters at Faunce's Tavern, in the long room where Washington took farewell of his gen- erals at the close of the Revolutionary War. It remained here for more than three years and then moved to a house owned by Philip Livingston, on the west side of Broadway. Later it went into a house on the other side of the street almost opposite to Livingston's. Upon the return of the Government to Phila- delphia, the Department first took up its quarters on Market Street, about three blocks from the river, then on the southeast corner of Arch and Sixth Streets, next in North Alley, and finally at the northeast corner of Fifth and Chestnut Streets. 390 WASHINGTON. In May, 1801, the offices of the Department were estahlished in the large brick building on Seven- teenth Street, opposite G, in Washington. Here they remained until the close of 1819, save for an interval of about eighteen months, when they occu- pied a building on the south side of G Street, near Eighteenth, pending the repair of the former build- ing which had been severely damaged by the Briti h troops in the invasion of 1811. In January, 1820, the offices were moved to the corner of Fifteenth Street and Pennsylvania Ave- nue, the site now covered by the north wing of the Treasury Building, and there the Department re- mained until October, 1866, when it leased the premises then belonging, as now, to the Washing- ton Orphan Asylum, on Fourteenth Street, near S Street. It remained there until July, 1875, when it was removed to its present quarters, Avliich con- stitute the south wing of the State, War, and Xavy Building. The first Congress under the Constitution passed an Act, in 1781), establishing the Department of the Treasury, for the transaction of all the finan- cial business of the Government which had pre- viously been intrusted to commissioners. Alexander Hamilton was its first Secretary. When the Government took up its seat in Wash- ington, the only building ready for administrative THE TEEASUKY DEPARTMENT. 391 purposes was that designed for the use of the Treas- ury, which occupied a site on the south front of the present edifice. It was a plain, two-storied struc- ture of brick and stone, with an attic and basement, and contained thirty rooms. This building was destroyed by fire in 1833, and the ruins were re- moved to permit of the erection of a new structure, which is the central portion of the present edifice. The original building was in exterior plan the counterpart of that subsequently erected for the State Department on the site of the present north front of the Treasury building, and which was not removed until after the Civil War. To the building completed by Robert Mills in 1811, it was found necessary fifteen years later to add wings and these, designed by Thomas U. Wal- ter, were finished in 18(39, at which time the accu- mulated cost of the building had amounted to seven millions. Although severely simple in style and not advantageously placed, it is one of the most imposing public buildings at the capital. It has, despite its enormous proportions and comparatively recent construction, already become too small to accommodate the rapidly increasing business of the Department. The Secretary of the Treasury is charged by the law with the management of the national finances. lie prepares plans for the improvement of the reve- nue and for the support of the public credit ; super- 392 WASHINGTON. intends the collection of the revenue, and directs the forms of keeping and rendering the public ac- counts and of making returns; grants Avarrants for all moneys drawn from the Treasury in pursuance of appropriations made by law, and for the pay- ment of moneys into the Treasury; and annually submits to Congress estimates of the probable rev- enues and disbursements of the Government. He also controls the construction of public buildings; the coinage and printing of money ; the admin- istration of the Life-Saving, Revenue-Cutter, and the Public Health and Marine Hospital branches of the public service, and furnishes generally such information as may be required by either branch of Congress on all matters pertaining to the fore- going. The routine work of the Secretary's Office is transacted in the offices of the Supervising Archi- tect, Director of the Mint, Director of Engraving and Printing, Surgeon-General of the Public Health and Marine Hospital Service, General Superintendent of the Life-Saving Service and in the following divisions : Bookkeeping and war- rants, appointments, customs, public moneys, loans and currency, revenue cutter stationery, printing, mails and files, special agents and miscellaneous. After the Capitol, there is no place in Washing- ton that offers greater attractions to the casual sight-seer than the Treasury. The numerous daily THE TREASUKY DEPAKTMENT. 393 visitors appear to find a peculiar pleasure in merely witnessing the payment of large sums in the Cash Eoom, or of handling a bundle of redeemed and worthless notes in the vaults. There is, however, a great deal of interest to be seen in the vast build- ing and in the subsidiary building of the Bureau of Printing and Engraving. The Secret Service quarters used to be an important point in the guides' itinerary when that division maintained a some- what sensational exhibit of portraits of celebrated counterfeiters, together with specimens of their tools and handiwork. Chief Wilkie wisely sup- pressed this display and the place is now hardly distinguishable from an ordinary business office. The Treasury is carefully guarded. There is a regular force of something like seventy-five w^atch- men inside the building. These, who are all hon- orably discharged men from the Army and Xavy, maintain a constant patrol, day and nighty The building is also watched on the outside and in the guard-room at the main entrance is a force always ready to respond to a call. The Captain of the Watch can communicate instantly with the Chief of Police, and with Port Myer. Arms are stored in many parts of the building, so that, in case of necessity, a thousand or more of the employees could be armed in ten minutes. The Captain can be summoned by electric call to all the important rooms of the building. At six o'clock the building 394 WASHINGTON. is cleared of everyone but the watch and after that hour only three persons can gain admittance — the Secretary, the Treasurer, and the latter's Chief Clerk. Shortly before the removal of the Government to Washinti'ton, the Commissioners in charge of the public works in the District began the construction of a building similar in size and appearance to the Treasury, near the southwest corner of the White House grounds. It was first known as the War Office and in later years as the Xavy Department building. Pending its completion, the War De- partment leased the three-storj- house on the south side of Pennsylvania Avenue, between Twenty- first and Twenty-second Streets, almost opposite the tavern kept by W^illiam O'lNeil, the father of the famous '^ Peggy." The Department had been but a short while in possession of these quarters when a fire broke out and destroyed a large part of the records. This was in Xovember, 1800, and when, in the following Jannary, a fire — wliich, however, did little damage, — occurred in the Treasury, Mathew Lyon, son of a member of Congress and editor of the Cahinct, in the columns of that paper charged the Federalists with having instigated the setting fire to the public offices Avith the purpose of destroying evidences of their maladministration. Tlie present State, War and Navy building cov- THE WAR DEPARTMENT. 395 ers the site of the okl War Office. It is the finest office bnilding in Washington and probably the largest in the world. It has, however, been in- capable for some years past, of adequately accom- modating the three Departments which share it and i^ not now, in fact, more than large enough for one of them. The Secretary of War has charge of all mat- ters pertaining to the support, transportation and maintenance of the Army. He also has supervision of the United States Military Academy at West Point and of military education in the Army, of the Board of Ordinance and Fortification, of the various battle-field commissions, and of the pub- lication of the official records of the War of the Rebellion. He has charge of all matters relating to national defense and seacoast fortifications, army ordinance, river and harbor improvements, the prevention of obstructions to navigation, and the establishment of harbor lines, and all plans and locations of bridges authorized bv Con2:ress to be constructed over the navigable waters of the United States re- quire his approval. He also has charge of the es- tablishment or abandonment of military posts, and of all matters relating to leases, revocable licenses, and all other privileges upon lands under the con- trol of the War Department. These are very extensive duties but, during the 396 WASHINGTON. present Administration, very onerous additions have been made to tliem from time to time. To Secretary Taft Avas intrusted the great task of or- ganizing the Panama Canal enterprise and the deli- cate and difficult one of restoring order in Cuba. Attached to the War Office is the Bureau of Insular Affairs, to which is assigned all matters pertain- ing to the civil government in the island possessions of the United States, the Philippine Islands being the only ones so subject at the present time. The Attorney-General, who is at the head of the Department of Justice, is the chief law officer of the Government. He represents the United States in all matters involving legal questions. He ex- tends advice and opinion when called upon to the President, or the heads of other Executive Depart- ments, on questions of law arising in the admin- istration of their respective offices. He appears for the Government in the Supreme Court in cases of special importance. He exercises a general superintendence and direction over United States attorneys and marshals in all judicial districts in the United States and Territories, and provides special counsel for the United States whenever re- quired by any Department of the Government. The Solicitor-General assists the Attorney-Gen- eral in the performance of his general duties and, by special provision of law, in case of a vacancy THE DEPAETMENT OF JUSTICE. 397 in the office of Attornev-General, or his absence or inability, exercises all those duties. Under the direction of the Attorney-General, he has charge of the business of the Government in the Supreme Court, and is assisted in the preparation and argu- ment of cases therein by the Assistant Attorneys- General. Although it is seldom done, the Solicitor- General may, if the Attorney-General think fit, b3 sent to attend to the interests of the United States in any court, or elsewhere. In addition to the Assistant Attorneys-General, there are several Solicitors whose duties are to look after the interests of certain specified Departments. For instance, the Solicitor for the Department of State, is the chief law oflicer of that Department, and advises the Secretary upon questions of mu- nicipal and international law, passes upon claims of citizens of the United States against foreign gov- ernments, upon applications for the extradition of criminals and various other matters. The Solici- tor for the Treasury takes C(:)gnizance of all frauds on the customs revenue, he has supervision of the collection of certain moneys due the United States. As the law officer of the Treasury, many matters are referred to him growing out of the customs, bank- ing, navigation, and registry laws, and so on. The Post-Office Department is a branch of the Government that comes more closely in touch with 398 WASHIXGTON. the people than any other and is, probably, the one upon the efficiency of which their general wel- fare and prosperity are most dependable. It may also be described as the Department which, through its countless ramifications transacts the greatest vol- mne of business. Consider the enormous extent of the yearly operations of the Post-Office Department of to-day and think of Abraham Bradley writing with satis- faction to his chief from Washington in June, 1800, that he has leased a three-story house that will amply accommodate the General Post-Office, the Washington office, the Postmaster-General's office, besides housing his entire family. This house stood where the' south wing of the building, until recent years occupied by the General Post-Office, was erected. The Postmaster-General has the direction and management of tlie Post-Office Department. He appoints all officers and employees of the Depart- ment, except the four Assistant Postmasters-Gen- eral and the purchasing agent, who are appointed by the President, l)y and with the advice and con- sent of the Senate. The Postmaster-General ap- points all postmasters whose compensation does not exceed one thousand dollars, higher appointments being made by the President. The head of the Department makes postal treaties with foreign gov- ernments, by and with the consent of the President, THE POST-OFFICE DEPARTMENT. 399 awards and executes contracts, and directs the man- agement of the d. Liberty statue, 351. rebuilt after burning, 34G. Senate chamber, 355. Supreme Court, 354. Irumbull paintings. 350. view from dome. 351. virtually completed, 347. Walter's additions, 347. Capron, Horace, 410. Carroll, Daniel, of Dudding- ton, 24. contract with Greenleaf, 90. Carusi's, 284. Celebrating close of Civil War, 203. Charter of 1848, 138. <'hildren's Guardians, 147. '•Chronic Row," 5. City in 1812, 163. Civil Service Commission, 410. examinations, 421. Clav. Henry. 200. "(^lean Drinking Manor," 25. Clubs, Social. 203. Coates, Elizabeth, 25. .John. 25. John, Jr., 25. Colman. Commissioner, 410. Columbia College. 244. Commissioners' estimates, 145. Commissioners of the District, 143. Commissioners, United States. 1.50. Commerce and Labor, Depart- ment. 415. Common Councils created, 137 Compensation for sljives, 108. Congress, constitutional pow- ers, 365. earlv accommodations, 120. early leaders 364, 365. expenses. 370. first meeting in Washing- ton, 117. first session, 363. functions, 368. Jefferson. 363. lobby., 373. maintenance, 360. number of members, 366. of the Confederation, 14. proceedings. 360. Sedgwick, 363. sessions. 371. terms of members. 36(). "Congress House," see Capitol. Congressional Library, see Library of Congress. "Congressional Record," 372. Connecticut Ave. Bridge, 234. Contempt for the young city, 155. Continental Congress, 14. Convention of 1787, 13. Corcoran Art Gallery, 243. Corcoran, Wm. Wilson, 243. Cosmos Club, 203. Cost of transporting Govern- ment to Washington, 114. Councilmen of early city, 136. County of Alexandria, 136. County court, 135. County of Washington, 135. Court of Appeals, 147. Cranch, Wm., 91. Cunningham, Ann Pamela, 300. Custis, G. W. P., 305, 307. .John, 306. •Tohn Parke, 307. Ma.i.-Gen. John, 306. Cutler's description of race- track, 280. "Daily Globe," 253. Day, Justice, 381. Death penalties, early. 32. Decatur, Stephen, 316. death, 318. Detectives in war time, 105. Dewey, Admiral, 404. Dick, Dr. Elisha Cullen, 30. Dickens. Charles, Impressions of Washington, 166. Digges. George. 26. Dinners in the thirties, 285. Disfranchisement of inhabi- tants of the District, 109. Disfranchisement of 1S67. 1.30. Dissensions between States, 12. District of Columbia, name designated by law, 40. under territorial rule, 141. Doggerel in newspapers, 156. Duncanson. William, builds "The Maples," 102. failure. 103. quarrel with Law, 102. Duane, Wm., opinion of Law, 97. Earlv board of commissioners abolished, 136. Earlv iudicial system in the District. 135. INDEX. 437 Early's dash to Washington. Eastern Branch (Anacostiai. 19. "Eaton affair," 331. Eaton. .John IT., .332. "p]conomical Ilistorj' of Vir- ginia," 24. Efforts in 1.S14 to movo tho capital, ino. Ellicott, Andrew, alters I/En- faut's plan. 58. career, 42, 43. letter from Secretary of State. .')3. succeeds T/Enfant. r>r>. Employees, Government. in 1800. 9. now, 9. English indignation at burn- ing of city. 182. Episcopal Cathedral, new. 233. Evans Collection. 242. "Evening Star." 200. Everett. Edward. 290. Executive Government. 383. Executive Mansion, see White House. Extension of first city char- ter, 137. Eenno, John, 249. prospectus, 250. Fleet. Henry. 20. "Foggy Bottom." 5. Forest. General Uriah. 22. Forestry. 413. Fort Sumter surrenders. 192. Fort Washington. 170. Freer Collection. 242. "Friendship." 22. Freneau, Philip. 249. Foster. Sir Augustus. 271. Fuller. Chief-.Tustice. 378. Future improvements, 230. Gales. 252. Gallatin. Albert. 175. letters to his wife. 121. Gath. 170. "Gazette of the United States," 248. George Washington ^Memorial Association, 245. George Washington T'niver- sity, 245. Georgetown, 294. commerce. 290. foundation. 294. residence of early nota- bles, 290. fJeorgetown, Riley's descrip- tion. 297, Georgetown University. 240. Germantown, as site for oginning of nineteenth century. 125. early estimates, 120. increase, 167. Post-office Department, expen- ditures. 400. first building, 120. Franklin, first chief. 399. in Franklin's time. 399. rural free delivery. 399. enormous operations. .398. Postmaster-General, 398. Potomac River, navigation. 298. translation of name. 31. powers of early commis- sioners. 133. powers of commissioners. 144. Powhatans, 1. Present local government of District. 143. President, powers. 319. salarv. 342. veto. '320. Presidential reception. 289. Press censorship during war. 19.5. Purchase of the District. 33. 34, 35. Quincy. .Tosinh, social reminis- cences. 282. Railroad introduced. 171. Randolph. John. 137. Randolph. Lieutenant. 304. Richardson's "Recollections," 261. Richmond surrenders. 201. "Riversdale," 26. Rock Creek, "Friendship." 21. 440 INDEX. Rock Creek Park, 234. Rusk, Jeremiah, 411. Salaries of commissioners, 144. of early city officials. 138. Sanitary Commission, United States, 197. "Sausage Sawyer," 2.'58. Seaton, W. W., 1G8. Secretary to the Tresident. 342. Second extension of charter. 138 Sedition Bill, 251. Senate, see Congress. Seward attacked, 211. Shepherd, A. R.. 220. improves the city, 227. "Six Buildings," 03. Slow growth of city, 131, iri4. Smith, .John, 1. Smith. ,Tohn Cotton, arrival at first Congress, 127. Smith, Samuel Harrison. 252. Smithson, .Tnmes, 237. will, 238. Smithsonian Institution, 236. creation, 230. Social life in 1800, 272. Society in Civil War time. 287.^ Solicitor-General, .300. Southard hrings aid of Con- gress, 104. Stackelburg, Baron, 284. velocipede, 285. State Department, 384. enlargement of powers. 380. how organized. 387. in New York, 380. moved to Washington, .300. Philadelphia quarters, 380. present oflUces. 300. Stephenson, Clotworthy, 02. St. Louis claims the capital, 100. Stoddert, Ma.1or Ben.iarain, 22. Suffrage extended, 138. Supreme Court, constitutional powers, 374. creation, 374. extraordinary power, 377. first .iustices, 374. first session, 374. first session in Washing- ton, 117. in session, 375. Supreme Court moved to Washington, 37.1. present justices, 378, 379, 380, 381, 382. Supreme Court of District, 146, 148, Tammany Society, 276. taxation, 145. "taxation without repre- sentation," 151. Thornton, William, 344. Timberlake, 305. , suicide. 331. Todd, C. B., review of vet- erans. 214. Todd, Payne, 320. Townsend, George Alfred, on Editor Blair, 256. Treasurv Department, 390. eariy offices, 391. first building. 110. guards, 393. interesting to visitors, 392. personnel, 392. Secretarv's duties, 391. Walter's building. 391. Trees in early Washington, 124. T'rollope, Anthonv, 108. Trumbull, Colonel .Tohn, 350. "The Lav House," 104. The "Mall" in first plan, 48. Tunniclifife, Wm., 02. "Twenty Buildings," 90. Vote to move capital to Phil- adelphia, 159. Walcott, Charles D., 240. Walcott, Oliver. Jr., describes early city, 120. Wallace repulses Early. 201. Walter, Thomas U., 347. War Department, first build- ing, 120. in State, War and Navy Building, 394. Secretary's functions, 395. "Warburton," 26. Warden, David B.. deplores cutting trees in early Washington, 124. on Washington in 1816, 164. view of social life. 278. Washington, George, and tho Proprietors, 33. appoints surveyors, 28. INDFA'. 441 Washington, eomprelienslve idiMs for city. 4r>. (lisa|)| ji"i)Vi's of (iroon- leafs second contract, 80. faith in "commercial em- porium," 200. letter concerning I/En- fant. 52. Washinjjton. Lawrence, 302. Watts, Commissioner, 410. Wehh, J. W.. 254. Weld, comments in ITOG on the city, 74. comments in 1700, 12:^ comments on city in 170r>. 101. Whelan, Israel, account of re- moval of capital, 113. White. .Justice, 370. Wiiite House, 310. Adams' code of etiquette. 328. Andrew Johnson. 340. Angelica Singleton, 334. arrangement of rooms. 322. as hachelor's quarters. 324, Buchanan, first hachelor, 338. corner-stone laid, 321. death of Taylor, 337. "Dolly" Madison's reign, 32r>. East Room. 333. "Eaton atfair." 332. first death of President, 335. first marriage in. 328. Harriet Lane, 338. White House, Hayes forliids use of wine. 341. Irving at, 32G. Jackson's informant v. 331. Jefferson's democracy, 323. John guincy Adams, 320. Jolin Tyler, 335. Lafayette in, 328. Lincoln's accesslbilitv. 340. Monroe's occupancy. 327. Mrs. Adams in, 322. Mrs. Donelson. 331. Mrs. Fillmore, 337. Mrs. Ho))ert Tyler. 33(; Nellie Sartoris. 341. IMerce, 338. I'ollv's austerity. 330. present eticpielte. 341 "Pretty Betty Bliss," 337. Prince of Wales' visit. 330. Adams' receptions, 323. refnrnislied by Van B\i- ron. 3;{4. selection f)f site. 322. simplicity of <; rant ."340. Taylor's residence. 330. under W. II. Ilarrisc.n. 335. Van Buren. 334. Whitney. Heul)en. 253. Wilkinson. (Jeneral. 177. Wilson. James. 412. Williamson, Alexander. 23. Winder. General. 17t5. 178. at Bladenshurg. 170. "Woodly." 23. Wright's Ferry, as site for capital, 14. LbJe?9